Guerrand's eyes were dry and red from smoke, and the candle had burned by half before he began to make sense of the missive. The spiral pattern was far more complex than it had appeared at first, consisting of not one but eight intertwined paths. Woven through the spirals was a series of recurring symbols, elongated ovoids, that repeated an intricate pattern.
He leaned back in the stool and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Outside the open window was darkness. Guerrand wrapped a hand around the mug of his long-forgotten tea; it was well past cold.
If it's proving so difficult, why don't you just get rid of the note? The gull was settled in his nest in the far corner of the room, his small eyes closed.
Guerrand sat motionless for several moments. Abruptly he jumped to his feet and kicked back his stool, sending it crashing to the dirt floor. "Perhaps you're right, Zag." With that, Guerrand snatched up the scroll on his way to the open hearth and tossed the odd message into the flames.
Zagarus's beady orbs popped open in surprise as his master then jumped back behind the meager protection of the table and watched the missive burn. Smoke from the scroll roiled out of the hearth and formed the face of the Master of the Red Robes, Justarius, in a wavering, gray image. Excited, Guerrand came around the table to face the foggy image.
Ah, Guerrand. If you're hearing this, you were able to recognize that fire would release the magical bonds. I must apologize for putting you through yet another test so long after your apprenticeship, but I had to be sure that you alone received the details of this missive. 1 also had to be sure that years of life among the simple folk hadn't robbed you of your wits.
Guerrand ground his teeth against the presumption, particularly since it was so close to the truth. "How could you be sure that someone else didn't just toss it in the fire?" he demanded of the smoke, but the image didn't respond to his question. The mage had to remind himself that Justarius wasn't really here, just his magically recorded message.
Random placement in a fire wouldn't have released the message, Justarius's image was saying. The archmage had obviously anticipated his former apprentice's question. Guerrand vowed to keep his mouth shut and listen before he missed any more of Justarius's words.
The purpose of this missive is to inform you that the Council of Three requests your presence at Wayreth immediately. We wish to discuss with you a most urgent situation. Use your mirror to speed travel. All questions will be answered when you arrive. With that, the smokey visage of Justarius broke into wavering tendrils and stretched toward the hole in the thatch.
Guerrand jumped when the door behind him abruptly banged open. Dorigar stomped into the small house, slamming the door closed. "I don't suppose you've made anything to eat."
"No." Guerrand noted vaguely that the gnome had remembered to take the magical concoction the wizard prepared each morning to slow his assistant's speech to an understandable rate.
Dorigar marched up to a butcher's block and retrieved a device from beneath it. Several gleaming blades extended at divergent angles, mounted alongside measuring rods and depth gauges and mesh hand guards. With this doodad, Dorigar commenced slicing leeks into a kettle. Adding carrots and other herbs, he filled the pot with water. Last, Dorigar used an iron poker to hang the pot from a ring above the fire, stoked to furnace proportions.
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Guerrand quickly grew annoyed by the gnome's happy scurrying. The cottage seemed to grow a degree hotter with each beat of the wizard's heart. He jumped to his feet and rushed out into the night to lean against a linden tree. Drawing gulps of cool summer air, Guerrand listened to the distant lowing of cows, the ringing of bells calling men in from moonlit fields. The familiar sounds calmed him.
What's bothering you? asked Zagarus, settling upon a branch of the tree above his master. I haven't seen you so shaken since Esme left.
Guerrand slid down the tree into a crouch and dug his fists into his eyes. T don't know. Maybe I'm just tired from concentrating all afternoon on deciphering Justarius's message."
What do you think the Council wants?
"I'm sure 1 don't know that either." Guerrand crossed his arms tightly before him. "I do know that I'm not too keen on going back to Wayreth."
You'll have to check your handbook, of course, said Zagarus with exaggerated stuffiness, but I believe you gave up the right of refusal when you vowed loyalty to the Red Robes.
Guerrand scowled up at his familiar. "I know that, as well as you know there's no handbook. I merely said I don't want to go, not that I wouldn't."
The dull-black feathers on Zagarus's wings lifted in a shrug. So what's the problem?
Guerrand absently touched the scar along his cheek that had never healed completely in five years.
Is that still bothering you?
"No!" Guerrand snapped a little too quickly. He wasn't sure whether Zag meant the external or internal scars left by the third and final segment of his Test. A week never went by without him waking up in a sweat from the Dream. Though he had passed the Test, he felt certain the Dream meant he was supposed to take something else from the lesson. But he had no clearer idea of what that was now than he'd had when he walked away from the dreamlike tower in Palanthas and Justarius had told him he'd passed.
Guerrand glided up the tree to his feet. "I have no interest in leaving Harrowdown, even briefly, to stand around and compare spellbooks with a bunch of high- powered mages. I'm needed here." He began to pace. "To the villagers, my work is important. Harrowdown is prosperous compared to what it was when I arrived. Life as a mage may not be exactly what I dreamed back in Castle DiThon, but it isn't bad, either."
This is what you and Esme fought about, isn't it?
Guerrand's hand sliced the air like a scythe. "You know I won't talk about that."
Zagarus was silent for some time. You don't even know why justarius has summoned you. Aren't you the least bit curious? Maybe he just wants to say hello.
Guerrand chuckled without humor. "That's so like Justarius." He sighed his resignation. "But I guess we'll find out the truth soon enough." Heading back for the cottage door, he announced over his shoulder, "I'm going to take a few moments to eat some of Dorigar's delicious-smelling stew. Then I'll pack a few things, and we'll leave for Wayreth through the mirror."
Do you even have that piece of glass anymore? asked Zagarus. I haven't seen it for years.
"I packed it away in a safe place after the confrontation with Belize," explained Guerrand, referring to the magical looking glass the archmage Belize had given Guerrand before they'd left Castle DiThon. It allowed the bearer to magically travel far distances via a mirror world by mentally picturing a mirror where you wished to reenter the real world. Guerrand had used it only once since the Night of the Eye upon Stonecliff, and that had been to transport Esme, himself, and Zagarus away from the site of the destroyed pagan pillars to Palanthas.
Is it wise to use it after so long? asked the gull. I mean, you need a familiar destination point, and we've been away from Wayreth for a long time. Even there, things must change.
Guerrand waved away the concern. "Justarius himself recommended we use it. He must have removed any magical wards on Wayreth that would prevent us from entering."
Guerrand returned some time later from the cottage with his old leather pack filled and strung from shoulder to hip. Digging around in the bag, he pulled from it a familiar, hand-sized fragment of dusty glass and set it on the dirt path. The mage smiled ruefully up at his familiar and extended his arm as a perch for the gull. "Justarius awaits us."