Kirah tried to break the bond that held his eyes to hers, but the power that gripped her was as old as sorcery and far stronger. She could only manage a nod.
'Together, we can make Guerrand come forward and face what he has done," Lyim said smoothly. 'Together, we can end the suffering." He reached into his brown shroud and withdrew a flask. "This is the antidote I traveled to Mithas to secure. It prevents those with symptoms of the disease from dying, though it won't cure the mutations. And it keeps those without symptoms from contracting the illness. Guerrand will surely come forward when he realizes we've foiled his plot."
Still on one knee and holding Kirah's gaze, Lyim pressed the flask into her small hands. "I have just enough with me for you, Kirah," he intoned. "You must take it. For me."
Chapter Ten
Lyim had forgotten how menacing Wayreth forest looked. Tbe trees and bushes were all hideously twisted, casting sinister shadows. The distant sounds of wolves and bears didn't make the forest feel any more inviting, either.
He noticed these things, but he wasn't frightened by the forest, never had been. Right now he could think only of how his calf muscles were starting to cramp. He'd been waiting behind the underbrush outside the gates of Wayreth for days, ever since he'd teleported here directly upon leaving Kirah. Growing annoyed with waiting, he shifted to relieve the pressure on his legs, never taking his eyes from the elaborate gateway to the stronghold of magic.
Lyim resolved to give Guerrand's nephew until sunset to make it to the tower; the Council would recess then until the next day. After that he'd place a magical sentinel to watch for the young man's arrival. If the country boy ever made it, thought Lyim, knowing he could not have missed him already. It would take a non- mage more than a week to reach Wayreth from Northern Ergoth. Still, the discomfort would be worth the wait to Lyim if Bram got into Wayreth and persuaded the Council to send him to Bastion. It was the best change Lyim had for entering the stronghold himself.
The wizard had taken the plague to Thonvil, hoping to draw Guerrand from Bastion. Lyim had reasoned that if he watched Thonvil closely and witnessed Guerrand's magical arrival, he might find a clue to entering the impenetrable stronghold. But Kirah's revelation about her nephew's departure for Wayreth to find Guerrand had given the wizard another idea. A far superior and more expedient idea.
Lyim still tingled when he recalled how his mind had raced to conceive a plan that would take him all the way into the forbidden stronghold and cure his hand. Or kill him trying. But Lyim was no more afraid of that than of the forest behind him.
It was all within Lyim's grasp, if only the nephew's quest was successful. The wizard waited and watched with patience borne of hope. A few would-be wizards came and went; half of the latter were dragged away by dwarves, Lyim knew, because they had failed their Test. None of them met Lyim's mental image of Guerrand's nephew; most were either younger than Bram would be, or of a different race.
The wizard wasn't even aware he'd slipped into a shallow slumber of boredom until he was jolted awake for seemingly no good reason. Nothing had touched him; no one else had appeared before the tower. And yet, some sense told him that the air around the tower was somehow different, charged. He was instantly alert.
Lyim blinked. When his eyes opened again-it was that quick-a young man stood looking up with surprised awe at the gates of gold and silver. Though magical entrances were more common than not at Wayreth, this one seemed different, as if the young man himself were surprised to be here.
The man in the heavy cloak turned to look at the forest that hid Lyim, giving the wizard a good look at his profile. The resemblance to Guerrand in hair color and facial shape was remarkable.
Lyim smiled. He had only to wait and monitor the towers for significant external radiations of magical
energy. He was as good as in Bastion already.
The gates of gold and silver before Bram were so masterfully crafted they looked as thin as cobwebs. The gates adjoined a wall in the shape of an equilateral triangle, with a small guard tower at each point. Odd, unfamiliar symbols were carved upon the surface of the dark stone, symbols that suggested the strength of the earth even to those with no power to read them. There were no battlements on the smooth-topped obsidian walls. Bram presumed the wizards who gathered there had little use for such mundane protection.
Beyond the gated wall, twin towers of polished black obsidian pierced the forest roof. He turned to glance around, but the forest here looked and felt so oddly malevolent that he quickly returned his attention to the structure. The gates were open, so he strode slowly through them, eyes attempting to look everywhere at once. The courtyard was stark and barren, paved with cold gray flagstone. Though he could see no one, he had the vague feeling that he was not alone, as if the vard were teeming with people rushing to and fro. Turning quickly, he thought he saw a face and the upturned collar of a white robe, but then it was gone. He shook his head, knowing the vision was impossible. Other than himself, he could see no one in the flagstone courtyard.
Bram walked toward the only door in a small fore- tower between the twin columns. At his approach the door abruptly flew back. Though no one appeared, it was obvious he was expected to step inside, and so he did. Smokeless torches provided dim illumination inside the simple, circular room. Three doors led from the room at equidistant points in the circle. Opposite the door an empty row of chairs followed the curve of the wall. Inside his still-new boots, Bram's feet had begun to throb, so he slipped over to the row of chairs and lowered himself into one. Bram unconsciously tapped his foot while he waited for someone to arrive to direct him.
And waited. Had he overlooked some bell or buzzer new arrivals were expected to ring? Bram squinted in the dark, spotted a simple wooden stand in the shadows to the left of the door, but it held only a thick, much-used book from the look of the binding. He drummed his fingers on the armrests.
Many more anxious moments passed, and Bram began to debate whether he should pick a door and go looking for someone. Perhaps he should just leave.
He had just risen to do so when the door to his left opened abruptly with a noisy creak, and from it emerged a man in a white robe, pushing a broom, his head bent to the task. Actually, Bram only assumed it was a man, since all he could see was the top of the person's tilted head, hair slicked down and carefully arranged so that each toothmark of the comb was still visible.
"Pardon me, my good man," Bram tried to say, but his voice was phlegmy from lack of use this day. The words came out sounding like something a chicken might croak.
The man's head shot up. Spying Bram in the shadows, he whirled his broom about and held its handle like a spear. "Speak the common tongue or be sausage!" he threatened. The man was old, his skin ash-gray, as were the fingers that trembled upon his mock weapon.
Bram cleared his throat and summoned the words he had been rehearsing since Northern Ergoth. "I have traveled far to speak with the wizard named Par- Salian."
The man smacked his lips in thinly veiled impatience. "You've come too late in the day for Testing, or to declare an alignment. The Council of Three has recessed for the day." He continued to sweep, pausing expectantly when he came to the floor under Bram's feet.
The young man stepped from the broom's path. "I don't know anything about Testing or alignments," said Bram. "I need Par-Salian's help."
"Come back tomorrow," the man said, shooing Bram toward the exit with a wave of a blue-veined hand.