The rain continued through twilight. In Mecq's valley the shower remained light, giving the water a chance to soak into the fields. Upstream and down, the rain was heavier, accompanied by the sound and light show of thunder and lightning. The Eyler rose slowly as the storm runoff raced through the valley. The simple layer of rocks that the villagers had spanned the river with could hold back only a fraction of that water. Most ran over the top of the makeshift dam and on into Blethye. Even at the height of the spate, the water didn't reach the bottom of the mill's wheel. The oxen continued to tread their circle until they were unhitched for the evening.
Silvas remained in the village until dusk was thick and most of the villagers had retired to their cottages for supper and sleep. The thrill of rain had brought a new kind of exhaustion to them, the exhaustion of celebration. It is still premature, Silvas thought, but he wore a smile and said nothing to dampen spirits that had been so quickly raised by a thorough dampening. A number of people came up to Silvas to thank him, or to wish him a good evening, people who had not chosen to take any previous notice of his presence.
The wizard bore no grudges. It is enough, he told himself. He never claimed rights on the mere basis of his announcement of his craft. He did not demand that anyone take him on his word alone. In each town or village he had to prove himself again. That is as it should be was his long-held belief.
Maria had emerged from the pillar of smoke to ride back to her father's castle well before dusk. She had not come toward Silvas, and he had made sure that he was with a number of villagers as she came through after her tour of the Glade, hoping that company would discourage her.
"This is the best rainfall we've had in some three years," Master Ian said as he prepared to return to his inn.
"It's only the beginning," Silvas told him. "One good rain can't cure years of drought."
"A good beginning," Master Ian allowed, holding out both hands to the rain. "A right good beginning, Lord Wizard."
Silvas nodded politely and Master Ian went off. A few minutes later, Brother Paul emerged from St. Katrinka's and crossed to the river, seeking out the wizard.
"You have won new friends here today," the friar said.
"Which I may lose as quickly," Silvas replied quietly. "This is not all there must be."
"You sound particularly concerned." The friar's eyes narrowed to get a better view of the wizard in the growing dark.
"In part, this rain is a challenge to the power that has held Mecq in its grip so long." Silvas's voice was a mere whisper that no one but the friar could hear. "It may draw a response."
"From the Blue Rose?" Brother Paul asked just as softly.
Silvas nodded almost imperceptibly. "You might be on especial guard this night, Vicar," he said. "I shall."
"I will take your advice," Brother Paul said, his voice showing the trouble he felt in the wizard's words. "Have you any idea what form this response may take?"
"No. I may be better able to judge what remains to be done when it comes, though. It may give me a better gauge of the Foe's strength here."
"It seems a dangerous ploy," the vicar said.
"But necessary. I can't know what I need to offer for the long-term cure of Mecq's ills until I know what power it needs to hold against."
"I will pray for you," Brother Paul said.
"Thank you, Vicar," Silvas said. "We all need our prayers now."
As he walked back to his church, Brother Paul shook his head softly, almost without volition. His command of the craft of power was small, but he could feel the wizard's troubled soul quite clearly. Silvas might be a wizard-potent, be he was not without his grave concerns.
– |Nearly all of the villagers had gone indoors to belated suppers before Silvas headed back to the Glade. The ground was soft underfoot. There were small patches of mud, even a few standing puddles. A good beginning, Silvas told himself. But it is nothing more, and if the price is too heavy… He shook his head, much as the vicar had, though he hadn't noticed that gesture.
Since sky was still clear over the Seven Towers, dark hadn't settled as quickly over Silvas's home. Still it was too late for any greeting from the birds. They would have settled into their nests before the sun touched the western horizon, and they would remain there until they sensed the imminent return of the sun in the morning.
Lights made the great hall bright. There were fires in both hearths, torches around the walls, candles above the tables. The people of the Seven Towers were beginning to gather for supper, and the mood was as warm as the room. Silvas paused at the entrance just long enough to see that Carillia hadn't come down for the meal yet, then hurried upstairs to change into dry clothes.
"I knew you would need these, my heart," Carillia said when he reached their bedroom. Fresh clothing had been laid out on the bed. There was even a large, rough towel for him to dry himself with, and a mug of mulled wine to warm his insides.
"The people of Mecq are happy tonight, are they not?" Carillia asked after Silvas showed his appreciation with a kiss.
"For the moment," he allowed. "They have rain. Some who have been ill are well. For the moment it is enough." The shadow that came and went over his thoughts was not apprehension but, in a way, envy. "It takes so little," he whispered.
"They are simple folk of the land," Carillia replied. His whisper hadn't been so soft that she could not hear it. "A simple life, both in pleasure and in fear." There was no condescension in her voice. Carillia felt more comfortable around simple folk of the land than she did around courtiers.
Silvas hurried through his change of clothing, and the two of them went down to dinner.
The mood in the great hall was much lighter than it had been the evening before. Before long Silvas felt even his own spirits rising. The folk of the Seven Towers knew that trouble might be near, but that didn't stop them from enjoying the moments that came before.
"Can ye tell us more about the evil that comes?" Braf Goleg, the leader of the lupine warriors, asked Silvas. Braf came to the wizard's table and touched a hand to his brow in salute. The hand was neither human nor truly lupine in appearance, three relatively short digits set at angles that turned the hand into a powerful grasping tool.
"Not yet, Braf," Silvas said, laying his utensils on his plate. "I can't see its form or when it will come." He shrugged. "I don't even guarantee that it will come, though I feel certain that it will."
"Or here or there?" Braf asked. His voice, though growling to human norms, was in the polite registers of his kind, and Silvas knew that.
"Or here or there, or both places," Silvas agreed. "Your men are eager?"
"Aye, lord. They have been too long idle."
Silvas smiled at the understatement. The Seven Towers rarely had need of such fierce soldiers. On only three occasions during Silvas's long tenure had they found their talents for fighting actually needed, and never in the lifetimes of any of the current soldiers.
"The time is coming, Braf, the time we've all trained against."
– |There were routines to Silvas's life. Every evening before retiring, there were magical chores that needed doing, and not just when he expected trouble. His mind touched on the normal defenses of the Seven Towers, strengthening or renewing where necessary, inspecting always. The daily routines did not take a lot of time, and they required no special preparations. The Glade had been under these safeguards constantly since Auroreus first raised the walls. They were strong and well tested.
Silvas spent more time than usual at his maintenance this evening.
"We are as prepared as we can be," he told Carillia when he finally joined her in bed.
"You are taking no chances, are you, my heart?" she said as she gathered him into her arms. Without speaking of it, both knew that this would not be a night for passion, merely for sharing strength of their spirits and bodies, holding each other until sleep came.
"I dare take no chances," he told her. "I must offer you all of the protection I can."
She laughed softly. "Not to mention all the others who depend on you, my heart."
Not to mention, he thought-and he did not mention them.
There were a few moments of soft movement between them as they adjusted into more comfortable positions. Silvas went through the disciplined routines of clearing his mind of unnecessary clutter so sleep could come quickly. As the warmth of approaching sleep flowed, Silvas felt familiar sensations of Carillia and him melding together into a greater whole. The feelings were almost those of a dream-but not quite. Where their bodies touched, they seemed to fuse. The warmth became a cocoon that encompassed both, drawing them even closer together, uniting them in a way that their waking bodies could only poorly imitate. Their minds seemed to flow through each other on some primitive level of sensation. They shared no thoughts, but they did seem to share of each other's souls at a time like this. When the union came, it could last through an entire night, holding Silvas's mind, flooding him with a rest that was much better than sleep, strengthening him, rejuvenating him. I could live on this and never touch food or slide into sleep, he would tell himself while he floated in the heaven of this spiritual cradle.
It did not come every night.
And they never spoke of it. Silvas believed that Carillia shared the experience, though she had never mentioned it, and he had never asked. To talk about it openly might ruin it, Silvas told himself whenever the experience came. He was satisfied to revel in it when the opportunity arose, and to remember it at other times when he needed the reassurance of that deep warmth.
When it came.
While it lasted.
Silvas and Carillia walked together in the shade of flowering trees, enjoying the alternation of warmth and coolness as they went from shade to spring sun and back again. They walked arm in arm, holding hands and leaning against each other. Silvas recognized that they were in some sort of ordered orchard, not in a wild stretch of woods. These trees had been carefully tended by loving hands. The grass had been cleared from around the base of each trunk, leaving a circle of bare soil and chips of bark. That puzzled Silvas, for the short time he bothered to think about it, because he could not recall seeing that kind of detail to any orchard before. But there was too much to absorb his attention for him to pay any great concern to this. There were the fresh scents of spring, a melange of aromas to tickle his senses. And there was Carillia at his side. Wherever they touched, the feeling was that of skin on skin, though they were both dressed. Clothing simply did not affect the sense of touch between them.
Neither spoke. They merely walked. At times Carillia drew Silvas's attention to some sight-a tiny brook meandering past one side of the orchard, small clearings arranged as formal gardens, a doe and her fawn bounding off in the distance. She did all of this without words, and in the same way Silvas occasionally pointed out other sights to her-the patterns in leaves and flowers, a new scent coming in on the zephyr that lightly swirled around them.
And demons rode the night again.
– |Silvas exploded out of sleep, jumping from bed before his mind had fully returned from its nocturnal walk with Carillia. The frenzy of his movements was almost impossible for any eye to follow. He raced through a spell of protection and delay while he pulled on his robe and knife belt. He grabbed his quarterstaff as he ran out the door. He didn't waste time to see how Carillia or the cats were reacting. They would react. They would know that attack was coming and respond. This summons was so urgent that the cats didn't growl or scream. Carillia asked no questions. They all followed Silvas from the room.
The Seven Towers shook at the sudden onslaught of foes that Silvas could not yet grasp. Going up the first set of circular stairs, the trembling of the keep became so violent that Silvas missed a step and pitched headfirst. Only his quick reflexes managed to get hands and arms out to break his fall. He was back on his feet as quickly as one of his cats, though, continuing to race for the pentagram in his workshop.
Silvas spoke words of power. The air around him crackled with magic, and not just his. Lightning seemed to flash within the keep. The second set of steps, the iron stairs, danced with light that prickled against the skin, drawing sparks-and drawing protests from Satin and Velvet each time their paws came down on metal treads. Silvas had no time to spare for calming them. The assault was already within the Glade.
"Eyru, reygu mavith. Eyru, sprath tourn." Silvas shouted the spell, loading his voice with urgency. The walls took on their familiar glow, but it wasn't even this time. The competing magic caused it to ebb and flow. "Dar, korbeth mavith. Dar, sprath tourn." He added the intensifiers and watched the luminescence even out.
Carillia and the cats took their normal places in the circles at the side of the room, but the lines of the pentagram were already fully aglow with power, so Silvas had to speak a spell of passage to get to the center. Then he had to waste time testing the space for any lurking enemy. That the pentagram had been activated before he entered was cause enough to require that caution. To be trapped with an invisible enemy within the pentagram might prove fatal.
Silvas moved on to chants of power and defense. Though the Seven Towers trembled at the assault, they remained standing. The walls provided their protection. Silvas chanted and he seemed to grow, to expand, overflowing the pentagram, even the workshop. Colors reversed. The glow turned dark, and that which was dark glowed light, casting everything into reverse-the better to see the demons that must be attacking. Before many seconds had passed, Silvas seemed to tower over the Seven Towers, with the castle nestled between his feet, a child's toy being protected from harm.
The stars were black points against a silvery night sky. The earth was covered with muted colors, red greenery against the black of water and the pale yellow of bare dirt. The walls of the Glade were a muddy red.
Against all that, the forms of the attacking demons were a brilliant, crackling bright blue. Squadrons of outlined forms circled the Seven Towers and the enlarged form of Silvas. Darts of crimson shot from black bows. On the walls of the Glade, Silvas's lupine warriors fought back as best they could, wielding silver blades that had been touched by their master's magic. Dark against the earth, Silvas saw reflections of other warriors moving toward the walls. These warriors themselves were invisible in this obscure light.
Silvas called on his Unseen Lord. He spoke the words of defense and brought in the lightning.
The Earth continued to shake.
Silvas spoke more words of power and caused the wind to turn in circles around the walls of the Seven Towers, bringing a chop to the water of the moat, bending trees and grass around it as the wind increased and funnelled in on itself, tighter and tighter, creating a wall as impenetrable as the stone and mortar of the physical walls. The cyclonic barrier became a mirror, brilliant in clarity. Silvas saw his image repeated a thousand times, bent forward into distortion.
And he saw more.
– |The storm engulfed Mecq and its valley. The sky was crisscrossed with lightning. Thunder rumbled continuously. More than one bolt of lightning touched the roof of a cottage. Only the rain that had continued since the previous afternoon prevented a score of destructive fires. Some of the soaked thatch smoked for a few minutes, but none of it was dry enough to sustain fire.
Brother Paul stood before the altar at St. Katrinka's. The candles lit at either side were scarcely needed in the repeated toss of lightning. The vicar was deep in his prayers and in the minor incantations that his station permitted. The friar prayed and chanted. Then he turned and walked the length of his church to stand in the doorway. There he was not completely protected from the driving rain that had replaced the calmer shower left by the wizard.
It is come to us now, Brother Paul thought. His left hand clutched the crucifix hanging from his neck. His right hand drew the sign of the cross against the storm. Staring into the rain, the friar caught glimpses of the demons riding the night, but his power was not great enough to hold the visions or to see the demons in their full fury. But he knew that they were out there, and his voice found the chants and prayers against them.
Brother Paul could hear the laughter of the demons mocking him. He called on the power of the White Brotherhood, and he felt extra strength flowing into him as he repeated his spells of protection. The laughter of the demons continued, but it was softer, almost sounding more distant.
– |Old Maga crouched in terror against the cold hearth of her cottage. Unlike some villagers, she didn't keep even a small fire going through the night, except during the coldest nights of winter. Getting wood to fuel a constant fire was more trouble than going next door to get a flaming brand to rekindle her fire every morning.
"This comes from the stranger," Maga mumbled over and over. The terrors of Hell seemed ready to consume her, but she could do nothing but crouch against the stone of her fireplace, waiting for the end to come. The wind rose in strength and volume. The ground shook under her. It seemed certain that the entire village would be consumed by the devil fires lancing the night. The smell of Hell was in the air, the nose-curdling odor of brimstone.
"Saints protect us!" Maga shouted into the storm, but the only answer was a vague sound of laughter on the wind-followed by the growing shriek of banshees screaming for the dead.
There was an even greater terror that Maga could find no words for. After a lifetime of going faithfully to church, of listening to Brother Paul, and to Brother Ezra who had the parish before him, and Brother Alfred before that, Old Maga knew that this was a night when souls would be lost. The demons and the banshees who came to oversee their work would carry off both lives and souls.
– |The mill's wheel began to turn. The river was not yet high enough to flow over the wheel, but it had finally reached the bottom, making it creak noisily as it came back to life after idle ages. Metal fittings screamed in protest as they stripped themselves of surface rust. Wood groaned as if it would split. The millstones inside started to turn, though there was no grain between them.
Next to the mill, the Eyler was a muddy torrent for one of the few times in a generation, frothing and racing past the village, pulling dirt from the banks and carrying it downstream. Some came to rest against the new stones that the villagers had placed across the river. More flowed across that insignificant barrier toward the gap between the twin mountains that bracketed it.
The rain flattened much of the grain in the fields. Most would survive, perhaps, but the storm was a further outrage against crops that had already faced much just to get this far.
– |Silvas suddenly found himself back within his body, shaking with the force of his magics. He blinked twice, then spoke a spell of passage so he could leave the pentagram safely. "Stay where you are," he said, including Carillia and the cats in the command as he raced from the room.
He climbed to the narrow turret that let him look down on Mecq. The sight he saw now was basically the same as he had seen through the vision of his magic. The village was being assailed by the storm. If anything, it was more viad thought. Demons rode the ridge of Mt. Balq and circled the peak of Mt. Mecq. More rode the surge of the Eyler. Silvas could hear their laughter, and he could also hear the crying of the banshees waiting to collect their due.
"Not yet," Silvas muttered under his breath. He turned and ran back down the stairs, through his conjuring chamber and library, heading for the curtain wall that surrounded the Seven Towers.
"It's come for fair, it has," Braf Goleg shouted when Silvas climbed to the parapets. The soldier had a gleam in his eye that told the wizard that his lupine commander had already found some targets for his weapons.
"How has it been?" Silvas asked. He too had to shout to be heard over the fury of the storm.
"Some few demon riders have come over the wall," Braf said. "None has survived the passage. They burn and smoke when the silver rips them."
Silvas nodded.
"Have any said anything you could understand?"
"Nay, lord." Braf shook his head violently. "They do naught but scream their fury and pain. I think we are more than they expected."
"That could be, Braf, but don't get overconfident. They may learn that you're not so different as you look."
"Here they come again," one of Braf's warriors shouted. He pointed. Silvas turned to follow the direction.
Ghostly riders sholent than Silvas howed no substance but only the brilliant blue outlines of their form. There was nothing but the night between the lines. The rain was there, and the forest of the Glade's valley. The demons rode demon steeds, charging through the air, caring not where the ground was or what they rode over in their mad assault.
"Give me space," Silvas said. Braf and the other nearby warriors moved aside, clearing an area that would give Silvas room to swing his staff at full reach if he chose to.
"Eyru, delvi, kepthi, dar." Silvas spoke each word separately, encased in its own web of power. He flung them at the five riders who approached in a tight wedge formation. The words forced some separation among the demons. Silvas adjusted his grip on his quarterstaff, dipping first one ferrule and then the other to scrape against the stone of the wall in front of him.
"Kabri, estu delvu restith," Silvas said, and the forms of the demons started to show some semblance of substance. A pale light filled in the empty spaces of their forms.
"There are your targets, lads," the wizard yelled. Silver-tipped arrows leaped from bone bows. When the arrows struck demon form, there were sparks, moments of intense white fire, longer moments of soul-stealing screams. Three demon riders erupted in the blinding flames of their kind. Their steeds-not horses, not animals of any known kind-shared their fate. But the remaining demons came on, aiming with certainty at Silvas and the aura of power that surrounded him.
Silvas swung his quarterstaff. The silver ferrule connected with the steed of the lead rider. The beast exploded in a white flare, but its rider leaped clear… and the quarterstaff went sailing back over Silvas's head into the courtyard of the Seven Towers.
The wizard barely had time to draw his dagger before he was knocked to the parapet by the force of the leaping demon. He was scarcely aware of Braf engaging the other. Silvas was aware of little more than the grinning death's head pressing down against his face and the smell of sulphurous breath coming from the demon's empty form. Silvas's wrists seemed clamped, as if by vises. The demon, for all his emptiness, had physical power at this juncture. He had the weight of hell behind him, trying to crush the wizard through the stone and into the ground. The demon's empty skull gaped wide and long, pointed teeth sought to bite away the wizard's soul.
Silvas twisted, calling for the help of his master. With his shoulders pressed against the stone, he found some leverage and started to bring the dagger up. The blade showed the same bright luminescence as the demons, but white rather than blue. The demon shifted his grip, concentrating on the hand that held the dagger. That gave Silvas a chance to roll to the side-enough to get the incredible weight of the demon off of him.
They became tangled. Silvas seemed to get a foot through the demon's middle, where its stomach would have been-if it had had a stomach. The wizard got up on one knee, and the knee would have pressed against the demon's heart-if it had had a heart. And suddenly their positions were reversed. Silvas was on top, pressing down against the tremendous power of the sketchy form. The point of his knife aimed for a target just above the center of the gaping mouth.
The blade cut through the blue lines that marked the demon's face. A flood of putrid smells erupted, almost drowning the screams of the wounded demon. The bright white flare of the fire that consumed the demon blinded the wizard for a moment. He staggered to his feet, reeling from the pain of the intense fire. His arms stretched out, seeking the security of the wall. His feet slid cautiously along the deck, worried that he might step off the parapet to plunge to the courtyard so far below.
"Here, lord, I have you," Braf said, and then the wizard felt the steel grip of his warrior. "This way, lord. 'Tis over for the moment."
"I'll be all right, Braf," Silvas said as some hint of vision returned. There were still bright spots sparkling before his eyes, but he could make out Braf's form. The pain of burning disappeared as quickly as the ethereal fire that had produced it. "A moment. The last of them?"
"I had him for supper, lord," Braf said, cackling. "Though 'twas a close thing who would eat who."
"You are wounded," Silvas observed.
"Aye, but it hurts not yet," Braf replied, glancing at his shoulder.
Silvas put his hands on the shoulder and spoke the words of healing. The wound was deep and poisoned. It was not a simple matter to exorcise this one. It needed time, concentration. There was still work to be done elsewhere. Silvas felt the call, the need. But he took the minutes that Braf's wound demanded.
"There, that has it," he said at last. "And now I must hurry."
"Geffer has your staff, lord," Braf said, pointing into the courtyard. Silvas had to focus closely to see the soldier below holding the staff, starting for the stairs with it.
Silvas met him halfway.
– |Henry Fitz-Matthew was almost paralyzed by terror-and even more frightened of showing his fear. His fighting days were far in his past, and he had never faced anything like this even then. He was on the battlements of his master's keep, and Sir Eustace was there with him. Eustace was screaming his rage at the storm, waving a sword that had seen no action in too many years. The knight cared not for the lightning that was pummeling the mountain. None struck him or the blade he flaunted against it. Sir Eustace looked down at his few men-at-arms on the walls. They were as helpless as he was. There was no enemy they could strike. Sir Eustace couldn't see the demons riding the ridge or circling the peak. His spirit was not tuned finely enough for that.
But he did feel the evil.
"That wizard brought this on us," Sir Eustace shouted. It wasn't the first time he had made that accusation since the storm roused him from sleep, since he felt the thrill of danger close and charged up to face whatever was coming. The knight looked down at the Eyler. The lightning came so frequently that he had no trouble at all seeing how high the river was getting. And he could cross to the side of his tower and look down at the village and fields. Puffs of smoke now and then showed where lightning continued to strike the thatched roofs that still refused to burn. In the fields, water stood around battered stalks of grain.
"That wizard brought this on us."
– |Brother Paul remained standing in the doorway of St. Katrinka's. He held his crucifix out in his hand. Both arms were raised against the storm. He stood in supplication and defiance, mouthing what spells he could command, trying to bend the storm around the village, trying to interpose himself between his flock and the ravages of demons and nature. His voice was hoarse from shouting his prayers and spells into the storm. He could see no result, though he took heart every time a puff of smoke from a roof died away without blazing into fire.
Then two bolts of lightning hit the same roof simultaneously, and the roof erupted in dirty orange and red flames. The wood of the walls, and whatever was within the cottage, flamed almost instantly. Brother Paul ran toward the cottage, but no one came out and by the time he arrived, the entire house was engulfed by flames. In less time than he needed to utter a prayer and make the sign of the cross, the home was gone and the fire had leaped to its nearest neighbor.
Brother Paul ran to the next house, screaming a warning. The family ran out into the rain, terror on all their faces as the house fell to the blaze.
But when the second house had been consumed, the fire went out. No other cottage stood near enough to catch in the driving rain.
"Come back to the church with me," Brother Paul told the family that had survived. "Come out of the storm."
– |Carillia and the cats had obeyed Silvas's instructions to remain in their guarded circles in the conjuring chamber. When Silvas returned, he said merely, "It continues," before he cleared a passage back into his pentagram. There he moved straight into another series of incantations, trying to fight the assaults on Mecq and on the Seven Towers. He felt the power of his Unseen Lord flowing through him, but the flow remained sluggish, opposed by whatever forces the Blue Rose had mustered. The glow of the walls pulsed, dimming, then brightening again in tune to some greater tide that the wizard could not completely grasp. The wind he had cast around the Glade was reflected within his workshop, twisting around the circumference of the pentagram. He couldn't extend the device to cover the village of Mecq, not without dropping his efforts to defend the Seven Towers-and without those defenses he would not long be able to defend outsiders in any case.
The light pulsed in the conjuring chamber, and it began to pulse within the wizard's head.
Then the light disappeared completely.
It was an instantaneous transition. The light blinked out and then returned, brighter and clearer than before. But Silvas was no longer within his workshop. He was no place he had ever been before.
He needed a moment to gather his thoughts and look around. The terrain was etched with incredible sharpness, everything defined and delineated with an uncanny precision. The sky was a perfect blue, unblemished by any cloud. The sun was a point of perfect orange brilliance. The grass, trees, even the rocks and dirt, all seemed to be painted with a perfect touch.
The plane of ideals, Silvas thought, the land of the gods. He could see no reason for him to be suddenly transported there. It can't be defeat, he reasoned.
The he saw the armies. The battle of light and dark was joined even on this plane. Heroic figures in plate armor of mirror-like brilliance stood against figures draped in armor so black that it seemed to soak up any hint of light. Swords flashed in blinding strokes. The wounds were clean and lethal. Death came quickly, in glory, even though Silvas recognized that this death was more than the simple death of the body. It was a destruction of the soul as well.
"Lord, why have you brought me here?" Silvas asked. His telesight forced him to watch the battle whether he wanted to or not. His vision focused first on one duel and then another, and then he would be given an overall view of the ranks of knights and demons fighting.
Behind those ranks, even more impressive figures commanded the action.
Silvas dropped his quarterstaff and fell to his knees. "I am in the presence of the gods!" The wizard felt an awe that was alien to him. One of the figures behind the lines of bright armor looked his way. Silvas could see nothing of the being behind the armor, but he felt that it was his Unseen Lord. Silvas was drawn to his feet, commanded to watch. The godly figure raised a hand to his face and tilted back the visor of his helmet.
"My Lord, why have you brought me here?" Silvas's voice was a small thing that seemed to have no place on this plain-on this plane.
The distant figure raised his hand and pointed it across the field, toward Silvas's right. Silvas turned and looked.
Why didn't I notice that before? he asked himself. The ideal plane came to an abrupt end. Beyond it was a desolate wasteland, a desert so complete that it made the valley of Mecq look like Eden. Now the dark army was lined up within the desolation, facing the army of shining armor out on the ideal plane.
And-somewhat apart, like Silvas-there was another lone figure. He too was staring at the field of battle. His eyes came to light on Silvas. Their eyes met, their heads nodded.
Silvas needed no further clue. This was his enemy, the foe he must beat to win his own battle over Mecq. The gods and their hordes of shining and dark knights charged toward one another. Silvas's lone opponent charged toward him. Silvas picked up his quarterstaff and moved to meet him.
Silvas chanted for the lightning and it came, but it didn't strike the other figure. Silvas's foe lifted his own staff, and the lightning was shunted aside, bounced back toward Silvas, who met the blast and grounded it harmlessly. A wind grew around Silvas, but it was not his doing.
I have met the Blue Rose wizard, Silvas thought as he worked to unwind the corkscrew wind. He ran forward, crossing the border into the desolation to meet his enemy. Silvas's magic picked up stones and hurled them. He raised eddies of dust and cast them toward the other wizard's eyes. At the same time Silvas had to meet the magical challenges thrown back at him.
The two wizards closed on each other. Silvas swung his quarterstaff, aiming the silver ferrule for one of the metal caps on the other's stick. Miniature bolts of lightning sprung from the contact. The Blue Rose wizard pressed Silvas's staff to the side and whirled his own, trying to hit the juncture of neck and shoulder with a disabling blow. Silvas turned sideways and threw his weight against the other wizard, then spun completely around while he slid both hands toward the silver end of his staff for a mighty swing at the other's head.
The contest went on for a time that may have marked ages in the mortal world. Silvas was hard put to hold his own. There seemed to be little chance of decisive victory. Victory would come only if one wizard made a mortal error, and neither seemed likely to do that.
Very rarely Silvas caught a glimpse of the greater battle being fought by the gods and knights in their anonymous armor, but there too it was hard to see any decision being approached. Warriors died on both sides. Silvas couldn't tell who they were-or even what they were. After a few minutes of combat Silvas couldn't even have picked out the figure who had commanded his entry.
Silvas tried to sweep the legs out from under his opponent. The other wizard jumped over Silvas's quarterstaff and returned his own blows, first high, then low. Throughout the encounter not one word was spoken. Neither wizard even grunted with the effort.
It has to end sometime, Silvas thought. He had nearly exhausted his store of tactics with the quarterstaff. Even after ages of practice, there were only so many things a man could do with a wrist-thick, seven-foot-long piece of wood. And the other wizard seemed to know how to meet each of them, and which counterstrokes would be hardest to meet.
The two wizards moved in until they were almost toe to toe, swinging their quarterstaves between them in minimal space. Silvas felt the other staff scrape his knuckles. His right hand stung and went numb. Afraid he might lose his grip completely, Silvas butted his head against his foe.
It wasn't that hard, Silvas thought, but the darkness took him anyway.