Jack glided silently to the doorway and gently pushed the door open another handspan, peering inside. A tall man in black robes chased with gold trim stood with his back to the door, intoning a spell from a great, musty spellbook. He held a small vial filled with dark liquid high in one hand, while tracing the words to speak with the index finger of the other. The trappings and accouterments of wizardry surrounded Iphegor, beakers and alembics and retorts bubbling and frothing, strange golden hoops drifting through the air. Malformed things slithered and hopped across the floor, incomplete familiars animated through some vile sorcery to serve at their master's beck and call.
Jack peered at the musty tome from which the wizard incanted. Could that be it? Or was it simply one of Iphegor's own workbooks or references? He decided that he'd leave the wizard to his work for now and search the rest of the tower while Iphegor was occupied. He'd find a way to search the workroom later if he had no luck elsewhere.
Moving softly through the mist, he crept up the stairs. The steps had the look of dwarf-work, just a couple of inches too shallow for Jack's comfort and elaborately carved with images of warriors and dragons. The staircase debouched onto a wide, airy hall marked at one end by a strong double door and a gleam of sunlight beside the jamb. 'The main entrance,' Jack observed.
He quartered the ground floor and found a small kitchen staffed by two strange, pale serving women toiling monotonously with Iphegor's pots and pans in utter silence. A small roast was sizzling over the fire, red and cool, just spitted. Good, Jack thought. That won't be done for two or three hours, so Iphegor isn't planning on dinner anytime soon. The rest of the floor held a dining hall, a sitting room with sparse furnishings, and a large pantry whose contents seemed unremarkable. Jack continued up the stairs to the next floor.
Here he found what seemed to pass for Iphegor's personal chambers. A large trophy room filled with all manner of dead things and a curio room dominated by a ticking orrery of bronze and iron made up one side of the second floor; the wizard's private rooms made up the other side. Jack searched both leisurely, pocketing a few items that caught his interest-a silver urn filled with incense, a funereal mask of gold inlaid with lapis lazuli, and a small statuette of a whitish metal carved disturbingly in the shape of a monstrous being with tentacles and wings. The wizard's personal chambers seemed comfortable enough if tastelessly furnished with gilt couches and decadent arrases.
The stairs climbed one final time to a conjuring chamber or astrolabe ringed by a series of deep alcoves. Each antechamber contained several bookshelves, and these were filled to overflowing by a vast collection of books, tomes, scrolls, and tablets, gathered together in an untidy clutter.
'Ah-ha,' said Jack. 'This is more like it. Now, where did he put it?'
'Here now,' squeaked a high, rasping voice. 'Who are you?'
Jack paused in midstep, looking around in near panic. No one else seemed to be present. 'Never mind,' he said, and advanced farther into the room.
'Does Iphegor know you're here?' Again the piping high voice.
'Of course,' Jack replied, now seriously alarmed. He carefully scrutinized every corner of the room, searching for the other presence. 'I am a mere disembodied voice conjured by his hand. I have no objective existence beyond his passing whim.'
'Ha!' said the voice. 'I think you are a thief hiding behind a spell of invisibility. Oh, won't you be sorry when Iphegor learns you are here!'
Jack swung his head from left to right, following the voice with his ear. It seemed to be coming from the high corner of a bookshelf… there! A small dark mouse perched between two heavy tomes, was studying him with beady eyes!
'You would be the wizard's familiar, then?' Jack said.
'I am,' announced the mouse. 'As such, I am very well acquainted with Iphegor's arcane repertoire, and I can assure you that disembodied voices are not to be found among the dozens of spells, enchantments, curses, and blights at his command, so therefore you are a thief!'
'It is, of course, widely known that a wizard's familiar can communicate mentally with its master,' said Jack. 'I cannot understand why you have deigned to address me instead of summoning Iphegor upon the instant to strike me dead with his terrible powers.'
'Oh, I will in just a moment,' the mouse said, 'but first, I think I would like to see you plead for your life. If I am satisfied with your abject surrender, I may allow you to swear allegiance to me and then permit you to escape unharmed, so that you may serve me another day.'
'I fail to see how that furthers your master's purposes.' Jack silently glided forward, marking the exact position of the mouse.
'Iphegor represents a temporary arrangement at best,' the mouse said, thrusting its whiskered chin into the air. 'I have far greater designs than perpetual servitude to such as he. And so I am carefully building a network of daring, skillful, and suicidally loyal agents to aid me as I prepare my ultimate seizure of power. You may perform your obeisance now.'
'Before I begin to grovel,' Jack said, 'I would like to ask a question. Could it be possible that Iphegor is at this moment so engaged in the spell he is crafting that your mental summons to him goes unanswered? In which case you would desperately gamble on the most arrogant bluff you can imagine in order to delay me until you can gain his attention?'
'That is two questions,' the mouse declared, 'and no, it is not remotely possible. Rule out any hope of escape, my lackey, and grovel before me in abject terror.'
Jack reached into the bookshelf with the speed of a striking serpent and seized the mouse in his invisible hand. The mouse squeaked once in fright as Jack's spell faded, ruined by his sudden motion. The rogue held the whiskered rodent before his face and offered a wicked smile.
'I am not a particularly strong man,' he said cheerfully, 'but I am quite certain that I could crush every bone in your body by tightening my grasp. Do you agree?'
The mouse gulped. 'I wish you wouldn't.'
'If I recall correctly, a wizard's familiar not only shares a mental bond with its summoner, but it also shares a link of life energy or vitality. No familiar survives its master's death, I have heard, and a powerful wizard might be rendered virtually helpless by the sudden demise of his familiar, true?'
'Actually, no,' the mouse squeaked. 'It doesn't work like that at all.'
'Oh. Well, then, I guess I have no further use for you. Good-bye, mouse.' Jack began to tighten his grip.
'Wait!' the mouse cried. 'Please! You were right! I was lying! Please don't kill me!'
Jack grinned. 'Very well, I shall not, unless I am startled by the appearance of Iphegor himself, in which case I will kill you in an instant. I advise you to think twice before attempting to summon the wizard here through your mental link.' He leered at the tiny creature until it scrunched its eyes closed in fright, and then laughed. 'Now, I have business to attend. Perchance do you know where Iphegor keeps the Sarkonagael?'
'Please don't make me tell you that,' the mouse whispered, a very small sound indeed.
'The longer we delay, the more likely it is that Iphegor and I meet, and I might be forced to squeeze you until your little bones snap and your little orifices trickle bright red blood and your little eyes pop out of your little head.'
'Behind you. The second shelf!' the mouse wailed. 'Please don't say things like that! I have a delicate constitution.'
Jack searched the alcove the mouse indicated and found, on the second shelf, a large tome bound in black leather with massive silver clasps. With his free hand he fished it out of the bookshelf and examined the cover. It was an ominous-looking thing, with a silver skull embossed in the center and dire runes inscribed at each hasp. The title was stamped out in silver chasing: The Sarkonagael, or Secrets of the Shadewrights. He stuffed it into the pouch at his side and turned to go.
'You're going to let me go now?' the mouse asked hopefully.
'Soon,' Jack said. 'For now I deem it advisable to travel in your company.'
He glanced around the summoning chamber one last time and then retreated down the winding staircase. Green wizard-lights threw strange, twisting shadows against the walls and gave everything a pale, unhealthy luminescence. The rogue quickly passed through the wizard's chambers and followed the staircase down to the ground floor.
No one was around. Jack trotted softly over to the tower's only door and paused a moment to whisper a spell
