Rustam's apprentice -- his favorite one, his adopted grandson Fenghuang -- knelt before him, both hands clasped over his heart.

"Please."

Rustam's own heart gave a lurch in recognition. His mind replaced Fenghuang with his younger self, fifty years ago. He also had knelt, he had also said 'please' to his master.

There were differences though, significant differences between them.

Fenghuang spoke cultured Shen since birth, the way Rustam would never be able to.

The boy's illustrious grandmother was the reigning Empress. This fact was attested to by the tunic he was wearing, her gift. The harridan kept it plain black, like everyone else's, but it was of the finest silk, with Fenghuang's namesake magic birds stitched on, black-on-black. The Empress smuggled more than embroidery to her grandson: their bloodline was woven with magic.

Even when Fenghuang knelt, his knees were cushioned by Rustam's carpets imported from beyond the Imperial borders; just like the rest of his life was cushioned by the Empress; just like his mind was cushioned by Rustam, his master.

And yet this over-endowed youth knelt before Rustam, saying 'please', enunciating the same desperate syllables as he had once done. Fenghuang pleaded to leave the safety of Rustam's carpet and his grandmother's capital, the safety of the apprenticeship. He was as clueless of his inadequacy to shoulder the burden he wanted, as Rustam had once been.

On that fateful day, half-a-century ago, Rustam's sister smuggled him to the enemy war camp to beg a war mage to teach him, lest he goes mad from magic. Back then, Rustam had not understood what the old war mage had been saying, why he had been refusing to take him on. He'd just known that the war mage did not want him.

Mages do not forget, they say, and Rustam's memory was a particularly finely tuned instrument, so now he could translate every word. "He is too young, horse-rider. Too young. I cannot teach him in time. I will fail the boy."

His sister had not relented. She had lowered her head, lowered her normally brazen eyes, and went on repeating 'good boy', 'mage' and 'death' in both languages. She pretended she was too dumb to understand the rejection for his sake. Rustam himself croaked 'please' here and there.

The war mage had finally plucked him from the floor like a bundle of rugs. He forced him to stand instead of kneeling, and placed one hand on Rustam's head. Then he raised it a foot higher. "Too young," the mage repeated again, looking at his sister.

"Eight," his sister kept saying until the mage repeated the word after her. It did not sound like the same word at all, their accents being so different. Rustam was six years of age on that day, but right there and then, he'd turned eight in everyone's eyes but his own. It was called magic, and for its sake, he abandoned his age the same way he'd abandoned his people, his tongue and his birth-name. As an apprentice he was called Finch, after a small gray bird.

Then Finch became a mage, and he took his birth-name back. He became Rustam Bei again, his name the only thing returned to him by magic.

Memory drifted away, returning Rustam back to his mansion, to his private study, to the troubled today. He looked at the kneeling apprentice and echoed the words from his past. "You are too young, Fenghuang."

The boy's eyes flashed in defiance, but the voice remained meek. "I know it, Master Rustam, but I need to save my mother."

Rustam hesitated. The need was undeniable, the desire was palpable. The boy sensed the moment of weakness in his master, seizing it with the eagerness of youth. "I will not fail you!"

The shaven head dipped again. The arcane tattoos crawled up the skinny neck and into the dark fuzz of cropping up hair. He was just a boy. "The rites you want to be performed are not about me, Apprentice Fenghuang."

The slim shoulders jerked back. "Master, I must have my birth-name back. I must pass the test and become a mage. Only then I can save my mother."

Fenghuang never said he was ready, the clever boy that he was.

If the boy's mother, Tien Lyn, perishes now, the Empire might follow, Rustam thought.

The demon Horde -- he resisted thinking of the demons as Blood, the way they called themselves -- massed in the West, beyond the Sandsea of Bones. Their Northern Hordes ravaged across the border for the past five years. Even the Imperial allies among the demons, the Horde of the Jade Sea, did not send an embassy last summer. The threat gnawed at his bones as winter storms do on an old man's joints.

Tien Lyn and her companions left fifteen years ago to find knowledge from the distant lands to arm the Empire against the demons. Seeing her reappear on his magic map at the border of the Empire gave him the first glimmer of hope in a long time, but it waned when the travelers would not progress further, would not move...

Rustam would have rushed to his adopted daughter's aid himself, except that the foresight told him that this boy, her son, was the only one capable of bringing her back. Their need was dire, yes. Yet it was always dire to the eyes of the onlooker. Fenghuang was nineteen, too young to wrestle with the Understanding on his own, without a master to guide him through the intricacies of magic, to keep his birth name safe, to share the burden. And yet... I had been too young for the apprenticeship, and my master had never failed me, nor I — him.

"If you pass the test, you will become the sixteenth mage currently in the service of the Empire," Rustam warned Fenghuang. "There are apprentices who prefer to wait for a more auspicious number."

The boy made a quick sign against evil, but did not relent. "I know it is an unlucky number, but I will serve as the sixteenth war mage. I will not fail you, Master."

Star-Mothers, I hope I am doing the right thing, Rustam repeated five times in his mind before he said aloud, "Tell everyone to assemble in the library. Ask your bird to join us for the ceremony."

"Yes, Master." The boy ran, afraid of a change of heart. He would not have this luxury for much longer. A mage's every choice was final.

Bent with worry, Rustam left the sanctuary of his study to walk down to the library he shared with his apprentices. Unlike his private quarters, it had no carpets, since the Shen considered them a barbaric thing. He pushed the civilized cushions and bamboo mats to the walls, moved the writing desks and the scrolls out of the way. The bronze brazier now dominated the airy room.

It was traditional to light a fire before asking an apprentice the most important of all the questions, if he was ready to take his birth name back, the name that the master kept to share the burden of magic during the apprenticeship.

Rustam knew of the apprentices that should have kept their birds' monikers for much longer than they did -- there was no shame in being an apprentice for as long as it was necessary to prepare one's mind, for decades if need be. There was no shame in never asking to be tested either... but they all did, they all did.

There was no going back now, but Rustam took his time arranging the coals and the flows of air. By the time a single scarlet blade of flame quivered above the brazier, Fenghuang and the four others had assembled around him.

The magic bird fenghuang had to stay outside looking into the windows of the library. The bird was now fully grown, thrice as tall as a man. It was well past time for her to leave in search of her dragon, but she stayed for her namesake. Yes, fate was particularly cruel to him, giving him this much, and this early.

"Apprentice Fenghuang, step forward," Rustam beckoned.

The boy knelt before him once again.

Ten thousand times it might have been done, but each time was the first for both the master and the apprentice.

Rustam's other apprentices watched with rapt attention. Three of them were older than Fenghuang at nineteen, but he was the first to request the rites of passage.

There was no more room for delays. Fenghuang would become a mage or a madman, but he must say the words to bring it on. "When you manifested, I took your name from you. Nameless, you studied with me. Did you reach Understanding?"

"Yes, Master," said apprentice Fenghuang.

"What is your name, Mage?" Rustam asked.

The boy convulsed. He sucked his lips and cheeks inwards, unable to expel a single word, not even a scream of pain. His hands curled up towards his chest, fingers bent into talons. The signs of strain passed over his features, the veins in his shaven temples pulsating wildly. He pushed his hands upward, towards the source of throbbing pain, and his nails left red welts across his cheeks.

Rustam looked at the fast diminishing flame. A few more heartbeats, and it would be over.

The boy remained speechless, shaking so violently that it seemed impossible for him to still be standing. Saliva foamed on his lips, mixing in with blood and tears running down. His eyes were still sane, no whites showing, but the pain dilated the pupils, the black pushing out the brown to the very rim of the irises.

The flame flickered. It would die. His mind would be gone.

Just before the coals went out, the boy gained a tenuous control of his will. Initially, it was just the tip of his tongue that hinted at it, a pink arrow that dabbed the drool out of the way. Then his nails stopped digging into his temples. He looked at the bird squawking anxiously at the window, trying to turn her way this way and that, to fit one crystalline eye in.

"My name is Chong Xi," the boy whispered.

From the ashes, a new tongue of flame sprang, tall and bright.

In its quivering light, Xi no longer looked so young, so untouched by failure. He swayed on his feet, much like the fire, screamed, and fell limp into Rustam's arms.

As he cradled the newest war mage in the Evershining Empire to his chest, Rustam wondered if he had failed the boy. With the father's hand, he sat Xi down, to stand on his own feet. It did not matter that the implacable faces of the enemy were all he could see.

He had to trust Chong Xi, the sixteenth war mage, to do what he must do to save them all.

"Go forth, and may the Understanding guide you."