Aballister walked down Lakeview Street in Calaton, his bony frame wrapped tightly in black robes to keep out the cold wind that blew off Lake Impesk.He hadn't been in Calaton for less than a day, but he had already learned about the riots at the Dragon's Fig Leaf.Apparently Cadderly - his estranged son and nemesis - had escaped the assassination ring he had sent. Aballister sneered at the thought, a gasping voice escaped lips withered from years of incantations and energies that had been cast to devastating effect.escaped?Aballister thought, as if it were a ridiculous idea.Cadderly hadn't just escaped pursuit.The young priest and his friends not only wiped out the "Mask of the Night" dispatch team composed of more than twenty professional killers, but also killed Bog Reese-Aballister in Trinity City. The second subordinate in this tight organization.

All the people in Kaladon are talking about the achievements of this young priest from the Mengzhi Library.People even started whispering to each other that Cadderly might be their hope in this dark age. Cadderly was no longer just a small problem for Aballister. The magician felt none of the pride his father had in his son's achievements.Aballister had ambitions for the region, a desire to conquer it given to him by an avatar of the evil goddess Talona.Just the previous spring, these desires had seemed fairly easy to achieve, when Trinity Wall's army numbered eight thousand, including warriors, magicians, and priests of the Cult of Talona.But then Cadderly unexpectedly stopped Barjin, a powerful priest who wanted to attack the region's main center of power, the Library of Moezhi.And in the following season, Cadderly led the elves in the Western Simista Forest against the army composed of goblins and giants, and won an astonishing victory. Chase back to the cave on the mountain.

Not even the Mask of Night, the most feared assassination ring in the heart of the Realm, could stop Cadderly.Now, winter is coming quickly, and the first snow in this area has already fallen, and the invasion of Kara Dun by the Trinity Walled City has to be temporarily stopped. Aballister walked south on Bridge Avenue, past the low wooden buildings of the lakeside city as the afternoon sun dimmed.He walked through the open gates of the city cemetery and cast a simple spell to the location of Porg Reese's inconspicuous grave.He waited for the night to completely engulf the land, drawing a few symbols of protection in the snow and mud around the cemetery, then pulled his robe tighter against the freezing cold.

The lights in the city went out, the streets fell silent, and the magician began to chant a spell to summon the underworld.The summoning lasted for a few minutes, and Aballister adjusted his mind, attuned to the dark area between the realms, trying to intercept the summoned soul on the way.He finished the spell with a simple call: "Porg Reese." The wind seemed to gather around the withered magician, swirling the night mists over the ground above the tomb. At this moment, the fog parted suddenly, and the ghost stood in front of Aballister.Though it wasn't quite physical yet, it looked a lot like the young Pogue Aballister remembered—straight, braided hair set aside, eyes that looked around inquiringly and suspiciously.However, it was still a little different, making Aballister frowned.A conspicuous gash split the center of Pogue's chest, and even in near-total darkness, Aballister could see through the gash through the ghost's ribs and lungs, all the way down to its backbone.

"It's an axe," explained Pogue in a plaintive, ethereal voice.He put a transparent hand between the wounds, showing a sinister smile. "Do you want to feel it?" Aballister had faced the recalled spirit a hundred times, knowing he couldn't feel the wound even if he wanted to; he knew it was only a ghost, the last concrete image of Pogue's torn body.The ghost couldn't harm the magician, couldn't even touch it, and while bound by Aballister's magical summons, it would literally answer a few of Aballister's questions.Still, Aballister frowned unconsciously again, and stepped back carefully, disgusted at the thought of putting his hand in that wound.

"Cadly and his friends killed you," Aballister began. "Yes," Pogue replied, although Aballister was stating facts, not asking questions.The magician cursed himself for being stupid.He could only ask a few questions before the power of the spell dissipated and the ghost was released.He reminded himself that he had to be careful with his choice of words in his statements lest they be mistaken for questions. "I know that Cadderly and his friends killed you, and I know they wiped out the entire assassination team," he announced.The ghost seemed to be smiling, and Aballister wasn't sure if the quick-witted fellow was luring him to waste the opportunity to ask another question.The magician wanted to continue the conversation he had planned, but couldn't resist the temptation.

"Is it all..." he began slowly, trying to figure out the quickest way to find out what happened to the entire assassination team.Aballister stopped cleverly, deciding to be as brief as possible to effectively end this part of the conversation. "Who else is alive in the assassination team?" "Only one," replied Pogue obediently. "A fugitive Volbo giant named Vander." The irresistible temptation reappeared. "Defected?" repeated Aballister. "This Vander, joined the enemy?" "Yes—and still true." Damn it, Aballister thought to himself.Things get complicated again.Every time his troublesome son was involved, things always got more complicated. "Did they go to the library?"

"right." "Will they come to Trinity Walled City?" The spirit began to dissipate and did not answer the question, and Aballister realized that he had made a mistake because he asked the ghost a hypothetical question, one that could not be answered at this moment. "I haven't let you go yet!" cried the magician, desperate to hold on to what could hardly be called flesh.He stretched out his hands, but pierced straight through Pogg's dissolving form; and his mind searched at the same time, but there was nothing for him to grasp. Aballister stood alone in the graveyard.He knew that Pogue's spirit would come back to him as soon as it found a definitive answer to that question.But how long will that be?Aballister doubted.And before Aballister found the information he needed to stop Cadderly and his friends, what kind of disaster would these troublesome fellows cause?

"Hey, you!" came a voice from the avenue, followed by the clatter of boots on the cobblestones. "Who's still in the cemetery after dark? Stay there!" Aballister barely noticed the two City Guardsmen rushing through the cemetery gates, spotting his position and running toward him at full speed.The magician was thinking of Pogue, thinking of the dead Ba Jin, who was once the most powerful priest in the Trinity Wall, and the dead Ragnor: the chief warrior of the Trinity Wall.Besides, the wizard was thinking of Cadderly, the one who started all the trouble. When Aballister started chanting, two guardsmen were on the verge of jumping on him.He threw his arms high out to the sides as they approached and started reaching for him.With a final cry, the protective spell was activated, knocking the two men into the air, and the force released by the magic threw them into the air, and at the same time, Aballister, in the blink of an eye, His body was teleported back to the private room in the Trinity Walled City.

Two dazed guardsmen struggled to their feet from the damp ground, stared at each other in disbelief, and then rushed back out the cemetery gate, convinced they'd better pretend nothing had happened in the spooky cemetery. ※※※ Cadderly sat on the flat roof of a two-story building in the Moezhi Library, watching the sun spread its radiant fingers across the plains to the east of the mountains.Other fingers descended from the towering peaks surrounding Cadderly's position to join their companions snaking up from the meadow.Mountain streams come alive and sparkle with silver, while autumn leaves in brown, yellow, red and bright orange burst into flames.

When Percival the white squirrel saw the young priest hopping along the roof gutter, Cadderly almost laughed out loud as he looked at the squirrel's eagerness to join him - Cadderly He immediately knew that it was a desire emanating from Percival's growling stomach.He reached into the pouch on his belt, took out some kakasha nuts, and sprinkled them at Percival's feet. For the young priest, everything seemed as normal as ever.Percival hopped happily among his favorite fruit as the sun continued to climb, beating off the coolness of late autumn so high up in the Snowflake Mountains. Cadderly, however, could see past the calm surface.Nothing is normal, neither for the young priest nor for the library.Cadderly had traveled all over the world, fighting in the forests of Simista and Kaladon, learning first-hand the realities of a harsh world, and learning, too, that the priests in the library, whom he had admired all his life, Neither man nor woman was so wise or powerful as he had once believed. As Cadderly sat on the sun-drenched roof, there was only one thought on his mind: something very bad was wrong with his own order of the Denir, and with him in the order of the brother-god Oghma, who shared the library with him. .In Cadderly's view, procedure was overemphasized, and the priests in the library were paralyzed by a pile of useless parchments, but what was needed most at this moment was actually decisive action. And Cadderly knew that these roots of corruption sank even deeper.He thought of Doe Doe, the poor leper he had met on the road outside Carraton.Anonymous once went to the library to ask for help, but found that the priests, mainly Denier and Oghma, cared more about their own failure in healing than the consequences of the patient's real suffering. Yes, Cadderly decided, something was very wrong with his cherished library.He lay back on the gray slightly sloping roof and casually threw another fruit at the squirrel who was munching.