"To my shame," said Karel, "I never really looked at him until today." Turning to Ben, the wizard added: "Until now, Adrian has seen every person and every object in the world almost exclusively by the auras of magical power and potential that they present. It took me decades to learn such seeing, and I have never learned to do it as well as he can now. It is of course a fascinating way in which to perceive the world- but for a human being it should never be the only way. And for a child of seven there are certainly dangers-you remember the seizures he was subject to."
Ben said: "He's not been troubled with those, I think, since the Sword touched him."
"Nor will they bother him again, I trust. Now he should-I think he must-put away all the things of magic for a time. Let him look at the world by sunlight and moonlight and firelight. Let him see the faces of the people in it. Let the struggle that has separated him from them be at an end."
"For a time," said Adrian suddenly, and they all looked at him.
"For a time only," the wizard confirmed, "let magic be put away." He looked around at the other adults. "It is a shame," he said again, "that I did not understand the problem. None of us understood it-but I might have. Only I did not take the trouble. When I considered the child at all, I wasted my time, looking into the air and space around him for evil influences, spells and demons that were not there."
"Come along, boy," said Father Still, getting up from his chair suddenly and holding out his hand. "Someone's at our door."
Adrian stared at him for a moment, then jumped up.
At the front door of the house the two of them, with the others crowding close behind, met Mark just as he was lifting a hand to knock.
Adrian stared for the first time at his father's face. Then with a cry he jumped into his arms.
Dusk had deepened into moonlit night when Zoltan wandered out of the house, closing the door behind him on the firelight and laughter within. He paused, content for the moment to breathe the fresher, colder air outside. Then an impulse led him along the short wagon road, not the one leading to the gate but another track, which terminated at the edge of the cultivated land, just where a ditch fenced with a grillwork barrier let in water from the stream flowing just outside the farm.
Zoltan, standing just inside the fence and clinging to it, looked for a long time at the undiminished stream outside as it rushed down a hillside. At length he turned away, starting back to the house.
There was a splash behind him, and he turned back just in time to see a small log bob to the surface at the foot of the miniature waterfall. Then the piece of wood went dipping over the next brink down, moving along briskly on its journey to the distant sea.