Finally, she and Wiz piled the stones over the turf. They stuck the charred stump of the old wizard’s staff upright in the top of the cairn.
“Dread Master?” The bear-like form of Atros blocked the door. Where the League’s greatest wizard affected the robe of an anchorite, his subordinate wore a black bearskin, belted with studded leather and pinned with an intricately worked and bejeweled brooch. Toth-Set-Ra’s pate was shaven and Atros wore his thick, dark hair to his shoulders, held in place with a golden filet. More, Atros was nearly as large as the hobgoblins and Toth-Set-Ra was tiny.
In spite of the contrast there was no question as to who held power.
“Patrius is dead,” Toth-Set-Ra told his lieutenant without preamble. Atros said nothing. His spies had already told him that and he knew Toth-Set-Ra knew it.
“He attempted a Great Summoning, or so I am told, and he brought someone from outside the World. A man.”
Atros waited impassively.
“I want that man, Atros. I want him badly. See to it.”
“It will take resources . . .” the great bear trailed off.
“You have them. Use them. Search the North. Scour the Capital if you must. But bring me that man!”
Atros bowed. “Thy will, Dread Master.” And he was gone, leaving Toth-Set-Ra to brood.
Out in the corridor it was Atros’s turn to scowl. The old crow had set him a pretty problem indeed! According to his spies the Sea of Scrying had failed to pick up any trace of the man. That scrying demon Toth-Set-Ra was so proud of must have failed or he would not have been given this mission—or the power to command so much of what his master controlled. Whoever he was, this man from without the World must have a very powerful masking spell to so effectively cloak his magic.
Well, magic wasn’t the only way to find someone. That was the old crow’s mistake, Atros thought. If he couldn’t do it by magic he didn’t think he could do it at all. But there were other ways. The Wild Wood was alive with creatures who were either allies, could be bribed to help, who were controlled or who could be enticed into helping. In the lands of Men there were spies, human and non-human. There were the Shadow Warriors. And then there were the massive and mighty magics of the City of Night. Here was power indeed to turn on finding a lone man.
That was the crux of it, he thought to himself as he strode along the dank, unevenly-flagged corridor. All that power, but only until he found this man. Oh, he would find him, never fear. That would be the easy part. And there were other things that could be done with the power he had just been given. Perhaps even concocting a nice little surprise for that scrawny excuse for a sorcerer who sat in the room down the hall.
Atros was intelligent but he was no more subtle than the bear whose name he had taken. It never occurred to him to wonder if perhaps Toth-Set-Ra might have considered that possibility as well.
Moira knelt weeping over Patrius’s grave. Wiz stood by feeling clumsy and awkward. She was so beautiful he wanted to take her into his arms and comfort her. But when he put a hand on her shoulder she jerked away. He felt like a fool watching her cry, so he wandered around the edge of the clearing.
“Do not enter the woods,” Moira said sharply through her tears. “It is not safe,” she sniffed.
“You mean lions and tigers and bears?”
“And other things,” Moira said grimly.
“You mean like . . . ULP!”
A huge black man stepped into the clearing directly in front of Wiz. He wore a leopard skin over his shoulders and a leather skirt around his huge middle. Around his neck was a necklace of bone with an eagle’s skull as a pendant. In his right hand he carried an intricately carved staff nearly as tall as he was. He grinned and Wiz saw his teeth were filed to needle-sharp points.
He was so black his skin showed highlights of purple and he was the biggest man Wiz had ever seen. It wasn’t just that he was more than six-and-a-half feet tall. His frame was huge, with shoulders twice as broad as a normal man’s. He had a great black belly, arms thicker than Wiz’s legs and legs like tree trunks.