The Medusa Plague tdom-2

by Mary Kirchoff

  "What's going on?"

  "Either the stronghold's guardians are fighting again, or something is trying to enter Bastion's plane." Guerrand didn't stop as he tore down the hallway, headed for the scrying sphere in the nave, Bram at his heels.

  Dagamier was at her turn at the watch, standing anxiously in the small doorway of the column, which had activated the bridge to form over the moat. She was speaking agitatedly with the white-haired Ezius when Guerrand ran up to them.

  "Are the gargoyles and hounds at it again?" the high defender asked hopefully.

  Dagamier's expression was tight, her lips pinched. "No. Something else is just beyond the fence, stirring up the hounds."

  "But how can that be?" demanded Guerrand, hands on his hips, his expression horrified. "How did something get this close to Bastion without detection in the sphere?"

  Dagamier looked pointedly at Ezius. "I'm sure I don't know."

  "I swear I didn't take my eyes from the diorama for a heartbeat!" breathed Ezius. "Nothing registered in the perimeter until the hounds started baying!"

  Guerrand frowned his annoyance. "This is no time for recriminations. We'll use drill two, but this isn't a practice." Dagamier and Ezius exchanged glances. "Quickly now!" thundered Guerrand.

  Dagamier seemed about to protest, since drill two dictated she remain at watch in the sphere, but she nodded reluctantly. In accordance with the strategy, Ezius raced off to the white wing to gather components before positioning himself on the watch walk outside Bastion's white wing.

  "Where should I go?" Bram asked behind Guerrand, startling the mage.

  "Back to my apartments," said the high defender. Saving his spell energy for what lay ahead, Guerrand didn't teleport the short distance, but instead headed on foot to the red wing to collect his own magical equipment.

  Bram ran at his side to the laboratory. "You don't really expect me to go back to sleep, do you? Perhaps I can help."

  "Frankly, and I mean no offense," Guerrand said distractedly while he scraped flasks and pouches directly into the sack he held to the lab's shelves, "we three defenders have practiced for defense. I don't see that there's much you can do but get in the way of that. You have no magical skill to defend yourself, and I'd have to spend my thoughts worrying about your safety."

  "I'm not totally useless," his nephew said. "I managed to find you, didn't I?"

  Guerrand grasped Bram by the his well-muscled shoulders and gave him five heartbeats of his attention. He had hoped to anger Bram enough to put him off, and had planned another short speech to refuse his help. But then the mage saw the determination in his nephew's eyes.

  "All right," he sighed, "but stay low behind me, and do exactly as I tell you, when I tell you." He gave Bram a brief, bittersweet smile. "I'd rather face four seasoned mages than Rietta with the news that I'd let something happen to you."

  With that, he patted Bram on the back, grabbed the sack stuffed with spell components, and bolted back down the hall. He practically kicked in the door to the storeroom, then squeezed himself sideways between the right wall and the floor-to-ceiling shelves, seeking the stairway to the red wing's watch walk.

  Guerrand located the secret release, the door slid back, and he plunged up the steps. Another door flew open at the top and both men emerged into the windless, dark air outside Bastion. Guerrand stopped briefly and listened for the exact location of the hounds: they were just beyond the front gate. With Bram still at his heels, he took the left branch of the narrow widow's walk that circled the exterior of the nave.

  They came to the wider balcony at the front of Bastion, above the apse and behind the facade. Guerrand reached into his sack and withdrew several rings and bracelets. He immediately slipped one of each on, then handed the same to Bram. "Get down, and stay down," he commanded his nephew. Donning the ring and bracelet without question or even knowing why, the young man reluctantly dropped to his knees, where he peered through the wrought-iron bars into the darkness.

  Guerrand scanned the nearby pointed gables of the white wing and the smooth, flat ledges of the red and black sections. The hideous, winged creatures who posed as downspouts on the stronghold were in place, eyes shifting watchfully. The shadows of topiaries in the courtyard were as frightening as ever, but looked undisturbed.

  All signs of intrusion still came from beyond the ornate wrought-iron fence. No longer muffled by Bastion's walls, the sounds of snarling, shrieking hounds cut both men to the core. The vicious barking and snapping changed abruptly to high-pitched squeals of pain, then nothing. The silence that followed was deafening.

  Heart hammering, Guerrand looked for Ezius above the white wing to his left. He was reassured by the mage's presence, but he prayed to Lunitari that he would not have to witness Ezius's skills in battle now.

  "What's happening? Where are the hounds?" whispered Bram.

  "Dead." Guerrand knew it as surely as he knew anything. Only death would have silenced their howls.

  Several anxious moments passed before a burst of flame cleared away a knot of brush before the fence. As the smoke and ashes parted, Guerrand saw a man riding on the back of a hell hound. The creature, obviously in torment, quivered beneath the man's cruel grip. But the shock of this sight was nothing compared to the surge of adrenalin in the high defender's system when he recognized Lyim Rhistadt on the monster's back.

  Guerrand recalled the Council's edict to capture intruders for tribunal whenever possible. He fired a telepathic message to the white mage, who was already rummaging in his pack in preparation of a spell.

  Hold off firing, Ezius, until my command. The high defender saw the pale-haired mage nod, though Ezius's expression was obviously puzzled.

  "Good evening, Guerrand," Lyim said conversationally. "Or is it morning here?" He swung the beast beneath him around like a horse, though it belched flames. "It's impossible to tell."

  "I see you've defied the odds and found your way here." Guerrand cursed his voice for shaking. "What is it you expect to get for your trouble, Lyim?"

  "Men give up many things willingly," proclaimed Lyim. "Their fortunes, their loves, their dreams… Power, never. It must be taken. You gave up all those things for power, Guerrand. Your power here at Bastion robbed me of the chance to restore my hand and my life to normal. Now I've come to seize your power." The hell hound fidgeted beneath Lyim. "But then, you knew the answer to your question before you asked it."

  "And you know the answer I will give," Guerrand said evenly. "I cannot and will not violate the laws of Bastion for any mage."

  "Not even for an old friend who gave his hand for your life?"

  "We've gone over this, Lyim," Guerrand said grimly. "To do what you ask would put every mage on Krynn at risk. I would give my hand for yours, if I could, but I cannot grant entrance to Bastion. Only the Council of Three can do that. Did you petition them as I suggested?"

  "I told you before, asking those three wouldn't have done any good." Lyim laughed bitterly. "It would only have tipped my hand, so to speak. They would have been watching me, and then I couldn't have followed the nephew who cowers behind you."

  Lyim chuckled again at the sight of Guerrand's surprise. "Of course I know about Bram's presence here, Rand. I attached myself to the slipstream of the spell that sent him here. Now I find myself in the awkward position of being thankful that the Council made an exception for him that they would never have made for me."

  "The Council didn't let Bram in for his sake, but for the welfare of Northern Ergoth and beyond," said Guerrand. "That's the difference between you and the Council. For the sake of one person-yourself-you spread a deadly plague in Thonvil."

  "Never defend, that's always been my motto," said Lvim, idly twisting the gemstone he wore in his left earlobe. "You must seize what you want from life. If destroying everything you ever cared about was the only way to draw you out of Bastion, then it was worth it to me. Unfortunately, you seemed neither to notice, nor to care, nor to act."

  Guerrand held
his anger in check with great effort, unwilling to let it cloud his thinking or his judgment. He clung to the hope that Lyim would surrender. "So vou intend to storm Bastion, one mage against three. That sounds like suicide."

  "Whether or not we fight here has always been up to vou, Rand, but beware. I am much more powerful and cunning than when we were apprentices," warned Lyim.

  "You blocked detection from our scrying," observed Guerrand, just beginning to understand the measure of the other wizard's skill.

  Lyim lifted the lapels of the transparent cloak that cv CDebusa Plague

  covered his red robe. "I make it a point to plan for all possibilities and seize all chances."

  He pretended to be struck with a sudden thought. "Speaking of opportunities, did Bram tell you that your sister Kirah is looking well, despite the plague?"

  "You saw Kirah?" demanded Bram, standing. "When?"

  Lyim pretended to tick off time mentally. "It must have been two days ago. Kirah was the one who told me you had gone to Wayreth to find your uncle," Lyim explained blithely. "She's such a trusting soul. Seems a bit smitten with me, if I'm not mistaken. You needn't worry about Kirah, though. I gave her a bottle of the antidote." He paused and tapped his chin with his only index finger. "Or was that the bottle with the plague?" He shrugged. "I guess I should have marked them better when I brought the disease to Thonvil from Mithas."

  Guerrand could contain his rage no longer. "Are you trying to make me kill you?"

  Lyim's friendly facade slipped away, and he looked deadly serious. "Whether I battle my way into Bastion to use the portal to the Lost Citadel or you kill me first, I'll finally be free of this hideous arm. My life is already worse than death, so I have nothing to lose. The time has come to settle this once and for all, Rand."

  The hell hound beneath Lyim howled and twitched. Abruptly it transformed into the steely likeness of a bull that towered above Lyim's head as he floated easily to the ground. Its eyes glowed a fiercer red than even the hell hound's had, and when it pawed the ground, Guerrand could feel all of Bastion shudder. Foul-looking vapors blasted and curled from its nostrils with each exhalation.

  Stage two, Guerrand mentally commanded Ezius, who stood waiting impatiently above the white wing.

  Guerrand had never been face-to-face with a gorgon before, but he recognized it from books of mythical creatures. At a gesture from the high defender, the gargoyles swooped from their perches to attack. Guerrand knew they stood little chance against this terrible beast, but perhaps they could buy some time while the mages prepared a defense. There was a chance, being living stone already, the gargoyles would not be affected by the gorgon's petrifying breath.

  With deafening roars the monsters met and clashed. But Guerrand's attention was already elsewhere. With deft movements and softly muttered words he etched an intricate pattern of lights in the air before him to reinforce Bastion's ever-present wards. The same lights, in the same pattern, redrew themselves around the exterior of Bastion. There they were suspended, pulsing, around and above the building and its defenders.

  Dagamier's spells fired from the top of the black wing would provide invaluable help, but protections on the scrying sphere prevented Guerrand from sending her a telepathic message. The mage turned to Bram. "Go to the scrying chamber and tell Dagamier to begin drill three. Hurry!"

  Bram bolted for the trapdoor and dived through it just as a magical bolt of some sort tossed from Lyim's hand hit the facade where Bram had been sheltering, sending fragments flying past his heels.

  Guerrand was in the midst of casting a protective spell on himself when chunks of the wall slammed into his legs and abdomen. He was knocked to the walkway and bloodied. He cursed the wasted spell, only half cast.

  A quick glance below revealed Lyim hovering waist- high above the ground, surrounded by shimmering bands of multicolored light. On the roof of the white wing, Ezius pointed a wand into the courtyard and mouthed several words. Even through the shielding magic of Guerrand's rings and bracers, he felt the blast of heat as three successive balk of fire exploded below. Guerrand had to turn his face away from the blinding light that flared from red to yellow to unbearable white. Three thunderclaps shook the building as blistering air seared past.

  The courtyard was a swirling tumult of smoke and ashes outlined by the twisted remains of the fence, now glowing red-hot. The gorgon and several gargoyles lay blackened on the charred ground. Even before the smoke settled, Guerrand could hear the laugh he remembered so well. "Nothing is so predictable as a lawful white wizard with a wand," Lyim declared.

  He counterattacked by tossing a small pouch into the air. At a wave of Lyim's hand the pouch streaked toward Ezius and burst open above the white mage, raining a fine dust down over him. A circular sweep of Ezius's hand created a shield above him that kept the flakes off. As the dust settled, the shield sizzled and popped. It was already breaking into chunks by the time Ezius flung it over the parapet and scurried away from the few remaining flecks of dust.

  Out of the right corner of his vision, Guerrand saw Dagamier and Bram scramble onto the watch walk of the black wing. If Lyim hasn't noticed her, he thought, perhaps she can catch him off guard as drill three is intended to. Dagamier wasted no time in trying; one hand, small and slender, made a circling gesture. A thin, silvery ray of tremendous cold flashed from her hand across the blasted scene. Like Ezius's fireball, the attack struck the bands of scintillating color enclosing Lyim. But this time it looked like some of the spell's energy pierced Lyim's globe, as the leering red mage appeared to wince under the ray's probing fingers.

  Lyim was quick to react. With practiced speed he began casting a spell to shore up his weakened defenses. The magical chant created new energy, but it had to be woven into the protective bands with Lyim's good left hand. The physical gestures were complex. As Lyim worked, the snake snapped at his left hand, biting it just behind the thumb. Reflexively Lyim's left hand jerked back, spoiling the spell.

  Hoping to capitalize on what might be only a moment's advantage, Guerrand quickly created a gigantic hand, formed entirely of magical energy. The hand took shape behind Lyim. Immediately its outstretched fingers wrapped around the mage and squeezed.

  At first, the hand seemed to have no affect, was unable to penetrate Lyim's colored bands. But the weak point had not been repaired, and one by one the bands burst, showering the area with a rainbow of sparks. As each band ruptured, Lyim's face grew more red and more fearful. At the last moment, the look of terror and pain on his face burned itself into Guerrand's memory. His scream rose to an inhuman pitch, then abruptly cut off.

  Guerrand willed the magical hand to release Lyim's body; the other mage slumped to Bastion's dark and murky ground.

  Ezius was the nearest, and so was the first to cautiously approach the fallen mage. Guerrand, and Dagamier with Bram, watched from high above on the walks. Slowly the white mage advanced across the courtyard. Pausing at a distance of several paces, Ezius withdrew a crystal lens from a fold of his robe and held it to his eye. For many moments he inspected the body. Satisfied at last, he stepped up to Lyim and nudged him with his toe, waiting for many long moments. When Ezius looked up to the high defender, no announcement was necessary.

  Guerrand stumbled backward a step, a hand to his throat in disbelief. Lyim was dead. After all the drills they had performed, the defenders' three-pronged attack had worked-perhaps too well. The high defender realized now that some part of him had still hoped to take Lyim alive. Then Guerrand remembered that Lyim had fatally poisoned many without thought, and his brief feeling of loss abruptly changed to a sense of justice done. Lyim's bitterness had driven him to measures beyond redemption.

  Dagamier had joined Ezius in the courtyard below. Guerrand cast a featherfall spell on both himself and Bram, and they drifted down next to the other defenders.

  Ezius's face was smudged with the soot of spells. Squinting through his thick, dusty spectacles, he said, 'There must be no burial ceremony for one su
ch as he. I have some experience with coroners' techniques. If you wish, I'll attend to him."

  Bram spoke up. "1 think you should let him, Rand. I need you to send me back to Thonvil immediately after what this Lyim said about Kirah. How did he even know her?"

  "Kirah met him once, years ago," Guerrand explained distantly, "when Lyim came to Castle DiThon in my stead. I, too, got the feeling that she was taken with him."

  Bram frowned at the revelation. "The villagers all say she waits by the sea for a lover…"

  "If Kirah ran into Lyim again, she would have trusted him with her life," Guerrand said softly, his gaze far away and very sad.

  "Do you believe he spoke truly," asked Dagamier, "or was he just trying to goad you into attacking?"

  Guerrand shook his head. "I believe Lyim would have done anything to further his own ends."

  Bram squared his shoulders. "Do what you must, then, to send me back immediately."

  Guerrand thought of Esme, of his little sister Kirah and the innocent villagers of Thonvil, as he watched Ezius drag the dead body of the friend who had become his adversary up the stairs to the nave. The gem in Lyim's ear stud caught the light from several small fires still burning in the courtyard. It seemed somehow fitting that Lyim's death had given Guerrand greater freedom of mind to face disasters of Lyim's creation.

  "We'll go together, Bram." The announcement of Guerrand's earlier decision surprised his nephew. The high defender was rewarded with a grateful smile and a joyous pat on the back. Dagamier nodded her acceptance of his decision, with the usual mysterious light in her eyes as she followed the two men back into Bastion.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Kirah awoke at first light with an inexplicable sense of well- being she had not felt in a long time. She bounded from her feather tick, feet dancing over the cold floor, seeking her worn boots. Jamming her feet into the things, more mud than good leather now, she stoked the fire with just one small piece of wood to keep the cinders burning while she toiled in the bakery below.