He broke off to curse again and cast another hasty spell. It seemed Varlbit’s ward did nothing to stop Thaael from sending monsters through the portals.
This might be her only chance.
Tace risked another look through the larger, still-smoking gap in the wall, and saw something smaller than the last beast flying at Rauksoun, thrashing a long, whiplike tail and beating wings like those of a great bat. It was doomed the moment his blossoming spell washed over it, but that just might give her time to…
She sprang over stones, kicked herself to the wall, clawed her way along it like a desperate spider, and was landing in a hard, bruising roll behind a portal even before she heard Rauksoun’s angry roar.
As the flying monster died in a burst of flames that rocked the room with angry echoes, Tace let her roll carry her back to her feet, and stumbled the few strides she needed to thrust one foot over the humming threshold of a portal. Its magic tugged at her, circling endlessly past and through her, setting her flesh to tingling and trembling, her teeth chattering uncontrollably.
The portal clawed at her, seeking to pluck her away to wherever its other end was—but Tace had the Vaedren off her wrist and held back out of the portal.
“You little fool! Give me that!”
Rauksoun’s voice was furious, but also high with fear.
“N-no,” she managed to reply, almost retching in terror as he came striding, hands raised like claws.
She’d overheard a little about portals, down the seasons— mainly when the Master was giving Rauksoun warnings about them.
Wherefore she knew that if he kept his senses, he’d dare not hurl spells at her while she stood in the portal-mouth, or even try to slay her with hurled blades for fear of ruining the portal, twisting it into a wild vortex of magic that would widen and roam Ironwind, devouring all—or having her spilled blood attract one of “the great cruising monsters of the Darkness Between.”
She shuddered again, at the thought of a monster slithering up suddenly behind her, out of the portal…
Rauksoun made a swift circling gesture with his rod and the Vaedren’s glow kindled. Desperately Tace took a step back into the humming maw around her, hoping that her arm was just long enough to keep the Vaedren out, and so prevent the warp-way from claiming her.
“You’ll die, little fool!” Rauksoun shouted at her, waving the rod like a reproving finger. “You’ll take yourself to midair, high above a mountain peak, to tumble to your doom, or into the fishtangle webs of a water-spider cave deep in the Sea of Fallen Stars! Stop! Stop! Such magic must not be trifled with! You but doom yourself!”
“You’ll doom me if I stay here!” Tace shouted back.
Rauksoun leered. “Life as my slave would not be a bad thing,” he said in a suddenly gentle purr, spreading his hands. “Or perhaps… life as my queen?”
Why, the worm! Did he truly believe she was so simple-witted?
“Hah!” Tace spat at him, more angry than afraid. “You’ll kill me the moment you get this—” she waved the Vaedren “—out of my hand!”
She whirled around with fresh resolve, and the portal brightened around her as she forced herself to stride forward into its gathering roar.
“No!” Rauksoun shouted from very close behind her. “You goto your death!”
Windstorms above! He must be running like a gale to try to snatch her!
“I go to a better place than this!” Tace cried back as the way took her. It seemed that a hundred lightnings were snarling out of the air around her to race through her, and she knew her hair was standing straight out from her head like the spines of a wind-weed.
Wide-eyed, almost choking on her fear, Tace rode that bright torrent into the unknown.
Something sliced sickeningly across her back, and she whirled with a shriek. One of Rauksoun’s arms was clawing at her, his dark sleeve protruding from a whorl of surging magic. But his fingertips were growing shiny, sharp, and impossibly long.
As she watched, they lengthened into claws as long as her entire arm, reaching spiderlike for her face to rake and slash again. Tace backed away, moaning in fear, and brought up the Vaedren like a shield.
The whirling energies seemed to follow it, and she stared at them, then at the glowing metal and did what she’d heard the Master tell the ‘prentices to do with the little glow-lanterns they’d fashioned under his direction: stare at the metal and will yourself down, down into the magic …
It was like a warm, stirring golden sea shot through with racing white threads of force, threads that bent around the Vaedren and seemed to shy away when she did this.
Which meant that if she did that—.
There was a moment filled with Rauksoun’s shriek of agony and the rising roar of the whirling portal—then both were cut off, as if by a slamming door, and she was alone in darkness with only the Vaedren’s glow to show her the severed claws falling past her.
They landed on nothing, but went on tumbling softly beneath her feet, away into unknown nothingness beneath her.
She had snuffed the portal like a candle, leaving herself feeling sick and empty inside… and very much alone.
Fear was the familiar taste flooding her mouth as Tace clutched the Vaedren and stared all around. The darkness was brighter, somehow, off in that direction, so she went that way.
Then the unseen floor beneath her feet was gone and she was falling endlessly through blue mists shot with wisps and bubbles of silver and dark shadows… falling…
Slowing… more and more slowly Tace fell, until there came a time when she stopped flailing and whimpering, and tried to walk.
She was still sinking through nothingness, but it seemed to be a nothingness she could walk on.
Tantaraze the Little Imp strode boldly on, treading on sinking nothing, and praying to all the gods that the last words she’d shouted at Rauksoun would turn out to be true.
* * * * *
Abruptly there was soft, rustling unevenness beneath her and dappled light around her, and much more rustling, laced with music of idly-plucked strings. Sunlight was lancing through more leaves than Tace had ever seen in her life, in a place of many, many trees and green growing plants. Plants were everywhere except right in front of her, where there was a forest pool of clear water.
Reclining in it was a woman wearing only a magnificent mane of long, silver hair, with a harp floating in the air above her, its strings quivering. They were thrumming into silence now, but there’d been no hand to play them, with the woman only looking up at the instrument. It now floated smoothly out of sight behind some bushes, and the silver-haired woman was regarding Tace curiously.
“Well, now, who might you be? And what magic are you carrying?”
Tace stopped, clutching the Vaedren and not knowing what to say. The woman in the pool seemed to be alone, and there were no clothes in sight, though there was a narrow path winding off into the bushes on the far side of the pool. Herb bushes that looked to have been deliberately planted and tended.
The woman was waiting patiently, with a pleasant half-smile on her face.
“I’m Tace—Tantaraze,” Tace blurted, “and this is the Vaedren. It was given to me by my Master, before he died.”
The silver-haired woman lifted an eyebrow, and it seemed to Tace that slight sadness touched her eyes. “Well met, Tace. I am Storm Silverhand, and this around us is my farm. Would it trouble you overmuch to share your master’s name with me and the manner of his passing?”
Tace sighed, looking behind her and seeing nothing but trees. She glanced swiftly around for places to run or other people, but saw only a rabbit loping past in distant trees, downslope. She drew in a deep breath, met those disconcertingly warm eyes, and said steadily, “My master was Maelarkh Throon of Ironwind Tower—and he … he was hunted down in Ironwind this day by wizards from Thaaeltor and maybe by some of his own ‘prentices, too. He—he died helping me escape from a store-tharm, and told me to avenge him.”