Rudy was silent, understanding this for the truth as he had not understood it in the mazes of the trackless Seaward Mountains. It was the key to human magic- perhaps the key to all things human.

"Do you feel sure of this spell, Rudy?" the wizard asked quietly. "Could you use

it again?"

"Yeah," Rudy said slowly, after long thought. "Yeah, I think so. I was scared to death, but..."

"But you kept your head," Ingold said. "And you kept your hold over the spell." Crusted frost gleamed in his scrubby beard as he nodded his head. "Do you think you could do so in the Nest of the Dark itself?"

The thought was like a hypo filled with ice water, injected directly into Rudy's heart. "Christ, I don't know! It's..." Then he saw the intentness, the calculation, in those crystal-blue eyes. "Hey, you mean- realty in the Nest of the Dark? I mean, that wasn't just a-a hypothetical question?"

The frost crackled a little as Ingold smiled. "Really, Rudy, you should know me well enough by this time to know that I seldom deal in hypotheses."

"Yeah," Rudy agreed warily. "And that's probably the scariest thing about you."

"It is the most frightening thing about any wizard. A hypothesis to anyone else is merely an overwhelming temptation to a wizard. Do you think you would be able to handle yourself in the Nest of the Dark?"

Rudy swallowed hard. "I think so." The vivid imagination which was the mainspring and curse of the mageborn sent a series of chills scampering up his spine. "That's what this is all about, isn't it?"

Ingold's eyes returned to focus from some private, inner reverie. In the starlight, they seemed bright and preternaturally clear. "The Chancellor Alwir cannot hope to reconquer Gae from the Dark without reconnaissance of their Nest there," he said quietly. "He has chosen Gae, partly because of its importance as the capital of the Realm and partly because it lies at the center of communications.