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."Tell us who you're hiding from," Bareris said."Is it northerners?""Northerners?" The apprentice shook his head."Who, then?" Bareris persisted."Does this have something to do with the blue fire?"The boy closed his eyes and tears oozed out from under the lids."Yes.Some of the folk ran away, but the wizards cast the runes and said the flames would miss the town.They laughed at the people who ran!""But the flames didn't miss," Tammith said."No.I don't know if the wave split in two or what, but suddenly the fires were here.Some of the mages translated themselves away to safety, but most of us didn't know how.Travel magic's not a part of evocation.And those who knew didn't bother to carry the rest."It hurt when the wave swept through.It was like drowning in pain and glare.But afterward, everything seemed the same, and we laughed and cheered, even after we realized no one else was rushing into the streets to do the same.Because we'd survived, even if the rest of Solzepar hadn't.We decided the wards bound into the foundations of the house had saved us.""But they hadn't," Bareris said."No," the novice said."In time, it occurred to us that we ought to let our superiors know we were still alive, but that the rest of the town was likely dead.We had an enchanted mirror in our library that allowed us to communicate from afar, and we all gathered around it.And that was when the spells came alive."Tammith didn't understand.Judging from Bareris's frown, he didn't either."What spells?" he asked."The spells in the scrolls and books on the shelves," theapprentice said."I don't know how else to put it.They jumped out all at once, crazy jagged forms whirling around us, all flashing or rimmed with blue.Then one of them, some sort of frost, poured itself into Mistress Kranna's eyes.""You mean it possessed her?" Bareris asked."That doesn't make sense.Spells aren't demons.They're just.formulae.""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 hestarted 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, arid 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 evidentally 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
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