“You see, he had only come back to divest himself of all his earthly power. As High Priest he had studied long the magic of sorcerers, the wizard’s art, and he had become keenly adept. But he saw that for what it was-the way of death. He put off his power-here, where he knew no one would misuse it.”

“As it happened, when Nimrood was discovered to have risen against the King and his kingdom, Durwin thought to come here to retrieve his power, to take it up again in this good cause. He proposed to face Nimrood himself, alone.”

Yeseph smiled sadly. “That was not to be.”

The elder’s words sank slowly in, but as their meaning broke fully in Quentin’s consciousness he exclaimed, “Then what will become of them! They go to meet the enemy unarmed!”

“They go. Unarmed they may be, but not unguarded. We could not allow our honorable friend to take such a terrible burden upon himself. It would destroy him. Theido understood that, although imperfectly. He knew that coming here would very likely mean the death of Durwin.”

“But he changed his mind-why?”

Yeseph shrugged, “He weakened in the face of the threat posed by the Harriers, and Durwin’s insistence. Still, that mattered but little. We did not allow them to carry out their plan.”

“The power has been put off. It is here and here it will stay.”

Quentin fought his rising emotions, but fear for his friends and anxiety over their safety roiled within him. “How could you let them go!” he shouted, leaping from his chair. Quentin knew nothing of Nimrood, only that everyone around him seemed to tremble at the name. The sorcerer appeared to be the cause of all the troubles besetting the land. He had not experienced the evil of the black wizard firsthand; he had been spared that, but he had formed a picture in his mind of something grotesque and twisted in its terrible hate, less a man than a maleficent monster. It was the monster Nimrood his friends now quested, unarmed by the power which Durwin might have commanded.

“How could you let them go?” he asked again quietly, hopelessly.

“How could we prevent them from going?” rejoined Yeseph kindly.

“What will happen now?” Quentin already expected the worst possible outcome. “They cannot stand against Nimrood alone.”

Yeseph smiled knowingly. “Your friends are not alone. The god goes with them.” He said it so simply, so trustingly that Quentin wanted desperately to believe him. But his own doubts, and all that he had seen in the temple, stole away his seed of belief before it could take root. His face fell in misery.

“What good is that? The gods do not care! Our lives mean nothing to them,” he said bitterly.

“You are right-and yet you are far from the truth.” Yeseph crossed the distance between them and peered into Quentin’s brown eyes intently. “The Most High God is One. The gods of earth and sky are but the chaff blown before the mighty wind of his coming. They cannot stand in his presence, and even now their power grows weak.”

“But what makes this nameless god different from all the others?”

“He cares.”

Again Quentin wanted desperately to believe, for the sake of his friends. But the years of temple training, all his earlier beliefs, rushed upon him and extinguished any spark of hope that what Yeseph said might be true. “I wish I could believe you.”

“Do not fear for your friends,” Yeseph said, placing a hand on Quentin’s arm. “The god holds them in the palm of his hand.”

“They will be destroyed!” said Quentin, recoiling in horror at the thought of his companions marching headlong into battle with the beast Nimrood, defenseless and vulnerable.

“They may be killed,” agreed Yeseph, “but not destroyed. There are worse things than death, though I would not expect you to know about them. It would be worse for Durwin to take up again the power which he laid down years ago-that would destroy him in the end. He would become the same as Nimrood. He would become the very thing he hated. That would be worse than honorable death.”

“Besides,” the Curatak elder said lightly, “do you think your presence with them would sway the balance very much?”

Quentin’s head fell to his chest; his cheeks burned with shame. “Who am I to make a difference?” he mocked sadly. “I am no one. No one at all.”

“You feel things deeply, Quentin,” soothed Yeseph. “You are young, impetuous. Your heart speaks before your head. But it will not always be so.”

“But is there nothing I can do to help them?” Quentin asked. He felt helpless and cast aside, useless baggage.

“Does it mean that much to you?” The elder eyed him closely.

Quentin nodded in silence. His eyes sought Yeseph’s for some sign that he would help him find a way.

“I see. The god’s ways are mysterious indeed. Well then, here is something to think about. I will bring it before the council of elders. There are those among us who discern more clearly than I how the god’s hand moves through time and men’s lives. We will seek their counsel.”

Quentin’s eyes brightened at the prospect, and hope revived in his heart. As he left Yeseph to his work he felt as if a great burden had been lifted from him. He did not know what to make of the feeling.

“Quentin,” the elder curator called after him as he slipped through the door, “there is more to you than meets the eye. I knew that the moment you opened your mouth to speak. When you have done whatever it is that has been given you to do, promise me that you will come back again and sit at my feet-there is much I would teach you.”

That night Quentin dreamed another flying dream.

JASPIN called his hirelings together in the great hall of Castle Erlott. The sun was well up and warming the land to a fresh and early spring. The Prince was growing more restive with each passing day-now pensive and brooding, now sweetly polite and even jovial in company. The tight little lines around his mouth told those who knew him best that the Prince was deeply troubled.

“I have decided that the Council of Regents must be held within a fortnight,” Jaspin told his assembled knights and nobles. Many had taken their leave of Erlott Fields to attend their own concerns, but many still remained at the Prince’s pleasure. These murmured at the suggestion that the Council should depart from its appointed time-midsummer.

“Sire, we must protest this alteration,” spoke Lord Naylor boldly. He and his neighbor, Lord Holben, alone dared to confront the Prince openly. Naylor himself, chief regent of the Council of Regents, was no great friend of Jaspin. Others in the group demonstrated their agreement with Lord Naylor by nodding and nudging one another. “After all these years? The Council will accomplish its duty in good time-and without undignified haste.” He laughed stiffly, knowing the danger he was in at that moment. “I see no reason to depart from our commission now.”

The Prince rankled at this challenge to his ambition. “What I propose shall be done,” he said firmly. “And you, my lord, shall see that it is done according to my wishes.”

Jaspin fixed Naylor with an icy glare and then looked around at each of the others individually, defying them to challenge him. “And you shall have the letters drawn up and dispatched to all the members not in attendance here, that we shall hold Council here in Erlott, not in Paget.”

“And if I refuse your suggestions?” questioned Lord Naylor, his own temper rising. The Prince little knew, or cared, that he was making the situation harder for himself by bullying the chief counselor of the regents. But Jaspin was a man whose mind seized upon a thing like a mongrel with a meaty bone and would not be put off.

“Refusal would be construed as a failure of your office. You could be replaced.”

Some who looked on, and who would have happily pledged their support of Prince Jaspin if allowed to do so with a show of free will, were now uneasy at the thought of electing him at his own direction-for so they surmised his plans. They were appalled at the idea of naming him king in his own castle, and not, as tradition dictated, in the traditional setting in the Hall of Paget.