Wood groaned and splintered as broad shoulders struck them. Throon hissed in pain, wrenched himself around sideways, and kept going into the secret passage beyond, a scant breath before the air in front of the shelves grew a sudden forest of stabbing blades.
Robed men were racing out of the glowing maws of his ruined portals now, and hurling far more fearsome spells. Lightnings clawed and crackled along the shelves, causing wardings on many books to flare up into angry little whirlwinds. The air acquired many tiny black stars that blossomed into blind teardrops with energetically snapping jaws. More than a few of these vanished in puffs of smoke at the touch of ruby lances of deadly force, rays that found no Maelarkh Throon to rend.
One book burst into flames and another flashed as its shield spells sent the ray that had touched it racing back at the apprentice of Thaaeltor who’d cast it.
And somewhere beyond a door close by, Rauksoun was standing in an alcove murmuring words he’d never have dared use if all was well in Ironwind Tower, incantations that used the secret names of lesser apprentices that only they and the Master were supposed to know.
Words that sent orders crashing iron-strong into their minds as they came racing, commands that sent them fearlessly into the spellchamber to hurl spells of their own heedless of the danger.
That very bold fearlessness sent the ‘prentice called Yaus down to death before he’d taken more than three steps and forced Belarl to expose himself to the spell that tore the flesh from his face and throat and left him gurgling and dying, starved of air.
Yet that same boldness forced the spellblast that slew Kelsyn of Thaaeltor, and a breath later Urlaunt and Larass Haun, too, ere sending Elskryn Marthel, Thaael’s newest and now-favorite apprentice, reeling into the jaws of a tome-spell that rendered him boneless.
Helplessly he slumped to the floor, a shapeless mass of flesh that roiled vainly in an endless attempt to breathe, let alone move … thrashings that soon weakened into feebleness.
By then Rauksoun had run out of apprentices to send to their dooms, and the spellchamber glowed with awakened spells that made it a deadly place indeed—but two handcounts of apprentices that the distant Rundarvas Thaael had angrily ordered through the portals into Ironwind were dead or worse and a mere handful had managed to reach the passage Thaael had seen his transformed foe plunge through.
Throon’s waiting traps made their numbers shrink fast, and some of the survivors abandoned pursuit of the monster wearing the enchanted bracelet and made their own ways across Ironwind Tower, slaughtering every living thing they found.
Gutless fools! No more discipline in them than the pleasure-wenches he’d taught to conjure handfire! Who, come to think of it, were about all the apprentices he had left, except…
With a snarl of exasperation, Rundarvas Thaael ordered Ahraul into the fray.
* * * * *
Tace knew not what the little room had been intended for, but she was almost certain its existence—not just its purpose—had been forgotten long ago.
It was deep in the storage chambers at one end of Ironwind: a long stone room bare but for empty, sagging storage cupboards, a thick carpet of dust, and a decaying couch. Tace had found it because some fading spell caused this particular tharm to kindle its own faint glow of light whenever she entered it. Its lone door had a bar so stout she could barely lift it, to keep the world out until she wanted to step into it again.
She didn’t know if she ever wanted to do that.
When she flung herself down on the couch to whimper and wonder what to do, the ancient thing promptly collapsed with a dry little groan, pitching her onto the floor.
Where Little Trapped Tantaraze sat and sobbed quietly, mind whirling but empty of answers.
Where could she go? Where?
The magic of Red Wizards could reach everywhere, and— There was a flash and a bang from high on the wall above her, and Tace screamed, just for a moment, as she flung herself away from… one of the storage cupboards.
She knew it was empty. She’d checked all of them, scores of times, but one of its doors was now gaping open crazily, a few tiny motes of restless light winking and dying along its edges.
She’d felt Ironwind shudder earlier, and heard many later, fainter spellbursts, one of them only a few breaths ago. Someone was making war with spells, war that the Master couldn’t quell. If the gods truly smiled on Tantaraze, he just migh—
The cupboard fell off the wall with a long groan, then came a crash that sent Tace right across the room and halfway up the far wall. It split apart in a confusion of crumbling boards as she watched, and something gleaming came rolling out of it.
The Vaedren.
Shining as it came toward her…
She stared at it, mouth going dry. Had the Master somehow traced her here? Was it going to keep rolling, right up to touch her and visit some horrible magic on her? Was—…
The air suddenly pulsed and pounded, making Tace wince.
Not from the wristlet, which was settling into a circling stop on the floor, not far from her, but from the door. The only door. Swiftfalcon, earn your name! Tace flung herself forward—too late.
By the time she skidded to a halt, she was almost embracing the sudden, swiftly-widening whorl of racing sparks.
Out of nowhere it had grown to fill that end of the room, barring her way out. She’d seen the Master create such a thing before, and knew all too well what it was: a portal was forming in her not-forgotten-enough room, right between her and the door.
As she stared, it flared to the height of the largest ornate arches in Ironwind’s grandtharms, crackling along the ceiling, and vomited forth something out of nightmare.
A great, hulking monster strode unsteadily into the room. The ragged, scorched remnants of batwings protruded from slashed and burned shoulders wider than the couch had been. Two eyes blazed at her out of a face that was little more than a hood of flesh, above a forest of snakelike, reaching tentacles—glistening, hungry things that protruded from its belly. Huge, gnarled hands and forearms reached for her— Tace screamed again, trying to climb the wall without turning her back on the thing.
It was coming for her, dragging itself across the room on its knuckles, limping and lurching with the pain-wracked, uneven gait of the clearly wounded. Tiny lightnings leaped and crackled across its brown-green hide as it came, and Tace saw that they were playing about the hilts of daggers that had been thrust deep into it, very recently.
One great, long-nailed hand reached out…
Not for her, but for the Vaedren. Clawing it up awkwardly, the monster flung it at Tace.
Trembling, mutely terrified, she caught it purely out of habit.
The creature waved a finger at her menacingly.
Tace clung to the Vaedren and mewed in fear. It was smooth and heavy and warm, and she found herself sobbing.
The great misshapen beast plunged that finger down to its wounds, then to the flagstones, to scratch aside the dust in a bloody trail that formed —letters!
The thing was writing a word on the flagstones in front of her, and that word was… Avenge!
Tace stared down at it, then up at that fearsome face.
That fierce stare burned into hers and those huge hands moved with careful, reassuring slowness, pointing at the Vaedren then at her wrist.
“Ace,” it rumbled, in a bubbling ruin of a voice.
Tace took a step back, lips trembling. “Mmaster?”
The great ugly head nodded.
“Master Throon?”
The monster before her shuddered all over, as if struggling to—to—just for a moment, Tantaraze saw its flesh flow and change, collapsing into something much more slender. Then the great shoulders shrugged and the beast gestured again for her to take up the Vaedren and put it on her wrist.