"Depends," says Iggy. "You had your Ordeal yet?"

"Nope. At least not so I'd notice. It's been a week, and I seem to be, you know, a wizard, maybe it was just very quiet."

"Trust me," says Iggy, "you'd notice."

"In that case, nope, I am untested. How does that work, anyway, does the local senior wizard show up and manage to ring the doorbell despite being a cat and proctor an exam or what?"

"Oh, no," says Iggy. "No, no, no - look, kid, if you want my advice, it's: quit while you're ahead."

"...Meaning?"

"Meaning, if you haven't had your Ordeal yet, you shouldn't be planning too far into the future," says Iggy.

"Is that a vague premonition of dire consequences for failure that explain why it is called an Ordeal with a Capital Letter, or does the ordeal just shake things up enough to throw off any plans I make in ignorance of it?"

"It killed my wizard," Iggy says plainly.

"Well, shit. How'd it do that?"

"Facing down the creator of Death will do that," says the rock. "Don't kid yourself, Cam. Adult wizards are leftovers. Young ones on Ordeal? Child soldiers, plain and simple. It's sick."

"That does sound pretty screwed up," Cam agrees. "Who set up the system?"

"Who do you think?" says Iggy.

"Well, if I were a terrible enough sort of entity to be the inventor of Death, I wouldn't wait for wizards to actually utter an oath, I'd just kill them in their sleep. Actually, if I were that horrible, possibly not even their sleep. So I'm guessing it's mediated by somebody somewhat less horrible, albeit either still pretty horrible or not all that competent."

"No, see, that's the sick part," says Iggy. "I don't know which one of them's responsible, or how they do it, but after you take the oath you're guaranteed to run up against the Big Bad itself. And if you manage to get a hit in and live, good for you, but not everybody's that lucky."

"Yes, but, like, why is the Big Bad cooperating here, why isn't it just raining... itself... down on everybody indiscriminately till everything's extinct? Is somebody or something summoning it in response to wizard oaths? Or just letting it through some otherwise reasonably consistent screen? Does it have a deal with some grand high muckety-muck? Does it have severely limited attention but it can flag wizards by when they do the oathing and pays personal attention because wizards have more leverage to do worthwhile things? In that case why isn't it also visiting Norman Borlaug and particularly effective peace activists and disaster relief and medical researchers, because they have leverage too. And why in the world would it give up if some kid wizard gets one hit in, I mean, if it's still around nobody's managed to cripple or destroy it yet, right?"

"Nobody's got infinite power and attention," says Iggy. "You ask me, it's the other Powers throwing you at the black sheep of the family, hoping you'll do some damage before it eats you. But what do I know? I'm just a rock."

"I definitely want a word with the management on a variety of counts, I'm just really unclear on the motives and the mechanisms here," mutters Cam. "But yeah, you're a rock. Maybe one of the wizards in the directory knows, maybe I should figure out how to visit a housecat."

"Are you sure you want to talk to those guys?" says Iggy. "Me, I wouldn't trust 'em as far as I could throw 'em."

"I could probably throw a housecat reasonably far," Cam says. "It's always better to have more sources, anyway."

"Not if they're the same people who're throwing you into a war without even telling you you're on the front lines."

"You think the housecat would do me actual harm above and beyond standard issue danger if I go have a talk? I'd be more circumspect about actual Powers. I don't have enough information to want their attention personally yet."

"I've never met this housecat, how should I know? But it tells you something about these people that they send kids to do their dirty work, doesn't it? Even the wizards are part of that system - you see any of 'em showing up to warn you? You're right there in the directory, they could do it anytime."

"If they're checking the directory," Cam points out. "If they can spare the time. If they think warning me would help. If they can visit a fourteen-year-old boy at home without my mom being weirded out and calling the cops - admittedly not a problem the cat one has. If they didn't already try and just happen to show up while I was in school or at the library or down the street with Leafy or out at the theater. There's not that many wizards in the directory, I wouldn't be surprised if nobody has all the right features and luck."

"Kid," says Iggy, "they're magic. If they wanted to talk to you, I'm sure they could find a way."