Part 26 (1/2)

Zakar met it halfway down the street. One club flew into the air, chopped in half by the axe. The second swung. It crashed into Zakar's ribs as his axe came down on the demon's head.

Came down, and bounced off. Not without effect- the demon staggered, and Bora saw blood run. But without slaying-or saving Zakar. One clawed hand drove into his belly and ripped upward. He barely had time to scream before the demon's fangs were in his throat.

The demon threw the dying woodcutter down and looked about for fresh prey. For a moment Bora would gladly have sold his whole family for a spell of invisibility.

Then heavy footsteps thudded behind him. A robed arm flung a small clay vial down the street. It landed at the demon's feet, shattering and spraying the Powder of Zayan.

”I don't know if it will work against whatever spells bind those-creations,” Ivram muttered. ”A good pair of heels might work better.”

”But-there must be-”

”Only the G.o.ds can help them now,” Ivram said. ”Your kin are safe. The village needs you as a live leader, not a dead memory!”

”As you wish,” Bora said. He recognized in his own voice the same note he'd heard in the priest's. They both spoke lest chattering teeth otherwise betray their fear. The demon was kneeling, snuffling at the Powder on the ground, as they turned and ran for the other end of the village.

With a sharp ping, the strands of Illyana's hair parted. The Jewel arched down from the head of Eremius's staff.

Never in all his years of sorcery had Eremius cast a spell so quickly.

The Invisible Hand gripped the Jewel halfway to the ground and lowered it the rest of the way as lightly as a feather.

To slow his heart and breathing, Eremius told himself that the Jewel would not have shattered in a fall from such a height. The message accomplished nothing. Heart and lungs knew that it was a lie. He had contrived a narrow escape from disaster as well as defeat.

He reached for the Jewel, to rebind it with strands of his own hair.

His fingers seemed to strike invisible gla.s.s a hand's breadth on all sides of the Jewel. He prodded the barrier with his staff, and felt the same sensation.

As he considered his next counter to Illyana's spells, his staff suddenly flew from his hand. Before he could regain his grip, it plummeted down to the Jewel, into it, and into the earth beneath the Jewel!

Eremius was still gaping when the ground erupted with a crash and roar of shattering stone. Dust and rock chips stung as his staff flew into the air, part of a geyser of stone and earth. Eremius lunged for the staff, plucked it out of the air, and hastily backed away from the Jewel.

The Jewel itself now seemed to dissolve into a pool of emerald light, flowing like some thick liquid in an invisible bowl. A disagreeably high-pitched whine rose from it. Eremius cringed, as he would have at an insect trapped in his ear.

Then he sighed, stepped back, and began to test the fitness of his staff for use. As it pa.s.sed one test after another, his confidence began to return.

With the staff alone, he could still command the Transformed well enough to doom Crimson Springs. He could not command the Jewel, for Illyana had bound his Jewel and hers into a spell of mutual opposition.

She also could not command her Jewel, and had no more power against him than he against her.

Did that matter to her? Had she sought to destroy his

Jewel, even at the risk of her own? She had always seemed as ambitious as himself to possess both the Jewels. Was she now ready to abandon supreme power for a modest prize? Being known as she who destroyed the Jewels of Kurag would certainly bring little, compared to what might come from possessing them both!

Enough. The Transformed awaited his commands. Eremius composed himself and began forming a picture of the village in his mind.

The door of Illyana's chamber quivered, then fell off its hinges. Conan and Raihna leaped back. Raihna nearly knocked the innkeeper back down the stairs he had just mounted.

The innkeeper looked at the ruined door, rolled his eyes to the ceiling, then handed Raihna a basket.

”Mostly bread and cheese. The cooks not only fled, they took most of the larder with them!” The innkeeper sat down and buried his head in his hands.

Illyana staggered out of her chamber and nearly fell into Conan's arms.