“Wait until my husband wakes up to find me missing,” said the White Robe at his side. “I’ll have some explaining to do when I go back home.”
“You think you have problems,” said the Black Robe, who sighed as he thought of the mess the demon was making in his laboratory. Provided he still had a laboratory.
All personal inconveniences were forgotten, however, as the wizards listened in shock to Jenna’s tale. She started at the beginning, telling Rhys’s story as he had told it to her. She ended with the ill-fated attack on the Beloved.
“The spell I cast was ‘Sunburst,’ ” she told them. “I assume all of you are familiar with it?”
There was a general nodding of hooded heads.
“As you know, this spell is particularly effective against undead. It should have fried that walking corpse to a crisp. It had no effect on it whatsoever. The Beloved laughed at me.”
“Since it is you, Jenna, who cast the spell, I must assume that there is no possibility that you made a mistake. That you mispronounced a word or used an impure spell component.”
The speaker was Dalamar the Dark, Head of the Order of Black Robes. Although an elf and one who was relatively young by elven standards, Dalamar appeared older than the eldest human at the table. His black hair was streaked with white. His eyes were set deep within hollow eye sockets. His fine-boned face seemed carved of ivory. Though he seemed frail, he was at the height of his power and well respected among all the Orders.
He should have been head of the Conclave but for a few regrettable mistakes in his past that had led both gods and wizards to oppose him and promote Jenna in his place. The two had been lovers many years ago and were still friends when they weren’t rivals.
“Since I am the one who cast the spell,” Jenna returned coolly, “I can assure you that there is no possibility that I made a mistake.”
Dalamar appeared skeptical.
Jenna raised her hand to heaven. “As Lunitari is my witness,” she declared. “Let the god send us a sign if I miscast the spell.”
“Jenna made no mistake,” said Lunitari with a frowning glance at Nuitari.
“Dalamar didn’t say she did,” Nuitari returned. “In fact, he said she didn’t.”
“That wasn’t what he meant.”
“Stop it, both of you,” Solinari intervened. “This is a serious matter, perhaps the most serious we have encountered since our return. Calm your ire, Cousin. Dalamar the Dark acted quite properly in asking for reassurance.”
“And he will get it,” said Lunitari.
The library was suddenly suffused with warm red light. Jenna smiled with satisfaction. Dalamar cast a glance toward heaven and inclined his hooded head in deference to the god.
“None of us doubts Mistress Jenna’s abilities, but even she must admit that there has to be some way to destroy these undead,” stated a White Robe. “As the paladin of Kiri-Jolith said, not even Chemosh can make a mortal indestructible.”
“There is always a first time for everything,” returned Dalamar caustically. “One hundred years ago, I would not have said that a god could steal away the world. Yet it happened.”
“Perhaps a sorcerer’s spell could destroy it,” suggested Coryn the White, the newest member of the Conclave. Although young, she was highly talented and reputed to be a great favorite of the god, Solinari.
Her fellow wizards, even those wearing the White Robes, regarded her with disapproval.
Sorcerers were those who used the wild magic that came from the world itself, not the godly magic from the heavens. Sorcerers had been practicing magic on Krynn during the gods’ absence. Sorcerers were not bound by the laws of High Sorcery but operated independently. In the days prior to the Second Cataclysm, such free agents would have been deemed renegades and hunted down by the members of all three Orders. Many members of this Conclave would have liked to have done that now but did not for several reasons: godly magic had only recently returned to Krynn, the wizards were still finding their way back to the old practices, their numbers were small and they were not yet well organized.
Mistress Jenna, as Head of the Conclave, advocated a policy of “live and let live,” and it was being followed for the most part. This did not mean, however, that wizards had friendly feelings for sorcerers. Quite the contrary.
Coryn the White had been a sorcerer who had only recently given up the wild magic for the more disciplined magic of the gods. She knew how the other mages felt regarding sorcerers, and she took a rather mischievous delight in teasing them. She was not teasing this time, however. She was deadly serious.
“Mistress Coryn has a point,” stated Jenna grudgingly. All the wizards regarded her in astonishment. A few Black Robes scowled and muttered.
“I have several sorcerers who are customers of mine,” Jenna continued. “I will contact them and urge them try their skills against these creatures. I do not hold out much hope that their luck will be any better than ours, however.”
“Hope!” a Red Robe repeated angrily. “Let us hope that these Beloved stomp the sorcerers into the ground! Do you realize what this would mean for us if a sorcerer could kill these heinous creatures and we could not? We would be the laughing stock of Ansalon! I say we keep knowledge of these Beloved to ourselves. Don’t tell the sorcerers.”
“Too late,” said a Black Robe grimly. “Now that the clerics know about it, they will be holding prayer services with the faithful rolling about on the ground in hysterics and priests flinging holy water on anything that moves. They’ll find a way to blame this on wizards. Wait and see if they don’t.”
“And that is the very reason we must establish guidelines for how we deal with the Beloved and make our position known to the public,” said Jenna. “Wizards must be seen to be working with everyone in order to find a solution to this mystery, even if that means joining forces with priests and sorcerers and mystics.”
120
“Thereby admitting that we can’t deal with it ourselves,” said a White Robe sourly. “What do you say, Mistress Coryn?”
“I agree with Mistress Jenna. We should be open and honest about these Beloved. The problems we wizards have faced in the past came about as a result of cloaking ourselves in mystery and secrecy.”
“Oh, I quite agree,” said Dalamar. “I say we throw open the doors of the Tower and invite the rabble to come spend the day. We can do demonstrations, set off fireballs and the like, and serve milk punch and cookies on the lawn.”
“Be sarcastic all you like, my friend,” Jenna returned coolly. “But that won’t make this terrible situation go away. Have you anything constructive to suggest, Master of the Black Robes?”
Dalamar was silent a moment, absently tracing a sigil on top of the table with a delicate fingers.
“What I find most intriguing is the involvement of Mina,” he said at last.
“Mina!” Jenna returned, astonished. “I don’t see why you find her so intriguing. The girl has no mind of her own. She was once a pawn of Takhisis. Now she’s a pawn of Chemosh. She’s merely traded one master for another.”
“I find it intriguing that it is the mark of her lips that is burned into the flesh of these wretched creatures,” said Dalamar.
“Please don’t doodle.” said Jenna, placing her hand over his. “The last time you did that, you burned a hole in the table. As for Mina, she is nothing more than a pretty face Chemosh uses to lure young men to their doom.”
Dalamar rubbed out the sigil with the sleeve of his black robe. “Nevertheless, I believe that she is the key that will unlock the door to this mystery.”
Nuitari was not surprised that his wizard’s thoughts tended in the same direction as his own. The bond between Nuitari and Dalamar was a close one. The two, god and mortal, had endured many trials together. Nuitari planned to eventually establish Dalamar as the Master of the Blood Sea Tower. Not just yet, however. Not until everything was settled with his two cousins.