'I'm working on that,’ the First Wizard said cryptically.

The old man twisted his beard and made a sarcastic face. 'Yes, he thinks he can unleash the underworld itself on them.'

Several officers, two of the sorceresses, and a couple of the men in robes paused to stare in open disbelief.

The sorceress who had brought Abby to the audience leaned close. 'You wanted to talk to the First Wizard. Talk. If you have lost your nerve, then I will see you out.'

Abby wet her lips. She didn't know how she could talk into the middle of such a roundabout conversation, but she knew she must, so she just started back in.

'Sir, I don't know anything about what my homeland of Pendisan Reach has done. I know little of the king. I don't know anything about the council, or the war, or any of it. I'm from a small place, and I only know that the people there are in grave trouble. Our defenders were overrun by the enemy. There is an army of Midlands men who drive towards the D'Harans.'

She felt foolish talking to a man who was carrying on a half-dozen conversations all at once. Mostly, though, she felt anger and frustration. Those people were going to die if she couldn't convince him to help.

'How many D'Harans?' the wizard asked.

Abby opened her mouth, but an officer spoke in her place. 'We're not sure how many are left in Anargo's legion. They may be wounded, but they're an enraged wounded bull. Now they're in sight of their homeland. They can only come back at us, or escape us. We've got Sanderson sweeping down from the north and Mardale cutting up from the southwest. Anargo made a mistake going into the Crossing; in there he must fight us or run for home. We have to finish them. This may be our only chance.'

The First Wizard drew a finger and thumb down his smooth jaw. 'Still, we aren't sure of their numbers. The scouts were dependable, but they never returned. We can only assume they're dead. And why would Anargo do such a thing?'

'Well,' the officer said, 'it's the shortest escape route back to D'Hara.'

The First Wizard turned to a sorceress to answer a question she had just finished. 'I can't see how we can afford it. Tell them I said no. I'll not cast that kind of web for them and I'll not give them the means to it for no more offered than a "maybe".'

The sorceress nodded before rushing off.

Abby knew that a web was the spell cast by a sorceress. Apparently the spell cast by a wizard was called the same.

'Well, if such a thing is possible,' the bearded man was saying, 'then I'd like to see your exegesis of the text, A three-thousand-year-old book is a lot of risk. We've no clue as to how the wizards of that time could do most of what they did.'

The First Wizard, for the first time, cast a hot glare towards the man. 'Thomas, do you want to see exactly what I'm talking about? The spell-form?'

Some of the people had fallen silent at the tone in his voice. The First Wizard threw open his arms, urging everyone back out of his way. The Mother Confessor stayed close behind his left shoulder. The sorceress beside Abby pulled her back a step.

The First Wizard motioned. A man snatched a small sack off the table and handed it to him. Abby noticed that some of the sand on the tables wasn't simply spilled, but had been used to draw symbols. Abby's mother had occasionally drawn spells with sand, but mostly used a variety of other things, from ground bone to dried herbs. Abby's mother had used sand for practice; spells, real spells, had to be drawn in proper order and without error.

The First Wizard squatted down and took a handful of sand from the sack. He drew on the floor by letting the sand drizzle from the side of his fist.

Wizard Zorander's hand moved with practised precision. His arm swept around, drawing a circle. He returned for a handful of sand and drew an inner circle. It appeared he was drawing a Grace.

Abby's mother had always drawn the square second; everything in order inward and then the rays back out. Wizard Zorander drew the eight-pointed star inside the smaller circle. He drew the lines radiating outward, through both circles, but left one absent.

He had yet to draw the square, representing the boundary between worlds. He was the First Wizard, so Abby guessed that it wasn't improper to do it in a different order than a sorceress in a little place like Coney Crossing. But several of the men Abby took as wizards, and the two sorceresses behind him, were turning grave glances to one another.

Wizard Zorander laid down the lines of sand for two sides of the square. He scooped up more sand from the sack and began the last two sides.

Instead of a straight line, he drew an arc that dipped well into the edge of the inner circle - the one representing the world of life. The arc, instead of ending at the outer circle, crossed it. He drew the last side, likewise arced, so that it too crossed into the inner circle. He brought the line to meet the other where the ray from the Light was missing. Unlike the other three points of the square, this last point ended outside the larger circle - in the world of the dead.

People gasped. A hush fell over the room for a moment before worried whispers spread among those gifted.

Wizard Zorander rose. 'Satisfied, Thomas?'

Thomas's face had gone as white as his beard. 'The Creator preserve us.' His eyes turned to Wizard Zorander. 'The council doesn't truly understand this. It would be madness to unleash it.'

Wizard Zorander ignored him and turned towards Abby. 'How many D'Harans did you see?'

Three years past, the locust swarms came. The hills of the Crossing were brown with them. I think 1 saw more D'Harans than I saw locusts.'

Wizard Zorander grunted his discontent. He looked down at the Grace he had drawn. 'Panis Rahl won't give up. How long, Thomas? How long until he finds something new to conjure and sends Anargo back on us?' His gaze swept among the people around him. 'How many years have we thought we would be annihilated by the invading horde from D'Hara? How many of our people have been killed by Rahl's magic? How many thousands have died of the fevers he sent? How many thousands have blistered and bled to death from the touch of the shadow people he conjured? How many villages, towns, and cities has he wiped from existence?'

When no one spoke, Wizard Zorander went on.

'It has taken us years to come back from the brink. The war has finally turned; the enemy is running. We now have three choices. The first choice is to let him run for home and hope he never comes back to again visit us with his brutality. I think it would only be a matter of time until he tried again. That leaves two realistic options. We can either pursue him into his lair and kill him for good at the cost of tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of our men - or I can end it.'

Those gifted among the crowd cast uneasy glances to the Grace drawn on the floor.

'We still have other magic,' another wizard said. 'We can use it to the same effect without unleashing such a cataclysm.'

'Wizard Zorander is right,’ another said, 'and so is the council. The enemy has earned this fate. We must set it upon them.’

The room fell again to arguing. As it did, Wizard Zorander looked into Abby's eyes. It was a clear instruction to finish her supplication.

'My people - the people in Coney Crossing - have been taken by the D'Harans. They have others, too, who they've captured. They have a sorceress holding the captives with a spell. Please, Wizard Zorander, you must help me.

'When I was hiding, I heard the sorceress talking to their officers. The D'Harans plan to use the captives as shields. They will use the captives to blunt the deadly magic you send against them, or to blunt the spears and arrows the Midlands army sends against them. If they decide to turn and attack, they plan to drive the captives ahead. They called it "dulling the enemies' weapons on their own women and children".'