‘Well give it a try.Who knows, she might like slimy men,’ replied Featherdown with achuckle.
**
Kelnor relaxed in hisbed, after having had his way with one of the young novicepriestesses, and drifted into sleep. Granddad, alias ArchMind SolTheolaur, and four men dressed in black, appeared out of thin airbeside Kelnor’s bed. One of the men went to guard the door, anotherthe window, the remaining two gently slipped loops of soft leatheraround Kelnor’s wrists and waited.
‘Time to find out whatyou’ve been up to Kelnor,’ Granddad whispered as he created a zoneof magical silence centred on the bed, then gently slapped Kelnor’sface to awaken him.
Kelnor snapped awake,felt his arms restrained, looked up and saw the wizard looking downat him. He tried to scream for help but no noise came out of hismouth. Fear gripped him as Sol reached down and touched him on theforehead with his index finger. Kelnor’s eyes glazed over and hisbody relaxed as his mind was dominated. Using mindspeak, Solinstructed one of his men to bring him a chair, and he sat downcasually to begin the interrogation.
Half an hour later, Solwas happy that he knew all that was of interest. He inserted afalse memory of how Kelnor had been slighted by the High Priest ofthe Forever Chaste Temple, who was secretly harbouring a mindwizard among their priests. He sowed seeds of doubt about theTheolaur family possessing any mental powers. After all, he hadinvestigated them before and found nothing. His efforts would bemuch better spent trying to find the mind wizard in the ForeverChaste Temple. He erased any memory of the visit from Kelnor’smind, and put him to sleep dreaming about the lovely youngpriestesses in his temple, then Sol and his men disappeared.
In the morning after anaustere breakfast Kelnor began looking through the latest incomingcorrespondence, and noticed one from a spy he had located on theworld of Mudrun. He opened that first and after reading through theusual uninteresting local gossip he suddenly sat bolt upright inhis chair. The spy reported that a Logicon wizard and a femalewizard defender had arrived in Twin Towers and were involved withthe High Wizard in some as yet undisclosed way.
Kelnor called for hisassistant.
‘It seems we’ve caughtup with the Secretary of the Wizard Guild’s grandson at asurprising location. Call the headquarters of the archons and getthem to send over the one that’s been chasing the Logicon. I wishto speak with him. Tell them I think I might know his presentwhereabouts, and also that I wish to change the warrant for hisarrest to one of murder for that other fellow found dead in theLogicon embassy. That ought to make things interesting.’
‘Also I’ve heard itrumoured that the Temple of the Forever Chaste has a mind wizardamong their priests. I want to direct some effort into checkingthat out. Pull our agents off Sol Theolaur and start investigatingthose schemers in Forever Chaste. It’s quite disgusting to thinkthat any member temple of the Unity of Wisdom would harbor a mindwizard.’
‘Quite right, YourHoliness, I’ll get onto it right away.’ said his assistant asKelnor thought of his special plantations growing on Mudrun. Theywere making him a fortune. He didn’t want them compromised in anyway.
‘Maybe that cunning oldwizard Sol Theolaur sent his grandson there to get something on methat he could use to trade for his grandson’s release,’ thoughtKelnor.
‘Maybe I should take afew days off and go there for a surprise visit to check out theplantations and find out a bit about this Logicon firsthand.’
Chapter 10 ChaosMatter
After a short restAquitain awoke around midnight. Since there were several hours leftbefore dawn he decided to check the Old Hoary’s Encyclopaedia inthe library for any information about the ball of clay. The librarydoor was unlocked so he entered and found the area well illuminatedby yellow light balls. To one side of the room stood shelvesstacked with several hundred books on all sorts of topics. On theother side was a mosaic of pigeonholes containing scrolls allneatly tied with coloured ribbons. In the middle of the room was asmall circular table surrounded by four chairs.
He first checkedthrough the books and then the scrolls. None were on magic and nonewere in the Yith language, although there were quite a number inother languages. The Old Hoary’s Encyclopaedia wasn’t to be foundeither. There was either another hidden room or the books had beenremoved. He used his power to see the emanations of magic, butlooking around saw nothing. He thought for a few moments thendecided to try something different.
In his Logicon form hisvision was impaired, but his sense of smell and hearing wereconsiderably more acute. If he could smell where people had movedwithin the room he might be able to detect any secret doors. Hereturned to the entrance and reformed as a Logicon; immediately hecould taste two distinct footprints on the floor, one covering alarger area than the other, possibly a human and a gnome. Hefollowed them and both led to the same location, a bookshelfagainst one of the walls.
He slid up the edge ofthe bookshelf and located by smell and taste exactly what he waslooking for, the taste of sweaty hands. The spot had the smell ofboth newman and gnome sweat. He shape changed to his human form andexamined the area. The wood on the side of the bookcase wasslightly darkened with sweat from the touch of hands. He placed onepalm over the area and felt a surge of magic. He looked around theroom and noticed that on the floor just inside the library entrancea teleport ring had appeared.
‘Very cunning,’ hethought. Featherdown had obviously planned to see how good he wasat finding the real library. On thinking back, the High Wizard hadsuggested he visit the library two or three times, without evermentioning the trick of how to get there. He stepped onto theteleport circle and materialised inside a small well-illuminatedroom which contained another few hundred books and scrolls, a smalltable
