Embra raced barefoot around a corner, startling an onrushing guard, and burst into a room that no longer had a door, and was now busily spilling smoke and firelight out into the passage.
Her father was bounding about a room that was all splintered, burning furniture, naked and snarling. There was foam around his mouth, his eyes were wild, and he carried his Dwaer carelessly in one hand, as if he'd forgotten what it was.
Stalking ever closer to Blackgult as he ran, trying to corner him, was a young sorceress whose face was a glowing skull. A dead chambermaid lay sprawled on the floor amid the splayed and splintered wreckage of Blackgult's great bed, and guards lay here and there about the room, moaning and kicking feebly. Just two of them still had weapons up-and they were hunched against a wall, pale fear ruling their faces.
As Hawkril charged the skull-sorceress, a spell ripped out of her hands at him. The armaragor dived one way and Blackgult bounded in the other direction, whirling the glowing Dwaer around his head like a trophy.
The sorceress ran toward the Golden Griffon, and the guards launched themselves from the wall in a desperate charge at her. On the other side of the room, Hawkril shouted in pain as the spell tore into the walls above him, hurling shards and slivers of wall panels and furniture in all directions.
Embra let fly with her own Dwaer, straight at that skull-head. The fingers of the sorceress were sprouting sudden shafts of crackling light, and where they thrust, guards were screaming and staggering. One man blundered into Embra's striking magic and was flung away, torn and dying.
Blackgult slew another guard bare-handed, wrenching a helmed head around until the neck below it cracked.
Embra's thrust of Dwaer-fire slammed into the crackling spell of the sorceress, and the room rocked with an ear-ringing blast. Blackgult was hurled aside, his Dwaer flying from his hands to bounce off in another direction, and the sorceress was sent staggering backwards.
Bare but for his boots, a moaning Hawkril slowly found his feet, splinters sticking out of his side and back like blades. He stalked across the room toward the sorceress, who crouched, awaiting him, and began to weave a new spell.
Tight-lipped, Embra sent another Dwaer-blast at her. Its fury made the discarded Stone flare up into bright radiance, and the skull-face turned to regard the glow of the fallen Dwaer.
Desperately, the Lady of Jewels called on her Stone to snatch her to a particular flagstone of the floor just beside the other Dwaer. She dared not seek it directly, for fear of her magic going wild or Blackgult's Stone being driven away by her magic. The skull-sorceress was running hard, and diving for the Stone.
Blackgult roared, another guard in his hands, and whirled the man around his head. Strangling and helpless, the guard let go of his sword-and it spun right into Hawkril, sinking deep. The armaragor went to his knees in gasping pain, as Embra screamed: "Hawk!"… and her magic whisked her away.
She landed on the spot she'd chosen-and a heavy, armored body, stinking with fear, smashed into hers, slammed her to the floor, and rolled away, whimpering in terror. Blackgult had thrown the guard in just the wrong direction, at just the wrong time.
Gasping for breath, Embra rolled over, fumbling for her Dwaer-and looked up into the triumphant grin of the skull-sorceress, who was rising with a glowing Stone in her own hands.
Raging, Blackgult ran at the sorceress, his hands lifted into claws-and as his arms closed around her, she spun and blasted him with the Dwaer, the Stone in her grasp actually thumping into his chest.
The Golden Griffon's hairy, broken body was flung up at the ceiling like a child's doll-and Embra Silvertree called on the Living Castle enchantments to pull open the floor beneath the skull-sorceress.
Her foe fell a few feet into the hitherto-solid stone floor, off-balance and startled-and Embra slashed at the sorceress with all the power she could quickly snatch out of her Dwaer.
Something splintered, a scream burst from skeletal jaws-and Embra's magic struck the far wall of the bedchamber, shattering it in a long, stone-splitting crack, and rebounded back into the skull-sorceress from the other side.
The sorceress screamed again, sudden flames of twisted magic roaring up her limbs as she shuddered in agony. Embra's attack had disrupted a Dwaer-magic her foe had been shaping-and the skull-sorceress was caught in the roiling result.
Embra promptly thrust upward with the Living Castle enchantments, and the floor spat the skull-sorceress violently at the ceiling.
As the shoulder of the sorceress slammed into the stone overhead, the Dwaer fell from her spasming hands. She grabbed at it, once, hopelessly, and Embra used her Dwaer to make her own snatch at the Stone.
A mistake. Magic exploded between the two Dwaerindim in a thick white arc of snarling lightning that numbed Embra's arm and sent Blackgult's Stone ripping across the chamber, trailing sparks and flames of magic. In a far corner it spun itself crazily into a burst of magic that hurt the eyes… and was gone.
"Graul!"Embra spat. "Transported the Three alone know where!" She whirled and blasted the falling skull-sorceress again… but this time that cold grin seemed to hold triumph, and all the fury she sent at her foe was snared in a spinning that ended in another burst of magic.
The ruined bedchamber suddenly held one less mysterious skull-headed sorceress.
"Graul," Embra panted again bitterly, holding her Dwaer close as if its familiar curves and hardness could console. She felt in need of comfort just now. "Gone, and Father's Stone too, and now we have a new foe and don't even know wh-"
She bit her lip and called on her Dwaer to try to trace the vanished Stone, as it had done before. In the heart of all this spell-chaos, 'twasn't likely… Yet, if it hadn't gone far, there was a chance… just a chance…
There was a bestial snarl from behind her, and someone slammed roughly into Embra and clawed at her throat, tearing the cloak away.
She backed into her attacker, hard, and those hands didn't manage to close on her throat. She blasted him away as gently as she could, and turned to face-
Her father, of course. Blackgult crouched naked, wild-eyed and panting, clawlike hands reaching for her. With a roar he gathered himself and came at her again-and with a sigh, Embra dodged aside and spun a cage for him out of Dwaer-fire.
He howled in pain as its bars of fire burned him, and hurled himself against them again and howled all the more. Embra stared at him helplessly as he went on hurling himself into pain-and then, as guards flooded into the room with many torches and a gaping Raulin and Macros, she sat down on the floor, bare as she was, and started to cry.
Screams split the night in an otherwise pleasant bedchamber in Varandaur. Two shrieks, either side of him, ear-shatteringly close. Hulgor Delcamper came awake bewildered and bolt upright in bed, half-deafened by the frightened cries of… oh, aye: the two chambermaids he'd bedded for the night, Nuelara and… and the other one.
They were staring at the same thing he was. Hulgor Delcamper blinked at a stone-a rounded, palm-sized lump of fieldstone like any of the thousands of such he'd seen up in the high meadows. But none of them had ever shown the slightest signs of doing what this one was: blazing with white light, and chiming and humming, too, as it floated in the air above his bed, spinning slowly.
Hulgor found wits enough to curse-though he still couldn't remember the name of the lovely lass on his right-and scrambled across her to snatch up his sword.
Shaking it out of its scabbard as Nuelara fled and the other lass clung to him, whimpering, the old Delcamper noble shook the chambermaid away, stood up on his bed-and jabbed at the thing.
He struck home, with a roar of satisfaction-and then the Stone roared, too.