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A scream-"Sunbright!" — jerked both fighters around.

There in the road shimmered a gilt-edged portal like a ring around the sun. Swooping from the middle came a huge yellow glob only vaguely man-shaped, with arms and head. The jellyfish arms had enfolded Ruellana and were dragging her toward the shimmering portal. She fought valiantly, but striking the blob only resulted in her hands and arms sinking into it, entrapping her.

"Sunbright!" she screamed. "Stay away! Save yourself-" Yellow fingers clamped down over her mouth. Headfirst, she was yanked into the shrinking portal.

Unsheathing Harvester as he ran, Sunbright dove and grabbed and latched on to Ruellana's boot with his free hand. He might as well have grabbed the reins of a double team of plow horses. Smothered in yellow ectoplasm, the woman was hauled steadily into the glittering portal.

Hanging on doggedly to Ruellana's slippery boot, Sunbright stabbed along the length of the woman's struggling body, frantic not to jab her accidentally. But Harvester's fine point slid into the mass without striking anything, and the blade came out clean.

Greenwillow ran to the barbarian's side, grabbed his arm, and tugged. Most of Ruellana, kicking and writhing, had slid inside the blob, so only her legs below the knees remained.

"Let go!" the elf shrilled. "You can't help her!"

"I can go with her!"

"No! Don't! We'll find another way to rescue her!" There was fear in Greenwillow's voice.

"I can't… desert her now!" Sunbright grunted. "I didn't desert… you!"

"But she's not what she seems!" the elf wailed. "Please, don't-"

"Get to Dalekeva!" Sunbright roared. "I'll meet you!"

Then, hanging on to only a foot, he lunged headfirst at the portal, now no bigger than his hips.

With a twinkle of golden light on his hobnailed boots, he was gone.

And Greenwillow was shrieking his name to empty air.

With the rough cloth of his sleeve, Candlemas polished the palantir again and again. "Unbelievable! How could she? It's unbelievable!"

High in his tower workshop, he pressed his nose against the black glass, but there was nothing to see except Greenwillow circling one spot, crying Sunbright's name, alone on the road near a city shedding smoke.

Moments earlier, the mage had chuckled in triumph, for he'd finally won. As the final bet, he'd wagered Sunbright could stand up to the One King, who was known to be as crazy as a bedbug and as unpredictable, and come away unscathed. Sunbright had not only faced down the king, but also destroyed him, or at least helped.

And inadvertently, Candlemas had penetrated the blank spot on his map. It turned out that the One King had set up wards to prevent scrying, so no one might learn he was undead. Clever, but more clever was Candlemas who, through his agent the barbarian, had made the One King bobble his wards. A red dragon dropping in tended to distract a body, alive or otherwise.

So Candlemas had killed two birds with one stone: he'd finally beaten Sysquemalyn and increased his knowledge. And knowledge, every mage knew, was the only lasting power.

But suddenly, out of nowhere, a shimmering portal had snatched away Sysquemalyn and his barbarian. "Unbelievable!"

"Like my little surprise?" came a laughing query.

The mage whirled to see Sysquemalyn, still dressed in her faux-pirate's garb, stride jauntily into his workshop with a thick book cradled in her arms. The woman raked back her red hair, which complemented her flushed cheeks, and wiggled her hips as she walked, making her sword harness jingle.

"I'm brilliant, am I not? And a fine actress! And even though your meaty barbarian is still alive, I've gotten the book the Big White Boar sought. So I win this round-"

"Shut up! Shut up! Stop jabbering! How did you get away?"

"Get away?" The woman blinked at his rudeness and confusion. "From what? Oh, the blob? I commanded it to yank me through the portal so what's-his-name would follow me! I made the fiend, silly. It's my servant."

"Made it? Your servant?"

"Don't mock me, Candlemas." Green eyes flashed beneath red brows. "I'll concede you won the second test, or whichever number this is, but now we're even again, so we'll defer our crude gratifications. Neither of us wants to be flayed alive, after all. So I've initiated another test, and the game continues-"

"Game?" Candlemas jammed his finger against the palantir. "You'd play a game there? I've never seen a portal like that, but I've read of them! It looks as if you opened a doorway into the Nine Hells! Is that true?"

The redheaded wizard replied with a tsk and a wave of the hand. "You're being petulant and picky. I think you're jealous!"

"So it's true." breathed the mage. "I can't believe even you could be that mad!"

"And I can't believe you're that boring. I'm leaving." She minced for the door, sword swinging in time to her red-striped hips. But she stopped and leveled a red-nailed finger at him. "Ken this, hedgehopper! I know perfectly well what I'm doing. I'm in complete control. And with what I'm learning, I'll soon be way beyond you, running an empire with the Dead White Fish emptying my chamber pots while you're still here dosing sick cows or whatever you-What?"

Seeing the horror on his face, she peered behind her.

A shimmering portal had opened in the workshop. From it flowed a giant that resembled a jaundiced genie. Its head was anvil-shaped, its mouth a gaping gash lined with jagged teeth, its eyes black holes like tears in a blanket. It was bright yellow.

One, two, then nine hooked arms rippled and wrapped around the quailing Sysquemalyn. In seconds, she was being dragged into the portal.

Face twisted in terror, she fought by both rattling off protection spells and grabbing at furniture, then by clawing for a hold in the cracks in the floor when she fell and struck her chin. The nine hooked hands mauled her, shredding leather and clothes and skin until blood spurted and hair tore.

Candlemas wanted to dive in to save her, or to utter a spell, or hurl a magical weapon. But he stood frozen by some unseen, unknown force and couldn't even blink.

Then the bleeding, sobbing Sysquemalyn was dragged through the portal, her red hair disappearing last. Her screams were cut off as the portal winked out.

Candlemas could move again, and the first thing he did was grab the table's edge to support his shaking legs. But even that comfort soured, for something flickered on its surface: the palantir.

Bidden to scry out sources of magic, the black glass globe now revealed a rocky field wherein another portal flickered open. Candlemas guessed the area was somewhere north of Tinnainen. But what magic was working there?

He bit his lip as the portal widened, disgorging a rolling ball of fire that splayed open like flaming oil. But this flame ran uphill, swarming over rocks and up a scrawny tree, igniting it like a torch. The flame continued onward, slithering around rocks and, upon touching a pool of water, evaporated it.

Hellfire, he thought. The real thing. But how…?

The globe flickered, revealing another magic source. Here was a field of rye, and above it, another portal. This one widened by hundreds of feet, then disgorged thousands of writhing maggots and grubs that spilled onto the field.

Another flicker, and a ghoulish arm poked from a portal, only to be sheared off as the spasming orifice winked shut. Another flicker, and the sea boiled to steam as more hellfire appeared underwater. Then another, and another, and another.

Never had Candlemas seen so much magic occur in so many different places at once. Toril-the whole world-had sprung hundreds of leaks.

Leaks from the Nine Hells.

Then a face materialized, a female mage whom Candlemas had met in the past, but whose name he'd forgotten. She shrilled, "If anyone can hear, in the name of the gods, send help! My caverns are overrun with trolls by the thousands! They're-" Her face disappeared. Moments later, a lesser mage flickered in, yelled Candlemas's name, and begged him to contact Lady Polaris and inform her that purple slime ran in rivers inside his manor, originating in his workshop.