‘Ye gods, he blew Billias away!’ said Gravie. ‘And they say there’s nothing in Virrid’s room but soot!’
‘They were perhaps rather foolish,’ said Carding smoothly. ‘I am sure, my good brother, that you would not be defeated in affairs of the Art by a mere stripling?’
Gravie hesitated. ‘Well, er,’ he said, ‘no. Of course not.’ He looked at Carding’s innocent smile and coughed loudly. ‘Certainly not, of course. Billias was very foolish. However, some prudent caution is surely-’
‘Then let us all be cautious in the morning,’ said Carding cheerfully. ‘Brothers, let us adjourn this meeting. The boy sleeps, and in that at least he is showing us the way. This will look better in the light.’
‘I have seen things that didn’t,’ said Gravie darkly, who didn’t trust Youth. He held that no good ever came of it.
The senior wizards filed out and back to the Great Hall, where the dinner had got to the ninth course and was just getting into its stride. It takes more than a bit of magic and someone being blown to smoke in front of him to put a wizard off his food.
For some unexplained reason Spelter and Carding were the last to leave. They sat at either end of the long table, watching each other like cats. Cats can sit at either end of a lane and watch each other for hours, performing the kind of mental manoeuvring that would make a grand master appear impulsive by comparison, but cats have got nothing on wizards. Neither was prepared to make a move until he had run the entire forthcoming conversation through his mind to see if it left him a move ahead.
Spelter weakened first.
‘All wizards are brothers,’ he said. ‘We should trust one another. I have information.’
‘I know,’ said Carding. ‘You know who the boy is.’
Spelter’s lips moved soundlessly as he tried to foresee the next bit of the exchange. ‘You can’t be certain of that,’ he said, after a while.
‘My dear Spelter, you blush when you inadvertently tell the truth.’
‘I didn’t blush!’
‘Precisely,’ said Carding, ‘my point.’
‘All right,’ Spelter conceded. ‘But you think you know something else.’
The fat wizard shrugged. ‘A mere suspicion of a hunch,’ he said. ‘But why should I ally,’ he rolled the unfamiliar word around his tongue, ‘with you, a mere fifth level? I could more certainly obtain the information by rendering down your living brain. I mean no offence, you understand, I ask only for knowledge.’
The events of the next few seconds happened far too fast to be understood by non-wizards, but went approximately like this:
Spelter had been drawing the signs of Megrim’s Accelerator in the air under cover of the table. Now he muttered a syllable under his breath and fired the spell along the tabletop, where it left a smoking path in the varnish and met, about halfway, the silver snakes of Brother Hushmaster’s Potent Asp-Spray as they spewed from Carding’s fingertips.
The two spells cannoned into one another, turned into a ball of green fire and exploded, filling the room with fine yellow crystals.
The wizards exchanged the kind of long, slow glare you could roast chestnuts on.
Bluntly, Carding was surprised. He shouldn’t have been. Eighth-level wizards are seldom faced with challenging tests of magical skill. In theory there are only seven other wizards of equal power and every lesser wizard is, by definition - well, lesser. This makes them complacent. But Spelter, on the other hand, was at the fifth level.
It may be quite tough at the top, and it is probably even tougher at the bottom, but halfway up it’s so tough you could use it for horseshoes. By then all the no-hopers, the lazy, the silly and the downright unlucky have been weeded out, the field’s cleared, and every wizard stands alone and surrounded by mortal enemies on every side. There’s the pushy fours below, waiting to trip him up. There’s the arrogant sixes above, anxious to stamp out all ambition. And, of course, all around are his fellow fives, ready for any opportunity to reduce the competition a little. And there’s no standing still. Wizards of the fifth level are mean and tough and have reflexes of steel and their eyes are thin and narrow from staring down the length of that metaphorical last furlong at the end of which rests the prize of prizes, the Archchancellor’s hat.
The novelty of co-operation began to appeal to Carding. There was worthwhile power here, which could be bribed into usefulness for as long as it was necessary. Of course, afterwards it might have to be - discouraged …
Spelter thought: patronage. He’d heard the term used, though never within the University, and he knew it meant getting those above you to give you a leg up. Of course, no wizard would normally dream of giving a colleague a leg up unless it was in order to catch them on the hop. The mere thought of actually encouraging a competitor … But on the other hand, this old fool might be of assistance for a while, and afterwards, well …
They looked at one another with mutual, grudging admiration and unlimited mistrust, but at least it was a mistrust each one felt he could rely on. Until afterwards.
‘His name is Coin,’ said Spelter. ‘He says his father’s name is Ipslore.’
‘I wonder how many brothers has he got?’ said Spelter.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘There hasn’t been magic like that in this university in centuries,’ said Carding, ‘maybe for thousands of years. I’ve only ever read about it.’
‘We banished an Ipslore thirty years ago,’ said Spelter. ‘According to the records, he’d got married. I can see that if he had sons, um, they’d be wizards, but I don’t understand how-’