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“And I am glad to see you, my master.”
“Have you been informed what is happening here?”
“Yes, Ilio has informed me. But I ca
“The point is to destroy the Nameless One forever,” Zemmel said severely, looking up from his book.
“At this very moment? This very night?”
“And what do you find so unsuitable about this night?” Elo asked, his fangs flashing.
“Well, if nothing else, the fact that there are only six of us instead of nine.”
“Don’t worry, you won’t have to strain yourself,” Zemmel said with a smile.
“That’s excellent. But I still don’t understand what all the haste is about. The Council is not full. Three members are absent.”
“Not all of us are required. Six is enough.”
“Perhaps so. But why are you so certain that we shall succeed in doing what other magicians of the Order have been unable to do in several centuries?” Valder asked, trying to speak in a calm and friendly ma
“I have been thinking the same thing,” said O’Kart, unexpectedly supporting Valder.
“The magicians of the past did not know what I know,” Zemmel declared weightily. “They did not make the effort to read several important books. It is all here,” he said, slapping the spine of his book with one hand. “The Kronk-a-Mor that protects the Nameless One so securely can be broken by using the Rainbow Horn.”
“But let us not forget,” Valder objected, “that the Horn, like the Kronk-a-Mor, was created by ogres, and we do not know what to expect from it if we start using the artifact at its full power. We still do not know if it is light or evil!”
“What incredible nonsense!” Zemmel snorted in a
The Horn was encrusted with silver, mother-of-pearl, and bluish ogre bone. The power with which it was filled made it tremble—the same power that so reliably held the Nameless One on the Desolate Lands.
“Do you feel any evil from it, Valder?”
The archmagician shook his head.
No, he couldn’t feel anything except primordial power. This magic was not dark. But then, he couldn’t have called it light, either. It was simply different. Absolutely alien, incomprehensible, and therefore dangerous. The Horn kept the secret of the ogres secure.
“Surely you don’t think the dark elves would have handed over an artifact to men if it contained even an iota of black shamanism?” Zemmel continued.
“If magicians can use the Horn, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t used by the shamans of the ogres,” said Ilio, speaking for the first time and supporting Valder. “I am also opposed to acting hastily. Let us wait for Artsis, Didra, and Singalus.”
“I support that,” O’Kart put in dourly. “To this day we have no idea what the Horn was created for. And we only guessed that it neutralizes the Kronk-a-Mor by pure chance. There’s no point in being hasty. The Nameless One has been sitting up in the north for all these years; nothing’s going to happen if he’s stuck there for one more week.”
“No, we shall do it today!” Zemmel was not smiling any longer. His eyes glinted angrily. “The star charts are favorable for tonight! Today or never. Because there will not be such a night for another forty years.”
“I propose an official vote on this insane idea!” Valder snapped curtly.
“Speak on this matter,” said Panarik, nodding and looking round at the assembled magicians. “Who is in favor of using the Horn to destroy the Nameless One’s defenses?”
“I am opposed,” said Valder.
“I am not certain that it will work, but I have complete confidence in the skill and experience of my respected colleague Zemmel,” said Elo, drawing out his words slowly. He set the Horn on a plinth that had been made ready in the center of the mirror floor. “I am in favor.”
“Naturally, this is exactly what I wish to achieve,” said Zemmel, giving Valder a mocking look.
“I am opposed,” Ilio said with a frown. “If only because the full Council should decide.”
“I am also opposed,” said O’Kart. “We ought not to wake a sleeping giant. Afterward, as we know, it is very difficult to get him to go back to sleep again.”
Three against two.
Now everything depended on what Panarik would say. If the votes were evenly divided, then the side supported by the master would win, for the simple reason that his vote carried more weight than the votes of the others.
“Zemmel’s arguments are entirely convincing,” the head of the Order said after a moment’s thought. “Let us try it. I am in favor.”
Now no one could go against the decision of the Council.
The magicians stood in a circle round the mirror on which the Horn was lying.
Valder saw Ilio’s glum face opposite him. The ogrophile was on Ilio’s right, with his book in his hands, and Panarik was on his left. The indifferent, abstracted Elo was standing stock-still on Valder’s right, and O’Kart was in the position between the Sullen Archmagician and Zemmel.
A feeble circle. Three magicians were missing and the others would have to call on all their skill.
“What is our task?” the elf asked.
“Simply open yourselves up. I need your power. Pass it through the Horn. Stream twelve, profile eight, if you please,” Zemmel replied, opening the old book at the right page. “And now . . .”
Valder remembered that phrase very well.
It was the phrase used to teach pupils to concentrate instantly and activate their energy. And now the archmagicians’ energy began passing through him and pouring into the Horn in a thin purple stream.
To his right Elo’s azure-greenish power, with the scent of fresh leaves, reached out and entwined with O’Kart’s fiery red stream. Panarik and Ilio also joined in.
A radiance appeared around the Horn, it pulsated and began changing color. The fiery red flame of a dragon was replaced by an orange sun, which was transformed into a yellow autumn which, in turn, changed to the green leaves of the forests of Siala, then became a bright blue spring sky, the bottomless blue Western Ocean, and then once again, as at the very begi