“Balls!” Aurian snorted. “Ghosts, indeed,”
Taking a firm hold on her runaway imagination, she put her shoulder to the door of the Mages’ Tower and thrust her way inside.
Once around the first curve, the pitch-black stairwell presented a challenge even to her Mage’s sight. Raising her hand, Aurian called a ball of sizzling blue Magelight to hover above her head. The shallow marble steps spiraled upward before her, slick with a film of icy condensation. Shadows from the sphere of cold fire leapt and lurched across the weather-stained walls and web-hung ceiling, causing flickers of movement at the edges of her vision that froze her in her tracks and sent her whirling, hand on the Staff of Earth, to face a nonexistent threat.
“Don’t be a bloody fool,” Aurian told herself disgustedly. “There’s no point in going on, if you’re seeing ghosts in every shadow.” The only trouble was, she knew perfectly well that ghosts could—and did—exist.
Gritting her teeth, the Mage continued up the staircase. The twins’ chambers, Bragar’s rooms, Eliseth’s suite—room after room she found abandoned and empty, all trace of its former occupant erased. Unease pricked her, an icy finger drawn up her backbone. Surely this could not be right? Even if the Academy had been abandoned, and all the Magefolk were dead, the moldering remnants of their furnishings and belongings should still be here!
When she reached the familiar door to her own quarters, Aurian hesitated, reluctant to discover what lay within. These rooms had been her home for so many happy years—they held precious memories of Forral, and Anvar, and dear Finbarr, her friend the Archivist who had perished to save her life on the Night of the Wraiths. Ridiculously, she felt that to see her chambers vacant and abandoned would wipe away so much of her former existence....
“Ridiculous is right,” Aurian told herself firmly. Possessions, after all, were not so important, and nothing—nothing—could erase the memories of people she had loved so well. Nonetheless, it hurt to enter those bleak, dank, echoing rooms. What had happened, she wondered, to the moss-green carpets and drapes; to her cozy bed with the heavy, brocaded hangings that could be pulled close against the night to create a secluded haven for the joy that she and Forral snared? What had become of the bright clothes the swordsman had persuaded her to buy as they wandered the booths of the Grand Arcade? What had happened to her summoning and scrying crystals, to her irreplaceable collection of books and scrolls, and to Anvar’s precious guitar that had been her gift on that happy Solstice he had spent with Forral and herself? A wave of unbearable loneliness and longing swept over her, so intense that it almost sent her to her knees. Where were they now, the two that she had loved above life itself? Forral dead, and Anvar—where? Where? Aurian shivered, and fled the sad, abandoned chambers, her Magelight hovering above her, always one step ahead of her hurrying feet.
Up, then—and up once more, round another curve of the staircase. Only one set of rooms left to search. Despite her determination, Aurian’s feet began to slow of their own accord. If she had hesitated to enter her own chambers, how much more now did she fear to trespass within Miathan’s domain? The last time she had set foot in the Archmage’s lair, she had felt the menace of the dreaded Death-Wraiths, and seen her beloved Forral slain by the deadly creatures called up through the profane, perverted use of the Grail of Rebirth. As she approached the door, memories came swarming unbidden into her mind, just as those hideous, malevolent abominations of Miathan’s summoning had thronged the chamber where her love lay slain. Dread froze her, shaking in every limb, on the topmost landing of the staircase.
It took more courage than Aurian had known she possessed to open that door, but in her heart she was certain that she must. Knowing that if she hesitated another instant she would never find the strength to do it, she lifted her hand to the latch, every sense alert for the betraying signs of a magical trap, or a wardspell. There was nothing—and that in itself was enough to put the Mage upon her guard. Were he alive or dead, it would be most unlike Miathan to leave his private chambers open to the prying of any stray wanderer—let alone another Mage. And if he hod done so, there was sure to be a reason.
Cautiously, Aurian took the serpent-carved Staff of Earth from her belt and, reversing it, used the heel to push the door ajar. Out of the darkness beyond rushed a fetid reek of carrion. The Mage took a hasty step backward, choking and retching, slipping off the topmost step and only just saving herself from a fall with a frantic clutch at the handrail.
“Seven bloody demons!” Thick darkness surrounded her—her light had gone out when she fell. Beyond the sound of her own, involuntary exclamation, nothing stirred. The silence lay heavy, dead, and thick as the noxious, cloying stench that clogged the air. Yet in Aurian’s mind, a familiar sound began to grow—the snarling, rasping hum of raw magical power. In her hand, the Staff or Earth began to vibrate in response, and glow with emerald light as it answered its counterpart. The Mage’s heart beat fast. The Sword! The Sword of Flame was within! Clinging tightly to the smooth wooden rail, Aurian pulled herself upright, ignoring the throb of bruised ankle and shin and a nagging ache in her left arm, which had briefly supported all her weight. Blotting her watering eyes on her sleeve, she cast another ball of Magelight—as bright as she could manage—and transferred the Staff from her right hand to her left.—Drawing her sword, the Mage crept cautiously into Miathan’s lair—and halted, transfixed with horror and despair.
The Magelight blazed up, highlighting every stark, inescapable detail of the ghastly sight that met her eyes. Aurian took in the entire scene in one single, frozen moment of horror. The floor, the walls—even the ceiling of the chamber—were spattered with blood. A headless corpse was spread-eagled, limbs askew, before the fire, pierced through the heart and pinned to the floor by the Sword of Flame, which was glowing all along its length with a blinding crimson blaze. And set upright upon the hilt of the Sword, the severed neck impaled upon the grip to rest on the crossguard, was the head of Anvar.—A cry of grief wrenched itself free from Aurian’s soul—yet no sound escaped her lips. She could not bear to look, yet she could not look away. Her lover’s face was twisted in a rictus of agony, yet her gaze traced every beloved feature. Then—her heartbeat stumbled, faltered, and began to race as the eyes of the corpse slowly opened, weeping blood, and turned to fix her with a glazed and sightless stare. The Mage’s grasp grew white-knuckle tight around the Staff of Earth, as the grey lips parted. Anvar’s corpse began to speak—but it was not his voice that issued forth, but the strident, mocking tones of Eliseth.
“You should thank me, Aurian—I’ve done you a favor. I have performed the very sacrifice that you were too feebleminded and faint of heart to make yourself.—And here is the Sword of Flame, ready and waiting, marked and bonded to you with the blood of your beloved. It only waits for you to stretch out your hand and claim it; then victory will be yours, and the power to rule the entire world. Go on—take it. Take it if you dare. Pick up the Sword, and take the world into your hand—if you can pass my Guardians!”
Beyond Anvar, beyond the reach of the fading Magelight, there was a stir of movement. From the mouth of Anvar’s corpse, from the dead and staring eyes, strands of dark vapor began to pour, coalescing and growing and forming into a legion of vast and shifting shapes with malevolent gargoyle faces that pulsed and flickered, ever-changing, in a swirling vortex of cold evil. Eliseth had summoned the Nihilim. The Death-Wraiths had returned to claim Aurian’s life, as they had claimed the life of Forral.
Someone was screaming. After a moment, Aurian realized that it was herself.—Wrenching herself free at last from the macabre spell of Anvar’s mutilated corpse, she turned and fled headlong down the tower stairs, pursued by the sound of Eliseth’s laughter—and the Death-Wraiths at her heels.