The White Gryphon

realized that neither of these two had been fooled for an instant. His heart and courage plummeted. They knew he was alone.

This mage was about to level a magical blow at him—and he didn’t even have the defenses of a mouse.

He tried to move, and discovered that he couldn’t; the bar dropped from his numb fingers and clattered on the floor. This was no spell. It was nothing but pure, overwhelming fear.

I am going to die.

It wasn’t even a guess. It was a fact.

:BAD MANS!: Kechara screamed into his mind.

He reeled and dropped to both knees beside his iron bar, momentarily “blinded” and “deafened” by her mental shout, so strong it was clear even to someone who was not a Mindspeaker. Both of the men facing him went stiff with surprise, as if they “heard” it too. Instinctively, he threw up his shields again—which was what she had been waiting for.

:Bad, bad mans!: she screeched again, this time accompanying her angry scream with a building mental shriek, aimed at the two facing him. It came like a windstorm that would not stop building, filling his ears.

The two conspirators were not expecting anything of the sort. Neither was Amberdrake, for that matter. He was so used to thinking of Kechara as a child, as a complete and total innocent, that he had underestimated her entirely. He had forgotten that she had more than enough experience to recognize a “bad man” when she saw one.

Both of Amberdrake’s opponents collapsed on the spot.

:Ow,: said Kechara, with a mental wince—and her presence vanished from his mind.

Ow, indeed. For one moment, he took the time to shiver in awe at her power—and to be very glad that she had the guidance of all of her friends who loved and cared for her. Mow he understood why Urtho had kept her locked up in his Tower for so very long. Her range in Mindspeaking was impressive enough to have made her valuable, but this demonstration of her full potential had been considerably more than impressive. With that kind of mental power, she could have been so dangerous—

Danger. He hadn’t been mindblasted by Kechara, but he couldn’t move either. He had just experienced, with certainty, imminent death, and he could only sit among the pieces of broken pottery and stare at the still bodies of the two conspirators.

“Drake?” a voice called from above, after an indeterminate amount of time. All he could tell, when such matters came to mind through the shock, was that it was fully light again outside. “Drake? Are you all right? Where are you?”

“Down here, at the bottom of the stairs!” he croaked back. A few moments later, Skan, Aubri, and Zhaneel came tumbling breathlessly down the staircase, following the sounds of a great many hard-shod feet from the presumed direction of the outer door.

“Drake!” Skan bellowed, as soon as he caught sight of Amberdrake, making him wince and shake his head as his ears rang. The gryphon grabbed him with both foreclaws, seizing him and staring at him as if he was afraid that Amberdrake would vanish or crumble into dust in the next instant. “Drake—Kechara said you were in trouble, then she just—just blanked out on us. We thought something had happened to both of you! We thought you were—”

“Kechara was right, I was in trouble,” Amberdrake interrupted, before Skan could work himself up into hysterics.

Not that he hasn’t earned a few hysterics. For that matter, so have I!

With a dazed look he was certain made him look very silly—as if vanity could matter at a moment like this— he peered around at the people filling the area. That was when he recognized King Shalaman.

“This one—” he pointed at the larger man “—is your blood-mage. He was just about to level me with a magical attack, when—I broke their scrying-bowl and they fell down.” Amberdrake shrugged. He and the gryphons exchanged hasty warning glances; they all knew Kechara was somehow involved, and they also knew about the prohibition on Mindspeaking. It would be a great deal better for all concerned if the Haighlei never learned about Kechara.

Shalaman said nothing, staring unflinchingly through slitted eyes at one of the motionless—but still living— bodies.

“Gods save us!” one of Shalaman’s bodyguards stammered. “That is the Disgraced One. The Nameless One.”