Into a Dark Realm by Raymond E. Feist Page A

knew I was coming?” asked Pug.
    “I may lack your prodigious powers, Milamber,” he said, using Pug’s Tsurani name, “but I am a master of my craft, and my spells of warding are second to none. I can detect the approach of friends as well as enemies.” There were two porcelain cups on the table and he poured hot water out of a precious metal pot. “Chocha?”
    “Thank you,” replied Pug.
    “Then sit, please.”
    Pug sat upon the floor, arranging his travel clothing, a nondescript light blue robe, over which a hooded cloak had been thrown.
    The old man’s eyesight was failing, but he was still alert enough to take notice of Pug’s manner of dress. “Traveling incognito?”
    “I do not wish others of the Assembly to know I’m here,” Pug replied.
    The wizened magician chuckled. “You have a colorful history with the Assembly. I believe you were even once cast out and branded as a traitor to the Empire.”
    “Nothing quite that extreme, but there is a matter of grave concern that places me at a disadvantage with the Assembly; in short, I can’t trust any member of it.”
    “What can I do to help you, old friend?”
    “There is now loose within the Empire a fugitive from my world, a magician of exceptional cunning and danger, and he may be impossible to find.”
    “Already you paint a grave picture,” said Sinboya. “If you can’t find him, he will be very difficult to find, indeed.”
    Pug nodded, taking a sip of his hot drink. The four years he had abided with the Assembly, being trained as a Great One of the Empire, had given him a fondness for the bitter brew, which tasted like nothing so much as a very bitter tea found in Novindus. “He has the power to possess another’s body and it will be hard even for those closest to the host to detect him.”
    “Ah, a possessor. I have heard tales of such, but so often such tales are nothing more than that: stories without any truth.” Sinboya was a magician of the Lesser Path, much like Pug’s first teacher, Kulgan, a magic that Pug was never suited for by temperament until much later in his education. Pug was conversant in all forms of magic, but unlike Sinboya he was not a specialist in this area. “I assume this visit, then, is not so much for the pleasure of my company, but for what device or trinket I can fashion for you?”
    “I apologize for my failure to stay in touch.”
    “Not necessary. If half of what I hear about you through rumor is true, you are a man in need of twice the hours in the day.”
    Pug said, “I need something to detect necromancy.”
    The old magician sat quietly for a moment. “It is forbidden, as you know.”
    “I know that, but some men are driven by more than the fear of being discovered.”
    “It is true that the lure of the dark arts can be powerful. Animation and control of the dead, the use of others’ life energies, and the creation of false life are abominations in the eyes of every temple; and magicians at the time of the Assembly’s founding feared such men.” The old man chuckled. “You’ll never hear a Tsurani Great One admit this, but those of my ‘lesser’ calling can reach levels of power terrible to contemplate. It takes time to learn either path, but the Greater Path is the quicker path to power. What few know is that the Lesser Path is the slower path to greater power. I can create devices, given enough time and materials, that can do things none of the Greater Path—withyou being the possible exception, Milamber—can duplicate. Give me what I need, and I can build a box that will hold great storms until opened, or a flute that can command obedience in a thousand animals at once. There are many things we of the Lesser Path can accomplish that are often overlooked by the Assembly.
    “What do you wish this device to do?”
    “I need something that will identify any significant manifestation of necromancy, say the seizing of a soul or the animation of the dead.”
    The old man was silent for