circle, red, then yellow-white moons. At that precise moment, the swirling mass Belize had created between the plinths yawned open with an unbearable purplish light. The marble pillars seemed to throb in the portal's radiance. The effect spread swiftly outward until the entire plateau wavered and shifted like the deck of a ship. A column of twisting, intertwined white, red, and black light shot skyward and split into three cords, linking the carved marble pillars to each of the moons.
But proximity to such an awesome occurrence had frozen both students of magic. They were watching something indescribably ancient, a form of magic so old it had been forgotten long before the Cataclysm.
Guerrand's eyes followed the heavenly beam to where hundreds of bright white veins of light broke away and linked with the stars to form an interstellar suspension bridge, as if the light were tracing the outline of a whole new constellation.
Belize took slow steps toward the heavenly bridge.
'It's too late to stop him,' Esme whispered, clenching and unclenching her fists in frustration.
'Not if I can still see him,' Guerrand spat, shaking off his fascination so that he could visualize the sigils on the plinths. Once again he recognized patterns in what had been random scrawls. Beneath the light of the three moons, Guerrand pushed his mind harder than Justarius had ever demanded.
Under Guerrand's scrutiny, the sigils seemed to shift and twist and contort. Their relative order remained constant but suggested motion, coiling through a subtle progression of new configurations.
Understanding came to Guerrand with all the impact of an opponent's lance in the tilting yard. The pulsating lights, the swirling portal, the bridge were all woven from the same pattern, and Guerrand could read it as easily as a textbook.
But before the apprentice could use the knowledge, Belize took one last, calculating glance skyward, then stepped boldly through the curtain of color swirling between the pillars and onto the mighty, glittering suspension bridge of light that stretched to the moons. It rocked and swayed beneath his feet, but the archmage clung to the luminous railings and continued upward, a red streak against the dark, starry sky. He seemed almost to grow in size with each step that brought him nearer the Lost Citadel.
Guerrand raced to the plinths, as if he could pull Belize back with his bare hands. The view through the pillars looked more like a tunnel than an open-sided bridge. Belize was nearing the halfway point to the Lost Citadel, backlit by a glow more blinding than a thousand candles.
Guerrand closed his eyes against it, but the light burned through his lids and etched there a multisensory image. He would never know for sure if it actually happened, or if he'd conjured some mirage. But the vision felt more real, more vivid than his own life.
Glowing gates of gold, not unlike those at Wayreth, rose up from a knee-high warm, moist fog. Behind them was the source of the radiance that burned Guerrand's eyes. Like raw, uncut minerals, three immense diamond spires sliced through the billowing fog and rose to penetrate the blackness of space. The faceted surfaces reflected the foundation upon which all earthly things were built, as if a mirror had been held to the universe and revealed a skeleton complex beyond compare. Somehow the citadel conveyed that it had acquired its knowledge honestly, that its mineraled walls had risen from the mire of Krynn itself and had been long ago transported beyond the circles of the universe by the gods of magic themselves.
The citadel's pull was strong. It would have been an easy thing to step into the tunnel and join Belize in acquiring the knowledge of the gods. But witnessing the citadel's magnificence had made it all the more important to prevent Belize from entering there. The red archmage was not worthy, if any mortal could be.
Badly shaken, Guerrand jerked away from the influence of the tunnel. He composed himself with a breath before probing the corners of his mind again. The spells he memorized daily were imprinted patterns, the keys for unlocking all magical energies. Guerrand read those simple spell patterns and tapped the energy, but then combined them with the more complex symbols on the plinths, reshaping the whole to a new purpose, a spell of his own making.
At his direction, a new pillar of twisting red light shot from his fingertips and entered Belize's portal. Racing over the bridge, the bright column overtook a surprised Belize and continued on until it reached the point where the bridge was anchored to the moons. Guerrand's column of energy sliced like a knife through the ends of Belize's bridge, severing the link. The archmage's howl of fear and rage shook the stars. He clung desperately to the railings when the bridge whipped like a snake's tail. Guerrand's chord of light rerouted the bridge back to the moonlit hilltop so that it looked like an enormous, star-bright horseshoe.
Guerrand dropped to his knees at last, his energy exhausted, head and wounded side aching. The apprentice looked skyward through rivulets of sweat just as dark Nuitari slid off-center from red Lunitari. The trio of light strands that formed the bridge abruptly rejoined into one column, then snapped in half. The lower portion collapsed upon the earthbound marble plinths, while the upper half shot away to disappear among the stars. Spiralling slowly inward, the gate itself began to darken and shrink, until the vibrant colors which had been almost too bright to look at faded to the dark red-orange of a smith's furnace.
The hilltop grew eerily silent.
'How did you do that, Rand?' Esme breathed, regarding him with new respect. 'And what did you do with Belize?'
'I hope he's rotting in the Abyss for what he's done to me,' snarled Lyim, then winced from the effort of sending air through his badly bruised lungs.
'Your arm-' Guerrand began, reaching out.
'Is a snake,' Lyim finished viciously. 'It disgusts me, but no more than the thought of your pity. I couldn't bear that, too.'
Guerrand knew no other way to help his friend than to spare his pride, and so he looked away. Just then, the colors about the dwindling gate flared briefly, drawing the trio's attention. A shape tumbled with a loud popping sound through the plinths and onto the beaten grass, rolling to a stop against Belize's trunk. The ground began to shake, and the carved plinths swayed and rocked. Guerrand jumped back to Esme and Lyim just as the marble columns cracked and crashed to the ground, striking the mysterious shape as they tumbled. The swirling colors of the gate dissipated entirely, casting the hilltop back into the dimmer light of the moons.
'What is it?' gasped Esme, nodding toward the amorphous shape.
Steeling himself, Guerrand walked through the shattered blocks of marble and approached the trunk. The young mage's stomach churned as he stared down into the face of Belize, set in the middle of an oozing, flabby, ulcerous body like those Guerrand had seen in the archmage's lab. A shapeless flipper groped up toward the lid of the trunk. What remained of his mouth quivered, lidless eyes rolling from side to side, revealing his agony. Guerrand clapped a hand to his own mouth to keep from retching.
'It appears that the Master of the Red Robes has been following the ways of the Black Robes for some time.'
Guerrand's head snapped up at the sound of a familiar voice. Justarius stooped to pick up the burned and tattered sheafs of Harz-Takta's spellbook near what remained of Belize. 'Some knowledge is better left unrecovered.'
Justarius's gaze upon Belize's body was grim. 'He made the frequently fatal conceit of allowing love of himself to supersede his passion for magic. Magic must always come first.'
'Wh-When did you get here?' stammered Guerrand, holding fast to Esme.
Justarius eased himself onto a blasted block of the marble plinths, closing his robe against the crisp wind that blew off the strait. 'It was quite simple, really. Your comments about Belize's research practices plagued me, until, by the time I teleported to Wayreth, I was certain these were no idle experiments he was performing. Par-Salian agreed that they sounded like the result of gating experiments.'
He blew the chill from his hands. 'LaDonna recognized the name Harz-Takta. He was a Black Robe a millennium ago, considered too nefarious even for that order.'
'That,' explained Justarius, 'concerned me enough to immediately scry in my crystal ball for Belize's whereabouts, which revealed this place. Hearing Belize's plans, I teleported here, but you had already prevented him from entering the Lost Citadel.' The red archmage raised an ironic brow with a look that took in both his apprentices. 'By the way, weren't you two supposed to wait in your chambers for my return?'
Esme's face burned crimson. 'What's going to happen to us?' she whispered from the circle of Guerrand's arm.
'Considering that Belize's crimes motivated your actions, Par-Salian and LaDonna have agreed to let the
