Wiz’s eyes glazed and his mouth went slack.
“To business then.” Bal-Simba tucked the crystal back into his pouch and began the task of learning all he could about this visitor from so far away.
“Strange indeed,” muttered Bal-Simba, turning from where Wiz dozed in a trance. “Very strange.”
“How so, Lord?” Moira asked.
“There is no sign of magic.”
“No magic! None at all?”
“None that I can detect. Despite his name, this Wiz is as lacking in manna as a newborn babe.”
Moira crumpled. “Then it was all for nothing,” she said bitterly. “Patrius died for nothing! Oh, Lord, I am so sorry.”
“I do not know. There is something—strange—about him, but it is not magic.”
“The effects of the Summoning?”
Bal-Simba frowned. “I do not think so. It goes beyond that, I believe.” He kept silent for a moment.
“You say Patrius told you he was summoning a wizard?” he asked at last.
“Yes, Lord.” Then Moira stopped. “Well . . . not exactly.”
“What then exactly?”
Moira screwed up her face in an effort to remember. “Patrius said he was Summoning someone who could help us against the League.” She made the warding gesture. “Someone with great magical power. When I asked him if the man was a wizard he evaded the question. But,” she added thoughtfully, “he never called him a wizard.”
“But he did say that this man had great power?”
“Yes, Lord. He said he looked long and hard to find him.”
“That I can believe,” Bal-Simba said absentmindedly. “Searching beyond the World is long and hard indeed. Hmm . . . but he did not call him a wizard, you say?”
“No, Lord.”
“When I asked Patrius that he would not answer.”
Bal-Simba’s head sunk down on his chest.
“Lord,” Moira interrupted timidly, “didn’t Patrius tell the Council what he was doing?”
Bal-Simba grimaced. “Do you think we would have allowed this madness had we known? No, we knew Patrius was engaged in a great project of some sort, but he told no none, not even his apprentices, what he was about.
“He had spoken to me of the tide of our struggle with the Dark League and how it fared. He was not sanguine and I knew in a general way that he intended something beyond the common. But I had assumed he would lay the project before the Council when it came to fruition. I assumed rashly and it cost us dearly.”
“But why, Lord? Why would he take such an awful risk?”
“Because with the League so strong not all of the Mighty together could have performed a Great Summoning.”
He caught the look on Moira’s face.
“You did not know that? Yes, it is true. All of us together are not enough to make magic of that sort against the League’s opposition.” He smiled ruefully. “Thus the Council wanes as the League grows greater.”
“Then why . . . ?”
“Patrius obviously believed that by working alone and without the usual protections he might be able to complete the Summoning before the League realized what was happening. He was wrong and it cost him his life.” He nodded toward Wiz. “Patrius risked his life to gain a man of great magical power. Instead he brought us someone who seems as common as dirt. It makes no sense.”
Again the great Bal-Simba was silent, his head sank down on his necklace in contemplation.
“What do you think of this?” he asked finally.
“Lord, I am not qualified to pass on the actions of the Mighty.”
Bal-Simba waved that aside. “You were here. You saw. What do you think?”
Moira took a deep breath. “I think Patrius made a mistake. I think he intended someone else and under the strain of the attack . . .” her green eyes misted and she swallowed hard as she relived those awful moments “ . . . under the strain of the attack he Summoned the wrong person.”
“Possible,” Bal-Simba rumbled. “Just possible. But I wonder. Wizards who make mistakes do not live to become Mighty, still less as mighty as Patrius.”
“Yes, Lord,” said Moira meekly.
“I do not convince you, eh girl? Well, I am not sure I convince myself.” He turned back and looked at Wiz, sitting dazed and uncomprehending on the stone. “In any event, the problem now is what to do with our visitor.”