"Where should I go?" Bram asked behind Guerrand, startling the mage.
"Back to my apartments," said the high defender. Saving his spell energy for what lay ahead, Guerrand didn't teleport the short distance, but instead headed on foot to the red wing to collect his own magical equipment.
Bram ran at his side to the laboratory. "You don't really expect me to go back to sleep, do you? Perhaps I can help."
Che CDedusA plague
"Frankly, and I mean no offense," Guerrand said distractedly while he scraped flasks and pouches directly into the sack he held to the lab's shelves, "we three defenders have practiced for defense. I don't see that there's much you can do but get in the way of that. You have no magical skill to defend yourself, and I'd have to spend my thoughts worrying about your safety."
"I'm not totally useless," his nephew said. "I managed to find you, didn't I?"
Guerrand grasped Bram by the his well-muscled shoulders and gave him five heartbeats of his attention. He had hoped to anger Bram enough to put him off, and had planned another short speech to refuse his help. But then the mage saw the determination in his nephew's eyes.
"All right," he sighed, "but stay low behind me, and do exactly as I tell you, when I tell you." He gave Bram a brief, bittersweet smile. "I'd rather face four seasoned mages than Rietta with the news that I'd let something happen to you."
With that, he patted Bram on the back, grabbed the sack stuffed with spell components, and bolted back down the hall. He practically kicked in the door to the storeroom, then squeezed himself sideways between the right wall and the floor-to-ceiling shelves, seeking the stairway to the red wing's watch walk.
Guerrand located the secret release, the door slid back, and he plunged up the steps. Another door flew open at the top and both men emerged into the windless, dark air outside Bastion. Guerrand stopped briefly and listened for the exact location of the hounds: they were just beyond the front gate. With Bram still at his heels, he took the left branch of the narrow widow's walk that circled the exterior of the nave.
They came to the wider balcony at the front of Bastion, above the apse and behind the facade. Guerrand reached into his sack and withdrew several rings and bracelets. He immediately slipped one of each on, then handed the same to Bram. "Get down, and stay down," he commanded his nephew. Donning the ring and bracelet without question or even knowing why, the young man reluctantly dropped to his knees, where he peered through the wrought-iron bars into the darkness.
Guerrand scanned the nearby pointed gables of the white wing and the smooth, flat ledges of the red and black sections. The hideous, winged creatures who posed as downspouts on the stronghold were in place, eyes shifting watchfully. The shadows of topiaries in the courtyard were as frightening as ever, but looked undisturbed.
All signs of intrusion still came from beyond the ornate wrought-iron fence. No longer muffled by Bastion's walls, the sounds of snarling, shrieking hounds cut both men to the core. The vicious barking and snapping changed abruptly to high-pitched squeals of pain, then nothing. The silence that followed was deafening.
Heart hammering, Guerrand looked for Ezius above the white wing to his left. He was reassured by the mage's presence, but he prayed to Lunitari that he would not have to witness Ezius's skills in battle now.
"What's happening? Where are the hounds?" whispered Bram.
"Dead." Guerrand knew it as surely as he knew anything. Only death would have silenced their howls.
Several anxious moments passed before a burst of flame cleared away a knot of brush before the fence. As the smoke and ashes parted, Guerrand saw a man riding on the back of a hell hound. The creature, obviously in torment, quivered beneath the man's cruel grip. But the shock of this sight was nothing compared to the surge of adrenalin in the high defender's system
OK COcimsA pUguc
when he recognized Lyim Rhistadt on the monster's back.
Guerrand recalled the Council's edict to capture intruders for tribunal whenever possible. He fired a telepathic message to the white mage, who was already rummaging in his pack in preparation of a spell.
Hold off firing, Ezius, until my command. The high defender saw the pale-haired mage nod, though Ezius's expression was obviously puzzled.
"Good evening, Guerrand," Lyim said conversationally. "Or is it morning here?" He swung the beast beneath him around like a horse, though it belched flames. "It's impossible to tell."
"I see you've defied the odds and found your way here." Guerrand cursed his voice for shaking. "What is it you expect to get for your trouble, Lyim?"
"Men give up many things willingly," proclaimed Lyim. "Their fortunes, their loves, their dreams… Power, never. It must be taken. You gave up all those things for power, Guerrand. Your power here at Bastion robbed me of the chance to restore my hand and my life to normal. Now I've come to seize your power." The hell hound fidgeted beneath Lyim. "But then, you knew the answer to your question before you asked it."
"And you know the answer I will give," Guerrand said evenly. "I cannot and will not violate the laws of Bastion for any mage."
"Not even for an old friend who gave his hand for your life?"
"We've gone over this, Lyim," Guerrand said grimly. "To do what you ask would put every mage on Krynn at risk. I would give my hand for yours, if I could, but I cannot grant entrance to Bastion. Only the Council of Three can do that. Did you petition them as I suggested?"
"I told you before, asking those three wouldn't have done any good." Lyim laughed bitterly. "It would only have tipped my hand, so to speak. They would have been watching me, and then I couldn't have followed the nephew who cowers behind you."
Lyim chuckled again at the sight of Guerrand's surprise. "Of course I know about Bram's presence here, Rand. I attached myself to the slipstream of the spell that sent him here. Now I find myself in the awkward position of being thankful that the Council made an exception for him that they would never have made for me."
"The Council didn't let Bram in for his sake, but for the welfare of Northern Ergoth and beyond," said Guerrand. "That's the difference between you and the Council. For the sake of one person-yourself-you spread a deadly plague in Thonvil."
"Never defend, that's always been my motto," said Lvim, idly twisting the gemstone he wore in his left earlobe. "You must seize what you want from life. If destroying everything you ever cared about was the only way to draw you out of Bastion, then it was worth it to me. Unfortunately, you seemed neither to notice, nor to care, nor to act."
Guerrand held his anger in check with great effort, unwilling to let it cloud his thinking or his judgment. He clung to the hope that Lyim would surrender. "So vou intend to storm Bastion, one mage against three. That sounds like suicide."
"Whether or not we fight here has always been up to vou, Rand, but beware. I am much more powerful and cunning than when we were apprentices," warned Lyim.
"You blocked detection from our scrying," observed Guerrand, just beginning to understand the measure of the other wizard's skill.
Lyim lifted the lapels of the transparent cloak that cv CDebusa Plague
covered his red robe. "I make it a point to plan for all possibilities and seize all chances."
He pretended to be struck with a sudden thought. "Speaking of opportunities, did Bram tell you that your sister Kirah is looking well, despite the plague?"
"You saw Kirah?" demanded Bram, standing. "When?"