marked the edge of Civilized Phlan. Again and again, he glanced behind him and off to both sides, as he had when they were riding, sure but not sure that they were being followed. He noticed nothing, not even a whisper or a misplaced scent. There was just an occasional shimmer of ocher light vanishing from the corner of his eye each time he turned. It could be the sun, it could be his own lack of sleep, it could be nothing at all. Ren glanced behind himself one final time before they dashed under the vine-covered arch that led to the grounds of the tower. Still he saw nothing.
Nothing alive, at any rate. All around the tower lay the charred and rotting bodies of dozens of kinds of monsters and other marauders. Shal sucked in her breath at the sight and smell of the carnage, remembering the panic Denlor had shown in the vision through the crystal as hordes upon hordes of creatures converged on his tower, many of them gaining entrance by the force of their sheer numbers. In a fashion atypical among such creatures, those that lay at the walls had sacrificed themselves by diminishing the tower's magical energies so that others could enter and invade it.
Tarl dropped to one knee and waved his hammer in the air to form the sign of the balances. He, too, wondered what manner of evil force could convince so many humanoids and monsters to go willingly to their deaths.
Shal wasted no time in contemplation. She picked her way around the corpses that lay on the faint path. To either side of the door, bodies were heaped like cordwood, many of them decapitated, some otherwise mutilated from battle. Most showed signs of burning. Some were rotting with age, while others may have died within the last few days.
An icy spur of fear pulsed through Shal as she approached the door to the tower. It was a great brass door, its surface marred by numerous scratches, exactly as she remembered it from the images Denlor had projected through the crystal. She shuddered involuntarily, knowing that Ranthor's death, too, must have been just as she had seen it in the large clear globe. She reached out a tremoring hand toward the gate.
'No!' Ren hissed, grabbing her arm. 'That door has a charge that will knock a person flat.' He reached in front of her and touched the metal lock with a piece of deadwood. Instantly the stick shot from his hand. Were it not for his gauntlets, his hand would have been badly cut by the sheer force of it. 'This whole place is buzzing with magical energy. The side doors are also magically guarded, but I've brought my thieving tools along. I think that with time and care, I can get us in.'
'Ren, your tools aren't needed here.' Shal explained how in his message, Denlor, the red mage, had left her with the 'keys' to passage into and within his tower. Shal held her hand out toward the door as she had started to a moment ago and uttered two magical words. The lock began to glow a cherry red, and the door swung open. Ren and Tarl exchanged surprised glances and were about to enter cautiously, but it was Shal's turn to hold up a hand in warning. She repeated Ren's earlier safety measure, picking up a twig that lay on the path and tossing it into the open doorway. A crimson arc of energy illuminated the area immediately in front of the door. It wasn't clear whether the twig ever reached the floor. There was a loud crackling noise, and flame erupted where the small stick had struck the arc, incinerating it in an instant.
Shal stood silent, obviously concentrating, and in a few moments Cerulean stepped forward, past Tarl and past Ren, and entered the tower. Brilliant red sparks erupted all around the horse's hooves as each touched the floor. The others peered in as the big horse paraded in a circle before the doorway. In his movements, Cerulean showed no sign whatsoever of pain or discomfort, but his hide began to glow an iridescent blue, the deep, almost purple blue of a grackle's head, and the glow intensified with each step.
Shal spoke softly. 'He's absorbing the power of Denlor's red lightning with each step he takes. It should be safe for us to walk across the magically charged floor in a minute.'
Ren and Tarl looked on in awe as the floor, continued to crackle with sparks at Cerulean's footsteps. Ren looked to Shal, wondering if it was safe to enter yet, and when she nodded, he eased gingerly, silently into the room. By the time Tarl and Shal entered, Cerulean was glowing like a fiery beacon, but there were no more sparks.
So bright was the light from the horse's body that they didn't need to bother with a lantern. The door shut silently behind them before Tarl could reach back to close it. They stood inside a great rhombus-shaped room, obviously a meeting hall, with solid, heavy benches set three rows deep in a horseshoe shape. A broad, low, ornately carved rosewood lectern stood at the opening of the U. Bizarre trophies, heads of beasts not even Ren had ever seen alive, were mounted along the room's walls.
'I didn't know that Denlor was a teacher,' said Shal. 'Ranthor always spoke of him as-'
Suddenly, from all around the room, came whispers of the name 'Denlor,' as though each bench were occupied by a row of students, whispering their teacher's name. As the whispers began to die, a red robe whisked into the room from the doorway opposite the lectern. It, too, seemed to be whispering, but in an exaggerated, breathy whisper that made it distinct from and more chilling than the others. 'Denlor… I am Denlor,' it breathed. The tattered robe was draped over nothing but blackness, a blackness that defied the brilliant blue light from Cerulean that bathed the room. The robe fluttered menacingly toward them. Tarl's hammer shone like Cerulean, as did Ren's dagger.
'Don't touch it!' said Shal, her tone icy. 'Denlor's spirit does not rest; he guards his tower even in death. As long as we do no damage here, he will do us no harm, but touch that robe and you're dead.'
Tarl and Ren lowered their weapons so they were at the ready but not threatening. Both were already convinced that Shal possessed a mastery of the magicks of this place that was beyond their understanding.
'I think Ranthor was killed in a spell-casting chamber, upstairs somewhere. It's strange and frustrating-from Denlor's vision, I know where everything in this building is, but my only image from Ranthor is of his death.'
'I don't mean to be gruesome, Shal, but we'll find the place of his death soon enough,' Ren said. 'For our own safety, we need to check out every room. There are signs of struggling and scuffling all over this place. Look at the way those benches are misaligned there, the broken door frame over there.' Ren went on, pointing as he spoke. 'See the bloodstains on the floor… there and there? We don't know who or what's been here, or when, for that matter.'
Shal nodded. Her every instinct was to press up the stairs fearlessly and find the murderous beast still lurking near her master's body, as it would happen in some stilted morality play of the type traveling thespians used to perform in the streets when she was a child. But she knew that somewhere upstairs she would find Ranthor's days-old body and, only if she was lucky, some sign of the creature that killed him. 'That doorway off to the left.' She pointed. 'We can look in there first.'
Shal continued speaking but in a hushed tone, her words no longer addressed to Tarl or Ren. 'What do you mean, you'd rather not go in there?… So what if they occasionally served horsemeat? It wasn't yours. Go on, scoot! We don't want to fry on these high-energy floors.'
The horse stepped forward, somewhat indignantly, Tarl thought, if horses can be indignant, but the floor of the kitchen he entered was normal, and the horse's brilliant blue light started to fade almost as soon as it had passed through the doorway.
Tarl didn't notice, however. He was lost in a muttering conversation with himself over Shal's behavior with Cerulean. 'Right. Familiars do talk to their masters, I suppose. And their masters must talk to their familiars and not to their friends.' He followed almost aimlessly behind Ren, who was following Shal. It wasn't until he felt the gentlest hint of a chill brush his back that he realized that the red robe was fluttering along behind him like some misplaced shadow. 'By my oath, I wish I didn't feel so powerless when I'm with this woman,' Tarl muttered, then shook his fist at the ghostly cloth. 'Get back a few feet, will you? You give me the creeps. I'd gladly try some clerical magic beyond my means if I thought it would make you flap away.'
The phantom obediently backed off a few steps, and Tarl felt a little better when he turned to resume following the others. Ren was already scouting the huge mess-style kitchen, examining the implements and foodstuffs left out on the cutting block and beside the great baking oven, silently opening doors to a pantry, a storage room, and a root cellar.
'I think I've found the cook,' called Ren from the root cellar. 'I need some light.'
Cerulean's glow was fading fast, and he wouldn't have fit down the tight staircase anyhow, so Shal pulled out her light rod, which immediately began to glow with a constant blue-amethyst light. She held it high at the top of the stairs, then started down herself. 'Here… can you see?'
'I can see fine now,' answered Ren. 'She was murdered, all right, about three days ago, I'd say. That's a burn mark from a cord that was pulled taut around her neck. It's the work of someone proficient, if not a
