parts and pickled dragons.
“You have been into lupu, Khe-Hi?”
“Yes. I sent my powers out and found nothing. It was strange. Ortyg Voinderam is no sorcerer of any kind, surely?”
“No. Not as far as I know.”
I felt the chill. If another sorcerer were at work here, preventing Bjanching from discovering the whereabouts of the runaways by means of his kharrna which gave him the power of observing events at a distance, then that other wizard might be
the
wizard...
Bjanching saw all that on my face.
“If Phu-Si-Yantong is interfering here...”
“Sink me!” I burst out. “I’ll have that devil’s tripes one of these fine days. He is a maniac and although I have searched for some I have failed to find goodness in him yet.”
“I do not know anyone who would say he was capable of an ounce of goodness—”
“Well,” I grumped, “I suppose he must have some redeeming features. If we could discover what they were perhaps we might talk to him—” I looked at Bjanching. “Have you contacted Deb-Lu-Quienyin?”
“I was about to do that when you arrived, majister.”
Deb-Lu-Quienyin, with whom I had been through a fraught time or two, had remained with Drak and my friends in the north where I fancied he would be of inestimable value to them. He was just about the most powerful Wizard of Loh there was — always excepting that crazed power-mad devil Phu-Si-Yantong.
Even though I had spent much time in company with Quienyin and Bjanching, and had seen Wizards of Loh performing their mysteries, I, like anyone else on Kregen, could never fully feel at ease as they set about their arcane rituals.
Khe-Hi-Bjanching wore a severe robe of a lustrous black. No runes or magical symbols sullied his vestments, and the pallor of his face and the fiery red Lohvian hair seemed, by contrast, all the more striking. As a young — or relatively young — Wizard of Loh, Bjanching might have been excused displays of thaumaturgical fashion. He disdained them. He was able to exert his power and go into lupu — that strange, half-trance state in which his kharrna extended and gave him pictures of people and events many miles away — without fuss and without many of the physical preparations of other Wizards of Loh I had known.
Waiting as Khe-Hi-Bjanching prepared himself, calmed his whole body and psyche, began to infiltrate the tendrils of his power into those arcane other worlds no mortal might tread with impunity, I found my sense of screaming impatience easing. This would take time, and time I did not have, yet I could wait quietly.
Bjanching’s eyes rolled up until, in the moment before he placed his palms over them, his eyes glared forth sightlessly in white blankness. The waiting was mercifully short. The Wizard of Loh’s breathing lengthened and drew out, softer and softer, shallower and shallower, until it seemed he did not breathe at all. The chambers gave no sound. We were two primeval spirits, isolated in the great mysteries.
Then — Bjanching lowered his hands.
He stared at me, and in his face that knowing look told me he had broken through.
I leaned forward eagerly. “Quienyin?”
No answer.
“San?” I gave the Wizard of Loh the honorific of dominie, or sage, and I breathed in a deep draught of the close air.
“Majister—” The voice was Bjanching’s. “San Quienyin is there, on the periphery, and he is trying to make contact with me. But...”
I put my teeth into my lip.
For a long space the two wizards sought to reach each other through that timeless, formless, unknowable hinterland of the occult. Sweat began to roll down Bjanching’s face. Abruptly, he jumped up, his black gown swirling. He took three faltering steps, beginning to spin around in that dervish-like whirling by which some wizards summon their powers. Instead of going on with the rituals that had been unnecessary for him for so long, he tottered and collapsed into his high-backed chair.
He looked at me, and that look of
“You have been into lupu, Khe-Hi?”
“Yes. I sent my powers out and found nothing. It was strange. Ortyg Voinderam is no sorcerer of any kind, surely?”
“No. Not as far as I know.”
I felt the chill. If another sorcerer were at work here, preventing Bjanching from discovering the whereabouts of the runaways by means of his kharrna which gave him the power of observing events at a distance, then that other wizard might be
the
wizard...
Bjanching saw all that on my face.
“If Phu-Si-Yantong is interfering here...”
“Sink me!” I burst out. “I’ll have that devil’s tripes one of these fine days. He is a maniac and although I have searched for some I have failed to find goodness in him yet.”
“I do not know anyone who would say he was capable of an ounce of goodness—”
“Well,” I grumped, “I suppose he must have some redeeming features. If we could discover what they were perhaps we might talk to him—” I looked at Bjanching. “Have you contacted Deb-Lu-Quienyin?”
“I was about to do that when you arrived, majister.”
Deb-Lu-Quienyin, with whom I had been through a fraught time or two, had remained with Drak and my friends in the north where I fancied he would be of inestimable value to them. He was just about the most powerful Wizard of Loh there was — always excepting that crazed power-mad devil Phu-Si-Yantong.
Even though I had spent much time in company with Quienyin and Bjanching, and had seen Wizards of Loh performing their mysteries, I, like anyone else on Kregen, could never fully feel at ease as they set about their arcane rituals.
Khe-Hi-Bjanching wore a severe robe of a lustrous black. No runes or magical symbols sullied his vestments, and the pallor of his face and the fiery red Lohvian hair seemed, by contrast, all the more striking. As a young — or relatively young — Wizard of Loh, Bjanching might have been excused displays of thaumaturgical fashion. He disdained them. He was able to exert his power and go into lupu — that strange, half-trance state in which his kharrna extended and gave him pictures of people and events many miles away — without fuss and without many of the physical preparations of other Wizards of Loh I had known.
Waiting as Khe-Hi-Bjanching prepared himself, calmed his whole body and psyche, began to infiltrate the tendrils of his power into those arcane other worlds no mortal might tread with impunity, I found my sense of screaming impatience easing. This would take time, and time I did not have, yet I could wait quietly.
Bjanching’s eyes rolled up until, in the moment before he placed his palms over them, his eyes glared forth sightlessly in white blankness. The waiting was mercifully short. The Wizard of Loh’s breathing lengthened and drew out, softer and softer, shallower and shallower, until it seemed he did not breathe at all. The chambers gave no sound. We were two primeval spirits, isolated in the great mysteries.
Then — Bjanching lowered his hands.
He stared at me, and in his face that knowing look told me he had broken through.
I leaned forward eagerly. “Quienyin?”
No answer.
“San?” I gave the Wizard of Loh the honorific of dominie, or sage, and I breathed in a deep draught of the close air.
“Majister—” The voice was Bjanching’s. “San Quienyin is there, on the periphery, and he is trying to make contact with me. But...”
I put my teeth into my lip.
For a long space the two wizards sought to reach each other through that timeless, formless, unknowable hinterland of the occult. Sweat began to roll down Bjanching’s face. Abruptly, he jumped up, his black gown swirling. He took three faltering steps, beginning to spin around in that dervish-like whirling by which some wizards summon their powers. Instead of going on with the rituals that had been unnecessary for him for so long, he tottered and collapsed into his high-backed chair.
He looked at me, and that look of
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