Mary Kirchoff - The Medusa Plague

The younger woman abruptly leaned away from the subject of her gaze and crossed her arms. "Why don't you just tell me what's got you so edgy?"

Guerrand watched Dagamier's reaction closely as he said, "Someone I have reason to trust said that great danger awaited me at Bastion."

"So naturally you thought of me." She returned her gaze to the model, betraying neither concern nor offense.

He watched her expression. "I'm thinking of invoking my right as high defender to search both yours and Ezius's apartments, Dagamier."

To Guerrand's great surprise, the black wizard gave her trademark shrug. "Go ahead and check my apartments if you must. That is your right. While you're in the white wing," she continued, nonplused, "please remind Ezius to arrive on time for his next shift. Maybe it was the change in schedule while you were gone that threw him off, but he forgot to show up for a few of his turns here."

"Did he?" asked Guerrand. 'That's unusual. Ezius is usually very punctual and reliable."

Dagamier looked unconcerned. "He came immediately when I reminded him. If you ask me, he forgot because he's become preoccupied with the body of that wizard friend of yours who 'dropped by' just before vou left with your nephew."

"Ezius told me he was going to arrange for proper disposal of the body," said Guerrand, frowning. "I thought he would have done so by now."

Dagamier could only look at Guerrand.

The high defender's mouth drew into a pinched, worried line. "Have you noticed anything else odd about Ezius since I've been gone?"

The black wizard returned her gaze to the model. "He's kept to his apartments when he wasn't scrying." She chuckled suddenly. "There is one thing, though it's more funny than odd. You remember how long it took you to keep him from calling you Rind, after that cobbler he once knew?" Guerrand nodded. "Well, Ezius may have got your name straight now, but he's taken to mixing mine up. He keeps calling me Esme," Dagamier tbe

said, her eyes still on the sphere. "I've never even known anyone by that name."

Guerrand's blood froze in his veins. He slowly lifted his head to stare at her pale, chiseled profile before whispering hoarsely, "Are you sure about that name?"

"Yes," she said. "It was unusual enough to remember." Dagamier shifted her eyes to look at him quizzically.

Without speaking, Guerrand whirled on his heel in the small chamber, meant only for one. The door raised, the bridge formed across the small moat, and he walked across it, oblivious to the plant fronds in his path. His heels pounded across the cold marble floor on his way to the white wing.

The door to the wing was closed, as usual. Guerrand grasped the heavy brass ring that hung from the griffon's-head knocker and slammed it against the door. When no response came, Guerrand tried again, waiting with increasing impatience.

"Ezius!" he howled to the roof, legs spread, arms and fists stiff at his sides. "I demand that you open this door at once!"

The white door remained closed.

Guerrand didn't hesitate to call forth the spell given only to the high defender. He placed his right hand against the door. With his fingers arranged very precisely, he muttered, "Lenithis kor." The air around his hand flared bright yellow, and the door shuddered beneath an ear-numbing boom.

But still it did not open.

No legitimate power in Bastion could have prevented the spell from giving the high defender access to any area in the stronghold. Undaunted, Guerrand prepared to break down the door to the white wing.

The white-robed mage's head shot up. Loud banging at the far end of the wide-open wing briefly broke his concentration. Recognizing Rand's voice, he willed himself not to panic. So, the high defender had returned… What did it matter? The mage had prepared for this possibility and put up protections to prevent, or at the very least significantly slow, anyone who tried to enter the white wing. It would take some time for Guerrand to break through the door, and there were still additional safёguaгds beyond it.

The thought considerably calmed the mage. He stood next to a white marble table that held the corpse of Lyim Rhistadt. The table was part of a small work space in the section designated as the wing's laboratory. Though there were no walls to delineate rooms here, the purpose and boundaries of each area were clear, designated by function: bookshelves plainly marked off the library, thick carpets lent warmth to the small living space, tables and countertops in neat rows filled the work area.

Since bringing the body into the wing, the mage had maintained a spell that also prevented scrying or other magical methods of direct observation. Because of the spell, even the high defender was virtually powerless to know what was happening inside the white wing. Whether Guerrand was merely seeking a report upon his return to Bastion, or was already suspicious of Ezius's behavior, it mattered little. The mage in the white robe had worked too long and hard toward the goal that was moments from being realized to be turned back now.

To further protect himself against interruption, the stooped, pale-haired mage quickly prepared to cast two more spells in a sequence that would cause the second to protect the duration of the first. Withdrawing a small crystal bead from a deep pocket in his robe, he tbe CDedusA pUguc

muttered the arcane word, "Pilif." The globe of invulnerability appeared as a faintly shimmering sphere around the mage and the entire marble lab table before him. He set the crystal bead on the table by the corpse.

The second spell would prevent anyone from dispelling the magic of the globe. For it, the white-robed mage removed another gem from his robe, a large diamond. Placing it gingerly in a marble mortar, he drove I the pestle into it like a hammer again and again, until he had shattered the precious stone. He ground the diamond into coarse dust and sprinkled both himself and the red mage's body with the glittering shards. Though there was no visible effect to indicate the spell's discharge, the mage instinctively felt that he had successfully made them immune to most spells. For a short time, anyway.

The mage prided himself on his good planning. But he was also dependent upon a measure of luck for having gotten this far. It had been the greatest good fortune that the high defender's nephew had taken him away, giving the mage time to prepare his spells before anyone questioned his activities with the red-robed corpse.

Dead? Hah! The mage in the white robe pressed two fingers to the death-cool left wrist of the body that lay beneath him upon the cold marble slab. A reedy pulse, slowed to a tenth its normal rate, was barely detectible against the warm index and third digits of his right hand. What a delicious sensation was feeling a pulse through fingers, thought the mage, though it had taken some time to readjust to having a right hand at all.

But not as long as it had taken to get accustomed to looking at one's own body through the eyes of another. Lyim had never noticed the small ring of moles at the nape of his own neck, or that his chin in profile receded slightly. Maybe he'd just been too consumed in recent years with the monstrosity at the end of his right arm to notice anything else. Unconsciously, Ezius's dark eves were turned by Lyim's darker mind to the diamond stone piercing Lyim's left lobe.

The magic jar spell that made all this possible could not have worked more flawlessly. In Villa Nova, before his final attack upon Bastion, Lyim had chosen the diamond ear stud to be the receptacle, briefly, for his life- force, because he felt certain a small earring was likely to remain with his body, unlike a larger, more ostentatious piece of jewelry. Besides, he doubted the mages at Bastion were looters.

It had been a relatively simple thing, then-a matter of timing in the heat of the battle Lyim had forced-to transfer his essence to the diamond ear stud. His body had collapsed as if slain, while his life-force went into the gem.