He absorbed the power that battered across his thoughts, letting it burn away at the bottom of his mind. Slowly his hold strengthened, until the Founder’s mind was familiar to him once more, as if it lay behind his own eyes. He ignored experiences, impulses, the long mysterious history of the Founder’s life, concentrating only on the source of his power, to drain it to exhaustion. He sensed the moment when Ghisteslwchlohm realized what he was doing, in the raw, frantic pulses of energy that nearly shook him loose again and again, until he forgot he possessed anything but a will and a mind at war with itself. The power-play stopped finally. He drew deeper, ferreting power and drawing it into himself, until the Founder yielded something to him unexpectedly: he found himself absorbing once more the knowledge of the land-law of Hed.
His hold faltered, broke in a wave of fury and revulsion at the irony. A chaotic flare of rage slapped him across the ground. He groped dizzily for shelter, but his mind could shape nothing but fire. The power broke through him again, sent him sprawling across burning rock. Someone pulled him off; the wizards, surrounding him, drew Ghisteslwchlohm’s attention with a swift, fierce barrage that shook the inner buildings. Talies, beating at his smoldering tunic, said tersely, “Just kill him.”
“No.”
“You stubborn farmer from Hed, if I survive this battle I am going to study riddlery.” His head turned suddenly. “There is fighting in the city. I hear death cries.”
“There’s an army of shape-changers. They came in the front gate while we were watching the back. I saw… I think I saw Yrth. Can he talk to crows?”
The wizard nodded. “Good. He must be fighting with the traders.” He helped Morgon to his feet. The earth rocked beneath them, sent him sprawling to the ground on top of Morgon. He shifted to his knees. Morgon rolled wearily to his feet and stood gazing at the shell of the hall. “He’s weakening in there.”
“He is?”
“I’m going in.”
“How?”
“I’ll walk. But I have to distract his attention…” He thought a moment, rubbing a burn on his wrist. His mind, scanning the grounds carefully, came to rest in the ancient, ruined library, with its hundreds of books of wizardry. The half-charred pages were still charged with power: with bindings woven into their locks, with unspoken names, with the energy of the minds that had scrawled all their experiences of power onto the pages. He woke that dormant power, gathered threads of it into his mind. Its chaos nearly overwhelmed him for a moment Speaking aloud, he spun a weird fabric of names, words, scraps of students’ grotesque spells, a tumult of knowledge and power that formed strange shapes in the flaring lights. Shadows, stones that moved and spoke, eyeless birds with wings the colors of wizards’ fire, shambling forms that built themselves out of the scorched earth, he sent marching toward Ghisteslwchlohm. He woke the wraiths of animals killed during the destruction: bats, crows, weasels, ferrets, foxes, shadowy white wolves; they swarmed through the night around him, seeking their lives from him until he sent them to the source of power. He had begun to work the roots of dead trees out of the earth when the vanguard of his army struck the Founder’s stronghold. The onslaught of fragments of power, clumsy, nearly harmless, yet too complex to ignore, drew the Founder’s attention. For a moment there was another lull, during which the wraith of a wolf whined an eerie death song. Morgon ran noiselessly toward the hall. He was nearly there when his own army fled back out of the hall, running around him and over him, scattering into the night toward the city.
Morgon flung his thoughts outward, herding the strange, misshapen creatures he had made back into oblivion before they terrorized Lungold. The effort of finding bats’ wraiths and shapes made out of clods of earth drained all his attention. When he finished finally, his mind spun again with names and words he had had to take back into himself. He filled his mind with fire, dissolving the remnants of power in it, drawing from its strength and clarity. He realized then, his heart jumping, that he stood in near-darkness.
An eerie silence lay over the grounds. Piles of broken wall still blazed red-hot from within, but the night was undisturbed over the school, and he could see stars. He stood listening, but the only fighting he heard came from the streets. He moved again, soundlessly, entered the hall.
It was black and silent as the caves of Erlenstar Mountain. He made one futile attempt to batter against the darkness and gave up. On impulse, he shaped the sword at his side and drew it. He held it by the blade, turned the eye of the stars to the darkness. He drew fire out of the night behind him, kindled it in the stars. A red light split across the dark, showed him Ghisteslwchlohm.
They looked at one another silently. The Founder seemed gaunt under the strange light, the bones pushing out under his skin. He voice sounded tired, neither threatening nor defeated. He said curiously, “You still can’t see in the dark.”
“I’ll learn.”
“You must eat darkness… You are a riddle, Morgon. You track a harpist all the way across the realm to kill him because you hated his harping, but you won’t kill me. You could have, while you held my mind, but you didn’t. You should try now. But you won’t. Why?”
“You don’t want me dead. Why?”
The wizard grunted. “A riddle-game… I might have known. How did you survive to escape from me that day on Trader’s Road? I barely escaped, myself.”
Morgon was silent. He lowered the sword, let the tip rest on the ground. “What are they? The shape-changers? You are the High One. You should know.”
“They were a legend here and there, a fragment of poetry, a bit of wet kelp and broken shell… a strange accusation made by a Ymris prince, until you left your land to find me. Now… they are becoming a nightmare. What do you know about them?”
“They’re ancient. They can be killed. They have enormous power, but they rarely use it. They’re killing traders and warriors in the streets of Lungold. I don’t know what in Hel’s name they are.”
“What do they see in you?”
“Whatever you see, I assume. You will answer that one for me.”
“Undoubtedly. The wise man knows his own name.”
“Don’t taunt me.” The light shivered a little between his hands. “You destroyed Lungold to keep my name from me. You hid all knowledge of it, you kept watch over the College at Caithnard—”
“Spare me the history of my life.”
“That’s what I want from you. Master Ohm. High One. Where did you find the courage to assume the name of the High One?”
“No one else claimed it.”
“Why?”
The wizard was silent a moment. “You could force answers from me,” he said at length. “I could reach out, bind the minds of the Lungold wizards again, so that you could not touch me. I could escape; you could pursue me. You could escape; I could pursue you. You could kill me, which would be exhausting work, and you would lose your most powerful protector.”
“Protector,” He dropped the syllables like three dry bones.
“I do want you alive. Do the shape-changers? Listen to me—”
“Don’t,” he said wearily, “even try. I’ll break your power once and for all. Oddly enough I don’t care if you live or die. At least you make sense to me, which is more than I can say for the shape-changers, or…” He stopped. The wizard took a step toward him.
“Morgon, you have looked at the world out of my eyes and you have my power. The more you touch land-law, the more men will remember that.”
“I have no intention of meddling with land-law! What do you think I am?”