his spell dying.
'Not a success,' Myrmeen Lhal observed gently from the chair across the room where she sat in full armor, her drawn sword across her knees.
Vangerdahast growled deep in his throat as she'd heard many a hunting-dog do and whirled around to glare at her. 'I can't work with you watching me, curse it, woman! Why don't you take your sword and your armored self out into the woods and shred some small, furry things? Leave me be!'
'No,' the Lady Lord of Arabel said sweetly, smiling at him with her chin cradled in her hands. Her gauntlets, he noted wearily, were perched on the great carved horns of the chairback. 'I like small, furry things-even ones that wear wizards' robes and growl at me grumpily.'
Vangerdahast growled again, more angrily this time, and brought his other hand down on the table with a crash.
'Patience in all things, Lord,' she murmured. 'If you expect to craft entirely new spells to bind dozens of dragons, you can't expect every spell to be a simple thing-or other mages would have done it already and bound every last one of them thousands of years ago.'
'I've seen enough,' the Red Wizard murmured in Rauthur's ear, 'and shall take my leave of you. Conduct me to where it's safe to depart.'
Huldyl Rauthur nodded and led the way quickly back down the steps to the passage, and along it the way they'd come. Halfway along the corridor he paused beside a door and muttered, 'Lord Starangh, within are some of the floating eyes and flying hands that I know how to attune and activate. Would you like to use them to, ah, see farther through the sanctum than we've walked, thus far?'
The Red Wizard smiled. 'How thoughtful-but no, thank you. Not this time. You've been very helpful and useful, Rauthur-and I trust shall remain so.' He clapped the War Wizard warmly on the shoulder and added, 'For of course, to betray me is … to die.'
With that last whispered word ringing in Huldyl Rauthur's ears, the War Wizard found himself suddenly alone, staring at-the empty passage.
Mother Mystra, he's gone right through the wards! The wards it took Vangerdahast days of fighting just to modify!
Huldyl Rauthur shivered all over, like a wet dog, swallowed with an effort, and hurried back to the garden room, to restore the silence shield.
So this is what true fear feels like-and everything up to now has been mere . . . apprehension.
Gods, deliver me.
Sixteen
Then my spell burst among them, and-behold!-there were flamebroiled WarWizards all over the place.
The forest rocked again, and a flaming branch toppled into the trail, bounced once, and rolled over. Malakar Surth strode up to it, smiling confidently, and looked down at a curved shard of war-helm that was slowly spinning to a halt.
'This,' he said, hefting the next gewgaw and admiring its gleam, 'is-transcendent. Simply transcendent.'
'Easy, too,' Aumun Bezrar agreed from right behind him. 'That's over a dozen now, hey?'
Surth looked up at the leaf-hidden heavens. 'Fourteen,' he said icily. 'No thanks to you.'
'Hey, now, b'gads! I blasted five of 'em!'
'Could you have done it had I not shown you how to vanquish these . . . these enchanted suits of armor? Bah, don't bother to parley and cavil-we must go forward.'
'Uh, aye. Forward.' Bezrar frowned as he watched Surth stride on down the trail into what seemed to be even deeper, gloomier stands of trees. Shadowtops and duskwoods, as old as realms and as large as cottages, soaring up into unseen gloom with moss-cloaked vines hanging here and there like gigantic spiderwebs . . .
'Uh, Surth, uh, just one thing: why?'
The tall, thin dealer in scents, wines, cordials, and drugs froze for a moment then said without turning, 'I know not. We'll find out when we get there.'
He walked on, and Bezrar hastily shuffled after him, wheezing along for a goodly way before he stopped and asked, 'Uh, Mai?'
Surth rounded on him with a snarl. 'Don't call me that!'
'Uh … ah, aye, of course, Mai. I-just one more thing.'
'What?' Surth snapped icily, hefting his shining oval device in his hand as if he meant to hurl it at his longtime partner.
Bezrar held up his own gewgaw. 'Uh . . . ah . . what happens to us when we run out of these things?'
Malakar Surth opened his mouth angrily-but when he saw Bezrar's stare go fearful and rise up over his shoulder, he shut it again and wheeled around.
Three helmed horrors were floating in menacing unison through the trees ahead, converging on him. They bore huge battleaxes rather than swords this time, and they were holding them raised and ready to strike.
'Tymora and Mystra both, be with us now!' he snarled, and flung a gewgaw desperately. Malakar Surth didn't know what would happen to one of the shiny ovals if he ever missed with one of his throws-and as he saw more armored forms drifting out of the treegloom, he told both goddesses fervently that he never wanted to find out.
The world burst apart in blue fire-he knew enough to duck down and shield his eyes now-and one of the helmed horrors was gone. The other two flew on toward him as if nothing had happened.
Which was when a distant voice said severely, 'Brorm? You know Old Thunderspells doesn't want us hurling spells here, so close to him! I don't know what you're blasting, but stop it!'
An armored form loomed up over Surth, a battleaxe gleamed as it swept down, and-Bezrar snarled, 'Eat flaming death, metal pig!'
The world burst bright blue again, tumbling Surth back head-over-heels into a tanglethorn bush, this time.
He blinked at the sight of his own blood, glistening in red droplets in a line across his thorn-torn hand, and heard that voice, a little nearer and a lot more furious now, shout, 'Right, Brorm, that does it! I don't care how much the Old Man dotes on your spinach pie-I'm going to flail your backside for you! Don't you try to run now-I may be older, but I'm wise to your tricks, and 'twill take a lot to surprise old Pheldemar of the Fireballs!'
Bezrar promptly blew up the third armored sentinel, and in the wake of the blast, the two stunned Marsembans heard the unseen Pheldemar say something very rude.
There followed a crashing of foliage off behind the trees to the right of the trail, where the forest cloaked some gentle hills, a vigorous, hard-striding man in battle-leathers marched into view, wearing a long leather overcloak that flared out behind him with the haste of his approach. His face resembled an old boot, his hair was steel-gray, and a long black rod bristling with tiny spires and spikes that flashed with a spectrum of winking radiances was clutched in his left hand. His right hand wore a long, flaring-cut white glove, and a flickering radiance like white fire surrounded it.
'Brorm?' he barked as he came up to the trail, peering suspiciously in all directions. 'Where by the brass breastplates of Alusair are you?'
His eyes fell upon the riven shards of a helmed horror on the narrow dirt path right in front of him.
Pheldemar of the Fireballs gaped down at them in astonishment-a dumbfoundedness that deepened as he
