The Complete Conclave of Shadows Trilogy: Talon of the Silver Hawk, King of Foxes, Exile’s Return

Magnus said, ‘I do not. But do you fish?’

Talon sat upright, his face alive with enthusiasm. ‘I’ve fished the lakes and rivers of my homeland ever since I could walk.’

Magnus regarded him silently for a moment, then said, ‘Very well. Let me show you how to fish in the ocean.’

With a wave of his hand, he caused a black void to appear in the air. Then he reached through it and appeared to be feeling around for something. ‘Ah!’ he said with satisfaction. When he withdrew his arm, there was a pole in his hand. He pulled it through and handed it to Talon.

Talon saw that it was a fishing pole, but unlike any he had seen before. It was long – a foot longer than his own six feet in height – and it had an odd device affixed to it, a cylinder with a ratchet and crank, around which a prodigious amount of line was wrapped. The line was threaded through a series of loops – looking to be fashioned out of cane or bamboo – to a metal loop at the tip. On top of the reel lay a metal bar.

Magnus fetched out another of these poles and then a wicker basket on a belt, which Talon recognized as a fisherman’s creel.

‘Come then, let us fish, but while we do, we shall also study.’

With a sigh, Talon picked up the creel and the two poles and followed. Even if his lessons continued, at least he would be outside for the afternoon.

He followed the magician down the rocky path from the bluff to the beach below. The wind whipped up small whitecaps and blew spindrift off the top of the breakers. Talon had come to find the sound of the waves upon the rocks soothing and the smell of sea air as invigorating as the scent of the pines and aspens of his home.

When they reached the beach, Magnus hiked up his robes and tucked them into his belt. On another man, it might have been a comic sight, but there was nothing comical about Magnus. Talon noticed his powerful legs and decided that despite being a user of magic rather than a hunter or warrior, Magnus was as powerfully built a man as his younger brother.

The magician showed Talon how to hold the rod. He pointed out the items on the ‘reel’, as he called the device attached to the pole, and explained that the bar was a ‘brake’ which would slow down the reel if a large fish struck it and tried to run. The ratchet allowed the fisherman to reel in the fish, keeping it from pulling away unless the fisherman released the brake.

Talon was fascinated: his entire experience of fishing had involved nets and a line tied to the end of a long stick. He watched as Magnus pulled out some dried meat from the creel and threaded it onto a large metal hook. With two steps and a half-trot half-leap, he whipped the end of the pole towards the waves, casting the hook far out beyond the breakers.

‘Make sure you know where the hook is before you cast,’ he warned Talon. ‘It’s no fun to catch yourself with it. You have to push the damn thing through the skin and cut it off to get the hook out of your flesh.’

Talon sensed he spoke from bitter experience. Moving a short distance away from Magnus, Talon put the dried beef on the hook. Then he let the line rest on the sand as he stepped forwards a pace, then with a whip of the pole cast the line farther out than Magnus had.

‘Well done,’ the magician said.

They stood there in silence for nearly half an hour. Neither man feared silence. Then Magnus said, ‘What do your people believe about this world?’

Talon asked, ‘I’m not sure what you mean.’

‘What stories do they tell regarding the nature of the world?’

Talon thought about the stories told by the old men around the fire during the summer, and when the shaman would come and speak of the history of the race. ‘The Orosini believe the world is a dream, fashioned by the gods, living in the mind of the Sleeper.’

‘And what about the people?’

‘We are part of that dream,’ Talon responded. ‘But to us everything is real, because who can know what is real to a god?’

Magnus said nothing for a while. Then he said, ‘Your people may be right, because nothing in that concept of this world is in conflict with what we know of it. But for the moment, put aside your people’s beliefs and listen to me. Here is what I know to be true.

‘The world is a large ball of earth, mud, rock and water, with air surrounding it. As vast as it is, it is but a tiny part of a universe which is large beyond imagining, and full of other worlds, many with life on them.

‘There are billions of worlds in the universe.’

‘Billions?’

‘What has Robert taught you of numbers?’ Magnus asked.

‘I can add and subtract, multiply and divide, if I am careful.’

‘Better than most men. How many figures can you manage?’

‘I can multiply four numbers by four other numbers.’

‘Then you know what a thousand is.’

‘Ten hundreds,’ answered Talon.

‘And ten thousands by ten is a hundred thousand.’

‘Yes, I understand.’

‘And ten such is a million.’

‘Ah,’ said Talon, sounding uncertain.

Magnus cast him a sidelong glance and saw that Talon was now lost. ‘Look, let me explain it this way. Should I give you grains of sand, one each second, in one minute you would have sixty in your hand.’

‘And if you did so for one thousand seconds, I would have a thousand. Yes I see,’ Talon said, anticipating where the lesson was going.

‘It would take more than thirteen days for me to hand you a million grains of sand, if I continued at one a second without stopping.’

Talon looked amazed. ‘That long?’

‘A billion would take me more than thirty years.’

Talon looked at Magnus in complete disbelief. ‘Can there be a number that big?’

‘Bigger,’ said Magnus. With a slight smile he said, ‘Two billion.’

Talon could only laugh. ‘And then three billion and four: yes, I see.’

‘There are many billions of worlds in the universe Talon, perhaps even too many for our gods to know them all.’

Talon showed no emotion, but it was clear that he found the idea fascinating. Magnus went on, describing a universe of endless variety and possibility.

‘What of the life on these other worlds?’ Talon asked at one point.

‘You’ve heard the stories of the Riftwar?’

‘Yes, told me by my grandfather. He said to the west …’ Talon paused, then glanced at the sea and said, ‘… the west of our homeland – I guess it might be to the east of here.’

‘No, it is still to the west of here, off in the Far Coast. Continue.’

‘He said that men from another world came by magic to wage war on our world, but that the Kingdom repulsed them.’