round, empty flat. “I meant no harm, but harm I may have done, to a spellwork I did not know existed until my own spells broke apart. For this,” she said, “I am sorry.”
“Furthermore,” she added, “I plan to loose another spell here today. It is a passive spell, one I shall latch to the space in this room, rather than to the Tower itself. This spell is meant to reveal any older spellworks active here, so I might determine their function and assess any damage I might have unknowingly done.” She paused, considering her next words. “It is not my intent to usurp, remove, or modify any part or portion of the Tower, or its works,” she said. “Nor do I intend upon proving or disproving the existence of any, um, unseen residents to this place. I only want to know what, if any, harm I may have done. I also need to know if there is a safe way to latch a shadow moving spell to the lower half of the Tower.”
The only sound was thunder, the only shadow Meralda’s, cast briefly by distant lightning.
“That is who I am,” she said. “And that is why I am here. I ask for your forbearance, that I might do my work, and then leave you in peace. May I do so?”
Meralda kept her eyes open, and let her Sight move out into the flat.
Nothing stirred. Aside from the sounds of muted thunder and her own rapid breaths, the Tower was utterly silent, utterly still.
Utterly empty.
“Very well,” said Meralda. She lifted the detector so the copper half-globe was level with her shoulders, took a deep breath, and spoke the long word that activated two dozen eager spells.
The flat was filled with a blue haze, as if it was suddenly flooded with still, sunlit water. Whips and bubbles of light, like shining ropes chasing fireflies, spread out from Meralda’s bag until she spoke another word and the detector removed the bag spells from view, one by one, until none were visible.
The flat was empty now. Meralda turned in a circle, but found nothing, not even at the notches in the floor where once Otrinvion’s twin staves were said to stand.
Meralda spoke another word, and the glow from the detector intensified.
She swept the flat again, spoke another word, turned and looked. And though the glow from the detector shone bright now, no hint or sign of disturbance marred its face.
The detector’s handle grew warm in her hands. Meralda urged her Sight further, finer, knowing the spells couldn’t be maintained much longer.
“Three more words,” she said aloud.
She said another word, and the detector buzzed faintly in response as copper bands began to shake and blur. The mist became a fog, so thick now that Meralda could barely see the door. But still, no trace of hidden spellworks appeared.
Meralda spoke the next word, and the handle grew hot, but Meralda held on. The fog went thick and bright, and the outline of the door vanished, then the walls, until only the faint squares of the windows remained.
“I’m only trying to help,” said Meralda, through gritted teeth. The buzzing became a sizzle, and acrid wisps of smoke began to curl toward Meralda’s face. “Do you understand that? I only want to help.”
The blue fog blazed suddenly, and the detector spat a stinging glob of molten copper on Meralda’s right boot toe. Meralda shouted her final word.
The flat exploded. There was no noise, no felling blow, but the rush of light was so sudden and intense Meralda dropped the detector and fell to her knees, her hands flying to cover her eyes, her Sight all but obliterated by the ferocity of the blast.
But in that instant, before the detector fell, she saw the flat ablaze with the glow of a massive spellwork. Like a monstrous tree, it rose through the floor of the flat, engulfed Meralda whole within its fiery trunk, and sent branches thrusting horizontally outward to meet the Tower walls on every side. The branches were not still, though. Even in the brief Sight presented to Meralda, she saw they rose and turned in unison, spiraling upward and around the central trunk in a dizzying whirl.
Meralda’s head reeled. She’d reached out with her Sight, tried to look closer, tried to follow the shuttling and turning of a single line of power around and through the trunk. But the effort had been too much, and she knew, had the flash not blinded her Sight, she might have lost it forever in the tangled midst of the Tower.
Meralda forced her hands from her eyes and rose from her knees. Her normal vision was blurred, criss- crossed and overlaid with fading images of the spellwork she knew still engulfed her.
The spellwork flared. Even with the tiniest vestige of her Sight remaining, Meralda saw the shimmering air and took a step backwards.
The flat went dark, and the floor seemed to tilt and fall a finger’s breadth away. Meralda stumbled, nearly went to her knees again, and groped for her magelamp. She took a single step forward in the dark, determined to remove her body from the midst of the hidden spell that filled the flat, and then she brought forth her magelamp and stroked the brass tube.
Light shone, and Meralda gasped. Her Farley and Hent raincoat lay two steps from her feet, still spread wet upon the floor. The foot of the stair stood dim at the edge of the light, and on the first dozen treads Meralda saw plain her own damp boot prints, leading up into the dark.
Meralda turned in a circle. She was alone, but she was no longer in the flat, and the stair and her coat were no tricks of her still blurred sight.
She recalled the brief sensation of falling, and shivered, realizing that she had fallen from the flat to the floor in the blink of an eye.
Her bag was gone, and the detector, though wisps of smoke from the hot copper bands still hung in the air about her.
A heavy blow fell upon the Tower doors, and echoed through the empty Tower. Heart pounding, Meralda turned her lamp upon the empty hall.
“Thaumaturge!” shouted Kervis, faintly from beyond the door. “Thaumaturge!”
A new fusillade of blows fell upon the door, and just as Meralda began to wonder why the Bellringers didn’t just open the unlocked door she heard the furious droning buzz of her ward spell from above.
And then, in the dark, hands touched her back, at her shoulders. They touched her back, and gave her a gentle shove toward the hall and the door.
Meralda stumbled, caught herself. The sensation was gone.
“Vonashon,” boomed a voice that echoed throughout the Tower. Walk swiftly, it meant, in Old Kingdom.
Meralda whirled, but the shaft of light from her magelamp illuminated only emptiness.
“Empalos,” said the voice, so loud Meralda winced. Again, invisible hands touched her, this time from the front, still on each shoulder, pushing her back toward the door. Gentle, but forcing her back a step.
“Walk away!” The voice shouted, loud as thunder, more fearful than commanding. “Walk away!”
Meralda played her magelamp before her, but nothing caught the light. She swatted the air with her left hand, and though she felt the touch of a man’s hand upon her she swatted empty air.
She tried to raise Sight, and saw nothing but after images of the column of fire from the flat. “I came to help you,” she said, fighting a rising urge to bolt for the door. “Do you understand?”
The droning of her killing ward drew nearer, and a ruddy orange glow filled the second story opening in the ceiling, and the voice in the Tower screamed. Not a word, this time. Just an unceasing, ear-splitting howl that rose in both pitch and intensity until Meralda turned and ran for the door, her eyes watering, her hands held over her ears.
Halfway down the hall, Meralda’s teeth began to quiver, and her head felt as if it were about to burst. She
