"So what is to be done?"
"Here," Pol said, locating the page he sought and reading silently for a time. "I had been wondering about this for some time," he went on. "Every four years there is a gathering of sorcerers at Belken, a mountain to the northwest. Ever hear of it?"
"Of course--as a good thing to stay away from."
"It will begin in about two weeks. I've decided to attend."
"If they're all like this fellow--" Mouseglove nodded toward the form upon the floor. "--I don't think it would be a very good idea."
Pol shook his head.
"The description makes it sound rather peaceful. Advanced practicioners discuss theory with one another, apprentices are initiated, rites involving more than one sorcerer get tried out, exotic articles are traded and sold, new effects demonstrated ..."
"The person behind this attempt on your life may be there."
"Exactly. I'd like to settle this quickly. It may all be some sort of misunderstanding. After all, I haven't been around long enough to have made any real enemies. And if the one I seek isn't there, I may learn something about him--if there is such a person. Either way, it makes it seem worthwhile."
"And that will be your only reason for going?"
"Well, no. I also feel the need for some formal training in the Art. Perhaps I can pick up a few pointers at something like that."
"I don't know, Pol ... It sounds kind of risky."
"Not going may prove even more dangerous in the long run."
They heard a scraping noise and a popping sound from the courtyard. Both rose and moved to the window. Looking downward, they saw nothing. Pol seemed to stroke the air with his fingertips.
"The man's mount," he said finally. "It's freed itself of whatever restraints he'd laid upon it and is preparing to depart." He moved his hand rapidly, raising the other one as well, "Maybe I can get a line on it, trace it back to where it came from."
The lesser kin of the dragon rose in the northeast and swept through a wide, rising arc, leftward.
"No good," Pol said, lowering his hands. "Missed him."
Mouseglove shrugged.
"I guess you won't be going with me," he said, "if you'll be heading for that convocation, in the other direction."
Pol nodded.
"I'll leave tomorrow, too, though. I'd rather be moving about than staying in one place between now and then. So we can take the trail for a little way together."
"You won't be riding Moonbird?"
"No, I want to see something of the countryside, too."
"Traveling alone also has its hazards."
"I'd imagine they are fewer for a sorcerer."
"Perhaps," Mouseglove replied.
The dark form of the dragon-mount dwindled against the northern sky, vanished within a mountain's shadow.
II
That night, as I permeated the dead man's body, seeking traces within his brain cells, I learned that his name had been Keth and that he had served one greater than himself. Nothing more. As I slid into and out of higher spaces, as I terminated a rat in a drainage channel in the manner I had recently learned, as I threaded my way among moonbeams in the old tower and slid along rafters in search of spiders, I thought upon the evening's doings and on all manner of existential questions which had not troubled me previously.
The energies of the creatures which I had taken had a bracing effect upon my overall being. I wandered through new areas of thought. Other beings existed in multitudes, yet I had never encountered another such as myself. Did this mean that I was unique? If not, where were the others? If so, why? From whence did I come? Was there a special reason for my existence? If yes, what could it be?
I swirled across the ramparts. I descended to the caverns far below and passed among the sleeping dragons and the other creatures. I felt no kinship with any of them.
It did not occur to me until much later that I must possess some particular attachment to Rondoval itself, else I might long ago have wandered off. I realized that I did prefer it and its environs to those other portions of the countryside into which I had ventured. Something had kept calling me back. What?
I returned to Pol's sleeping form and examined him very carefully, as I had every night since his arrival. And I found myself, as always, hovering above the dragonmark upon his right forearm. It, too, attracted me. For what reason, I could not say. It was at about the time of this man's arrival that I had begun the movement which had culminated in my present state of self-awareness. Was it somehow his doing? Or--the place having been deserted for as long as it had been--would the prolonged presence of anyone have worked the same effect within me?
My desire for purpose returned to me strongly. I began to feel that my apparent deficiency in this area might have been accidental, that perhaps I should possess a compulsion, that there was something I should be doing but had somehow lost or never learned. How significant, I wondered, was this feeling? Again, I was uncertain. But I began to understand what had produced my present attitude of inquiry.
Pol would be departing on the morrow. My memories of a time before his time had already become dim. Would I return to my more selfless state when he left? I did not believe so, yet I was willing to concede that he had played some part in my awakening into identity.
I realized at that moment that I was trying to make a decision. Should I remain at Rondoval or should I accompany Pol? And in either case, why?
I tried to terminate a bat in flight but it got away from me.
The two of them took the northern trail on foot that morning, traveling together through the pass and downward to the spring-touched green of the forest to the place of the crossroads Pol had marked upon the map he bore.
They rested their packs against the bole of a large oak, still darkly damp with the morning dew, and considered the mists which dwindled and faded even as they watched, while the sun became a bright bulge upon the slope of a mountain to their right. From somewhere behind them the first tentative notes of birdsong were commenced and then abandoned.
"You will be out of the hills by evening," said Pol, looking to the right. "It will be a few days before I get down, and then I'll have to climb again later. You'll be basking in the sea breeze while I'm still shivering my ass off. Well, good luck to you and thanks again--"
"Save the speech." said Mouseglove. "I'm coming along."
"To Belken?"
"All the way."
"Why?"
"I allowed myself to get too curious. Now I want to see how it all ends."
"It may well end indeed."
"You don't really believe that or you wouldn't be going. Come on! Don't try to talk me out of it. You might succeed."
Mouseglove raised his pack and moved off to the left. Shortly, Pol joined him. The sun looked over the mountain's shoulder and the gates of dawn were opened. Their shadows ran on before them.
That night they camped within a stand of pine trees, and Pol had a dream which felt like no dream he had ever known before. There was a clarity and a quality of consciousness involved which spun it past his inner eye with a disturbing simulation of reality, while in all aspects it was invested with a foreboding air of menace and yet possessed him with a certain dark joy.
Seven pale flames were moving in slow procession widdershins about him, as if summoning him, spirit fashion, to appear in their midst. He rose up slowly out of his body and stood like a bloodless image of himself. At this, they halted and left the ground. He followed them to treetop height and beyond. Then they escorted him northward, moving higher and faster beneath a sky filled with palely illuminated clouds. Grotesque shapes seemed to fill the trees below, the mountains about him. The wind made a whining sound and black forms flirted out of his way. The terrain rippled in dark waves as his speed increased. The wind became a howling thing, though he felt neither cold nor pressure from it.