Regene groaned. She bent her head, her hair not moving from her neck, plastered there by blood from a cut just above the curve of her ear. That cut she'd got in the fall, but the worse wound was that to her left arm. She mopped blood from there with the hem of her robe, showing the wound was not as bad as the bleeding made it seem.

"Some shield," she said. Her bitter smile looked more like a grimace. "I thank you for not using it."

Dalamar nodded, but absently. He looked around, down the road to the sea and up again to the citadel. The air had a peculiar, wavering quality to it, not of light but of light's absence, as though something beyond the sky tried to break through the brightness of day.

"What is that?" Regene said, her voice hushed with fear.

"Trouble. I don't think there is a dwarf who calls himself Tramd o' the Dark in the Tower at Wayreth anymore."

"You think he's-what?-come back here?"

Dalamar nodded. "Don't you?"

Regene sopped more blood from her arm. "What about the avatar?"

Swift came the bitter memory of a forest on fire, the corpse of a good man at his feet, and the hulk of red armor in which nothing lay but dust. "Gone," Dalamar said. "Someone will sweep up a pile of dust somewhere in the Tower and never know it was him.

"Listen," he said, turning. "You don't have to go farther if you don't want to."

He looked at her long, and they both knew he didn't speak from any concern for a woman who had for two nights lain in his bed. He was not, Regene had learned, a sentimental lover. He was not a man who invested much in the sweet dances of the night. Neither did he act for the sake of one who had led him through a wandering wood to the Tower of High Sorcery. He wondered whether she were strong enough to go on, whether the nearness of such evil as filled that citadel would still her, stop her, render her afraid and useless to him. Dalamar Nightson, she knew, would act ever and always for his own sake.

And she would act for hers.

Chill wind blew in off the sea. Gulls cried. The waves rushed in and ran out again while Regene ripped the hem of her gown and wrapped it, one-handed, round her arm. Clenching one end with her teeth and the other with her good hand, she tugged the bandage tight, wincing only a little against the pain. Face pale, she climbed to her feet, wiping bloody hands down the sides of her robe.

"Now, how do we do this? Just go up to the gate and demand admittance?"

Dalamar smiled then, but not warmly. "I don't think it will take that much effort. Look." He pointed to the sky where the shivering air became like gathering darkness.

Regene took a swift sharp breath. The darkness deepened, and it spread like a bruise on the bright blue of the day, flowing down the sky. It seemed now that it was not a thing imposed upon the light, but that light itself leaked out of the sky, out of the world, and into the dark wound. The wound in the sky opened wide, sucking the breath right out of Dalamar's lungs. He felt only one thing before he fell into senselessness: Regene's hand on his arm, gripping hard as though her fingers were talons.

Chapter 20

Regene's fingers dug hard into Dalamar's arm. Sharp lines of pain shot up from his forearm to his shoulder. In the enveloping darkness, pain was all he felt, radiating out from that hard grip, and he did not disdain to feel it. Just then, it was the only sensation.

After long moments, hearing returned. Dalamar heard the whistle of his own breath forced from his lungs and a sudden bark of laughter in the very moment he knew that he could not draw in more air. He took a step to see if he could. Light burst upon him in wild leaping colors, like the auroras that waver over the northmost part of the world. The light did not blind him. It hit him hard, like a fist in the chest, staggering him. Still gasping, Dalamar fell to one knee, reeling away from the force. He felt stone beneath his hands, hard and cold, stone beneath his knee, and no air in his lungs.

Laughter resounded, hard and booming, and breath rushed into his lungs with gasping force.

"Get up," said a voice. "Get up now, mageling."

Anger shot through Dalamar, anger like fire and ice. He stood, he breathed, and breathing, he was able to see. Before him rose a wall of shimmering light, red and blue and green and yellow, all the colors restlessly moving and shifting so that no color stayed the same but blended with others in change. The light made a small chamber, bounded on three sides by the rainbow glow and on the fourth by a thick stone wall into which lines had been scored to suggest a door, though no means of opening the door was seen. Beyond the wall of light, within the chamber, Regene stood, looking around. She saw Dalamar and, face white as her bloody robe should have been, she took a step toward him.

"Don't move!" Dalamar snapped. "Don't touch the light, Regene."

She stood still, warned.

Softly, behind him, Dalamar heard a step, and then a swift in-taking of breath. He turned, his hand already moving to shape an enchantment. Mid-gesture, he stopped. Before him stood a dwarf mage, dark-robed, red of beard and hair. Among dwarves he would be considered handsome: thick-chested, broad in the shoulders, with strong features and fiery eyes.

"It is you," Dalamar said, keeping his voice low and steady despite the aching of his lungs. He would show this mage nothing but a calm, considered mien.

The dwarf inclined his head in acknowledgment. "It is I, Tramd of Thorbardin, who is sometimes known as-"

"Tramd o' the Dark. Yes, I have heard."

The morning sun shone in through the window behind the dwarf, laying gold on the stone floor. A study, Dalamar thought. Shelves of books lined the three walls beyond the rippling rainbow light, and blocky chairs that seemed hewn from whole slabs of stone stood near the window. Thick cushions and pillows eased the hard surfaces and edges of those chairs, and banks of candles sat on tables near to hand. This was the chamber of one who read and wrote long into the night. To the left of the dwarf stood an oaken desk, and on that were stacks of parchment, pots of ebony ink, and newly made pens. Amidst all of this, pages were carelessly scattered-plans of some kind, design schematics and sheaves of notes. From where he stood, Dalamar could not see what shape those plans took. He gained only the swift impression of a fortress or castle of some kind.

Dalamar took his glance from the plans. "Tramd o' the Dark," he said. "Yes, and I remember you."

Tramd moved out of the sunlight, away from the window. "I imagine you would." His eyes narrowed. "I had forgotten you, until lately."

The dwarf gestured to Regene as one who wishes to show a guest some interesting object. Dalamar turned, and he saw that the scoring in the stone wall had changed, grown deeper, as though it did, indeed, mark a passage of some kind-one that was being opened from the inside, beyond the stone. Regene stood very still, facing the door and barely breathing.

"It's a pretty wall, don't you think? Look how the colors shine all over her."

Spilling down her robe, running on her flesh, it was as though the light were water running.

"It has some interesting properties, that light." Tramd stepped closer to the shimmering wall. Regene saw him and glared at him, lifting a hand. "Oh, no," he said, his voice filled with false concern. "No, girl, don't think to charm your way out of there or to send any magic through. What you do will turn on you, each force you extend will rebound back. I'd stand still and keep my hands to myself, were I you."

Unsure, but unwillingly to test it, Regene stood still.