Wizards Conclave

Chapter 26
Storm of Wild Magic

Did you hear that?" Jenna asked, staring at the Tower. Around her the wizards stared in horror, watching the clawlike shape of the giant edifice, listening to the terrible sounds emerging from the black stone spires.

No answer was necessary from the gathered wizards: All heard the creaking, agonized sounds as flagstones twisted, and thick walls were warped and corrupted. The outer shell of the tower seemed to waver in the air like a reed blown by a powerful gale. A collective gasp rose from the throng of magic users as the black spires appeared to sway back and forth.

Some wizards sobbed and others wailed piercingly. All of them had studied, been tested-and passed their Tests-here. Now, many of them cried out in anguish as this hallowed place seemed on the brink of destruction.

"It is suffering-but it is not dying! "Jenna cried, trying to rally the broken spirits. "Not yet-do not lose faith!"

"What can we do?" asked Rasilyss. "How can we fight this?" Her skinny hands planted on her hips, she glared in vexation at the Tower.

"We must get inside-Coryn's in there alone right now. I'm going after her!" declared Adramis, the white-robed elf.

His twin sister Aenell quickly vowed her support, and they were joined by the other White Robes. Adramis pointed toward the high summit of the North Tower. "Each of those balconies has a door, and one of them may be vulnerable! If we can't teleport, so be it; let us fly up to each of the doors and find a way in!"

In seconds the elf White Robe had cast his fly spell, and he started up into the air as his comrades launched their own spellcastings.

"Wait!" Dalamar barked, holding up his hand. "We all have a stake in this. All three orders must act together. We'll have a much better chance."

He nodded at Adramis. "But the Qualinesti is right- Kalrakin can't protect every one of those doors. So let's go in unison, and spread out, explore balconies and outer walls. Spread the word if you find a way in!"

In seconds the wizards of all robes took to the air. Those who knew the flying spell cast it, while some who were limited to levitation floated upward, until a fellow wizard grabbed them by the hand and led them toward a balcony. They fanned out, some heading toward the north tower, others to the south, spiraling and climbing in the light of the rising moons.

Jenna, too, flew upward, her eyes on the other wizards. She watched Willim the Black, his eyeless face locked in a joyful grin, his magical Eye floating before him and guiding him magically along; he glided toward a wide balcony on the north tower-facing the gap between the two spires.

Dalamar flew just behind the dwarf. They both settled to the flagstones just before the solitary door leading into the Tower. The Red Robe hovered a slight distance away, watching as the dwarf approached the door.

"I'll blast the damned thing off its hinges!" the dwarf growled.

Willim put up both of his hands and chanted a spell. His fingers touched the unassuming wooden surface of the door as he tensed, preparing for the final command of his enchantment, but when he made contact, he disappeared.

"Willi!" Dalamar cried, lunging forward to snatch at the air where the black-robed dwarf had stood only moments before. The elf raised his hand, as if to drive a fist into the door, when Jenna alighted beside him.

"Don't!" she urged, grabbing him by the shoulder. "It's some kind of trap-under Kalrakin's control! It took Willi, and it will snatch you, too!"

"Yes-of course, I know that," the dark elf snapped bitterly, lowering his fist. His face was distorted. His whole body shook with rage. "That bastard has turned the entire Tower into a weapon to be wielded against us."

"Let's try somewhere else," Jenna suggested.

They took to the air again, making a circuit of the north tower. They learned that several other wizards had vanished when they tried their magic on the doors, just like Willim the Black. In other places the doors had been securely bound, locked by wild magic, so even the most potent of the wizardly spells proved futile. And some doors had been melded into the structure of the walls by the same kind of flowing stone that had obscured the front door. These formed smooth, impassive barriers, which no magic seemed able to penetrate.

Magic users continued to swoop and rise and circle around, but none reported any viable means of entry. Though she didn't stop to count, Jenna knew their number was dwindling, and she wondered how many had already been captured-or killed-by Kalrakin or his sorcerous traps.

"Look!" cried Dalamar suddenly, putting a hand on Jenna's arm, bringing them both to a halt in the air very near the summit of the spire.

"What is it," she asked, looking around.

"I don't remember that door being there," the dark elf observed. "And there's no platform, no balcony outside. If it opened from the inside, a person could step right out into the air. Doesn't that strike you as odd?"

Jenna studied the plain door-so plain, it was barely visible from the outside-high in the smooth side of the structure, apparently leading nowhere. Like Dalamar, she had no memory of seeing this portal before.

"Odd, indeed. It's worth a look," Jenna said, tucking her shoulder and diving nearer as Dalamar sailed close behind.

She approached the door, which, as the elf had observed, opened in the sheer outer wall of the Tower over a drop of some two hundred feet. It was a simple barrier of wooden planks, with a small golden knob and no visible lock. Jenna scowled as she flew closer, shifting her posture to slow her flight-for she was startled to realize that she seemed to be accelerating, drawn by some powerful force right toward the solid wooden barrier.

"Look out! I can't stop!" she cried, twisting herself, exerting all the force of her spell to try to get away from the magnetic force drawing her to the Tower. It was like trying to swim upstream-whatever limited progress she made was easily overwhelmed by the force that was drawing her in.

"It's got me, too!" Dalamar was kicking and thrashing nearby, reaching with his hands, as if he might be able to grab a tree branch or cloud and pull himself away. But he, too, was clearly overpowered.

Overcome, both were being sucked with increasing force and speed toward the high stone walls of the Tower.

Jenna threw up her hands to protect her head. She gasped, anticipating the impact, but instead was immediately enveloped by darkness. She tumbled to a hard stone floor, quickly twisted around and struggled to regain her footing. Something brushed past; it was Dalamar, who, she observed with some irritation, leaped to his feet while she was still fumbling with her staff. With a curse, she brought a light spell into being on the top of her staff.

"Where are we?" the dark elf cried, quickly stalking the circumference of what appeared to be a small, dark, enclosed room. "And where's the door? I swear we crashed straight into it!"

"It's gone-maybe it was never there in the first place. But we're somewhere high up in the Tower, I should think," Jenna replied, looking around in the cool light of her spell. "At least, judging from the small size of the room, and the curve of that wall, that's my best guess."

"Do you think Kalrakin lured us here, trapped us?" the dark elf mused aloud.

"I brought you here."

The word was spoken by an old man who stood in the corner, wearing a tattered robe of white. The old White Robe certainly hadn't been there a moment before.

"Par-Salian?" the dark elf declared, shocked by the recognition. "It is you! Though I fear that the passage of time has not been kind to you."

Jenna looked and also recognized the man who had been the Head of the Conclave when she had taken her Test. Age had ravaged him cruelly, as evidenced by the rheumy film over his eyes and the dark spots that marked his hands. His beard and hair, once lush and full-even though steel-gray-were now sparse and bedraggled. Even his robe, the pure symbol of his order, he had allowed to become dirty, torn, and unkempt; he leaned on a cane, his posture so feeble that he seemed likely to fall forward on to his face.

Only Par-Salian was long dead; he had perished during the Chaos War.

"You can't truly be Par-Salian. So who are you?" Dalamar demanded. "I would kill you in an instant if I thought you were the sorcerer Kalrakin in cunning guise, hut there is no hint of wild magic around you."

"I am the Master of the Tower," said the image of Par-Salian. "I brought you here-it is the only safe place, for the moment. The sorcerer has ensorcelled all the other doors with dangers and traps."

"What's happened to the other wizards who disappeared?" asked Jenna. "Are they slain?"

"No… not yet. He holds them in the Hall of Mages. Of course you recall that there are no doors to that chamber, and his wild magic has secured the place. None may teleport in or out. As your wizards enter the Tower, they become his prisoners."

"What of Coryn? The Head of the White Robes?" Jenna prodded.

"Ah. That is why I brought you here-she needs your help. As do I." The aged White Robe pointed across the room, where appeared a sheet of glass suspended on the stone wall like a window. "Use the scrying glass. You will see her; she is down below, near the anteroom of the foretower."

"Look!" cried the dark elf, pointing to an image that began to glow in that reflective surface. Jenna stepped close, and she and Dalamar both immediately recognized Coryn. Her white robe was torn and stained with blood, and she was lying prone, trapped in a gap that had opened in the floor. As the two wizards watched, that narrow space started to squeeze shut. She struggled frantically, clearly overpowered in the vise of wild magic.

"What can we do?" asked Jenna desperately, whirling to confront the Master.

But he was no longer there.

Coryn pushed and pushed, but the viselike pressure resisted her puny strength. The gap in the floor was like a wound closing, shaping itself according to Kalrakin's wishes. The White Robe was caught in a brief slit that felt disturbingly like a coffin, just long and wide enough to accommodate her body. As soon as she had fallen in, it had begun to squeeze shut.

Watching her, Kalrakin smiled and held up his hand; the stone gap immediately stopped closing. Coryn was tightly trapped-she couldn't so much as wriggle-but at least she was able to draw breath.

"What a pretty little rabbit I have snared," declared the sorcerer. To Coryn, from her position lodged beneath the floor, he seemed like a giant covered with smudges of dirty cloud, which trailed off his craggy visage.

"You thought you were pretty clever, I suspect… when you tricked us into letting you live. That is not a mistake I shall make again. Not that your death will be overly speedy, of course. These things take time!"

"No-I wasn't being clever," Coryn said. She searched for words, ideas, anything that would distract Kalrakin and give her a chance to stay alive.

"I was foolish," she said quickly. "Now I am curious. I came here to learn about this place-and it took me a while to understand that you have become the master. I am in awe of your power-I wanted to learn from you!"

"Master… yes. I am Master here. I didn't think you appreciated that."

"Oh, it's obvious," Coryn said. "I should have known it right away. And I'm sorry about taking your food. That was an honest mistake."

"Hah! My food? I have no need of food! This tower is my sustenance." As he spoke he flipped the white stone in his hand, and Coryn found her eyes drawn inexorably to that pearly artifact. It was terribly bright, and created a hypnotic flash of light when he alternately covered it up and revealed it.

Kalrakin looked down at her, clearly enjoying himself. He grinned at her and twisted his hands, drawing the vise of stone just a bit tighter around the White Robe. Coryn strained to breathe, but her elbows were now trapped against her sides, and the pressure was crushing her lungs.

She saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and apparently the sorcerer did, too. Kalrakin whirled around, white lights flashing all around him, and he shouted.

"I destroyed you once-you have no right to be here!"

Wild sorcery flashed and the floor shook against both of her shoulders, squeezing Coryn even harder. She saw a Black Robe flash past the wall, a haggard old wizard she had never seen before. She blinked, and the wizard's robe had turned to white.

And now it was the face of Par-Salian she saw, looking down at her with a kindly expression. The Master of the Tower nodded once, surprisingly calm in the face of Kalrakin's frenzied cries. Then he vanished in a convulsion of wild magic.

Coryn found herself lying on a bed, alone in a room. She heard an echo of Kalrakin's disbelieving scream, but that faded almost immediately into blessed silence. The wild-magic sorcerer was not here, however, and could not possibly know where she was. For one thing, she didn't know herself.

She sat up and looked around, crying out as her back and hips creaked in pain. Gingerly she moved a bit, realizing with some relief and surprise that she didn't seem to have any broken bones. But where was she?

This room looked vaguely familiar; she guessed she was still in the Tower of High Sorcery. This was a simple sleeping chamber, with a table, desk, wardrobe, and this comfortable bed. And there was a door, with a big lock, secured with a key from the inside.

Of course! This was the room she had slept in on her first visit, the night before she had taken the Test of Magic. But that seemed too easy. She stood up on shaky legs and walked across to the desk. There was nothing on it, nor on the table, which was just as before. Of course, she had thrown a few of her belongings in the wardrobe, things she hadn't taken with her when she had left the Tower rather precipitously. It contained nothing that would help her. She pulled open the wardrobe: There was her water skin, her bedroll, and a few extra pieces of clothing. And then she saw something else, which she had left here and all but forgotten.

It was her stout hunting bow. Beside it rested her plain, but serviceable, quiver of arrows.

The wizards circled through the air outside the Tower. Many of them had vanished, by now, having attacked one of Kalrakin's locked doors and simply disappeared. There was no way to know the fate of those comrades, but Adramis and his sister were rapidly despairing.

"I can't fly much longer," Aenell warned her brother. "My spell is fading."

"Down to the ground, then?" he asked dismally. He would be able to stay in the air for only a few more minutes at the most.

"No, not to the ground," his sister demurred. "We've seen these trapped doors work their magic. But so far no one has followed up after one of our number has vanished. What if the trap is good for but a single use?"

"Interesting…" Before he could say anything else, she dipped away, swooping toward the balcony where Willim the Black had disappeared. She came to rest on the flagstones just outside the door. Adramis hastened after, landing next to her on the balcony, which was about halfway up the north tower.

"Be careful!" he advised "I'll be careful, but you have to admit we don't have many options left."

"Yes. But I will not let you risk your life-stand back, and see what happens to me."

Nodding at his gallantry, Aenell stepped out of the way. She knew better than to try to argue with her brother, and anyway, she would be close by, ready to help him or follow him to death, if necessary.

"Now you be careful!" was all she could say as she fidgeted anxiously, spells of attack and defense tingling in her fingertips. She watched her brother approach the door. He reached out slowly, gingerly put a finger to the wooden surface.

And the portal exploded inward with his touch, vanishing in a shocking display of violence. The force of the blast apparently sucked Adramis inside, for the elf vanished from his sister's view instantaneously, pulled just like the others to some unknown fate inside the Tower.

So she was wrong, Aenell thought bitterly, preparing to follow.