But that was the price of magic, and Willim silently watched those who appeared unduly worried; their lack of faith would be remembered.
Then his eyeless face turned from right to left, looking beyond the robed apprentices, noting the cages in the back of the laboratory where the miserable elves and dwarves huddled in silent misery. His magical vision fell upon the newcomer, the pathetic gully dwarf all alone in his large cage, and the Theiwar’s mouth wrinkled into a cruel caricature of a smile.
He gestured casually to the bottle of black liquid, the new toxin he had just created. “This is a poison, I believe, that will allow us to fell a great number of our enemies with a single blow. It, too, remains to be tested, of course.”
“With Reorx’s blessing, you will smite all of our foes,” Tarot pledged zestfully.
“Precisely,” Willim replied. He turned to the table and picked up the vial. “Now bring me the Aghar, and let us watch to see if the poison does its work.”
Tarot and another apprentice hastened over to the cage, while Willim cradled the precious bottle of elixir in both of his hands. He could actually feel the poisonous power of the concoction. Not only was it crafted to be lethal, even in the dose of a single drop, but it had been tailored to create fiendishly cruel effects the Theiwar wizard was certain to enjoy.
If his calculations were right, the first effect would be to completely paralyze the victim, leaving him incapable of action or speech even as he remained completely aware of all that was going on around him. The second effect would be to heighten the stricken target’s sensations, so that every sound, every spark of light, would flare with excruciating intensity through every one of the stricken fellow’s nerve endings. Thus, the dying victim would not only understand what was happening to him, but would experience all taunts and tortures, the slightest prick of his skin, with searing agony. Willim could picture his ultimate victim one day-the new king, helpless at his feet-imagining the delight he would take with the application of a small dagger or perhaps a tiny spark of flame to the paralyzed king’s hypersensitive flesh. Of course the king’s remaining eye would have to be plucked out very slowly.
Then, after perhaps an hour of helplessness-Willim hadn’t settled on the duration, which depended partly on the poison-the victim’s flesh would begin to dissolve. It was his intent that the dissolution would begin at the tips of the extremities, and take an extremely long time to reach the vital organs, and only when the heart or lungs failed, finally, would death provide the doomed king with blessed relief.
His thoughts blissful, the black-robed wizard uttered a high-pitched giggle. The poison augured a truly inventive way to kill, and he had hopes of masking the potion in a keg of stout bitters, allowing it to be consumed by a banquet room full of his enemies. But just as he didn’t know the details of the agony’s duration, he was not certain how long it would take for the initial symptom, the paralysis, to manifest itself. It could not be too quick, or some of the targets would observe the effects in their comrades before they had quaffed their own drinks.
Hence, the test.
Willim watched as the two apprentices dragged the quivering Aghar from his cage. The abject wretch bawled and struggled. Then in the space of an instant, both apprentices were hurled backward, Tarot crying out in pain as he fell to the floor.
The black bolts were thin, almost invisible, but the mage’s spell of true-seeing allowed him to observe them clearly. Unseen attackers must have fired the missiles from the other side of the laboratory, and each bolt had struck its target unerringly in the heart. Even as he spun, seeking the intrepid intruders, Willim was aware of the last breath expelled through the lips of his slain students. He winced at the loss of Tarot; he had invested many years in the training of that unique pupil! But there was no time for regret.
“We’re attacked!” he cried. “Find the enemy! Kill them!”
The apprentices turned and raced around the workbench, charging across the laboratory. Several brandished daggers while one, another fairly advanced student, paused and began to cast a magic-missile spell. Ochre, still on the floor, grew still, blinking his eyes and trying to turn his head. A large bulge, like a blood-red wart, had appeared on his left cheek. His hand flailed up and scratched at the growth.
Willim watched in disbelief as his missile-spellcasting apprentice was shot down as soundlessly and certainly as the first two. He roared his rage and cast a spell of illumination. Bright light spilled across the vast chamber, clearly marking a company of assailants, at least twenty strong, rushing toward them from the banished darkness. They burst from the shadows behind the tall columns lining the upper rim of the bowl-shaped floor of his laboratory. The lingering effects of the mass teleportation spell, like sparks lingering but slowly dying in the air, faded behind them, and the mage understood that, somehow, his lair had been discovered and the murderers magically transported there.
The attackers carried small crossbows. Each dwarf was concealed by a mask, and all were dressed entirely in black. They wore no armor, instead moving quickly and stealthily in soft boots and fitted shirts and trousers. And they displayed a military discipline as they stopped, raised their weapons, and fired a volley of lethal darts.
Willim cursed, instinctively waving his hands and barking out a powerful word. Immediately a shield, magically conjured, shimmered in the air before him. Fully half the bolts had targeted the mighty Black Robe, and those struck the shield and were obliterated into harmless dust.
His apprentices were not so lucky-nor could his magical barrier extend to them. Four more went down, fatally pierced, while the remainder dived for shelter behind the benches, chests, and casks that cluttered the wizard’s cavernous workspace. Furious, Willim called forth a fireball, a tiny bubble of flame that erupted from his finger and sailed, like a propulsive, glowing marble, toward the enemy. The Black Robe could only snarl in disbelief as one of the foes leaped at the globe, snatching it in his hands and holding it to his breast. The fireball exploded, but somehow, inexplicably, the blast was absorbed by the brave assassin. That unfortunate fellow blossomed into yellow flame, vanishing into a cloud of ashes and charred flesh, yet his sacrifice had saved his fellows.
“Impossible!” hissed Willim, even as he knew the word to be a lie. It was all too possible. The mage turned, wondering how many of his apprentices survived, and was surprised to notice that the Aghar prisoner had, foolishly, scrambled back into his cage-as if that could provide him with safe shelter! There was Ochre, forcing himself up into a sitting position but staring around in confusion. Before Willim could say anything to the dazed apprentice, the wizard’s full attention shifted back to the deadly troop of killers.
Another of his apprentices managed to cast a magic-missile spell, the sparkling arrows driving into the chest of one of the trespassers and felling him at once, but two of his fellows shot the spellcaster, and that apprentice, too, dropped with a bolt through his heart.
“Die!” spat Willim, casting another spell, which sent a cloud of green gas spewing from his fingers, billowing through the cavern.
The cloudkill was an imprecise, even desperate tactic, but the Black Robe was in a desperate situation. The first to die were his own two remaining apprentices, for the cloud swept over them and they couldn’t help inhaling the green death. But the gas continued to flow, sweeping across the room, enveloping at least half of the attacking force, while also drifting through the cage containing the two precious elf prisoners. They died as miserably as they had lived, but so, too, did at least ten of the intruders, Willim noted with satisfaction.
The remainder pressed the assault, dispersing to minimize the impact of another area-effect spell but charging as aggressively before. They fired another volley, and once more Willim was forced to raise a shield spell, distracted from the counterattacks he would have preferred to launch. He did spit off a magic-missile spell of his own, greater than any his apprentices could summon, spraying the conjured arrows in a wide arc that bloodily cut down another of the attackers, but then he was forced to ignominiously dive for cover as a burst of magic exploded from the finger of one of the masked killers.
Ochre was shaking his head, pushing himself to one knee. He locked eyes with Willim, and something in the Theiwar’s eyes convinced the wizard that, indeed, his potion was at work. “Master?” he croaked, clearly confused.
“We’re attacked,” the Black Robe explained curtly. He gestured to the far side of the laboratory. “Kill them- but wait! Let them come to us.”
“I shall obey,” Ochre said, bowing his head, quivering in his eagerness. He stood shakily, once again scratching at the strange wart that swelled even larger on his cheek.
The pair was, for the moment, blocked by the large, overturned table. Willim snapped out a spell of invisibility, touching first his apprentice-who immediately vanished-then absorbing the effects himself. As soon as he had disappeared from sight, the mage scuttled across the laboratory to a cabinet where he kept a variety of
