8
The magicians neared Hazur. Ildefonse relaxed control. They buzzed round the headland like giant gnats. Alfaro remained near Rhialto, keeping that magician between himself and the haunted country the best he could.
Magicians sparking about attracted attention, first from the road hugging the far bank of the Scaum, then from above. Yonder, travelers stopped to gawk. Above, the activity attracted pelgrane, monsters remotely descended of men. Their slow brains understood that all that sweet meat bobbing around Hazur could be deadly. Ao of the Opals underscored the point with his Excellent Prismatic Spray.
The gallery beyond the river roared approval when a hundred scintillant light spears pierced a too daring pelgrane. Sizzling, the monster plunged toward the Scaum.
The magicians closed with the headland, which consisted of rocky ground strewn with deadwood and clusters of stunted brush.
Ildefonse called to Rhialto, “Do you apprehend any cause to avoid the Forthright Option of Absolute Clarity?”
“It costs but a spell to try. Though it is absolute. And unlikely to have a broad impact on a target as grand as Amuldar.”
The Preceptor made sure none of the magicians were slinking away. He whispered. His whirlaway plunged toward the forest choking the approaches to Hazur. He curved round above the treetops and hurled his spell.
The Forthright Option was new to Alfaro. Few magicians used it because it banished all illusion, not just what the spell caster wanted brushed aside.
The air coruscated. A patch an acre in extent became the flank of a transparent dome rising from barren rock. A city lay behind that patch.
The orbiting magicians swooped in to look.
The Preceptor preened.
Rhialto told Alfaro, “That took the aeons off. He’s a boy again.”
Morag was more interested in the city. The not-mirage.
Nothing moved there. There was no obvious decay, but the place had the look of having been abandoned to vermin and dust for ages.
For aeons, Alfaro reminded himself. Meaning there were potent sustaining spells at work.
The older magicians, so recently determined to attend interests elsewhere, now chattered brightly of what might be unearthed here.
Terror had been forgotten. Greed reigned. There was much snickering at the certain disappointment soon to grip those who had failed to respond to Ildefonse’s summons.
The Preceptor observed, “Once again avarice trumps caution.”
Alfaro saw something. “There! Did you see?”
“What?”
“A blue moth. It was huge.”
Ildefonse said, “Blue was not Te Ratje’s favorite color.”
“An understatement,” said Rhialto. “Te Ratje appears to be out of patience. He is ready for the test direct.”
The Preceptor’s whirlaway rose and darted away. Alfaro followed, as did Rhialto. Below, Barbanikos launched a spell with dramatic results.
The spell struck the dome, flashed brilliantly, rebounded, caught Barbanikos before he could dodge. His great dandelion puff of white hair exploded. Down he went, smoldering, whirlaway shedding pieces, its animating sandestin shrieking. Wreckage scattered down the flank of Hazur. Small fires burned out before they could spread.
Rhialto observed, “Barbanikos succeeded.”
A black O ring a dozen feet across pulsed in the surface of the dome. Haze of Wheary Water darted through. No instant doom struck him down. Mune the Mage followed. The other magicians wasted no time.
Rhialto remarked, “Our reputations are unlikely to recover if we fail to follow.”
Alfaro had a thought about opportunity knocking. Should that slowly shrinking O ring close a dozen estates would become masterless.
Ildefonse caught his eye. “Learn to think things through.”
Alfaro opened his mouth to protest.
“Had you developed that skill early you would have had no need to migrate in haste.”
Rhialto observed, “You are a slow learner. Nevertheless, you show promise. And you have youth’s sharp eye.”
Youth’s sharp eye, unable to meet Ildefonse’s fierce gaze, wandered to the pelgrane contemplating prospects on the river road, then to the feeble sun. “Gilgad was right. The sun has a green topknot. And maybe a beard or tail.” Both discernable when considered from a dozen degrees off direct.
Rhialto and Ildefonse discovered it, too. And Rhialto saw something more. “There is a line, fine as a thread of silk, connecting the earth to the sun.”
Ildefonse said, “Would that we had Moadel here to sketch it.”
Alfaro suggested, “I could get my brother. He has a talent for drawing.” Tihomir was immensely blessed in that one way.
“Unnecessary. The sun will persist for a few more days. Our task is more immediate. Rhialto. Lead the way. I will sweep up the rear.”
Rhialto tilted his jeweled whirlaway toward the shrinking O ring. Disgruntled, Alfaro followed.
9
“There’s no color,” Alfaro exclaimed.
“But there is,” Rhialto countered. “Te Ratje’s gray, in all its thousand shades. Gray is the color of absolute rectitude.”
“Unsettling news,” Ildefonse said. “Barbanikos’s aperture has closed.”
The hole had become a black circle floating in the air. The acre unveiled by the Forthright Option of Absolute Clarity had dwindled to a patch a dozen yards in its extreme dimension, too.
Rhialto said, “I have not been here before.”
Ildefonse confessed, “My visit has become so remote that I might need weeks to exhume the memories. Alfaro was correct. There is a blue moth. I need recover no memories, though, to understand that the street below leads to the heart of Amuldar.”
The others had gone that way. Dust hung in the air, stirred by their passage. There was nothing here to seize their attention. This was the most bland of cities. No structure stood taller than three stories, nor wore any shape but that of a gray block, absolutely utilitarian.
“Where are the towers? The minarets? The onion-domed spires?”
Ildefonse said, “The silhouette was what the Good Magician believed he was creating. Now we are inside what actually came of his vision.”
“Valdaran the Just destroyed the magicians of Grand Motholam for this?”
Rhialto chuckled. Ildefonse did not respond.
Alfaro squeaked, startled by a big blue moth that just missed his face.
The elder magicians slowed. “Time for caution,” Rhialto said, indicating a strew of polished wood and wickerwork that had been a whirlaway not long ago.
“Mune the Mage,” Ildefonse decided. “I don’t see a corpse, so he walked away.”
Several large moths, or maybe butterflies, flitted randomly nearby. They ranged in color from dark turquoise to pale royal blue. Alfaro said, “Looks like writing on their wings.”
“Those are spells in Te Ratje’s own script.” The Preceptor evaded a moth as big as his spread hand. “One of
