Faith of the Fallen

"Albino mosquitoes," Zedd confirmed as he set his empty plate on the ground. He gestured with a sticklike finger at the general's flat assailant.

"Have you ever seen the albino fever, General? Have any of you? Terrible thing, albino fever."

"What's albino fever?" Warren asked. "1 never heard of it. I've never read anything about it, either, I'm sure."

"Really? Must be just a Midlands thing."

The general peered more closely at the tiny white insect he was holding up. "What does this albino fever do to a person?"

"Oh, your flesh turns the most ghastly white." Zedd waved his fork. "Do you know," he said, frowning in thought as if distracted by something as he looking up at the ceiling of the tent, "that I once saw a wizard lay down a simply prodigious font of flame before a line of charging cavalry?"

"Well, there you go," Verna said. "You know its value, then. You've seen it in action."

"Yes. ." Zedd drawled. "Problem was, the enemy had been prepared for such a simpleminded trick."

"Simpleminded!" Verna shot to her feet. "I don't see how you could possibly consider-"

"The enemy had conjured curved shields just for such an eventuality."

"Curved shields?" Warren swiped back a curly lock of his blond hair.

"I've never heard of such a thing. What are curved- "The wizard who laid down the fire had been expecting shields, of course, and so he made his fire resistant to such an expected defense. These shields, though, weren't conjured to stop the fire"-Zedd's gaze. shifted from Warren's wide eyes to Verna's scowl-"but to roll it."

"Albino fever?" The general waved his bug. "If you might, could you explain-"

"Roll the fire?" Warren asked as he leaned forward.

"Yes," Zedd said. "Roll the fire before the cavalry charge-so that instead of a simple cavalry assault, the defenders now had deadly fire rolling back at them."

"Dear Creator. ." Warren whispered. "That's ingenious-but surely the shield would extinguish the fire."

Zedd twirled his fork as he spoke, as if to demonstrate the shield rolling the flames. "Conjured by their own wizard for the expected defense, the fire had been hardened against shields, so instead of fizzling, it stayed viable. That, of course, enabled the curved shield to roll the fire back without it extinguishing. And, of course, being hardened to shields, the wizard's own quickly thrown up defensive shields couldn't stop his own fire's return."

"But he could just cut it oft!" Warren was becoming panicked, as if seeing his own wizard's fire coming back at him. "The wizard who created it could call it and cut it off."

"Could he?" Zedd smiled. "He thought so, too, but he hadn't been prepared for the peculiar nature of the enemy's shield. Don't you see? It not only rolled the fire back, but in so doing rolled around the fire as it went, protecting it from any alteration by magic."

"Of course. ." Warren whispered to himself.

"The shield was also sprinkled with a provenance-seeking spell, so it rolled the fire back toward the wizard who conjured it. He died by his own fire-after it had seared through hundreds of his own men on its way to him."

Silence settled into the tent. Even the general, still holding out the albino mosquito, sat transfixed.

"You see," Zedd finally went on, tossing his fork down onto his plate, "using the gift in war is not simply an act of exercising your power, but an act of using your wits."

Zedd pointed. "For example, consider that albino mosquito General Reibisch is holding. Under cover of darkness, just like right now, tens of thousands of them, conjured by the enemy, could be sneaking into this camp to infect your men with fever, and no one would even realize they were under attack. Then, in the morning, the enemy strikes a camp of weak and sick soldiers and slaughters the lot of you."

Sister Philippa, over on the other side of Adie, swished her hand in alarm at a tiny buzzing mosquito. "But, the gifted we have could counter such a thing." It was more a plea than an argument.

"Really? It's difficult to detect such an infinitesimal bit of magic.

None of you detected these minuscule invaders, did you?"

"Well, no, but. ."

Zedd fixed a fierce glare on Sister Philippa. "It's night. In the night, they simply seem to be ordinary mosquitoes, pesky, but no different from any other. Why, the general here didn't notice them. Neither did any of you gifted people. You can't detect the fever they carry, either, because it, too, is such a tiny speck of magic you aren't watching for it-you're looking for something huge and powerful and fearsome.

"Most of the gifted Sisters will be bitten in their sleep, without ever knowing it happened, until they awake in the pitch blackness with the shivering chills of a frightful fever, only to discover the first truly debilitating symptom of this particular fever: blindness. You see, it isn't the blackness of night they awake to-dawn has already broken-but blindness.