“What was what?” Phin asked on his back.
The roar came again, and Phin certainly heard it this time.
It was a hellish sound, perhaps even literally. It came from outside somewhere but it pierced into every corner of Vod’Adia through bolted doors and solid walls, sounding like the world splitting asunder. It was not the sound of a raw explosion but rather a sustained roaring that somehow implied a dreadful awareness behind it. Something announcing its presence. With authority.
“What in the names of the Nine Gods is that?” Ty howled, dragging Phin who was shivering now out of the corner as if he should somehow know. The legionnaire’s face in the soft blue light was wild with terror, and behind him the Sarge and Rickard stood back-to-back with their swords held out and trembling before them. The roar came again, for the third time, and everyone cringed like mice caught in an open field by a thunderstorm. Phin nearly curled up into a ball. Ty’s sword fell from his numb hand and the broad-shouldered man choked out a sob.
Then it was gone, like a cloud had passed before the sun. Light and warmth returned. The icy fingers dug into Phin’s heart began to relax, then slowly withdrew. He took a shuddering breath.
“Sh-Shieldmaiden save us,” the Sarge quavered, bringing his mangled hand to his face and hanging his head. Rickard sat down heavily on the floor. Ty sputtered something at Phin but the wizard uncoiled and moved to pick up the unburning candle, then to sounds of protests from the legionnaires he ran with the light into the back room.
Phin’s coat was lying under the pipe but the Duchess Claudja was on the other side of the room with her back wedged into a corner, sitting with her knees up to her chest and her bound hands over her head, trembling. Phin hurried over and knelt beside her.
“It is all right,” he said. “Whatever it was, it is gone.” He wanted to put a hand on her shoulder but was aware of the legionnaires in the doorway, and knew it would not look right.
Claudja raised her face. Like all of them she had acquired a fine layer of gray dust on her skin, and that on her cheeks was broken by the trail of a single tear from either eye. Her eyes moved over Phin’s shoulder to the Sarge and she stilled her trembling with an act of will. She spoke through clenched teeth.
“You there. Get me the hell out of this place. Take me to Chengdea and ransom me to my father. He will pay you every bit as much as will Ayzantium.”
The Sarge blinked, then a wry smile pushed the last lingering traces of fear off his face.
“Sorry, your Highness. We passed through that place on the way here. I know the look of a realm teetering on the brink of disaster. There’s not enough gold left in your Daddy’s coffers to get a fellow drunk.”
The Duchess screwed her eyes shut and grimaced. She turned her face away from both the Sarge and Phin, and her shoulders shook once more before she steadied them. Phin balled his hands at his side to keep from touching her, stood up and walked away.
As he passed the Sarge, the man grabbed Phin’s arm.
“You know anything yet?”
“What?”
The Sarge nodded at the book lying open in the corner.
“Oh. No, not really. The text is very old, and dense.” Phin’s arm was still in the Sarge’s grip and he raised an eyebrow at the man. “There are spells written within it, but I first need to understand them in the context of the whole. I am confident that I can, but for now…for now I should memorize my regular spells for tomorrow.”
The Sarge’s eyes were on Phin’s. Phin did not know why they were not green anymore, as they had been back in Camp Town, but thought it must have had something to do with the ring the Sarge had lost along with the ring finger. The jewel had also been the green of a shining emerald. Nothing else made sense.
“Nifty little fire you have going there,” the Sarge said, tilting his head at the candle without breaking eye contact.
“That is nothing,” Phin said. “A parlor trick.”
The Sarge nodded. “Not like the spell you used to flatten that wench with the braid and the whoopin’ stick, back at the Dead Possum.”
“No,” Phin agreed. “Not like that.”
The Sarge looked at Ty, and at Rickard, then back to Phin.
“How many men do you think you could knock out with one of those spells, at the same time?”
“No more than one.”
The Sarge nodded. “And how many times can you cast it?”
“A handful,” Phin said, though he was thinking three.
“There are different kinds of handfuls, Phoarty.” The Sarge released Phin’s arm and patted it with two fingers. Phin stepped around him and moved toward the book.
“Nice job tying-up her Grace,” the Sarge said to Phin’s back. “And you told her we are going to Ayzantium, eh?”
Phin stopped. The Duchess had let that slip out in her fear but Phin had hoped the legionnaires had not caught it. He turned around.
“I did, to calm her down. I thought that was preferable to having her think she had been taken for…other reasons.”
Phin looked meaningfully at Ty, who glared back at him.
“Bad idea,” the Sarge shook his head. “The Fire Priests of Ayzantium are frightening enough to a Daul. You should have come up with a lie.”
“I am afraid I am a bad liar,” Phin said.
The Sarge chuckled, and it was a sound somehow more evil than any roar in the night.
The legionnaires moved to settle back down where they slept, as it was still a couple of hours before dawn. Phin was exhausted himself, but he moved back to his corner and shut the book he had been reading. He put it back in the leather satchel and removed his slim traveling spell book from an inner pocket of his robes. He pinched the blue flame off his candle as he could not maintain the cantrip while meditating over spells for the next day, and relit it mundanely with a flint.
It took Phin a few minutes to clear his mind enough to concentrate, for there were too many thoughts running around inside his head. Chief among them was the fact that judging by what he had read so far, there was nothing at the heart of Vod’Adia that would allow teleportation to Ayzantu City. Nor to anywhere else that he wanted to go.
Chapter Thirty-One
Zeb had swapped the blankets and tent he had shared on the road with Phinneas Phoarty for a bedroll provided by the Shugak as the party had marched out of Camp Town. The Shugak gear consisted of a flat floor mat stuffed unevenly with feathers and down, and two large blankets big enough to cocoon a hobgoblin. Though the cloth was coarse it was roomy and warm, and it did not smell like it had ever been used. That had not been true of Zeb’s previous bedding by the time he got to Camp Town.
The roominess only became an issue when a monstrous roar boomed over Vod’Adia, shaking Zeb out of a dream that had just been getting good. He blinked in the darkness until a second roar sounded and with no thought or plan he tried to scramble to his feet and run. The wide blankets tangled around him and he tripped over his own armor on the floor. Zeb tried to throw his arms out to break his fall but the blankets had them pinned against his chest. His fall was interrupted by someone else in the dark, someone that grunted as Zeb careened off them. Zeb hit the ground and rolled out of his entanglement, then crawled until his face bumped against a helmet. He popped it on his head and scuttled in the direction he thought his weapons might lie.
A third roar sounded in the night like a detonation, in time with the door to the stairs crashing open. Someone ran in and put a boot in Zeb’s ribs, then sailed over the top of him with a cry. Zeb kept crawling. Voices in several languages were shouting as his grasping hand found a wooden stock. Zeb grabbed it and staggered to his feet, got his back to a wall, and raised what he hoped was a weapon over his head with both hands.
Heggenauer stuttered in the darkness, then paused and spoke more clearly. A white light filled the chamber
