He looked at me for the first time. “Come here,” he said then.
I began to smile at the stupid simplicity of the request.
But then I felt my feet move without my willing them to do so, and I knew that a spell lay upon me in this dark shadow.
I thanked another uncle, who dwelled in the most distant place imaginable, as I began to speak in Thari, a spell of my own.
A piercing cry, as of some swooping night bird, rent the air. . The wizard was not distracted, nor my feet freed, but I was able to raise my arms before me. I kept them at the proper level, and when they reached the forward edge of the altar I cooperated with the summoning spell, increasing the force of each automatonlike step that I took. I let my elbows bend.
The wizard was already swinging the blade toward my fingers, but it didn’t matter. I put all of my weight behind it and heaved at the stone.
The altar toppled backward. The wizard scurried to avoid it, but it struck one-perhaps both-of his legs. Immediately, as he fell to the ground, I felt the spell depart from me. I could move properly again and my mind was clear.
He drew his knees up to his chest and began to roll even as I leaped over the wrecked altar and reached toward him. I moved to follow as he somersaults down a small slope and passed between two standing stones and into the darkened wood.
As soon as I reached the clearing’s edge I saw eyes, hundreds of feral eyes blazing from the darkness at many levels. The incanting grew louder, seemed nearer, seemed to be coming from behind me.
I turned quickly.
The altar was still in wreckage. Another cowled figure stood behind it, much larger than the first. This one was doing the chanting, in a familiar masculine voice. Frakir pulsed upon my wrist. I felt a spell building about me, but this time I was not unprepared. The opposite of my walk, a summons, brought an icy wind that swept the spell away like so much smoke. My garments were lashed about me, changing shape and color. Purple, gray . . . light the trousers and dark the cloak, the shirtfront. Black my boots and wide belt, my gauntlets tucked behind, my silver Frakir woven into a bracelet about my left wrist, visible now and shining. I raised my left hand and shielded my eyes with my right, as I summoned a flash of light.
“Be silent,” I said then. “You offend me.” The chanting ceased.
The cowl was blown back from his head and I regarded Melman’s frightened face.
“All right. You wanted me,” I stated, “and now you have me, heaven help you. You said that everything would become clear to me. It hasn’t. Make it clear.”
I took a step forward.
“Talk!” I said. “It can be easy or it can be hard. But you will talk. The choice is yours.”
He threw back his head and bellowed: “Master!”
“Summon your master then, by any means,” I said. “I will wait. For he, too, must answer.”
He called out again, but there was no answer. He bolted then, but I was ready for this with a major summoning. The woods decayed and fell before he could reach them, and then they moved, were swept up in a mighty wind where there should be stillness. It circled the glade, gray and red, building an impenetrable wall to infinites above and below. We inhabited a circular island in the night, several hundred meters across, its edges slowly crumbling.
“He is not coming,” I said, “and you are not going. He cannot help you. No one will help you. This is a place of high magic and you profane it with your presence. Do you know what lies beyond the advancing winds? Chaos. I will give you to it now, unless you tell me about Julia and your master and why you dared to bring me here.”
He drew back from the Chaos and turned to face me. “Take me back to my apartment and I will tell you everything,” he said.