Laurell Hamilton - Nightseer

Keleios gave an image of the bottle to Brigette. The dragon acknowledged it. Keleios formed an image of the dragon bringing the bottle near the shield.

The dragon swooped lower. Keleios sent a frantic image of the dragon flying away and coming back after the green flame had gone elsewhere.

The dragon rose above the angry flame and whirled to the east. One glistening wing showed a black burn on the webbing. Keleios was sweating and beginning to tremble from the mind contact. It was a low-energy use, but the effort of concentrating past the pain was almost too much. All she wanted was to lie down and cry and give herself over to the pain. No, she would not let Tobin die with help so close.

She half-crawled, half-dragged herself the short distance to him. He lay in a crumpled heap upon his side, his hair mostly obscuring his face. Keleios stumbled against him, pressing the broken hand into his back. She screamed and struggled to prop herself up on her left hand. She sat beside him, breathing in great draughts of air. Nausea and blackness threatened. The green flame came creeping to try her circle of warding.

It approached slowly, showing more intelligence than she had credited it with. It reached a tendril to touch the circle and jerked it away with a writhing that sent lines of orange

through its green surface. Fire could not kill it, but it could stop it for a while. Keleios wasn’t sure if it could ignore the pain and force the protect spell eventually or not. It stretched upward until it was thin as glass, then with a rush brought itself down to engulf them.

She watched the green wave fall. Would the fire ward hold it? A prayer whispered from her lips. “Urle, god of the eternal flame, let this warding be hot. Let it burn the monster. Let it withstand his charge. Let it steam his... ” It hit.

For a moment the green lay on the tallest standing beam, draped like a tent. She thought the magic of Verm’s pit was too strong. Fire. The world was suddenly flaming with good orange fire. The heat of it singed her hair. She felt in her mind the thing’s screaming, a sound so high that it was like an insect’s buzzing. The burned boards flamed to life again, and Keleios began to wonder if they would all die with the monster. It rolled away and began to tumble over the ground. But it did not die. She had not really expected it to, just to leave them alone.

“Thanks be to Urle, god of the eternal flame, that we are delivered and that this spell held back the destroyer of Verm.”

The corruptor began to ease away as if in pain. It had evidently decided they weren’t worth the effort.

Yet Keleios wasn’t sure if the warding would hold against another such attack. Every warding had its breaking point.

Where was everybody? Jodda, Eroar, Belor, the children? Even the black healer, where were they?

She wanted to lie down and do nothing, just rest if the pain would let her, but Tobin needed her. He lay terribly still and was that peculiar grey color that sorcerers get when they’ve done too much magic at once. He had a wound on his right cheek, shallow, nothing to worry about. There was a second scalp wound, not as serious as the one Lothor had healed, but serious enough. Scalp wounds always bled a great deal, so he looked much worse than he was. There was a bandage of sorts around his right upper arm. It revealed a sword wound that had pierced his arm. Keleios was no healer to judge damage, but muscles felt torn and the main arm bones had been broken. It was the kind of wound that could deprive a fighter of the use of his arm.

Keleios began a prayer to Mother Blessen when a great flapping of wings arrived. Brigette hovered, then alit beside the bottle. She picked it up in a massive claw, gently.

Obedient to the earlier image, the dragon came closer, scuttling on three legs. The bottle was whole, undamaged, complete with a stopper. Perhaps the gods had decided to be kind.

Keleios searched for the green flame, but it was not in sight. She tested her own strength, reaching down inside to see if she could do this. The fact that she doubted it at all was a bad sign. But she had to do it, and that meant she could do it. Didn’t it?

There was a flicker of green creeping over the ruins. But it was far enough away for what she had planned. She canceled the warding with one sign in the ash. The creature must have had limited magic sense because it sped its pace. Keleios used a wooden beam to drag herself to her feet, took the bottle from the dragon’s claw, and removed the stopper with a word.

The creature barreled in, unheeding. Brigette took wing, but the monster was intent upon only one prey. It flowed toward Keleios in a rush of green fury, the scent of corruption riding before it like a private wind. Keleios stood, legs braced as much as possible to steady herself. She held the bottle out in front of her and spoke the words of entrapment. The thing did not slow but reared above her, a wave of green doom. The stench made her eyes water and her throat constrict. Keleios whispered the entrapment spell once more through clamped teeth. The creature hung suspended for a moment. Stretched thin as glass, blocking out the sky, it waited. She spoke the words again, and, like a high buzzing in her ear, the thing screamed. It seemed to collapse upon itself, folding inward until it was a narrow band of thick luminous green. The top of it began to bend toward the bottle.

Keleios watched the flame enter the bottle through tearing eyes. She held her breath as long as she could as the endless green line rolled into the impossibly small bottle. The clear bottle flowed green. Keleios capped it and spoke a word of strengthening.

She dropped to her knees and cried out in pain. Someone called her name. She turned slowly, the bottle gripped in her good hand.

Malcolm the Conjure-master clambered over the broken rock, his strong hands helping him where his dwarf-short legs did not. Healers followed him like a flock of carrion crows. Malcolm’s face was plain as only a beardless dwarf can be, but when he smiled, his face was beautiful. He smiled at Keleios now. “Here I come to help you and you don’t need any help.”

She tried to smile but the right side of her face wouldn’t do it. “I don’t know, Malcolm. I might need a little help.”

With her kneeling and him standing, they were almost the same height. His brown eyes shone with unshed tears and for a moment his face flinched as he looked at her. A familiar, freckled face appeared over Malcolm’s shoulder—Larsen, Malcolm’s son, his brown eyes intent on her wounds. His hands sure and deft as any healer. “Excuse me, Father, but if she can walk, we must take her to the healing area.”

The dwarf nodded, looking up at his tall and very human-looking son.

“I can walk, but Tobin...” She tried to stand, but with nothing to hold onto, she fell heavily and screamed.

Larsen supported her, and Malcolm took the green-filled bottle from her hand. “It wouldn’t do to drop it now, would it?”

She started to say, “No,” but the world spun, the darkness swallowed the summer sky.

When Keleios woke again, she was lying on a blanket. The summer sky still blew overhead, but the smell of smoke was much less. Pain woke with her. The right side of her body felt as if someone had taken all the blood from her veins and poured molten fire in its place. The burn seemed to sink right to the bone. Without meaning to, she twitched her body, struggling against the pain. Someone was whimpering softly, and Keleios discovered that it was herself.

Larsen bent over her, his face concerned but with that constant cheerfulness of most healers. “I know it hurts, but I have some salve that will help the pain. You are very lucky you didn’t lose the sight of your right eye.” He smeared oily white cream on some clean linen and applied the cloth to her arm until the limb was wrapped in it. He laid a rectangular piece across her face, covering her right eye as well. “I have a potion brewing