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wizard was saying. The bard was the only one who smiled. As he caught Milo’s wandering eyes, the smile became an open grin—as if he might be hugely enjoying all of this.
    â€œWe have been taught many things,” the cleric replied with a faint repugnance. He had the countenance of one forced into speaking against his will. “We have been taught that mind can control matter. You have your spells, wizard, we have our prayers.” He drew forth from the bosom of his robe a round of chain on which dull silver beads were set in patterns of two or three together.
    â€œSpells and prayers,” Hystaspes returned, “are not what I speak of—rather of such power of mind as is lying dormant within each of you and which you must cultivate for yourselves.”
    â€œJust when and how do we use this power?” For the first time, the bard Wymarc broke in. “You would not have summoned us here, Your Power-in-Possession,” (he gave that title a twist which hinted at more than common civility, perhaps satire) “unless we were to be of use to you in some manner.”
    For the first time the wizard did not reply at once. Instead he gazed down into the goblet he held, as if the dregs of the liquid it now contained could be used as the far-seeing mirror of his craft.
    â€œThere is only one use for you,” he stated dryly after a long moment.
    â€œThat being?” Wymarc persisted when Hystaspes did not at once continue.
    â€œYou must seek out the source of that which had drawn you hither and destroy it—if you can.”
    â€œFor what reason—save that
you
find it alarming?” Wymarc wanted to know.
    â€œAlarming?” Hystaspes echoed. Now his voice once more held arrogance. “I tell you, this—this alien being strives to bring together our two worlds. For what purpose he desires that, I cannot say. But should they so coincide—”
    â€œYes? What will happen then?” Ingrge took up the questioning. His compelling elf stare unleashed at the wizard as he might have aimed one of the deadly arrows of his race.
    Hystaspes blinked. “That I cannot tell.”
    â€œNo?” Yevele broke in. “With all your powers you cannot foresee what will come then?”
    He flashed a quelling look at the girl, but she met that as she might a sword in the hands of a known enemy. “Such has never happened—in all the records known to me. But that it will be far more evil than the worst foray which Chaos has directed, that I can answer to.”
    There was complete truth in that statement, Milo thought.
    â€œI believe something else, wizard,” Deav Dyne commented dryly. “I think that even as you had us brought here to you, you have wrought what shall bind us to your will, we having no choice in the matter.” Though his eyes were on the wizard, his hands were busy, slipping the beads of his prayer string between his fingers.
    Ingrge, not their captor-host, replied to that. “A geas, then,” he said in a soft voice, but a voice that carried chill.
    Hystaspes made no attempt to deny that accusation.
    â€œA geas, yes. Do you doubt that I would do everything within my power to make sure you seek out the source of this contamination and destroy it?”
    â€œDestroy it?” Wymarc took up the challenge now. “Look atus, wizard. Here stands an oddly mixed company with perhaps a few minor arts, spells, and skills. We are not adepts—”
    â€œYou are not of this world,” Hystaspes interrupted. “Therefore, you are an irritant here. To pit you against another irritant is the only plausible move. And remember this—only he, or it, who brought you here knows the way by which you may return. Also, it is not this world only that is menaced. You pride yourself enough upon your imaginations used to play your game of risk and fortune—use that imagination now. Would Greyhawk—would all the lands known to