“But I could help you,” Kelson protested weakly, as though surprised to find himself lying down again. “Besides, I couldn’t possibly get back to sleep now.”

“Oh, I think that can be arranged.” Morgan smiled, placing his hand lightly on the boy’s forehead. “Just relax now, Kelson. Relax and dream. Forget about the dangers. Forget about the fears. Relax. Sleep. Dream of better times. Sleep deep, my prince. Sleep safe.”

As he spoke, Kelson’s eyelids fluttered briefly, then closed, and his breathing slowed to that of profound slumber. Morgan smiled and smoothed the tousled black hair, then straightened and pointed in succession to the wards.

“Primus, Secundus, Tertius, et Quartus, fiat lux!”

Immediately the wards blazed with a new life, then flared around the sleeping Kelson with a cocoon of misty luminescence. Morgan nodded to himself, then made his way toward the door.

Now, for some useful information . . .

HALF an hour later in the library, Morgan had not met with any success. He had gone through virtually every book in Brion’s private collection, and most of the general references in the section, but all had been fruitless.

If only he could find some clue: a significant marked passage, some notes from when Brion concocted the ritual verse, some hint as to how the problem should be approached. It was, of course, possible that they would be able to figure it out without help. But he hated to be less than certain on something of this importance.

Because the ritual verse had to work. If it didn’t, Kelson was doomed, and Morgan and Duncan with him. Nor was it possible for Morgan or Duncan to do Kelson’s fighting for him. Occult practice simply would not permit it.

If only he could remember more about Brion’s reading habits, that might give him some better idea of where else to look. He knew that there had to be a link somewhere, that Brion must have left something, if only as a reassurance for the friend he had known would come looking for such a thing. Perhaps the clue was in the verse itself.

Wearily, he sat down at Brion’s reading desk and propped himself up on his elbows. Somewhere he must find the clue; he knew it must exist.

As his eyes scanned the room once more, the gryphon seal on his left forefinger caught his attention. He had read once of a Deryni lord who had used a similar ring as a point of focus for deep concentration—the Thuryn technique, named for Rhys Thuryn, who had first made it a part of the Deryni arsenal. Morgan had often used the technique in the past, though never for something like this. But it had always worked well before. Perhaps it would work again.