“Is he dead then?” Arianne asked.
Bal-Simba shook his head. “Moira does not think so. I trust her judgment in this.”
“Moira was away in his world when he left Aelric’s hold,” Arianne pointed out.
“Still, I think she would know if he had died.”
“Then where could he be?”
“There are many possibilities. He might be in a place where he is shielded by magic. He might have been sent beyond the World. He might be held in a state of undeath.
“One thing I think we can safely venture. He is not where he is voluntarily and wherever he is, he needs any aid we can give him.” He returned to his desk an sat down again. “On that subject, have you learned more in the matter you were pursuing?”
“You mean the actions of the Mighty? There is one thing new. Ebrion is missing for near three weeks.”
“Ebrion?”
Arianne nodded. “There is more. We cannot be sure, but it appears that he may well be dead.”
“Dead? How?”
Arianne shrugged. “We do not know. We are not even certain that he is dead.”
Bal-Simba sucked his lip against his sharpened teeth thoughtfully. “Ebrion, eh?”
He twisted in his chair to face her. “This should be explored. Investigate closely.”
“But discreetly,” Arianne agreed. “I am already doing so, Lord.”
Just like all the rest, Wiz thought as he surveyed the room in the failing light. Nothing to eat, just more piles of junk. The wind whistled through the broken windows and he shivered as he pulled the worn brown cloak tighter around himself.
Outside the setting sun poked fitfully through the layer of lead-gray clouds. By now Wiz knew the signs of a storm moving in, perhaps with snow. It was going to be another cold, miserable night. Too cold for foraging.
Since his encounter with the flying wizard, Wiz had stayed out of the open, at least in daylight. Every day, unless the winds were too high, one or more wizards of the Dark League floated over the ruined city looking for a sign of him. Now he tried to move from building to building only at night.
Well, none of that this evening. Storms in the Southern Land were nothing to take lightly. He needed a place to hole up. And food, of course.
He made one more survey of the room. Broken furniture, bits of smashed crockery and junk, and piles of what had probably once been wall hangings or drapes.
He poked at the largest pile, over against the far wall with his broken halberd. Nothing but cloth.
Then he stopped in mid-poke. Maybe he could use this after all. There was a lot more of it here than normal and it was pretty dry. More than enough to make a nest for a human.
Wiz burrowed into the pile of cloth and rolled himself in the rags. He pulled up the hood of his cloak and drew another layer of cloth over him. The material was none too clean. It had been soaked repeatedly and Wiz was not the first creature to nest in it, but it kept out the chill and as his body heat warmed the cloth, Wiz stopped being cold for the first time since he had arrived. As the wind whistled and howled outside, his breathing steadied and he fell deeply asleep for the first time in days.
Voices woke him the next morning. Human voices in the same room.
Beneath the hood of the cloak he could see two men had entered the chamber—men who wore the black robes of the Dark League.
“He is here,” the older one protested, “I can smell him!” He cast about like a hunting dog, his head turning this way and that as if he actually was smelling Wiz out.
“He was here,” the other one corrected. “Do you see him in the room? Or do you think he has acquired a cloak of invisibility?”
Wiz dared not breathe.
The balding wizard straightened up. “This is foolishness anyway. Why not use spells to find this Sparrow? I have stood in his presence and I could locate him in minutes, even if Dzhir Kar could not.”