“Akabar! Have you taken leave of your senses?”
The mage stood in the passageway, his invisibility negated by the casting of the magic missile he’d used on the lizard. He had had a lot of trouble coming down the staircase in the dark. He had turned the corner into this passage just in time to watch the lizard send Alias sprawling across the floor. “Are you blind, woman?” the mage snapped. “He just attacked you.”
“You fool! He was trying to help me—”
“No. He’s one of them! And I can prove it!” Akabar shouted, leaping toward the lizard with his dagger drawn.
Dragonbait could have responded by raising his sword and letting the mage skewer himself, but instead, he held his arms out to grapple with him. Akabar was no weakling, and the lizard discovered too late that the Turmishman would not be so easy to shove away. Akabar slashed at the lizard’s shirt, ripping the ties so the garment fell open.
“Stop it!” Alias shouted. She dropped her sword and rushed forward to pry Akabar loose from the lizard. The two males shifted their weight, and Alias stumbled. All three fell toward the wall, but while Akabar’s and Dragonbait’s shoulders hit the barrier with a thud, Alias’s hand and wrist plunged right through the brick and mortar. Only the lizard’s body kept her from falling in farther.
The bricks went transparent yet again and the hellish, blue light that filled the passage from the other side of the wall caused the sigils on her arm to perform an entirely new trick. They replicated miniature illusory copies of themselves which slipped from her flesh. The little daggers, rings, fanged palms, and the rest circled about her arm like angry hornets. Alias tried to pull her arm from the wall, but it was mired fast, just as her legs had been trapped by the crystal elemental. “No!” she screamed. “I’m stuck!”
Dragonbait, squished between her and the wall, let his sword drop and tried pushing her shoulders away.
“No good” Alias groaned. “You’re pulling my arm from its socket.”
Brought to a more reasonable state of mind by the new crisis, Akabar ceased struggling with the lizard. “How did you do that?” he asked, amazed at her ability to pass through the wall.
“It’s not me, you stupid Turmite. It’s the arm. That’s why Dragonbait pushed me away from the wall. He must have known there was danger.”
“He might have planned all this,” Akabar insisted. “To help capture you. He’s branded the same as you.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Alias snarled. “Like how to get my arm out of this wall!”
“Try pushing forward a little and then jerking back,” the mage suggested.
Alias pressed forward up to her elbow, covering all the sigils, but she could not pull back a fraction of an inch. “Great,” she growled. “Now I’m stuck worse.” Instinctively she put her foot up to the wall to use it as leverage to pull herself out, but the foot slipped through the brickwork as well, all the way to her knee.
“Any more bright ideas, Akash?”
Despite his awkward position, Dragonbait remained pressed against the wall, rather than risk losing Alias. Pulled closer to him, Alias could smell the scent of roses again, mixed with the odor of violets. Suddenly, it came to her—the rose smell always was present when he was sad. He was mourning her already. “Don’t give up on me yet, chum,” she whispered to him.
Dragonbait tried to smile, but it was meant for her benefit, not one he felt. She was in too much danger.
Akabar ran his fingers along the wall. He tapped on the brick and scratched at the mortar with his dagger. “This is the most unusual brick I’ve ever seen,” he murmured. “But the grouting is common enough. Mortar mixed with gorgon blood, or something similar. It’s used to block the passage of beasts that can walk through walls.”
“Well, I can’t walk through walls. Why isn’t it stopping me?” Alias said through gritted teeth. Dots of perspiration formed at her brow.
“Precisely. It wasn’t made to stop people. That’s what the brick is for, I presume.”
“The brick’s not stopping me either!” Alias shouted. “Akabar, stop jabbering and do something!”
“All right, already.” The mage ran nervous fingers through his hair. “I’m going to try to dispel the magic they must have cast on the wall while the mortar hardened. It was undoubtedly cast by a more powerful mage than I, but if the spell dates back as far as the destruction of the temple, it may have decayed some over the centuries.”
“Cut the lecture. Just do it.”
Akabar stepped back and spread his arms out so as to encompass the entire wall in his field of disenchantment. He began preparing to cast his spell.
Alias shrieked and began squirming furiously. Akabar had never heard Alias make such a noise before. The sound completely broke his concentration. Fortunately, he had not yet begun his spell, so it was not ruined and wasted.
“What’s wrong?” he shouted crossly.
“There’s something,” Alias cried, her features distorted with terror. She gulped air far too quickly. “Something on the other side. It’s got my arm.”
What could terrorize a woman who’s stood up to dragons, earthly titans, and man-eating kalmari? Akabar wondered as he peered at the wall. The blue light had dimmed considerably. All the mage could make out beyond the translucent bricks was a vast shadow.
As he watched, the warrior woman’s body lurched forward, dragged deeper into the wall by her arm. Now she was embedded to her right shoulder plate.
“Oh, gods,” Alias whined. “Gods, gods, gods, gods,” she moaned over and over, as though she were pleading with heaven.
“Hold her tight, Dragonbait,” Akabar barked. “I’m going to try to dispel now.”
Akabar resumed his stance and began to intone his spell. The rise and fall of his voice became an eerie melody superimposed over the warrior’s panicked, repetitious rhythm.
Dragonbait strained between the trapped warrior and the wall. Even if his restored strength proved sufficient to counter the slow, steady force that sucked her through the barrier, Alias feared they might only end up tearing her in half. Equally bad was the possibility she would end up the instrument that crushed the life from the lizard before he was willing to sacrifice her.
Akabar finished his disenchantment spell by unlacing his fingers with a flourish to scatter the magical energies across the surface of the wall. Sun-yellow motes sparkled toward the wall, which was now the dark blue shade of a sky about to rain.
The motes struck the wall and hissed like sparks falling into water. The blue light grew even dimmer as the bricks grew opaque. Alias managed to pull her leg completely free and her arm came out up to her elbow. The half with sigils still remained buried.
Dragonbait, unprepared for the success of Akabar’s spell, was dislodged from his position between Alias’s trapped foot and arm, and he stumbled to the floor. He scrambled to his feet, grabbing her about the knees, but the entity on the other side gained the advantage with a sudden tug.
Alias gave one last inhuman scream before her boots slid from the lizard’s grasp and she fell through the wall like sand in an hourglass.
The wall went completely opaque, and the sigils on Dragonbait’s chest ceased radiating light. The lizard and mage were left alone, bathed in the now-feeble, yellow glow of the finder’s stone.
Dragonbait picked up the glowing crystal and struggled to his feet. Tears streamed down the lizard’s cheeks.
Akabar stared at the wall in disbelief. He ran up to it and pounded on it with his fists. “Give her back!” he screamed. The string of curses he began issuing rang down the corridors and echoed back, drowning out the ones he finished with. The wall remained smooth and hard. If Dragonbait’s sword had only managed to scratch its surface, Akabar’s bare hands weren’t going to bring it down.