“Be-ka-re at your service,” he said soberly. “The High Priest tells me you have need of magic. Tell me what you need, and I will tell you if any of us can do this.”

“A way to keep Avatre warm all night at the top of a tower,” Kiron said instantly. “And I need a way to know, from above the clouds, that the Magi’s Tower is right below me.” Now he had something he could do.

These were simple things, and yet—so crucial, and so impossible to achieve without magic.

Be-ka-re pursed his lips, then looked up at the ceiling. Kiron waited; he got the impression that the priest was thinking hard and rapidly.

Finally, the reward for his patience.

“I think,” Be-ka-re said, “we can do this.”

As the last light faded, Kiron and Avatre circled above the clouds over Alta City. No one could see him from here; the only problem, of course, was that he couldn’t see anything. And he needed to wait until darkness fell, while people’s eyes were still making the adjustment from light to dark, and a shadow could fall from the clouds and have less chance of being seen.

In his hand was a disk made of glass, and on that disk was a glowing spot that moved as he moved. When the spot was in the center of the disk, it meant he was directly over the Tower.

So small a thing, and it would not last for long. By midnight, its power would be exhausted. But by midnight he would be on the Tower, and would not need it. Without it, he would have to come in beneath the clouds and approach the Tower from a distance, drastically increasing the chance of being seen. With it, he could drop down from directly above.

The Tower, it seemed, sent out magic. The little glowing spot was a reflection of that magic. The disk was not, as the use of the Far-Seeing Eye was, an active thing that could be blocked. It was more like a mirror, a passive thing showing only what another Magus might see merely by looking in the right way.

“Magi and those of us priests who also know the ways of magic can see this,” Be-ka-re had told him. “I merely give you a way to see what I can see.”

The last of the sun tipped below the clouds, which turned blood-red below him. He hoped it wasn’t an omen; Avatre continued to circle at his direction, though she was growing uneasy, as her frequent glances down showed him. She knew it would be dark soon, and she didn’t like to land in the dark any more than any other dragon did. But other than her glances downward, she did nothing; she trusted him.