“Even if we die for the experience?” They were almost the first words that Anvar had spoken since they had awakened. After his outburst the previous day, a constraint had fallti between the Mages, as if both were anxious to avoid what hi^ words had revealed.
Aurian was suddenly sick of it all. Nothing’s changed, sht told herself. It’s still Anvar. Words said in the heat of the moment—what real difference does it make? If we die, it won’t matter anyway, and if we don’t—well, it’ll keep, and in the meantime there’s no sense in ruining a good friendship over it. She took his hand. “Don’t despair,” she told him. “Think of all the times we’ve almost perished since we left Nexis, yet we never did. Something will turn up, you’ll see. We’re too tough a team to kill, you and I.”
Anvar squeezed her hand and met her eyes at last, suddenly looking more cheerful. “You’re right,” he said, “and we’ll go through a lot more together, before we’re done!”
“Light! Light ahead!” They turned simultaneously toward Shia’s cry.
Daylight! It filtered wanly past a sharp angle in the tunnel, dimming the star-glitter of the gems. Shia had stopped, bristling, before the bend. “There’s magic ahead,” she warned, halting their headlong rush.
Aurian took a step forward, but Anvar, who had not relinquished her hand even as they ran, pulled her back toward him, “Oh, no you don’t,” he growled. “This time we go together!”
They crept forward, peering anxiously round the corner of the passage. “Chathak’s bloody balls!” Aurian swore. The tunnel ahead of them was blocked by a large gem, resembling the impervious doorways that had defeated them lower down. The daylight twinkled through its polished facets—so near, yet, unless they could find a way to pass the obstacle, it might have been a million miles away.
“That noise is back,” Anvar said suddenly. “Do you hear it?”
Sure enough, the irritating, high-pitched hum was tickling the base of Aurian’s jawbone. “What is that?” she demanded crossly, fighting back an urge to burst into tears of sheer frustration.
“I think it’s coming from the other side. Shia! Get yourself round here!”
“I hear you.” The great cat slunk round the corner with a black look for Anvar. “There’s no need to shout!”
“Sorry. Gin you tell whether the magic is coming from the stone itself, or is there another trap in front of us?”
“I don’t think so. It’s in the crystal itself.”
“Right.” Anvar pressed forward, but Aurian caught his arm.
“Hold on there,” she told him. “You made the rules, remember? Together, or not at all!”
Together they examined the crystal, running their hands over the smooth, hard surface. “Just the same as the others,” Anvar said despondently. “Unlike the one that imprisoned you, there’s no key to these door crystals. It’s a dead end.”
“It can’t be!” Aurian aimed a savage kick at the obstruction, howling a curse as the toe of her boot hit the unyielding gem. “That does it!” In unthinking rage she raised her staff, unleashing a sizzling bolt at the crystal.
“Aurian, no!” Anvar, shielding his eyes, was thrown back hard against the side of the passage. Smoke curled through the corridor as the gem began to hiss and pulse with light.
“Stop!” Dimly, Aurian heard Shia’s urgent cry. “You’re making it worse! The magic of the stone is growing!”
To her horror, the Mage realized that it was true. The gem was acting as the bracelets had done, leeching her powers into it to increase its own. The staff trembled in her outstretched hand as energy surged through her body and along her arm, bleeding and weakening her further by the second. No longer was she putting forth her power—the stone was pulling it from her! Her guts twisted in panic. “Help me,” she cried. “I can’t stop it!”
Something hard cannoned into her, knocking her breathless to the ground. The staff was wrenched from her hand in a shower of sparks, breaking the deadly bond of magic. Aurian, gasping like a stranded fish, saw Bohan, fallen half on top of her, drop the smoking staff with a grimace of pain. The glare from the crystal dimmed, and the smoke began to clear.
“You and your blasTtd temper, Aurian!” Anvar was examining Bohan’s hand.
“I know. I’m sorry, Anvar. It was a stupid thing to do. Is Bohan all right?”
“More or less.” The eunuch echoed his words with a nod.
Anvar held out his hand to help her up. “Aurian, we have to stop scaring each other like this!”
“It’s a bargain!” Aurian scrambled to her feet, turning back to the crystal. “All the same, I have an idea . . .” She remembered the bracelets sapping her power as she tried to help Anvar in the slave compound.
“Be careful!” Anvar said hastily.
“I will. I’ve learned my lesson. No daft fireworks this time, I promise.” She pressed her hands, then the side of her face, flat against the crystal, probing its interior with her Healer’s senses, feeling for the delicate lattice that was the framework and life of the stone. Since her powers had been sapped by her rash act, it took her a long time to find the weakness, the chink in its defenses, that she sought. But it was there. At last, it was there! Aurian probed with her will—and pulled . . .
Ah, now the tables were turned! The Mage felt her palms tingling as power flooded back through the fault in the gem. She drew upon the stone’s energy until she felt ready to burst, unable to contain so much magic. Aurian began to wonder if she had overestimated her ability to handle the power woven into the structure of the stone. Again she felt the chill clutch of fear. If only she had taught this to Anvar, so that he could have helped her! If only she had some way to store the surplus power! But . . .
“Get back round the corner!” she yelled, straining to contain the force until they were safely away. “Cover your eyes!” Flinging out a hand, the Mage hurled a mighty flare of energy at the wall, shielding herself quickly as she did so. It exploded as it hit, the concussion impacting violently back against her shield, but her defenses held. And as for the crystal—her job was done. Without the energy that held it together, the gem collapsed with a slithering whisper into a heap of fine powder at her feet. Aurian let out her breath in a huge sigh of relief.
Anvar appeared round the corner, looking pale. “I thought we agreed not to frighten each other anymore?” He spoke quietly, but there was a glint of anger in his eyes.
“Anvar, I’m sorry. I never thought ... I didn’t realize that so much energy would be involved.” She brightened. “But it worked, didn’t it? And no harm done in the end.”
“No harm?” Shia spat. “What about the harm to my nerves?”
Anvar sighed. “I have to admit—it worked. But if you ever do anything like that again ...”
“All right,” Aurian agreed. “I won’t. I’ll teach you instead, and the next time, you can do it!”
Together they scrambled over the pile of fine crystal dust and peered through the opening that Aurian had created. The Mage’s heart sank. “By all the Gods—if this isn’t the absolute end! After all that, it doesn’t even lead outside.” Throwing her staff to the ground, she sat down on the mound of dust, her head in her hands.
“Aurian, look at this!” Anvar sounded excited. “You look at it. I’ve seen enough of this accursed place!” “Don’t be silly.” He yanked her firmly to her feet. With a groan, Aurian picked up her staff and followed him—and stepped back quickly with a sharp oath as she saw the drop that yawned beneath her feet. They stood inside a tower—a circular chamber that stretched up and up, deceiving the eye. The walls were seamless, formed of translucent white stone and pierced in a spiral all the way up by circular windows of crystal that cast sword-thin shafts of daylight down to the floor—except that there was no floor. They stood on a ribbon of stone that clung to the walls of the tower, spiraling up into the limitless heights above. Below them was a sparkling shaft, lit by the focused beams from the windows, and at eye level, suspended seemingly on thin air above the drop, a great spherical crystal spun and scintillated, filling the air with the unnerving, penetrating hum that they had heard in the corridor, and in the red-lit chamber, far below.