T here was a cold wind sweeping down the street and Valder breathed on his hands in their thin gloves in an attempt to warm his fingers.
Immediately after returning to Avendoom after a long journey to the Lakeside Empire, he hadn’t even been given time to take his boots off before he was summoned to an urgent session of the Council of the Archmagicians of the Order. And so he had set out for the tower with a perfectly clear conscience, still wearing the clothes in which he had returned to the capital, and disregarding official formality.
Valder was the youngest archmagician in the entire history of the Order of Valiostr. He had received his staff with four rings of rank at the age of only thirty, far outstripping even the present master of the Order, Panarik, who had become an archmagician at the age of forty-five. Both his friends and his enemies predicted that Valder would receive the master’s staff in the none-too-distant future. He himself, however, loathed the intrigues that accompanied the struggle for power, preferring work and the special assignments that Panarik gave him. This had earned Valder the nickname of the Sullen Archmagician, since he was absent from most of the Councils of the Order.
The sky was darkening rapidly, and twilight had advanced. It had grown colder. The crust of snow crunched sharply under the soles of his boots. His nose was beginning to tingle unpleasantly.
Winter had come early this year. From the beginning of November, the clouds arriving from the Desolate Lands had brought snow, and the winds arriving from beyond the Needles of Ice had brought cold. But by mid-January Old Man Winter had grown tired of raging and decided to take a break, freeing Avendoom for several days from the heavy icy shackles of unrelenting frost. And now, in comparison with what it had been like at the beginning of December, the weather in the capital could actually be called warm.
The magician turned onto the Street of the Magicians, and then someone called his name.
“Master Valder! Master Valder! Wait!”
He looked round unhurriedly toward the sound and saw a teenaged boy hurrying after him. It was Gani, the archmagician’s pupil, his face bright red from running.
The magician had found the boy in one of the poor villages of Miranueh, when he was on his way back to Valiostr from the Empire. The orphan had proved to have a gift. He had magic sleeping inside him, glittering faintly, like the spark in a drowsy campfire. But if good kindling was thrown onto that spark, it would turn into a conflagration. And Valder was intending to awaken that flame in Gani in the near future.
The archmagician of the Order had not previously had any pupils, but so far the youth had entirely justified all the hopes placed in him. Bright and diligent, he easily remembered the initial spells for working with Air—the most inconstant, complex, and capricious of the elements. Yes indeed—he began with Air—although all the pupils in the order usually started with the stable element of Earth.
“Master, you forgot this!” said the youth, holding out a long, white bundle.
“What is it?” the archmagician asked with a frown of surprise.
“Your staff, of course. You forgot it. I thought you might need it.”
Valder laughed. He had deliberately not taken the symbol of magical power with him, but evidently the gods were against it and had found someone to return it to the hands of the “forgetful” magician.
All right. It would be useful. At least the old fogies wouldn’t whine that he didn’t respect the traditions of the Order. Besides, the staff was merely a concession to tradition and nothing more. It carried no power within itself. When he was traveling, the “sullen” archmagician usually left it at the very bottom of his luggage.
“But why did you wrap it in a cloth?” Valder asked peevishly as he took the bundle.
“So the guards wouldn’t stop me,” said Gani, sniffing with his frozen nose. “They’re blind, of course, but they probably wouldn’t let through a boy with an archmagician’s staff.”
“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.
