uncertainty of the outcome.
'And that is one,' Duncan said explosively. As he spoke, he held out the uninscribed sphere triumphantly in his hand. The sphere was no longer opaque rock, but danced in a rainbow of refracted light that radiated through its interior. In the very center, Alodar saw a tiny and perfect human hand suspended.
'The shielding hand,' Lectonil said, mounting again into the chamber. 'Here, let me have it while you finish the other.'
As Alodar saw Lectonil stretch his right hand forward, he sprang from the chamber wall and over the table into the magician's open arms. The force carried both to the floor. As they fell, Alodar grappled for the old man's hands to force them apart.
'Quickly, Duncan, quickly,' he gasped. 'Help me subdue him while I pin his arms. Then you can finish the other and we will be away before they return.'
The floor rolled with another crash. Duncan hesitated and took one step around the periphery of the table, then paused. His face froze in renewed terror as he caught sight of the sand which yet remained to fall.
'Help me!' Alodar yelled. 'There is no time to waste.'
Duncan put his hand on the tabletop, but his eyes remained fixed on the falling sand. With a shudder, he suddenly turned and climbed up onto the windowsill from which Alodar had originally entered the room. In an instant he was gone, completed sphere in his pocket, climbing hand over hand down the face of the pyramid.
As Duncan fled, Alodar summoned new strength; with a powerful whirl, he spun Lectonil around striking his head with a crack against the floor. The magician remained silent, and Alodar scrambled to his feet.
He shielded his eyes from another flash and steadied himself from the rumble that followed. Almost half of the sand was gone.
There was still time to run. But if he did his entire quest would have been for nothing. He was no match for Duncan in rattling off the ritual by rote, but somehow he had to perform it on the second sphere.
He climbed back over the table and relit the incense; the ritual was begun. Alodar rang the triangle and this time it quieted at the proper time. Fumbling with his sketchy notes, he slowly began to lay out the twine on the table, covering and looping the strings in a way that would form a knot like a beehive. With the last tuck in place, he pulled the ends tight. The coils shrank into a lopsided triangle.
Steeling himself against the impulses that tried to make his hands shake, he undid the mess and again methodically went through the steps that formed the knot. He pulled the ends and the loops slid shut with beautiful symmetry. Encouraged, he began another and quickly laid a second by the first.
'The three knots define the plane in which the bees move to pollinate,' he muttered to distract himself from his pounding heart as he began the third. 'Three knots to form the plane to cleave the sphere.' He stopped and hesitated. 'Such a step makes sense for the first sphere, but what of the second with the fine line already dividing it in two?' Alodar frowned and concentrated on the lore which he had studied the past month. With the line already breaking the symmetry, the three points were redundant; they would lie in the plane already formed. He could proceed as before and the result would still be the immovable hand.
Alodar stopped completely and glanced up at the glass. If he continued, there was probably still enough time to complete the ritual as Duncan had done. A shielding hand in a sphere of protection was a king's ransom indeed. But the second sphere was different and somehow the ritual should be different as well. Perhaps a power far greater would be his if he acted with decision. But his notes would not help. He would have to get the reference from the library floor.
Alodar gauged the sand remaining and jumped over the table ft third time. The floor shook and another scream exploded up from the doorway. Four minutes, he thought. If he could be back in four minutes, then he would still have a chance.
He grabbed the balustrades with both hands and bounded downward, six steps at a time. He closed his eyes to slits to block out the bursts of light and ignored the bells which immediately began to chime. Against the brightness, he could just barely see the black robes dancing to and fro among the benches to dodge and launch their magical blows.
In one corner he saw gloves like Lectonil's clap together and a yellow bolt arch out to shatter soundlessly against some invisible barrier in the way. Beyond the transparent wall, two magicians huddled, rapidly working their craft. Elsewhere the black forms grappled arm to arm, ladders of energy streaking outward from the ring of one to strike the gemstone of another, fining the air with a sharp pungency from the discharge.
Alodar reached the floor without a challenge and quickly ran for the tier that contained the reference he needed.
'The neophyte,' someone yelled behind him. He dove forward and rolled as the yellow flash lashed out over his head and hit the tier in front, ripping scrolls apart and sending small scraps fluttering to the floor. Alodar crawled to his left and overturned a table as a second bolt followed the first, crashing into the protesting beams he flung in the way. A moment passed and no third shaft came. Inching up on his knees, he saw his attackers facing another direction and warding off the thrust of a dagger which seemed to dart through the air of its own volition.
Alodar scrambled back to the tier and with both arms spread the jumble of manuscripts. His hand closed on a familiar form; and with a feeling of sudden triumph, he grasped the other handle of the scroll he sought.
He bounded to his feet and ran back to the staircase, ducking and dodging the blasts of magic power that came his way. He thrust the scroll into his belt and started up the incline, both hands pulling him forward. He circled around a third of the distance, not pausing to look back but thinking only of the sand that remained in the glass. Suddenly he tripped and lurched forward, shins banging against the steps ahead. He wriggled his feet frantically, but they remained steadfast to the step on which he had just landed.
'The all-holding glue of Deckadin,' he heard above him and looked up to see Fulmbar slowly descending in his direction. 'It is well I decided to take a vantage point up here,' the magician said, 'although I did not suspect to have my trap sprung so quickly.'
The room rocked with another rumble and the stairs groaned in protest. Alodar's legs wrenched violently with the wave of power but he remained firmly rooted still.
'The sphere!' he yelled. 'Release me so that I can finish the ritual, or we are all lost.'
'I am a master magician, neophyte,' Fulmbar snapped back. 'I will not be guiled by a trick so transparent. Lectonil has the matter well in hand, else I would see him bolt down these stairs to signal us to safety. You will hold your position until I summon aid.'
Before Alodar could speak again, Fulmbar's eyes suddenly widened and he threw his hands upwards. Alodar instinctively ducked and felt cold metal fly by and brush over his back. He looked forward to see Fulmbar suddenly enmeshed in a net of fine silver wire that clung to him tightly and pulled him down.
'The net of the perfect catch,' Fulmbar shrieked as he tore at the mesh, while it propelled him stumbling down the stairwell. The magician lurched against Alodar and dug a hand into his arm as he stumbled past. Alodar was twisted around by the grip, and then pulled backward onto the hard steps as his feet remained firmly locked into place. Fulmbar continued down the stairs and Alodar felt nails cut deep as the grip slipped up his arm. Using his free hand, Alodar tore at the fingers which held him, grasping at a beaded bracelet around the magician's wrist. With a final scream, Fulmbar relinquished his hold and fell with a rush, bounding headfirst on each step as he went. The bracelet snapped in Alodar's fingers; simultaneously his boots popped free.
Another bolt of yellow sizzled up after Alodar as he rose to climb, but he paid it no heed. The building shook with the biggest explosion yet, and he saw a gaping hole torn in the north wall, creating a shower of brick and gleaming red stones.
His lungs heaving, Alodar reached the apex and closed and locked the heavy door in the floor. He looked quickly at the remaining sphere which now glowed red hot with a line of fiery yellow around it
He unrolled the scroll and began to scan rapidly down the contents. The entire ritual fitted into a fifth-order magic square, and the tying of knots occupied the center cell. Replacing the three knots by two changed the value from five to nineteen and the square no longer balanced its sums.
Alodar hurried over the bulk of the text which dealt with the shielding hand and its variations. Near the end of the roll he found what he wanted, a footnote on transforming the squares so that they became panmagic, summing the same on all diagonals as well as by row and column. Quickly he worked the equations to produce the four non-equivalent variations. The third was the one he sought; the first two elements were the same as the ritual he had started, but the rest were permuted and the central value was nineteen.
