Kay Hooper - The Wizard Of Seattle

All he could do was try to keep everything, including Serena, under control until he found the answers for which he'd been searching.

Serena pushed back her chair and left the table, every taut line of her body expressing her vexation with him. Merlin rose, as well, and followed her out into the foyer, intending to say something that would allow them to part for the day on fairly amiable terms. He didn't like being at odds with Serena; it made him feel uncharacteristically morose and had a tendency to cause the rest of his day to be miserable.

But before he could say anything, the phone on the hall table rang.

She was getting her raincoat from the tree by the front door, so Merlin answered. And even though he'd been half prepared for it from the moment he had read Kane's article, the matter-of-fact voice on the other end of the line nonetheless caught him by surprise.

"Merlin, this is Jordan."

Unconsciously, Merlin gazed straight at Serena. "Hello, Jordan. How have you been?"

Ignoring the pleasantry, the other man said, "How soon can you get here?"

An interesting question, Merlin reflected. He could, of course, "get there" instantly, and both of them knew it. But the appearance and demands of his normal life made instantaneous transportation an extremely rare thing, used only during the direst of emergencies.

"I can clear my desk by lunchtime," he said.

"Good. Take the first available flight after noon. I'll meet you at the airport."

"I'll be there." Merlin listened to the dial tone for a moment, then cradled the receiver. He was still looking at Serena. She had put on her raincoat but hadn't left the house because his stare and his end of the conversation had caught her attention. So much so, in fact, that she seemed to forget she'd been mad at him.

"Be there?" Her voice was hesitant, as if she wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer.

Merlin started to tell her he was going out of town for a day or so, but the memory of what had happened last time forced him to be much more specific. "A meeting of the Council of Elders has been called," he said. "I've been asked to attend." Asked? He'd damned well been ordered.

Serena took a step toward him, still hesitant but probably alerted by some tone in his voice. "Have you done something wrong?"

A bit dryly Merlin replied, "You could say that, yes."

Wizards were born with finite degrees of power, some high and some low. No amount of learning could increase that inherent level of force; instruction and knowledge could only perfect the control, the mastery of what was innately possessed. Merlin was on the high end of that scale, one of the extraordinarily rare beings born with almost unlimited potential.

Jordan was at the low end of the scale.

He was almost as tall as Merlin, but lacked the other man's power in almost every respect. Jordan was fair, thin, pale-eyed, soft-voiced. Born with so little ability that he barely qualified as a wizard, he might have grown to resent those farther up the evolutionary scale than himself; instead, he had chosen to put his stronger talents of organization and efficiency to good use, and so served as a kind of administrative manager for the Council of Elders.

He met Merlin at O'Hare Airport, his cool Nordic looks and placid voice an island of tranquility in a sea of bustling humanity, and led the way briskly to the dark, inconspicuous Lincoln he had left in a no-parking zone. Naturally there was no ticket.

Merlin sat in the front beside Jordan, unwilling to give the appearance of being chauffeured, even though he was. He disliked ceremony and avoided it whenever possible. Especially whenever he was in the company of other wizards.

It was just after six o'clock, and since it was late autumn, it was both dark and chilly outside. A gloomy omen, Merlin thought, and instantly chided himself for the superstition.

"Where's the meeting?" he asked, even though he was fairly sure he already knew.

Jordan didn't turn his attention from the road. "The judge's house, as usual," he replied.

Merlin glanced at his driver, wondering idly and not for the first time why Jordan referred to the Council members by their positions or titles in the "real" world rather than their names. A mania for secrecy perhaps? If so, it was no wonder. The six men he served had in common a secret that would have rocked this technically advanced and cynical world if it had been made public.

The news wouldn't have done wizards much good, either. Though Serena had been flippant when she had described another Salem witch hunt, the truth was that the discovery of wizards in their midst could certainly have the powerless population of the world both frightened and up in arms.

Hardly something anyone wanted to happen.

The remainder of the drive out of the city and into the suburbs was spent in silence. Almost an hour after leaving the airport, Jordan turned the big car into the driveway of a secluded mansion. The gates opened to admit them, and moments later the car drew to a stop near the bottom of wide brick steps leading to a front door.

"They're already waiting for you in the study," Jordan said as the two men got out of the car. "I'll see that your bag is taken up to your room."

In the short time it took Merlin to mount the steps, the massive front door opened to reveal a soberly dressed elderly man, the very image of an old-world butler.

"Good evening, sir."

"Charles." He shrugged out of his coat and handed it to the butler, then half consciously straightened his tie and shot his cuffs. Not because he was vain, but because a neat appearance was essential. A meeting of the Council of Elders demanded the semiformality of a suit; Merlin, at a much younger age, had once shown up in jeans, and it had been two years before he'd been allowed to forget that breach.

He wasn't nervous, but he did pause in the foyer for a moment to collect himself.

"The study, sir."

"Yes. Thank you, Charles."

With a deliberate tread Merlin crossed the seeming acres of polished marble floor to the big double doors of the study. He knocked once, purely as a matter of form, and entered the room.

It was quite a room. Sixty feet long and forty wide with a fifteen-foot ceiling, it held two fireplaces large enough to roast whole steers without crowding, a row of enormous Palladian windows, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves on either side of both fireplaces, and a marble floor. A huge, very old and beautiful Persian rug lay beneath the long table and dozen chairs placed squarely in the center of the room, and two chandeliers were suspended above the table. The remainder of the room was furnished with groups of chairs and small tables and reading lamps scattered about as if to invite intimate conversation, but nothing would ever make that room appear cozy.

It practically echoed.

The six men who made up the Council of Elders were seated at the end of the table opposite the door. The judge was at the head; on his right were a senator, a financier, and a diplomat; on his left were a world-famous actor and a scientist. All the men were middle-aged to elderly, with the scientist being the oldest, and all possessed that indefinable look of powerful, successful men. Which they were.

They were the eldest practicing wizards-hence their name. Though from various parts of the world, they all spoke English so well, their national origins weren't obvious. Each had been selected for his position on the Council by an ancient process that clearly and precisely determined the necessary qualities of wisdom and leadership, and which allowed absolutely no chance that personal ambition could influence results.

Though all were powerful men and powerful wizards, only two had achieved the level of Master wizard. That distinction was rare because it meant, by definition, an individual with total mastery over his powers, and that demanded a strength of will so great, few were able to attain it. In actuality, fewer than one-tenth of one percent of all the wizards who had ever lived had been able to reach that stature.