"You're suggesting I seize my father's authority," said Bram.

Guerrand had no love for Cormac. There was no doubt his brother should have relinquished his authority to Bram years ago. "Haven't you all but done that anyway?" he asked his nephew.

"I had hoped to spare my father some measure of dignity," conceded Bram, "though he has done nothing

toward that himself."

"We," said the king, speaking royally, "have taken other, more severe, measures to prevent Thonvil from perishing." His intense blue eyes held Guerrand's meaningfully before settling upon Bram. "But they have yet to yield fruit. I am not without hope; however, I don't think Thonvil can wait."

Guerrand felt a precognitive shiver run through his body.

"Let us assume, for the sake of argument," said Bram, "that I'm willing to oust my lord and father. Just how am I supposed to lead the people to salvation?"

"You are a human of high intellect and moral character," the king remarked, "not unlike the previous lord, Rejik DiThon. He was a strong and virtuous leader."

"I was very young when my grandfather died," reflected Bram. "I'm afraid I remember precious little about him, and certainly not enough to emulate his behavior."

"But your uncle does." Though his words were directed at Bram, the king's frosty eyes held Guerrand's. "Can you envision what your father could have accomplished during his reign if he'd had an able mage at his side?"

The question strummed a sharp memory chord, and Guerrand nodded vaguely. Even his small magics had brought new life to the small village of Harrowdown- on-the-Schallsea.

"Then imagine how Bram's compassionate rule and your magic could restore this land," prompted the long.

Guerrand recalled, too well, a discussion with Cormac on the very subject. He'd tried to convince his brother to conquer his fear of magic and see the good it could do in Thonvil. But, of course, Cormac had flatly refused to consider that magic was anything but evil.

Ox Oedusa plague

Guerrand thought it ironic that, ten years later, he was being given the chance to prove he'd been right.

King Weador watched the play of emotions across the mage's face. "You will have a wise advisor and powerful magical ally in your uncle," the king said confidently to Bram.

Guerrand came back from his thoughts and held his palms up. "Slow down, there. I already have a job."

The king's white eyebrows turned down. "Ah, yes. Bastion."

"You know of it?"

"That question indicates an inadequate understanding of tuatha dundarael," King Weador observed. "Remember, we made it possible for Bram to reach Wayreth in a matter of moments, instead of a fortnight. There is almost no corner of the cosmos our faerie roads do not reach. In fact, there is very little in the magical world of which I am not at least peripherally aware."

Weador's intense blue eyes abruptly penetrated Guerrand's in a most disconcerting way The king said nothing at first. Instead, he reached out a stubby, be- ringed hand to the front of Guerrand's robe and brushed away the sooty black smudges there. All but one magically disappeared under the king's fingers. Expression grave, Weador gave that side of the robe a tug so that Guerrand could better see the mark.

Perplexed into silence, Guerrand squinted down his chin to regard the dark smudge that so interested King Weador. On closer inspection, the soot appeared to have a pattern, like the whorls and lines of a thumbprint. A black thumbprint.

Guerrand's head jerked up, and his eyes met Weador's knowing gaze. He gasped as the memory of who had last touched the front of his robe sprang to mind: Nuitari.

"It's a thumbprint. So what? What does it mean?" demanded Bram.

"I have sensed you were in grave danger from the moment we met," King Weador admitted to Guerrand, ignoring Bram's question. "But that feeling intensified when we spoke of Bastion." The king's eyes commanded Guerrand's in a manner the mage couldn't resist. "Beware there, Guerrand DiThon."

That said, the king of the tuatha pushed himself up from his toadstool throne. "Our business is concluded." Before their eyes, the white-haired tuatha king and his silent minions faded from view like a bittersweet dream upon waking.

And, like a dream, Guerrand could not call Weador back for questions.

Chapter Seventeen

I’ve got to get to Bastion." Guerrand declared, his voice breathy with anxiety. He fished around in the pouch whose strap still crisscrossed his chest.

Bram grabbed his arm. "Stop and think, Rand," he pleaded. "Weador said there was danger for you there. What better reason do you need to stay here in Thonvil?"

Guerrand stopped rummaging briefly to gape in disbelief at his nephew. "You can't mean that-you're no more a coward than I am, Bram. Bastion is my responsibility."

Bram rubbed his face. "No, I didn't mean that. I'm just worried, is all. I haven't gone through all this to lose you to some threat I don't even understand."

Frowning his preoccupation, Guerrand didn't hear Bram. His fingertips at last met with the object he sought. "Got it!" he cried, holding the fragment of magical mirror aloft.

Bram looked at the shard in that accepting way he'd come to view strange things of magic, took a deep breath, and stood up straight. "Well, then, let's get going."

Guerrand lowered the mirror slowly. "You can't come with me, Bram."

"Why not?"

"I'll list some of the countless reasons, in no particular order," Guerrand said. "Bastion is my responsibility, not yours. You haven't permission to return there. You're needed here to begin bringing Thonvil back to life."

'That can wait one day," Bram countered.

"Can it?" Guerrand's tone suggested he thought otherwise. "Besides," he added, "you have to stay here and keep my mirror safe."

Bram looked perplexed.

"I can't teleport between planes," Guerrand explained. "Instead, I'm going to step into this magical mirror and exit through one in the red wing of Bastion. But that means I have to leave the mirror behind. Although only someone who has seen the inside of Bastion could use it to follow me there, it's still too powerful a device to let fall into the wrong hands."

Bram's nostrils flared in anger. "So I'm to stay here and protect a piece of glass while you're in who- knows-what manner of danger." Guerrand's expression told Bram he wouldn't budge on this issue. "I don't like this one bit," the younger man said, but he bowed his head in resignation.

"I must go now, Bram," Guerrand said as gently as he could. Turning back to the cottage where Zagarus rested on the roof, he yelled, "Come on, Zag." The familiar spread his wings with a dolorous flap, apparently resigned to never getting any rest, and flew directly into the tiny piece of glass and disappeared.

Guerrand raised a foot, but turned to Bram. "I'll tbe Cl)ei›usA plague

send word, either in person or by missive, so don't fear." He touched his nephew's sleeve, then bent his head to the shard. "Be of strong heart, Bram."

"Have a care!" Bram cried, but his uncle had already disappeared into the impossibly small mirror. All the nobleman could see now was his own fretful expression reflected in the shiny glass. He snatched up the mirror, placed it in a pocket, and strode off to face his

own problems at Castle DiThon.

Guerrand fairly flew through one of the reflective mirrors in the seascape room, trying to look all ways at once. He stopped and shook his head at his behavior. As if whatever danger Weador predicted would be lurking in his seascape where Zagarus was perched at water's edge.

The first thing Guerrand did was race to his dressing area and remove his red robe, more tarnished than soiled. He wrenched it from his shoulders and flung it to the ground, unable to resist the temptation to grind the thumb-printed thing under his feet as he reached for one of the clean red garments that hung in his clothespress. He shrugged that one on and cinched it tight about the waist. As if to confirm that he had removed Nuitari's mark and was safe, he checked himself in a glass. Before his horrified eyes, the mark reappeared in the same spot on the new garment, and on each of the three others he frantically donned. Devastated, Guerrand gave in to the inevitability of the mark and slid down the wall to the floor to think.