gestured toward it. «Thing looks like an oil gusher. I hope the winner knows how to cap it - if there is a winner. Neither one of them may last much longer, the way the place is coming apart.»
He chuckled.
«You underestimate the forces they've generated to protect themselves,» he said. And you know it isn't all that easy for one sorcerer to do in another by sorcerous means. However, you've a point there when it comes to the inertia of the mundane. With your permission…?»
I nodded.
With a quick underhand toss he cast the metal ball across the ditch toward the burning building. It struck the ground and with each bounce thereafrer it seemed to increase in size. It produced a cymballike crash each time it hit, entirely out of proportion with its apparent mass and velocity, and this sound increased in volume on each successive bounce. It passed then into the burning, tottering ruin that was the near end of the Keep and for several moments was gone from sight.
I was about to ask him what was going on when I saw the shadow of a large ball pass before the opening through which I had fled. The flames - save for the central tower from the broken Fount - began to subside, and a deep rumbling sound came from within. Moments later an even larger circular shadow passed, and I began to feel the rumbling through the soles of my boots.
A wall tumbled. Shortly thereafter part of another wall fell. I could see inside fairly clearly through the dust and smoke the image of the giant ball passed again. The flames were snuffed. My Logrus vision still granted me glimpses of the shifting lines of power which flowed between Jasra and Sharu.
Mandor extended a hand. A minute or so later a small metal ball came bouncing our way, and he caught it. «Let's head back,» he said. «It would be a shame to miss the end.»
We passed through one of the many gaps in the fence, and sufficient rubble filled the ditch at one point for us to walk across on it. I spent a barrier spell then, to keep the re-forming troops of the prenuses and out of our way for a time.
Entering through the broken wall, I saw that Jasra stood with her back to the tower of fire, her arms upraised. Streaks of sweat lined her face zebra through a mask of soot, and I could feel the pulsing of the forces which passed through her body. About ten feet above her, face purple and head twisted to one side as if his neck were broken, Sharu hung in the middle of the air. To the untutored he might have seemed magically levitated. My Logrus sight gave me view of the line of force from which he hung suspended, however, victim of what might, I suppose, be termed a magical lynching.
«Bravo,» Mandor stated, clapping his hands slowly and softly together. «You see, Merlin? I'd have won that bet.»
«You always were a better judge of talent than I was,» I acknowledged.
«…and swear to serve me,» I overheard Jasra saying. Sharu's lips moved.
«And swear to serve you,» he gasped.
She lowered her arms slowly, and the line of force which held him began to lengthen. As he descended toward the Keep's cracked floor; her left hand executed a gesture similar to one I had once seen an orchestra conductor employ in encouraging the woodwinds, and a great gout of fire came loose from the Fountain, fell upon him, washed over him, and passed on down into the ground. Flashy, though I didn't quite see the point…
His slow descent continued, as if someone in the sky were trolling for crocodiles. I discovered myself holding my breath as his feet neared the ground, in sympathetic anticipation of the eased pressure on his neck. This, however, did not come to pass. When his feet reached the ground, they passed on into it, and his descent continued, as if he were an occulted hologram. He sank past his ankles and up to his knees and kept going. I could no longer tell whether he was breathing. A soft litany of commands rolled from Jasra's lips, and sheets of flame periodically separated themselves from the Fountain and splashed over him. He sank past his waist and up to his shoulders and slightly beyond. When only his head remained visible, eyes open but unfocused, she executed another hand move went, and his journey into the earth was halted.
«You are now the guardian of the Fount,» she stated, «answerable only to me. Do you acknowledge this?»
The darkened lips writhed.
«Yes,» came a whispered reply.
«Go now and bank the fires,» she ordered. «Commence your tenure.»
The head seemed to nod at the same time it began sinking again. After a moment only a cottony tuft of hair remained, and an instant later the ground swallowed this, too. The line of force vanished.
I cleared my throat. At the sound Jasra let her arms fall and turned toward me. She was smiling faintly.
«Is he alive or dead?» I asked, and then added, «Academic curiosity.»
«I'm not really certain,» she responded. «But a little of both, I think. Like the rest of us.»
«‘Guardian of the Fount,’» I reflected. «Interesting existence.»
«Beats being a coatrack,» she observed. «I daresay.»
«I suppose you feel I owe you some gratitude now, for - my restoratin,» she stated.
I shrugged.
«To tell you the truth, I've other things to think about,» I said.
«You wanted an end to the feud,» she said, «and I wanted this place back. I still have no kind thoughts toward Amber, but I am willing to say we're even.»
«I'll settle for that,» I told her. «And there is a small loyalty I may share with you.»
She studied me through narrowed eyes for a moment, then smiled.
«Don't worry about Luke,» she said.
«But I must. That son of a bitch Dalt-»
She continued to smile.
«Do you know something I don't?» I asked.
«Many things,» she replied.
«Anything you'd care to share?»
«Knowledge is a marketable commodity,» she observed, as the ground shook slightly and the fiery tower swayed.
«I'm offering to help your son and you're offering to sell me the information on how to go about it?» I inquired.
She laughed.
«If I thought Rinaldo needed help,» she said, «I'd be at his side this moment. I suppose it makes it easier to hate me if you feel I lack even maternal virtues.»
«Hey, I thought we were calling things even,» I said.
«That doesn't preclude hating each other,» she replied.
«Come on, lady! Outside of the fact that you tried to kill me year after year, I've got nothing against you. You happen to be the mother of someone I like and respect. If he's in trouble, I want to help him, and I'd as soon be on good terms with you.»
Mandor cleared his throat as the flames dropped ten feet, shuddered, dropped again.
«I've some fine culinary spells,» he remarked, «should recent exertions have roused some appetites.»
Jasra smiled almost coquettishly, and I'd swear she batted her eyelashes at him. While he makes a striking appearance with that shock of white hair, I don't know that you'd exactly call Mandor handsome. I've never understood why women are as attracted to him as they usually seem to be. I've even checked him out for spells on that particular count, but he doesn't wear one. It must be some different order of magic entirely.
«A fine idea,» she responded. «I'll provide the setting if you'll take care of the rest.»
Mandor bowed; the flames collapsed the rest of the way to the ground and were damped therein. Jasra shouted an order to Sharu, the Invisible Guardian, telling him to keep them that way then she turned and led us toward the downward stair.
«Underground passage,» she explained, «to more civilized shores.»
«It occurs to me,» I remarked, «that anyone we encounter will probably be loyal to Julia.»
Jasra laughed.
«As they were to me before her and to Sharu before me,» she replied. «They are professionals. They come
