"Well," said Tamlin, neatly parrying the attack, "judging from what I've read about your life, you were never the keenest swordsman. Besides, I suspect you have had little opportunity for practice over these past decades, relying as you have on the power you stole from me."
"Don't count on it, child." Aldimar attacked his legs, and Tamlin barely flew back in time to avoid a dire wound.
Despite his bravado, he knew he was at a disadvantage off the ground. He flew to the floor and turned to receive Aldimar's charge. His wily opponent circled to the left and above him, refusing to join Tamlin on the floor.
"Fledgling!" he cried. "You can only dream of flying. Surrender and let it end swiftly, or watch as I return to the Vanes and finish off your parents."
"No!" Tamlin flew up, furiously beating his opponent's blade to create an opening. "You're never going back there."
Aldimar laughed as he retreated up toward the door from which he'd arrived. Despite all the power of his will, Tamlin couldn't match his speed. Aldimar had his hand on the door as Tamlin landed on the high stairway.
"And how will you stop me?" Aldimar taunted as he pulled on the door latch.
It didn't budge.
"Well," said Tamlin, relief giving him new strength. "I suppose I could refuse to open the door. Among the many things you don't know is that I died to get here. I'm thinking that makes me the gatekeeper now, and that means you're going nowhere."
Aldimar fairly snarled as he glowered at his grandson, then he forced a laugh. Tamlin heard its falseness.
"I wonder what will happen when I kill you here," Aldimar said, "in the seat of our shared power."
He made a savage ballestra down the stairs, slashing at Tamlin's head.
Tamlin stepped away from the cut and riposted at Aldimar's wrist as the Sorcerer tried to recover. His blade slipped off the man's bracer and barely grazed his thumb. Still, Aldimar hissed like a man long unused to pain. He retreated to the top of the stairs, his back against the unyielding portal.
"I hope my father wasn't unduly fond of you," said Tamlin. "It would seem not, since he hardly ever mentions you. But then, my father is never one to dwell overmuch on failures."
He parried every attack with as much nonchalance as he could muster, grinning up at his counterpart with a cool facade despite the fear that churned in his heart.
Aldimar grew more frantic with every attack, slashing wildly at Tamlin's head and arms, and abandoning the use of his blade's point all together. Tamlin recognized the flaw in his attack and exploited it with quick, short thrusts after each parry, pinking Aldimar's thigh, then his shin and his foot. The tiny wounds did little harm, but they enraged his opponent beyond the last bastion of reason. Tamlin watched for the inevitable rush.
It wasn't long in coming. Aldimar bulled his way down the stairs. Tamlin immediately retreated, crouched low, and thrust up into the man's belly, just below the sternum. His blade sank deep into Aldimar's body, stopped briefly as his heart contracted around the wound, and pressed in inches farther as Tamlin renewed his thrust. He bent his elbow and followed his sword upward until he was face-to-face with the man who had stolen his appearance, his power, and his dreams.
"That's all for you, old man."
CHAPTER 26
"That's the third or fourth spookiest thing I've ever seen," said Chaney.
"Indeed," said Tamlin.
It gave him the chills to watch his own body dissolve at first into a transparent image of itself, then to a smoky shadow that slunk its way down the stairs. Tamlin watched it creep along until it came to a wide pair of doors that reminded him of those that lead to his mother's solar.
"What do you mean, 'third or fourth'?"
"Malveens," said Chaney. "Extra spooky."
"Ah."
"Where do you suppose those doors lead?"
"I have an idea… Someplace hot? With brimstone and pools of lava," ventured Tamlin.
He'd thought he might experience mixed emotions after the death of his grandfather, but his feelings remained refreshingly clear. The old pirate deserved a long draught of the torment he'd visited on others.
"Shall we take a peek?" asked Chaney.
"Why not?"
Tamlin joined the shade at the doors and opened them. Contrary to his guess, this particular hell was cold and dry. Aldimar fell howling into the ice, where his body melted into the shape of a fat, white, sluglike creature before it froze again, stuck to the windswept plane.
Tamlin closed the door behind him.
"Whew," said Chaney. "Sort of makes you want to go out and do good works, doesn't it?"
"Yea, verily," agreed Tamlin, with an inner earnestness that belied his flippant tone.
"Listen," said Chaney, "while you were busy dispatching your evil twin, I was doing some thinking. You found a window that showed your parents, right? What about your brother and sister?"
"Of course!" said Tamlin.
Even before he closed his eyes, he felt the thread of his desire coursing through the jigsaw Stormweather. He followed it to a skylight window. At Tamlin's touch, it showed an image of the solar back at Stormweather Towers.
"There," he whispered.
Talbot and Radu Malveen fought beneath the great blue stones of the waterfall. Their blades flashed faster than the eye could perceive, and Talbot's white shirt was already streaked with blood. Radu seemed untouched, except for a wide swath missing from his cloak.
A dagger whirled down from the top of the waterfall stones, toward the assassin's face. With a twitch of his blade, Radu deflected the missile effortlessly, without even glancing up at Tazi perched upon the rocks. Ignoring her, he pressed the attack on Talbot.
"Kill 'im, Tal!" Chaney shouted at the window. He looked at Tamlin. "We have to go back!"
"But I'm dead there," said Tamlin. "Even if I can open the door, won't I vanish for good if I try to go back?"
"I don't know," said Chaney, "but they need help."
"You're right, of course," said Tamlin.
He thought of home and followed the alluring path to a trapdoor at the base of the weird hall. Tamlin lifted it by its round iron ring, revealing the same strange blue stone that plugged the gate he found under the cellars.
"Uh oh," said Chaney. "I hope you don't need that key to get through."
"Me too," said Tamlin. "Maybe my blood is what activates it."
He cut the heel of his thumb with his sword and pressed the wound to the stone.
Nothing.
"Wait a second," said Chaney. "Aldimar was dead when he was trapped here, but somehow he had a body in that other world. That must have been your body, the one your dreams created. All along, you existed both in Selgaunt and in that other world-at least until he took over that one."
"Sure, but I just killed him… aha!"
"Exactly," said Chaney. "Your body here and your body there-they could be two separate things. When he came in here, he must have left it behind. Or in transit… or something like that."
"To get back home, I have to go to the other world first," concluded Tamlin.
He glanced back at the window to Stormweather Towers. Tal had just shattered Radu's blade, but the assassin caught the following cut between his left palm and his petrified right hand. He wrenched the sword away and shot a hard kick into Talbot's chest. The blow sent the bigger man flying across the wide room, out of range of the window.
Radu looked up at Tazi, who threw another knife at him. He blocked it with his ruined hand and poised to leap up at her.
"Hurry!" urged Chaney.
Tamlin flew to the portal through which Aldimar had appeared.
He blew a kiss to the ceiling as he opened the door and said, "Tymora, smile on me."
White radiance spilled out, blowing back his hair and conjured clothing even as it drew his essence out into another world.