Chapter One

In the garret room study that had once been his father’s, Gerin Atreyano studied the ebony length of the Staff of Naragenth. The staff rested upon a long table, the silver ferrules shining in the light of the magefire lamps. The shaft was so black it was difficult to see, reflecting no light and blending into the very shadows it cast. In some ways the shaft was more of an absence of a thing than a thing unto itself. Though Gerin could undeniably hold it, the length of the staff was not formed from a physical material—it was made of magic itself, somehow forced through the genius of Naragenth to take and hold a physical shape.

He peered at the staff intently, and did not like what he saw.

There were secrets hidden within it, tucked carefully away by Naragenth. The secret of how it was created, and how the long dead wizard, against all understanding, imbued the staff with a mind, a presence that served as a facilitator to control the energy flowing through it, fashioning raw magic into spells.

But the mind was crippled somehow, unable to truly communicate, to reveal what it was or how it had come to be. It spoke to Gerin in images that caused him great physical pain and which were often difficult or impossible to decipher. In some manner the Presence, as Gerin had come to call the staff's consciousness, was able to read his thoughts, to glean his intentions and create the corresponding spells to carry out his will. But it could not speak to him, at least with a voice.

Gerin and Hollin had studied it obsessively after the defeat of the Havalqa. The wizard Abaru Mezza had assisted them after his arrival from Hethnost, but s