He quickly ducked back and related in whispers what he had seen. Flint spoke to Tanis. 'Here's your chance, lad-end it all with one shot. From behind that pillar you can put an arrow right between his shoulder blades.'
Grim-faced, Tanis stood and nocked an arrow. The others prepared themselves to rush the altar and finish the job if necessary. Tanis leaned around the pillar, aimed carefully, and fired.
The arrow traveled true to its target. It struck Balcombe solidly in the upper back and buried itself to the fletchings. Tanis closed his eyes and held his breath, waiting for the thump of the collapsing body. Instead, he heard laughter and Selana's warning shout, 'It's a trick!'
Opening his eyes, Tanis saw Balcombe still standing at the altar, frozen as he was before. Then he saw Balcombe step from behind a pillar to the side, laughing. The Balcombe in front of the altar shimmered, grew translucent, and disappeared, and Tanis's arrow clattered to the stone floor.
'Certainly you didn't think it would be that easy? You insult me!' Balcombe's laughing face grew dark and angry. 'Have you forgotten so soon what it is you're after? A bracelet that foretells the future! I've known for hours that you were coming, perhaps even before you knew it.'
Tasslehoff slapped himself in the head as Flint rolled his eyes, but Hoto acted. Igniting his wings, he screamed a phaethon war cry and streaked across the chamber. Balcombe stood his ground, unflinching. Acting on the signal, the three phaethons stationed atop the stone chute also ignited their wings and swooped into the cavern, closing directly on the wizard.
When they were nearly on top of him, Balcombe drew a pouch of fine sand from his gown and scattered it in a sweeping arc through the air, simultaneously moving his thumbless right hand in an arc across the phaethons' path while shouting,
The wings of all four attackers disappeared and they tumbled roughly to the ground, unconscious. Hoto's momentum carried his body across the floor to skid to a stop at Balcombe's feet, where he was greeted with derisive laughter.
Balcombe, mindful of the danger he was in, gloated for only a moment. Tanis was nocking a second arrow and Flint preparing to charge when Balcombe pointed a small, straight piece of iron at them. He murmured
Suddenly Tanis, Flint, and Nanda found themselves unable to move. They could hear and see as before, but their bodies were frozen in place. Tanis stared down the length of his drawn shaft, pointed directly at Balcombe's throat, but could not release it. Flint and Nanda stood ready to charge, but their movement was suspended.
From behind the pillar, Tasslehoff sat with eyes closed, licking the last bits of a potion from his lips. It was one he'd lifted from Balcombe's lab only minutes before, labeled 'Free Action.' He had no idea what it did, but it sounded useful and now seemed as good a time as any to give it a try. Glancing to the side, he saw his friends halted in midaction. Not bad, he thought as he looked back to the vial, but there's not enough to go around. He tucked the empty vial back into his pouch.
Now what? He listened for a moment as Balcombe's laughter died away. Was the mage still looking this way? Only one way to find out. Tas poked his head around the pillar. Reveling in victory, Balcombe strolled through the crumpled phaethon bodies scattered around his altar.
The voice of Hiddukel interrupted the mage's musings. 'You missed one, mage.' Only then did Tasslehoff spot the two-faced coin, propped on the altar between two impressive rubies. At the same time, Balcombe looked up and noticed the kender. His expression darkened considerably.
'So, you did return with your friends. You may as well come out where I can see you. That pillar won't protect you if I decide you should be harmed.'
Tas scrambled to his feet and stepped into the open. His right hand was in his pouch. He knew that, among other things, he had taken from the lab at least one vial labeled 'Big Boom.'
Balcombe tilted his head slightly. 'So you're the other mouse. I don't like that hand in your pouch, little mouse. Place your hands where I can see them.'
With his fingers still debating between the three vials he had left, Tasslehoff shook his head. 'No, thanks, I'd rather not.'
'As you wish,' replied Balcombe. Again he drew something from his gown, stretched it between his fingers, and mumbled words Tas could not hear. Instantly an enormous web wove itself between the two pillars flanking the kender, including him in its intricate pattern.
Tas recognized that this was the same spell Balcombe had used against them in the zombie chamber at the castle, and he remembered the horrid stickiness of the web. But now when he tried to move, he discovered that the web slid off him easily. Assuming that this, too, was a result of the potion, he quickly stepped forward and out of the strands.
Overcoming his momentary surprise at the kender's escape, Balcombe felt his patience was exhausted. The time for the transfer was nearly upon him and he could not afford any more distractions. He raised his hands, preparing a lightning spell to kill the kender.
Tasslehoff needed no more urging. He yanked a vial from his pouch and hurled it toward the altar, where it struck the stone and shattered. A deafening screech of pain and anguish reverberated through the chamber, echoing between the pillars, fanning the torch flames. It died, then rose again in great sobs, louder and more terrifying than anything Tas had ever heard. Balcombe, standing only feet from the sound's source, writhed against the wall with his hands clamped across his ears.
Suddenly Tasslehoff remembered-the giant's wail, which he thought he had left on the stool in front of the locked door in Balcombe's lab. For a moment he wondered, which spell did I leave on the stool?
Then the world shook under a massive impact. Tas stumbled across the floor as chunks of the ceiling crashed down around him. A few moments of silence followed, then another tremendous crash brought down one of the pillars near the altar. A third crash caused the wall of the chamber across from where Tas stumbled to collapse into the chamber.
Through the dust and rubble of the wall charged a massive hulk. It moved clear of the debris, and Tas recognized a hill giant dressed in rags, coated in filth, and with hands torn and bloodied from smashing through the stone wall.
Mouth wide in shock, Balcombe raised his hands defensively and commanded, 'Turn back, Blu!'
Blu spotted Balcombe instantly and rushed the altar. 'Blacome trick Blu!' the lumbering giant roared, kicking boulders from his path as if they were tiny stones. He hesitated suddenly, seeing Selana chained to the wall nearby.
In the moment's reprieve, Balcombe loosed the lightning spell he had begun for Tas before Blu's appearance. The bolt of raw white energy slammed into the giant's immense chest, leaving the smell of singed flesh in the air.
'Blu!' Selana cried, straining against her bonds.
Howling in pain, Blu stumbled but did not fall. He crashed into the altar, sending the rubies and Hiddukel's coin bouncing to the floor. Rostrevor's gem shattered, releasing the stunned prince.
The tow-headed lad with the thin blond mustache looked around, trying to get his bearings. He took in the unconscious phaethons, the frozen dwarf and half-elf across the chamber, the kender near them, and the lavishly dressed white-haired elf tied to the wall.
His sight settled on his father's deformed mage. 'Balcombe?' he asked of the only person he knew in the chamber. 'What's happening? Why am I here?'
'He trapped you in the gem!' screamed Tas.
Selana saw the squire size up the kender dubiously. 'It's true, Rostrevor. Help us!'
'They're lying, Rostrevor,' said the mage in his oily voice.
But Rostrevor Curston had never liked or trusted his father's mage. He snatched up a jagged piece of the shattered wall and hurled it at Balcombe.
Dodging Rostrevor's rock, Balcombe did not see the wounded giant swing his great, hairy fist, then collapse to the floor. The blow knocked Balcombe against the wall, breathless and only semiconscious. He recovered quickly, but the lapse was enough to release Tanis, Flint, and Nanda from the grip of his spell.
In one motion Tanis realigned his arrow and released it. It arced across the room, as before, and struck the sagging wizard below the ribs. This time the real Balcombe shrieked, more in anger than pain, and stared with disbelief at the tuft of feathers protruding from his side. His right hand reached behind himself and found the arrowhead, wet with blood. With a mighty tug, he yanked the shaft cleanly through, then defiantly snapped it in
