"No, but we do know that almost everything within these walls is magical. Tarl was the right person to lead us at Sokol Keep. I'm the right person to lead us through the red mage's tower."
Once again Shal left no room for question. She turned again and went through the meeting hall to the door from which the red robe had emerged. The horse, the two men, and the red robe followed.
The door opened into a splendid, almost palatial landing at the foot of a great, broad soapstone staircase. The floor was inset with tourmaline, amber, amethyst, aventurine, and other semiprecious stones. A brilliant light beneath the stones shone through their translucent surface, creating a glorious speckling of many-hued rays that colored the walls in a dazzling display. The whole party stopped for a moment to admire it.
When Shal finally started up the stairs, a ruby-colored cloud, in the image of the red mage himself, formed on the staircase.
Tarl didn't recognize Denlor. The only contact he'd had with such cloudlike visages had been with the wraiths that had killed so many of his brothers in the graveyard. He charged past Shal and would have challenged the ghostly vapors had not Shal caught hold of his armor and used all her recently acquired strength to stop him.
"Poison! It's poison, Tarl!" shouted Shal, hauling him back. "It's a poison image of the master of this tower!" Tarl looked sheepish, and she softened her voice. "I'm sorry, but I must insist that you let me go first. I welcome your company, and I can use your help, but as I said to Ren, this is my mission."
Even as Shal spoke, the cloud expanded, spreading its deadly haze down the stairway. Both Shal and Tarl started to cough.
Shal held her breath and concentrated, then spoke the words she'd heard from Denlor. "Lysiam calentatem, Denlor."
The cloud dissipated immediately, and the wide soap-stone stairway once more stood vacant. Shal started up again but stopped when she heard Cerulean's whimper inside her head.
She spun around, very nearly bumping into Ren and Tarl, who were following close behind her. "What is your problem?" she exclaimed, her eyes blazing.
Tarl and Ren, who were both feeling less and less comfortable about their roles in this venture, looked up at her and started stammering in unison.
"No!" Shal shook her head furiously and pointed down the stairs in disgust. "Not you-him! He's whimpering in my ear like some sick child!"
Surely you can see that I could slip and kill myself on this treacherous staircase, Mistress!
"Stairs don't come any broader or shallower than these, Cerulean," Shal answered in a tone that was decidedly lacking in patience.
The horse continued to stand at the bottom of the stairs, shaking its head and whickering and stamping one front hoof. Bathed in the colorful lights from the stone floorway, he looked like some child's giant stuffed toy.
Shal pulled the indigo cloth from her belt and started down the stairs, holding it out in front of her.
No, not that! Cerulean pleaded. You may need me. Just make me small and carry me up.
Shal's eyes glinted for a fleeting moment. "If I make you small, will your voice be small, too?" She didn't wait for a reply. She concentrated for a moment and said the words for a Reverse Enlargement spell. A cat-sized Cerulean instantly appeared, looking pathetic at the bottom of the stairs, overshadowed by the hovering robe. Shal strode down the stairs, slapped her hip a couple of times, and called, "Here, boy! Here, boy!" as if she were calling a dog.
That's low. That really hurts! came the first of the mental barrage Shal knew would follow. But at least the voice was small, an irritating buzz at best.
Shal picked up the flailing miniature horse and climbed to where Ren and Tarl were still standing, looking more than a little bewildered.
"Would you take him?" she asked Ren, holding out the kicking animal. "I need to keep my hands free to cast spells."
Ren's mouth was open, but no words came out. Shal immediately headed back up the stairway.
"I thought rangers liked horses," said Tarl, jabbing Ren with one elbow.
Ren leveled a gaze at Tarl that might have turned him to ashes, but the cleric only grinned more broadly.
Ren stuffed Cerulean up under his left arm and clamped him against his side in a near rib-breaking grip. Of course, he had no way of hearing the horse's hysterical complaints, and Shal wasn't paying any attention.
As Shal reached the top of the staircase, the red robe swished ahead of her and stood beyond the stairway, waiting. Shal looked back toward her friends and shrugged. "I think we have a new guide."
The robe remained still, flitting nervously, till everyone got to the top of the stairs, which ended in the foyer to a large dining room. Like the meeting hall downstairs, the dining room was rhombus-shaped and appeared to serve as the hub of the second level. Set in walls to the right and left were two shiny brass doorways, both of which showed signs of recent battering. Straight ahead was another doorway that they could only assume led to the third level. But the red robe did not leave the room; instead, it whisked to the mammoth walnut table at its center and stopped over the high-backed head chair.
"Look-ashes," Shal said as she reached the chair. "Denlor must have died here."
"At the table?" asked Tarl.
"While he was sitting down to a meal, apparently with two other people.," said Ren, pointing to the haphazard place settings.
"Two? Who do you suppose-" Shal started to ask, but Tarl interrupted.
"What could possibly turn a man to ashes in his chair?" he asked, watching the robe hover over the remains of its owner.
Shal shrugged. "Denlor was terrified by the idea of having his body eaten by the creatures that swarmed around this place." Shal paused, remembering once again the horror and helplessness Denlor had communicated through the crystal. She told how he had used every magical resource at his disposal, and how the monsters must have climbed over their own dead to press through his defenses.
She went on. "When Ranthor reached Denlor, all kinds of snarling, slavering beasts had probably already entered the tower. Denlor and Ranthor must have stood side by side, casting spells till they had no more energy left, trying to purge this place of hundreds of monsters like we saw stacked outside the tower."
Tarl was moved by Shal's explanation, especially her description of Denlor's feelings as the beasts kept coming and coming, but he repeated his question. "But how was he turned to ashes? By what?"
"By himself," Shal answered. "I'm almost certain he set a spell into place to-" she hesitated to say the word-"to cremate himself at the instant of death so no beast would feed on his corpse." The thought of the venerable wizard dying at his own dinner table and then bursting into flames like a body on some sacrificial pyre brought tears to Shal's eyes. "The wizard locks and magical energies we encountered, the red gas on the stairway-those were probably all activated by Denlor's death, too."
"Wouldn't bursting into flames leave whatever killed Denlor in pretty rough shape?" Ren asked.
"Perhaps," Shal said. "I don't know for sure." She remembered that when the parchment Ranthor left for her burst into magical flames, no harm whatsoever came to the desk. "It would depend on Denlor's intent. If he wanted the flame to burn the things around it, I think the chair and table would have caught fire, or at least they'd show some sign of damage." She shook her head. "A wizard of his talents might be able to make the flame burn flesh and not objects. I just don't know."
Tarl was still looking at the robe. "What about the robe?"
"Like I said before, I suppose that his spell may have been designed to burn flesh only."