Tarscenian had taught him so many years ago.
Fame followed him. Hederick, the holy man of the north, converted hundreds of thousands of people to the New Gods.
The devout cheered as Hederick entered their towns. He always took care to hold the Diamond Dragon against his palm as he entered a village. Time and again, townspeople vied to offer him lodging for as long as he wanted it, presented him with fine clothes, and fed him the very best their tables had to offer. He lived well-as was proper for a prophet of the gods. He was the favored of Sauvay, after all.
Always, upon arrival in a new location, Hederick was careful to ferret out the irretrievable sinners. The Dia shy;mond Dragon, macaba root, and Sauvay helped him ease them out of this world. They were poor and rich, of low status and high, men and women, young and old.
No one stood above Seeker doctrine.
Finally, when Hederick was well into middle age, Sauvay sent the Highseeker Elistan to persuade him to come to Haven to join the main body of Seekers. Elistan seemed to have no awareness of Sauvay's hand in his mis shy;sion-a sign, to Hederick, that much of the recognition Elistan had received was undeserved. Elistan told Heder shy;ick what the wandering priest already knew-that the Highseekers Council in Haven had need of his powers of oratory.
The pious and crafty Hederick rose quickly in the Seeker hierarchy. He knew Seeker law well. It was a simple matter for him to have superiors removed for transgressions that few others had detected. Those few who were impervious to slander or blackmail succumbed readily to the poison of the macaba root.
Through all of this, Hederick basked in the approval of Sauvay.
'There,' Eban said, dumping the huge scroll on the desk in the Great Library. Olven sat at the desk, quill pen in hand, before an empty piece of parchment. 'I've done my part, and in only half a day! Hederick s background'- Eban lovingly patted the curl of paper-'all set down here in black and white. I could have gone on twice as long as I did. Oh, you should see the scrolls back there, you two! And the bound parchments. By the gods!' Eban whistled. 'More books than I've seen in my life, all together in one room. It's absolutely amaz… Why, what's the matter?'
Olven was looking sourly at the red-haired youth. Marya, leaning against a bookshelf, also scowled.
'Your youthful enthusiasm is wonderful, child,' she said sar shy;castically, 'but we seem to have a problem.'
'We?' Eban echoed. 'Me, too?'
'We're in this together,' she reminded him in a surly tone. 'Loot'
Eban followed her gesture and finally took in the empty parchment before the luckless Olven. 'Nothing?' Eban cried, prompting a duet of 'shhhh' from his fellow apprentices. He dropped his voice to a whisper. 'You two have been here for four hours, and you haven't written a thing? Not a word? What have you been doing?'
'Well, I sharpened all the quills,' Olven muttered.
'And I went for an extra supply of ink,' Marya added mul-ishly. 'We didn't have the luxury of writing down things that are already well in the past and skillfully recorded. We three have all done countless research papers, Eban; anyone can do that. Olven and I were in charge of writing the present-and the present as it occurs nowhere near Palanthas. That's consid shy;erably harder, I'd say.' She sniffed.
'And…?' Eban shot back. 'What's happening?'
'Nothing's happening,' Olven mourned. He rested his fore shy;head on the parchment and tore a piece of white fluff from the quill pen. 'Astinus said to sit here. The history would come to us, Astinus said. But it hasn't. I thought it was magic. Now I don't think so. It's just a test, and I've failed.'
Eban shot a blue-eyed glance toward Marya. 'How about you?'
Marya shook her head. 'Same as him. Nothing. Something's not working.'
'Maybe the desk is broken,' Olven theorized despondently. 'Or the chair.'
'And you concentrated on Hederick, both of you?' Eban demanded. 'The whole time?'
'Yes, on Hederick, and only Hederick,' Olven and Marya said together.
Eban looked down at the parchment and then at the long crane's feather drooping from Olven's sweating hand. Most of the feathery portions had been stripped away from the quill in Olven's agitation. 'Maybe that's it,' Eban said. He patted Olven's shoulder, as though the red-haired youth were the elder of the two. 'Let me try.'
Marya snorted. 'He and I have years of experience beyond yours. You're practically still a child. What could you possibly try that we haven't thought of?'
Olven groaned. 'Give it up, Eban. Your willingness to help is laudable, but we're doomed.' He rubbed his eyes and continued his lament. 'I'm going to end up back home, selling hot potatoes and sausage from a pushcart. I just know it.'
'And I'll have to go back and marry the butcher,' Marya added. 'He has six kids.' She went white and closed her eyes for a moment. 'By the gods, I'll never have time to read a book again!' She slid down the end of the bookshelf until she was seated despondently on the stone floor.
Eban ignored them both. He pulled at Olven's arm until the elder man heaved himself out of the chair and made way for the youth. One pair of black eyes and one pair of brown watched hopelessly as the youth settled against the chair's cushions, took a deep breath, let his head fall back, and appeared to go into an open-eyed trance. Eban's voice startled them then, for there was nothing dreamy about it. 'Perhaps you were concentrating too narrowly,' he said, 'in thinking only of Hederick. History- even the story of just one person-consists of more than events that happen directly to one man. Maybe we should widen our thoughts.'
As the other two watched pessimistically, the youngest member of the trio reached forward and grasped a new quill. Eban dipped the tip into a ceramic pot of black ink, placed it just above the paper, and waited. He made no sound. Olven and Marya held their breath. Soon the pen began scratching on the parchment.
Chapter 3
Two score men and women stood motionless in tbe fog, tbeir white robes clinging in the dampness. The setting could have been day or night, north or south, pinnacle or plain. The mist muted everything to colorlessness.
At the center of the circle stood the only figure wear shy;ing other than the robe of a mage. He was also the only one carrying a sword. Homespun shirt, dark shift, patched leggings, and dusty boots covered his tall frame. The man appeared to be in his seventies. Unbent and powerful despite his age, he held in his arms a woman so slender and weak that a casual observer might wonder whether she still breathed.
She was at least eighty. Yet even in her sleeping frailty, it was apparent that once she had been a great beauty. The woman, too, wore the white robes of a mage of Good.
Tarscenian held Ancilla and quietly surveyed the circle of mages around him. When he finally spoke, the fog muffled his voice.
'Ancilla argued for three days before the Conclave of Wizards,' Tarscenian said, 'and when they still refused to help her, she collapsed. She is weak.' He paused, unwilling to say the words that would put voice to his worst fear. 'She is dying.'
The other mages knew Ancilla had spent decades try shy;ing to stop the fanatic Hederick from realizing his ambi shy;tion to lead the Seeker religion-and, ultimately, all of Krynn. He had installed himself as High Theocrat of Solace. Now Hederick was hoping to so impress his gods that they would admit him into their pantheon as a deity. He called himself The Chosen One and considered him shy;self the special favorite of the Seeker god Sauvay.
'Hederick has the Diamond Dragon of the White Robes,' Tarscenian said.
The men and women inclined their heads. Ancilla had received the Diamond Dragon when she passed the Test that made her a white-robed mage. Hederick had taken it from her. It was a sad irony that the artifact of the White Robes now protected one such as Hederick from their magic.
'Doubtless you have tried stealing the artifact back,' the elven mage Calcidon said.
Tarscenian nodded assent. 'To no avail. That if hy Ancilla wanted to enlist the help of the Conclave oi.. iz- ards, including all Neutral and Evil mages.'
