"Take it, Lily," said the wizard, gently but firmly. "Tell me what you see."

With great reluctance, as though fearful of its merest touch, she took the stone. At last, letting out her pent-up breath, she turned her attention fully upon it, allowing herself to peer into its depths.

"I see only images of spring . . . of streams and meadows and copses . . . of marshes and wildflowers . . . of cattails blowing in the wind . . . and new springs arising from the earth . . .

"I see now what you wished for me to see . . . that the evil is gone."

"Well that may be," Celedhan said to Belloc, giving voice to his apprehension, "but does this not also mean that the danger is all the greater? That the enemy has now located us exactly?"

"I think it more probable that this was an unexpected turn of events for Morlock," Belloc told the old weaponsmaster, "for I do know him as one wizard knows the hand and mind of another. No, his attentions were fixed on me personally as a means to obtaining the Vhurd-aq. Yet while under the influence of the Summoning Stone, I feared for a time that it was the Demon King himself who had overmastered me, for I could not sense Morlock anywhere . . . but I understand better now."




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