The Sellsword

having left Vanderjack, Theodenes, and Star for the magnetic appeal of the new surprise.

“People of Wulfgar!” screamed the wizard, his voice unnaturally loud. “Your time to bear witness has come!”

Theo suddenly remembered the highmaster. His gaze shifted to the balcony. He saw her there, a figure in black and red with a billowing cape and that hideous armored mask she wore. Her gauntlets gripped the balcony railing. Her two thugs were by her side. Theo wondered where her red dragon was, but only moments later, he saw the enormous bulk of Cear ascending the roof of the palace, squatting there with wings folded by his sides, waiting.

“Now that you have reveled in your blood sports and cried out for death, it is time to reflect on the future of Krynn!”

Vanderjack said, “He’s going to give a speech?”

“We need to get onto Star. You have to get up there!”

The sellsword nodded wearily. He looked pretty grimy and bloodied and bruised, from the gnome’s analytic point of view.

But Vanderjack climbed quickly onto Star’s back, joined by Theo. “I have a plan,” said Vanderjack.

“I have a better one,” said Theodenes.

“Would you shut up for once and listen to my idea? Trust me, for once.”

The gnome sighed. “All right.”

“Star,” he said, bending over and whispering instructions to the dragonne. “That was going to be my plan,” said Theo sulkily as Star sprang up from the floor of the arena and sped toward Cazuvel and the cage.

The crowd cheered. Theo cringed. The wizard looked down at the approaching dragonne and laughed maniacally.

“People of Wulfgar!” crowed Cazuvel, gleefully pointing at the dragonne and his riders. “See how even now, facing certain doom, the brave heroes ride upon their mighty winged steed to the rescue of the fair maiden!”

The wizard reached into his robes and withdrew something long and sharp. The heavy clouds above the arena, which had until then permitted only a watery gray sunlight to filter through the rain, split apart. The object in Cazuvel’s hand shone brightly, almost dazzling.

“Lifecleaver!” said Vanderjack. “There’s my sword! Star, where are the ghosts? What’s he planning?”

Star rumbled, “I fear they are not present. There are dark forces I do not fathom at work up on that pedestal.”

Cazuvel was still pontificating. “Behold, people of Wulfgar! You will be the first to see the power of the Abyss made manifest!” With a single swift motion, the wizard drove the sword into the top of the cage, midway between the chained figure of Gredchen and the painting. The sound of metal scraping against metal rang throughout the arena.

Cazuvel intoned, “Cermindaya, cermindaya, saya memanggil anda dan mengikat anda!” Almost immediately afterward, a burst of vivid blue and orange light flashed from inside the cage as ribbons of energy began to dance between Gredchen, the sword, and the painting.

They were almost there. Theo gripped his polearm for an attack, but just as they swung close, to his surprise, Vanderjack shouted, “Take Theo clear, Star!” The sellsword leaped off with nothing but a battered shield.

“No! Vanderjack! Wait for me! Wait!”

“Trust him,” said Star, winging away from the platform. “Vanderjack knows what he is doing.”

Theodenes, looking over his shoulder as the sell-sword closed on the wizard, fumed … and feared for Vanderjack’s fate.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Vanderjack leaped toward certain doom.

The fetch in Cazuvel’s form stood amid a storm of energy, a storm that linked Gredchen and the painting, holding the sword Vanderjack had inherited from his mother, the queen of the pirates. His sword-one of the fabled nine-lives stealers and fashioned from unbreakable star metal ore-was undoubtedly the lynchpin of magic holding the storm together.

The wizard below lifted his hands and channeled the surging power filling the cage; it haloed him in alternating coronas of blue and orange. Seeing the sellsword plummeting toward him, he gestured with one hand and directed a bolt of the energy in Vanderjack’s direction. The ribbon of power struck the sellsword full in the chest, holding him there for a moment, surrounding him in the same coruscating light. Cazuvel tugged his arm back sharply, and the stream of magic acted like a fisherman’s line. Vanderjack was flung forcibly down and to the side of the cage, slamming into the stone platform.

The crowd screamed out its disappointment, although there were some cries in the stands applauding the wizard.

Cazuvel’s stunt with the magical snare had drained Vanderjack, rendered him almost unconscious. He struggled to breathe, but it was as if his lungs were filled with broken glass. The shield had buckled and folded around his left forearm, rendering both it and the arm useless. He couldn’t tell whether or not his hip had shattered, but did it matter anymore? The wizard walked along the roof of the cage and stood on one corner, looking down at him with the light from the magical storm shining in his eyes.

“Get up, get up, get up,” Vanderjack said to himself, speaking what he imagined the Sword Chorus would say if he could hear them. “Ignore the pain; die tomorrow.”

He reached out, the fingers of his right hand wrapping around a bar on the cage, and felt the thrumming power within the cage channel through his arm, his shoulder, up his neck, and into the base of his skull.

“Get up, get up!” cried the Sword Chorus, outside of his mind, coming from somewhere else. They were really speaking to him. He opened his eyes, pulled himself up against the side of the cage, and realized that the cage was acting as a conductor between him and Lifecleaver.

“Glad to … hear your voices,” he said, coughing blood. “Little late to the party, though.”

“The wizard cannot hear us,” said the Apothecary.

“He is distracted,” said the Hunter.

“Vanderjack!” shouted the Cook, whose wavering image seemed to hang beyond the bars, within the cage itself. “Cazuvel is using the link between the painting and Gredchen to open a gateway into the Abyss. You have to stop him!”

“Right. I figured as much. I’ll get … right on that,” he said and flung himself to the left as Cazuvel tossed another bolt of lightning down at him. He almost tore his right arm out of its socket. The pain was intense, but it sharpened his senses, cleared away some of the fog.

“You are broken!” cried Cazuvel. “You are finished! Even now, I draw upon the powers of the Abyss! I wield the power unfathomable! Look at what great works I can accomplish while your life slips away from you!”

Another surge of power came from the cage and flooded the fetch’s mortal body, making him crackle with even stronger mystical forces. He spread his arms, and intoned, “Mati santet, mati sihir! Mati semuasaya daya!”

In the arena below, motes of orange and blue light winked into existence above the dozens of dead bodies of the gladiators. Threads of light seemed to unwind from those points of light, traveling at great speed toward the center of the arena, toward the cage, toward Cazuvel.

Vanderjack stared, but at least for the moment he felt invigorated by the same power Cazuvel was drawing upon. As long as he remained in contact with the cage, he seemed able to ignore the constant pain setting his nervous system on fire.

“He’s gathering the souls of the dead,” hissed the Conjuror.

“An abominable act!” said the Aristocrat.

“For what purpose?” Vanderjack asked. He moved one step at a time around the cage in Gredchen’s direction.

“To open dozens of smaller portals, using the souls as a bridge to the Abyss,” said the Cook.