The Quest of Kadji

ONCE A WEEK, Kadji went off duty and was permitted to leave the crowded barracks and seek an evening’s diversion in the wineshops and pleasure-houses of the great metropolis.

On these nights, it was his custom to meet with Akthoob at the caravanserai where their horses were stalled.

On the next such evening they met; a grey evening of cold drizzling rains—the evening of the day he had glimpsed the girl he suspected to be Thyra of Zoromesh in the streets. Kadji was morose, short of tongue, preoccupied. He still could find no way to expose the Masked Prophet for an impostor; although he had found employment and was well-fed and housed, be was no nearer to the solution of his problem and the achievement of his Quest than he had been seven days before. Thus, glumly, he toyed with his wine and stared broodingly into the flames that crackled on the great stone hearth while garrulous old Akthoob chattered merrily.

The little Easterling wizard had found much to seize his interest in the service of the Ja Chan. It was a professional matter, so to speak: the arts and sciences of sorcery were his lifelong enthusiasm, and tonight he was babbling over his new friendship with a necromancer from the isle of Thang in the Southern Sea.

Kadji hearkened to his happy babbling with but half an ear. But he gathered that the prime cause for Akthoob’s wizardly enthusiasm was the rarity of his new colleague’s specialty. He was given to understand that necromancers were rarely met with in these benighted days, for the ancient science was out of fashion and the necromantic arts were dying and well-nigh lost.

“… Aii, the honorable young warrior doubtless cannot grasp an old man’s enthusiasm! But not since this lowly one was a humble young novice in the collegium of the Secret Sciences in far-off Zool below the shadow of Mount Ing, has he chanced to encounter a practitioner of the art necromantic! ‘Tis rare in our age to discover one given to the study of this unusual science; ah, but this one hopes to prosper by the gods-given opportunity to gain knowledge of the rare science from this person’s new colleague, the Necromancer Arbalac! Perhaps even to observe and experience’ at first hand the Xin Ritual itself! That would truly be a rare intellectual stimulus, for the Xin is, of all the rites of the art of Ceremonial Magic, the most seldom practiced …”

“What is a necromancer, anyway?” Kadji grunted. “I thought you were one.”

Akthoob’s long bony face broke in a toothy smile.

“Ah, young master, surely you jest! This lowly and insignificant one is but a wizard.”

“Wizard, necromancer, magician—what’s the difference, old man?”

An expression of prim reproof settled on the old Easterling’s knobby features.

“What, young sir, is the difference between a blacksmith, an archer, and a raiser of hogs? To each his own art, sayeth the Black Sage! As for the thaumaturgical sciences, the honorable young warrior must know they are several and distinct A wizard employs talismans and amulets, periapts and sigils—material agents—to effect his sorceries.”

“Likç the mind-crystal you used back in Khôr, I suppose?” Kadji asked, only half listening.

Akthoob nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly! But a magician, now, uses spells and cantrips, mantra, and the speaking-aloud of Names of Power, you see. It is a very different thing: one employs an object, a talisman; the other, a spoken spell or Name.”

“And this necromancer of yours? What does he do?”

“Aii! A necromancer, now! He conjures up the spirits of the dead, either to learn from their shadowy lips the secrets of the past, or to gain from the prophecies of the days yet to come. A most difficult art indeed, and far more complicated than the mere casting of a spell—whether by talisman or uttered cantrip! Your necromancer, now, employs rituaclass="underline" the drawing of pentacles, the purifying of the chamber, the burning of the appropriate incense, the recitation of the ceremonial conjuration, the use of the Planetary metals … ah, a most difficult art, in sooth!”