The Conclave: "Under The Earth"

More from our Conclave campaign, which owes much to Ursula K Le Guin -- or so I'm told, not having read the Earthsea books. (I will, but our umpire Tim Harford advised us not to until the adventure ends.)

And incidentally, in case you're confused, the party do indeed seem at this point to have acquired two enemies named Felt and Feltass (or Felteth according to some of the PCs). Or maybe they're one and the same. They've both got to die anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter...

SESSION SIX

The fish-scale armour made Eli’s heart beat again, and even gave him the power to move. But he was a puppet whose strings I pulled, his own will burned down to a cinder.

‘He is fallen into the sere and yellow leaf, the autumn of his strength. It gives me an idea. I can alter his skin to something like the green of springtime, so that the sun will fill him with fresh vigour. But to do that we need a grove of trees so that I can draw the essence of their sap to replace his blood.’

‘He may not appreciate the metamorphosis,’ mused Hurstyk.

I pointed to the drool on Eli’s slack jaw. ‘He appreciates not even the air that my enclosing armour bellows to and from his lungs. Let us set sail for – ’

‘The nearest island is Tulli,’ ventured Aareth.

I glanced at the hourglass in whose fashioning I had called upon the very name of Time. Its sands flowed swifter, but it would not run out for a day yet. ‘Set a course.’

‘As we go,’ said Aareth, ‘why don’t I read this book, The Black Knot?’

So saying he thrust his hand between its pages, screamed, and wrenched his fingers back. A white gold ring fell to the deck.

‘Lady Pale gave that to me,’ he said, clutching his seared flesh, which Hurstyk treated with his healing magic. ‘I have been under her spell this while, but now am free.’

‘And are you now going to read the book?’

He looked daunted. ‘When I said that just now, I merely meant to cause you mischief in my lady’s service.’

‘Nonetheless, it may hold a clue.’

Reluctantly, it seemed, he turned the pages. Black script on black reminded me of the white on white of Pale’s banner. ‘In the labyrinth of Tartuva there dwell the Sightless Ones,’ read Aareth. ‘They are gods.’

‘All that betokens is the ignorance of the native islanders. I should know. Read on.’

‘A great wizard of the north, Diamansus by name, sought to bring light to the island. He came bearing a prismatic jewel, yet after a battle with the high priestess he was defeated and his jewel was lost in the depths.’

‘That jewel is what we need. Pale occludes true names by dazzling the eye of reality – white on white means that nothing can be perceived. Likewise the Black Knot is darkness layered upon darkness, and in that illimitable caliginosity no true names can be read. The balance between these two is lately disrupted, and if that continues then the world will be washed over with either the blinding light or the blinding dark. There will be no names then. It is the Void.’

‘How do you know these things?’ asked Wax.

‘By consummate and ineffable understanding. You know that I speak the truth.’

The ring still lay between us on the boards. I looked closer and read the true name of the metal. It was of the substance of gold but the essence of quicksilver. ‘There is a mine of that metal very near, perhaps on the island whither we now sail.’

The sages of Hythe chipped in with advice, but I cannot now separate it in my memory from the squawking of the gulls that flew above our sails. It was agreed that they would put their minds to a conundrum, namely how it was that Hurstyk and Wax retained the ability to remember names during our encounter with Feltass, when Pale’s radiance had robbed the rest of us of much of our power.

Moss demurred. ‘I am done with magic.’

‘All of you wizards of Hythe may as well be. You are misers of magic, rich only in the power you refuse to wield even in time of need. Knowledge locked away is not balance, as you like to pretend it to be, but mere indecision. In your cowardice and secrecy you have forfeited the right to dictate to those of us in this conclave who now go forth to face the foe no matter how dreadful her gifts.’

It was agreed that Moss and Mirrowaith would ponder the problem, yet I could see that Hurstyk would find the answer sooner than they.

‘Landfall!’ cried a sailor from the rigging.

Tulli was a small island with a paltry town of low, rude dwellings. Jude’s ship, the one that had nearly intercepted us outbound from Port Karmon, lay at anchor. I noticed a figure in armour swimming across the harbour towards us. I read his name easily but by some intuition felt that it would be impossible to use it in any conjuration.

‘This is strange…’

‘I could shoot him,’ said Ironside.

‘Let’s hear him out,’ suggested Hurstyk.

The fellow came aboard. His armour, which had been of metal, had transformed itself into leather. He announced himself Abdiel, an inquisitor – whatever they may be – and recognized Eli as a fellow member of his order. He leaned close to examine his comrade, who stood rigid in the rainbow armour I had given him but whose face remained slack and without the spark of sentience.

‘He has spent his vigour,’ Abdiel said.

‘We know.’

‘Ah, but I must tell you – ’

‘That our enemy is here. We know that too.’

‘Yes, but what you do not know – ’

‘ – is that they mine for white gold here. That is one of the two reasons we have come.’

We steered the Sea Lion around a headland, out of sight of the port, and Wax on his turtle guided us bare inches above scraping spines of undersea rock until we were harboured safe in a cove near a grove of palm trees that would serve my purpose.

‘What of the ring?’ said Aareth for, like all of us, he sensed Pale trying to scrutinize us through it. ‘Can she see us through it? I’ll put it between the pages of the book.’

‘You’re going to touch it again?’ said Idhelruin dubiously.

Aareth rubbed his jaw. ‘I’ll wear gloves. And handle it with a shovel.’

Abdiel picked up the ring, dropped it between the pages of the book, and closed the cover. ‘Like so, masters?’

‘It is well done,’ agreed Hurstyk. ‘But wait. Abdiel, I perceive you carry a taint. It pervades this whole isle.’ He looked at all of us. ‘The White Death is here.’

‘Fortunately you have mastered it before…’ said Wax, working up to a howl of adoration until he remembered that Hurstyk had forbidden him to do so.

Hurstyk frowned, and turned his magic on Abdiel, finally drawing forth and extirpating the infectious spirits.

Meanwhile, having commanded the seagulls to watch out for spies, I turned my ministrations on Eli. First tender shoots buttressed his skin, working deep through to the bones where sap would refresh his sluggish blood. Green and glossy was his skin. His eyes sparkled now, the dry film gone as new life flowered there. Lastly I enclosed him entirely in the armour, a hard shell in which the burgeoning vitality could come to full fruition.

‘A chrysalis,’ said Aareth.

‘Say rather a seed case, from which Eli’s new life will be born.’

There was a cloud on Abdiel’s brow. ‘I know not he would thank you for this transformation, master. Death is preferable to some fates, I’d say.’

‘Death is easy to deliver. I bring it swifter than most, being the god my islanders look to when a man is impaled on a narwhal’s tusk or slips through a hole in the ice. Working this green magic is not my accustomed way, but to thwart Obsidian we must confound our very natures. And so in this I work a miracle of new life.’

‘Still and all, Eli was proud of his healthy hue. To be leaf-complexioned…’

‘Enough. He will be the flower of your order. You should give thanks, or prayers even – not stand there and cavil like an actuary of Hythe.’

‘Remember the hourglass,’ said Hurstyk.

He was right. We had less than a day to do the other thing we had come for – to take some of the quicksilver ore in case we had need of it on Tartuva. My senses no longer bound by Time, whose name I’d spoken true, I perceived that the tide would be in our favour when it came time to depart. But we must be swift.

‘I’ll stay with the ship,’ volunteered Idhelruin. He was right; we could not leave it in the command of Moss and Mirrowaith.

A fallen palm frond lay by my foot, as big as a pikestaff blade and nearly as sharp. I took it, knowing there would be need for it later.

As Abdiel led us towards the mine, sand-spitting whirlwinds went swiftly ahead of us – spirits conjured by Wax to clear our way. We’d lost sight of them by the time we reached the mine workings.

A cage came up the shaft bearing half a dozen emaciated slaves. I freed the mind of one, a woman named Alma, and she immediately collapsed. It was only the force of magic, that had till now compelled her service, that sustained her from a weakness that was close to death.

‘If we flood the mine, innocents like her will die,’ said Hurstyk.

‘They have guards who work for them too,’ said Abdiel, unsheathing his sword. ‘I think they are not innocent.’

‘So we descend?’ said Ironside, looking down the black shaft.

‘I could summon Felt to us here.’

Aareth looked at me in shock. ‘Summon a living man? I have heard of spirits being summoned, never that.’

‘You have seen me summon insects and vermin.’ I might have mentioned whales, or indeed the wizard Birch who I had nearly called to me in Karmon. I reached out, divining a part of Felt’s name from our previous encounter with him, when I determined he was the last to read On Those Who Have No True Name.

In the depths of the mine, he felt my influence and laughed. ‘I summon you,’ he retorted, and it was my turn to laugh.

Aareth transformed himself into a fly and vanished into the mine shaft.

‘Well, we won’t do that,’ said Hurstyk. ‘Shall I wait here for you? I’m not a combatant.’

Abdiel and Ironside got into the cage, which it seemed could move up and down the shaft by an ingenious contrivance of counterweights and pulleys. I called down a gull and plucked three feathers. ‘When you hold it thus you are weightless and will float down,’ I told Wax. ‘To ascend, flick it like a small fan thus.’

The third feather was for Hurstyk, but he was already using his own magic to descend. Wisely he had realized that a ‘non-combatant’ would not be safe remaining here alone.

Below we almost immediately came face to face with two armed guards. Scenting battle, Abdiel’s armour transformed itself back into plate steel. He was for butchering the guards, but I felt they would be of more use if I brought them into my own service. ‘Now you are free,’ I told them as they bowed. ‘You have a new master.’

‘Felt and Job are deep below,’ they told us.

‘And the whirlwind spirits?’

‘We did not see them. Our former master makes short work of conjured creatures.’

‘Where’s Aareth?’ wondered Wax.

‘Why didn’t you let me kill these guards?’ Abdiel interjected. ‘You said that men are insects.’

‘I said I had summoned insects, Abdiel, but that is a very good suggestion. Aareth, where e’er you are, come to me.’

I saw a glimpse of a fly trapped in a bottle with a spider, the bottle resting in the palm of a wizard who regarded the scene with a sneer. Felt.

‘He cannot come. Aareth, a fly you are no more. Now be a scorpion bigger than a man.’

From far off in the tunnels came a cry of dismay. Abdiel ran towards it, Ironside close behind him. Turning a corner, they faced a chitinous monster with scything claws and a sting that dripped smoking venom. Abdiel ducked, rolled and was past it, still running. Ironside backed towards us. The scorpion scuttled closer. It filled the tunnel. Its pincers scraped the rock walls. All I had specified was bigger than man-sized; it was Aareth’s own hubris that supplied the rest.

‘Sometimes I am not sure I am entirely infallible,’ I said.

‘That will not be easy to deal with,’ said Ironside, noticing how its sting swayed ready to strike.

‘Scorpion, be Aareth again.’ And our comrade stood there, a little puzzled by what had happened to him.

Ahead of us, Abdiel met with Job, the nameless man. Their swords clashed, and Job fought Abdiel back, but the inquisitor’s armour meant that even a swift and surgical blow was insufficient to draw blood. So closely matched, Abdiel’s enchanted plate against Job’s dazzling skill, they might have fought for an hour without either gaining the upper hand. But then Ironside strode forward and put an arrow through the back of Job’s mouth.

‘Do you know,’ said Hurstyk, ‘I’ve just thought of why Wax and I could remember names when the rest of you could not.’

‘It’s hardly the time – ’ I began. Then I saw the look of benumbed wits in his eyes. The others were the same, gazing about them in mild stupefaction as though our affairs here in the mine were of no more urgency than a stroll around a marketplace.

The hourglass! The sands were close to running out. Some sorcery here had folded time upon us – the very enchantment I had considered earlier and then discounted.

‘Aareth, Hurstyk, regain your senses.’ I dispelled the fog that blanketed their minds, then pulled white gold ore together to make a golem of quicksilver nuggets.

‘We must go back,’ said Hurstyk.

‘We can’t. The White Watcher is already here. We need to find another way out.’

The guards told us where the old mineshaft led out under the sea. They were not sure how to get there from these tunnels, but Abdiel – his mind now magically cleared – drew on a mariner’s knowledge of old timbers, pointing out where the beams were new and where they marked out abandoned sections of the mine.

We came to a dead end. Above, dully, rocks stirred by the tide could be heard scraping on the seabed. I drew forth the palm frond, commanding it to form itself into an iron-hard tube as Hurstyk read the patterns in the tunnel roof, pointing out the cracks through which my tube could insinuate itself, widening until there was a fissure through which we could ascend.

On the surface, I reshaped the palm frond into a raft, in doing so allowing the sea to flood down into the mine. Wax’s turtle rose from the water nearby and took the edge of our raft in its mouth, pulling us back to the Sea Lion, where Idhelruin had had Eli’s pericarp-shelled body brought.

We looked back to where the sea frothed and boiled. The torrent pouring into the mine workings might hold up the Watcher for a few minutes, and with luck would inconvenience Felt too.

‘I was going to tell you my idea,’ said Hurstyk. ‘I think that the White Death is tied to Lady Pale’s power. I deduced the name of the White Death, and I cured Wax of it. That could explain why Lady Pale’s radiance did not fully block our ability to remember names. Of course, it’s just a theory.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘It is a consummate and ineffable understanding.’

The Conclave: "Armour Of Rainbows"

The fifth session of our Earthsea-ish campaign The Conclave, and an astounding revelation awaits the seven (male) sorcerers. This was a short write-up because the session included quite a long fight -- exciting at the time, but the choreography of a battle is boring to read.

SESSION FIVE

Midnight in the garden of Princess Sheytelandin. The White Watcher met me under a mulberry tree, as others have in folktales.

‘You have what is mine. Now give it to me.’

Moments before, anticipating our interview, I had armoured myself using the transmuted fish scales I brought from the ship. It was proof against the weight of miles of ocean, robust enough to hold back the crushing pressure in the deepest submarine trench. More than that, the silver skin refracted and reflected the moonlight, turning the white radiance into a rainbow sheen that not only blocked the sapping power of Pale’s gaze but turned it outwards against those around me.

I considered. The Watcher stood with its hand out. I gave it the gem from the Summoner’s staff. In its triumph, it failed to notice that I had already read its true name from within the gem’s secret heart. Our fingers brushed, a sense of cold, and I was glad of the forethought that had shielded me in armour born of lightless depths where no moon penetrates.

Farris came back through the gateway I’d conjured to the ship. Sheltered from the Watcher’s power by my armour, he pulled me back towards the gate.

‘Leave it with the gem,’ I warned him, seeing him considering trying to snatch it back. ‘It thinks it has recovered its name, but it’s known to me.’

A moment later we were on the deck of the Sea Lion, putting out from a cove a few miles around the coast. ‘Make for the island of Tartuva,’ Aareth called to his crew.

‘Four of these marines are in the service of Lord Pale,’ noticed Idhelruin.

‘Indeed.’ We had all noticed that – apart from Aareth, it seemed. I had thought it was deliberate, so that we could feed information to our foe.

‘Shall I uncloud their minds – ?’ I began.

‘Drown yourselves,’ Eli told them.

‘Not certain enough,’ said Farris a moment later, as they flopped in their leather armour amid the waves. He skewered them with arrows.

Interesting. It might have been easier to restore the marines’ senses and free them from Pale’s magical command, but fear had taken root among us and as always it provokes desperate and violent measures. And as mortals the four marines were marked for death in any case. We watched them sink in a froth of red as sharks found the carcasses.

On the clifftops we spied a pale figure against the dawn. It dropped to the sea and began to walk across the waves towards us, at no great pace but infinitely remorseless.

‘The Walker. I mean the Watcher,’ said Aareth. ‘Hoist those sails, lads.’

I fashioned an hourglass that would record the Watcher’s progress. When the sands run out we’ll know it is upon us. As the vessel picked up speed, the sands reversed their flow and the figure of the Watcher dwindled in the distance. I must work on this device. Given time I can make it do more, even forewarn us of the waxing and waning of Pale’s influence.

‘Aareth,’ I said. ‘Can you look into the Dry Lands and see if Obsidian’s spirit is yet there?’

‘But you told us that Obsidian had turned himself into Lord Pale.’

‘Indeed I did. But even I am not infallibly omniscient. It is a theory; now let us verify it.’

His gaze turned inward. Through clouded eyes he gazed on the sere landscape that has no bourn from which a traveller could return, where only oases of dust exist to slake the unquenchable thirst of the dead. With an effort he dragged himself back to us, shivering.

‘Obsidian was a woman,’ he said with a look of wild certainty. ‘Lady Pale it is who seeks our doom.’

Eli looked up from our copy of Attempts on the Lives of Wizards. ‘Yes, she was feared as the most powerful witch of her generation. She was refused admission to the College of Hythe – ’

‘Because she was not craven or useless enough!’ snorted Wax.

‘She resolved to kill all other wizards and make herself preeminent,’ I said. ‘That is why she summoned the Watcher. In the Dry Lands she will have come face to face with eternity and wrought her apotheosis. Hence her association with the full moon, whose mythic symbolism has always been interpreted as female.’

‘What can we do?’ mused Idhelruin.

‘One of us could enter the Dry Lands and walk the same path, but that dream-quest took her twenty years. And there is no guarantee that the true names of all things are to be found there. We must find a quicker way.’

Eli had flipped to almost the last page of the book – or it had seemed the penultimate page, but more were knitting themselves into the binding as we watched. ‘One other female wizard’s death is recorded here, just hours ago,’ he said solemnly. He turned to Idhelruin. ‘I’m sorry. It was the Princess.’

‘She hid her power all these years,’ said Idhelruin. ‘Not well enough, it now seems – or can any hope to hide from the White Watcher? My friends, I must now tell you what it is you risked your lives to recover. This bell was entrusted to me by the wizards of Hythe. It will reveal a single true name and then crack.’

We nodded, knowing well whose name we’d need when the time came.

‘I declare myself the dog of Hurstyk,’ announced Wax suddenly. ‘I make myself your cur, master. Throw me bones, that’s all I ask. You have saved my life twice and I am nothing beside you. I’ll bark if you permit it.’

‘Do as you will,’ said Hurstyk. ‘I have no commands to give you.’

‘Here’s another name,’ said Eli, still browsing through the book. ‘The wizard Ugo was killed by the Watcher a few days since. Remember him? He calmed an earthquake by saying soft words to the mountaintops. Now he is gone from life.’

‘Somebody must stop this madwoman,’ growled Aareth. ‘Half a century she’s spent scheming. She’s grown old in making herself so mighty, and to what end? To murder all other wizards and spread indiscriminate plague throughout the isles.’

A discriminating plague – there was an interesting notion, and one that a benevolent god could use to improve the world immeasurably. But we had other concerns.

‘Another ship coming up on us fast,’ called Farris.

It flew the pallid flag we’d seen before, white moon on white. A haze robbed the sun of strength, making its light more of a lunar hue. I saw in the faces of the others a confusion. They looked around, unable to find the names of even simple things.

The other ship overhauled us and came alongside. Only ten marines stood ready to board – or two, rather, after Farris’s arrows had done their swift work. Feltass crouched behind a mast, but even there a dagger flung by Aareth sought him out and hurt him.

Farris and Aareth jumped across to the other deck. Feltass commanded them. He knew our names. ‘Eli, throw yourself overboard.’ And so he did, but Wax still knew the name of his turtle and Eli landed on its shell.

Wax also knew the name of his coral spear, which now inflicted another wound on Feltass. For all that he had control of the most powerful of us, our foe could not see a way to press his advantage. The turtle moved with astonishing speed and in seconds Eli was on the rail behind Feltass. He lunged, missing, but recovered his balance and bore Feltass over the side, locked in a deathly embrace.

Feltass’s magic now broken, those he’d commanded were again themselves. The sun beat down with its accustomed fire as Pale’s clutch slowly withdrew like a spider into the dimmest corner of its web. Wax sent down his turtle and it returned with Eli, but he lay limp on the deck like a deboned fish, having burned deep into the wick of his soul to find the strength to slay our adversary.

My armour I made to flow about him. It will give him the means to move, but impulsion comes not from strength so much as force of will, and that coin he has spent at a dire rate of exchange to buy our ashen victory.

The Conclave: "The Unmade Future"

My write-up for the fourth session of Tim Harford's Conclave campaign went a little differently -- I did it before we played the game. It seemed natural, my mage character Surma having his unique view of things, and as a player I hoped it might encourage the others to fight together as a team.

SESSION FOUR(THOUGHT)

‘Get into the carts,’ I told Ironside and Aareth, ‘and gird yourselves for battle.’

The names of the horses were already on my tongue. I bent them to my will – the beasts, that is, not my mortal companions – and they dragged the carts around to face the foe, arraying themselves wearily for the charge.

‘More foolishness from you!’ snapped Ironside. ‘These poor clapped-out beasts are not fit to fight.’

‘Nor fast enough for us to flee,’ said Aareth, a little of Rabbit coming to the fore.

There is no need to tell when you can show, as the storytellers say. Reality buckled, melted, shifted at my command. In place of the blown and sag-backed nags that had drawn us here stood proud champing mares, flesh-eating thoroughbreds from the stables of Diomedes, scalding steam snorting from their wide nostrils, rolling eyes abrim with bloodlust, their hooves striking white-hot sparks from the ground.

With difficulty our two warriors pulled back on the reins, biding their time for the charge. By means of fortification enchantments they hastily honed their strength and skill for the fray that was to come. The advancing line of nameless ones were only fifty yards off now, but stumbling despite their discipline as Eli worked magic so that each tangled clump of grass and every loose pebble, each cleft in the earth and cranny of treacherous gravel, made sure to turn their feet and cause them to falter as they came.

Hurstyk stood in silence, deep contemplation furrowing his brow. I knew without needing to ask – he was reading the pattern of flaws in our foes’ weapons, the minuscule cracks and impurities in the worked metal of their blades. When they struck, by his most potent art those dormant weaknesses would be exposed, to blunt their blows and even shatter the weapons in their hands.

Wax, who had been mustering shelves of black cloud across the star-glutted heavens, brought down his gaze and the sky spat fire, each bolt crashing and rebounding around the enemy leaving them scorched and smoking. Despite their unnatural resolve, they seemed warier now, their onward march less relentless.

Following my lead, Idhelruin now wove a change in the carts in which Ironside and Aareth stood, changing them into bronze-flanked chariots with iron-studded wheels built to crush flesh and splinter bone. Another flourish occurred to him even before I had time to ordain it, or perhaps it leapt from my mind to his, and great scything blades grew out from the axles. Their edges were as sharp as the midwinter wind that scours my realm when the sun is in his grave.

‘Now ride,’ I exhorted our charioteers. ‘The god of swift death blesses your endeavours. Be the hurricane that flattens the crop of nameless ones. And Farris – ’ I looked him in the eye as mortals do when they intend words of special import – ‘go through them and strike to their master, for your sword yearns to slice the white gold from his finger.’

There came a rush – wind, darkness, chaos, the unmade future. I can see no further. Let us hope my deific sight has vouchsafed the outcome that our determination will bring to birth…

*  *  *

As it turned out, they couldn't bring themselves to work from Surma's playbook, so instead it went like this in the conventional account, ie the one written after the game. The dramatis personae incidentally are: Aareth (sometimes known as Wolf or Rabbit), Eli (a self-proclaimed inquisitor), Farris Mundir (also known as Ironside), Hurstyk the Whisperer, Idhelruin, Surma, and Wax of Ear.

SESSION FOUR

The insects and night-creatures proving ineffective, I turned them into savage dogs and they began to tear the nameless ones apart. Ironside hurled daggers that added to their woes. At the same time, Hurstyk dispelled the effect that was hampering our magic, though with the caveat that his remedy was only temporary. Idhelruin caused the hillside to collapse, and I evoked pelgranes that flew Aareth down to sever the heads of our foes. I did not ask why he wanted their heads, but it seemed reasonable.

The clouds parted and the moon shone down, and at that moment my night creatures lost their names and were stuck in mid-transformation, a horde of sorcery-swollen insects, dog hybrids, giant mosquitoes and the like. The impediment to our magic had, we sensed, returned with the moonlight.

‘Now you see why you should not use unnatural magic,’ muttered Eli.

I swept my hand to put a cloud across the moon, lessening Pale’s effect on our powers.

‘Where is Feltass?’ said Aareth. ‘He vanished when the insect swarm first attacked.’

‘He took another form and entered the ruined inn,’ realized Hurstyk.

‘He has rifled our backpacks!’ said Farris.

[Note: a backpack is a fabric container with arm straps that those who practice restrained magic, or no magic at all, must use to carry around their possessions.]

Idhelruin had briefly gone back into the inn. ‘He has taken the bell!’

‘He has the bell!’ the others cried. ‘We must retrieve the bell! At all costs he must not keep the bell!’

Eli sent a whisper to my and Aareth’s ears: ‘Idhelruin has been subverted to the cause of our enemy.’

I knew nothing of the bell, nor of what cause our enemy even represents, but I misliked to have Feltass escape us.

‘He has fled by folding space and time, to carry him of an instant from here to Duke Dartness’s townhouse,’ said Idhelruin. ‘We must pursue in the same way.’

Aareth used magic to invigorate the horses, then glanced at my heavy cloud that was even now sliding away from the face of the brooding moon. ‘Let’s go by cart. If we are between one place and another when Lord Pale’s nullification effect comes back, we might spend eternity there.’

‘We could undo the magic Feltass cast,’ was Eli’s opinion, ‘and that would return him here.’

He was wrong in this conjecture, but there was no time to explain it. ‘If we cannot pursue, or bring him back, let us disrupt his own channel between here and there, stymying his arrival at the Duke’s palace.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Aareth. ‘The Duke must have but one catamite.’

A spell was worked, though as Wax and I do not use spells to achieve our will we stood aloof. ‘It is done,’ said Hurstyk. ‘I do not know where Feltass is, but the image we saw showed the bell wrenched from his grip into a woman’s hand.’

‘The bell!’ shouted Idhelruin again, causing everyone to jump aboard the carts. We rode swiftly down towards the town.

‘Is Feltass the same person as Birch?’ wondered Aareth. ‘He's the one who wrote the book On Those Who Have No True Name, isn’t he?’

‘No, that book was written by the being who styles himself Lord Pale.’

‘Ah, so Birch was the one who summoned the White Watcher?’

‘No. Birch and Feltass are both agents of Pale; they wear similar white gold rings. The wizard who summoned the Watcher was called Obsidian. Apocryphally, Obsidian was killed by the Watcher – specifically, “sent to the Dry Lands”. I now realize that was his plan. In the Dry Lands he made himself into Pale, or merged with a pre-existing entity to become what he is now.’

‘The Dry Lands?’

‘Death.’

We had reached the town. Idhelruin and Eli regarded each other with some tension. ‘Give me the true name of the bell,’ said Eli, calling across from the other cart as we raced down the streets, causing townsfolk to leap out of the way, ‘and I will seek out where it has been taken.’

Idhelruin provided a name. Eli gave him a long suspicious look (unfortunate, as with his eyes off the road he squashed a sleeping drunk under the wheels) and then wove his magic, conspicuously using a different name for the bell from the one Idhelruin had given.

‘It is at the palace of Princess Sheytelandin,’ he said.

Idhelruin drew up the horses. ‘Eli, you are in the service of Lord Pale!’

Aareth and I exchanged a glance. ‘Which of them can be trusted?’ he wondered.

‘Eli, you said that Idhelruin had been seduced by Pale,’ I said. ‘Now he accuses you. And for a fact we all heard you use a different name for the bell just now – ’

‘The bell. We must get the bell,’ came the chorus from the back of the carts.

‘Surma, I suspect both you and Idhelruin may have joined with Lord Pale,’ said Eli.

Strangely, this had the effect of making me think they could both be trusted. ‘So where is the bell?’

‘I don’t think it is at the Princess’s palace,’ said Idhelruin, ‘as Eli is trying to lead us astray.’ But he bade the horses walk on and we made our way to a gate in a garden wall. This was the palace – really just a townhouse, though grander than most.

Magic unlocked the gate and we went in. On the veranda two guards stood smoking pipes, and Idhelruin was about to greet them as old friends, but Eli reached past him and made them sleep. With surprising ease given his years, Idhelruin took hold of the ivy on the walls and ascended to a balcony where the drapes of a darkened bedchamber billowed in the night breeze.

Hurstyk, who had come to the quayside in Port Karmon by jumping from boat to boat across the harbour, had had enough of the ‘balance and restraint’ preached by the College. He commanded the air itself to loft him bodily up to the balcony. An unexpected but welcome development, this. He no longer permits his thinking to be shackled by  mortal considerations, and nor does Idhelruin – as we shall see.

They found the Princess suffering from the white plague. After a struggle, Hurstyk cured her but, strangely to my mind, he left her in the dumpy, wrinkled body that time had cruelly inflicted on her. Idhelruin, who seemed once to have been her lover, naturally found himself unenthusiastic for a reunion and became shadows, the better to permeate the palace and find where the bell had fallen.

Down in the garden, unnoticed until now, the roses around us had lost their colour in the moonlight, becoming pallid and sickly with a perfume that threatened to lull our senses. Wax stooped and inhaled deeply. I called on a breeze to dispel the scent, blowing it back upon the one who had conjured it.

Eli noticed that the gate had locked itself behind us. ‘Our enemy is coming!’ he said suddenly, and scaled to the balcony to warn the others.

This came as no news to me. I could feel the gem the Summoner gave me growing warm. ‘It holds the true name of the White Watcher,’ I told Farris, ‘and it tells me he is near.’

Hurstyk descended and, noticing the two sleeping guards also had symptoms of the white plague, he cured them. As before, I took note of the characteristic name of the plague, but I have no art to use that knowledge in healing. If ever I call on the plague – a remote possibility, but one never knows – it will be for other purposes.

Idhelruin emerged from the house, substantial once more. ‘I found the bell in the wall. It is ironic that it should have fallen back into reality here, in the house of one who was most dear to me, but after all there are no coincidences.’

Eli was trying to unlock the gate, but some enchantment was working against his efforts. Farris stepped past him and kicked it off its hinges. They looked out into the street and turned with looks of wild urgency.

‘We have tarried too long,’ said Eli. ‘The enemy is here.’

‘Go through the gate,’ I said. ‘It leads directly to the Sea Lion.’ I was glad I had spent so much of our voyage memorizing every true name of that vessel, as it made the fold in space easier to contrive. Even so, I struggled to maintain it against the dulling weight of Pale’s influence.

They went through. Eli was the last. He turned at the gate, and I thought he intended to make some criticism of my flagrant use of magic, but I had misjudged him. ‘Take some of my strength in case it is needed, Surma,’ he said, and his parting gift filled me with renewed energy.

Now I am here in the garden, the gem hot against my skin. In a story it would look like courage, or even sacrifice, but the plain truth is I could not permit the upstart god to claim my mortals as his own.

The Conclave: unreliable narrators

For the third session of our Earthsea-adjacent campaign The Conclave, here are three write-ups of what happened, one from the point of view of my character Surma, another by Frazer Payne's character Idhelruin, and a third version by Tim Savin's character, an inquisitor called Eli. (I didn't actually know what inquisitors are in Earthsea, not having read the books, and even after the campaign wrapped I wasn't much wiser.) The rest of the Conclave were: Wax of Ear (Oliver Johnson), Farris "Ironside" Mundir (Inigo Hartas), Hurstyk the Whisperer (Paul Gilham), and Aareth "Wolf"/"Rabbit" (Aaron Fortune).

SESSION THREE

As we sailed east, I walked the ship familiarizing myself with the true names of the strakes and timbers, sheets and sails. Hurstyk took note. ‘Why are you doing that?’ he asked.

‘Wait and you will see.’ I had forgotten that the minds of mortals are bound by Time.

In due course we spied a ship athwart our course, its sails furled and barely stirring in what had been until now a brisk breeze. Its flag hung limp, yet we could make out the design of a pale moon on a white field. It was the ship of the nameless man, Jude.

‘A trap?’ was Ironside’s judgement.

‘We could go round,’ suggested Hurstyk.

At sea Aareth was once again a wolf, not a rabbit. ‘My crew are well trained. Let’s go alongside and board it.’

‘I’ll sink it, shall I?’ called Wax from the back of his turtle.

‘But there might be innocents aboard,’ protested Eli. ‘Women and small children, or slaves.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose and looked with other senses. ‘No, it’s just our enemies.’

Sprugel the turtle submerged, but soon returned. ‘Around the ship is dead water,’ said Wax. ‘Fish writhe and die as they approach. I did not like to go closer.’

By now the vessel had begun rowing towards us. There came a sense of taint on the wind, and with it a dulling of magic. I called for a hurricane I know of and it came in a rush. No hurricane is of temperate manner, but this one was in a foul mood. It swept down on us and on the other ship. The masts bent. Rigging snapped. The sails strained and were torn away.

‘Mercy on us!’ cried a chorus of terrified voices. ‘We split! We split!’

But I knew every name of every part of the vessel. Even as it lurched and spun before the wind, I remade it. The mast, twice as stout, sprouted in a strong spiral like the tree that holds the world. The hull reshaped itself, sleeker and stronger than ever. Vast sails spread like dragons’ wings, catching the full fury of the storm and bearing us swiftly before it.

Our foe, his vessel surrounded as it was by a zone of dead magic, could not transform it in like manner. We soon lost sight of it floundering far astern amid the crashing waves.

As we sailed on, it seemed a good time to consult the books I had brought from the library. ‘It will be arduous to make these pages speak aloud,’ I mused, holding one by its cover as though it were a dead bird.

‘I shall read,’ said Eli, opening On Those Who Have No True Name. He stared at the title page, trying to focus. ‘That’s strange. Can you make out the author’s name? It is obscured.’

I looked. The letters were a blur, but I discerned the name. ‘Lord Pale. I’m getting notes of maggots, grave cerements and decayed bones.’

Eli concentrated for a moment. ‘It seems connected to the ship we saw… Yes, I have it! The last person to look in this book was a man called Felt, or something of the sort. He was aboard Jude’s vessel, I’m sure of it. He has a true name, but by some means he has made it indiscernible.’

‘Let’s look at one of the others,’ said Aareth, taking up Slayings of the White Watcher. The first page showed a woodcut of a pale figure far off in a barren landscape. The pages turned themselves, more and more swiftly, and in each successive picture the figure drew nearer, nearer.

‘Enough of that.’ Ironside stepped forward, reached over Aareth’s shoulder, and slammed the book shut.

‘Let’s not look at the third one,’ agreed Aareth, visibly shaken by his literary encounter with the White Watcher.

Idhelruin was gazing up into the sky, now scoured to a clear blue as the hurricane veered off in a huff. ‘That gull…’ he mused. ‘Is it a gull?’

‘Shoot it down, men,’ cried Wax.

‘Come here,’ I told the bird, and it alighted on the deck. Idhelruin was right, this was no gull but a transformed wizard. I discerned his true name, or as much of it as I needed, and restored him to his normal form. An old man with a long white beard was crouching there on the deck before me.

‘I would not want Surma to learn my true name,’ remarked Ironside to Eli.

‘Of a certainty he would use it to destroy you,’ agreed Eli – this conversation occurring just seconds after they had seen me rescue a wizard who had become trapped in his own enchantment.

The old man looked up. ‘I thank you. I took that form to flee a dreaded foe, but I began to lose my own nature within that of the gull.’

‘I need no magic, then, to divine who you are,’ I replied. ‘You appear a trembling dotard, you are motivated by timidity, and your own spell nearly doomed you. Clearly you are one of the wizards of Hythe.’

‘Mirrorwaith!’ cried Idhelruin, helping the old man to his feet. ‘This man is my master. Fetch him a cloak, someone.’

‘Whom did you flee?’ asked Aareth.

Mirrorwaith pressed a hand to his brow, recalling his human memories. It was clear he recognized Aareth. ‘In Franmouth, Duke Dartness has a new advisor. You are supplanted by one calling himself Feltas, who now has the lord’s ear. He wears a ring of white gold. It was fear of him that drove me thence.’

‘You don’t seem frightened now,’ pointed out Hurstyk.

‘Of a truth, I recall the fear but as I stand among you it seems like the unreasoning dread a child might have experienced. I suspect Feltas ensorcelled me.’

‘We’ll learn more at Hythe,’ said Aareth.

Ironside was struck with a sudden realization. ‘We’ve sailed past Hythe. It was masked from us by magic.’

‘This comes as no surprise,’ said Wax, who stood alongside the rail on the back of his turtle. ‘There are myriad deadly dangers bestride the land. A plague. Men with no name whom magic cannot scathe. An unstoppable figure from the realm of death. The assassination of wizards. Faced with such calamities, of course the reaction of the knitting circle of Hythe would be to hide in a cupboard and twitter fearfully.’

It was agreed we would sail on to Franmouth, and enter the port not in our own ship – now very distinctive with its masts like fantastical saurian spines, its living alar sails, the organic moulding of its bulwarks and the glittering tegument that now armoured its hull – but aboard one of the trading vessels whose captains were known to Hurstyk.

Before we transferred to the other ship, I took a flying fish that one of the sailors had caught and stripped it of its scales, putting these in a small leather pouch.

The quayside at Franmouth was teeming with travellers from other isles, so we presented not too outlandish an appearance – other than Wax, standing naked with his coral spear.

‘We’ll travel in these carts,’ said Idhelruin. ‘I know a place up in the hills above the port, close by the abandoned lighthouse. Feltas goes there each night in the small hours to converse with the twelve grandees of the town, newcomers all, who now hold sway over its trade and commerce.’

‘I will walk,’ announced Wax.

I could see his point, but I had never before travelled in a cart and was intrigued by the novelty of it. The god of swift death riding in a slow cart – the poetic fancy of it struck me. At some point I must find a talented dramatist and command him to author a play with such a scene in it. But that is for another day. We set off up the track into the hills.

Idhelruin had promised us a ghastly hovel and he was as good as his word. The windows were gaping holes in the dank wattle and daub, the door a rotted plank, the roof mere scraps of straw. Behind it on the crest of the hill stood the lighthouse, in scarcely better repair.

Inside was of course colder than out. Taking a clay pitcher from something that must once have been a table, Idhelruin poured himself a cup. ‘Be welcome, friends,’ he said. ‘This is poor stuff, but to me it tastes like the finest wine.’

‘It is the finest wine,’ I told him. And so it was, now that my word had made it so, and yet I saw a trace of disappointment cloud his brow as he sipped. Could it be that he preferred his own imagination to the reality I wrought?

We fell to planning. It was agreed that our most skilled shape-changers should enter the lighthouse at midnight in the form of a bat and a mouse in order to eavesdrop on what Feltas said to his lieutenants.

The door fell open (quite literally) and Wax staggered in. ‘I met a nice man called Harper who gave me drugs and I gave him drugs and he wanted me to go home with him but I said no there are people waiting and I went and he didn’t follow me but he waved and I saw his sapphire ring.’

‘It wasn’t sapphire, was it?’ I said. ‘It was white gold.’

‘Mmm,’ agreed Wax, sinking to the dirt floor in a stupor. ‘White gold.’

Hurstyk shook his head. ‘And it was such a good plan.’

Eli looked around. ‘He is coming here now with twelve others. And those twelve have no true names.’

Aareth began to weave an enchantment that would selectively admit or bar the door against whoever he chose. Hurstyk bent over Wax, using herbcraft to restore his senses. Ironside magically fortified his strength in readiness for battle.

I went outside and addressed every insect, rodent and night creature for a mile in all directions, commanding them to my will. A second spell transformed them into monsters of their kind – bats with scything fangs, mosquitoes bigger than hornets, adders whose toxin would cast a man into blistering agony, crickets with bladed limbs to slice skin as the fabled river fish of southern jungles are said to.

At a hundred yards off we saw them coming up across the downs, moonlight painting their faces pale as mannikins. ‘Zombies..?’ mused Aareth.

‘Let us find out. Even zombies can be stripped clean by sharp teeth and rasping mandibles.’ And I sent my swarm, a vast black bank like a thunderhead, up out of the grass and thickets to assail them.

They staggered, but even with a hundred cuts and their eyes swollen shut with stings they continued towards us, axes and clubs in their hands.

‘I’ll make their trousers fall down,’ said Eli. But even that had little effect beyond the simply comical.

Wax lurched out of the hovel, gulping fresh night air to clear his head. ‘I’ll call on lightning,’ he said. A trifle jejune, I thought, us having already tried that same ploy in our fight with the Watcher on Dain, but after all why change a winning formula?

And as the heavens crackled, reluctant to spew fire out of a clear sky, the twelve marched on, serene and deliberate, drawing inexorably closer. And behind them, his white gold ring lambent in the starlight, came Feltas.

Idhelruin’s version:

We fled Port Karmon and the invisible webs of the wizard Birch, in search of some sort of vulnerability for the White Watcher. The plan was to sail to the Great College on Hythe, en route to the Black Knot, a labyrinth in Tar Tuva.

We neared the ship of the nameless Jude. Wax approached the ship from beneath the waves, riding on his turtle familiar, but retreated when he ascertained that the ship was surrounded by a defensive spell which killed any sea life that approached it.

We sailed on. I sighted a seagull flying near. There was a strangeness to it. I brought it to the attention of Surma, who, with great force, named the bird as Mirrowaith (my former master), and commanded it to land and resume its former shape. An old man appeared.

Mirrowaith had been struck by terror of a new arrival in Franmont, Fellteth. This man had quickly become first adviser to Lord Dartness, and stayed close to him. Strangely, Mirrowaith could not recall the exact nature of his fear.

Hurstyk and I both deduced that the wizards of Hythe had suffered a similar fear-inducing attack, for they had hidden the place and disappeared into animal forms, in which someone had trapped them. The scale of the spells being accomplished by the enemy seemed almost insurmountable. We felt isolated from our comrades, alone against an enemy that eluded comprehension.

I asked the company to come with me to Franmont, a city that is dear to me. At once the preening began, as they devised great, gaudy contortions of reality in order to dock the ship in the harbour. As we approached Franmont, I hailed one of the many coastal cutters. The captain was eager to lend an inconspicuous skiff, via which we were conveyed towards shore. A series of small boats came alongside, one after the other, to talk in hushed tones to me before casting off again.

A pair of union carters waited at the quay. Wax, contrary as ever, eschewed the carts, preferring to walk in his gaudy and conspicuous way through the streets. Indifferent, I bade him go where he wished. The carts carried us up towards the hills to the north of the city, through the shanty area, to High Road House, a crumbling inn. It is the last place on the track along the promontory to Fyfeld Light, a derelict lighthouse.

My spies had learned a little about Felteth. He wears a white gold ring. He rarely leaves Dartness’ side, except on nights when he steals away to Fyfeld Light to join twelve newcomers who have all risen in power as swiftly as he. I informed the company of what I knew, and pointed out the two hundred yards of clear ground approaching the lighthouse, and invited proposals for how they might begin to collect information.

Wax reappeared, very late. He was intoxicated by the magic substance of some man who had bewitched him in the side-streets of Franmont. The enemy most likely knew of our presence, and what little subtlety had been contrived lay as if trampled by a childrens’ carnival.

Eli deduced that Fellteth was approaching on foot with twelve men, shortswords drawn. One wore a white gold ring. Eli saw that they were Nameless Ones.

We laid our plans.

Surma called up a storm of insects from the woods and heathland. Some were huge. His magic was strong that day. But the Nameless seemed able to endure the storm with a calm befitting of adepts.


Eli’s version:

The book about those with no true names was written by one styling himself Lord Pale, as Surma divined. I approached it with habitual caution, anticipating bewitching hexes. My process for reading dark texts written by forbidden omnipotent entities from beyond the Veil is simple. Firstly, I invoke the Light of Ulthuan, lest the air itself by touched by the darkness. Next, I bring my hands towards the book, feeling forth with the Touch of Illithor, such that contact hexes built into the fabric of the cover are triggered and contained like moths within a prison of light. These steps undertaken, I determined it was safe to open the text.

Opening the tome, the book of leather and skin parchment revealed a poem, inscribed in the festering fungal mold from the six week corpse of a holy man. So far, nothing extraordinary. The inside of the book revealed a poem. Naturally, this was laced with patterning designed to entrance and deceive, as even the most mundane of poems is wont to be. I wove the Utterance of the Literal Child to flatten the layers of the text into as simple and powerless a form as possible.

Nonetheless, this poem was powerful indeed. My lips found themselves wanting to chant the refrain, "Lord Pale saves. Lord Pale rises." It took a considerable act of will to set it aside. Happily, such a text leaves a strong imprint from former readers. It was a simple matter to invoke Delver's Indelible Patten, and by this method I divined its most recent previous reader, and his location.

The Conclave: "Things Hidden In Books"

Here's another extract from Tim Harford's Earthsea-inspired Conclave campaign. The player-characters are all wizards, some of them affiliated with the College of Hythe, others (like my character Surma, or Oliver Johnson's character Wax) loners who are along for the ride.

As in Ursula K Le Guin's novels, the College is entirely male; women who practice magic either don't exist or keep quiet about it. Not having read the books, I don't know why that is or how that dominance is maintained, but the players who were familiar with the Earthsea stories seemed to get it. Surma neither knew nor cared about Hythe's affairs, so I didn't ask.

In the whole of a three-hour session I think the dice were rolled half a dozen times. That for me is the mark of a great game.

A note about Aareth so that the account makes sense. The player described him arriving at the feast last session: "The late Master Hand's favourite boy, not yet thirty and now intimate counsellor in a notorious ducal court, left his lord's fiery hospitality when Master Summoner called. It's well known he's always up for a fresh gaiety -- one learns so much when men take their ease. Wolf as he is most commonly known today (though conversely also as Rabbit to some) is immaculately dressed in iridescent black, as though cock feathers had been woven into a sleek, graceful robe. An emerald pendant tickles on his chest. He slinks into the feast flashing a mischievous, hungry grin."

SESSION TWO

The one who had been the Master Summoner, having lost all his magic in banishing the White Watcher, declared he was now simply ‘Moss’. He gave me the secret of the Watcher's name, fixed within a jewel on his broken staff. We decided to walk back to the town (a novelty) and he told us that he now realized a coercive influence had taken control of him from the time of his arrival in Port Karmon.

‘The Watcher was summoned originally, long ago, by a wizard who directed him to kill all other wizards.’

‘Ah yes. We have all felt like that at one time or another.’

‘He wanted to reign supreme, but his plan went instantly awry. The Watcher began by killing him. The combined strength of the College was necessary to banish the Watcher to the Gallowglass Isles, and even that took the sacrifice of a Great Mage to accomplish.’

And he had given me the being’s name. I looked around my companions. A sacrifice, was it? If it came to that, which of them could the world best afford to lose?

‘We are summoning conclaves of wizards,’ said Moss uncertainly. ‘I don’t know if I was to summon you, though there is some logic in the selection. Wax is from the far south, you from the far north. Eli from the east…’ He trailed off.

‘There is no eastern pole, is there?’ I pointed out. ‘Your theory of cardinal points does credit to you as a mortal, for whom any rational thought is a triumph over brute glimmerings, but would have embarrassed the mage you once were.’

We had arrived at the port. ‘There is danger here,’ said Idhelruin.

‘I will summon my sword and armour,’ said Aareth, starting to work a spell.

‘Good. You are thinking like a sorcerer, not like one of these nannying wizards of Hythe.’

‘Oh no,’ spoke the voices of Hythe, twittering like old women. ‘Using magic so ostentatiously is bad manners. Uncouth it is not to tiptoe around the great spells. A wizard’s robes should be hand-me-downs with leather patches on the elbows. Why not have it that your armour was left at the Library for you to pick up?’

Aareth gave in. Briefly Wolf, he had become Rabbit again.

I spoke to Moss. ‘You will come with us to the Library. Your knowledge will still be of use in our research,’

‘No, I'm no use. I'll just go off on my own.’

‘You are mortal now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then it is not your place to question my will.’

The unknown influence was working on him still. With magic I removed the veil from his mind and he saw again with clarity for a time – long enough to introduce us to the Librarian, who took umbrage at Wax's nakedness and called him a savage. Wax heatedly pointed out that, as a savage, he might well make use of his coral spear upon the Librarian's person. Libraries should not be so noisy. Already I miss the solitude of my own realm.

The others, prissy Hythe wizards to a man, took the Librarian's part and Wax went to stand outside for a while.

‘We need books on three topics,’ I told Moss and the Librarian. ‘The White Watcher, historical attempts on wizards' lives, and cases of beings or objects with no true name.’

‘We could use patterning,’ suggested the Whisperer.

‘Good idea. While the rest of us search for the books we need with Moss’s and the Librarian’s help, you and Idhelruin attempt logomancy.’

‘We are just going to look for random clues?’ snorted Eli, presumably forgetting that the entire world is built of magic, furnished in magic, roofed over with magic, and stands on magic foundations. He and Aareth went off among the stacks on their own.

Wax returned, behaving very strangely and ranting in odd dialects. Again he menaced the Librarian’s posterior with his spear. I suspected that whatever fell magic had influenced the Summoner now had a hold on him.

Guided by Moss and the Librarian, I searched the bookshelves for the subjects we wished to research. Eli and Aareth conducted their own search without assistance. Meanwhile, Idhelruin and Hurstyk literally stumbled over a heavy tome with a black cover.

Wax rushed forward to kick it away, breaking his toe. ‘Don’t open it, don’t open it!’ wailed the Hythe chorus, wringing their hands in dismay. The main lesson taught at the College seems to be to fear any new thing.

‘It is called The Black Knot,’ said Hurstyk.

‘That is a labyrinth on the island of Tartuva,’ said Idhelruin. ‘The people there worship the Sightless Ones and perform rituals to them in the unlit tunnels.’

By means of an arduously slow process called consultation, it was decided we should travel there. From that, new consultations threatened to spread like an unkillable plague, spawning a thousand other unborn decisions such as when to travel, on what vessel, by what route, and so forth. I saw now why men need gods.

Eli announced that he had found a palimpsest whose words erased themselves as he read. ‘The wizard who summoned the Watcher was called Obsidian,’ he told us. ‘I won’t give you his true name in case it alerts him.’

‘Alerts him? But didn't the Watcher kill him?’

‘The Watcher came from the Dry Lands, which is the realm of Death. That’s how he knows our true names, as our mentors are all there in the Dry Lands.’

‘I have no mentor, living or dead. I named myself.’

‘Only the Summoner could bring the Watcher back from the Gallowglass Isles. He was controlled by a wizard who goes by the name of Birch, who may be in league with the man Jude who has no true name.’

‘Easily settled face to face.’ I intuited Birch’s true name and summoned him.

But – and this was most remarkable – he had set a hundred snares and gates to redirect any conjuration. By the time my summoning reached him, it had only the force of a gentle tug. ‘He has been here in Karmon a long time,’ I concluded, ‘making the whole port his own lair filled with traps worked over years. This is his home territory and it may be difficult to confront him before we know more.’

Moss and the Librarian had finally found the books I asked for: Attempts on the Lives of Wizards, Slayings of the White Watcher, and On Those Who Have No True Name.

‘How is information extracted from these?’ I asked. ‘Never mind, I’ll deal with that later.’

‘Are you going to carry them?’ asked the Librarian.

‘Why, when they are capable of flying? Surely that’s the reason they have these leather wings?’ The books flitting along behind me, I set off for the docks.

‘But Birch is in a tavern near the docks,’ came the timid refrain of Hythe. ‘We don’t want to run into him. Shouldn’t we skulk out of town, tiptoe around the island to another bay, and from there shyly send word for the ship to come to us?’

‘This College has unmanned you all. I will fetch the ship and bring it to whichever bay you decide is sufficiently remote that Birch cannot find you.’

At that they decided the threat was not so awesome after all. We set off together, distracted from thoughts of the long voyage ahead by Wax’s graphic descriptions of his carnal relationships with giant turtles. I began to suspect that it was not Birch’s sorcery that had overthrown his mind, but simple drink.

‘Where’s Moss?’ noticed Idhelruin.

We looked back. The man formerly known as the Great Summoner was clambering up the side of the Library, apparently with the intention of dashing himself onto the cobbles below.

A sigh.

‘I could arrange for a haycart to be beneath him as he falls…’ said Hurstyk.

‘I’d go after him, but my arm is withered,’ said Eli.

‘We warriors are famed for our climbing skill,’ said Aareth uncertainly.

As Moss turned to leap, Idhelruin gestured. The masonry of the building reached out to snag Moss’s cloak. He hung suspended a hundred feet above the ground. I called all the seagulls of the bay and sent them up to bring him down to us.

As Moss was deposited safely on the street, Aareth put a hand on his shoulder. ‘From now on, Summoner, I will not let you out of my sight.’

Wax was on the shore below the docks, fondling his turtle and rubbing its nose into his groin. ‘I’ll come on the ship with you, Aareth,’ I decided.

It was a good choice. The Sea Lion is of ducal quality, sleek and resplendent with silken sails.

‘We’d better call at Hythe on our way to Tartuva,’ suggested Idhelruin.

‘If we must. Like dropping in on maiden aunts, I suppose. But perhaps if we admire their knitting and praise them for only using their magic with genteel restraint, they’ll reveal something that might actually be useful to our quest.’

Wax waved to us. ‘I go to the spawning grounds in the far east,’ he called.

‘He is in his own adventure,’ observed Hurstyk. ‘A dreamberry reverie unclouded by mortal peril. We might come to envy him.’