“So that when another wizard came looking for you…this would happen,” Phin said. The shade nodded once.
“Even without my leaving, the city Closed to our world after one month. But it continued to move. Ninety-nine years later when it Opened again, the undead poured out into the world where they had once lived, and you know the rest of that story. But what happened after that was in some ways worse, for while Vod’Adia is only Open to our world once in a century, during the long times between it is Open to other places. Infernal places. With the city emptied of the undead, other, even more dangerous things began to make their way in.”
“Like her,” Phin said, jerking a thumb toward the winged woman frozen on the catwalk balustrade. Kanderamath nodded and frowned across the room at her.
“Succubus, from the Abyss. A demon. I think that one is called Uella.”
“You know her?”
“Not really. I retained some dim awareness of things that have happened here over the last several centuries, at least in this chamber. That one has…done some things, here. Unpleasant things.”
Phin looked nervously at the frozen demoness, at her glassy red eyes and leering grin. He shuddered, but for a moment it seemed as though the whole chamber shuddered in his sight.
“Our time grows short, Phinneas. Take this.”
Phin turned and found Kanderamath was extending the twisting wand out to him, holding it around the jeweled top and offering the handle.
“My spells of gyring must be brought to an end Phinneas, so that no one may enter this place again to be tortured and slain by the demons and devils. Nor what would be worse, that the fiends may choose to exit the city into our world.”
Phin raised a hand uncertainly, but Kanderamath slapped the wand into his palm. The touch of it gave Phin a start, for it was warm. The black shaft of it was shaped like a stretched-out coil, something like a pig’s tail pulled out just short of tight. Though it was light, it had the texture of stone. The great golden gem at the end was unlike anything Phin had ever seen.
“What do I do with this?” Phin asked.
“Nothing,” Kanderamath said firmly. “Do not use it, nor try to use it, in conjunction with any spell. This is an object I have fashioned here, over the last many centuries. It contains a portion of my essence and when it is carried out of Vod’Adia, my spells will end with its leaving. All of them.”
Phin looked at the shade, which already seemed to be fading as Kanderamath had let go of his end of the wand.
“What about you?” Phin asked.
“I will get the final death I have long deserved. Conceal the wand, Phin, for it would not do to have anyone here see it. Particularly not the demons nor the devils.”
The light in the room was changing, and Phin thought he was starting to see the shape of one of the Node pillars right through Kanderamath’s shoulder. He jammed the Witch King’s wand up into the billowy right sleeve of his robes and went about knotting the end around his wrist while still speaking with rising desperation.
“Wait! I am still at least half-prisoner of the devils, and I think this guy with the short sword is about to kill me!”
“Don’t let him,” Kanderamath advised, plainly transparent now. “Get that wand out of Vod’Adia, Phin. Then see that it is destroyed.”
“Destroyed? How?” Phin doubted he could just snap the thing over a rock.
“A powerful wizard,” Kanderamath said, only visible now as an outline. “One whom you can trust not to use the wand for their own aggrandizement.”
“I don’t know anybody like that!” Phin shouted. “I don’t know that I am like that!”
“You are,” Kanderamath said, and then he was gone.
John Deskata stumbled forward, then jumped back from the spot on the dais where Phin had been lying only an instant before. The light in the towering chamber was as it had been, and Phin thought he could hear noises far off, like pounding feet.
Deskata looked around wildly until spotting Phin. He pointed his sword at him.
“How did you do that?” he demanded. It took Phin a moment to remember what it was the Centurion wanted from him.
“Deskata, back off,” Phin said, trying for his most commanding tone but not quite getting there. “I can not take you away from this place, but I am still a Wizard. Take another step toward me, and one of us will end up dead. That does not help either of us.”
Deskata glared, his sword level at the end of his arm.
“If you can not help me, then what do I care?”
There were definitely footsteps approaching, heavy boots echoing from beyond one of the numerous sets of double doors around the room.
“Go on, Johnny! Stick him!”
Both Phin and Deskata looked across the room at the grinning succubus on the balustrade, who now had a little spiked devil hovering just off her shoulder. She pantomimed stabbing a blade into her throat, and lolled out a long, forked tongue from the side of her ruby-red mouth.
Deskata frowned at her, then looked back at Phin. He lowered his sword to his side, and called across the room.
“I am not going to fight for your amusement, bitch.”
Uella grinned. “Want to bet?”
“Centurion Deskata,” Phin said softly, and Deskata turned to follow his gaze.
On the west side of the circular chamber two wide double doors were swinging open. Phin could see three or four hobgoblins running through a torch lit hall toward them, lightly armored and carrying spears. Behind them came a crowd of more heavily armored Magdetchoi in heavy splint mail and spiked helmets, bearing axes, morning stars, and bows. Their hobnailed boots rumbled in the hall.
Deskata sighed faintly. He reached up to his neck and jerked a leather cord out from under his Legion breastplate, snapping the string and dropping a ring Phin had seen before into his hand. Deskata slipped the ring onto a finger of his sword hand, and peered at the onrushing monsters through the same striking emerald eyes Phin had only seen on the Sarge’s face, back in Camp Town. He did not look at Phin again. Deskata took up his tower shield and tightened the straps that secured it to his left arm. Then with a savage cry that was from the Miilark Islands as much as the Imperial Legions, the Centurion pounded down from the dais, back up the stairs that faced it, and met the hobgoblins in the doorway.
Chapter Forty
The party made their way down the long hall at a trot, for despite the thick carpet and the rich decorations adorning the walls every closed door they passed oozed menace. It was not until they had almost reached the great double doors at the end that Tilda heard a yell from beyond them, and recognized the voice. She started to run.
The doors began to swing open before Tilda reached them, and she took no time to decide whether to stop for a peek at what might lie ahead or to keep running into it. She barreled between the opening doors with her bow at a half-pull and snapped her head around, ready to shoot at the first target presenting itself.
Tilda took in the enormous round chamber, the sunken floor at the bottom of the surrounding stairs, and the central dais with its pair of platinum horns. Double-doors ringed the chamber beneath a catwalk, all closed apart from the pair she had just run through and one across the chamber to her right. From that direction the sounds of combat rang, and there was a dead hobgoblin lying in front of the doorway with its dark blood starting to run down over the top step.
Keeping at a distance was Tilda’s best move with the bow, so she ran ahead to take her side of the round stairs down, intending to mount the central dais for a shooting platform. She nearly ran headlong into a Wizard clambering up the stairs toward her, who looked up and drew back in surprise as Tilda aimed a steel arrowhead between his eyes.
“Phoarty?” she barked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Don’t cast a spell on me this time.”