'It's got me, too!' Dalamar was kicking and thrashing nearby, reaching with his hands, as if he might be able to grab a tree branch or cloud and pull himself away. But he, too, was clearly overpowered.
Overcome, both were being sucked with increasing force and speed toward the high stone walls of the Tower.
Jenna threw up her hands to protect her head. She gasped, anticipating the impact, but instead was immediately enveloped by darkness. She tumbled to a hard stone floor, quickly twisted around and struggled to regain her footing. Something brushed past; it was Dalamar, who, she observed with some irritation, leaped to his feet while she was still fumbling with her staff. With a curse, she brought a light spell into being on the top of her staff.
'Where are we?' the dark elf cried, quickly stalking the circumference of what appeared to be a small, dark, enclosed room. 'And where's the door? I swear we crashed straight into it!'
'It's gone-maybe it was never there in the first place. But we're somewhere high up in the Tower, I should think,' Jenna replied, looking around in the cool light of her spell. 'At least, judging from the small size of the room, and the curve of that wall, that's my best guess.'
'Do you think Kalrakin lured us here, trapped us?' the dark elf mused aloud.
'
The word was spoken by an old man who stood in the corner, wearing a tattered robe of white. The old White Robe certainly hadn't been there a moment before.
'Par-Salian?' the dark elf declared, shocked by the recognition. 'It is you! Though I fear that the passage of time has not been kind to you.'
Jenna looked and also recognized the man who had been the Head of the Conclave when she had taken her Test. Age had ravaged him cruelly, as evidenced by the rheumy film over his eyes and the dark spots that marked his hands. His beard and hair, once lush and full-even though steel-gray-were now sparse and bedraggled. Even his robe, the pure symbol of his order, he had allowed to become dirty, torn, and unkempt; he leaned on a cane, his posture so feeble that he seemed likely to fall forward on to his face.
Only Par-Salian was long dead; he had perished during the Chaos War.
'You can't truly be Par-Salian. So who are you?' Dalamar demanded. 'I would kill you in an instant if I thought you were the sorcerer Kalrakin in cunning guise, hut there is no hint of wild magic around you.'
'I am the Master of the Tower,' said the image of Par-Salian. 'I brought you here-it is the only safe place, for the moment. The sorcerer has ensorcelled all the other doors with dangers and traps.'
'What's happened to the other wizards who disappeared?' asked Jenna. 'Are they slain?'
'No… not yet. He holds them in the Hall of Mages. Of course you recall that there are no doors to that chamber, and his wild magic has secured the place. None may teleport in or out. As your wizards enter the Tower, they become his prisoners.'
'What of Coryn? The Head of the White Robes?' Jenna prodded.
'Ah. That is why I brought you here-she needs your help. As do I.' The aged White Robe pointed across the room, where appeared a sheet of glass suspended on the stone wall like a window. 'Use the scrying glass. You will see her; she is down below, near the anteroom of the foretower.'
'Look!' cried the dark elf, pointing to an image that began to glow in that reflective surface. Jenna stepped close, and she and Dalamar both immediately recognized Coryn. Her white robe was torn and stained with blood, and she was lying prone, trapped in a gap that had opened in the floor. As the two wizards watched, that narrow space started to squeeze shut. She struggled frantically, clearly overpowered in the vise of wild magic.
'What can we do?' asked Jenna desperately, whirling to confront the Master.
But he was no longer there.
Coryn pushed and pushed, but the viselike pressure resisted her puny strength. The gap in the floor was like a wound closing, shaping itself according to Kalrakin's wishes. The White Robe was caught in a brief slit that felt disturbingly like a coffin, just long and wide enough to accommodate her body. As soon as she had fallen in, it had begun to squeeze shut.
Watching her, Kalrakin smiled and held up his hand; the stone gap immediately stopped closing. Coryn was tightly trapped-she couldn't so much as wriggle-but at least she was able to draw breath.
'What a pretty little rabbit I have snared,' declared the sorcerer. To Coryn, from her position lodged beneath the floor, he seemed like a giant covered with smudges of dirty cloud, which trailed off his craggy visage.
'You thought you were pretty clever, I suspect… when you tricked us into letting you live. That is not a mistake I shall make again. Not that your death will be overly speedy, of course. These things take time!'
'No-I wasn't being clever,' Coryn said. She searched for words, ideas, anything that would distract Kalrakin and give her a chance to stay alive.
'I was foolish,' she said quickly. 'Now I am curious. I came here to learn about this place-and it took me a while to understand that you have become the master. I am in awe of your power-I wanted to learn from you!'
'Master… yes. I am Master here. I didn't think you appreciated that.'
'Oh, it's obvious,' Coryn said. 'I should have known it right away. And I'm sorry about taking your food. That was an honest mistake.'
'Hah! My food? I have no need of food! This tower is my sustenance.' As he spoke he flipped the white stone in his hand, and Coryn found her eyes drawn inexorably to that pearly artifact. It was terribly bright, and created a hypnotic flash of light when he alternately covered it up and revealed it.
Kalrakin looked down at her, clearly enjoying himself. He grinned at her and twisted his hands, drawing the vise of stone just a bit tighter around the White Robe. Coryn strained to breathe, but her elbows were now trapped against her sides, and the pressure was crushing her lungs.
She saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and apparently the sorcerer did, too. Kalrakin whirled around, white lights flashing all around him, and he shouted.
'I destroyed you once-you have no right to be here!'
Wild sorcery flashed and the floor shook against both of her shoulders, squeezing Coryn even harder. She saw a Black Robe flash past the wall, a haggard old wizard she had never seen before. She blinked, and the wizard's robe had turned to white.
And now it was the face of Par-Salian she saw, looking down at her with a kindly expression. The Master of the Tower nodded once, surprisingly calm in the face of Kalrakin's frenzied cries. Then he vanished in a convulsion of wild magic.
Coryn found herself lying on a bed, alone in a room. She heard an echo of Kalrakin's disbelieving scream, but that faded almost immediately into blessed silence. The wild-magic sorcerer was not here, however, and could not possibly know where she was. For one thing, she didn't know herself.
She sat up and looked around, crying out as her back and hips creaked in pain. Gingerly she moved a bit, realizing with some relief and surprise that she didn't seem to have any broken bones. But where was she?
This room looked vaguely familiar; she guessed she was still in the Tower of High Sorcery. This was a simple sleeping chamber, with a table, desk, wardrobe, and this comfortable bed. And there was a door, with a big lock, secured with a key from the inside.
Of course! This was the room she had slept in on her first visit, the night before she had taken the Test of Magic. But that seemed too easy. She stood up on shaky legs and walked across to the desk. There was nothing on it, nor on the table, which was just as before. Of course, she had thrown a few of her belongings in the wardrobe, things she hadn't taken with her when she had left the Tower rather precipitously. It contained nothing that would help her. She pulled open the wardrobe: There was her water skin, her bedroll, and a few extra pieces of clothing. And then she saw something else, which she had left here and all but forgotten.
It was her stout hunting bow. Beside it rested her plain, but serviceable, quiver of arrows.
The wizards circled through the air outside the Tower. Many of them had vanished, by now, having attacked one of Kalrakin's locked doors and simply disappeared. There was no way to know the fate of those comrades, but Adramis and his sister were rapidly despairing.
'I can't fly much longer,' Aenell warned her brother. 'My spell is fading.'
'Down to the ground, then?' he asked dismally. He would be able to stay in the air for only a few more minutes at the most.
'No, not to the ground,' his sister demurred. 'We've seen these trapped doors work their magic. But so far
