The inhuman creature's spellcasting rose above the noise, and blue energy blasted at Syndra Wands, only to crystallize in the air against her shields before crumbling in sheets of frozen vapor. Raegar moved to his left, hugging the walls and keeping his eyes glued to the lich.

He ached to throw the short sword at him, followed by his two throwing daggers, but he knew to wait. Raegar smiled as Syndra wove her green magic into a flock of woodpeckers. The magical constructs settled onto an invisible barrier around Frostrune and they began poking small holes in his magical protections. Raegar had never been so close to a major spell battle; Damlath had often used magic to get them as far away from them as possible. It was fascinating, horrifying, and sobering all at once. Raegar wondered if the air always felt so pressurized during a spell battle, as if the space itself recoiled from spells or pushed against them. He noticed a few fallen books shift on the far side of the room as the invisible Blackstaff made his way around the room's perimeter. Is he trying to get noticed? Raegar thought, then he saw Khelben slowly become visible. Frostrune dissolved the flock of birds on his shields just as Khelben completed his casting and came fully into view. Flames coalesced into a ball of fire that bounced around the lich, setting fire to the areas all around him but leaving him untouched. "Blackstaff, you should have struck to kill outright," the lich said. "I'll not leave you the chance to cast another ineffective spell. Say good-bye to your granddaughter a second time." "Hardly!" Syndra yelled, and to Raegar's ears, the voices sounded as if they were underwater. Despite the smoke from the fires at the room's center, Raegar managed to keep from coughing and giving away his position. The ghostly sorceress and the lich cast furiously fast spells, and while power built up at their fingertips in green and blue energies, both fizzled out without effect. He'd seen Damlath do enough counterspells to understand each had cancelled out the other's spell. "Khelben," Syndra yelled, "he's got Isyllmyth's Bracer!" Khelben stood in an odd position, his left hand holding his blackstaff perpendicular to the floor, rather than aiming it at Frostrune. His right hand was back by his shoulder, which seemed odd to Raegar until he heard the hum of a bowstring. The air shimmered around Khelben and the illusion melted away, revealing Tsarra holding her short bow and reaching back for another arrow.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

30 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR) As Tsarra let the arrow fly, she yelled, "Now!" and hoped both the tressym and the thief would know what to do. Her arrow hit the lich's shields, lit up the magic, and pulled it and a successive shield beneath it in its wake, forcing the magic of the shields to twist and stab into the impact point of the arrow. Frostrune screamed as the arrow caught him squarely in the chest, and he rocked back on his heels from the impact. Raegar's invisibility shimmered to an end as he yelled, "Hyarac!" and threw his flaming short sword at the lich. The blade stuck Rakesk squarely in his right thigh, scorching his robes.

As the lich tried to pull the sword from his leg, the flames leaped up and consumed the blade. The lich growled in frustration as flames remained on his robes. Fires leaped from Raegar's palm, and the sword returned to his grasp! Tsarra sent to Khelben, I hope you've healed up enough to stand, old man. Nameless carried the Anyllan's bottle in his mouth, and he stayed invisible as he silently flew behind the lich.

The ceramic bottle on the necklace shattered when Nameless reached his destination and bit down on it. A gray mist rose from it behind Rakesk. He replied, Fret not, Tsarra. You played my role beautifully, but we can't allow our surprise to go unexploited. Ah good, my granddaughter's quick to realize an advantage. You should learn this spell from her, should all of us survive. Syndra Wands screamed in pain. The spell she cast made her body grow paler and more insubstantial. Tsarra recognized the casting as very similar to a spell of hers, but this obviously had more power. Green energy lanced into the lich. He roared as his animating energies warred with that new magic. As he arced away from the sources of his pains, he realized a figure stood behind him. The red glints within the lich's eyesockets flared as he stared deep into the eyes of the Blackstaff. Khelben's spell was nothing more than a stare, but twin streams of silver fire stabbed into the Frostrune's skull, and the lich doubled his howling.

Khelben's attack stopped abruptly and he bore a surprised look. "No,"

Khelben gasped, gripping the lich's robes. "You can't possibly dare to wake-" "Enough!" Priamon Rakesk's anger seemed to fuel the harness on his torso. Its magical pulse shoved everyone flat against the walls with a surge of crimson power. "I dare much, Master." "Bastard!"

Raegar yelled, throwing his sword at the lich again. "You killed Damlath!" The sword whistled through the air, aimed at the lich's head, but it bounced off of a renewed protective shield with a crackle of red flames. "You will join him soon. Our dark friends have been held at bay long enough. Enjoy their embrace, fools. It's almost a shame you'll miss the rise of the Frostlord, master of the Twisted Rune!" Priamon raised his arms, and a silver bracer pulsed with power on his left arm. The lich floated up into the maelstrom of energy around and on the pyramid, and both he and the pyramid disappeared.

Exposed to the sky, the room filled with wind, rain, and thunder. The air above and around them swarmed with amethyst sparkles. The night skies became darker still, as sharn after sharn materialized around the top of Syndra's tower. More and more appeared, not giving way for each other-they flowed around and into each other like water. Almost immediately, three sharn had the stairwell exit blocked, and more than a dozen formed a ring in open air around the top of the truncated tower. Sharn dripped like thick liquid down into the chamber among the heroes. Tsarra tried to move but found herself frozen. She also failed at speaking. Khelben? Can you move? I'm paralyzed. She looked in his direction to find him splayed across an overturned bookshelf. I'm afraid Priamon's obsession with the Shoon gave him rather effective dueling items. The Harness of Choramm the Cowardly generates magic that paralyzes those with arcane energy inside them for a time, if its wearer gets grievously injured. And I'm afraid we may run out of time before the effect wears off. I wonder where he found the blasted thing… Overhead, a huge fiery hand grabbed a sharn and boiled it in its grasp. The sharn fled before its screams faded, and Maliantor moved through the space it vacated. She hovered above them and yelled down into the chamber, "Khelben! What happened?" Syndra replied,

"Grandfather is stunned, as is his apprentice, thanks to the Frostrune. My phantom state may have shielded me from the worst of it, but I cannot seem to cast any spells right now." Syndra floated about the room, checking on the two paralyzed spellcasters. When she approached Tsarra, the apprentice recoiled, as she always did from undead, until she saw her eyes. Syndra's translucent face was pleasant, a dimpled chin with a beauty mark drawing yet more attention that way. She and Tsarra shared similar half-elf features, though Syndra's face was disarming by having one rounder human brown eye and an almond-shaped elf hazel eye. Tsarra had never seen kindness in the face of undeath until just then. Syndra said to Maliantor, and to those in the room, "The handsome one in red seems mostly unharmed, so he may be of some help to you. I need to go secure the relic of utmost importance right now." With that, the ghostly Wands woman seeped into the stone wall of the tower. Nameless hissed loudly, and Raegar yelled, "Look out! Behind you!" Maliantor screamed and a flurry of claws rendered her white robes crimson. The wizardess fell from the air, and Raegar managed to catch her before she slammed into the stone floor. Tsarra was surprised at how happy she felt when Raegar approached and looked down at her. He carefully laid Maliantor down next to her then stood over them. "I don't know if this will help any, but I'm not leaving." He drew his sword and said, "Iganris!" Flames flared up and jetted from the blade, forming a small semicircular field of flames. The sharn nearest them reared back, and Raegar kept waving the fiery shield back and forth. "Khelben… anyone… do something!" Tsarra coaxed the tressym with her feelings, since she could barely speak, let alone in the creature's native tongue. She urged him to flee. She couldn't see him, but she felt the tressym's concern for her and his reply was right near by. "No leave mistressfriend alone. Mousesize, weflyaway?" Tsarra half laughed and half cried inside. She couldn't shrink herself to fly away from her friends any more than the winged cat could abandon her. Nameless yowled a defiant response, "I stayfight nightfangdrippypointears with horsehead firesword." The tressym's brave defense of her made her proud, but she wondered about his name for Raegar until she saw the rogue's ponytail swing like a horse's tail as he darted back and forth. Khelben said to them both through the mental link, Loyal, isn't he? I haven't missed my owl Nighthunter in centuries until I felt the bond you share with Nameless. Nevertheless, bold tressym, you cannot follow where your mistress and I soon go. The sharn arrived more and more quickly. The space within the sundered chamber began to fill up.