The mage prided himself on his good planning. But he was also dependent upon a measure of luck for having gotten this far. It had been the greatest good fortune that the high defender's nephew had taken him away, giving the mage time to prepare his spells before anyone questioned his activities with the red-robed corpse.
Dead? Hah! The mage in the white robe pressed two fingers to the death-cool left wrist of the body that lay beneath him upon the cold marble slab. A reedy pulse, slowed to a tenth its normal rate, was barely detectible against the warm index and third digits of his right hand. What a delicious sensation was feeling a pulse through fingers, thought the mage, though it had taken some time to readjust to having a right hand at all.
But not as long as it had taken to get accustomed to looking at one's own body through the eyes of another. Lyim had never noticed the small ring of moles at the nape of his own neck, or that his chin in profile receded slightly. Maybe he'd just been too consumed in recent years with the monstrosity at the end of his right arm to notice anything else. Unconsciously, Ezius's dark eves were turned by Lyim's darker mind to the diamond stone piercing Lyim's left lobe.
The magic jar spell that made all this possible could not have worked more flawlessly. In Villa Nova, before his final attack upon Bastion, Lyim had chosen the diamond ear stud to be the receptacle, briefly, for his life- force, because he felt certain a small earring was likely to remain with his body, unlike a larger, more ostentatious piece of jewelry. Besides, he doubted the mages at Bastion were looters.
It had been a relatively simple thing, then-a matter of timing in the heat of the battle Lyim had forced-to transfer his essence to the diamond ear stud. His body had collapsed as if slain, while his life-force went into the gem.
It had been Ezius's bad luck that brought him first to inspect Lyim's body. Seizing the moment, Lyim jumped his life-force from the gem into Ezius's body, simultaneously forcing Ezius's body into imprisonment in the diamond. The spell had been instantaneous and seamless; no one else could have detected the process.
That was why there had been no reason to question the white mage's offer to carry the body of the "slain" red mage into the white wing of Bastion for burial. As Lyim had hoped, Guerrand had been too overwrought by the battle to question Ezius's offer. The Black Robe obviously hadn't cared to deal with the body of a mage not from her order, which was just as well, from Lyim's perspective, though it might have been interesting to inhabit the body of a woman.
It had all worked so smoothly that Lyim had struggled to keep from smiling when, with the Black Robe and Rand, he had carried his own body up the stairs and into the sacred halls of Bastion. As Ezius, he fought
against gaping in wonder, since none of it would have seemed new to the White Robe. Fortunately, they'd left him at the door to his wing, which allowed him to familiarize himself in private. Lyim's first task had been to place protections on the door.
Only later had Lyim learned from Dagamier that Rand had left Bastion to battle the medusa plague. Rand's absence had been the greatest gift, giving Lyim precious time to lay the groundwork for recreating the events that had mutated his hand. He had hoped to be done with the preparations sooner, but of course everything took longer when you were working in someone else's laboratory, not to mention body.
The magic jar gave Lyim the option of keeping Ezius's body, with its two good hands, but he had no interest in living very long in anyone's body but his own. Ezius's was stiffened with age and a level of inactivity to which Lyim was unused, and his eyesight was good only through the use of thick lenses. Still, Lyim needed to keep himself locked within Ezius's form now for one very important reason: two hands were needed to make the complex motions required by the spell that would cure his hand.
Soon, he told himself, the hideous snake would be gone, and he would have his own form again. Lyim used the thoughts to give himself energy for the tasks that still lay ahead.
There were no moons at Bastion to worry about aligning, nor did he need to anchor a cross-dimensional bridge. Thanks to the meddling of the Conclave of Wizards, Bastion was at a dimensional crossroads, the only one that gave access to the Lost Citadel. But, unlike his master before him, Lyim had no intention of entering the Lost Citadel; he wished only to open exactly the same sequence of pathways unlocked by Belize, then insert his arm so that it crossed the snake-creature's plane. Only upon seeing its home would the reptile flee from Lyim's body, allowing the limb to return to its natural form.
Lyim thought he heard Guerrand howl Ezius's name outside the wing's entrance. He turned his mind to casting the most important spell of his life.
Ezius's hands summoned a swirling sphere of flame. The ball writhed between his fingers, twisting, flickering, contained only by Lyim's will. With intense concentration the mage turned and extended his arms so that the ball of energy hovered over his physical body on the marble slab.
The flickering globe flared angrily and swelled to twice its previous size. Its eerie light shimmered on the clean surfaces in the all-white laboratory.
Next, Lyim drew a succession of vials and containers he had placed for this purpose upon the shelves. He tossed each into the swirling inferno, just as Belize had done those years ago next to the stone plinths. He muttered arcane phrases and completed the specified hand gestures-one short slice with the right hand, both hands slowly circling thrice. The fiery globe grew steadily larger until its shape began to change, to flatten and stretch into an oval. The swirling mass yawned open with an unbearable, purplish light.
Lyim looked through Ezius's bespectacled eyes at the hated appendage covered in scales of brown, red, and gold, patterned symmetrically in rings and swirls. Without hesitation, he commanded Ezius's hand to raise the silent snake arm and plunge it toward the wall of whirling hues.
There was no soul within Lyim's body to scream this time, or to writhe in pain. But through Ezius's hands Lyirri could feel the limb thrashing, could sense the unworldly energy blazing through it. The memory of the flood of agony, undimmed by the intervening tbe CDcdusA plague
decade, surged to life again. But now he was steeled by years of striving, and he would let no scream pass his lips.
Lyim recalled his master's words as if they'd been spoken just yesterday: "These portals frequently contain the undead remains of centuries' worth of unsuccessful adventurers. They jump like starving fleas upon the first fresh traveler they meet."
Lyim knew there would be no new creatures waiting in the passage, since Bastion had blocked this dimensional portal almost since the disaster at Stonecliff. A decade of curiosity about what happened beyond prompted Lyim to bring Ezius's head nearer the opening he'd created in the plane.
The mage was astonished when the incandescent curtain of swirling light parted for him like an opening eye. Beyond it lay a passage, a tunnel bored through the dimensions. The walls, floor, and ceiling pulsed with electrical energy and twisted and writhed like a living thing.
A creature thrashed below him. Lyim immediately recognized the snakelike head next to a pale, limp arm. But the snake's thick, fur-covered body supported by thousands of red-veined fingers made Lyim gasp. It was impossible to tell how long the creature was, with its coils lapped one atop another in thoughtless loops. Rather than slithering, the monster wound its bulk sideways as if rolling down an incline, and disappeared through the tunnel wall into whatever unknown dimension lay outside, leaving behind a faintly glowing trail.