Gradually she became aware of the sound of hoofbeats outside, thudding into the clearing. She bounced to the window and saw six geat roan stallians prancing below. Four of them carried large knights in full armor; on a fifth sat a young boy, perhaps ten or eleven years old; the last was straddled by another knight, but this one wore no helmet. Though the knight's straw blond locks were cut short in a style that reminded Eloria forcibly of her own natural hair, she could tell even from this height that the knight was a woman. Abruptly the knight loosed a loud yell: "Eloria!" Recognizing that this was her cue, Eloria dashed madly down the stairs and flung open the door just as the knight was raising her hand to knock. "Eloria." She couldn't read the expression in the knight's gold-brown eyes. "King Ordren sent me to fetch you. It's Tristy."     "The princess?" Eloria's heart flip-flopped, and she found herself vaguely interisted in spite of her determination not to be.     She knew that twelve-year-old Tristy was the youngest of Kind Ordren's four daughters, and though Eloria held a maternal attitide towards all of the King's children, Tristy had always been her special favorite. The sweet-natured girl was a strong natural sorceress, and Eloria had taken it upon herself to train the girl when she reached the proper age. The king had consented gladly, since Eloria was one of his most trusted companions. He had been upset when she had moved into the cottage here at Midnight Breeze; but she needed the peace and quiet to further her own magical studies, and Ordren hadn't been able to deny that he would need that advantage if anything... untoward ever happened.     "She's not sick again, is she?" A year ago the child had undergone several bouts of a mysterious illness--they'd had to summon Eloria, but as soon as the sorceress had arrived in the capitol, the girl had miraculasly recovered. No one had ever discovered what had brought it on, or called it off so abruptly.     The knight--Onyjma, Eloria reminded herself--shook her head, grinning.     "No," she laughed," Have you forgotten that Tristy's twelfth birthday is in two weeks?"     "Oh!" Eloria gasped, remorseful because she really had forgotten.     Onyjma saw it and laughted again. "No matter," she said brightly. "How quickly can nyou pack?" When Eloria looked at her questioningly, she went on. "Well, naturally the princess wants you at the palace for the celebration. And now that she's twelve, hadn't you better start her training? She's gotten fair powerful lately; her nurse has threatened to resign with all the tricks the girl's been pulling."     Eloria chuckled, remembering her own 'tricks' at that age.     I'll be ready in a few minutes then," she told the knight, "But I'll have to return here in a few days to bring the rest of my things."     "Oh, the men can handle that," Anyjma said dismissively, waving a hand to the four other knights. "Let them pack it up and bring it. You and Rion--" as another gesture indicated the pale boy,"And I can ride on ahead and go directly to the palace.     "Very well," Eloria agreed, and ran back up the stairs to pack for the four-day journey to the capitol. When she'd filled her bag, it was out to the stable to saddle up her black stallion Moonstorm.     <<We're going to the palace?>> he asked hopefully.     Eloria giggled, knowing his tone was due to the fact that he had a crush on one of the mares in the king's royal stables. "Yes, I managed to forget that Tristy's twelfth birthday is coming up," she told him.     He snorted and stamped the ground in his version of a laugh. Eloria shook one finger scoldingly at him, but she was grinning too. Quickly she hauled herself into the saddle and nudged Moonstorm out of the stable and around the house back to the others. ***********************************************************************     Abruptly, red letters flashed across her field of vision. {Kalian, dinner time!} With a sigh, the girl tapped into her implant and activated the return program. Her eyesight went black, then snowy-staticky; finally it cleared, and she was once again sitting in the armchair in her bedroom.     With a sigh, she hauled herself up from her comfortable seat and trudged out to the kitchen. "What's for dinner?" she asked her mother, who was busy unwrapping a box of frozen spinach.     "Spaghetti," Mrs. Snyder told her daughter as she plunked the block of frozen spinach down in the reheater. Cold fusion was so much more efficient, she thought as she waited the ten seconds it took for the machine to thaw the spinach. She remembered the horror stories her grandmother used to tell about the reheater's predecessor, the microwave; how it used to fry your brain if you looked at it too long or stood too near it.     "Great," Kalian said. I guess this means I have to set the table?"     "If you would..." her mother answered, though her voice said, "It's about time you did, girl!"