Free Madwand (Illustrated) by Roger Zelazny Page A

surprise here, eh?” the apprentice said.
    “What do you mean?”
    “The suddenness of it all. Ibal doesn’t even know I’m on my way. He’s still—” he paused and grinned. “—occupied.”
    “At least he got my name onto the list before he turned his attention to other matters.”
    “It was not entirely altruistic of him,” Nupf replied. “I envy you considerably, should you come through this intact.”
    “How so?”
    “You don’t know?”
    Pol shook his head.
    “Madwands—particularly those who make it through initiation,” Nupf explained, “are, almost without exception, the most powerful sorcerers of all. Of course, there aren’t that many around. Still, that is why Ibal would like to have you remember him with a certain fondness and gratitude.”
    “I’ll be damned,” Pol said.
    “You really didn’t know?”
    “Not in the least. Could that have anything to do, I wonder, with Larick’s efforts to find out whether I’m black or white?”
    Nupf laughed.
    “I suppose he hates to see the opposite side get a good recruit.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Oh, I don’t really know that much about him, but the rumor going around among the other candidates has it that Larick is so lily white he spends all of his free time hating the other side. He is also supposed to be very good—in a purely technical sense.”
    “I’m getting tired of being misjudged,” Pol said. “It’s been going on all my life.”
    “It would be best to put up with a little more of it, for now.”
    “I wasn’t thinking of disturbing the initiation.”
    “I’m sure he’ll run it perfectly. Whites are very conscientious.”
    Pol laughed. He adjusted his vision and looked back at the cone of power. It had grown noticeably. He turned away and moved on toward the mounting clouds. Belken had already acquired something of radiance beneath them.

VI.
     
    Seated upon the wide ledge outside the cavemouth, three-quarters of the way up the mountain’s western face, Pol finished his bread and drank the rest of his water while watching the sun sink beneath the weight of starless night. There had been only one brief break on the way up and his feet throbbed slightly. He imagined the others were also somewhat footsore.
    There came a flash of lightning in the southwest. A cold wind which had followed them more than halfway up made a little whistling noise among rocky prominences overhead. The mountain had a faint glow to it, which it seemed to acquire every night, only tonight it continued to brighten even as he watched. And when he shifted over to second seeing it seemed as if all of Belken were afire with a slowly undulating blue flame. He was about to comment upon it to Nupf when Larick rose to his feet and cleared his throat.
    “All right. Put the robes on over your clothes and line up before the entrance,” he said. “It will be a bit of a walk to the first station. I will lead the way. There is to be no talking unless you are called upon for responses.”
    They unfolded the coarse white garments and began donning them.
    “ . . . And any visions or transformations you may witness—along with any alterations of awareness—are occasions neither for distress nor comment. Accept everything that comes to you, whether it seems good or bad. Transformations themselves may well be transformed before the night is over.”
    They lined up behind him.
    “This is your last chance for questions.”
    There were none.
    “Very well.”
    Larick proceeded at a deliberate pace into the cavemouth. Pol found himself near the middle of the line which followed him. His vision slipped back into its natural range. The bluish glow diminished somewhat but did not depart. The narrow, high-walled cave into which they entered pulsated in the same fashion as the outer slopes of the mountain, giving sufficient, if somewhat unsettling, illumination to light their progress. As they passed further along, the brightness and movement intensified to the