A few minutes later, the others all gathered round to watch as Jerry prepared to cast the spell. Not that there would be anything for them to see. The spell affected the caster's own mind, enabling him and him alone to read the magical script. To the others, nothing would appear to happen.

      Jerry pulled out his crystal prism, and Thomas was impressed to see that its quality fully equalled that of his own. Most wizards made them just about good enough to work, considering any further effort unnecessary and wasteful when they had better things to occupy their time, but Jerry had obviously laboured on his, taking it to a state of perfection that was not strictly necessary. He was, apparently, a perfectionist, just as Thomas was, enjoying the satisfaction of doing the best possible job of whatever he was doing, the result being its own reward. They might differ physically, Thomas thought, but they had an awful lot in common.

     Jerry held the prism up to his eyes and looked at the writing on the map through it. He spoke the words of the spell and the others noticed the barest flicker of light within the prism as it channeled and focused the magical energy passing through it. Jerry cried out with excitement, gripping the map tightly in his hands. "I can read it! I can read it!"

     "What does it say?" asked Diana, leaning forward and staring at him excitedly.

     "It doesn't make much sense," said Jerry, puzzled. "It just says 'two inches to the right'."

     "Two inches to the right," said Shaun thoughtfully. "I wonder. Perhaps it means that Vantarestin's two inches to the right of its position on the map."

     "Yes!" said Diana eagerly. She snatched the map from Jerry, laid it out on the ground, and estimated a distance of about two inches on it. "Has anybody got a ruler?" she asked. Nobody had. "Well, it would be around here somewhere," she said. "About twenty miles away, somewhere in these hills. No wonder that poor chap never found it! He was looking in the wrong place!"

     "That's miles away from the road, in the middle of some pretty rough country," said Thomas. "The perfect place for a hide out."

             
     "That's it then!" cried Diana, beaming with delight. "We'll leave right away!" The others looked at each other and sighed in resignation.

☆☆☆

     It took them a full day to reach the approximate area. As they rose, Lirenna and Jerry steered their horses close alongside Thomas’s so they could talk. "This Zebulon," said the tiny nome, frowning with concern. "I suppose he is a University wizard?"

     "I've got no idea," confessed Thomas. "Probably." They looked at him. "Almost certainly. Yes, I'm sure of it!" The others stared harder at him. "Look," said Thomas, "if he's gone, then it doesn't matter whether he was or not, does it? He's not going to be around to kill us all with a backfiring spell."

     "He may have created magical artifacts," pointed out Lirenna. "Wands, amulets, that sort of thing. Anything created by an externum has to be treated with great care."

     "You're wearing Mikos’s ring," pointed out Thomas, pointing to her finger. "Maybe you should throw it away, just to be on the safe side." She gave him a dirty look and steered her horse away.

     When they reached the area where they thought the stronghold was hidden they split up into pairs. Shaun went with Diana, Jerry with Matthew, and Thomas with Lirenna, each pair going off in different directions, looking for anything unusual that might signify the presence, within the past few years, of large numbers of people. They returned to their camp for midday lunch without any luck, but towards evening Jerry and Matthew came across a wide animal track through the tangled undergrowth and followed it to a large cave in the side of a hill. At the back of the cave, a wide flight of stairs led twenty feet down to a stone door. Excited, they rushed back to camp to tell the others.

     Diana was overjoyed to hear of the discovery, and wanted to rush off to explore it right away. It took all the persuasive powers of the others to make her wait until the next morning. Shaun found himself beginning to get quite worried about her. She was being driven by a religious fervour and the disappointment, if no holy mission materialised, might be more than she could bear. She had grown subdued and snappish when they'd left Dermakarak without having found any great mission needing to be performed there, and it was only when the map had turned up that her spirits had returned. If this opening in the hill turned out to be nothing more than a hermit's home, he was really worried that she might sink into a pit of frustration and misery from which she might never emerge. Shaun vowed to keep a close eye on her, therefore, and to constantly play down her expectations at every opportunity, to prepare her for the disappointment and reduce her inevitable feelings of failure.

     Diana had them up before the rise of the yellow sun the next morning, and stood impatiently tapping her foot while the others had their breakfasts and the wizards checked to see if their spells had changed. She bolted a cup of tea and a couple of rashers of bacon at Shaun's insistence, and then almost dragged them out of the camp, along the winding route Matthew had chopped through the undergrowth the day before. Arriving at the cave, Diana ran ahead down the steps to the door, ignoring Shaun's shouted warning for her to wait. She pushed at it, but it was locked.

     "How do we get in?" she asked imploringly as the others joined her there. They examined the door, but could find no sign of any handle or keyhole, or any other way of opening it. They searched the walls of the cave, the floor, the ceiling, the steps, and even the sides of the hill looking for any kind of opening mechanism, but with no success. They tried all pushing the door together, but it remained stubbornly shut. Thinking that the door might be a decoy, they searched for secret doors, but found none. They were still searching when midday approached. The others were getting ready to give up, and poor Diana was almost in tears with frustration. "There has to be a way in!" she wailed. "There has to be!"

     "Let's stop and think for a minute," said Thomas. "Zebulon was a powerful wizard. He probably created some magical way of keeping the door closed and keeping out intruders."

     "Yes," said Diana, grabbing his arm hopefully, "and you're wizards! Open the door with your magic!"

     "I don't think I can," said Thomas, gently pulling her off his arm. "Zebulon was a much greater wizard than we are. We only know a few spells, and none of them are for opening locked doors."

     "Don't forget he had a whole private army living here as well," said Jerry. "There must have been some way for non-wizards to get through."

     "A password, perhaps," said Matthew.

     "Yes!" said Diana. "You give the password and the door opens, so all we've got to do is find it!"

     "You make it sound so easy," said Shaun with a smile. "It's not going to be something simple like ‘open in the name of Zebulon.' It's going to be..." He stopped staring in astonishment as the massive stone door swung slowly open with a heavy grinding noise. "By the Gods," he muttered.

     "You did it!" cried Diana, hugging him. "Come on, let's go in!"

      She started forward, but Shaun caught her by the arm. "Hey, hold on a minute," he said. "Let's go slowly. There's likely to be all kinds of traps to catch intruders. This isn't just a simple village like Dermakarak. This is a wizard's stronghold, and the home of a small army. An army with enemies. Keep that in mind at all times." He went back outside, cut down a small but straight sapling and made a staff out of it. “I'll go first,” he said as he returned. “Follow me and don't touch anything."

     He stepped through the door, walking slowly and carefully and tapping the staff on the floor like a blind man. The others took out their trog glowbottles, added a drop of activating fluid, and waited for them to reach full brightness before following. "At least there won't be any buglins here," muttered Thomas.

     As Matthew, walking last, passed through the door, it swung slowly closed behind them. The others turned and stared in alarm. "We're trapped!" cried Jerry.

     "Don't worry," said Shaun. "Opening it again from the inside will be no problem, I'm sure." He returned to it and ran his hands over its surface, finding a latch half way up. The door opened again when he pulled it, then closed again a moment later. He took the lead again. "Come on," he said, and the others followed him further into the complex.