23rd Day of Sunsebb, 565 CY
Wizard's Guild, Willip, Furyondy
"Fine," Aimee said. "Keep scanning for magic. I'm going to detect for evil. Maybe between the two of us, we'll find something."
Cygnus grunted an acknowledgement while turning away from the woman standing next to him.
What on Oerth had Zantac seen in her? Despite a superficial beauty, Aimee seemed incredibly uncharismatic to the Aardian wizard. And for a so-called "succubus," she wasn't even wearing any sort of enticing perfume, as far as Cygnus could tell.
Hyzenthlay, he remembered, had always smelled like flower blossoms.
Cygnus was jerked out of sliding into reveries of his late wife only by incongruous movement out of the corner of his eye.
Aimee was casting as she had said, but her left hand had dipped into her spell component pouch and had come out holding a very small, straight piece of iron.
Detect evil, Cygnus knew all too well, had no material components.
With lightning speed, his own hand dove into his spell component pouch and came out holding the caterpillar cocoon in his hand, but before he could even begin his own incantation Aimee whirled back to face him as she finished casting.
Every muscle in Cygnus' body froze up, locking the magic-user in place.
Despite his constant and strenuous attempts, the only two parts of Cygnus that could move were his lungs and his eyes.
The latter watched helplessly as Aimee pulled a dagger coated with a viscous black liquid from one of the pockets of her work vest.
Cygnus' eyes flickered desperately over to Zantac, but the Willip Wizard was standing by the small cupboard that sat on the floor underneath the shelving, staring intently at it. Zantac's trembling hand seemed to be slowing down as it approached the door of the cabinet.
Cygnus screamed- but only in his head- as Aimee came at him with the dagger, but the Succubus merely sliced through the string holding his spell component pouch in place and lifted the item.
The Aardian mage had to will his eyes not to flicker over to his left hand; the arm was somewhat flung out to one side, his fingers tightly but gently curled over the cocoon, shielding it from view.
She didn't see me pull it, he realized, but a second later he knew it made no difference whatsoever as long as he was held in place.
Aimee, who had glanced over at Zantac, now turned back to Cygnus and thrust her face to within inches of his, an indisputably evil grin now lighting up her face.
"My hold spells are uncommonly powerful," she said in a whisper, her face smug. "You won't be breaking out for a while, but I don't believe in taking chances, so…"
She waved his salamander hide pouch in front of his face.
"And if you're wondering why I haven't killed you already, don't fret," she whispered again, glancing back at Zantac, whom it seemed to Cygnus almost seemed to be caught in a hold person spell himself, as his trembling hand had stopped just inches from the cupboard door.
"You won't outlast him by more than a minute," Aimee gloated, still whispering, "but I just wanted you to see your friend go first."
She turned back to Zantac but then faced Cygnus again.
Her face, for just a moment, assumed a thoughtful, reflective pose, her brown eyes downcast.
"You know," she said, still too softly for Zantac to overhear, "originally it was just about the gold. I didn't have anything personal against Zantac or any of them or even any of you, but my master- my real master- showed me."
She stared into Cygnus' eyes.
The smile was back.
"He showed me just how much power there is in cruelty."
She turned and, dagger ready to strike, began to creep the ten foot or so distance to Zantac.
His detect magic spell still ongoing, information began flowing into Cygnus mind as he stared at Aimee's back; the first mere confirmation that there were auras present on the female wizard now began translating into specifics, although the knowledge that Cygnus wouldn't be able to take advantage of any of it, or even communicate it to Zantac, only added to his anguish.
Faint auras of conjuration and abjuration were almost certain to be mage armor and shield; the bread-and-butter combination for so many wizards; easy to cast and with no visible effects to warn potential attackers- or victims.
Faint traces of both necromancy and divination were more worrying, and impossible to even guess at.
And finally a faint aura of transmutation that could be anything. Strength, Cunning, Endurance... the possibilities were nearly endless.
Again, none of it mattered. Death was moments away for both of them.
Cygnus forgot all about magic auras and prayed.
He prayed for deliverance from Lord Odin. He prayed for some other guild wizard to wonder what was going on up here and investigate. He prayed for Aslan to suddenly decide to teleport to his friends and check on them. He even prayed that Lemontharz, if he was indeed still alive, might decide to save his old friends one last time.
But no one appeared and despite Cygnus straining so hard that beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, he still couldn't move a single inch.
His despair only increased- if that was possible- as he watched Zantac finally open the door of the cabinet and Martan's miniaturized body fall out.
Cygnus knew what spell Aimee had used but it didn't matter. The Succubus had moved to Zantac's left as she approached; solely, Cygnus knew, so that he would have a better view as she plunged her dagger into Zantac's back.
But Zantac suddenly made an awkward yet still impressive leap to his right. Aimee's dagger only nicked the Willip Wizard's left side, but Cygnus knew that would be enough.
The poison seemed to work even faster than Cygnus had feared as he watched his friend stagger, turning around and falling backwards against the shelving as his own quarterstaff fell to the floor.
Zantac gaped in terror at the wound in his side and then over at Aimee, who now stood right next to him.
"Deathblade poison," Cygnus heard her say. "Outrageously expensive, but worth every drop."
She gave Zantac the same malicious smile she had just given him.
"You have sixty seconds to live, Zantac."
And now Zantac finally glanced over at Cygnus.
That one look seemed to last an eternity for Cygnus, and he suspected it did for Zantac, too.
Cygnus tried to put everything he had into that last look.
His terror; for what was about to happen to both Zantac and himself. That was obvious and would have been impossible to conceal in any case, but that was actually the least important part.
His absolute desperation to break free of this spell, trying harder within himself than perhaps he had ever tried in his entire life.
He wanted Zantac to know, even as he failed, how hard he had tried.
And how sorry he was for ever dragging him into this.
For it was Cygnus, and Cygnus alone, that had pulled this amiable guild wizard into their orbit.
He could have just flat-out refused Zantac's offer of Guild membership and that would have been the end of it. Cygnus would have continued on his path; he would have found somewhere else to train up eventually, and Zantac would have remained safe where he was.
He had certainly been tempted. While he hadn't disliked the shorter mage at their initial meeting, during their first few weeks together Cygnus had found him by turns irritating, tactless, naive, and way too hedonistic and relentlessly cheery for his taste.
Not to mention, as eyed the Willip Wizard's yellow tunic, gaudy diamond design cloak and orange chapeau, being the absolute worst dresser in all of the Three Worlds.
Cygnus saw Aimee lift Zantac's chin with her left hand.
"I know," Cygnus heard her say to her fellow mage, who was now staring in horror at the traitor and no longer at Cygnus.
"You're wondering," Aimee went on, "if Martan was so completely wrong about me; thinking someone else was the traitor and all that, why did I kill him?"
Cygnus didn't know that either, but he knew it would make no difference if he died ignorant or enlightened.
Aimee waved Cygnus' spell component pouch in front of Zantac's face.
"Guess you'll never know, Zantac. Old Tubbo here sure didn't."
Now Cygnus saw Zantac, his eyes once again locked on his own, shakily raise his right arm to point at the taller wizard.
Dispel, he thought. She'll never let him-
The realization hadn't even made it all the way through Cygnus' brain when he saw Aimee reach out and grab Zantac's hand, stopping his somatic gestures and ruining the spell.
Now she placed the tip of her dagger against this throat.
"Guess you're not even going to get those sixty seconds, Zantac," she told him.
This is it.
And even at the end, Cygnus still couldn't move. Aimee had been right. Despite Cygnus dedicating his life to the arcane arts, this younger woman whom he had heard Zantac himself describe as "a lazy student," had bested him.
The Aardian mage never realized until this instant how or why he and Zantac had become friends. In fact, he still didn't.
But what he did realize at the very last was that this man had given he, Cygnus, a gift so rare that a perpetually suspicious, paranoid and manipulative beyond reason man had been forced to accept it.
Against his will? Who could say?
But Cygnus understood now that he had been blessed. Despite his devotion to Elrohir, Argo, Aslan, Tojo and the others- he'd die for them as quickly as he would for Zantac- the only person he'd ever truly, truly counted as his best friend had been his wife, Hyzenthlay. After she died, he'd never had another.
Until now.
"The Emerald Serpent sends his regards," Aimee said; as much, Cygnus knew, for his hearing as for Zantac's.
Slowly, to maximize both Zantac's pain and Cygnus' anguish, Aimee began to push the dagger forward.
And as Zantac opened his mouth to scream the death scream that Cygnus couldn't, as the blood slowly dripped and then abruptly spurted out of his neck and as the gloating laughter of their mutual killer wafted over to Cygnus, the tall mage's right hand opened, and the quarterstaff fell out of his hand.
Before the weapon even hit the floor and alerted his enemy, Cygnus had moved his right hand to point.
Not at Aimee, but to a point in space that he dearly hoped was exactly ten feet to Zantac's left.
And Cygnus cried out the command word.
With the speed of a practiced assassin, Aimee yanked the dagger out of Zantac's neck and whirled around, the poisoned weapon already leaving her fingers on a precise trajectory to the middle of Cygnus' forehead.
Until it was vaporized mid-flight by the explosion of the first shooting star.
A boom and a roar reverberated throughout the workshop, followed almost immediately by two more blasts as the two follow-up stars hit.
Shelving and a worktable exploded into fragments from the impact. While Aimee had been spared a direct hit due to the necessity of keeping Zantac clear of the blast zone, she was enveloped in the fireballs' radius, all three of them, while Zantac was merely blown off his feet to the right, tripped over Martan's body, slammed his knee against the cupboard door and wound up in a heap on the floor, about five feet from the door.
Cygnus kept one eye of Aimee's crumpled, burned form, lying and moaning on the floor as he rushed forward, then turned his full attention to Zantac.
The Willip wizard was trying and failing to rise back to his feet; the deathblade poison making every movement slow and difficult. One hand was clasped over his throat and Cygnus could see blood leaking out around it.
The Aardian magic-user knew that, as serious as Zantac's neck wound was, the poison was going to finish him a lot faster.
And as he bent down beside his friend, he could see that Zantac knew it too.
"Don't know why I bothered trying the dispel," Zantac said, his voice soft. Blood burbled from his mouth. "I knew you'd throw it off yourself just to spite me."
Cygnus managed the smallest of grins, but even that faded as he saw the look in Zantac's eyes.
Not fear. Not pain. Not terror.
Resignation.
"Say goodbye to the others for me, Stick."
Cygnus grabbed Zantac's right shoulder and pulled him up into a sitting position and then pushed his face as close as Aimee's had been.
"You listen to me, Stack. Your overpriced shop on the ground floor; they had antitoxins in stock the last time I was here, remember? Get down there, now! I'll hold off your unbelievably poor choice in girlfriends; get going!"
Too weak to shake his head, Zantac could only convey the gesture with his eyes.
"Too far, Ciggy," he whispered, his voice almost faded into inaudibility. "I'm not fast enough."
Cygnus narrowed his eyes and opened his left hand.
Zantac's eyes travelled to the caterpillar cocoon and then back to Cygnus.
"You are now," Cygnus said.
He touched Zantac with his right hand, and as soon as the tall wizard's incantation ended, Zantac's form began changing.
With lightning rapidity, greenish fur with brown stripes sprouted over Zantac's body as his front hands turned into paws, and his body shape altered.
In under three seconds, a fair copy of Elrohir's cooshee Dudraug was lying on the floor next to Cygnus.
The Aardian mage had seen their dogs run. Grock and the late Mirage were fast, but neither were a match for the elven dog when it was going full bore.
Cygnus was glad to see both of Zantac's dagger wounds were no longer leaking blood. Unlike Aslan's polymorphing, the arcane spell actually provided a modicum of healing.
The poison, unfortunately, was continuing its grim work.
Polymorph was a disorienting spell under the best of circumstances and Zantac hadn't seen it coming. The cooshee seemed to be throwing some kind of spastic fit as it struggled to rise to its feet.
"Haul it, you dumb mutt!" Cygnus shouted, trying to grab the animal's flailing body and set it upright just as he heard Aimee's voice casting behind him.
Two monstrous scorpions suddenly materialized next to them.
The vermin were huge; both easily equal in mass to the cooshee, which was itself just shy of man-sized.
Each sported a shiny black carapace, two terrifying pincer claws, and a stinger which arced over its head.
But it was even worse than that. Cygnus caught a whiff of brimstone and he could see the creatures' eyes glowing a fiery red as they eyed him with something more than animal intelligence.
Fiendish creatures, Cygnus groaned to himself. For when plain old five-foot-long scorpions just aren't enough for your killing needs.
He shouldn't have been surprised; Cygnus realized as he rose to his feet. The Emerald Serpent was apparently quite capable of summing infernal servants; it'd be no great stretch to imagine some of its servants could do likewise.
Zantac had managed to rise to all fours. His expressive, brown cooshee eyes looked from the scorpion nearest him to Zantac.
"You!" Cygnus heard Aimee shout, apparently addressing one of the scorpions. "Kill that dog! Don't let it escape!"
"Move!" Cygnus bellowed and gave the dog a fierce kick in the backside, propelling it out the open workshop door into the hallway just as the scorpion's tail came arcing down to strike the stone floor in the precise spot where Zantac had been a second before. Cygnus whirled and jumped sidewise, barely avoiding the second scorpion's snapping and grasping pincers.
Cygnus finally turned to face his attacker, trying to keep his eye on the giant vermin as well.
Aimee was on her knees, facing him; she apparently still had not been able to rise to her feet.
She sported horrific burns. Much of her skin was red, cracked and in a few small pieces, completely gone. Her brick-red hair was all but burnt away, and wisps of smoke still rose from her head.
Despite his effort to ignore it, the smallest pang of sympathy went through Cygnus' frame. He knew what this felt like; he'd endured it himself, and more than once.
He was about to demand that Aimee surrender. Even though he doubted she'd accept it; he was willing to give this scum that one opportunity for mercy.
An opportunity, he furthermore knew, that she would never have offered him.
It was, as he knew Aslan would be quick to remind them, what set them apart from the forces they fought.
But the words never left Cygnus' throat. He was staring at a detail so odd, yet so small that no one but another wizard would ever have noticed it.
Aimee was had apparently tied Cygnus' salamander hide spell component pouch to the belt of her linen work trousers, which, like most of her clothing was half-gone and half-melted onto her skin. Even as she glared at Cygnus with undisguised loathing, her burned and disfigured fingers were trying to pull something out of it.
The presence of his spell pouch was nothing odd; Cygnus had seen her pilfer it from him.
What was so blasted unusual was that Aimee's own component pouch had apparently been destroyed by the shooting stars. A melted and scorched piece of fabric on the floor nearby confirmed this.
But Cygnus knew that didn't make sense.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zantac's canine form tear off down the hallway with one of the scorpions in scuttling pursuit. Cygnus had no idea how fast these giant vermin were; that was out of his hands now.
He dodged the attacks of the remaining scorpion again, still keeping as much of his attention as possible on Aimee, who had stopped trying to withdraw something out of Cygnus' pouch and painfully risen to her feet.
It still didn't make sense.
Cygnus had been here training up when the shipment of salamander hide pouches had first arrived at the end of Fireseek. Despite the comparatively high cost for such an item, all the guild wizards, Cygnus and Zantac among them, had crowded around, eager to purchase one. Considering the circumstances with which wizards were exposed to fire (which turned out to be far more common that even Cygnus could have predicted), the purchase was a no-brainer. Being caught without spell components severely limited one's options.
Both Cygnus and Zantac had learned that brutal lesson first-hand during their time imprisoned in the caverns of the Slave Lords.
But everyone here had purchased one. Everyone had-
Cygnus' eyes grew wide.
No. Not everyone.
One wizard hadn't.
That wizard had complained long and loudly what a scam the pouches were and hadn't forked over the gold. The one wizard that everyone in the guild had told Cygnus was a notorious skinflint.
And then the image of Cygnus' son Thorin abruptly filled his mind.
It had been last Fireseek, only a week or so before he had purchased the component pouch.
Cygnus was sitting on the bed in his room; Thorin next to him. The boy was gently feeling the bruise on his cheek that had been a result of his time held captive by Nodyath.
But the bruise, the result of a blackjack, hadn't been inflicted by Nodyath.
It had been inflicted by his accomplice.
"Tell me, son," Cygnus asked his traumatized son as gently as he dared, "what did this man look like? Describe him to me."
And it happened again.
All thoughts of kindness, mercy and everything else that his paladin friend said differentiated Cygnus and his allies from the villains they fought so often vanished from Cygnus' mind like an expended spell.
Despite his constant promises that he would try to do better, Cygnus knew he would never be as good and pure a person as Zantac or indeed, any of the others.
He just had too much at stake.
A cold rage filled his tall frame as the realization hit him.
Cygnus strolled over to Aimee and grabbed her by the front of what was left of her work vest and lifted her bodily into the air.
His lanky frame never failed to surprise his opponents who engaged him in hand-to-hand combat. They never expected the skinny wizard to display such strength.
It was clear Aimee hadn't. She gaped at him as her feet dangled a full two feet off the floor, her hands trying and failing to pry his grip loose.
This monster had hurt his son.
And the cold rage turned hot.
"CONGRATULATIONS!" Cygnus screamed at his foe as he drew his right arm back. "YOU JUST MADE MY LIST, YOU SON OF A BITCH!"
He cocked his fist.
"NAURY!"
The blow sent Aimee flying backwards. It was only her proximity to the curved wall and the remnants of the shelving which she was able to grab hold of that prevented her from falling to the floor again.
Wiping the fresh blood from her mouth, she glared at Cygnus with as intense a hatred as the mage had ever seen; and he had seen that look directed at him a lot.
And then her features melted and rearranged.
Straightening up to a height six inches taller than before, his mutton chop beard burned off in several spots, Naury eyed his charred hands and then sneered at Cygnus. His eyes- a lighter brown than those of Aimee- locked in on those of his adversary from underneath his singed mop of dark gray hair.
Then he pulled a rune-engraved dagger from its scabbard; neither of which had been present before, and before Cygnus could react lunged at him with blinding speed and slashed.
The Aardian mage backpedaled and the blade's arc cut through the air a few inches in front of him.
The two wizards, both catching their breath, eyed one another.
Cygnus spoke first, his own expression a sneer now.
"Not enough fire for you?"
The tall magic-user gestured, and two scorching rays shot out from his hand but Naury made a spinning dodge and both rays missed. The guild mage made the exact same gesture and a single ray shot back at Cygnus, who managed to duck in the nick of time and then kick away the monstrous scorpion that had moved in to attack again.
Cygnus hot rage cooled as quickly as if it had been dunked in a tub of ice water.
He was in a lot more trouble than he had realized.
While the fact that Naury had only been able to generate a single scorching ray as opposed to Cygnus' two meant his powers as a wizard were less than his own, his ability to handle and use dangerous poisons made it clear that this man was an actual assassin as well as an arcanist. Cygnus could now also see that the dagger that Naury held in his hand was the source of the necromantic and divination auras he had noticed previously.
That was not good news.
He needed breathing room.
Cygnus stepped back a few more paces, thinking. He had stinking cloud memorized; an ideal spell for this situation, but it required a skunk cabbage leaf to cast and he no longer had his spell component pouch.
Again dodging the attacks of the scorpion, he glanced back at Naury and was dismayed at seeing him scooping some kind of white paste from a tiny ceramic jar he also hadn't noticed before and spreading it out over the worst of his burns, which immediately faded.
Naury smiled at him; his first smile since resuming his true form.
"I'm going to kill you, Cygnus of Aarde."
Dammit, he thought. The bastard knows!
It wasn't surprising. Elrohir had told all of them that the Emerald Serpent was well aware of the existence of the Three Worlds; information gleaned no doubt from his torture sessions with Tad, but it was still more bad news and that was already piling up right now faster than Cygnus wished.
Was there any good news in all this?
Cygnus straightened to his full height, took a deep breath and put a confident expression on his face.
"I've still got my detect magic running, Naury."
His opponent gazed at him curiously for a moment and then burst out with as much laughter as his still-burned lungs would allow.
"Detect magic?" Naury could hardly get the words out through his laughter. His eyes filled with tears of merriment. "That's your best weapon? Zelhile was right; you freelancers really are ignorant! Tell me, Cygnus; what is detect magic going to do for you now?"
Cygnus hesitated.
"Well," he mused. "It told me that your shield just expired."
Naury screamed and doubled over in fresh agony as four streaks of white light shot from Cygnus' hand and tore into his body.
Cygnus was about to start incanting for his second and last volley of magic missiles when a sharp pain on his right thigh made him cry out.
The fiendish scorpion had grabbed the magic-user with both pincers and before Cygnus could react, the tail came around and jabbed through his trousers into the skin beneath.
Cygnus fired the missiles at the giant vermin instead, which toppled over dead and then vanished.
The tall wizard cried out again as he felt a burning sensation start spreading outward from the injection site. He had absolutely no idea how deadly scorpion venom was, but he knew he was losing this battle.
Indeed, his hubris might already have cost him his life.
Glancing back at Naury, he saw with dismay that the evil mage was again daubing his body with the white ointment; healing himself. Cygnus wondered how many applications were in that little jar and felt a wave of jealousy sweep over him.
Why aren't we ever able to afford items like that?
Cygnus began to back away towards the door as Naury replaced the jar and tightened his grip on his dagger.
The tall mage shot a quick glance at Martan's body. It had resumed its normal size, the reduce person spell having likewise expired.
The dead wizard's salamander hide component pouch beckoned to Cygnus; so tantalizingly close.
But now it was Naury who was pointing and incanting; three magic missiles of his own speeding towards Cygnus who knew, in his weakened state, that they would kill him.
With half-instinct and other half desperation, Cygnus made a sweeping gesture with his right hand and spat out a seldom-used arcane phrase.
Naury's missiles vanished a split-second before they struck him.
Naury cocked the remains of a burned eyebrow.
"Effective," he conceded, nodding in acknowledgement, "but I know you've got nothing left, Cygnus; nothing you can utilize, anyway," he added, jostling the tall wizard's component pouch that he now carried.
Naury's eyes narrowed.
"Game's over," he snarled. "I win."
His hand came out of Cygnus' pouch again, this time holding a human eyelash encased in gum arabic.
Naury incanted and disappeared.
This was it. Cygnus' enemy, an experienced assassin wielding a magical weapon, had just gone invisible, and the Aardian mage had nothing left. His last remaining castable spell, dispel magic, had just been used to counterspell Naury's magic missiles.
Time was up. The few seconds it would take to tear Martan's spell component pouch free from the belt it was tied to were longer than Cygnus had to live.
He heard footsteps approaching his position.
Cygnus turned and bolted for the doorway, literally leaping over Martan's corpse as he did so.
He heard the pounding close behind him as he made the corridor and began running back the way he had come.
Two wizards had come this way just a few minutes earlier, trying to save a third.
Now that one was dead and in all probability Zantac was too, despite Cygnus efforts, which now seemed to him to have been foolhardy rather than clever.
Cygnus felt his right leg still burning, but at least the poison didn't seem to have spread yet, although even his crude knowledge of anatomy told him frantic exercise, such as pumping your legs while running for one's life, would only exacerbate that problem.
Cygnus ran. He would not feel anything else; he would not think anything else.
He just ran.
The staircase.
Cygnus took them three at a time going down, dimly aware that he no longer heard running footfalls behind him. Had Naury-
An airborne figure plowed into Cygnus from behind and locked in Naury's now-visible embrace, both individuals went flying and smashed into the floor at the foot of the stairs.
Everything went black.
Pain amazed Cygnus.
Despite times beyond counting that he had experienced it in his recent years, along with the numerous and varied injuries that accompanied it, it always seemed to find a way to come back in a new incarnation and with an even greater intensity than he could have supposed existed.
Consciousness had returned, but it was a nervous guest at best, and felt like a sudden move, or even an attempt at one, might send it fleeing back into the night.
He was lying face-down on the stone floor. A bruise on his forehead that felt even larger than his stolen spell component pouch was throbbing horribly. A wet, sticky fluid that he knew before he even opened his eyes was his own blood was covering most of his face.
A heavy weight was pressing down on Cygnus, but almost as soon as he registered it he heard a groan and then the weight lifted as the person rolled off of him.
Naury.
The wizard/assassin wasn't as bad off as he was, Cygnus knew. The mage's own body had cushioned Naury's impact somewhat.
Which meant if Cygnus didn't act within the next few seconds, he'd never see consciousness again.
Slowly the Aardian wizard opened his eyes and wiped as much of the blood as he could off them.
He was still lying at the foot of the stairs. The closed door to the conference room was off to his right.
A hand abruptly grabbed the back of Cygnus' robes and rolled him over.
Still burned and bruised but in better shape than his opponent, Naury straddled Cygnus, clutched the mage's throat with his left hand and raised his right hand holding the dagger to strike-
-and then stopped.
Cygnus, still trying to marshal the energy to attempt an action (although he hadn't the faintest idea what that might) stared in fascination at Naury. The latter's expression had become distant, as if he were concentrating on something not in front of him.
The Aardian wizard abruptly understood. Naury was receiving some kind of communication. A sending perhaps; or did the Emerald Serpent possess a helm of telepathy?
But before Cygnus' muddled brain could even think of a way to capitalize on his foe's sudden distraction, Naury turned his attention back to him.
His expression now held an odd mix of frustration and fiendish glee.
"I'd rather kill you straight off, you wretch," Naury hissed, bending down so that his dagger was now inches from Cygnus' face, "but someone else has other plans."
"The time for coyness has long past," Cygnus responded, his face hard. "If you mean that craven snake and your worthless master the Emerald Serpent, why not just say so?"
Naury looked if he was about to spit in Cygnus' face when he was again distracted; this time by a sound that Cygnus heard as well.
The sound of running feet approaching down the corridor.
Lots of them.
Rescue, Cygnus thought, allowing his expression to relax into one of relief, but to his dismay a new smile appeared on Naury's face.
"You'll serve our purposes even better alive," he said and with a flick of his wrist, drew the dagger across Cygnus' right cheek, leaving a thin line of blood.
The tall mage opened his mouth in an involuntary cry of pain- but nothing came out.
He was suddenly unable to make a sound.
Was there a silence spell attached to that dagger? he wondered but dismissed that thought immediately. He could still hear the approaching footsteps, and both his and Naury's labored breathing.
And then, even more incredulously, Naury was dabbing more of that white ointment from the tiny jar onto the cheek wound he had just inflicted.
It closed up and some of Cygnus' various aches and pains retreated.
"What are you doing?"
Cygnus, who found he could apparently speak again, hadn't meant to ask the question aloud, but Naury's sudden behavior was baffling beyond reason.
There had to be a deeper purpose at play here, but what in the Nine Hells could it be?
But there was no more time to wonder. Naury pushed himself off from Cygnus, planted his foot on the tall mage's neck and stood up as figures came around the bend in the corridor and stopped.
Cygnus, still too weak to push Naury's boot off, could see Zelhile and Thormord in the front. There were figures behind them; lots of them. Due to the curvature of the corridor Cygnus couldn't tell but he wouldn't be surprised if the entire current population of the Wizards' Guild was here.
The Guildmaster, however, did not seem inclined to let anyone pass.
"Master!" Naury addressed Zelhile. "I've found him! I've unmasked the servant from the Emerald Serpent, and we were wrong! It wasn't anyone from our ranks!"
He pointed down at Cygnus while never taking his eyes off Zelhile.
"It was him!"
Are you crazy? Cygnus thought furiously to himself. How on Oerth do you think you're ever be able to convince anyone of that?
"He's been the Serpent's double agent since the beginning," Naury went on. "He and Zantac tricked Martan into taking them up to the workshop where I was working on the apparatus of Kwalish to confront me. Martan had told me he had grown to suspect Cygnus."
"He's lying!" Cygnus managed to croak out from under Naury's foot, but the latter continued on without missing a beat.
"Cygnus went berserk; he killed Martan and then turned on Zantac- I don't know if he was in on the plot or not- and then attacked me! He used this!"
Naury held out the rune-engraved dagger by the blade as if he were offering it to Zelhile, who still hadn't moved a muscle.
"It's called a dagger of lies," Naury explained. "Anyone cut by it who then tries to tell the truth under prayers of veracity will be seen as a liar!"
Naury pointed to one of the gashes on his arm. It was a wound caused when Cygnus had hurled him against the jagged edges of the wrecked shelving; to a casual eye it looked well enough like the wound a slashing dagger might make.
"He cut me with it so even if I escaped I could not testify truthfully against him," Naury went on and then looked down at Cygnus, sneered and addressed the Guildmaster again.
"But you'll notice he has no dagger wounds!"
You bastard.
Now Cygnus understood. The injuries he sported were either the bruises and contusions from falling down the stairs or the marks made by that blasted scorpion; neither of which would be mistaken for a dagger wound.
Naury continued.
"Cygnus boasted that, just before he came up with the others to see me, that he had sent a sending to a local priestess of Heironeous that he knows, stating he had discovered the true identity of the Serpent's mole within our guild and to come at once with truth-detecting prayers ready to identify the villain!"
"Master," said a voice somewhere behind the Guildmaster that Cygnus could not identify, "such a person has just arrived and is waiting in the entrance! I went upstairs and was just about to knock and enter your class when we all heard… this," it finished, undoubtedly referring to the noises Cygnus and Naury had made plunging down the stairs, if not the battle before in the workshop.
But that brought another thought to the fore of Cygnus' mind; one that immediately crowded out all others.
"Zantac," he said, finally managing to dislodge Naury's boot. "Is he all right?"
"He's-" began Thormord, but Zelhile silenced him with a sharp gesture.
No one dared to speak. All eyes were on the Guildmaster.
A person who Cygnus suddenly realized he didn't know if he could trust.
After all, it had been Zelhile who had refused his and Zantac's request to question Aimee under the same prayers that apparently were about to be used on him.
Suspicions began to swirl in Cygnus' brain
What if this was all a ruse?
What if Naury isn't actually trying to convince Zelhile of his innocence and my guilt? Cygnus thought furiously. What if is this is all a rehearsed sham between the two of them; a play put on to convince everyone else, like with Rashlot and those mephits?
Cygnus swallowed hard as his blood went cold. He had been about to attempt to rise to his feet seeing as Naury was making no attempt to restrain him anymore, but his muscles again didn't seem able to move.
This time from fear.
How many more people, Cygnus wondered dimly, will die because I guessed wrong?
"Edward," he heard Thormord say quietly, "bring the priestess up here."
There followed the sounds of a retreating pair of feet. Cygnus said nothing. To protest would be to confirm his guilt in front of everyone here.
His mind was racing.
Naury was standing directly above him; his attention fixed on the Guildmaster.
His spell component pouch- Cygnus' pouch- was dangling underneath his belt
Just within his grasp if he were to reach out.
Cygnus still had a fireball and a lightning bolt memorized.
Maybe, he thought, I can at least take Naury out with me.
Cygnus flexed his fingers and was about to make the snatch attempt when he heard Zelhile speak for the first time.
"Tell me," Zelhile said to Naury, "was Cygnus planning to frame you for all of this?"
"Not at all, Master," Naury responded with a slight bow. "Cygnus is an accomplished polymorpher. The one he was planning to frame was the one that most of us were suspecting the whole time, anyway."
He nodded at something Cygnus couldn't see.
"Aimee."
Cygnus turned his head, his right hand still ready to dart upwards.
Thormord was stepping to the side and back, allowing another person to come forward and stand alongside the Guildmaster.
It was Aimee, the real Aimee. Cygnus knew this in an instant, although he'd have been hard-pressed to explain why.
Aimee was wearing a black dress, slit up to the thigh. Her hair was currently as black as the raven that sat upon her shoulder and her expressive, deep brown eyes regarded Naury keenly and then turned to stare directly at Cygnus.
She spoke not a single word.
All right, Cygnus conceded to himself. At least now I can see what Zantac-
But that thought made his heart stop.
"Zantac!" he cried out. "What happened to Zantac?"
But no one answered him, if indeed they were even listening. All eyes and ears had turned to Aimee and Zelhile, who were having a quiet conversation, their heads close together.
Everyone present in this hallway watched in silence as the two wizards conversed in whispers.
Then they pulled their heads apart. The Guildmaster nodded.
Aimee pulled a small object from her own salamander hide pouch that Cygnus couldn't identify from here, pointed at him and incanted.
Cygnus started to cry out, but he'd been mistaken; he hadn't been the object of the spell.
To his right, the door of the meeting room flew open.
Cygnus stared at it. The room within was still empty, the red carpet within unmoving.
What's going on? he wondered.
But now it was Zelhile who was casting.
The Guildmaster was now, Cygnus could see, wearing a leather glove of some kind on one hand as he incanted.
The Aardian wizard frowned. He knew of no such material component for any spell. Was this-
-and for the third time today, Cygnus had to cut himself off from crying out in fear.
A hand- a giant hand- had appeared in the hallway.
It was huge; it filled the entire corridor. Indeed, the fingers had to curve slightly to allow itself to do so. The width of the hand from top to bottom couldn't have been an inch under five feet.
The hand was not opaque but not transparent. It was translucent; Cygnus could just make out the figures on the other side, standing still about fifteen feet back.
He had never seen or even heard of anything like this spell before, but he knew instantly that this hand was some kind of a force construct; far beyond his ability to cast.
Without warning, the hand swept forward.
Cygnus didn't even try to contain his shriek of terror as he covered his head with his arms, but the hand swept over him, taking the screaming Naury with it.
The hand curved and moved to its left, stopping at the doorway to the conference room and shoving Naury into it.
"Schiacciare!" Zelhile cried out.
Cygnus could see only see a mass of red as the carpet, as scarlet beneath as it was above, abruptly rose up and engulfed Naury.
Aimee incanted again and the door slammed shut, mercifully muffling off Naury's cries for mercy and then his screams and finally, the sounds of human bones being crushed.
"Cygnus."
Trembling, the tall mage finally stood up and turned now to look at the Guildmaster, who had addressed him directly for the first time.
That chiseled face held no more expression than it had ten minutes prior when Cygnus had been sitting with him in that very same room; blissfully sitting on top what was some kind of obedient instrument of mass murder; whether creature or item, he neither knew nor cared.
"Tell me, Cygnus," Zelhile continued. "Tell me why I just had to kill one of my own Guild wizards."
Part of Cygnus was just as furious at this man as he had been at Naury earlier; this calculating, merciless wizard who was interested only in his own agenda, others be damned.
But then he remembered countless others had also said the same things about him.
"Please," he said, holding his arms out to the others, not caring or bothering to stop the tears trickling down his face. "Please tell me Zantac's still alive."