All about, people spoke to him, argued at him, a few even shouted, but the wizard was silent as he looked into her eyes. His face was pleasing enough to look upon, gentle in appearance, even though his wavy brown hair looked ungovernable, but his eyes .. . Abby had never seen the likes of those eyes. They seemed to see all, to know all, to understand all. At the same time they were bloodshot and weary-looking, as if sleep eluded him. They had, too, the slightest glaze of distress. Even so, he was calm at the centre of the storm. For that moment that his attention was on her, it was as if no one else were in the room.

The lock of hair Abby had seen around the noble's finger was now held wrapped around the First Wizard's finger. He brushed it to his lips before lowering his arm.

'I am told you are the daughter of a sorceress.' His voice was placid water flowing through the tumult raging all about. 'Are you gifted, child?' 'No, sir . ..'

Even as she answered, he was turning to another who had just finished speaking. 'I told you, if you do, we chance losing them. Send word that I want him to cut south.'

The tall officer to whom the wizard spoke threw his hands up. 'But he said they've reliable scouting information that the D'Harans went east on him.'

'That's not the point,' the wizard said. 'I want that pass to the south sealed. That's where their main force went; they have gifted among them. They are the ones we must kill.'

The tall officer was saluting with a fist to his heart as the wizard turned to an old sorceress. 'Yes, that's right, three invocations before attempting the transposition. I found the reference last night.'

The old sorceress departed to be replaced by a man jabbering in a foreign tongue as he opened a scroll and held it up for the wizard to see. The wizard squinted towards it, reading a moment before waving the man away, while giving orders in the same foreign language. The wizard turned to Abby. 'You're a skip?' Abby felt her face heat and her ears burn. 'Yes, Wizard Zorander.' 'Nothing to be ashamed of, child,' he said while the Mother Confessor herself was whispering confidentially in his ear.

But it was something to be ashamed of. The gift hadn't passed on to her from her mother - it had skipped her.

The people of Coney Crossing had depended on Abby's mother. She helped with those who were ill or hurt. She advised people on matters of community and those of family. For some she arranged marriages. For some she meted out discipline. For some she bestowed favours available only through magic. She was a sorceress; she protected the people of Coney Crossing.

She was revered openly. By some, she was feared and loathed privately.

She was revered for the good she did for the people of Coney Crossing. By some, she had been feared and loathed because she had the gift -because she wielded magic. Others wanted nothing so much as to live their lives without any magic about.

Abby had no magic and couldn't help with illness or injury or shapeless fears. She dearly wished she could, but she couldn't. When Abby had asked her mother why she would abide all the thankless resentment, her mother told her that helping was its own reward and you should not expect gratitude for it. She said that if you went through life expecting gratitude for the help you provided, you might end up leading a miserable life.

When her mother was alive, Abby had been shunned in subtle ways; after her mother died, the shunning became more overt. It had been expected by the people of Coney Crossing that she would serve as her mother had served. People didn't understand about the gift, how it often wasn't passed on to an offspring; instead they thought Abby selfish.

The wizard was explaining something to a sorceress about the casting of a spell. When he finished, his gaze swept past Abby on its way to someone else. She needed his help, now.

'What is it you wanted to ask me, Abigail?'

Abby's fingers tightened on the sack. 'It's about my home of Coney Crossing.' She paused while the wizard pointed in a book being held out to him. He rolled his hand at her, gesturing for her to go on as a man was explaining an intricacy to do with inverting a duplex spell. 'There's terrible trouble there,' Abby said. 'D'Haran troops came through the Crossing .. .'

The First Wizard turned to an older man with a long white beard. By his simple robes, Abby guessed him as a wizard, too.

'I'm telling you, Thomas, it can be done.’ Wizard Zorander insisted. 'I'm not saying I agree with the council, I'm just telling you what I found and their unanimous decision that it be done. I'm not claiming to understand the details of just how it works, but I've studied it; it can be done. As I told the council, I can activate it. I have yet to decide if I agree with them that I should,'

The man, Thomas, wiped a hand across his face. 'You mean what I heard is true, then? That you really do think it's possible? Are you out of your mind, Zorander?'

'I found it in a book in the First Wizard's private enclave. A book from before the war with the Old World. I've seen it with my own eyes. I've cast a whole series of verification webs to test it.' He turned his attention to Abby. 'Yes, that would be Anargo's legion. Coney Crossing is in Pendisan Reach.'

'That's right,' Abby said. 'And so then this D'Haran army swept through there and -'

'Pendisan Reach refused to join with the rest of the Midlands under central command to resist the invasion from D'Hara. Standing by their sovereignty, they chose to fight the enemy in their own way. They have to live with the consequences of their actions.'

The old man was tugging on his beard, 'Still, do you know if it's real? All proven out? I mean, that book would have to be thousands of years old. It might have been conjecture. Verification webs don't always confirm the entire structure of such a thing.'

'I know that as well as you, Thomas, but I'm telling you, it's real,' Wizard Zorander said. His voice lowered to a whisper. The spirits preserve us, it's genuine.'

Abby's heart was pounding. She wanted to tell him her story, but she couldn't seem to get a word in. He had to help her. It was the only way.

An army officer rushed in from one of the back doors. He pushed his way into the crowd around the First Wizard.

'Wizard Zorander! I've just got word! When we unleashed the horns you sent, they worked! Urdland's force turned tail!'

Several voices fell silent. Others didn't.

'At least three thousand years old,' the First Wizard said to the man with the beard. He put a hand on the newly-arrived officer's shoulder and leaned close. Tell General Brainard to hold short at the Kern River. Don't burn the bridges, but hold them. Tell him to split his men. Leave half to keep Urdland's force from changing their mind; hopefully they won't be able to replace their field wizard. Have Brainard take the rest of his men north to help cut Anargo's escape route; that's where our concern lies, but we may still need the bridges to go after Urdland.'

One of the other officers, an older man looking possibly to be a general himself, went red in the face. 'Halt at the river? When the horns have done their job, and we have them on the run? But why! We can take them down before they have a chance to regroup and join up with another force to come back at us!'

Hazel eyes turned towards the man. 'And do you know what waits over the border? How many men will die if Panis Rahl has something waiting that the horns can't turn away? How many innocent lives has it already cost us? How many of our men will die to bleed them on their own land - land we don't know as they do?'

'And how many of our people will die if we don't eliminate their ability to come back at us another day! We must pursue them. Panis Rahl will never rest. He'll be working to conjure up something else to gut us all in our sleep. We must hunt them down and kill every last one!'