The wraith pointed the tip of her sword toward the haze below. “Go down,” she ordered.
Sadira pulled a tiny satchel of copper dust from her pocket. The sorceress tore the packet open with her teeth, then waited as the wraith charged. When her attacker was almost upon her, she blew the brown powder toward the warrior’s open visor. The stuff coated the woman’s face.
The wraith’s sword came down.
Sadira twisted away, diverting the blow with a crashing block to her foe’s elbow. From the solid feel of the armor, it was hard to believe the warrior had coalesced out of gray haze just a moment earlier. The wraith stumbled then caught herself and braced to swing again.
The attack came too late. Sadira spoke her spell’s command word, and the copper dust covering the wraith’s face flashed blue.
A tremulous, ear-piercing shriek burst from the wraith’s lips. She dropped her sword and clutched at her face, pitching forward. Before she could clatter to the ground, a blue glow ran through her armor. Her body instantly dissolved into a gray fog and drifted away, leaving a glowing emerald floating where her head had been an instant earlier.
The sorceress plucked the gem out of the air. It was as large as her thumb, cut into an marquise oval and deeper in color than any emerald she had ever seen. The sheen of its many facets looked almost black, while a faint green light glimmered in the center.
Sadira laid the stone on a step, drew her dagger, and smashed the pommel into the gem. The stone did not shatter so much as crumble into a coarse, lime-colored powder. A shimmering radiance hung over the crushed stone, slowly expanding outward in a cloudlike mass. Save for its green tint, the light resembled the mystic energy that normal sorcerers drew from plants to cast their spells.
The cloud burst apart with a deafening crash. Bolts of green light shot through the Gray, lighting it with a spectacular show of brilliant flashes. The storm continued to rage, filling the vast abyss with a tempest of resounding booms and effulgent flares, stirring the ashen haze into a froth of swirling green light.
Sadira was surprised by the tumult. She had known crushing the gem would release a certain amount of life force, for even wraiths needed some energy to bind their spirits together. But the stone had contained at least as much power as she would expect to find in a living woman. Perhaps that was the reason Borys’s knights had been so dedicated to him. If the gems served as repositories for their life forces, it would be possible for him to resurrect them.
After a time, the storm gave one last rumble and died away in a wave of flickering color. Once more, Magnus’s voice descended from the tower summit, clear and unimpeded. Before starting up the stairs, Sadira paused long enough to look under her robe to see how much mystic energy her spell had consumed. The enchantment had been a costly one. Most of her upper torso had paled to the normal hue of her flesh. If she were going to get past all the wraiths, she would have to find a more efficient way to use her magic.
The sorceress began climbing. By this time, Magnus had repeated his sibilant rhymes so many times that she knew the syllables by heart, even if she did not understand the meaning of the words. Sadira began to sing along. The melody lifted her spirits, and keeping a watchful eye for more wraiths, she bounded up the stairs two at time.
Finally, the sorceress rounded a curve, and the staircase broadened into a small apron that sat before the open gates of a white bastion. The ramparts were built of alabaster and finished with undulating caps of ivory. Beyond the entranceway, a pool of shimmering blue water filled the inner ward of the citadel, with a single pathway of limestone blocks leading toward its center. The walkway stopped at the base of a minaret rising directly out of the water. This slender steeple was faced with white onyx and crowned by a crystal cupola.
Although she had reached the summit of the Pristine Tower, Sadira’s singing croaked to a stop. Between her and the gate stood ten wraiths, all armored in gray plate similar to the first woman’s. They wore their helmet visors down, so that all the sorceress could see of their faces was the jewel-colored slivers of light emitted by their burning eyes: ruby, sapphire, citrine, amethyst, and more. None of them carried weapons.
The largest wraith stepped forward. He extended a mailed hand and, in a raspy voice, ordered, “Go down.” Sadira reached into her robe and shook her head. She was vaguely aware that Magnus’s booming voice had grown urgent. Directly above the citadel’s minaret, the pearly haze swirled about in two great eddies, each spinning in opposite directions.
“Stand aside-” She paused to clear a nervous catch in her throat, then continued, “Let me pass.”
The wraith shook his head. “Borys is aware of what you and Rikus are doing,” he said. “He has demanded your deaths.”
Sadira tensed, her limbs cold and aching. She wanted to ask how much the Dragon knew, and whether he had found Agis, but realized that it would be futile. If the wraith replied at all, his answer was sure to be misleading.
“Then Borys should come for me himself.” The sorceress pulled a tiny, two-tined fork of silver from her pocket. “You won’t stop me.”
She struck the fork against the wall and pointed the quivering tines at the wraiths. The leader’s purple eyes flashed brightly, and he threw himself to the ground. Several of his fellows followed his lead, but not all were quick enough to react before Sadira finished her incantation.
A shrill, painful screech shot from the end of the fork and blasted over her foes. Blinding flashes of colored light flared inside the visors of the wraiths who had not yet hit the ground. First their helmets, then the rest of their armor burst apart, the shards instantly dissolving into wisps of gray fume. The whole tower shook with the violence of the explosion, and the air erupted into a maelstrom of streaking colors: red, blue, yellow, and all the hues of the prism. Only the leader and four other wraiths, all lying on the stony apron, escaped the destruction.
The blast knocked Sadira from her feet, making her ears ring and sending her tumbling down the stairs. The sorceress dropped the silver fork and clawed at the porous stone, breaking off half her fingernails. As soon as she brought herself to a stop, she reached into her pocket for another spell component.
By the prickling sensation of her skin, she knew that her enchantment, one of the most powerful she could cast, had drained her mystic energy down to her hips. She had expected that, gambling that the attack would destroy most of her enemies in a single blow. But she had not expected so many of them to drop to the ground, where the tower’s stone would absorb the magic vibrations she had sent to shatter the gems holding their life forces.
Sadira came up ready to attack again, the stairs still trembling beneath her feet, and the maelstrom tearing at her clothes. In her hand, she held a small iron hammer, the first syllable of her incantation already spilling from her mouth.
When she looked toward the wraiths, she held her spell. To her surprise, they were not charging. Instead, they stood on the apron between her and the gate, their feet planted wide to brace themselves against the raging tempest. Behind them and directly above the minaret, a faint gleam of pink was beginning to show through the swirling haze.
The sorceress raised her hand toward the light, hoping it came from the sun and that its rays would restore the mystic power to her body, but her flesh remained pale. Sadira started up the stairs again, catching a few notes of Magnus’s song between the storm’s booms and crashes.
The leader of the wraiths held his hand out toward her. Sadira felt her stiletto slip from its sheath. She lashed out, but the dagger was gone before she could catch it. The weapon sailed straight to his hand, coming to rest with the iron handle in his palm.