Benthis, surveying the assembled White Robes, noted the melancholy expression on the face of the elven mage. "Even you, Calcidon?" he murmured. "I thought you and yours never ventured forth from your cozy elven nest in Qualinost. Who have you lost to Heder-ick's Inquisition?"
"A cousin," came the tight-lipped answer. "And you, Benthis?"
The hawklike visage softened. "My sister."
Other mages chimed in. "Hederick executed my brother." "My friend of twenty years." "My partner."
"What do you want of us, Tarscenian?" Calcidon repeated.
"Ancilla gave me instructions before she addressed the Conclave," Tarscenian said. "She feared she would fail-once more-to persuade them. And she worried she would be too frail afterward to summon you her shy;self."
Tarscenian chose his next words carefully. "Ancilla discovered a way to collect the powers of willing mages, and channel them through her own willpower. She thought that with such unusual strength at her disposal, she could at last wrest the Diamond Dragon away from Hederick. In turn, she planned to use the artifact to defeat him."
"Take our powers?" Benthis cried. "That's unaccept shy;able. Where would that leave us? Devoid of magic at a time when Hederick is sending spies and kidnappers all over Krynn to capture spellcasters! You'd leave us unprotected against this tyrant?"
"Ancilla found a means to shelter you," Tarscenian explained. "If you will transfer your powers to her, the vallenwoods will shelter your bodies and nurture you until the Diamond Dragon releases you."
A flurry of protest, led by Benthis, rippled through the gathering. But as Calcidon and the rest of the wiz shy;ards intoned the names of the loved ones lost to the Inquisition, one by one the opponents backed down.
Benthis tried one last argument. "If Ancilla fails, what happens to us? What if she dies despite our combined powers?"
"I cannot say for certain," Tarscenian said. "You will be part of the vallenwoods, but whether you will die or stay in the trees for years-or forever-Ancilla could not foretell."
Benthis gazed around the circle. His look met only obdurate stares. "And we all must be part of this?" he asked.
"All who are present now," Tarscenian replied. "Or the spell will not work."
Benthis closed his eyes. At last he opened them and attempted a weak smile. "If it comes down to dying at Hederick's command or perishing inside a vallenwood, I suppose it ultimately makes no difference," he con shy;ceded. He wiped the damp from his forehead with his sleeve. "I loved my sister. I'm with you."
For the rest of the day, Tarscenian led them through the steps Ancilla had forced him to commit to memory. When all had learned the spells and movements, he spread his cloak on the ground in the middle of the circle and laid Ancilla upon it. Then, because Tarscenian was but a minor spellcaster, he backed out of the circle, leav shy;ing the wizards to do their work.
Calcidon led the spell. "Shiriff intoann ejjitt," he intoned.
"Borumtalcon," the mages replied.
They raised their hands and lowered them in the pre shy;scribed movements. Each wizard inscribed upon the fog a different portion of the magical traceries. The gestures of their fingers left blue, green, and red lines on the mist. Ancilla had stressed that each segment of the total was crucial, but to Tarscenian, each mage's work appeared to be nothing but errant scribbling.
The fog began to glow. The white robes gleamed like burnished silver.
"Bilum merit ayhannti," Calcidon sang in his elven tenor.
"Achet shiral pescumi. Relaquay," came the chanted reply of the group. The men's voices rumbled. The women's tones floated like feathers.
Suddenly the forty robes glittered like diamonds. They scattered light until tears streamed from the mages' eyes. Ancilla had been adamant: the mages' eyes must remain open, whatever their inclination to close them against the brilliance.
"Ayhannti, shiral liwix xhalot." Calcidon sang on. "Polopeque."
The shine that had transformed the robes now leaped out of the cloth as though it had life of its own. The glitter shone silver and white. Ice blue appeared in the swirling fog. The lines that the mages had traced formed into figures-a tree, a dragon, a lance, a crown.
Then they muted to nothingness.
The mist evaporated around the ring of mages and intensified above Ancilla's still form. The air filled with the clattering and chiming of bells.
"Shiral liwix trassdiv dhellil" Calcidon shrieked the words. Yet the other mages could barely hear him over the noise from the twisting tendrils of fog.
"Reveese rou ripow nad borrah rou carpeh," the mages shouted in unison. "Reveese rou ripow nad borrah rou carpeh!"
The fog enveloped all the mages. The light from a thousand stars exploded within the circle. Wooden bells, silver chimes, steel cymbals could be heard. Some of the mages began to bleed from the ears. Others cried out with pain and made as if to clap their hands over their eyes.
Then all disappeared. The fog vanished with them, revealing a late-afternoon mountaintop without tree or living beast.
All was silent.
At that moment, Ancilla shivered and awakened. Her green eyes stared blankly at Tarscenian for a moment. "I am alive?" she finally whispered. "They agreed to help us?" At Tarscenian's nod, the old woman accepted his hand and stood. She wobbled at first, then sup shy;ported herself without aid. Ancilla waved away Tarscenian's arm.
"By the Old Gods, Tarscenian, the power!" she whis shy;pered. "I have the might of two score mages inside of me."
Her companion waited while Ancilla composed herself. She closed her eyes, and her lips moved, but Tarscenian could not divine whether she spoke spell or prayer. After a few moments, Ancilla seemed to gain some control over the magical forces raging within her.
"This is our last chance, Tarscenian," Ancilla said res shy;olutely, looking up at her longtime friend and compan shy;ion. "We go now to Erolydon-to challenge my brother.
Chapter 4
Pounding and shouting at thc front door of their treetop mansion in Solace shook the Vakon family from their beds just after midnight. Jeffers, the manservant, was the first to the door, but Ceci Vakon, mistress of the home, followed a short distance behind.
"Is the master home?" Jeffers whispered to Ceci. He clutched a small axe of the variety normally used to chop kindling.
She shook her head. "Mendis isn't home yet. Perhaps something has happened to him."
A resonant voice boomed through the locked door. "Death to heretics!" Ceci recognized the booming bass voice as that of the high priest of the Seeker temple in Solace.
"High Priest Dahos!" she whispered. "And Hederick's
goblins. What are they doing here?"
Jeffers's face was young, pale, and defiant. "I'm the only man in the house," he said staunchly. "I will protect you."
"No. This must be a mistake," Ceci replied. "The High Theocrat promised us protection. Open the door. I'll speak to them."
The young servant followed her orders but kept the small axe in view and stood stubbornly in the doorway next to his mistress. Clutching her lacy nightrobe at her throat with one hand, she surveyed the tall, robed Plains shy;man and the half-dozen goblins who ranged on the walk shy;way just outside the door. Behind them was nothing but the forty-foot drop from the walkway to the forest floor. The Vakon home, like most in Solace, was built in the branches of a vallenwood tree, linked to the other treetop buildings by snakelike wood-and-rope walkways.