he said, the literal translation being "Great light." The image burst forth in all its splendor, a fiery green explosion of light spewing golden rays and blazing in Cadderly's mind. Cadderly cried out and looked away, nearly shouting, "fl/umas beffe!" as he fell out of his chair. Cadderly sat up and looked at the wizard, who was still sitting, holding the unremarkable wand in his extended hand.
"What just happened?" Belisarius asked bluntly. "I saw the powers - four distinctly," Cadderly stammered, "in my mind."
"And you repeated the triggering phrases," the perturbed wizard added, "exactly." "But how?" Cadderly asked him, honestly perplexed. "Go see a priest," Belisarius said with a snarl. "Why did
you waste my time and effort on things you already knew?"
"I did not," Cadderly insisted.
"Go see a priest," Belisarius repeated, tossing the wand to Cadderly.
The young man accepted the item and looked to the floor beside the wizard's chair. "\fe have one more ring to explore," he remarked, backing away into his chair as he spoke.
Belisarius scooped up the remaining ring, a gold band lined with diamond chips, and held it out for Cadderly to see. "You tell me," the wizard insisted.
Again Cadderly heard the distant song playing, but for the sake of his valued friend's pride, he consciously pushed it away.
"It is not magical," he lied, extending his hand to accept it.
"Hah!" the wizard snapped and pulled back his hand. "This is the most potent item of all!" He held it close to his sparkling, admiring eyes. "A ring for wizards," he explained, "to heighten their powers. It would be quite useless to you."
An alarm went off in Cadderly's head. What was sneaky Belisarius up to? The young priest concentrated not on the ring, but on the wizard himself, and saw a shadow image of Belisarius perched on the wizard's shoulder, waggling its eager fingers and rubbing its hands anxiously as it peered at the ring. But Cadderly realized that the wizard's greed was indeed for a wizard's item. The bent of the shadow told him beyond any doubt that Belisarius had not lied to him, and he privately berated himself for thinking differently.
"Keep it," he offered.
The wizard nearly toppled from his chair. His smile seemed as though it would engulf his ears. "I will," he said, his voice an unintentional shriek. "What might I pay you in return?"
Cadderly waved the thought away.
"I must insist," Belisarius continued, undaunted. "This is too valuable a gift - "
"Not to me," Cadderly reminded him.
Belisarius conceded the point with a nod, but still searched for some way to give something back to the young priest.
"Your walking stick!" he proclaimed at last.
Cadderly took up the item, not understanding.
"You use it as a weapon?"
"If I must use anything at all," Cadderly answered. "It is harder than my hand." The mere mention of open-handed combat inevitably brought an image of Danica to Cadderly's mind.
"But not as sturdy as you would like?" Belisarius went on, not noticing the cloud of despair that briefly crossed Cadderly's face.
"Do not deny it," the wizard insisted. "You regaled your fears for the feebleness of the weapon in your fight with the minotaur, when you readily accepted the image of it breaking."
Cadderly didn't argue.
"Leave it with me, my boy!" Belisarius cried. "Give me a few days, and I promise you that you will never consider it a feeble weapon again."
"So you are an enchanter as well?" Cadderly remarked.
"There are many wizardly talents that a cleric would not understand," the wizard replied with an exaggerated air of superiority.
"Especially a cleric who does not understand his own talents," Cadderly replied, his simple admission stealing the wizard's bluster.
Belisarius nodded and managed a weak smile, then left Cadderly with a final thought: "Moderation."
Cadderly was a bit surprised to find Nameless still wandering the road between the wizard's tower and Carra-doon, expecting that the beggar would either have gone to Carradoon to further his day's take, or to his wife and children to enjoy a reprieve from the unenviable lifestyle that had been forced upon him.
Cadderly grew even more surprised when the beggar looked at him and gave him an exaggerated wink, holding up and jingling the purse of gold with a lascivious smile on his dirty face.
Something about that gesture struck Cadderly as badly out of character for Nameless, an act of open greed or open thanks, neither of which applied to the proud, unfortunate man Cadderly had met earlier on the road.