Douglas Niles - Wizards' Conclave

But he could only wield one spell at a time, especially in this condition. With a twinge of fear, he waved away the stop-time spell. Jenna woke up, cried out with a shiver, clinging to his arm, gasping in surprise.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“This is the wall surrounding the Hall of Mages,” Dalamar explained. “And I need to open a dimension door.”

Coryn was ready. This small room, as it had once before, had provided her with a quiet haven, where she could collect her thoughts, gather her courage, and make a plan. She had recovered her nerve. And she had found her favorite, familiar weapons, the simple bow and arrows that had helped her to put food on her family’s table for so much of her life.

She decided to start with the teleport spell, and once again the word came to her lips, though it had been a long time since she had studied the enchantment. But that fact didn’t seem to matter anymore. Just when she needed the power, it was there, waiting, ready. She arrived unerringly near the second floor landing of the great central stairway of the north tower.

She could see down to the bottom of the great stairway, though much of the flight had been torn away by the blasts of wild magic. Still, the arched hallway leading to the anteroom was visible, from the base of the staircase.

Holding her breath, she started down the steps, listening for signs of Kalrakin or Luthar. She heard a violent commotion some distance away, more walls breaking, stones cracking, and supporting structures collapsing.

Her bow was ready, the string taut. She had an arrow in her hands as she made her way carefully down the steps. As she neared the bottom, she nocked the missile on the bowstring and started to pull the weapon back. She thought of the sorcerer’s artifact, and for the first time, the memory of that stone brought the hint of a tiny, hopeful smile to her lips.

She knew the Irda Stone could not stop a sharp, steel arrowhead.

Dalamar stared at the stone wall. The spell was ready to cast; indeed it was pulsing in his mind, anxious for its release. He raised his hand to make the sign of the dimension door against the side of the great hall.

But the words emerged thick and slurred. His tongue felt like a useless piece of swollen meat. Air escaped through the torn fabric of his cheek, while his lips could not seem to articulate the most basic of sounds. His eyes watered with frustration.

“Here, I’ll do it,” Jenna said with surprising tenderness. The dark elf watched bitterly as she made the sign and smoothly cast the spell.

Immediately a passage appeared through the thick black stone of the wall. It was a shimmering doorway outlined in blue light, magical but also real. The wall here was some six feet thick, but the dimension door was flat and thin as a piece of paper. It was also visible to those on the other side of the wall.

“Who’s there?” growled a thick voice from within that great chamber as soon as the dimension door shimmered into view. A burly dwarf squatted close to the door, his eyeless face cocked in an expression of listening.

“It is I, Willi,” Jenna shouted, “coming to get you all out of here.”

“A dim door?” The dwarf sounded skeptical. “Don’t ya think we already tried that in here? Wit’ no luck!”

“The sorcerer’s spell bars you from getting out, via teleport or other spells. It doesn’t stop us from opening a door on this side of the wall,” Jenna explaining, raising her voice in urgency. “And Dalamar is here with me. Now come, all who serve the Three Gods—there is no time to waste!”

Quickly the wizards massed before the door. Willim the Black was the first to step through, nodding to Jenna and Dalamar. “Where is that bastard? I want his spleen for breakfast!” he growled. The half-elf woman in the black robe came next, gliding past Willi. She looked shocked to see Dalamar.

“By Nuitari! What happened to you?” gasped Sirene, her face going pale as she beheld the dark elf’s horribly scarred visage.

“Never mind about my petty injuries!” Dalamar snapped, tugging the cowl around to obscure the right side of his face as much as possible. “Get on through the dimension door—and hurry the others behind you!”

“We’ll have to leave Adramis,” an elder elf, a White Robe named Suwannis, said as he appeared. “He’s badly hurt, and we don’t dare move him.”

“Very well. But the rest of you, hurry!” urged Jenna. “Through the door—quickly! Spread out through the hall!”

One by one the wizards pushed through the blue-tinged door, the younger and faster going first, the elders following with as much alacrity as they could muster. Their numbers had been thinned by the battle; there were maybe twenty left, not counting Adramis, who was all but unconscious. Led by Jenna, and with stealthy, over-the-shoulder glances at the scarred Dalamar, they hurried down the hallway toward the foretower.

They had to make their way around patches of rubble, fallen columns, and other destruction. They had collected in the alcoves along the broad corridor when Jenna called for a volunteer to scout ahead for Kalrakin.

“I’ll go,” said Aenell. “For my brother.” Her eyes were burning in her pale face.

Dalamar nodded to Jenna. The Red Robe turned to Aenell. “We last saw him at the base of the north tower. And beware of using magic to find him—he senses any spellcasting. We’ll wait here until we hear something.”

“I’ll do my best,” the elf maid pledged grimly. “If something happens to me… help my brother as best you can. And tell him I died honorably.”

Aenell slipped away, moving soundlessly across the rubble-strewn passageway. She crouched behind the next broken pillar then darted down the hall connecting the south tower to the anteroom and the foretower.

Dalamar was acutely aware of the other wizards stealing sidelong glances at him. The hilt of his knife was cold comfort in his hand. When he noticed Sirene staring at him, horror apparent in her eyes, he pulled the cowl of his robe down around his face and leaned, fully masked, against the wall.

Luthar stared at the wall of the room where he was hiding. Once more he summoned his limited wild magic, clawing at the stone, but could not break through to the outside. This tower seemed as impervious to his escape as it had been to the wizards who had so desperately tried to gain entry.

Abruptly he heard someone moving around in the room behind him, and he fell to his knees, cringing against the wall. He was only slightly relieved when he saw that the newcomer was a white-robed mage, a small, slender female. At least it wasn’t Kalrakin, which is what he had feared.

“Who are you?” he gasped. “Please, don’t hurt me!”

“I am an elf maid seeking vengeance for the suffering of my brother!” declared the woman. “Give me one reason why I should not kill you!” She might have been young in appearance, but she sounded very dangerous to Luthar.

“But I seek only escape!” he cried piteously. “I simply want to leave this place!. You can have it, you and your friends; I don’t belong here!”

“If I let you leave, will you tell me where the tall sorcerer is?”

“Yes! Yes!” he blubbered eagerly. “Just let me go!”

She spoke a few intricate words of magic, gestured subtly at the wall, and abruptly the blue outline of a passage appeared there. An opening, outlined in the pale blue light, shimmered in the wall of the Tower.

“Oh! Oh, my!” Luthar exclaimed.

The verdant expanse of Wayreth Forest, pale green in the early dawn, beckoned from beyond the walls of the courtyard. But there was a film across that tantalizing aperture, and when Luthar reached out a hand he found his way still blocked by a magic curtain of some sort.