“Treemages. Not all of them. Just a few. The best of them, the master teachers. The ones who understand that the tree is in the root. It was a treemage of fourteen centuries ago who saved me alive to do the work I’m doing now. He persuaded a great tree to open itself to me. Inside its living wood, I made a tiny gate that drew me upward through the tree, a tiny fraction of an inch every day, so little movement that I almost wasn’t moving at all. But I passed through the gate each day, healing all the ills of my body. And it also healed the tree, so that limbs never broke off without regrowing. The tree lived those fourteen centuries in perfect health, as I did. Until I felt a shuddering in the All. I felt Danny North coming into the universe—coming into his power. I didn’t understand it at the time. I only knew it was time to come out of the tree. I hardly knew who I was. I couldn’t speak. I had to learn to be human again, instead of being a part of the tree. But I learned. All too well. I’m human now. And Danny North is in the world. He bested me and has my gates. I’m nearly helpless to fight the Belmage, or even the Families of Mittlegard. That’s why I need you to become master of yourself, so you can stand beside me.”

“I’m not a brave man,” said Ced. “I don’t know what I’ll be like in war.”

“No one ever does,” said Wad. “And the answer is never the same on two different days. Will you come with me to the treemages of Gos in the Forest Deep, and see if one of them will take you on?”

“I think you’ve already asked one, and he’s said yes, or you wouldn’t have come to me,” Ced answered.

“I’ve asked,” said Wad, “but he won’t say yes until he meets you, and you have to come of your own free will.”

“I’ll go with you and learn what I can learn. And if I find that everything you said is true, I’ll stand with you as best I can.”

“If it isn’t true,” said Wad, “it won’t be because I lied. It will be because I’m only guessing at half the things I know about the Belmage, and I might be wrong. I hope I’m wrong. I hope we can defeat him in the end.”

Visitors

9

VISITORS

Danny wrote out the message and rehearsed it with his friends until they had it memorized. He didn’t want them to read it. He wanted them to look at the Families face to face, eye to eye. Not challengingly, but calmly, easily. They were the messengers of a Great Mage. They had to act like it.