the’rock and urinate. The insects weren’t so numerous here as in the trees, but
they were bad enough.-
Not once, as far as they knew, did anyone pass on the road.
When they walked the horses down the road, Smhee said, ‘You’ve been very good
about not asking questions, but I can see you’re about to explode with
curiosity. You have no idea who the purple mage really is. Not unless you know
more than the other Sanctuarians.’
‘All I know,’ she said, ‘is that they say that the mage came here about ten
years ago. He came with some hired servants, and many boxes, some small, some
large. No one knew what his native land was, and he didn’t stay long in town.
One day he disappeared with the servants and the boxes. It was some time before
people found out that he’d moved into the caves of the Isle of Shugthee. Nobody
had ever gone there because it was said that it was haunted by the ghosts of the
Shugthee. They were a little hairy people who inhabited this land long before
the first city of the ancients was built here.’
‘How do you know he’s a mage?’ Smhee said.
‘I don’t, but everybody says he is. Isn’t he?’
‘He is,’ Smhee said, looking grim.
‘Anyway, he sent his servants in now and then to buy cattle, goats, pigs,
chickens, horses, vegetables, and animal feed and fruit. These were men and
women from some distant land. Not from his, though. And then one day they ceased
coming in. Instead, the Raggah came. From that day on, no one has seen the
servants who came with the mage.’
‘He probably got rid of them,’ Smhee said. ‘He may have found some reason to