[silence]
[slow diabolic growl, eyes kindling into flame]
When it came, it was as blunt and effective as she'd thought it would be. The ground floor rooms had proven empty, stripped of all but skeletal corpses. Even these had mysteriously lost whatever they'd carried or worn.
The way down was flooded and choked with stone nibble, but the way up was an open stair. A skull had been placed neatly on the bottom step, grinning at her challengingly. Laeral sneered at it and flew up the stairs. Her rod rose to ward off blades and deflect quarrels.
The stair aimed. The air all around her was suddenly full of springing, leaping, clutching claws-skeletal human and bestial hands that tore at her hair, face, and form, snatching and wrenching and grabbing.
Laeral swerved sharply to strike one wall with her shoulder. She rolled to run her back along the wall as she flew on, faster. Bony hands crunched unpleasantly under her spine and shoulders and fell away.
Smashing a hand out of the air with her rod, Laeral tore the throttling grasp of another from her throat. She reached up grimly to break fingers off yet another claw that was crawling down her scalp toward her eyes. Snarling, the sorceress plunged toward the steps to smash away the hands on her legs, moving like so many cold and crawling spiders.
She saw the danger just in time. Anyone on foot would have done just that, by now, and no doubt there'd be a trap waiting for them. Laeral turned her dive into a roll in midair just above the step.
The toe of one of her boots brushed the stone, and a row of iron spikes suddenly thrust upward. Laeral felt one scrape her arm coldly as she rose, leaving behind a pinioned, feebly wiggling claw.
Growling, Laeral tore another claw from her head. Handfuls of hair came too. She flung it away, twisting in midair without pause to pluck other claws from her legs. 'Crawling claws,' these bony hands were called. Wizards had used them as guardians for a long, long time. Laeral wondered if she'd ever feel free of the bruises this lot had left.
,At least they didn't fly after her. Prying a last claw from her thigh, she punched it against the wall as she flew on. Finger bones bounced and sprayed, clattering off stone.
Another arch opened ahead. Blades snapped from both above and below this time. Laeral plunged and twisted desperately in the air, sweating now. She won past both seeking rusty steel edges-straight into a humming flight of quarrels. She arched away with furious haste and escaped with only a burning graze. One of the shafts had been swift, and she almost too slow.
Almost, aye. She flew on up the curving stairs to where they opened into a huge, dark, high-ceilinged hall. There the mage waited, floating cautiously above the last step. Motes of light stole about the room at her bidding, searching the vaulted ceiling, tapestry-hung walls, and dusty stone floor like wandering fireflies.
The room was bare save for rotting tapestries-now only strips of black, cobwebbed rags-and a simple seat carved from one massive block of stone. Half-hidden behind one of the decaying hangings was a stone shelf that held a watchful row of yellowing human skulls.
The whole thing was another trap, no doubt. Laeral let her lights wander back to her as she pondered what to do next.
Bars of faint radiance suddenly sprang into being all around her. A calm, rasping voice with an unpleasant rattle in it said from behind her, 'Welcome, mageling. Who are ye, and whence hail ye?'
Laeral spun about as she dispelled the force cage. Its collapse and the end of her flight dropped her to the steps. She faced her assailant.
He was tall and thin, half-skeletal-a lich clad in a cowled black robe. Two cold white flames leaped in black pits where his eyes should have been. He smiled as his lips moved soundlessly. Bony fingers moved in gestures smooth with long practice.
Laeral sighed-was
She was in time. The lich's spell struck her and rebounded from the shield. It gleamed with sudden light and sang faintly.
Another spell followed. This time the shield blazed away to nothingness in her fingers, consumed by the power sent against it. The lich advanced slowly and deliberately up the stairs, ignoring the spells that crashed into him.
Laeral retreated into the room. Everything she'd faced in the tower thus far had been the tired stuff of apprentices' tales-perhaps this place was so ancient that they'd all been fresh, or the only known means, when it was built.
The rattling voice came again. 'Silent, pretty maiden? A spell shield wasted on a mere sleep spell and a simple charm-and no attack on thy part? Not a word to me? How unlike a mage, not to want to talk!'
The lich raised its hand and hurled forked lightning at her. Laeral ran toward one bolt and leaped over it. Her hair danced as death crackled under her. She slammed hard into the floor and found herself fighting for air.
The lich seemed unsurprised that its attack had missed. 'Have ye come just for the throne?'
Laeral saved her breath for counterspells, dispelling in turn another charm, an attempt to telekinese her farther into the room, and a spell that made her eyes water and blur ere she foiled it. She was still backing away when roaring flames enveloped her.
The odor of singed hair hung around her, but the protective shield Laeral always wore saved her from serious harm. It flickered to the verge of exhaustion. She moved quickly to one side-but even as the last of the hungry flames rolled away into nothingness, bony hands were moving again. Laeral felt the naked feeling of her magic being stripped away.
Hastily she cast another shield of cold fire around herself. This must be what a target in an archers' shooting gallery feels like!
As her foe advanced, Laeral reached to her bodice sheath and drew forth the only wand she carried. Hard- eyed, she blasted the lien with magic missiles.
They struck home, but the undead mage calmly continued its advance. Laeral fired again, her mystic bolts swarming around the black robes. Expressionlessly the lich raised a bony hand and struck back with similar missiles of its own.
Blazing agony lanced into her in five places. Laeral screamed and shuddered involuntarily at the pain, doubling over. The lich advanced.
'Thy name, she-mage?' it asked again, in dry, almost mocking tones.
Laeral made no reply. Setting her teeth, she snatched one of-her daggers from its boot sheath and rose from her knees. She hissed a spell of her own devising. As the dagger spun through the air, her Art snarled around it. It grew longer, flashing and whirling as it went, becoming- a sword.
Gleaming steel whipped end-over-end through the gloom to strike the lich's shoulder. Bone crumbled amid spurting dust, and one skeletal arm fell away from the lich to the floor, collapsing there in dusty splinters.
The lich advanced as though nothing had occurred. 'If this continues,' it told her calmly, 'I shan't be able to guard the throne-and ye'll have won.'
Laeral rolled her eyes. What children's tale had all of this come from? She dodged aside desperately as the lich cast lightning at her again and snapped out a counterspell.
The lich reeled, its bony arms writhing into coiling snakes for an instant before its unlife overcame the magic. It gave her a gap-toothed grin-and lightning again.
Laeral snapped out a countering enchantment. In midair the racing bolt curved back toward its source. Bony arms moved in haste, but the undead mage was still working a spell when hungry blue-white fire found it.
The lich writhed amid smoke and fell to its knees, pointing a bony arm. 'Behold-the throne!' it said hollowly and toppled into a clattering chaos of unattached bones. The flames of its eyes winked out.
Too easy, Laeral thought, scattering the remains with an unseen servant spell. Much too easy. The bones lay where she pushed them, harmless.
The mage drew forth another token. It grew into a great hammer in her hand. She used a servant spell to carry it to the bones and wield it from afar, crushing the lich's skull into shards. There came no response.
In the silence that followed, Laeral took a scroll from her belt and conjured dancing lights. By their radiance
