The Wizard came to Rentoro a century ago, she told him. No one knew where he came from, then or now. For all that anyone could tell, he might have fallen from the sky, and indeed there were some in Rentoro who believed that he had done so. Certainly it was hard to believe that any man born of woman on this earth could do all the things the Wizard of Rentoro had done in his hundred years of rule.

The first thing he did was call all the men and women of the nearest town to come forth to him. Some came of their own free will, because they were curious. Others at first refused to come, out of fear of a man they believed to be an evil sorcerer. Those who refused to come heard a voice in their minds-a voice that spoke without any words, but one which commanded them to come forth and meet the Wizard. At last even the bravest and strongest could no longer resist the commands in their minds.

So a whole town came forth and the Wizard put them to work. They built him a castle like none ever seen before in Rentoro, with four round towers as tall as great trees and walls so thick men could ride on heudas along their tops. They built houses all around the castle, and then another wall outside the houses. They built still more walls, running in all directions and meeting each other at odd angles. This caused some to say that the Wizard was mad. Finally they built another wall outside everything else, with huge gates in it.

Most of the children of the town died of hunger while their parents worked to build the Wizard's castle. Many of the men also died. Some died from too much work. Others were simply found dead in their tents in the morning. It was said that men who talked of escaping were particularly likely to be found dead in this way. Some of the women also died, and many were called to serve the lust of the Wizard or of those men he had found to serve him.

Not everyone hated the Wizard or saw him as an enemy. There were those who saw him as a powerful friend, whose magical powers might do much for those who served him freely. Most of these were men without masters, trades, or homes, rough strong men with little but their swords, the clothes they wore, and the heudas they rode. Many of these came to offer their services to the Wizard. He accepted them and made them into his Wolves.

He taught them to use weapons never seen before in Rentoro, such as the crossbows that could shoot bolts through oak doors. He taught them to make and wear the armor of steel plates and steel rings that few weapons in Rentoro could pierce, He divided them into bands of seven, each with a leader who wore armor all over and six who followed him, all seven mounted on fine, strong heudas.

The Wolves served the Wizard faithfully. He spoke to the leaders in the voice that had no words, giving them their orders. They in turn passed on the orders to those who followed them. The bands of Wolves swept all before them.

It took a generation and a few years more, but at the end of that time the Wizard ruled in Rentoro. Many fought against his rule and most of them died. They outnumbered the Wolves, to be sure, and after the first ten years they had weapons as good as the Wolves'. In a fair fight, the men of Rentoro might have beaten the Wolves.

But there had never been a fair fight, and there never would be, not against the Wizard's Wolves. The Wizard's magic fought on their side, and so no man could beat them.

«How does the Wizard's magic fight for them?» was Blade's question at this point.

Lorya could only tell Blade what she'd heard, and even about that she was vague. It took some time for Blade to understand what the Wizard's magic did-or at least seemed to do.

First, the Wizard saw everything that happened in Rentoro. At least he saw everything that went on in any city or town. Sooner or later, he also learned everything that happened in any village or farm that might be the smallest danger to his rule.

Whenever there was any such danger, the Wolves struck with their swift swords and bows. Men, women, and children died, many of them in particularly horrible ways. No one who survived could ever forget what he'd seen happen to those who defied the Wizard.

The Wolves rode into battle on their fine heudas, but they did not ride about Rentoro on them. The Wizard's magic sent them from place to place, faster even than a bird could fly through the air. This was certain, for the same Wolves had been seen fighting on the same day, in two towns more than a week's ride apart. This had happened not just once but many times.

So no army could assemble to fight the Wizard without his quickly learning of it. Indeed, it was dangerous to even talk of assembling such an army. Long before the rebels could be ready, the Wolves always came down upon them. No matter how many men the rebels might hope to have, when the battle was joined the Wolves always had more. So the Wolves always won, and then the survivors of the rebel army were burned or impaled or flogged to death, saw their wives raped, heard their children scream as they were thrown off walls.

It did not take many such battles and the butchery that came after them to drive home the lesson. Soon the Wizard had few enemies, and many men and women in the cities and towns who served him. Some served him out of fear, some out of hope of reward, some to be avenged on enemies. A few saw his rule as a good thing for Rentoro. In time the Wizard had so many servants he hardly needed his magic to tell him what was happening in Rentoro. In any city or town he had a hundred pairs of eyes to watch his enemies and a hundred pairs of lips to tell him what they might be planning. Sometimes he even had men willing to take up their own swords for him, so that the Wolves were not needed.

Although rebels were now few, the Wolves still had plenty of work. The Wizard's castle had as many people in it as a small city. It needed food and wine, firewood and iron, wagons and harness, heudas and draft animals, and much else. The Wolves regularly gathered all these things throughout Rentoro.

They also gathered an annual tax, paid in gold, silver, and jewels, silk and fine weapons, young women and young men.

The young women were always beautiful and everyone understood why the Wizard wanted them. The men were always the strongest and healthiest to be found, and it was less certain why the Wizard needed them. Certainly even his vast castle could not need so many servants and laborers? In any case, neither the men nor the women were ever seen again after the Wolves took them away.

This was the life the people of Rentoro had now led for three generations, since the last rebels were crushed outside the walls of the city of Morina. It was not the best life imaginable, but it was far from unbearable. The Wizard's taxes were never more than a man or a town could easily pay, and the Wolves seldom stole anything or hurt anyone without the Wizard's orders. Of course, if one was a strong young man or a beautiful young woman, an unknown fate was always hanging over one's head. Even that was something people could come to endure, given time.

Lorya herself was twenty, the daughter of a stablekeeper. She'd made a good marriage at eighteen, to the son and heir of a master harness maker. At nineteen she was a widow, for the Wolves came and took her husband away, leaving her with a child three months old. Four months after that, the child was dead of a fever. So being raped by the Wolves did not seem to her a great deal worse than what had already happened to her. She'd been quite ready to endure it as best she could when Blade came on the scene, as unexpected and as deadly as a thunderbolt. Now she found herself safe from some dangers, but in other ways even worse off, for she was a rebel against the Wizard.

«If so much had not already happened to me, I think I might want to throw myself into the nearest river. That would be a quicker, cleaner death than what the Wolves will give me when they catch me. Yet even the Wolves cannot frighten me that much now. It is also good that you are with me. I do not know what you can do, one man, a traveler who is not even from Rentoro. Yet you have slain three of the Wizard's Wolves. A man who can do that may do many other things.»