The Magicians of Night - By Barbara Hambly Page 0,58
little chamber. The Archmage, in the act of leaning forward from Jaldis’ carved chair, paused to note their entry, then turned back to the Gray Lady who stood, arms folded tight about her, in the curtained window embrasure. Near the small hearth sat Nessa of Dun—the Serpentlady, tall, heavy, and beautiful in the brown-and-black robes of the Morkensik Order—and with her the boyish, white-haired Astrologer of Fell and another brown-robed Morkensik mage whom Tally could not identify, though she knew him by sight as she knew so many of the wizards who had come visiting Jaldis over the past seven years.
“Any magic, any body of knowledge that powerful, must be kept to the smallest number of folk,” the Archmage went on, his ugly face anxious and conciliating. “You know how quickly such things can be perverted to the worst uses. Remember what happened when the Blood-Mages learned the lore to summon demons...”
“That was the Dark Sect, the wizard Canturban’s students,” the Gray Lady protested.
“That’s true,” Gyzan added. “Even the other Blood-Mages shun them.”
“Be that as it may.” The Archmage waved a heavy-muscled hand. “It could as easily have been any of those splinter sects. You know no Blood-Mage has the training in balance and restraint that wizards must have—your pardon, Gyzan, but you know that’s true.”
“I know nothing of the kind. All Blood-Mages aren’t like—”
“The wider the knowledge,” Shavus went on as if his friend had not spoken, “the more chance there is for... accidents. Or spying.”
“You’re saying you don’t trust us.”
“I’m saying I don’t trust some of the people who have access to the library on your islands. Suppose one of your Ladies takes it into her head to go over to the Earth-witches next year and takes with her whatever she may have found out? Can you guarantee they won’t...”
“The Earth-witches are perfectly harmless.”
“They say,” Harospix of Fell remarked.
The Lady’s sharp hazel gaze flicked to the Morkensiks sitting grouped by the hearth. “I am only saying that this concentration of knowledge can be taken too far.” She looked back at Shavus. “From what I understand, he didn’t even teach Rhion how to open a Dark Well, for fear I’d get that information out of him.”
“Well, you did seduce him in an effort to get Jaldis’ books away from him.”
“That was not...” the Gray Lady began, then glanced sidelong at Tally, and fell silent.
“Oh, Shavus,” Nessa chided and caught Tally’s eyes mischievously. “As if she’d need a reason to try to seduce Rhion!”
Both Tally and the Gray Lady laughed, and Shavus, relieved, rose to his feet and went to clasp Tally’s hands in his own. “I think you know Nessa, the Court Mage of the Earl of Dun,” he said. “Harospix Harsprodin, and his student Gelpick of Wendt. They’ve come—and Erigalt of Pelter and Frayle the White should be here by tomorrow—to help in seeking through the Dark Well for some sign of Rhion and Jaldis and to assist in bringing them back. As you know it needs magic on both sides of the Void in order to make the jump, and since, as Jaldis says, there is no magic in that world or, if any, only a very little that can be raised at the solstices and the equinoxes, it’s going to need a great deal on this side to bring them through. We’re going to be watching by the Well in turns.”
“And the other Morkensiks were kind enough to come and make it unnecessary to share the Well’s secrets with myself or Gyzan,” the Gray Lady added, turning back from the window, for all her soft stockiness moving with powerful grace. Her hands, rubbing on the plain meal-colored homespun of her sleeve, were thick with muscle from the bread bowl, the shears, and the spindle; alone among them, she did not wear the robe of a wizard, but only a simple dress, such as the peasant women of the Drowned Lands wore, with irises embroidered on its breast.
“Nay, I never said that!” Shavus protested.
“Did you think it?”
Shavus hesitated. Harospix inclined his snowy head with a courtier’s grace. “There are different forms of magic, Lady,” he said gently. “Different frames of reference. At the moment it is not the time to deal with the inevitable misunderstandings of trying to mesh an intellectual system like the Morkensiks’ with an organic one such as your own.”
The Gray Lady’s lips pressed thin; Gyzan folded his arms, and within his tattooed eyelids his brown eyes were grave and sad.