Focusing all his attention on the ring, Morgan began to concentrate, willing his mind to put aside all outside worries and relax, to shut out superfluous sounds, sights, sensations. As his eyes drifted closed, his breathing slowed, became more shallow. His tense fingers relaxed.

As he concentrated on keeping his mind clear, he permitted an image of Brion’s face to form in his thoughts, tried to put himself into that image, to fathom what had been there concerning what he now sought.

Suddenly the image of Brion winked out of existence, to be replaced by swirling blackness and dizziness. He had a fleeting impression of a man’s face surrounded by a dark cowl, strange, yet hauntingly familiar, a feeling both of urgency and reassurance—and then the moment was past. Then there was nothing but a stunned young man sitting rather foolishly at a desk in a library with his eyes closed.

Morgan opened his eyes abruptly and glanced around, but there was no one else in the room.

Sweet Jesu, that image had been real while it lasted! He had never had anything like that happen before. And he couldn’t, for the life of him, recall ever having seen the strange face before. So much for the Thuryn technique for today.

Absently he went back to the shelf containing Brion’s personal collection of favorite books and pulled one out at random.

“Talbot’s Lives of the Saints,” he read, half out loud.

He flipped idly through its worn pages until it suddenly fell open to a place marked by a slip of parchment. There was writing on the parchment—in Brion’s hand, too—but that fact was completely overshadowed by the impact of the open pages it marked. For on the left, in full color, was a portrait of the face Morgan had just seen in his vision.

Apprehensively he bent closer to make out the name beneath the portrait, squinted as he held the book toward the candlelight and read: “Saint Camber of Culdi, Patron of Deryni Magic.”

Morgan glanced nervously behind him as he lowered the book. It was impossible, and yet—this was the face he’d seen while in trance. There was no doubt about that.

Preposterous. He didn’t believe in saints—or at least, he didn’t think he did. After all, Camber had been dead for nearly two hundred years, and his sainthood rescinded, to boot.

But what had made Morgan think of Camber at precisely that moment? Had Brion once said something about the renegade saint that somehow had stuck in his mind, remaining there, dormant all these years, until the time it should be recalled by just such a chain of events as this?

Question: What did he really know about Saint Camber of Culdi? Answer: Not very much. It simply hadn’t been useful knowledge until now.