Her memory of Arn had saved her then. Perhaps her lover would come through for her one more time. If he was to do so, she had to open herself to the devastation that the Kragan-Kaleal pairing could unleash. Carol clenched her fists so tightly that her nails dug into her palms, using the pain to gain the focus the summoning would require. She sent to Arn.

  “Find cover, my love. I give you my all.”

  For the first time ever, she summoned a quartet of formidable elementals, one from each of the planes of fire, earth, water, and air. Through Arn she wrapped the supernatural beings in a grip that pulled wails of agony from the denizens of the astral planes. Then she hurled their magic at Kragan.

  12

  Endar Pass

  YOR 415, Day 1 of Summer

  A mental shock wave rippled through the elemental planes as Carol shredded the minds of Kragan’s wielders. Kragan experienced the cacophony of her mind magic as the rumble of a distant storm. For one individual to brandish so much force should have terrified him. Instead it brought a smile to his lips. His sense of the toll that her effort must be inflicting upon her was like the smell of victory.

  In a gambit that was now about to net him the ultimate reward, Kragan had ordered every one of his sorcerers to reveal themselves, hurling all their combined might at Carol and those she protected. Kragan had known that their wills could not match that of the prophesied witch. And she had not been able to resist the lure.

  Carol had just killed all but four of those Kragan had hurled against her.

  Kaleal’s throaty growl rumbled in Kragan’s head.

  “It is time.”

  “Yes,” said Kragan.

  In one swift motion, Kragan ripped the amulet free and tossed it aside.

  Wearing the color-shifting Endarian uniform he had scavenged from a dead mist warrior, Arn watched Kragan from a desiccated stand of brush less than fifty paces away. Surrounded by an entire army and having melded himself with the primordial Lord of the Third Deep, Kragan believed he needed no protection.

  Arn had set Slaken in the notch created by a crooked tree branch, allowing Carol to see Kragan through his eyes. But as her mind touched his, he found himself swept away in a roiling mass of deliriums that grappled with each other for dominance.

  As if through frosted glass, he saw Carol seated cross-legged on a cushion inside a tower, her face a mask of concentration and horror. She stood up, walked to the open archway, spread her arms wide, and plummeted into the courtyard far below. Arn clenched his teeth to stifle the yell that tried to claw its way from his throat.

  The scene shifted. Once again Carol stood inside the tower, her fingers balled into fists, her face a death mask of concentration. The air around her rippled, forming barely visible talons that clawed their way through the invisible shielding that protected her. Then her legs collapsed, dropping her to her knees and pulling a tortured moan from her lips. Her eyes widened, and to Arn, it seemed that she saw him watching her die. Then those ethereal nails ripped out her pretty throat.

  One after another, a new vision replaced the last. In what seemed an endless procession, Arn watched Carol, Alan, Kim, Galad, Rafel, and Queen Elan die in a hundred different scenarios, finding himself helpless to alter the nightmares.

  Arn felt himself pulled back into the present. Lightning branched through the clouds that swathed the day in rumbling twilight. Kragan stood out in the open, his body contorted as if he were lifting a great weight. The jaws in his feline face were clenched, his lips drawn back into a snarl, his slitted golden eyes locked on the distant ivory citadel as a mighty rumble built all around him. Great boulders flew through the air to strike at the wielder. Fire erupted around the primordial body, heat singeing Arn’s eyebrows despite the boulders he hid behind. The wind howled, forming a funnel that whipped the flames into a whirling tower. Clouds released a focused torrent of rain into the fire that turned the water into superheated steam.

  When the cataclysm subsided, Kragan was left standing in the center of a scorched black circle twenty paces wide, unharmed.

  A realization dawned on Arn.

  Landrel’s prophecy was wrong. Carol could not kill Kragan.

  That was just fine with Arn. Just as he had promised, Blade would exact his own vengeance.

  Across the league and a half that separated Kragan from his nemesis, he felt her psyche bind to his with a suddenness that surprised him. How had she responded so quickly to his presence? It was as if she already had eyes upon him.

  With a roar he cast off the momentary dread as he and Kaleal met her assault. For several moments the potency of her magic threatened to break through the impenetrable shielding that he and Kaleal held in place. As stones battered that wall of solidified air, a firestorm whirled around it. The wind wailed as scorching steam tried to claw its way through Kragan’s defenses.

  Then Carol’s exhaustion manifested itself. With a surge of satisfaction, Kragan crashed through her defenses and followed the mental link back to her body, forcing her to retreat into the shell of herself. Kaleal shifted their vision into the astral plane, letting the physical world fade into nothingness, the mighty fortifications atop which Carol stood evaporating around her. Carol floated in the vast emptiness, a beacon of light surrounded by a shimmering sphere that frayed at the edges.

  “She is mine!” Kaleal said.

  Kragan did not bother to argue. In mere moments Carol’s will would fail. The thought filled him with a rush of passion, for victory was within his grasp. All he needed was for Carol to take the action that a veiled cipher within Landrel’s Scroll foretold. Then the world would be his.

  She had come so close but had failed to deliver the killing blow. Now Carol teetered on the verge of collapse as her defenses crumbled before Kragan and Kaleal’s assault.

  An odd itch tickled the recesses of her brain. Familiar, yet faint. The distraction carried a sense of urgency that threatened to disrupt her focus. There it was again, a sensation that she could not quite understand. It was not Arn. Her link with him had dissipated when she attacked Kragan.

  No. This was a physical sensation that her centered mind should have shut off. Someone had placed a gentle hand on Carol’s shoulder and then moved away so as not to break her concentration.

  A subtle change crept upon her, a slithering coolness that drank of her exhaustion. It slowed the spread of her fatigue but was unable to erase the weariness. Carol felt the link with her half sister take effect, Kim’s presence bringing a sense of relief that she was no longer alone. Yet she also felt terror, knowing that Kim risked the same terrible fate that Kaleal would soon inflict on Carol.

  Kim’s gentle words whispered in Carol’s head.

  “Fear not, my sister. We are not alone.”

  A new mental link snapped into place, chaining Carol, through Kim, to Galad, combining their three arcane talents—mind magic, life-shifting, and time-shaping—against Kragan and Kaleal’s mystical onslaught. For the first time since her counterattack had failed, hope blossomed in Carol’s soul.

  Her enemies cranked their mental vise ever tighter despite the life energy that Kim funneled into Carol from enemies atop the wall beneath the tower. All she needed was a few moments of relief to restore her concentration. The conflagration of the conjoined minds of Kragan, Kaleal, Kim, and Carol whirled her through the void, and she was unable to reestablish her centered state.

  Then she felt Galad join the fray, channeling the time-mists to surround her tower and expel Kragan and Kaleal from the psychic bond. Another shift stopped Galad from completing the mists as Kragan redirected his attack upon Kim’s brother. The void within which Carol’s light mingled with the others frayed at the edges, allowing tendrils of red to bleed into the black.

  Carol focused her shielding so that it encased only Galad, Kim, and herself, leaving the fortress defenders to fend for themselves against Kragan’s four surviving casters and the horde that battered at the citadel. Galad’s time-mists failed to close completely, leaving a hole that left her locked in the grip of the Kragan-Kaleal mind link. Carol strengthened her own binding to Galad and Kim. As she did so, the mind storm created by the five interconnected psyches caused them to coalesce into one entity.

  Using a variation of the technique she had long ago mastered within Misty Hollow, Carol stepped across the boundary into deep meditation. Normally she stood alone in a vast, black emptiness. But now Kim and Galad joined her on the astral plane, their hands linked to form an outward-facing circle. A globe of purest white enveloped them. But despite her best efforts, she could not quite complete the globe.

  From the inky blackness that surrounded the trio, a red-veined black tendril wormed its way inward, splitting into three tentacles. Like snakes they reached out to wrap themselves around each of the siblings’ heads. As they made contact with Carol-Kim-Galad, the bodies of the trio dissolved into churning mist, contaminating the uniform white glow. Inside the sphere, the whiteness boiled as tiny veins of red and black pulsed shadowed energy into their shared existence.

  The Kragan-Carol-Kaleal-Kim-Galad mind churned, channeling Galad’s rychly and pomaly mists in opposite directions and amplifying them a thousandfold. It felt as if an ice spear had plunged into the base of Carol’s skull, and every ounce of her will was needed to prevent Galad’s brain from overtaxing itself. In one momentous act, Carol directed the flow of Kim’s healing into the part of her brother’s mind that supported his mystical conduit.

  With a start she sensed Kragan’s sudden elation. A horrific realization shattered the meditation, sending a shudder through Carol’s body and pulling a moan from her lips.

  “No.”

  When Kragan felt Carol strengthen her mental link to the Endarian time-shaper, he wanted to roar with joy. This had been his true target all along.

  All of the necessary elements were now locked into place. Kragan-Kaleal hurled a mental battering ram into the mix, implanting within Galad a vision of the time-mist barrier that surrounded the Endarian Continent. Kragan picked a particular place for Galad to target, fended off Carol’s attempt to stop him, and forced the time-shaper to open a channel wide.

  A shaft of accelerating mist shot out through the open archway as if launched from a ballista. On the opposite side of the room from where Carol sat, a counterbalancing pomaly time stone solidified.

  Kragan fought off another of Carol’s counterattacks and waited for the shaft formed of accelerating time-mist to reach its distant target.

  Kaleal spoke inside Kragan’s head.

  “Her attacks grow stronger with each passing moment. We must break our link.”

  “Not yet,” replied Kragan, despite his growing sense of dread. How could Landrel’s prophesied witch’s mind magic be so potent after all the sorcery she had expended?

  Kaleal’s roar of fear-laced rage filled Kragan’s head. A white-hot poker seemed to have found its way into Kragan’s skull, yet he refused to break the psychic connection to the young woman.

  When the time-shaft struck the mist barrier that surrounded the Endarian Continent, the sudden restoration of Kragan’s link to the source of his life magic knocked him to his knees and severed his bond to Rafel’s daughter. So many years had passed since such power had filled him that he had forgotten the ecstasy that accompanied the rush.

  Kragan had accomplished what the master Endarian time-shapers who had sacrificed themselves outside of Lagoth believed impossible. He had punched a hole through the distant time-mist barrier and, in so doing, made himself whole once more.

  With a low growl of satisfaction, Kragan rose to his full height just as a flash of movement pulled his head to the right. The hurled dagger came to a stop an arm’s length from his throat, caught in the grip of the air elemental he had summoned. Kragan thrust the weapon back at his attacker, but the elemental failed to reach its target, banished back to its mystical plane by powerful wards. Kragan recognized the foe who advanced toward him, despite his camouflaged uniform and hood.

  “Blade!”

  The word rumbled from his throat like a curse as Kragan’s claws unsheathed themselves. He needed no magic to kill this little man.

  Kragan leapt forward, his right hand whistling through the air on an arc that would split the assassin from throat to groin. It wasn’t the speed with which Blade moved that shocked him. What stunned Kragan was the ease with which the man avoided his blow, shifting his body to the left as if he had seen this strike coming before it began. Blade’s counterstrike opened a gash from the wielder’s right elbow to his wrist, splattering acrid blood into Kragan’s face.

  With a thought, Kragan attempted to liquefy the earth under his opponent’s feet, but his magic failed to affect the earth near the bearer of the runed knife. No matter how hard Kragan tasked the earth elemental Dalg, the being’s attempts to approach Blade proved futile. Fury sharpened his vision as Kaleal forced his way to the forefront. Kragan did not resist. He would let the primordial lord who had wielded this body for an eternity control the fight.

  Again and again, Kaleal sought to close with Blade. Kaleal bloodied the man, but the assassin managed to avoid a fatal or disabling wound. When Blade stumbled, Kragan felt the thrill that launched Kaleal into the man’s body, fangs bared to rip out his throat. To Kragan’s horror he felt the bite of the black blade as the assassin rammed it between Kaleal’s gaping jaws, sending half of the foot-long knife jutting out the back of the body that Kragan shared.

  The oddest sensation accompanied the realization that his spinal cord had just been severed. Having lost all feeling below the neck, Kragan felt his head hit the ground as if it had detached. He tried to smile up at the man who had just delivered the killing blow, tried to say that this was only the beginning. Instead Kragan felt his life essence sucked from this body like smoke on the wind.

  Kaleal watched the world of mortals dissolve around him, leaving him standing in the throne room where Landrel’s spell had trapped him for thousands of years. Without a body and mind to anchor him in what men regarded as reality, he had been returned to his prison.

  The wail that roared from his throat pulled streams of dust from the thick rafters and echoed from the walls. Once again the man called Blade had been his undoing.

  Arn pulled Slaken from between Kragan’s jaws as the once-mighty body collapsed in a limp pile at his feet. For a moment it seemed that Kragan’s eyes looked up at him before acquiring the glassy blankness with which Arn was well familiar. What happened next caused him to take an involuntary step backward.

  The skin shriveled and collapsed until it formed a thin shroud over ancient bones. Within moments all that remained was a dessicated corpse. Even the rich blood on Slaken’s blade turned into fine dust that the breeze carried away.

  A sudden change rippled across the battlefield, raising the fine hairs on the back of Arn’s neck. He shifted his gaze to the nearest of the vorg encampments, just a few hundred paces from where their master’s lifeless body now sprawled. It was as if Kragan’s powerful presence had bolstered the will of this entire horde. When Arn had slain the wielder, he had cut the cord that had funneled the desire to fight into tens of thousands of vorgs, brigands, and gruns.

  The wall clouds that had encircled the Endarian fortress parted, blown away on a fresh gale out of the northeast. Fireballs and lightning rained down upon the stunned vorgs, unchallenged by whatever magic wielders still accompanied them. Arn felt a cold smile form on his face, knowing that he had unleashed the full power of Carol’s wrath upon enemies who no longer had a protector capable of contesting her might.

  The units closest to the white citadel stampeded toward Arn. Despite the efforts of their commanders to restore order, the contagion spread outward, causing an ever-increasing mass to desert the battlefield. Arn knew they were fleeing toward the exits from this basin, but he did not linger to watch. Sheathing Slaken, he pulled his color-shifting hood more tightly around his head and ran through the dead forest, headed for the wooded ridge a quarter league to the south of Kragan’s overlook. As much as he hungered to extract his vengeance from Charna, it would not do to be caught out in the open when the roiling horde retreated through the area.

  A searing needle of pain speared through the back of Charna’s throat and dropped her to one knee, causing her guards to rush to her side. She barely saw them, so wrapped was she in the vision. Her eyes looked up past a bloody knife into Blade’s merciless eyes as he stood over her, knowing that this was Kragan’s sight, not hers.

  Then she seemed to dissolve, snatched out of that primordial body and hurled across the land to the northwestern coast and then over the sea. She passed through a yawning gap in the mist barrier that had wreathed the Endarian Continent for more than four centuries. She raced across the white-capped waves and over a distant landmass of which Kragan had told her. The Continent of Sadamad. An irresistible force pulled her consciousness down through a forested hillside and into darkness.

  Agony woke her from the trance, the pain fading as swiftly as it had assaulted her. She shoved aside the hands of her guards and staggered back to her feet, sweat dripping from her brow despite the freezing wind that howled down from the glacier-capped peaks in the northeast.

  She had seen Kragan’s death, yet she still felt his presence. Distant, but still out there. She found herself staring to the northwest, the direction in which her strange vision had carried her. Sadamad.

  The change that rushed over the battlefield summoned her back to reality. In a handful of heartbeats the tide of battle had turned on itself. The typhoon of magic that had assaulted the white citadel had wilted before the fury of Rafel’s witch. She swept the ladders and siege engines away, the howling wind heaving them onto the frozen lake, even as the ice transformed back into water. Thousands of Charna’s warriors sank beneath the waves, pulled down by the weight of their own armor.

 

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