sorcerer, qualify for the exams that could allow them to advance to

the rank of mage, but so demanding were final levels of

certification that only one Japanese had ever succeeded in passing

them. The number of mages in the world could be counted on the

fingers of one hand. First and foremost among them all had been

the legendary Merlin Ambrosius, Father of the Modern

Thaumaturgic Age It had been Merlin who had brought back the

forgotten discipline of magic after awakening from his long,

enchanted sleep. He had brought the world out of the dark age of

the Collapse by founding-schools of thauma-turgy, administered by

his most gifted pupils, one of whom had been the Arab prince,

Sheikh Rashid Al’Hassan, the first of Merlin’s students to attain the

rank of mage.

Like Ambrosius, Al’Hassan was gone now. He had been seduced

by necromancy, a crime punishable throughout the world by death,

and it was rumored that he had met his end in mage war between

himself and his old master. Others said that he was consumed by

his own spells, black magic run amok, and the ruins of his splendid

palace, left untouched since he had disappeared, stood as a

frightening object lesson to all those who might be tempted by the

dark side of the thaumaturgic arts. In any case, no one knew for

certain what had happened. Both Al’Hassan and Ambrosius had

disappeared, never to be seen again. There had been no sign of

Merlin ever since the day his Beacon Hill mansion was totally

consumed by flames, yet there were those who continued to believe

that Merlin was still alive. Kanno doubted it, himself. He believed

that the master and the student had destroyed each other. And that

meant the two most powerful mages on the planet were no more.

That left only Zorin, the aloof and implacable Russian, who

disdained to use a magename; the venerable Tao Tzu of Tibet, an

aged recluse whose magename meant “Son of the Way”; and

Kanno’s own former sensei, Yohaku, whose true name he had never

known and whose magename translated as “white space.”

Yohaku had studied in America, under Ambrosius himself, and

the master of masters had once remarked upon his pupil’s selfless

dedication, his total openness and lack of preconceptions in

approaching his studies of the art. He had referred to him as a