the snobby neighborhood sported houses gaudy even by Selgauntian standards. Mismatched towers, archways, curved staircases, hedged gardens, turrets, tricolor chimneys, false fronts, frescoes, balconies, and other ridiculous trappings decorated the block.
'That's it.' Helara pointed to a two-story house of brick and timber behind a jig-jog brick wall with deep arches. A large house shrouded by trees and gardens. As proof, the red-robed mage and the albino sisters shielded the magic compass. Peeking over their shoulders by the light of glow-globes, the men saw the slip of gold foil curled rocksteady toward the house. 'It's the only place in the city those triangle-cut coins can be.'
'Splendid!' Tamlin stared at the shadowed house. 'Uh, now what?'
No answers.
Escevar said, 'Perhaps if we tell the Hulorn's Guards that the house owner… might know hillmen with flying dogs… No, I guess not.'
Shivering and sniffling, the statuesque Helara said, 'Why not knock on the door and see who answers?'
Lacking a better plan, the nine hunters trooped through a brick archway and bumped into an ornate iron gate, locked. Vox swung his axe's thick poll and the gate popped open. Without speaking, the nine mounted a narrow gallery that ran half around the silent house. Winter shutters rimmed by felt sealed in sound and light, if any. The door was red with a simple iron thumblatch. With no signs of life, the searchers began to feel foolish, like children caught spying. Everyone looked to Helara.
'All right. I'll knock. But if no one-Yowl'
One rap set off a shower of yellow sparks that sizzled and skittered across the door's face. Thrown backward, Helara nearly pitched off the gallery before Vox caught her. The door was marred by a smoking scorch mark. Hissing, Helara found her knuckles and fist blistered and her gown's sleeve charred past her wrist.
'You bastards!' she panted. 'I'll show you!'
Eight companions reared back as Helara pulled back her sleeves, spat on her palms, and uttered a low spell like a curse. Bracing her feet, the mage slapped both palms against the door. Flashing yellow light blossomed. It lit the gallery, frizzed Helara's hair, and made her clothes smoke. Over the sputtering and spitting of sparks, the mage shouted in a gravelly voice, 'Ras-pal sky-y! Ras-pantle a-too! Ras-pah sen ma-nan-tal!'
Either her spell worked, or its power merged with the door's charm, or together they doubled and tripled, for Helara got results.
The door and most of the front wall exploded.
Broken bricks and hunks of wood shot in all directions like catapulted missiles. Only Helara's personal shield, her first muttered spell, kept Tamlin and friends from being killed by flying flinders, for the deadly rain blew around the mage in a soaring arc like an invisible bubble. Chunks of wall collapsed, crunching inside the house and on the gallery, though no one saw much because brick dust, smoke, paint chips, and other debris swirled like trash caught in a dust devil. Portions of the second floor collapsed alarmingly, then the house corner slumped with a creak and crunch. People shouted and screamed as the gallery let go, dipping toward the missing door. The companions skidded downslope and blundered into a crumbling brick wall. More dust roiled and boiled, making people sneeze and choke.
Tamlin and the albino sisters were tangled in a gap in the wreckage. Vox gained his feet and yanked them free of the hole. Two Uskevren housecarls tumbled into bushes, and now stayed on the ground to guard. Helara kicked and swore and tore her red robe on iron nails jutting from the door's threshold, which suffered a big, blackened bite.
Above the scuffling and grousing, Escevar called, 'Someone's home!'
A foyer and staircase were smothered in laths and plaster and broken tiles. Floorboards jutted over black space. A swarthy black-bearded man in a green robe had slunk down the stairs to peek at the enemy. Stunned by the destruction, he lingered too long.
Handed up by Vox, the tall Helara gained the crumpled littered floor. Batting back her smoking red-and- tigerhide cape, the mage saw the skulker. 'Ratigan? You fumble-fingered pie-thief! You snake-eyed cross-patch! I warned you never to crawl back into my city!'
Screeching an arcane curse, Helara crossed her forearms. Trapped on the stairs, Ratigan reeled as a hailstorm of icicles shattered against his personal shield. Ice stabbed the walls, tore portraits, and chipped the bannister, freezing instantly, making every surface slippery as glass.
Crouching to keep his feet, Ratigan crooked three fingers and conjured a flush of desert heat that steamed the ice into clouds. Yet he barely avoided skidding down the stairs.
Shooting her fingers downward, Helara hurled a second spell. Acid rain gushed from the ceiling. Ratigan writhed as his flesh corroded, and his robe smoked. Gamely he struggled to conjure. Fog blossomed around Helara's feet, then coalesced into snaky heads with teeth. Without a pause in her spellcasting, the red-robed wizard stamped one foot, and the snake heads evaporated.
Over the chanting of mages and creaking and groaning of the house, Tamlin called to Escevar, 'I remember now! Padrig mentioned Ratigan the Green! Should we have told Helara?'
Escevar never got to answer, for familiar deadly whistles keened behind the house. Within seconds, fearsome gnashers boiled around the ruined gallery. Lunging low or half-sailing on stubby wings, the beasts barked and snarled frantically, hot to tear into the invaders. After them trotted the foreign hillmen in rough smocks and gnasher-fur vests. They couldn't hang back far as they shouted commands because brick walls hemmed the house.
Mouth open in a mute warcry, Vox slung his axe high and jumped off the gallery to the attack. Escevar, sword and smatchet sizzling, slashed and hacked the first dog that touched down on the tilted porch. Tamlin drew his long sword, but almost stabbed Magdon who, no fighter, whipped behind him for protection, her pale pink eyes round as lanterns. Hollering 'Uskevren!' the housecarls stabbed wildly at gnashers and hillmen. Meanwhile, in the crumbling foyer, Helara heaped abuse and spells on the besieged Ratigan.
Amidst this mad melee, the albino Ophelia unleashed her 'hidden talents.'
With a nerve-grating screech of 'Al-scara-tway!' her stubby hand sliced a swath in the air. Five stripes of fire pinwheeled into the night, then struck, stuck, and burned-everywhere. Oncoming gnashers suddenly wore burning mustaches and fire-streaked backs. Vox's bear-fur cape charred with a nauseating stink. A housecarl's tunic burned across his shoulders. Paint, brick, splinters, bushes, and leafless trees ignited in stripes that dripped flame like candle wax.
Ophelia flexed her left hand, shouted, and swiped again. Another five-fingered rainbow of fire sizzled on people and gnashers. Primed for more, the fingers of her right hand glowed.
'Doesn't she have any other spells?' Tamlin called over his shoulder.
'We're new to magic!' confessed Magdon. Her sister slung fire to the winds, igniting friend and foe alike.
Squatting, Tamlin surveyed the brawling, spellcasting, shrieking, stabbing, and dogfighting that boiled around and inside the teetering smoking house. He called, 'I say, Magdon, everything seems to be under control! I'm going to explore a bit!'
'Don't leave me!' chirped the gadget-mage. Clutching for Tamlin's cape, she missed and skidded backward down the porch.
Sword in hand, cape over his head, Tamlin hopped through the shattered door, dodged the shrieking Helara, skidded on ice, ducked a flaming tapestry curling off a wall, and scampered down a dark hallway.
Not so dark, he discovered. Ophelia's errant spell had rooted in the upper story. Flames licked above Ratigan's head as he clung desperately to the ruined stairs. This old house would burn like candlewood, Tamlin reckoned, unless it collapsed first. The floor wobbled while smoke thickened. The young lord wondered if he should bolt.
A scream came from the second floor. A familiar scream.
Unable to climb the front stairs, Tamlin dashed to the back of the house. While opening doors he found a barracks where the hillmen had obviously bunked, a dining hall, a pantry, a filthy kitchen-and a back stair for servants.
Sheathing his sword, Tamlin clattered to the top. Fire chased across the ceiling and licked at paint and varnish. Above Helara's shrieks and Ratigan's bellows, Tamlin heard the scream again from a front room. The floor was painted with red and yellow squares. Superstitious, Tamlin skip-hopped from yellow to yellow to gain the door.
