“But,” interposed Quienyin. “You are not Hyrklanian?”
“No.”
“So you are from Djanduin?”
I could have left it there. Djan knew, I was well enough cognizant of all Djanduin to claim it completely as my country. As long I had fought for that beautiful land against her enemies and won.
“I have land in Djanduin,” I said. “I love the place — it is unspoiled so far.”
“So you are a notor of Djanduin, as we believe?”
“Yes.”
Tyfar was continuing to stare at me. “You know that because of the war waged by the Empress Thyllis, Hamal is not much cared for in many lands of Havilfar. This is simple knowledge. Perhaps you are from a land that has been invaded by Hamal. Perhaps, Jak my friend, you conceive yourself as an enemy to me?”
I had waited on his last words in some trepidation. But I was able to relax. He had said, “enemy to me.”
Had he said, “enemy to my country” my reply must, in all honor, have been different. The trouble was, Tyfar was quite right. Mad Empress Thyllis had alienated just about every country within reach of her iron legions.
And, also, I had the feeling, substantiated only by intuition and a few scraps of idle converse, that Tyfar’s father, Prince Nedfar, was both not happy with Thyllis and not in her good books. And I had suggested to Lobur the Dagger that I worked secretly for Empress Thyllis. I squared my shoulders.
“I cannot tell you, Tyfar, all that I would wish to tell you. Suffice it to say that I know the Sacred Quarter, I can walk it blindfolded, I have ruffled many a night away as a bladesman. I have wide estates in the country — well, not so much wide as passing fair and rich — and I work for the good of the country.”
That was true.
He was surprised.
“You are Hamalese?”
I have estates in Hamal. I am called there Hamun ham Farthytu, the Amak of Paline Valley. But I was not Hamalese. If anything, I was Vallian, not being born on Kregen. These things I could not tell Tyfar — or Quienyin.
“I work for the good of Hamal,” I said. Again, I spoke the truth, even though, perhaps, Vallia would have to put down the worst excrescences of Hamal, chief of whom was the Empress Thyllis. “I deplore what the empire is doing to neutral countries-”
“So do I, by Krun!”
That declaration, by a prince whose father was second cousin to the empress, really was nailing his colors to the mast.
I managed a smile.
“Then we see eye to eye in that, Tyfar. Do not press me further. Only remember: what I do I do for the good of Hamal and for all of Paz. For the eventual good.”
“And you will not confide in me?”
“Not will not.”
He frowned and then banished the scowl and replaced it with a smile, uncertain, but a smile nonetheless.
“I — see.”
And Deb-Lu-Quienyin, that puissant Wizard of Loh, sat looking at me, and he had stopped gnawing on his bone.
“Hyrklana, Djanduin, or Hamal,” he said briskly, waving the bone, “it does not matter, not to me. I have gone through so much with Notor Jak that if he came from some hellhole in Queltar — where no man should have to exist — by the Seven Arcades, he is a man and a friend-”
“Well said, San.” Tyfar stood up. Now he did smile. “I see you are about secret business, Jak. Well and good. That is your affair and none of mine. You have given me your word that you work for Hamal. I, too, work for Hamal, as does my father. I trust we do not work in opposition.”
I shook my head. “Now, now, Prince. You will not worm it out of me like that!”
He laughed. Some princes I knew would have called on their retainers to spit me there and then. So, because I did not wish to drop into a maudlin scene, I took up the thought that had been in my mind when this scene began.
“We would all like to know that our families and friends are safe.” I addressed myself to Quienyin directly. “You know what I talk about, San. It is nothing new. But we have no rights to your kharrna, no claims-”
“Come now, Jak — do not belittle what we nine mean one to the other!”
I nodded. “So be it. If you go into lupu you can tell us what is happening far off. I think Tyfar would more than welcome news that his father and sister are safely out of this desolate place.”
We all sat, still and silent, looking at the Wizard of Loh.
He stared at me. I could guess what he was thinking. He had sustained a nasty accident and had lost his powers and now he had recovered them, or most of them, in the lowest zone of the Moder. He had explained that the Wizard of the Moder had no real conceptualization of what awful powers he had locked up in the lowest zone. An ordinary wizard, one Yagno, a sorcerer of the Cult of Almuensis, mightily puffed up with pomp and pride in his own prowess, had ventured down into the lowest zone and had never returned. This was not so much a useful gift to us in telling us what we wanted to know. This was much more the testing moment for Quienyin himself.
And he saw that very clearly.
How strange, thus to read the riddle of a Wizard of Loh!
They are rightly feared and respected; but they are mortal, human men, and many a mighty warlord and king has his own Wizard of Loh to serve him as he sees fit. My own Wizard of Loh — although it is foolish, really, to call any Wizard of Loh as a normal retainer — had been sent back to Loh. No man unless he has other powers will willingly cross a Wizard of Loh. They are rumored to be able to do terrible things. And, in Zair’s truth, I have seen wondrous deeds. And, here we were, calmly realizing that a Wizard of Loh was on trial with himself.
What other proof could be required to show how our experiences had made of us nine a special band of brothers?
Speaking with all that old bumbling hesitancy completely banished, Quienyin said, “Very well.”
Very carefully, he made his preparations.
Some Wizards of Loh I have known were able to go into lupu very quickly, with a minimum of fuss, and so send a spying eye out to reveal what transpired at a distance. Others go through a rigmarole of mental agility, physical activity, and magical mumbo jumbo to achieve the same result. Deb-Lu Quienyin was, as it were, starting from scratch. He was like a novice wizard, seeking to insert his mind along the planes of arcane knowledge. Very sensibly, he went back to basics and set about going into lupu with all the trappings that thaumaturgical art form required. Equally, just as Tyfar’s attitude to us had been tempered from princely choler by our mutual experiences and new-found comradeship, so Quienyin’s wizardly contempt for ordinary mortals had been modified. We watched him in no sense of judgment whatsoever; rather we actively sympathized with him and wished him well and in however minor a way sought to partake of his struggle. But, when all is said and done, the ways of Wizards of Loh of Kregen are passing strange…
We could only sit and stare.
Deb-Lu-Quienyin composed himself. He sat cross-legged, his head thrown back, and his eyes covered by his hands. I noticed how the veins crawled on the backs of his hands; yet his hands were plump and full-fleshed. He remained perfectly still, silent and unmoving.
Respecting Quienyin’s preliminary insertion of his kharrna into unspecified but occult dimensions, we also sat still.
Quienyin began to tremble.
His whole plump body shook. His shoulders moved. He brought his hands down slowly from his face. His eyeballs were rolled up, and the whites of his eyes glared out in a sightless blasphemy of a gargoyle head. Hunch choked back in his throat. We sat, enthralled, knowing how Quienyin battled himself as he sought to hurl his kharrna through realms unguessed of by ordinary men. Breathing almost at a standstill, Quienyin appeared to gather himself, as a zorca gathers himself at an obstacle. With a wavering cry he rose slowly to his feet. His arms lifted, rising out from his sides, lifting to the horizontal. His fingers were stiffly outthrust. Gently at first, and then faster and faster, he revolved, whirling about, his arms razoring the air.
