Since he didn't want Szass Tam to hear breakage and come running prematurely, Malark had stamped flat a chalice crafted of some strange green metal and had snapped the head off an exquisite ivory carving of the goddess Nephthys on a previous visit. He grabbed the ruined items and set them outside in the passage as if they'd been tossed there, then crouched behind an enormous block of carnelian crawling with carved, spidery-looking symbols-some sort of drow altar, perhaps.

After that he had nothing to do but wait for Szass Tam to appear. Well, that and tolerate the spiteful scrutiny of the Watcher. He hoped the entity was enjoying the show.

He imagined Szass Tam creeping down the tunnel, proceeding warily since the constant bend kept him from seeing more than a pace or two ahead. He imagined the lich's annoyance when he discovered he didn't have his quarry cornered after all, and his further vexation when he beheld the secret door standing open and more of his treasures defiled.

What he would he do then? That was the question. Because, if one stopped to think about it, the view before him looked like it could be a baited trap, and he was more than wily enough to perceive it that way. He knew, moreover, that the contents of the vault were fated to perish in any case and had been training himself to regard them, like the rest of creation, with disdain.

So it was entirely possible that he'd seal the chamber up again, locking it so well that even his trusted apprentice couldn't breach the wards a second time, and fetch reinforcements.

But Malark hoped the archmage would make a different choice. Szass Tam likely had some lingering attachment to the precious things he'd collected, and even if he didn't, the "demon's" desecration of them was an affront to his dignity, just like the rest of Malark's escalating series of provocations.

And perhaps the chase, with its violence and frustrations, had roused Szass Tam's passions and left him eager to make the kill. If so, it seemed likely that he'd enter even if he did suspect a trap. For he was, after all, the greatest wizard in the East, capable of defeating virtually any foe under almost any circumstances.

Szass Tam wasn't in sight yet, but his dry, pleasant voice recited a spell outside the door. A wave of chill swept over Malark, and for a heartbeat, his body felt heavy as lead. He recognized the enchantment. The lich had just made it impossible for anything lurking in the vault to escape by shifting itself through space.

Then Szass Tam stepped into the doorway. A red halo of protective power outlined his thin frame, and a blade blacker than night hovered before him. Malark recognized that magic as well. The flying sword was a sort of mobile wound in space, and its slightest touch would rip him-or a big piece of him-out of the mortal world.

Szass Tam's gaze raked the room and failed to catch on Malark's hiding place. That was something, anyway.

"I take it," said the lich, "that I'm supposed to grope my way through the clutter and give you a chance to pounce out at me. Please forgive me if I take another approach." He leveled his staff, slowly swept it from left to right, and spoke the first line of a spell of reanimation.

Reciting as quickly as he could, Malark whispered his own spell. Darts of green light leaped from his outstretched fingertips.

Their trajectory would give away his location, so, staying low, he immediately scurried from behind the carnelian block for another piece of cover. He'd rely on his ears to tell him whether the attack had disrupted Szass Tam's incantation.

It didn't. The archmage continued to speak with flawless cadence and inflection. It was likely the darts hadn't even stung him through his armor of light.

He snapped out a final word like the crack of a whip, and for an instant, the darkness boiled. Stone scraped on stone, and then the lids of the sarcophagi crashed to the floor. Smelling of embalmer's spice and dry rot, wrapped in linen, the Mulhorandi dead stood.

The nearest mummy was within easy reach of Malark. It gave a croaking call and, without even bothering to step out of its coffin, made a sort of toppling lunge at him, its withered, bandaged hands outstretched to grab.

Its touch would rot living flesh, but Malark's gauntlets would protect him, or at least he hoped so. He sidestepped the mummy's attack, sank the talons of one gloved hand into its temple, and yanked its head off.

It had only taken an instant, but that was an instant too long. The undead creature's groan and the ensuing scuffle had surely revealed Malark's location. He ran, and a blaze of shadow seethed through the air. He dived, but the fringe of the attack grazed him anyway.

That was enough to make his back arch in agony and flood his mind with terror. He fought against both. Held in a scream and brought his spasmodic muscles back under control. Scuttled onward.

Another mummy groaned and lurched at him. He parried its flailing fist with his cudgel, then bashed its chest in, at that same instant sensing danger. He sprang to the side, and the black sword slashed through the space he'd just vacated. He scrambled behind a gigantic dragonfly preserved in an even bigger lump of amber, the whole mounted on a bronze pedestal.

Perhaps he was safe for a breath or two. No mummies were close enough to strike at him, and the shadow blade couldn't target what Szass Tam couldn't see. Maybe he had time for another spell. He flourished his baton and whispered the rhyming words.

Power prickled across his body, which was no guarantee that the charm would actually protect him, considering that Szass Tam himself had animated the mummies. Malark supposed he'd know in a moment.

He slowed his breathing and sought to suppress what remained of his pain. Then he scrambled out from behind the dragonfly, again staying low in the hope that it would keep Szass Tam from spotting him. It might. The lich had taken only a few steps into the vault, and a number of sizable artifacts lay between the two of them.

The same precaution wouldn't throw off the mummies converging on his last position. Yet they took no notice as he darted between a pair of them. Thanks to his magic, they now mistook him for one of their own kind. And while they were seeking him in the back of the chamber, and Szass Tam waited for them to reveal his position, Malark had a few precious moments to try to steer this confrontation to the desired conclusion.

First, he needed to maneuver Szass Tam to the proper spot. Kneeling behind what appeared to be a common alchemist's oven but was no doubt something infinitely more valuable, he murmured sibilant words of command.

Szass Tam peered this way and that, then stiffened when he felt the magic bite. He appeared to sneer the unpleasant sensation away.

Malark had been certain the elder wizard would shrug off the effects of the spell, but that wasn't the point. If he'd succeeded in annoying the lich before, then surely it was more irksome still for someone to try to use necromancy against him, the greatest practitioner of that dark science, as if he were no more than a common zombie or ghoul.

Malark rapped his cudgel against the side of the kiln, then ran. An instant later, jagged shadows spun around the device in a maelstrom of conjured fangs and claws.

Then Szass Tam drew the flying blade back to float in front of him. As he advanced on the kiln, the weapon leaped this way and that in an unpredictable pattern of defense. Meanwhile, Malark circled.

Szass Tam stepped around the oven and scowled to discover that it didn't have a mangled corpse sprawled behind it. He raised his staff and began another incantation.

This one would conjure a flying eye that he would no doubt send to the ceiling. There, it would survey the entire vault from above, allowing its maker to see it too. Then he wouldn't need the mummies or any other spotters to pinpoint the whereabouts of his quarry.