“I gave instructions that none were to hunt alone.”
“He was not hunting. He was returning from a trip to a warehouse when he became separated from his companion.”
“You mean he was out looting and found more than he bargained for,” Dzhir Kar said sharply. “I warned you all that it is dangerous to go poking about. The City of Night is no longer ours.”
Seklos sniffed and wiped his reddened nose on the sleeve of his robe. “And I warned you we must be done with your notion and sport and use magic to find him quickly.”
“No! No detection spells. I forbid it.”
“This is absurd! If you wish the Sparrow dead, then let us find him and kill him. “But this constant chasing about wastes our time and disperses our energies.”
“Do you question my authority?” Dzhir Kar said dangerously.
“No master, only your judgment.”
Dzhir Kar glared at his second in command. Under Toth-Set-Ra it would have been unthinkable for one of the Dark League, even the second, to use such language to the leader. But Toth-Set-Ra was dead. Dzhir Kar did not have his predecessor’s power.
“I will consider what you say,” he said at last.
“Consider this also. There are those who grow restive. The deaths and disappearances of their fellows upset them. All are cold and hungry and many wonder if the prize is worth the effort. Today they grumble quietly. But soon they will do more than that. We must either find the Sparrow or call this off and do one or the other quickly.”
Dzhir Kar nodded and waved dismissal. The wizard bowed and, still sniffling, backed from the room.
After Seklos left, Dzhir Kar sat for a long time with his head bowed and his hood pulled up around his face. His lieutenant was right, the deaths and disappearances had made the other wizards nervous. If something was not done, he would have a mutiny on his hands—probably led by Seklos.
His position was anything but secure and he and Seklos both knew it. Unlike Toth-Set-Ra, who had a powerful slaying demon at his beck, or the councils which had ruled the Dark League by playing off the shifting factions, Dzhir Kar ruled by the force of his personality alone. As long as he led the Dark League to success, or at least kept it out of major trouble, he would remain in power. But this business had occupied far too many of his wizards far too long in something both boring and dangerous. If that did not change quickly, the Dark League would have a new leader.
He had promised the Dark League that this would be a simple task. Use the turncoat northern wizard to lure out the Sparrow, rely on the homing demon to neutralize the Sparrow’s alien magic and then kill him quickly. On the strength of the League’s hatred for the Sparrow and the demonstration of his demon, the League wizards had agreed to his plan.
He raised his head and looked over to where his creation sprawled, eyes slitted and tendrils quivering as it sought a trace of the Sparrow’s magic. Dzhir Kar frowned. He hadn’t told them the whole truth about his demon. A wizard never did, of course, for knowledge was power. But in this case he had concealed a crucial fact and now that concealment was coming back to haunt him.
It was not a desire for sport that kept him from using detection spells, it was necessity. Detection spells would interfere with the demon’s senses. If anyone tried to use a detection spell to find the Sparrow, the demon would not be able to sense his magic in time to stop him from casting a spell. The League knew all too well what the Sparrow’s magic was like if he were free to employ it.
Dzhir Kar’s head dropped back on his chest and his claw hand tightened on the arm of his chair. Close. So very close to success and now time was running out.
“Two no-trump.”
Karl, Nancy, Mike and Larry Fox were sitting at the table in the Wizard’s Day Room, all hunched over their cards.
“I thought you’d given up on cards,” Jerry said as he came over to them.