'If you cannot be persuaded to help innocent people, then maybe this will mean something more to you.'

She drew her mother's skull from the sack and placed it in the wizard's upturned palm. 'It is a debt of bones. I declare it due.'

One eyebrow lifted. 'It is customary to bring only a tiny fragment of bone, child.'

Abby felt her face flush. 'I didn't know,' she stammered. 'I wanted to be sure there was enough to test ... to be sure you would believe me.'

He smoothed a gentle hand over the top of the skull. 'A piece smaller than a grain of sand is enough.' He watched Abby's eyes. 'Didn't your mother tell you?'

Abby shook her head. 'She said only that it was a debt passed to you from your father. She said the debt must be paid if it was called due.'

'Indeed it must,' he whispered.

Even as he spoke, his hand was gliding back and forth over the skull. The bone was dull and stained by the dirt from which Abby had pulled it, not at all the pristine white she had fancied it would be. It had horrified her to have to uncover her mother's bones, but the alternative horrified her more.

Beneath the wizard's fingers, the hone of the skull began to glow with soft amber light. Abby's breathing nearly stilled when the air hummed, as if the spirits themselves whispered to the wizard. The sorceress fussed with the beads at her neck. The Mother Confessor chewed her lower lip. Abby prayed.

Wizard Zorander set the skull on the table and turned his back on them. The amber glow faded away.

When he said nothing, Abby spoke into the thick silence. 'Well? Are you satisfied? Did your test prove it a debt true?'

'Oh yes,' he said quietly without turning towards them. 'It is a debt of bones true, bound by the magic invoked until the debt is paid.'

Abby's fingers worried at the frayed edge of her sack. T told you. My mother wouldn't have lied to me. She told me that if not paid while she was alive, it became a debt of bones upon her death.'

The wizard slowly rounded to face her. 'And did she tell you anything of the engendering of the debt?'

'No.' Abby cast a furtive, sidelong glance at Delora before going on. 'Sorceresses hold secrets close, and reveal only that which serves their purposes.'

With a slight, fleeting smile, he grunted his concurrence.

'She said only that it was your father and she who were bound in it, and that until paid it would continue to pass on to the descendants of each.' 'Your mother spoke the truth. But that does not mean that it must be paid now.'

'It is a solemn debt of bones.' Abby's frustration and fear erupted with om. 'I declare it due! You will yield to the obligation!'

Both the sorceress and the Mother Confessor gazed off at the walls, uneasy at a woman, an ungifted woman, raising her voice to the First Wizard himself. Abby suddenly wondered if she might be struck dead for such insolence. But if he didn't help her, it wouldn't matter.

The Mother Confessor diverted the possible results of Abby's outburst with a question. 'Zedd, did your reading tell you of the nature of the engendering of the debt?'

'Indeed it did,' he said. 'My father, too, told me of a debt. My test has proven to me that this is the one of which he spoke, and that the woman standing before me carries the other half of the link.'

'So, what was the engendering?' the sorceress asked.

He turned his palms up. 'It seems to have slipped my mind. I'm sorry; I find myself to be more forgetful than usual of late.'

Delora sniffed. 'And you dare to call sorceresses taciturn?'

Wizard Zorander silently considered her a moment and then turned a squint on the Mother Confessor. 'The council wants it done, do they?' He smiled a sly smile. Then it shall be done.'

The Mother Confessor cocked her head. 'Zedd ... are you sure about this?'

'About what?' Abby asked. 'Are you going to honour the debt or not?'

The wizard shrugged. 'You have declared the debt due.' He plucked a small book from the table and slipped it into a pocket in his robe. 'Who am I to argue?'

'Dear spirits,' the Mother Confessor whispered to herself. 'Zedd, just because the council -'

'I am just a wizard,' he said, cutting her off, 'serving the wants and wishes of the people.'

'But if you travel to this place you would be exposing yourself to needless danger.'

'I must be near the border - or it will claim parts of the Midlands, too. Coney Crossing is as good a place as any other to ignite the conflagration.'

Beside herself with relief, Abby was hardly hearing anything else he said. 'Thank you, Wizard Zorander. Thank you.'

He strode around the table and gripped her shoulder with sticklike fingers of surprising strength.

'We are bound, you and I, in a debt of bones. Our life paths have intersected.' His smile looked at once sad and sincere. His powerful ringers closed around her wrist, around her bracelet, and he put her mother's skull in her hands. 'Please, Abby, call me Zedd.'

Near tears, she nodded. 'Thank you, Zedd.'

Outside, in the early light, they were accosted by the waiting crowd. Wizard Thomas, waving his papers, shoved his way through.

'Zorander! I've been studying these elements you've provided. I have to talk to you.'

'Talk, then,’ the First Wizard said as he marched by. The crowd followed in his wake.

This is madness.'

T never said it wasn't.'

Wizard Thomas shook the papers as if for proof. 'You can't do this, Zorander!'

The council has decided that it is to be done. The war must be ended while we have the upper hand and before Panis Rahl comes up with something we won't be able to counter.'

'No, I mean I've studied this thing, and you won't be able to do it. We don't understand the power those wizards wielded. I've looked over the elements you've shown me. Even trying to invoke such a thing will create intense heat.'

Zedd halted and put his face close to Thomas. He lifted his eyebrows in mock surprise. 'Really, Thomas? Do you think? Igniting a light spell that will rip the fabric of the world of life might cause an instability in the elements of the web field?'

Thomas charged after as Zedd stormed off. 'Zorander! You won't be able to control it! If you were able to invoke it - and I'm not saying I believe you can - you would breach the Grace. The invocation uses heat. The breach feeds it. You won't be able to control the cascade. No one can do such a thing!'

'I can do it,’ the First Wizard muttered.

Thomas shook the fists of papers in a fury. 'Zorander, your arrogance will be the end of us all! Once parted, the veil will be rent and all life will be consumed. I demand to see the book in which you found this spell. I demand to see it myself. The whole thing, not just parts of it!'

The First Wizard paused and lifted a finger. Thomas, if you were meant to see the book, then you would be First Wizard and have access to the First Wizard's private enclave. But you are not, and you don't.'

Thomas's face glowed scarlet above his white beard. This is a foolhardy act of desperation!'

Wizard Zorander flicked the finger. The papers flew from the old wizard's hand and swirled up into a whirlwind, there to ignite, flaring into ashes that lifted away on the wind.

'Sometimes, Thomas, all that is left to you is an act of desperation. I am First Wizard, and I will do as I must. That is the end of it. I will hear no more.' He turned and snatched the sleeve of an officer. 'Alert the lancers. Gather all the cavalry available. We ride for Pendisan Reach at once.'

The man thumped a quick salute to his chest before dashing off. Another officer, older and looking to be of much higher rank, cleared his throat.

'Wizard Zorander, may I know of your plan?'

'It is Anargo,' the First Wizard said, 'who is the right hand of Panis Rahl, and in conjunction with Rahl conjures death to stalk us. Quite simply put, I intend to send death back at them.'