"But it did," the novice said, "and as soon as she was a person and the spell both, she grabbed Master Zaras and he fell down. I think the shock of the cold stopped his heart. Then a shadow squirmed into his ear, and he got up again and reached to hurt someone else.
"Half of us were either changed or dead and changed in less time than it takes to tell it. I ran and hid. That's all I know."
"What about this piece of ground, and the others like it, rising into the air?" Tammith asked.
"What? What are you talking about?"
She realized he truly had no idea. He'd been in the chest when the phenomenon began. "You'll see in due course," she said. "For now, don't worry about it."
"We're leaving," Bareris said.
"Without searching the rest of the building or any of the other islands?" she asked.
"Yes. We've seen and heard enough to know what's happening here, and it's not the enemy laying a trap for us. It's the lingering effect of the blue fire tainting the earth. We'll tell the tharchions, and they can decide what to do about it. We don't need-"
"Something's coming," said the sentry at the door.
Tammith rushed to his side and looked down the gallery. Most likely the sentry could only perceive a shadow shuffling in the gloom, but a vampire's eyes saw more clearly. It was a Red Wizard approaching, lurching and flopping as if half his bones were broken.
Yet somehow he contrived to hobble faster, even as he started to shudder. A whine arose, not from his throat, but from all of him. Tammith inferred that he had absorbed a sound-producing magic, and the power was manifesting. Tongues of blue fire licked around his body.
She stepped onto the walkway, stared into his eyes, and tried to stifle his will. It was no use. Perhaps he had some sort of sentience remaining, but she couldn't even feel his mind, let alone grab hold of it.
The droning abruptly swelled into a deafening roar. The gallery shook, and focused noise smashed into Tammith like a battering ram, flinging her onto her back.
She felt broken bones, and her muscles were pulped. She'd heal in a few moments, but she might not have them. The whine rose in another crescendo.
Bareris scrambled onto the balcony and sang at their foe. The wizard below flailed and collapsed. The power of the bard's voice had dissolved the possessing force inside him.
Bareris crouched over Tammith. "Can you walk?" he asked, and she barely understood the words. The howling attack had nearly deafened her. But her ears would recover as quickly as the rest of her.
"Yes," she said.
"Then get up." He hauled her to her feet. "We're going now. If we can believe the apprentice, there are more of those things, and I likely won't find it as easy to put down the ones inhabited by something other than sound."
As they started their scurry back to the staircase, she saw that they were leaving the sentry behind. Peering around the doorframe, he'd caught only the fringe of the attack sent at her, but it had been sufficient to snap his neck.
The young evoker kept balking as if he'd rather retreat to the illusory safety of the chest. A legionnaire cursed him and shoved him along.
"I should have sensed the creatures," Tammith said, drawing her sword. Her leg throbbed when it took her weight, but the next step was better.
"Not if they were undetectable," Bareris said. "It's a big building, and those things were keeping quiet." He halted abruptly, causing some soldiers to bump into the comrades in front of them.
Shrouded in a wavering blue glow, a robed woman strode along the second-floor gallery. She was in position to block the stairs connecting the lower walkway with their own.
A second staircase lay farther away, but when Tammith peered in that direction, she saw other glowing blue figures, on her level and the ones below. The patrol couldn't avoid confrontation by doubling back. It would only cost them precious time.
Bareris turned to his men. "Get to the top of the stairs, and make a lot of noise. Your job is to keep the mages looking up the steps." He pivoted to Tammith. "You and I will fly or drop down to the next level and hit the wizard while she's distracted."
"I understand," she said. As the soldiers tramped on, speaking loudly, she broke apart into bats and Bareris sang a charm.
She flew out under the skylight. Bareris swung himself over the balcony and plummeted. For an instant, it appeared he'd run afoul of the malaise that rendered magic unreliable, but then the enchantment he'd cast slowed his descent.
Tammith swooped down beside the female wizard. From a distance, the evoker had seemed adequately clad in the usual robe, but in fact, the garment had burned to tatters. So had the skin and flesh beneath, corroded by a fluid seeping from within. The same process shrouded the woman in eye-stinging vapor and charred her footsteps into the floor.
Tammith had no desire to bring any part of her body into contact with the acid or the blue flames flowing across the wizard's form. Better to use her blade. She flew behind the possessed woman, then jerked her several bodies into one.
The wizard evidently heard the flutter of wings or sensed the threat somehow, because she pivoted, but by that time, Tammith was ready for her. She drove her sword into the woman's torso.
Though the evoker collapsed to her knees, the stroke didn't kill or cripple her. She opened her mouth wide, and, guessing what was about to happen, Tammith leaped high into the air. Because she had, the torrent of acidic spew caught only her legs, dissolving pieces of armor and boot and searing the flesh beneath.
Pain flared, and kept burning when she landed in a pool of the corrosive liquid, which immediately started eating through the soles of her boots and into her feet. Unfortunately, she had nowhere else to plant them if she wanted to remain within striking distance of her foe. She cut the evoker again, then Bareris floated down into view. He grabbed the railing at the foot of the steps, heaved himself onto the stairs behind the possessed woman, and drove his glowing sword into her spine.
It took several more blows to finish the evoker, but at last she toppled forward onto her face. Bareris peered at Tammith. "Are you all right?"
"Stop asking me that!" she snapped. "You cut my head off and chopped it to pieces. If that didn't destroy me-" Something shifted in his stony face. Perhaps it was the slightest suggestion of a wince. At any rate, it made her falter. "Never mind. We have to keep moving."
"You're right." He looked to the top of the stairs and waved his arm, urging his men onward.
The scouts made it almost to the ground level before anything else maneuvered into position to attack them. But then luminous blue shadows darted across the floor below, moving to block the door.
Bareris shouted, "Everybody out! Get on your griffons and fly!" He sang five syllables and leaped like a grasshopper.
The prodigious jump carried him out onto the floor to intercept the possessed wizards before they could cut off the patrol's escape. He plainly hoped to keep them occupied long enough for everyone else to flee into the courtyard.
Tammith intended to do exactly that, for like any vampire, she cared first and always about her own well-being. Besides, even if she had felt the slightest twinge of regret at abandoning Bareris, he was commanding this venture, and she was supposed to follow his orders.
Instead, she rushed down and positioned herself beside him.
Another female evoker threw a blast of freezing cold from her outstretched hands, but even though it hit Tammith squarely, it wasn't more than she could bear. Snarling, she slashed at the possessed woman until she toppled.
Next came a wizard with yellow flame hissing from his mouth and nostrils, the true fire leaping amid tongues of eerie blue. His hands were burning, too, and he grabbed hold of her sword arm long enough to brand the print of his fingers into her flesh. She pulled free and gutted him.