The wind rose to a howling gale immediately, and clouds gathered overhead; the flames grew taller, and their advance slowed-but only slightly.

Garth watched in dismay as they continued to approach.

The clouds were not yet thick enough to summon lightning, so he could not blast the wizard's staff-and there was no guarantee that that would stop the wall of fire; the death of the basilisk had not reversed the petrifaction of its victims.

The flames were within a dozen feet when he finally allowed the sword to act on its own. It had been tugging at him, but he had resisted it; he did not trust the thing. Now, with the heat beating against him as if he stood opposite the bellows in a blacksmith's forge, he let it have its way.

It twisted in his grip and pointed directly at the advancing barrier.

The snow erupted into a second sheet of flame.

For a few seconds Garth did not understand how the sword hoped to save him by starting its own fire; then he saw that the ring had stopped expanding.

It could not pa.s.s the new fire his sword had started.

The sword's fire spread; when it met the stalled ring, it vanished with a great roaring rush of hot air-and with it, several yards of the wall of flame vanished as well.With the mystic circle broken, the remaining flames sank down and became nothing but flickering natural fires; when the spa.r.s.e damp gra.s.s that had been under the snow was burned, they died into sputtering remnants, then went out completely, leaving charred earth behind.

The snow was gone and the ground blackened in a broad circle around the three human enchanters, and the heat had melted much of the ground cover well past Garth's own position, but the circle where the wizards stood was still untouched, their feet sunk past their ankles in snow. Garth could not see their faces clearly over the fifty yards distance, but he was sure that they were surprised by the failure of their attack.

Koros growled, and Garth allowed the warbeast to advance. It stopped of its own volition when it reached the edge of the scorched area; the ground was still hot and its paws were sensitive.

There was no need to risk the warbeast, Garth decided; as long as it remained within earshot, he could summon it if he needed it. He prepared to dismount and then stopped, one foot out of the stirrup.

The central wizard was wielding his staff again. Holding it as he had before, he called aloud, "Yahai Sneg ghyemye, yahai Srig srigye!"

The final word Garth recognized; it meant "cold."

He had no desire to waste time fighting off one a.s.sault after another; he raised the sword and cried aloud his own invocation. "Melith!"

Lightning flashed overhead, and thunder exploded deafeningly. He realized he had forgotten to direct the lightning; it had struck nothing. He was still inexperienced at wielding magic.

He had seen no new ring appear when the wizard spoke his spell, but the air about him was suddenly cold, much colder than it had been before the humans had appeared, colder than it had any right to be so early in the season. He ignored it and willed another bolt of lightning into existence; it struck with a blinding brilliance and earthshaking roar at the feet of the three strangers.

"That was a warning!" he bellowed, slackening the gale he had conjured so that he could be heard. "Annoy me no further!"

"Surrender yourself and your sword, and we will let you live!" shouted back the man with the staff.

Garth began to consider whether he might, in fact, be wise to surrender or at least to inquire about exact terms, but then dropped the idea as a rush of anger flooded through him. He was dimly aware that it was the sword's doing, but that did not give him the power to resist it.

"I am Bheleu!" he screamed. "I surrender to no one!"

The storm roared into redoubled frenzy, and twin lightning bolts bracketed the three wizards. Garth swept the sword through the air above his head, leaving a trail of flame glowing in the air. With a word he sent Koros charging toward them, though his left foot was still out of the stirrup.

He was within a few yards before the wizards could manage any reaction beyond cringing in fear; but before he could strike at them, the central human raised the staff again. This time his invocation was in everyday speech, not archaic phrasing, as he called, "By all the G.o.ds, help!"

The staff suddenly blazed with light and Garth was himself again, free of Bheleu's control, though the sword still flamed in his hands. He held the sword in one hand while he used the other to slap Koros on the neck, turning its charge aside before it trampled the wizard into the little patch of snow at his feet. He called for the warbeast to halt.

The other two wizards had turned and fled as the warbeast approached, but the man with the staff had stood his ground.

"Yield, Garth of Ordunin!" he cried.

"Don't be a fool," Garth replied. "You're no danger to me; why should I yield? Who are you, anyway?"

"I am Karag of Sland, and I hold the Great Staff of Power, lost these three centuries!"

Garth looked the man over carefully and decided that even Karag wasn'tentirely sure if he was bluffing. Whatever this staff was, Garth guessed that he hadn't had it long.

"Why did you attack me?"

"You have taken the Sword of Bheleu and destroyed Dusarra and Skelleth with it; you must be stopped before you usher in the true Age of Destruction!"

Garth was grateful that the man's desperate invocation had apparently had the unintentional effect of freeing him temporarily from the sword's control. He might, he thought, be able to settle this peacefully.

"I don't want an age of destruction any more than you do," he replied mildly. "If that staff is as powerful as the sword, though, what do you have to worry about?" As he spoke he tested his hands, and discovered that though his mind might be free, his fingers were not. He regretted that; he had hoped that this over-eager wizard might have solved all his problems for him without meaning to.

His conversation was interrupted abruptly by the return of the tall, brown-haired human, who came lurching back out of the surrounding storm. With a hysterical scream of "Die, monster!" he swung his strange, curved sword at Garth's waist mounted as Garth was, his neck was well out of the man's reach.

With one hand, without thinking about it, Garth brought the Sword of Bheleu around to fend off the attack. The two blades met in a spitting shower of red and white sparks; then the wizard's sword exploded into glittering shards that st.i.tched red gashes across the man's face and chest. Garth was unharmed. He felt a twinge of annoyance and then a renewed surge of fury; the sword was winning out over whatever had restrained it.

He lifted the blade to the sky and lightning blazed down around him, wrapping him in blue-white fire for a brief instant and then jumping to the broken hilt of the Blood-Sword of Hishan of Darbul-though Garth did not know that was its name. The tall human staggered, his mouth open as if to scream, though all sound was lost in the booming torrent of thunder; the blood boiled from the wizard's wounds, and he fell in a charred heap at the warbeast's feet.

The fit of rage pa.s.sed and, hoping that this death might serve him, Garth tried again to drop the sword. It still held him.

He did not even notice that he was in the center of a blazing pyre; there had been so many pyrotechnic displays in the last few minutes that he had lost track of them. Koros growled, and he looked up from the glowing red jewel.

He was surrounded by flame, but he felt no heat and remained unharmed; something held it back, protecting both him and his mount.

He waved the sword, and the flames parted before him. He found himself looking at the man who called himself Karag of Sland; the man stood, the staff in his hands and the blood draining from his face, directly in front of the warbeast and its rider.

Then, suddenly, red mist swirled out of nowhere and wrapped around the wizard. There was nothing Garth could do in time to stop it, other than slaying the man where be stood, which he chose not to do. He looked around and saw that a similar fog was appearing around the other two wizards, both the live one who was still fleeing some two hundred yards away, and the smoldering corpse.

As he watched, the red stuff vanished again, taking the three humans with it. He had almost expected that to happen.

He gazed around at the area where the battle had occurred. There was a large ring of blackened earth which had now frozen hard, pocked with small craters where lightning bolts had struck. The central circle of snow was mostly a puddle. A few glittering fragments of sword were visible, and a few traces of bright blood.

New snow would come and cover the signs, he knew; but, come spring, it would be months before anything grew here. It was only a minor work of destruction and a single death, but still he sighed. It seemed that even when the sword did not force him to destroy of its own volition, other forces drovehim to destroy in self-defense.

No, he corrected himself, most of this destruction was not his doing, but that of the wizards. He was simply the focus for it. The death, though, was his doing; he regretted that.

This was a new complication in his life. He wondered whether it justified changing his plan to consult the Wise Women. If wizards were to pop out of nowhere everywhere he went, he could hardly keep a visit to Ordunin a secret.

He would move on slowly, he decided; if there were further attacks, he would turn back.

That decided, he took a moment to get his foot securely back in the stirrup and urged Koros forward.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

The councilors all stared in horror at the charred corpse that had appeared on the edge of the pentagram, almost ignoring Karag and Kubal.

"What happened?" Shandiph asked at last.

"He can control lightning," Karag answered. He was shaking, the staff that was still clutched in his hands fluttering like a bird's wing.

"How did you survive, then?"

"I don't know. Kubal fled, and I tried to ward him off with the staff. I think it worked, at least temporarily."

"Then the sword is not unbeatably powerful!" someone exclaimed.

Karag shook his head. "I have never seen so much power. I don't mean just the sword, but the staff as well. It felt like a live thing in my hands.

Without the magicks in this room, we wouldn't have a chance. He made a storm from nothing with a single gesture, and directed the lightning wherever he chose; the sword burned and spat fire. The staff made a wall of flame that consumed everything it touched, until he turned it back with the sword's flame. He rides a great black monster with fangs as long as my fingers."

Kubal nodded agreement. "I didn't know what we were doing; I didn't know he could be so powerful. I didn't believe Kala when she said that he could summon storms."

"The three of you were all acting stupidly," Shandiph said. "The essence of magic is not power, but subtlety and deception, and poor Alagar paid for your rashness in not thinking of that. As additional folly, you alerted the overman."

"He is no wizard, though," the Baron of Therin said. "He won't know how to defend himself against us. Karag made a natural mistake in thinking that three wizards could handle him, magic sword or no."

"I do not say that they underestimated the overman, but that they underestimated the sword," Shandiph replied. "We need to use subtler methods, methods that the sword cannot counter directly."

"What did you have in mind?" Chalkara asked.

Shandiph replied by crossing to the guidebook, opening it, and asking, "Are there magicks in this chamber that can kill a foe from afar?"

The book turned to a page very near the front, which said, in large, ornate runes, simply, "YES"

"What are the dozen most effective that can be used without great preparation, how do they work, and where can they be found?"

Pages turned, revealing a list.

"Kala, ready your scrying gla.s.s, so that we can see what happens."

"I don't have my gla.s.s; it was left in Kholis."

Disconcerted, Shandiph admitted, "I hadn't thought of that."

"There must be a scrying gla.s.s here somewhere," Chalkara said. "Ask the book."

A gla.s.s was found and given to Kala; she wandered several yards down the room and found a suitable spot to work in.The magical light Shandiph had conjured was beginning to fade, which suited her well; it was easier to use a gla.s.s in dim light. She attempted to summon up Garth's image, and found it impossible. The sword's power still blocked her.

She said as much to the others, who had gathered together most of the devices and spell books the guidebook had listed as necessary for the dozen death-spells.

"I forgot about that entirely," Shandiph said. "I suppose we'll just have to try these, and then go there and see."

"If he resists other magic as well as he resists a scrying spell, I think we had best go prepared for battle."

"I fear you're right," Shandiph agreed. "Let me ask the book what other weapons we might take."

"I already asked that," Karag said. He was beginning to regain his composure. "We took three of the four most powerful-the Great Staff of Power, the Sword of Koros, and something the book called the Blood-Sword of Hishan of Darbul. The book said it was the third most powerful weapon here, after the Staff and the Ring of P'hul, but the Sword of Bheleu shattered it instantly."

There was a glum silence in response to this news.

After a pause, Shandiph asked, "Book, what would you recommend we use against the Sword of Bheleu?"

The page revealed bore a single sentence, which Chalkara read aloud over Shandiph's shoulder. "There is no power in the Council's possession that can withstand the Sword of Bheleu."

"You say there is nothing we can do?"

With a thump, pages turned back to reveal the single ornate word.

"Is there no power that can defeat the wielder of the sword?" Chalkara asked.

"There are two; the Book of Silence and the King in Yellow," Shandiph read.

"Who is the King in Yellow?" Thetheru asked.

A single page turned, and Shandiph said, "I knew this already. It says, 'the immortal high priest of Death'."

"Where can we find him?" Chalkara asked.

No pages turned, but Shandiph replied, "We don't want to find him; he would be worse than the overman. He is the agent of Death as Garth is the agent of Bheleu."

"Then what of the Book of Silence?" called someone from the back of the little crowd.

"Do you know why it's called the Book of Silence?" Miloshir replied. "To speak aloud a single word written therein will kill anyone but its rightful owner."

There was a somber silence. Herina spoke up at last. "We could draw lots, and the loser would use the Book..."

"No, it won't work. The loser would die before completing the spell. It would take one of us for each word of the spell, and I have no idea how long the incantation we want might be."

"Can we find the rightful owner and ask his aid?"

"The Book belongs to the King in Yellow."

"It would seem we are defeated before we have begun," Derelind said.

"We must try, at the very least," Veyel replied.

"We must and we will. We will try each of these twelve spells the book led us to. It may be that the book is not infallible and has overestimated the power of the sword; it may be that Garth is not yet fully attuned to the sword's power. We still have a chance."

"Attuned?" Karag snorted. "The overman can summon storms from a clear sky and steer the lightning! How much more control over the sword's magic can he possess?"