‘Well, you didn’t think I was just going to abandon you when we got back, and go on my merry way? You’re my friend, you idiot. We’re in this together.’
‘And there never was a truer friend.’ Corisand’s voice was unsteady. ‘I’ll make you a promise, Iriana, here and now, on the Fialan itself. Once my people have been freed, I’ll pass the Stone on to you. It will have done its work for me. You can use it to help your people too.’
‘Done.’ The Wizard’s smile was dazzling. ‘Here.’ She thrust her staff into the Windeye’s unready hands. ‘You’ll need this to focus your magic when you call the Stone. Its power is so vast, you’ll need a conduit to handle all the energy.’
‘But - it’s your staff.’
‘I never liked the accursed thing anyway. Unfortunately it’s attuned to me, but not too strongly, because I so rarely used it. You should be able to manage.’ Iriana gasped and turned pale, as if she had been stabbed. ‘Go on, why don’t you? Hurry. Ghabal has sensed that the Fialan is under threat. I can’t hold him back much longer.’
The Windeye willed herself steady as she grasped the staff in both hands and raised it high to focus on the Fialan. She summoned the Stone: longing, yearning, putting all her power and will and hope into that call. She felt a leap of response in the Fialan, a flare of magic, and—
‘Why in Perdition are you giving it to her?’
The voice cut across her concentration, severing her link. She heard a strangled cry from Iriana and swung around with an oath on her lips - just in time to see the Wizard, her face transfigured with joy, throw herself into the arms of Avithan.
Corisand’s first thought was sheer, stunned disbelief; her second was for the Moldan. ‘Iriana, your shield!’ she cried. ‘Don’t forget your shield—’ But even as the words left her mouth, she felt the earth shake under her feet and knew it was too late.
Whirling, she flung all her energy at the Fialan, willing it to her with every last scrap of her strength. The staff quivered in her hands, then twisted, writhed and changed its form. The rough, uneven shaft became smoothly polished wood, with the sinuous carven shapes of twin serpents twining all around it. The Fialan sprang from its high place and floated down towards the staff, and to Corisand’s utter shock, the snakes reared up their heads and caught the crystal between them, in their jaws.
Power smashed down the Windeye’s arm like a hammer blow, filling her body with what felt like the heart of the sun. Struggling to contain the energy, she felt herself growing; towering over Avithan and Iriana like a colossus with the magic crackling and sparking around her in an aureole.
Avithan cursed. ‘Be careful,’ he yelled. ‘Athina sent me to warn you—’
Before he could finish, the Moldan stepped through the wall and into the vast chamber. ‘No! The Stone is mine. It will be mine FOREVER.’ With a roar of rage he turned on Corisand, raising the gargantuan axe - but some power of the Fialan seemed to hold him back. Instead he turned like a striking snake and snatched up Iriana in one massive hand.
Time stuttered to a standstill in an instant of frozen horror . . . Then the Moldan laughed. ‘Give me back the Stone,’ he said. ‘Give it to me now - or I will crush your little friend to a bloody pulp.’
‘No!’ the cry came from Avithan, far below. He unleashed a mighty blast of magic - but to Ghabal, it must have felt like little more than a bee-sting. Contemptuously, he kicked the Wizard aside. Avithan smashed into the wall of the chamber - and vanished.
A wail of anguish came from Iriana, and Corisand felt the burning force of her rage all the way across the cavern as she unleashed her will. The Moldan’s hand holding the Wizard burst into flame, and with a cry he dropped her to the ground. She lay, unmoving, but her wildfire was still spreading, devouring his arm and shoulder and gnawing at his body.
Bellowing with pain and anger, he staggered towards Corisand, swinging his burning arm at her like a club. She raised her staff and flung a bolt of energy at him from the Stone, but she had not yet learned how to wield it, and it came out unfocused, and too weak to stop him. He staggered back a step or two, then came at her again, raising the deadly axe.
‘Please,’ Corisand begged the Stone. ‘Please help me.’ Another bolt of energy shot forth, but Ghabal was powerful and ancient, and still he kept on coming.
She should go. Escape back to her own world - the Fialan knew the way - but Corisand would not leave Iriana, and the Moldan stood between her and her friend. She dodged aside as the axe came down, missing her by a hair’s breadth, but he was inexorably backing her towards the wall, and she was running out of room to escape him. Though he was engulfed in flame now, and shrieking in agony, he showed no sign of stopping. If he struck again—
‘Curse you all, the Stone is MINE!’ Hellorin, the Forest Lord, stepped through the wall of the fastness as easily as Ghabal had done. He too had grown to a gigantic size, and looked at the Windeye with contempt as he flung a bolt of dark energy at the Moldan that knocked him back against the wall. ‘I owe you my thanks, Xandim.’ His voice was mocking. ‘In taking the Fialan from this fool, you opened the way for me to enter his fastness. You really have done me a great favour. You and your little Wizard friend have weakened him enough to make him easy game. And after I have finished with him, I will deal with you.’
He turned back to the screaming fireball that was the Moldan - but in succumbing to the irresistible urge to taunt the Windeye, he had delayed too long. Ghabal launched himself at the Forest Lord, and as the two of them grappled, the fire spread to Hellorin . . .
Corisand took her chance. Diving past them, she shrank down to her normal size. Darting to where Iriana lay, she grasped the Wizard’s hand firmly in her own and called on the powers of the Fialan. ‘Now. You know the way. Please take us home.’
She was snatched up in a whirlwind of green power, the energy of the Stone, with Iriana at her side. Suddenly Iriana’s hand tightened in hers and her urgent thought filled the Windeye’s mind. ‘Your shape. Hold on to your human shape.’
It was difficult - she could feel her body wanting to morph back into the form of a horse - but Iriana, weak and injured as she was, added power of her own.
The shape held firm.
The spinning vortex set them down.
They were back in their own world, where they had started, on the lakeshore next to Athina’s island. And gripped tightly in the Windeye’s hand, the Stone of Fate, on its serpent staff, coruscated with a fierce and joyous energy, and sang a song of celebration of its own. Long ages ago it had been imprisoned by the Moldan. Now it was free, with a new keeper in a whole new world. The possibilities were endless.
EPILOGUE
Athina, with the shimmering ghostly shape of Avithan’s consciousness by her side, looked into the Timeless Lake and saw the two friends, Windeye and Wizard, sitting in the kitchen of the Cailleach’s tower. Dael, his face beaming at their safe return, was cooking them a gargantuan meal. They both looked bedraggled and exhausted, and though Iriana had already worked some healing magic on herself, her bruises would take a while to fade.
Nonetheless, they seemed content. Iriana, blind once more, was cradling Melik on her lap, while Corisand held the precious Fialan and its staff.
‘Athina must have snatched him safely back,’ Iriana was saying. ‘We Wizards can feel the death of another, especially if it’s someone we’re close to. I know he’s still alive. And one day I’m going to find him.’ She blushed a little. ‘There in the cavern - he said he loved me.’
‘I hope she does find a way back to me.’ Avithan’s ghostly face creased in a smile. ‘I do love her, you know.’