'That's why you're here, isn't it?'
Lyim grimaced, wrestling with some decision. 'I had hoped to spare you what I know about your brother, but-'
'What is it?' Kirah jumped to her feet and reached out imploringly for Lyim's arm, his right. The mage snatched away his gloved hand viciously before she could lay a finger to it. Stunned, she drew back and looked at him with pain in her pale eyes.
Lyim rubbed his face. 'I believe Guerrand is responsible for this plague,' he managed at last. 'I knew it the second I stepped into the village and heard the details of the illness.'
'But why?' gasped Kirah, shaking her head in disbelief.
Lyim's laugh was not kindly. 'Guerrand and I have not been friends since-' he paused, considering, then pushed back his big right cuff and removed the tan leather mit from his hand. 'Since this happened to my hand.'
Not knowing what to expect, Kirah hung back apprehensively. She jumped in stunned horror when a long, single-headed snake with a gold diamond pattern on its head slithered forth where Lyim's hand should have been.
'I–I don't understand,' she stuttered, unconsciously averting her eyes. 'Are you saying Guerrand did that to you?'
His face red with shame, Lyim tucked the hissing creature back into its glove. 'Not exactly,' he said. 'In fairness, I'm forced to admit that my own master inflicted this upon me. But it was within Guerrand's power to help me cure it. He refused. I've been unable to cure it myself, but I did manage to find an antidote that enabled me to contain it to one hand.'
Paler than death, Kirah dropped back onto the bed and shook her head with slow but unceasing regularity.
'If he has the power to cure it, Guerrand also has the power to create the disease,' reasoned Lyim. When Kirah continued to shake her head mutely, he said, 'I didn't want to believe it either.'
'But why?' asked Kirah in a small voice. 'Why would Guerrand want to inflict the same horrible pain on us?'
'Because he can?' Lyim postulated. 'You don't know Guerrand anymore, Kirah. He's become a powerful and influential mage. Perhaps his impoverished roots are an embarrassment to him, I'm not really sure, but I fear his power has gone to his head. It happened to my master-the magic took him over.' Lyim's dark, wavy hair brushed his shoulders as he shook his head sadly. 'I tell you, you would not recognize your brother in the man who refused my simple request to cure my hand.'
Kirah's eyes held a faraway look. 'He promised me when he first left that if ever I needed help, he'd somehow know and come to me,' she said numbly.
'Instead he sent me, rather than risk his position with his master,' Lyim reminded her. 'Apparently the seeds tor his selfishness had already been planted.'
Lyim saw the firm set to her mouth. 'Look, Kirah, I don't like to say these things, let alone believe them. But don't you think all the coincidences are a bit odd? My hand? The similarity of the plague's symptoms to the affliction Guerrand refused to cure in me? Why else would the snakes hiss his name? What but guilt or design could keep him away?'
Kirah bristled. 'He probably hasn't heard of our troubles yet.'
Lyim shook his head sadly. 'You don't understand the powers of a mage if you believe that.'
Kirah shook her head mutely. 'I… can't… believe it. But maybe I don't know Guerrand anymore.' Overcome, she pressed her face into her hands.
Lyim knelt by her on one knee, his hair falling to gently curl around his face as he lifted her tear-streaked chin with his good hand. 'I've come to help you, Kirah.'
Kirah tried to break the bond that held his eyes to hers, but the power that gripped her was as old as sorcery and far stronger. She could only manage a nod.
'Together, we can make Guerrand come forward and face what he has done,' Lyim said smoothly. 'Together, we can end the suffering.' He reached into his brown shroud and withdrew a flask. 'This is the antidote I traveled to Mithas to secure. It prevents those with symptoms of the disease from dying, though it won't cure the mutations. And it keeps those without symptoms from contracting the illness. Guerrand will surely come forward when he realizes we've foiled his plot.'
Still on one knee and holding Kirah's gaze, Lyim pressed the flask into her small hands. 'I have just enough with me for you, Kirah,' he intoned. 'You must take it. For me.'
Chapter Ten
Lyim had forgotten how menacing Wayreth forest looked. Tbe trees and bushes were all hideously twisted, casting sinister shadows. The distant sounds of wolves and bears didn't make the forest feel any more inviting, either.
He noticed these things, but he wasn't frightened by the forest, never had been. Right now he could think only of how his calf muscles were starting to cramp. He'd been waiting behind the underbrush outside the gates of Wayreth for days, ever since he'd teleported here directly upon leaving Kirah. Growing annoyed with waiting, he shifted to relieve the pressure on his legs, never taking his eyes from the elaborate gateway to the stronghold of magic.
Lyim resolved to give Guerrand's nephew until sunset to make it to the tower; the Council would recess then until the next day. After that he'd place a magical sentinel to watch for the young man's arrival. If the country boy ever made it, thought Lyim, knowing he could not have missed him already. It would take a non- mage more than a week to reach Wayreth from Northern Ergoth. Still, the discomfort would be worth the wait to Lyim if Bram got into Wayreth and persuaded the Council to send him to Bastion. It was the best change Lyim had for entering the stronghold himself.
The wizard had taken the plague to Thonvil, hoping to draw Guerrand from Bastion. Lyim had reasoned that if he watched Thonvil closely and witnessed Guerrand's magical arrival, he might find a clue to entering the impenetrable stronghold. But Kirah's revelation about her nephew's departure for Wayreth to find Guerrand had given the wizard another idea. A far superior and more expedient idea.
Lyim still tingled when he recalled how his mind had raced to conceive a plan that would take him all the way into the forbidden stronghold and cure his hand. Or kill him trying. But Lyim was no more afraid of that than of the forest behind him.
It was all within Lyim's grasp, if only the nephew's quest was successful. The wizard waited and watched with patience borne of hope. A few would-be wizards came and went; half of the latter were dragged away by dwarves, Lyim knew, because they had failed their Test. None of them met Lyim's mental image of Guerrand's nephew; most were either younger than Bram would be, or of a different race.
The wizard wasn't even aware he'd slipped into a shallow slumber of boredom until he was jolted awake for seemingly no good reason. Nothing had touched him; no one else had appeared before the tower. And yet, some sense told him that the air around the tower was somehow different, charged. He was instantly alert.
Lyim blinked. When his eyes opened again-it was that quick-a young man stood looking up with surprised awe at the gates of gold and silver. Though magical entrances were more common than not at Wayreth, this one seemed different, as if the young man himself were surprised to be here.
The man in the heavy cloak turned to look at the forest that hid Lyim, giving the wizard a good look at his profile. The resemblance to Guerrand in hair color and facial shape was remarkable.
Lyim smiled. He had only to wait and monitor the towers for significant external radiations of magical energy. He was as good as in Bastion already.
The gates of gold and silver before Bram were so masterfully crafted they looked as thin as cobwebs. The gates adjoined a wall in the shape of an equilateral triangle, with a small guard tower at each point. Odd, unfamiliar symbols were carved upon the surface of the dark stone, symbols that suggested the strength of the earth even to
