Teron moved the staff with apparent aimlessness but so that the tip closed. He said, “A spellmaker’s powers come from spirits assigned him by the gods.” He felt Korox’s sneer even though his back was to the man.
“My spirits speak through my spellstaff. With it in hand, I control them. Without my control they act as they please. When they felt the ignorance of your hands, they acted. I tried to speak to them but it was too late. You touched the place that summons them—and that man died.”
“A Whitelander, nothing more,” Davok blustered. He
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waved the slave’s death aside. “I heard no speech from you.”
“Nor will you now,” Teron said, “but the spirits of the staff will do my bidding.” Lifting the staff, he opened the tip, raised the power to a high level, and made a circle well above the heads of the watching crowd. From the very center of the far wall of the great hall, a round stone was cut free to clatter to the floor. Cold wind poured in from the sea, blowing the smoke in great eddies. Men swore and women screamed and in a surge many tried to leave the hall.
“Hold!” Davok roared. “Hold or I’ll have you cut down!”
Teron said, “You needed a window there, Davok, and one opposite to let out the smoke.” With a second movement he cut a similar hole near in the opposite walL Smoke poured out of the halL
Davok held out a hand. “Give me the staff, spell- maker. I have seen enough.”
“But I have not,” Korox cried. “He would have us believe that without the staff he is helpless. I would see that tested!”
Teron closed the staff and handed it to Davok, who set it carefully aside. Teron looked straight at Korox, his fingertips pushed with seeming casualness into the top of his belt. He said, “I have some powers without the staff. Ropes cannot hold me. You saw that today.”
Korox refused to be sidetracked. “A clever magician’s trick suitable for entertaining women and children.”
Teron turned to Davok. “What am I supposed to prove —that I am a spellmaker? Let us see a power to impress men. You already believe that or you wouldn’t have me here.”
“We hope it is true,” Davok said. “But today Korox and the generals and I met. We decided we must know whether or not you are a true spellmaker. Otherwise we will not waste food and space on you. And Korox speaks wisely. If you have no powers beyond those you control with the staff, you are no true spellmaker.”
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“I admit to powers,” Teron said. His left hand came up suddenly and tiny flames danced from the tips of his fingers. He heard the crowd gasp and hoped that every eye was focused on the display. For although he had practiced the swift right hand movement many hours at a time, still it was difficult to cast an object far without showing more than a casual movement.
But he felt the tiny ball snap from his right hand and knew that this time he had made a good cast. He cried, “Watch the central fireplace!” in a deep, thundering tone. At the same time he cut the flames from his fingers, lifted his right hand and pointed a finger at the fireplace.
He could not see the tiny ball that had landed in the coals there, but he could visualize its skin melting under the heat. He counted to himself the required number of seconds. “In the name of Sidrisl” he intoned.
The fire suddenly turned bright red and then a searing blue and finally a cold green. The flames danced then in a mixture of colors and the figure of a lightly clad female writhing to the rhythm of the flames flickered into view and faded.
“A trick!” Korox cried. “A stage trick!”
Teron held out his left hand and let a lance of flame flicker out to boil the wine in Korox’s goblet “A trick or do you dare drink it, wizard?”
He turned back to the fireplace, waved his hand, and felt satisfied as the colors died from the fire, leaving it as sedate as before,
“Now, Davok,” Teron said, “the Seventh and I would return to our room and rest.”
“Only after we talk more, spellmaker,” Davok growled. Clearly, he was half frightened and half puzzled. “You say you have words for my ears alone, but I would be a fool to risk being without guards when in your presence.”
“As I said, a spellmaker cannot harm another except to protect himself—and then only when he is dying.
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You are safe enough with me, Davok, unless you try to kill me.”
He looked around. “If I should harm you, how could I escape from here? I cannot make myself invisible nor waft my body through the air or I’d have done so yesterday. I’d have to fight my way through your guards, and Tm no warrior. You are safe.”
Davok thought about it, grunted, and rose. "Come with me.” He glowered at a servant. “Wine in my conference room.”
He and Teron settled themselves in a small room without windows and only one heavily barred door. The wine was brought. Davok threw himself into a rough chair and waved Teron to another.
“What is this other factor you spoke of, spellmaker.”
“Roosk should have told you about it.”
“Roosk tells me nothing. He speaks only to Korox.” Davok snorted. “I believe that half of what he says is babble. He thinks he will be regent in Erul when it is conquered. But Korox has other ideas, and he is the stronger.”
“Because he controls drig?” Teron asked slyly.
“So he claims. And I have to admit I’ve seen him do mighty things.” He squinted at Teron. “What did Roosk fail to tell?”
“All that the Old One said in his prophecy,” Teron said blandly. “I did not hear the prophecy, and I have yet to be told everything myself. Now if you could get Korox to reveal...”
“Korox? I thought we were speaking of Roosk.”
“I’m sure Korox heard everything from Roosk,” Teron said. “Thus it is Korox who should tell you, and you should tell me.”
Davok scowled in bewilderment “First it is Roosk and then Korox who is guilty of keeping silent. Make up your mind, spellmaker.”
“I thought Roosk at first,” Teron said, “but your claim that Korox is the stronger made me change my mind. The facts remain the same. I do not know what I must
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do to be permitted to join with the Seventh. Until we are joined, I have few powers and she has none that can help you.”
“You are mated; this I know. Now you say you are not!”
“Mated, yes. Joined, no,” Teron said. “The Seventh insists that cannot be until I fulfill the Old One’s prophecy. But she won’t tell me what it is.”
He watched Davok carefully, hopefully seeking signs of disbelief. If Davok accepted this blatant tale, Teron would have to change his plan. And he rather liked the one he had concocted during the short walk from the hall.
Davok snorted. “You offer me the whining of a child! I am Davok, conqueror of Fenn. Soon to be ruler of Erul and then all Zarza! I did not become great by believing puling lies.”
He rose and leaned toward Teron. “You have two turns of Zarza about its axis to give me the truth. And only two turns more to fulfill all of my conditions.”
“Why so short a time for so great a task?” Teron asked.
“The white rain will soon fill the mountain roads to Erul. I wish to march before the winter brings its long darkness.”
“And if I fail?”
“Then you will be disposed of and the Seventh also.”
He waved at the door. “Go now. Take the Seventh to your quarters. Tell her what I have ordered.”
Teron went quietly away, hiding his satisfaction. When he and Eldra were alone before their fire, he told her what had happened.
She frowned. “You did not mention the Song that brought us here?”
“Not yet,” he said. He grinned at her. “Davok is suspicious because I offered him such an obvious lie. But if he is forced to tear the truth from me, he’ll believe it. I may yield tomorrow, or the day after.”
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Korox is not. And he is the more dangerous. This I learned tonight when I reached for their minds.”
“Does Korox suspect that the power we seek lies in the verses of the Song?”
“He must know if he hears everything Roosk knows. But Davok does not.”
“I suspect that Korox keeps much from Davok,” Teron mused. He yawned. “Let’s sleep now. Tomorrow will be another difficult day.”
As usual, he fell asleep immediately. He wasn’t even aware when Inge came to lie between them. In the morning, he awoke to a fire and warm food. Fenn clothing was laid out for him, but he ignored it and put on his familiar garb. He was barely dressed when Davok summoned him.
“You lied!” Davok accused. “You know well what you must do to get the powers you need to control Eliff.” “Summon Eliff, not control him,” Teron corrected, and then demanded, “Why would I lie? What would I gain?” “Korox heard the truth,” Davok interrupted.
“From a drig, I suppose,” Teron sneered.
Korox stepped into the room. “No,” he said. He smiled thinly at Teron. “Not from a drig, but through a hole in your ceiling. My room lies directly above. I listened to the talk last night between you and the Seventh.”
IX
TERON LOOKED from Korox to Davok. The wizard met his gaze with cold arrogance. Teron dared open his mind just long enough to feel Korox’s challenge and learn that the wizard had understood his plan and felt sure of stopping it.
Teron skid, “Tell me, Davok, how do I summon Eliff?” “Korox arrived too late to hear,” Davok growled. “But you’ll tell both of us—now.”
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“Korox lies. What he heard he kept to himself.”
“The liar here is this spellmakerl” Scorn lashed through Korox’s voice.
Teron looked the wizard up and down with cool objectivity. “I don’t recall that the Old One included either you or Davok in his prophecy.”
“He is trying to make a fool of you ,” Korox warned Davok. “Put him in the dungeon. A day there will loosen his tongue.”
“Possibly,” Davok agreed. He opened the door and called for guards. “Put the spellmaker in the lowest dungeon and see that the Seventh is watched at all times.”
As he strolled off with the guards, Tferon gave Korox a mocking smile. It said clearer than any words that Teron perceived Korox’s plan. The two men walking warily beside him refused to respond to his companionable chat but he kept it up as they descended flight after flight of stone steps, each level lower, more damp and fetid than the one above. But when the lowest level was finally reached, Teron felt a draft of sea air that was certainly cold but infinitely preferable to the stench one flight up. “Is that truly the Cold Sea I smell?” Teron asked the guard on his right.
“Truly,” the guard echoed with sarcasm. “It blows right through your cell to keep you warm.” He laughed.
A torch flickered ahead and then another. By the second torch, a cell stood open and Teron was led inside. The guards knew what to do with a favored guest A two-yard length of heavy chain was run from a clamp on his ankle to a heavy ring in the stone wall. The chain was barely long enough for him to reach a slime- covered pipe that dripped water slowly into a stinking trough that drained away into the darkness.
The guards laughed as they shut and locked the barred door. “Spell yourself some warm company,” one gibed as they left.
The words hung in Teron’s mind like an' echo from the dank rocks around him. He laughed suddenly. Why
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not? Leaning his back to the wall, he let his body go limp. He made an effort to reach out with his mind; he concentrated on activating the few mentaler skills he had trying to channel a simple thought pattern outward and upward.
“Eldra. Eldra, Seventh of Erul.”
He could feel strength going from him and knew he was sending his thoughts from himself. Finally he rested, his mind open, his body slack. And he felt the warmth, the stirring as his own name touched his brain, and he knew that she was answering him.
He made a final effort. “Can you send Inge to me somehow?”
“I will try.” And then a warning note; the feel of Eldra without warmth. “Take care. Korox is seeking your death, Teron. Leave your mind open to me . . .”
Briefly wonder filled his brain. He’d done something that he’d not believed possible. Eldra was many yards from him, separated by layers of thick stone; yet his mind and hers had touched. True, she had touched his mind in the harbor of Pirin, but this was a greater triumph, for he had answered in kind.
Hours dragged on. Teron sought to leave his mind open for Eldra, but thoughts raced through it, filling it all too well. He found himself looking into the past, thinking of the steps that had brought him here. And he found a strangeness; the things he had done these past days Were not natural to him. It was as though he had been guided by some force outside himself.
He realized Eldra’s faith was becoming his own. He not only spoke of Eliff and liffi, of Udrig and drig as though he believed, he thought of them in the same way. They had become real. Not yet to be sure the sentient, human-manipulating forces they were to Eldra. But certainly, he no longer conceived of them as merely symbolic representations of natural forces, such as he and his father could control in minor fashion through spell- staff and the Spellman’s black box. He had experienced the cold spaces of oblivion which were called drig, and
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he had seen them overcome by the light and warmth that were Iiffi.
As yet his belief was not active; it was the passive losing of doubt. A negative approach, and one still holding within it a core of skepticism. For if all Eldra believed were true, why had he not released the latent power supposedly in him, the power the Old One claimed he had as a descendant of Vacor s line?
And into his mind came the stray thought, “What of your increased mentaler powers, Teron? What of your channeling the thoughts of another to yourself?”
He leaned back against the cell wall in confusion. Surrounded by half-light and gray walls and the cold breath of the sea, he attempted to come to terms with himself. He felt the cold increase, such cold as never yet had come on the wings of a sea wind. The blobs were elongating before his eyes, stretching out to his mind with their cold, invisible, greedy fingers.
His mind cried out, “Eldra, the drig!”
And he felt a surge of warmth. The coldness battered it back. It came again, and again it was repulsed. Teron shuddered, imagining headless black worms writhing in his brain. He wanted to scream, to stand up and flail at the darkness. But there was no strength in his body. He lay motionless, knowing his mind was his only weapon.
The warmth came again, breaking through the Armor of cold dark to hearten him. Teron reached within himself, down to the core of his being where the worms had not yet crawled. He was unaware of his body. His whole being concentrated on holding that slender thread of warmth, of making it grow, of flinging it against the cold.
He drew on his last morsel of strength. In front of bis
eyes danced a ball of glowing light. It flickered, flared and waned. Desperately Teron reached out and sucked it into himself. He held it to his mind, warming it. Then he flung it against the coldness. He put his own mind behind and thrust, driving out the worms of darkness,
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pushing them until they were outside him, until the glowing ball, too, was away from his body. And then the worms were gone.
His mouth opened and he gasped, “Laffi—thanks be to you.” The glowing ball disappeared and he slumped down, unaware of anything.
Consciousness seeped back painfully, expanding, contracting, matching the sound of cadenced footsteps in the stone-paved corridor. He sat up drenched with clammy body sweat. He was physically weak and incredibly hungry. But he knew that for the moment the battle was ov
er and he had won.
He grinned into the darkness. The argument with himself was ended. His belief was no longer a passive loss of doubt. He did not understand, he knew. A guard and a woman, bent and shuffling appeared. The guard unlocked the cell door. “Feed him quickly. This place gives me the creeps.”
“Then go back to your dice game,” the woman said in a cracked voice. “I can call when I’m ready. Or do you think I can spirit him out of here?”
“I was ordered to stay with you,” he responded. “So be quick.”
“As you order,” she murmured. Stepping inside the cell, she set the tray out of Teron’s reach and started back.
“Push it closer, fool,” the guard snapped. “Can’t you see he is chained away from it?”
She was outside the cell but peered back. “I can see no chains in that hellish darkness.”
The guard pointed with his torch-holding hand. “He is there, by the wall...”
His voice broke off in a grunt of pain. The torch was no longer aimed toward Teron, nor was the guard’s body where it had been. It curved in the air and crashed soggily to the stones. A foot lashed out from under a long cloak and drove into the guard’s face. He rolled onto his belly and lay stilL The woman bent and dragged him into the cell.
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“Do not eat the food," she warned Teron. “Supposedly it comes from Davok’s own table, but I suspect Korox seasoned it after it left there.”
She recovered the torch and Teron saw Inge’s face inside the hood, charcoal lined to give her age. “Eldra sent you?”
“I have not seen your woman,” she said. “But a strong thought came to me.” She wrapped her arms around herself as if seeking warmth. “It was fearsome at firsts yet it seemed to mean no harm. I was told what to da I have done it.”
“We aren’t through yet,” Teron said. “How many guards are between here and the curtains behind Davok’s dais?”
She thought a moment. "At the most five. Perhaps none. This is the supper hour, and there is no fear of invasion.”
“Just in case,” Teron said, “you put on the guard’s clothing. I’ll take your cloak.”
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