The sullanciri flowed down to one knee and scooped a hand beneath the spell. His fingers contracted, raking through it. A similar color played through him. In an eyeblink he was standing full upright and the colors quickened as they flowed through him.
Most curious.
The dracomorph lifted a hand to suppress a yawn. “How so?”
He was undetected in the survey of Nawal. And the wand he is carrying is one I created and gave to Wheele. Wheele used it to slay an old acquaintance of mine.
Isaura studied the youth. The brown robe indicated his area of expertise was conveyance magick—though she admitted it could just have been the only color robe he could find. That he was from Vilwan and in a Murosan city was a bit of a curiosity. His moving into the dueling circle, which was a Murosan custom, was unusual, and his daring to challenge a sullanciri remarkable.
Young and very foolish, or young and wise beyond his years.
Corde, who yet stood in the circle, turned to face the youth. “I am Corde of the Aurolani Conservatory. I will face your challenge.”
No, Corde. Neskartu’s command barely brushed Isaura’s mind, but she felt a tingle. One kryalniri who had the misfortune of standing between the sullanciri and Corde caught the full brunt of it and fell twitching to the ground. It hit Corde hard, shaking her badly, but she bowed and withdrew to her own lines.
Naelros peeled his hood back and looked at the sullanciri. “You will accept this challenge?”
/ have no reason not to. He possesses that wand and clearly wishes to avenge Orla’s death. He cannot stand against me, and if he uses that wand, it will be his certain death. Without another comment, the sullanciri took a step forward with his left foot. In an eyeblink he was there, ten yards from the Adept, his colors rippling down his body in tigerish stripes.
Naelros shook his head. “So foolish.”
“That is not certain.”
The dracomorph’s forked tongue flicked out through the air for a moment. “Ah, you refer to the boy. I do not.”
Isaura watched Kerrigan intently. He was obese and awkward, yet there was something about him. Not anything attractive in any sexual sense. Some of the Murosans had intrigued her in that way, but in Kerrigan she had not the least flicker of interest. She realized, after a moment’s reflection, it was less because of his appearance than another sense she had of him.
One of kinship.
They were linked in some manner, but that feeling was completely outside her ability to understand. She felt as if she were trying to hear a color or taste a song. She had no means by which to identify what she was feeling.
Neskartu let his thoughts seep out in a circle. You are the youth. You may strike first.
Kerrigan shifted his shoulders, then clasped his hands on the wand at the small of his back. “I issued the challenge. Yours is the first strike.”
More laughter pulsed from the Aurolani lines.
Naelros’ nostrils flared. “I do smell fear from the boy, but not enough. Not nearly enough.”
Isaura shook her head. She could feel the power gathering around Neskartu. The sullanciri pulled from pure, strong flows, but only skimming bits and pieces of currents. What he was gathering would be strong, but merely a fraction of what he could have drawn were he open to the reality of magick. Neskartu’s right hand rose slowly, and his fingers flowed through a series of forms before he pointed his hand at Kerrigan and cast his first spell.
The argent brilliance of the attack did not surprise Isaura, for she knew the sullanciri would try to overwhelm his enemy at a shot. A jagged bolt of lightning as thick as her thigh sizzled through the air, crossing between the combatants in a heartbeat. Pure power burned the air, and snow melted into steam.
The bolt never hit the youth. It skittered wide, then curled back around, spawning smaller bolts the way a vine might sprout thorns. They stabbed at him with little silvery blades. Some curled and hooked, trying to rake over him, but none touched him. The lightning swirled around him faster and faster, tightening as if to crush him, but the silver slowly evaporated in an ectoplasmic fog that revealed Kerrigan unrumpled, unmoved, and unharmed.
Isaura reached out and could feel the dissipating energy of Neskartu’s spell, but she caught nothing of what Kerrigan had used to resist it. As a rule, like would have had to meet like. While a skilled magician might be able to block or deflect a spell using a lesser spell, that was a function of the defender’s superior knowledge of magick.
Which means he is so far above Neskartu that… No, that could not be possible.
Kerrigan nodded slowly. “Please, you were a Magister on Vilwan. Out of respect for that position, I offer you a second strike.”
The colors running through Neskartu danced as if they were drifting on the surface of a storm-wracked sea. Both his hands flowed wide at shoulder height, then descended and rose again. As they did, so did the power gathering around him. The mist from the snow began to gather and creep toward Kerrigan. It flowed up his robes, frosting them. Quickly enough he would be entombed in ice. Deprived of air, he would collapse, and Neskartu would let him smother.
That was the intent of the spell. In reality, the vapor rose and some did frost the hem of Kerrigan’s robe, but it never got past his knees. The vapor did continue to flow upward, but it kept going, higher and higher, until it began to curl back around in a mushroom shape. The cloud above him continued to boil until the sullanciri’s arms fell and it all vanished.
Naelros’ dark eyes blinked. “Now I smell much fear.”
“From the boy?”
“No.”
The Vilwanese youth bowed his head to Neskartu a third time. “You knew my mentor. You caused her death. I will allow you a third strike, but no more.”
Neskartu’s anger radiated out wordlessly. Even Isaura flinched, but the youth did not. The sullanciri’s body shifted as his fury built, and he gathered in power. Neskartu grew and expanded, rippling with shadow muscle, sprouting huge dragon wings. Colors raced, bouncing within him as if trapped in a closed vessel, melding and shifting. Incredible amounts of power poured into him, more than Isaura would have ever thought he could contain.
The sullanciri twisted, lifting a wing past the dolmen behind him, and grabbed the stone. He yanked it side to side, as if it were a tooth to be loosened in the jaw, then tore it free. Muddy clods of dirt dripped and fell fcom the thick end. He raised it over his head, then smashed it down on the Adept.
Isaura caught no sense of Kerrigan employing magick in his defense. Ungainly and jiggling, he danced aside. The stone slammed into the ground hard and heavy. Isaura could feel the earth shake even where she sat. The impact bounced Kerrigan back and dumped him on his fat backside.
He slumped against the black stone and grabbed at the edge with his right hand.
Mine! Neskartu’s triumphant mindburst made her breath catch in her throat. The hulking sullanciri bent over, grasping the stone again. Muscles rippled over his back and arms. Colors intensified to outline them. Once more the stone would rise, once more it would fall, and Kerrigan would be pulverized.
The stone did not move.
Calmly, despite the violent effort shaking the sullanciri, Kerrigan rolled to his knees, then levered himself up with his hands on the stone. Though the stone had landed in turf softened by spells and melting snow, Neskartu might as well have been trying to uproot the whole of Nawal. All of his efforts were for naught.