The two men plunged through the door at the other end of the room, out into a passage, and rushed along that passage until they rounded a corner. The two found themselves looking at the rear of a mass of undead who were filling the hallway, crowded together and moving slowly along the passage away from Vangey and Ree.
With all their wands, long flowing robes, and gem-winking crowns, the undead looked to be liches. All of their attention was bent on something beyond them that neither the wizard nor the Harper could see through the press of dark-robed, skeletal bodies.
Yet there was something else for Vangerdahast and Dalonder to gaze upon, or rather four somethings-and they were much closer than the liches. About three paces away, in fact.
Four living persons they knew.
One was facing their way, cowering on his knees. It was Brorn Hallomond, longtime bullyblade of the Lord Yellander, and he was staring fearfully up ar the other three, who stood in an arc facing him, menacing him with two wands and a sword. Neither Vangerdahast nor Dalonder Ree needed those three to turn around to know who they were: the War Wizards Lorbryn Deltalon and Tsantress Ironchylde and the ornrion most widely known as Dauntless.
Vangerdahast calmly drew wands from his belt. Brorn saw that movement, stared past the three foes facing him at the Royal Magician of Cormyr and the Harper, and cursed, "Stlarning gods above, take me now! Tluining Vangerdahast! Stlarning well spare me being turned into frogs and gasping fish and being fried alive!"
His shout made even the rearmost liches turn to see who he was staring at-whereupon Vangerdahast spellburned undead with his wands. He snapped at Ree, "Use those things if you know how, or you'll die right here and now!"
The Harper nodded and awakened the wands in both his fists, sending bright bursts of magic arcing down the passage. Aiming the wands carefully, he set about blasting liches as hard and as fast as he knew how.
Lorbryn and Tsantress hurled themselves to the floor to get clear of all the wandfire and started crawling to reach Vangey and Ree.
On hands and knees the bullyblade scuttled in the other direction, seeking escape through a side door down the passage.
Dauntless ducked wandfire and in a low crouch charged through and under more wandfire and the fell magical beams now stabbing back at the war wizards from the liches. He soon caught up to Brorn.
The bullyblade turned to slash at Dauntless, but the ornrion backhanded Brorn's blade out of the way with one hand, knocked him cold with one swing of his other fist-and fell flat atop the bullyblade as ravening magical fire sizzled past too close for comfort.
The passage and the very air in it was starting to shake, as lich after lich cast spells that struck and wrestled with the wandfire in a blinding, billowing chaos that flashed and roiled, building to hide all sight of the liches from Vangerdahast's view.
Then Lorbryn was past the Royal Magician and plucking wands from him, and Tsantress was similarly plundering what Dalonder Ree was wearing but not using. Crouching against the walls of the passage, the two war wizards added to the wandfire, driving back the crawling chaos of magic until they could see liches again-including liches blown apart into dust and shards as wandfire smashed into them.
Liches started to fly, turn wraithlike, or just wink out, teleporting away as the unleashed wand fury tore into their ranks.
"Scatter, everyone!" Vangerdahast said. "Get a solid wall at your back!"
He hurled down a spent, crumbling wand and snatched out another. A moment latet, Ree cursed and did the same, shaking his hand at the pain of scorched fingertips. His spent wand rolled away along the passage floor, smoldering.
Tsantress shrieked a warning as a lich suddenly leered at her elbow, ereen magical flames roarine uo to shroud irs bones as it tried to embrace her. The fire of four wands promprly met inside the lich and sent its upper body into oblivion. Tsantress was able to kick its flaming, stumbling legs away until they crashed to the passage floor.
Behind the wand wielders, Laspeera and a handful of scared-looking Purple Dragons came rushing down the passage, weapons out.
Even as Tsantress called a greering to them, she saw a sword appear, gleaming in the air behind them. It darted at them like an arrow loosed from a bow.
It ran through one startled Dragon from behind, up under the tail of his codpiece and into his vitals. He shrieked, clawing the air in agony, and collapsed.
"Ger against a wall! In pairs!" the Royal Magician bellowed, aiming the wands in his hands so the beams of snarling magic streaming from them met in midair right where a lich had just appeared. The lich burst in the blinding white explosion that followed, but more were appearing down the passage behind the Dragons, teleporting in from the group Vangey and Ree had been ravaging with wandfire.
Cackling wildly, a skull flew past everyone, eyesockets streaming flames, attacking no one but mad with glee at all the destruction. The flying sword struck again, darting as nimbly as any hummingbird in a palace garden, and Purple Dragons hacked at it frantically. Wandfire spat in all directions. Deltalon shouted for another wand as one he was using darkened and burst into dust in his hand. Ree flung one to him, sending it cartwheeling through the roiling air. Liches cast spells up and down the passage, and the palace's defensive magics flared up in scores of places.
In all of this, Vangerdahast glanced back at the liches he'd first scorched with wandfire and through their thinned ranks caught sight of the Knights of Myth Drannor-and in their midst, another Royal Magician of Cormyr. A perfecr likeness of himself, who smiled at him in cold triumph through the chaos of magic now storming around the passage.
Staring into the eyes of his impostor, Vangerdahast snarled in wordless rage. Rage that was all too likely to be futile.
"I wasn't much liking the look of this," Semoor said, waving at the tall door at the end of the passage. It was graven with a glowing blue badge of Esparin, "But for the love of Lathander, let's get to it and through it! Now!"
A long, slender sword streaked out of the spell battle, flying by itself with its point first. It glistened with fresh, wet blood, raced as fast as any arrow-and was headed right for Vangerdahast!
The Royal Magician's hands were already moving, shaping intricate gestures in feverish haste. A bare instant before rhe sword would have thrust into him, he vanished, reappearing well down the passage amid all the milling liches and swirling spells.
The sword plunged through the spot where the wizard had been standing, then soared up and around in a loop to come racing at Florin's face.
The ranger set his teeth and struck it aside with his own blade, striking as hard as he could and sending the flying sword singing and clanging along the floor until it bounded up at Doust.
The priest ducked away from it, cursing, and all the Knights pounced on the sword, hacking at it furiously until it sprang up out of their midst, struck the ceiling with a clang, andArrowed right back down again, plunging into-and through- Semoor's armored breast.
Vangerdahast saw the sword streak down the passage at the impostor, but he then lost all sight of that end of the passage. Knights, flying blade, his false double, and all disappeared in a huge explosion as a lich snatched the fell magic out of several other liches, destroying rhem in an instant, and twisted that freed, writhing magic into a withering wall of harrowfire.
Vantrerdahaxf had seen such a doom onlv once before in his life. but he knew what had to be done. He hurled the wand in his left hand into the heart of that advancing wall of flames, then unleashed the full fury of the wand in his right hand at the tumbling wood he'd thrown, murmuring an incantation that would dissolve the controlling magics of that wand.