Tarrin stood in place and watched as the mage carefully mixed the two liquids, nearly drop by drop, until the liquid in the beaker on the table suddenly began to bubble and turn dark. "There we are," Phandebrass said, mainly to himself, watching the bubbling reaction carefully. The solution frothed violently, then seemed to stop with a suddenness that surprised him. "Very good. What did you want, my boy?" he asked, then he picked up the strange foamed mixture, and to Tarrin's shock, began to drink it.

Whatever he was doing, he must know what he was doing, Tarrin decided after watching him imbibe the entire contents of the beaker. "I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about your magic."

"Oh? And what did you want to know?" he asked, setting the beaker down.

"Just how it works, I guess. I've never seen wizard magic in use before until the battle, and I didn't realize it was so-"

"Versatile? Yes, that's the power of Wizardry, my boy. Our spells are very wide-ranging. There's a spell for nearly anything you can think of."

"How does it work?"

Phandebrass laughed. "That, my boy, is something that takes years to learn," he replied. "There's more to it than jabbering strange words and making pretzels of your fingers. You have to have the concentration to control the power you create, or it will blow up in your face."

"I learned a little about Wizard magic in the Tower. That rod of steel you used, that was a material con-component?"

Phandebrass nodded. "Some spells need the presence of an item or material to act as a catalyst for the magic. Most components are consumed in the casting of the spell."

"Why?"

Phandebrass stared at him, and then he laughed. "You can't have something for nothing, my boy. A mage sometimes has to give to receive his magic. Every spell a mage casts requires that the mage give a little something, if only his breath and a little bit of his energy. Most of the stronger spells demand something a bit more than that, though. That means that for some spells, we have to find the right materials to make it work right. Some of them can be very expensive."

"Huh," Tarrin mused, looking at the beakers on the table. "Dolanna told me that wizards receive their magic from an elsewhere, a place not of our world. Is that what you learned?"

"I know where my magic comes from, my boy," Phandebrass smiled. "Wizards tap the energies of the Energy Realms for their magic. All our power comes from those two dimensions. There's the Realm of Light, which is positive energy, and the Realm of Darkness, which is negative energy. A spell is just that raw energy shaped into a specific effect. A great deal how your Sorcery works. You take the raw energy of your spheres and shape it into a specific effect. We do the same, just with one type of energy rather than several."

"One? You said you tapped two powers."

"There are two powers, I say, but no spell taps them both at the same time. They would cancel each other out, my boy. A spell is made up of either positive energy or negative energy, depending on what the spell does."

"What would a negative energy spell be?"

"Well, let's see," he pondered. "A spell of darkness is negative energy. There's a spell to conjure the voices of the dead-any spell dealing with Necromancy is negative energy-and a spell to suck the energy right out of someone. I say, generally any spell that takes away, drains, or reduces something is negative energy. Battlemagic like fire and explosions, spells that grant the recepient of the spell limited magical abilities, things like that, that's positive energy. You're not draining, you're adding. The spell where I turned myself to steel is a positive energy spell. It's a spell of Transmutation."

"Trans-what?"

"You have your spheres, my boy," Phandebrass chuckled. "We mages divide up our spells into categories that define what they do. There's Transmutation, changing one thing to another, there's Abjuration, spells of protection, there's Evocation, spells that summon energy in one form or another, which is the majority of wizard battlemagic, there's Charming, using spells to affect the mind or emotions of a subject, there's Enchantment, that imbues magical energy on mundane objects, and there's Necromancy, using magic to interact with the dead."

"I heard about Necromancy. It gives your group a bad reputation."

"Some use it in ways I don't approve, my boy, but all power is as good or as bad as the reasons behind using it. There are Necromancy spells that are very beneficial, but I must admit that even I know some that most people would consider ghastly."

"Like what?"

"Like a spell that imbues animate force in dead bodies, making them zombies," he replied. "I say, I don't much like Necromancy, but I'll learn the spells even if I have no intent to use them. It's knowledge, and a man can never know enough." He set his beaker down. "That Doomwalker is the result of a Necromancy spell."

Tarrin's ears picked up, and he regarded Phandebrass intently. "How much do you know about that?"

"Enough to know to stay out of its way, my boy," the mage replied. "Doomwalkers are not to be tested."

"Can I make it just die?"

"I say, I'm afraid not, my boy," he replied. "The wizard who summoned it has hold of the Doomwalker's soul, and it's doing what the summoner impels it to do, because its very soul hangs in the balance. Destroy it, and the Doomwalker's bound soul can make it animate the nearest available suitable corpse. If you totally destroy the current host body, it is forced back into its prison vessel, and has to be conjured again."

"So that's why it took so long to come back," Tarrin mused. "I totally destroyed it the first time with magic, but the last time, Triana just killed it. That means that it's close to me again, right?"

Phandebrass nodded. "It probably took it about a tenday to find a new body suitable for its needs and re-animate. Then it had to find suitable weapons to deal with you. It can't just create magical weapons, it had to go find one. You know how rare those are. That explains why we didn't see it in Shoran's Fork. It wasn't ready to tackle you again."

"Do you know any spells to get rid of it?"

Phandebrass shook his head. "Doomwalkers are a creation of Wizard magic, so they can't be affected by Wizard magic. Other orders of magic can affect them, but a Doomwalker's magical nature makes it very hard to affect with any type of magic. The only way to permanently kill it is to take or destroy the soul prison the conjuring mage uses to trap its soul. When you face it again, I highly suggest you destroy it, my boy. Send it back to its creator. That will give you more time before you have to face it again."

"It's good, Phandebrass. I usually don't have many options when I face it."

"Then don't face it alone, my boy," the mage said calmly. "You have a good many people around you that will help you deal with it, deal with anything. Why you don't accept their aid boggles me sometimes."

The simple effectiveness of his statement struck Tarrin hard, but it was something that he had faced himself long ago. He wouldn't involve others in his personal battles because he wouldn't risk their lives. Miranda had proved to him that if he lost someone close to him, he wouldn't survive the rage that would result. Keeping his friends and sisters out of harm's way was as much an act of self-preservation as it was keeping them safe.

"It's an act of preservation, Phandebrass," he replied quietly. "Mine as well as theirs. Remember what happened when Miranda and Sisska were hurt?"

Phandebrass looked at him, then nodded in understanding. "I say, I guess I should have just asked," he said with a wry smile.

"That does work," Tarrin agreed.

"I say, my boy, I need to do some mixing, and it's something of a delicate nature. If you're willing to keep quiet, you're welcome to stay, but I can't afford any distractions. A moment's distraction could cause it to explode."