Rod glanced at the Dark Helms closing in on him, and risked a look toward where the velduke must be. Dark Helms were heaped there; Deldragon must have unleashed some sort of magic on them, to free himself. Off to one side was another struggling mass of warriors, like the one gathered around the fat man. That must be Taeauna.
He should do something, should-
Do what? He couldn't even
Dark Helms started shrieking, back by the gate. Rod turned his head in time to watch the warriors around the fat man start to fall over, still in one huge, struggling clump. They were falling because many of them seemed to have no feet anymore, just blackened stumps.
Rod's stomach heaved again, urgently this time.
As cruel fingers caught hold of his arms and shoulders, and what felt like a speeding truck-a truck that had lots of hard knees, and bad breath, and clanking armor-slammed into his back.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The chiming OF chains came closer and closer, until it stopped in front of him.
Arlaghaun did not let his sigh show as he looked up from reading the last page of some forty that detailed the crafting of a failed magic, an account written centuries ago by a wizard who'd ended up as a dragon without knowing quite how. He put a hand over the brightest glowing runes to shield his eyes from their dazzle and looked up at his apprentice who was standing in the appropriately subservient pose he'd taught her. Whippings had their uses, it seemed.
They would have another one if she'd interrupted him for no good reason. That was, of course, unlikely; she was his best apprentice, not a fool. He kept his face expressionless, merely raising his eyebrows in a silent question.
'Yardryk, master. The expected debacle. But he has Deldragon and the wingless Aumrarr, too. At least, they're all fighting nigh his gate.' Her lip curled. 'Which is about to collapse.'
Arlaghaun smiled. 'Ah, Yardryk. Always so confident as he rushes headlong into his next pratfall. Still, he's too useful to be sacrificed; we should rescue him, I suppose. And the good velduke will have some magic about his person I can seize. If we take him now, he won't have chances enough to waste it all blasting my warriors. Moreover, if we keep Master Mage Brightrising alive, we can send him back to the keep to snatch magic later, with a Darendarr Deldragon I control striding at his side.'
Amalrys nodded in her chains, returning his smile, ice-blue eyes dancing.
'Right. Let's have them all.' Arlaghaun stood up from his book, turned and then stepped away from it to quell any spillover of magic, stretched his gray-clad limbs, and started to cast an intricate spell.
His apprentice watched him avidly, as always.
He smiled, his brown eyes flashing their usual fire at her, and seeing it returned.
Yes. Strong magic, elegantly unleashed, was the greatest aphrodisiac.
The little pool of water in the dark, wet forest glade glowed with sudden, silent fire that lit the faces of the four Aumrarr bent over it.
'You can farscry like a Doom?' Dark-armored Lorlarra's voice was rough with awe. 'Sister, what are you?'
Dauntra gave her a look that seemed to add years to her young and impish beauty. 'Just another Aumrarr, sister; no more. But I happen to be a sister who caught the eye of Lord Darendarr Deldragon seven summers back.'
'Aha,' said Juskra, her scars twisting her knowing smile. 'You came to him in the moonlight, hmm? And he could not resist lovemaking in the air, and you starflew him to sleep.'
Dauntra's smile was gentler than her scarred sister's. 'Yes. Asleep I delivered him back to his bed. He slept as I drew his sword, and shed some of my blood and his, and mingled them together. Ambrelle, you know the spell.'
'I do,' the oldest Aumrarr said quietly, holding back her long purple-black hair so as to better behold the images moving in the little forest pool Dauntra had let a drop of her blood fall into. 'So when you do this, and he happens to be unleashing the magics of that sword at the same time, you can watch his doings and surroundings. For a time.'
'Is that what I think it is?' Juskra asked sharply. 'That purple fire?'
'If you're thinking it's a gate some wizard created, that's now on the verge of collapsing,' Ambrelle replied, with just a hint of a smile, 'then yes, it is what you think it is.'
'A gate cast by one of the Dooms?'
'Very likely.'
'Almost certainly,' Lorlarra corrected, an instant before the scene of struggling people in the maw of a flickering purple arc of flames exploded into a bright flash of many vivid hues, clashing and coiling like violently grappling mists.
The four watching Aumrarr cursed.
The pool went dark.
Everyone screamed, falling through the blinding brightness. Eyes wide but seeing nothing, nothing but light so stabbing that it made him sob, Rod Everlar fell endlessly, vaguely aware that others were tumbling with him yet unable to see them, falling…
Falling…
To find smooth stone underfoot, as gently yet as firmly as if he'd always been standing there.
Abruptly, the brightness all around him was gone, fled away to leave behind a few fading, gentle glows that left him blinking.
Eyes watering, shaking his head to try to clear his vision, Rod stared around. He was in some sort ol large stone room, with a high, vaulted ceiling. There were many tall archways in the walls, all of them leading into passages stretching away into various glooms. Set on one wall close at hand, on a stretch that led out to a jutting corner of wall, was a tall, ornate oval mirror, stretching up from the floor taller than a person.
Taeauna was standing right beside him, and she was turning toward Rod, as if to check that he was there.
He saw her eyes measure him, and move on; she was glancing swiftly in this direction and that.
Rod went on doing the same thing. Deldragon stood beyond Tay, glaring around at everything with sharp concern in his ice-blue eyes, and the fat man and Rosera stood beyond him, shoulder to shoulder and looking wary. Over there, in the other direction, was the wounded, golden-haired young wizard, and on the floor, crawling mindlessly away from him like a worm Rod had once watched wriggling up out of a bait-bucket when fishing, was the pink tongue-thing that had enshrouded the wizard's head. To Rod's left stood a tattered handful of lorn and Dark Helms, staring around the hall in as much bewilderment as Rod was.
This place was huge, and solidly built, yet somehow-with its smooth walls, shaped ledges and ridges that framed the archways-far more elegant than the stark stone castle feasting halls he was getting so used to seeing. And it felt old, an age older than they did, despite their crumblings. What was this place?
As Rod turned to look behind him, Taeauna stepped protectively between him and the Dark Helms with her sword ready, murmuring, 'Is this the place, lord?'
'What? Oh. No.' Rod shook his head sadly. Then he frowned and whispered, 'So what place is this?'
'Ult Tower,' she said grimly.
Ult Tower; this?
Rod gaped at her. The abode of the wizard Ult?
He stared at the ceiling and then around the room again. Really? The black stone keep in the heart of Galath that the wizard Ult had built and linked to himself magically, stone by stone, so the tower was like his skin, and he could feel what was done to it and see out of it?
Hell, yes, that had been a tale! Vivid, seemed to flow into existence under his fingers as he typed, just as
