Martin Johnson Heade Rio de Janeiro Bay

Martin Johnson Heade Rio de Janeiro BayUnknown Artist Brent Lynch Coastal DriveUnknown Artist Persian woman pouring wineAlbert Moore Shells
The six surviving heads of the Eight Orders sat at the long, shiny and new table in what had been Galder Weatherwax's study and each one wondered precisely what it was about Trymon that made them want to kick him.
It wasn't that he was ambitious and cruel. Cruel men were stupid; they all knew how to use cruel men, and they certainly wise. Every wizard considered himself a fairly hot property, wisewise; it went with the job.
It wasn't even that he had charisma. They all knew charisma when they encountered it, and Trymon had all the charisma of a duck egg.
That was it, in fact . . .
He wasn't good or evil or cruel or extreme in any way but one, which knew how to bend other men's ambitions. You didn't stay an Eighth Level magus for long unless you were adept at a kind of mental judo.It wasn't that he was bloodthirsty, power-hungry or especially wicked. These things were not necessarily drawbacks in a wizard. The wizards were, on the whole, no more wicked than, say, the committee of the average Rotary Club, and each had risen to pre-eminence in his chosen profession not so much by skill at magic but by never neglecting to capitalise on the weaknesses of opponents.It wasn't that he was particularly