Shadow Prowler (19 page)

“Thank you, Gani. That’s very helpful.”

“Great. But can I go with you, Master Valder? I’d really like to get a look at the tower.”

“You’ll have plenty of time to look as much as you like. I’m going to the Council, and that’s only for archmagicians. Off you go home. It’s getting dark already. Will you find the way back?”

“Of course!” the lad said, nodding and casting a regretful glance at the Tower of the Order soaring up above the roofs of the houses
.

Valder tucked the bundle under his arm and strode off rapidly along the Street of the Magicians toward the tower. Avendoom was slowly sinking into the sleep of a long winter night. The radiance of the Northern Crown lit up the velvet sky. Its brightest star glowed with a cold, ominous light
.

The archmagician could watch the stars for hours at a time. He felt that they made Siala seem a lot more beautiful and pure than it really was
.

A minute later the street led the magician out onto the square where the old Tower of the Order soared upward in solitary splendor. The wind seemed to have gone wild and now it was running riot, picking snow up off the roadway and setting it swirling around in a frenzied white dance. And in addition, hordes of clouds had crept across the sky, concealing the stars, and snow had started falling heavily. He could no longer see the houses on the other side of the street; the wall of white was absolutely impenetrable. That sort of thing often happened in Avendoom. In the blink of an eye beautiful weather was transformed into a genuine nightmare
.

However Valder, securely protected by his magic shield, took no notice of this snowy insanity. Quite soon he found himself outside the bronze door and it opened of its own accord, confirming his right to enter the Order’s holy of holies
.

“Valder, my old friend!” said an archmagician descending the staircase. “It’s ages since I last saw you.”

The man was leaning on a staff exactly like Valder’s.

“
Hello there, Ilio.
”

“
What have you got in that bundle?
”

“
Damnation! I completely forgot!” The magician hastily extracted his staff and tossed the piece of cloth on the floor
.

Ilio laughed.

“Well, look at you! Zemmel would have a fit if he saw the way you drag the symbol of the Order around. All right, let’s go. The Council’s waiting.”

“What’s happened? I was summoned the moment I got back,” Valder said, climbing up the staircase after his massive friend
.

“Panarik and Zemmel have got an idiotic idea into their heads, and we have to put it into practice tonight.”

“An idiotic idea?”

Until that day he had never thought of the two most powerful magicians in the country as idiots
.

“Exactly so,” Ilio replied morosely. “Precisely the right word for it. Zemmel’s been digging through the ogres’ old books again—you know yourself that he’s the only one who understands any of their gobbledegook. Well, he’s found a way to stop the Nameless One forever.”

“How?”

“
He’s decided to destroy the Kronk-a-Mor that protects the wizard. In my opinion the whole idea’s a load of nonsense. The magic of the ogres is stronger than steel.”

“But—”

“
But,” interrupted Ilio, continuing his progress along the winding stairway, “Zemmel has managed to pull the wool over Panarik’s eyes, and even over Elo’s, and that really takes some doing, doesn’t it? So today we have the night of the fools. Get ready for it.”

Valder bit his lip thoughtfully. Persuading the light elf, who was far from fond of Zemmel, would not have been easy. Almost impossible, in fact. But this time the lover of the ogres’ magic had indeed managed the impossible
.

“What exactly do you mean?
”

“
The Order has taken the Horn out of its dusty trunk and decided to work a miracle.”

“I see,” Valder said, chuckling skeptically. “But what has all this to do with me?”

“Oh, come now!” said Ilio, genuinely surprised. “You and I will act as reservoirs of power. Panarik and Zemmel have to draw their energy from somewhere, don’t they? We are the two fools that the Council needed to complete its blissful happiness.”

“Are we the only ones who have been summoned?”

“No,” said Ilio, stopping beside a door encrusted with bluish ogre bone. “Not the only ones. Elo and O’Kart, too.”

“What about Singalus, Artsis, and Didra? Is the performance going to take place without their participation?” Valder asked in amazement
.

That would mean that only six out of nine archmagicians of the Order would be involved in this absurd attempt to restrain the Nameless One
.

“Singalus is in Isilia. As for Artsis—well, you know how Zemmel feels about our friend . . .”

“The way an orc feels about a goblin,” Valder said with a dour nod. “That’s a pity; Artsis would have been useful.”

“Who are you telling? I know that. But he ‘could not be found.’ Didra’s in Zagraba, with the dark elves.”

“So six archmagicians are going to destroy the Nameless One?” Valder whispered. “Doubtful, very doubtful. Didn’t Panarik think about calling in the higher-order magicians? Or even the entire Order?”

“He did, but Zemmel convinced him that the six of us could cope.”

“
The cretin!
”

“
Worse than that. You’ve been away for a year and a half, right?
”

“
Two years.
”

“
Well, Zemmel spent all that time poring over the books of the ogres. If you ask me, it would be a better idea to stick your head into a giant’s mouth than to read those ancient tomes. He must have completely lost his reason, if he’s decided to mess about with the prohibited shamanism of the ogres
.

“By the way,” Ilio said with a smile, “before we go in, would you care to dispose of your shield? That is what I can see glittering, isn’t it?”

Valder had completely forgotten that he was still maintaining the energy of the spell that had protected him against the bad weather
.

“Perhaps you ought to remove it,” Ilio suggested good-naturedly. “You know how twitchy O’Kart gets when there are inexplicable energy surges. He’s so paranoid.”

“He’s too suspicious altogether. It’s bad for the health.” Valder snorted, but he removed his defensive shield. At least, as far as Ilio could see, that was what he did. In actual fact, the magician merely “dimmed” the spell by feeding it with a subtle stream of power that only Panarik would be able to detect, and only if he deliberately searched for it. Some strange, childish caprice prompted him to resist Ilio’s friendly suggestion
.

The archmagicians entered a spacious round hall illuminated by ordinary torches, in accordance with the prescriptions of the ancient statutes, reinforced by Panarik’s dislike of magical illumination, which made the master’s eyes sting and water
.

The flames were burning steadily, and the pale shadows stood on the walls as still as sentries. Imperturbable. Self-assured
.

Valder did not like this place—it was always too cold and unwelcoming. Emphatically official
.

The walls were patterned with a large number of small lancet windows, glazed with the greenish purplish glass of the dwarves. They offered a fine view of Avendoom at night, since the tower was the highest point in the whole city, even higher than the royal palace. The immense flat mirror fused into the floor in the center of this space reflected imaginary stars and a double moon, even during the daytime. There were nine armchairs with tall backs standing around the mirror. Five of them were empty, four were occupied by archmagicians waiting with patient dignity for the late arrivals
.

Ilio and Valder bowed their heads reverently as a sign of respect for their colleagues. Their colleagues replied with gracious nods. Equals greeting equals
.

The magicians walked to their places, and Valder had a few seconds to examine these men he had not seen for so long
.

Seated directly opposite him was Elo, a light elf with ash-gray hair cut short in the human style and protruding fangs
.

Next came two empty armchairs, and then the solemn O’Kart—a short, permanently gloomy native of Filand
.

O’Kart was excessively suspicious, always anticipating conspiracies against himself, and in conversation he was excessively sharp, rancorous, and intolerant. There were many who did not like him. But nonetheless, Valder had to admit that his antagonist was a talented magician
.

Seated alongside Valder’s adversary was a gaunt individual with gray eyes, a smiling face, and a snub nose. His rather pleasant appearance was spoiled by the bloodless lips and the slim, dry hands with bony fingers
.

Archmagician Zemmel was the oldest member present at the Council. His passion was the ogres’ books on shamanism, especially if they dealt with their forbidden battle magic—the Kronk-a-Mor
.

Valder did not approve at all of the idea of using the Rainbow Horn to destroy the Nameless One. Hitherto this artifact had only been capable of containing the wizard within the Desolate Lands. What had changed now? How could the Council have agreed to such a risky undertaking without lengthy preparations?

“Glad to see you, my pupil,” said Panarik
.

The Master of the Order of Valiostr was the most important and influential figure after the king. At seventy years of age he barely looked fifty
.

“And I am glad to see you, my master.”

“Have you been informed what is happening here?”

“Yes, Ilio has informed me. But I cannot see any point in all this.”

“The point is to destroy the Nameless One forever,” Zemmel said severely, looking up from his book
.

“At this very moment? This very night?”

“And what do you find so unsuitable about this night?” Elo asked, his fangs flashing
.

“Well, if nothing else, the fact that there are only six of us instead of nine.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t have to strain yourself,” Zemmel said with a smile
.

“That’s excellent. But I still don’t understand what all the haste is about. The Council is not full. Three members are absent.”

“Not all of us are required. Six is enough.”

“Perhaps so. But why are you so certain that we shall succeed in doing what other magicians of the Order have been unable to do in several centuries?” Valder asked, trying to speak in a calm and friendly manner, although he was very tired after his journey
.

“I have been thinking the same thing,” said O’Kart, unexpectedly supporting Valder
.

“The magicians of the past did not know what I know,” Zemmel declared weightily. “They did not make the effort to read several important books. It is all here,” he said, slapping the spine of his book with one hand. “The Kronk-a-Mor that protects the Nameless One so securely can be broken by using the Rainbow Horn.”

“But let us not forget,” Valder objected, “that the Horn, like the Kronk-a-Mor, was created by ogres, and we do not know what to expect from it if we start using the artifact at its full power. We still do not know if it is light or evil!”

“What incredible nonsense!” Zemmel snorted in annoyance. He opened the chest standing beside him and took out the magical relic
.

The Horn was encrusted with silver, mother-of-pearl, and bluish ogre bone. The power with which it was filled made it tremble—the same power that so reliably held the Nameless One on the Desolate Lands
.

“Do you feel any evil from it, Valder?”

The archmagician shook his head
.

No, he couldn’t feel anything except primordial power. This magic was not dark. But then, he couldn’t have called it light, either. It was simply different. Absolutely alien, incomprehensible, and therefore dangerous. The Horn kept the secret of the ogres secure
.

“Surely you don’t think the dark elves would have handed over an artifact to men if it contained even an iota of black shamanism?” Zemmel continued
.

“If magicians can use the Horn, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t used by the shamans of the ogres,” said Ilio, speaking for the first time and supporting Valder. “I am also opposed to acting hastily. Let us wait for Artsis, Didra, and Singalus.”

“I support that,” O’Kart put in dourly. “To this day we have no idea what the Horn was created for. And we only guessed that it neutralizes the Kronk-a-Mor by pure chance. There’s no point in being hasty. The Nameless One has been sitting up in the north for all these years; nothing’s going to happen if he’s stuck there for one more week.”