"Thought not. I'll be upstairs if something critical comes up." He stamped through the shop, went up, settled in his chair, willed himself to sleep. His dreams were subtle. It seemed he could hear at last, but could not recall what he heard…

Stancil entered the upstairs room. Bomanz asked, "What are we going to do? That crowd is gumming up the works."

"How long do you need, Pop?"

"This could go all night every night for weeks if it works out." He was pleased. Stancil had recovered his courage.

"Can't hardly run them off."

"And can't go anywhere else, either." The Guards were in a hard, bitter mood.

"How noisy will you be, Pop? Could we do it here, on the quiet?"

"Guess we'll have to try. Going to be crowded. Get the stuff from the shop. I'll make room."

Bomanz's shoulders slumped when Stancil left. He was getting nervous. Not about the thing he would challenge, but about his own foresight. He kept thinking he had forgotten something. But he had reviewed four decades of notes without detecting a flaw in his chosen approach. Any reasonably educated apprentice should be able to follow his formulation. He spat into a corner. "Antiquarian's cowardice," he muttered. "Old-fashioned fear of the unknown."

Stancil returned. "Mom's got them into a game of Throws."

"I wondered what Snoopy was yelling about. Got everything?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Go down and kibbitz. I'll be there after I set up. We'll do it after they're in bed."

"Okay."

"Stance? Are you ready?"

"I'm okay, Pop. I just had the jitters last night. It's not every day I see a man killed by ghosts."

"Better get a feel for that kind of thing. It happens."

Stancil looked blank.

"You're sneaking studies on Black Campus, aren't you?" Black Campus was that hidden side of the university on which wizards learned their trade. Officially, it did not exist. Legally, it was prohibited. But it was there. Bomanz was a laureate graduate.

Stancil gave one sharp nod and left.

"I thought so," Bomanz whispered, and wondered: How black are you, son?

He pottered around till he had triple-checked everything, till he realized that caution had become an excuse for not socializing. "You're something," he mumbled to himself.

One last look. Chart laid out. Candles. Bowl of quicksilver. Silver dagger. Herbs. Censers… He still had that feeling. "What the hell could I have missed?"

Throws was essentially four-player checkers. The board was four times the usual size. Players played from each side. An element of chance was added by throwing a die before each move. If a player's throw came up six, he could move any combination of pieces six moves. Checkers rules generally applied, except that a jump could be declined.