“Pardon?” Carachel sounded startled. “I don’t believe I understand you.”
“I’m not at all surprised.”
“Make your challenge, and let us be done with this delay.”
“No.”
Carachel stared. “What?”
“Dear me,” Amberglas said. “I really thought I’d made it quite clear, but then there are people who prefer to have things explained several times even when it isn’t necessary, so perhaps it’s not surprising. I have no intention of challenging you.”
There was a moment’s silence; then Carachel laughed harshly. “What do you intend to do, then? If you wish to stop me, there is no other way.”
“You are quite wrong,” Amberglas said softly. Her eyes were very bright. “Of course, you seem to be wrong about a great many things, so it isn’t at all unusual.”
Carachel hesitated, then shook his head. “Whatever you can do, or think you can, it does not matter. But I do regret this, lady.”
With a sudden shock, Jermain remembered the duel he had witnessed. That wizard had spent a long time on careful preparations, yet Carachel had defeated him with apparent ease. Amberglas had made no such preparations, as far as Jermain knew; despite her abilities, she might be just as easy for Carachel to beat. And that other wizard had preferred death to whatever he’d expected Carachel to do. Jermain wrenched desperately at the spell that held him, hoping that somehow he could free himself in time to help Amberglas. His sword arm moved sluggishly; it was not enough.
Carachel stretched out his hand and a stream of golden light poured toward Amberglas. A sword’s length in front of her the light splattered into a starburst of sparks, and Jermain let his breath out in relief.
“Are you quite certain you don’t wish to change your mind about all this?” Amberglas’s wave encompassed Ranlyn, Eltiron, and the two rows of nearly motionless men on either side of the courtyard.
“I have no choice.” Carachel sent another probe of light toward Amberglas, with the same result as the first.
“Everyone has choices,” Amberglas said severely. She did not seem to notice Carachel’s spells at all.
“Enough!” Carachel’s shout rang from the walls of the courtyard. “If you will not begin this, I shall. I challenge you to the combat sorcerous for the wrongs you have done to me!”
Amberglas tilted her head and blinked at him. “Yes, I suppose that might seem like the logical thing to do next. To you, I mean; it seems rather silly to me.”
“You still refuse to fight?”
“Not at all. I told you I didn’t intend to challenge you; I didn’t say anything at all about not fighting if you challenged me.”
“Then let no man pass the circle until the combat is decided.”
Carachel raised his arms in a commanding gesture, Jermain saw the serpent ring begin to glow, and with all his might he willed himself to step forward. His legs moved, but slowly, as if he were wading through the mud holes of Fenegrik Swamp; then suddenly the spell gave way. He went sprawling forward, but managed at the last minute to turn the fall into a roll. He came up on one knee, sword ready, and stopped.
Carachel and Amberglas were facing each other inside a circle of light that separated them from the rest of the courtyard. As Jermain watched, Amberglas raised her hands as if to brush away a cobweb in front of her; the gesture looked almost absentminded, but as she finished, small flashes of lightning began darting from her hands to Carachel’s. The serpent ring flashed once, and the lightning vanished. Carachel brought his hands down, and black fire leaped up around Amberglas. The sorceress looked at it with an expression of mild interest, and her hands began moving in a short, repetitive pattern.
A shout from his right jerked Jermain’s attention away from the combat. He rose and spun just as one of Carachel’s guards brought his sword down. Jermain’s block did not deflect the blow quite far enough; the sword slid off his blade and bit into his left shoulder. An instant later one of the Leshiya guards spitted his attacker from behind.
More of the castle guards came running around the Tower of Judgment, and in a few minutes Carachel’s guards were overpowered. Jermain sheathed his sword, then gripped his wounded shoulder to stop the bleeding; the pain made him gasp. He turned back toward the light encircling Carachel and Amberglas in time to see Vandaris’s sword bounce off the glowing barrier. “Vandaris! What do you think you’re doing?”
Vandaris looked over her shoulder and shrugged. “Somebody had to try something. Doesn’t look as if there’s much more we can do until they’re finished, though. Back off, tinheads!” The last was directed toward the castle guards, who had begun gathering around the edge of the glow to watch the battle within. Carachel’s ring shone white as he threw globes of light in a steady stream; Amberglas’s hands moved rapidly in one complex pattern after another as she deflected or blocked them all.
The guards began to move away from the barrier in response to Vandaris’s tongue-lashing. Jermain hesitated, then went over and knelt beside Ranlyn. The nomad was beginning to stir; he moaned as Jermain rolled him onto his back. Jermain shuddered as he got a good look at the hand that had held the serpent ring. On the inner surface, the flesh was charred to the bone, and three fingers showed unnaturally twisted lumps where they had been broken.
“Jerayan.”
The hoarse whisper startled Jermain; then he saw that Ranlyn’s eyes were open and staring at him. He nodded once, unable to speak.
“Jerayan, it is over and again have I failed.”
“It’s not over,” Jermain said, and his gaze returned involuntarily to the circle of light. He noticed absently that the circle seemed to be widening, but most of his attention was on the whirling sparks and explosions within it.
Ranlyn’s eyes followed Jermain’s, and the nomad tensed. “Their power is too closely matched,” he said after a moment. “Give me your aid in rising.”
“There’s nothing you can do now,” Jermain said, but he helped Ranlyn to his feet. The two men joined Vandaris near the edge of the dome, to wait for the end of the duel.
“Jermain!”
He turned his head and saw Eltiron, still standing near the tower door. Reluctantly, he walked over. “What is it?”
“I wanted—Jermain, if Carachel wins, I want you to kill me,” Eltiron blurted. His face was white and his eyes never left the battle within the glowing barrier.
“What?”
“You heard me. And keep your voice down; I don’t want Vandaris to hear.”
“Eltiron, you can’t—”
“I have to. It’s the herrilseed; Carachel
did
know about it. He isn’t just controlling me; there’s a link or something, too. Even through that.” He waved at the barrier of light. “I can feel him every time he throws something at Amberglas. He told me to wait here until he was finished, and I—Jermain, just do it!”
For a moment, Jermain could not force himself to respond, and Eltiron misread his silence.
“It’s not just me, Jermain. Sevairn doesn’t need another puppet king. Vandi will do a better job of ruling than I would.”
Jermain doubted it, but he nodded. He could not refuse the quiet determination in Eltiron’s voice. He wondered briefly whether Eltiron had changed more than he had thought or whether he had simply never known the boy as well as he had believed. He tried to find something to say and failed.
He was just turning back toward the duel when a brilliant flash of light half blinded him. Eltiron cried out and staggered against him; Jermain took the shock on his injured shoulder and gasped. He twisted his head to look at Amberglas and Carachel, and almost immediately forgot both his shoulder and Eltiron.
The light surrounding the two mages was flickering, and with every flicker it grew dimmer. Jermain saw that the circle had widened again while he had been talking with Eltiron; one edge touched the wall of the Tower of Judgment ten paces from where Jermain and Eltiron stood. Amberglas and Carachel had paused in their spell casting to watch the barrier. Outside it, the castle guards were backing away. Then, with another bright flash, the light vanished completely.
There was an instant of utter stillness; then Vandaris started for Carachel. She was checked in midstride by a cry from Ranlyn. “The Red Plague! See where it comes!”
Between the Tower of Judgment and the outer wall of the castle, a mist was rising out of nowhere. It shone with a redness that shifted and changed as the mist thickened—the red of roses, the red of burning, the red of dripping blood. As Jermain watched, it grew swiftly into a cloud twice the height of a man and began to spread.
Eltiron stared at the Matholych, feeling a sick horror that was only partially his own. The thing was just opposite the place where Carachel’s circle had touched the Tower of Judgment, and Eltiron was certain that it was the contact between the two that had drawn the Matholych to the tower once more. Then Carachel shouted in defiance, and the golden aura surrounded him once more. Lightning leaped from the wizard’s hands, forming a crackling web around the red mist, and its growth slowed. At the same instant, Amberglas made a chopping gesture and Eltiron saw the mist flinch away from her as though it had been struck.
The combined attack halted the growth of the Matholych but could not drive it back or force it to return to wherever it had been. It hung in the air above the courtyard and seemed to grow denser. Carachel’s expression became more desperate; Eltiron could feel the sorcerer’s fear growing as he threw more and more of his stolen power into the battle, without effect. Carachel began groping for new sources of strength, and Eltiron felt himself begin to weaken as the wizard drew on the link that the control spell had formed between them.
“Eltiron.” Amberglas’s voice sounded strange and far away. With an effort, Eltiron turned his head. Amberglas made a quick throwing motion at the Matholych, then turned and looked directly at Eltiron.
Eltiron felt a slight shock as their eyes met. He saw Amberglas smile and heard her say, “The tower, Eltiron. That is your part in this.
Use it!
” Her fingers flicked briefly; then she turned back to the battle.
Something like a wall in Eltiron’s mind crumbled suddenly. Power rose hot and white and burning within him. The pain made it difficult to breathe; all that made it bearable was his link with Carachel. The wizard was still pulling strength from Eltiron, and he drew off enough of the burning energy to let Eltiron endure the rest without screaming. The Matholych drew back as Carachel turned the new power against it, and the wizard’s eyes blazed with triumph.
The Matholych swirled and shifted, seeking, and its hunger made another kind of pain in Eltiron’s mind. He wanted to run, but he was bound in place, doubly bound by his link to Carachel and his link with the Tower of Judgment. Through a haze of pain, he realized that the tower was the source of the burning force within him. Amberglas had opened his mind to it, but he did not know how to use the power it brought him. It was too painful; he could hardly think clearly. All he could do was serve as a channel for Carachel.
Suddenly Carachel cried out. The Matholych expanded swiftly, swelling into a huge cloud that stretched from the outer wall of the castle to the Tower of Judgment. Eltiron heard a terrible scream as one of the castle guards was engulfed by the unexpected growth. Then the Matholych brushed the tower, and the screams were his own. The pain lasted only an instant before the Matholych jerked away from the tower, but it was enough to drive Eltiron to his knees. He gasped with relief as it ended; the burning power of the Tower of Judgment still flowed through him, but it was almost bearable by comparison. He fought his way back to his feet.
Carachel stood only a few paces from the edge of the red mist, light streaming from both hands. Amberglas was farther back, her hands moving continuously, forming intricate designs in the air. The Matholych had drawn away from the Tower of Judgment, but it still touched the outer wall of the castle. Where it rested, the stone was being eaten away. From the top of the wall, Eltiron heard a scream of terror, and his heart froze.
Crystalorn! He could not see her, but he knew he had not mistaken her voice. Somehow, she must have slipped away from the guard and returned to watch the battle from the sentry walk atop the wall, where she could remain hidden. A large block of stone fell, and the top portion of the inner wall came with it. Through the resulting gap, Eltiron caught a glimpse of Crystalorn’s white face as she tried to scramble away from the collapsing portion of the wall. Hopelessly, he cried out her name.
At Eltiron’s cry, Carachel looked up from his battle with the Matholych for the first time. He froze for a single breath, and Eltiron felt the wizard’s rage and his inexplicable fear for Crystalorn. Then Eltiron felt power rushing through him, and he was sucked along with it into Carachel’s mind as the wizard threw all his power into a spell.
There was a moment of disorientation and impossible knowledge. From a strange double viewpoint, Eltiron saw Carachel raise his hands and point toward the crumbling wall; the stone froze in midfall, just long enough for Crystalorn to climb back to safety. Only then did the wizard turn back to the Matholych.
During his moment of neglect, Carachel had lost ground, and he had to retreat hastily to avoid being caught by the mist. Now he and Amberglas fought side by side, and still the Matholych expanded. Carachel backed up a step, then two, but Amberglas did not move. Carachel glanced at her, then slowly retreated again, and the Matholych moved forward to within arm’s reach of the sorceress.
From the corner of his eye, Eltiron saw Ranlyn leap toward Carachel’s back. Carachel pulled the knowledge from Eltiron’s mind an instant too late. As the wizard started to turn, Ranlyn crashed into him, and the impact sent both men reeling into the red mist of the Matholych.
Red light exploded within the Matholych as the two men screamed and fell shriveled to the ground. The serpent ring flared intensely white and was gone, and the expansion of the Matholych ceased abruptly. Eltiron barely noticed. His mind was too full of Carachel’s agony; the link that joined them had not yet broken, and he could feel all the wizard’s fear, and his pain, and the knowledge of failure that was worse than pain. And then Carachel was dead, but the channel he had opened held.