“I see no wardings over the garden,” Sarth said in a low voice. “However, there is a glyph upon the door, as you said. I believe I can defeat it without making much noise.”
“Good,” said Geran. He drew his sword-a fine straight long sword with a modest enchantment upon it, borrowed from Sarth’s collection since he’d left his elven blade in Thentia-and murmured the words of a spell to summon a faint veil of silvery mist around himself. The cuillen mhariel, or silversteel veil, was a potent defense against many forms of attack, including magic. “You know that you need go no farther. Once you strike a blow, you’ll lose what remains of your neutrality. Marstel’s men and Rhovann’s helmed constructs will storm your house before the day’s out.”
The tiefling shrugged. “An unfortunate loss, since I rather like the place. But I’ve made arrangements for the things I value, and have no great concern for the rest.” He hesitated just a moment, and added, “Geran … this is your chance to reconsider as well. There is no telling what sort of retaliation you may provoke.”
The swordmage shook his head. In his mind’s eye he saw the blood-splattered corridors of Lasparhall and the gray face of his uncle, dying with an assassin’s knife in his heart. He knew that nothing could undo what had been done, but at the very least he could make sure that Grigor Hulmaster’s murderers never had the chance to kill anyone else dear to him. “That may be true, but Valdarsel will have no part in it,” he said. “Come on; we’re wasting the night.”
Sarth sighed, but he turned to the gate and murmured a minor spell of opening. The bolt on the far side rasped softly as it drew back under his magic, and the wrought-iron gate swung open. Geran pushed through and hurried across the snow-covered garden beyond. Most buildings in Hulburg were made of timber on strong stone footings, but the temple was made entirely of masonry. It did have windows, but they were narrow embrasures that stood a good ten feet above the ground, like a castle’s arrow slits-far too narrow for anyone to scramble through, as Mirya had observed. He drew close to the temple’s back door, and paused when the magical glyph guarding it became visible to his eyes. He could sense the baleful curse held within its faintly glowing lines and whorls. It was nothing he would care to tamper with, but Sarth was better with such things than he was.
Sarth studied the glyph closely for a moment, his eyes narrowed. “A competent effort, but I can defeat it,” he murmured. In a low voice he began to whisper the words of a counterspell, gently gesturing with his hand as he traced the glyph’s shape in the air with a fingertip. The glyph glowed brighter, its lines blazing a brilliant emerald green before they suddenly grew dark and vanished. “It is done.”
Geran glided forward and set his hand on the handle, not without a small quiver of trepidation. Glyphs, symbols, and such things could be highly dangerous, after all, but he trusted Sarth. He opened the door as quietly as he could, and found himself looking into a stone-flagged hallway dimly lit by small oil lamps in wall sconces. Several doors opened off the hall before it turned out of sight. He slipped inside, and Sarth followed behind him, pulling the door closed after him.
“Seal the door,” Geran whispered. “No one is to get out this way.”
“We may trap ourselves,” Sarth replied. But at a nod from Geran, he whispered the words of a locking spell to hold the door against anything short of destruction by a battering ram.
Geran moved down the hall, glancing at the doors as he went. This was the weakest part of his plan; he knew nothing about the layout of the priests’ quarters behind the Cyricist’s chapel. He simply hoped that Valdarsel’s chambers would be obvious from a quick inspection. The temple was not a very large building, after all, and he doubted that there were more than six or seven rooms in the portion of it barred to the public. The hallway from the garden door met an intersecting hall in a T, and he paused to look left and right. To one side the new hall opened into a large antechamber that led to the great chapel, and to the left he saw two more doorways, including one that was lavishly gilded and carved into the skull-and-sunburst emblem of Cyric. He allowed himself a small smile at their good fortune; that was the first place they’d look.
He motioned for Sarth to follow, and turned left toward the ornamental doorway. But the sudden soft clicking of claws on stone and rapid footfalls came from the antechamber behind him. Geran whirled, and found himself facing a terrible devil with greenish black scales and razorlike barbs jutting from shoulders, elbows, knees, and skull. The monster hissed in frustration as it realized that its stealthy rush had failed, and threw itself forward in a flurry of raking talons and stabbing spikes.
The swordmage gave a step or two, parrying the monster’s claws with his blade. The steel rang shrilly under its iron-hard talons, and sparks flew. “Foolish mortal,” the monster snarled. “Do you not know whose house this is? Did you think the servants of the Black Prince would leave their shrine unguarded?”
Geran said nothing in reply, still hoping to avoid making too much noise if he could. He fought back in grim silence, his blade leaping and darting to nick the barbed devil once, then twice. The creature’s scales were as hard as a coat of mail, and he quickly realized that it could shrug off anything but the most solid thrusts or heaviest slashes. Sarth stepped out into the hallway behind the monster, his rune-carved scepter of gold leveled at the creature’s back-and a second devil appeared in the archway to the antechamber at the far end of the hall, hurling itself toward the sorcerer.
“Sarth, behind you!” Geran cried.
Sarth spun to meet the new threat; the second devil was almost upon him, and he had no time for subtlety in his magic. “Narva saizhal!” he shouted, and from his outstretched fingers a half-dozen spears of blue-white ice took form and streaked toward his attacker. The monster screamed in rage and tried to leap out of the way, but two of the ice spears skewered its torso even as the rest streaked past and shattered loudly down the hallway. It staggered back and sank to the floor, but found the strength to conjure a ball of green hellfire and fling it at Sarth. The tiefling deflected the blazing ball with a motion of his scepter; it bounced back down the hall leading to the back door, scorching the flagstones.
Claws raked through Geran’s spell-shield, and he hissed aloud as his adversary’s hot talons scored the meat of his left arm. He returned his full attention to the monster in front of him, launching a furious attack of his own. Steel glittered and rang as the barbed devil batted the blade aside with its claws and spikes, and the monster grinned at Geran with a mouthful of yellow fangs. He could hear an uproar beginning in the temple as the Cyricists began to wake to the battle in their halls, shouting alarms to rouse the rest of their fellows or demanding to know what was happening. There’s no point in trying to keep it quiet now, Geran realized. Time is more important than stealth. With that in mind, he cleared his mind for a sword spell and let the arcane words roll from his mouth. “Sanhaer astelie!” he shouted.
Supernatural strength flooded into his limbs. When his foe raked at him again, Geran caught its forearm in the grip of his left hand-gashing his palm badly on the monster’s sharp scales in the process-and spun around to fling the creature into the wall as if it were a toy. Plaster cracked and the stone blocks of the wall shifted out of place under the impact. Before the monster could recover, he set the point of his sword against the barbed devil’s side and rammed the blade through lungs and heart until the point burst through the opposite ribs. With the last of the strength spell’s brutal power he wrenched his blade free and tossed aside the fiend’s corpse, which collapsed into sulfur-tinged smoke.