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The Hand of Salamá laughed, making that act ugly, his robes rippling his
mirth. Your last hope is gone. Listen: There was a final limb of the
Lifetree, though its parent plant had been thrown down. Rydolomo knew whither
it had been taken, and left the fact in-hidden within Arrivals Macabre. That
could have threatened Shardishku-Salamá, but that limb s fate is known to me
now; it is unmade. No other thing can interfere with the schedule of my
Masters, not all the arms-bearers on earth. I have seen that gulling
Trailingsword; this time it only beckons you to oblivion. There is no avail
for you, you will go no farther. Not even a step.
Yardiff Bey gestured, and the floor surged up beneath them.
Chapter Twenty-Two
But yet I know, where er I go, that there hath past away a glory from the
earth.
William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality
Andre and the Trustee made Signs of protection against upheaval, but Lord
Blacktarget had none. The general clung to the quaking floor. His two
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companions had attention only for the sorcerer.
The ruler of Glyffa held up her cursive-lettered Crook. An aura crackled
around it, magic of the Bright Lady. Roof beams groaned, and dust sifted down.
The Keep shivered to unleashed enchantment. Blasts of superheated air and icy
wind chased one another through the chamber. Thunder cracked from wall to
wall.
Yardiff Bey threw down the counterattack, holding his own extreme efforts in
reserve, until they should exhaust themselves. Their assault was fierce, but
not so much so that it penetrated his wards. The Trustee was weary, and the
sorcerer s new power given by the Five would, he was positive, give him the
duel.
But as the deCourteneys built their offensives, they began to reinforce each
other, as with Andre and his sister. They weren t overwhelming, but the Hand
of Salamá began to consider employing the wiles he d prepared.
As mystic discharges washed around him, striving to topple him, he conceived
another tactic. Resisting the deCourteneys, he took aside a little of his
energies and hurled a quick spell at the vulnerable Lord Blacktarget The
general went cartwheeling, long campaigner s cloak gathering around him,
constricting breath from his body. Its drawstring sank into the flesh of his
neck. He writhed on the stone, kicking, struggling.
Andre saw his plight. Sweat flowed from the squat wizard s face, his arts
extended beyond any previous mark. Without looking, the Trustee knew what had
happened. Bey s resources were in excess of what she d expected; she was very
much in need of her son s sustenance. Yet, she couldn t bring herself to make
Andre let another innocent die, as she had compelled him to do a century
before.
Succor him, she encouraged, her stare never leaving the Hand of Salamá.
Andre rushed to Lord Blacktarget. The general s face was darkening, eyes
bulging, bloated tongue swelling in his mouth. It was as the sorcerer had
intended. He d withheld much of his prepotency; now he revealed it, lashing
out at the Trustee. To Amon s gift of augmented energy, Yardiff Bey had added
his own ingredient of treachery.
The old woman staggered. Flooring blocks ground together beneath her feet, and
overhead a wide section of roof was flung away by backlashing of competing
incantations. She mustered her fullest effort, surprising Bey; it was more
than he d estimated. Almost, it was enough. She contained his attack and
launched one of her own with an explosion of blue radiance from her Crook,
jolting the Hand backward with vehemence. His defense faltered. Again the
Crook flared, but less brightly. Depleted, with her son s support diverted,
her endurance failed. The light in the rune-written Crook flickered. Andre,
toiling at Blacktarget s side, sensed it and turned to give a moment s aid to
her. In that instant her will let go. She was smashed down by the spells of
Yardiff Bey as by the waters of a dam that had burst.
The Crook fell from her thin hand, dimming. The sorcerer s magic flashed
triumphantly. Before he could pour into her the support she d needed, Andre
had seen her life torn from her. The symbol of her Trusteeship lay dark now.
At the same time, the cord tightened around Blacktarget s neck, killing him.
From Andre s throat came a wail. From depths of instinct, he invoked a
wizardry that crashed black fury at Bey s defenses. The sorcerer s most
trusted protections were in jeopardy; his antagonist s attack, more vicious
than Yardiff Bey had thought him capable of making, was barely turned. The
Hand of Salamá had to shore up his endangered wards.
Andre, in his wrath, called down his curse in a voice of such volume that
cracks shot along the stone walls. His enmity beamed at the Hand, who was
pounded backward a second time, bewildered at this new ferocity.
Andre raised up his left fist, and blue lightning spat and snapped. He cried a
spell of destruction so terrible that the roof beams began to split and pull
themselves down. Bey parried desperately, bracing them back by his arts. Andre
lifted his right fist up, howled again, and blue magic of the deCourteneys
shone from it like a beacon. The stone floor fissured open with a rumble,
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belching deep-earth fumes, tossing Yardiff Bey to his knees. For the first
time, the sorcerer thought of opening the ocular, but wasn t sure that even
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