calling men in from moonlit fields. The familiar sounds calmed him.
What's bothering you? asked Zagarus, settling upon a branch of the tree above his master. I haven't seen you so shaken since Esme left.
Guerrand slid down the tree into a crouch and dug his fists into his eyes. I don't know. Maybe I'm just tired from concentrating all afternoon on deciphering Justarius's message.'
What do you think the Council wants?
'I'm sure 1 don't know that either.' Guerrand crossed his arms tightly before him. 'I do know that I'm not too keen on going back to Wayreth.'
You'll have to check your handbook, of course, said Zagarus with exaggerated stuffiness, but I believe you gave up the right of refusal when you vowed loyalty to the Red Robes.
Guerrand scowled up at his familiar. 'I know that, as well as you know there's no handbook. I merely said I don't want to go, not that I wouldn't.'
The dull-black feathers on Zagarus's wings lifted in a shrug. So what's the problem?
Guerrand absently touched the scar along his cheek that had never healed completely in five years.
Is that still bothering you?
'No!' Guerrand snapped a little too quickly. He wasn't sure whether Zag meant the external or internal scars left by the third and final segment of his Test. A week never went by without him waking up in a sweat from the Dream. Though he had passed the Test, he felt certain the Dream meant he was supposed to take something else from the lesson. But he had no clearer idea of what that was now than he'd had when he walked away from the dreamlike tower in Palanthas and Justarius had told him he'd passed.
Guerrand glided up the tree to his feet. 'I have no interest in leaving Harrowdown, even briefly, to stand around and compare spellbooks with a bunch of high- powered mages. I'm needed here.' He began to pace. 'To the villagers, my work is important. Harrowdown is prosperous compared to what it was when I arrived. Life as a mage may not be exactly what I dreamed back in Castle DiThon, but it isn't bad, either.'
This is what you and Esme fought about, isn't it?
Guerrand's hand sliced the air like a scythe. 'You know I won't talk about that.'
Zagarus was silent for some time. You don't even know why justarius has summoned you. Aren't you the least bit curious? Maybe he just wants to say hello.
Guerrand chuckled without humor. 'That's so like Justarius.' He sighed his resignation. 'But I guess we'll find out the truth soon enough.' Heading back for the cottage door, he announced over his shoulder, 'I'm going to take a few moments to eat some of Dorigar's delicious-smelling stew. Then I'll pack a few things, and we'll leave for Wayreth through the mirror.'
Do you even have that piece of glass anymore? asked Zagarus. I haven't seen it for years.
'I packed it away in a safe place after the confrontation with Belize,' explained Guerrand, referring to the magical looking glass the archmage Belize had given Guerrand before they'd left Castle DiThon. It allowed the bearer to magically travel far distances via a mirror world by mentally picturing a mirror where you wished to reenter the real world. Guerrand had used it only once since the Night of the Eye upon Stonecliff, and that had been to transport Esme, himself, and Zagarus away from the site of the destroyed pagan pillars to Palanthas.
Is it wise to use it after so long? asked the gull. I mean, you need a familiar destination point, and we've been away from Wayreth for a long time. Even there, things must change.
Guerrand waved away the concern. 'Justarius himself recommended we use it. He must have removed any magical wards on Wayreth that would prevent us from entering.'
Guerrand returned some time later from the cottage with his old leather pack filled and strung from shoulder to hip. Digging around in the bag, he pulled from it a familiar, hand-sized fragment of dusty glass and set it on the dirt path. The mage smiled ruefully up at his familiar and extended his arm as a perch for the gull. 'Justarius awaits us.'
With the heavy old gull on his arm, Guerrand felt a long-forgotten sense of deja vu as he stepped upon the surface of the magical glass and slipped into the extradimensional mirror world.
As Guerrand suspected, Justarius had left a glowing trail in the mirror world that bypassed any protective wards and led them directly to a man-sized looking glass right inside the Hall of Mages. The room had not changed one jot since Guerrand's first audience here. It was a vast, round chamber carved of obsidian; the far walls and ceiling were beyond his sight, obscured in shadow. As usual, there were no torches or candles, yet the room was lit by a pale white light, cold, cheerless, without warmth.
Shivering in the dampness, Guerrand remembered with a bittersweet twinge his friend and fellow apprentice Lyim Rhistadt's first bit of advice to him, when tbe plague
they both were waiting outside in the foretower to be assigned masters: 'It's a snap.' He had been so afraid then. Now he felt only cold.
This time Guerrand was not surprised by the sudden appearance of the heavy oaken chair behind him in the otherwise empty room. He slipped into it and waited, fingers drumming the intricately carved armrests, anxiously at first, then with growing impatience.
'Be at ease, Guerrand,' he heard at long last. He still could not see a face, but he recognized the slight quiver of age in Par-Salian's voice.
'We're delighted you responded to Justarius's missive.' The years had not dulled LaDonna's sultry voice.
The members of the Council of Three chose that moment to reveal themselves. The light had not increased or crept farther into the shadows, and yet Guerrand could now see the semicircle of twenty-one seats, all but three empty. He had sat in one of those seats briefly, during the Conclave to discuss the building of Bastion.
Seated in the very center, in a great chair of carved stone, was the extremely distinguished, though frail- looking, head of the Conclave of Wizards. Age had not dulled Par-Salian's piercing blue eyes; the long, gray- white hair, beard, and mustache that nearly matched his white robe had not grown an inch.
LaDonna, too, looked as if not a day had passed since Guerrand's first audience. The Mistress of the Black Robes was seated to her superior's right. She was a striking woman whose iron-gray hair was woven into an intricate braid coiled about her patrician head. Her beauty and age still defied definition.
'You're looking well, Guerrand.'
Guerrand's eyes shifted at last to the speaker whose voice, robust with unspoken humor, he knew so well.
Justarius alone seemed to have aged. There was more salt than pepper now in the mustache and the shoulder-length hair that was simply parted down the middle. New, tiny lines pulled at the corners of his mouth and the narrows between his dark eyes. His usual neck ruff was a crisp and clean white, in contrast to the red linen robe below it.
'I am well,' the former apprentice said stiffly.
The three revered mages exchanged surprised looks. Par-Salian brushed a wisp of white hair from his watery old eyes. 'The Council has summoned you, Guerrand, to offer you a position of some importance.'
'I'm happy enough where I am.'
Justarius's eyebrows narrowed in a familiar gesture of irritation. 'I see you've compounded your impertinent tendency to jump to conclusions. You would do well to listen and not waste our time.'
Though words welled in his throat, Guerrand had the wits to press his lips into a tight line.
'Let us not mince words, Guerrand,' began Par-Salian. 'Bastion's representative from the Red Robes has abruptly resigned, and we are in need of an immediate replacement. The Council has raised your name as a possibility to fill that position.'
Guerrand could not keep the shock from registering on his face. His mouth dropped open. None of his musings regarding the nature of the summons had included Bastion. He couldn't speak, which was fortunate, because there was still more to hear.
'Since its completion,' continued Par-Salian, 'Bastion has been run democratically by three occupants, a representative from each order, but that doesn't seem to have worked. Somehow even the most trivial issues degenerate into a two-against-one brawl. These conflicts divert the mages' attention from their real purpose in the stronghold: to be ever vigilant against intruders seeking the Lost Citadel.'
Par-Salian leaned forward on his chair, elbow propped on the right armrest. 'To prevent this from continuing,
