"Tash!" Craer gasped back over his shoulder, at the lithe woman running along not far behind. "Can't you… fly?"

His lady shook her head, and panted, "Takes too long… to cast… without Dwaer… become hurled arrow… No way to fight or parry when reach…"

"So what by all the Three-engloried splendor is magic good for?" the procurer snapped.

"Oh," Blackgult called, "saving kingdoms, felling the Great Serpent-little things like that."

The sounds of their voices made the snake-headed priest glance back, a forked tongue darting from between his lips as he hissed in anger and surprise. He slowed, and threw up his hands to cast a spell-and Embra stopped, pointed the Dwaer at him as if it was a sword, and let fly with a bright needle of force that lit up the passage blindingly bright for a moment.

The other overdukes cried out, but kept running-and by the time Craer could see again, he was stumbling over the thrashing, headless corpse of what had recently been a Serpent-priest.

"Graul and bebolt!" he snarled, veering to find a wall and claw himself to a halt until his gaze cleared. "Why can't you blast down those two warriors, Em? Hey?"

"They're safely around a corner," the Lady Silvertree replied, as she joined him, guiding her fellow overdukes together. "Or I'd not even have dared cook this snake. Such bolts don't bow to royalty." The Dwaer had protected her against the flash of its own strike, and Blackgult had anticipated her deed and clapped a hand over his eyes, but the others were still blinking blearily at the near darkness around them.

Embra sighed, made the Dwaer glow gently, and ignored the bats-a trio now, at least-flapping around her. "Come on," she said. "Run, and I'll try to touch and heal as we go. We've got to catch them before they get to a-"

Even as she spoke, she saw that there was a well room ahead, with six passages leading out of it. When she let her Dwaer go out and brought blinding darkness down on them all, she could see no torch-glow ahead, anywhere.

The Lady of jewels cursed as coarsely as any warrior, and then reached out with her Dwaer and started banishing the hurt she'd done to the overdukes stumbling blindly around her.

Then, shaking her head, she led them on, the Dwaer leaping again to golden life. Craer bounded into the lead, Hawkril running to join him, and Blackgult fell back behind the two sorceresses.

When they reached the well-Craer glancing down into its dank darkness, just to make sure-Embra doused her magical radiance once more. Nothing; the darkness was utter, unbroken.

"Claws of the bloody, blood-spitting Dark One," she began softly. "To lose them now, when-"

"Em!" the procurer snapped, hearing a tiny shriek close by his ear. "Give us light!"

With a sigh, the sorceress did so-and found five bats circling her head. As soon as she stared at them, they flew away across the chamber, and through a certain archway. Without hesitation she ran after them, murmuring, "My thanks, wizard. Remind me to free you much sooner than I was intending to. Perhaps even before we've both died of old age."

A bat screamed in her ear, then whirled away to join its fellows. Embra Silvertree gave it a savage grin as she hurled herself around a corner, down a few broad, unexpected steps, and on along the unfamiliar, winding passage.

It ran for a long way without doors or side chambers, during which time a determinedly sprinting Craer caught up to Embra, gave her a reproachful look, and took up his former station ahead of her, with Hawkril moving to join him… all at a dead run.

They'd just started to really gasp for breath, and slow with weariness, when the passage suddenly descended sharply, hooked to the right, and opened into-a large cavern that shouldn't exist.

Embra stared, slowing in bewilderment now as much as exhaustion. She'd been bound to all of Flowfoam by the Living Castle enchantments of the Dark Three, unfinished as they were, and… and this place was not part of them. It should not be here, it-

– presently held crates upon crates of what looked suspiciously like a ready armory of weapons, and two warriors racing around them, after a staggering, panting-to-exhaustion king!

Running out of curses, Embra stopped, held up her Dwaer in a grip so hard her fingers turned white around its rising glow-and hurled a paralyzing spell upon all three distant running figures.

The air around her flashed, and then flowed crazily… and Embra felt her own limbs tightening and stiffening.

Shuddering, she forced herself to hold tight to the Dwaer, and used her last breath to snarl one of the oldest spells she knew, calling on the Stone to power it.

The Dwaer flashed strangely, and she could suddenly move freely again. Around her, an explosion of gasps told her that her fellow overdukes had also been freed from paralysis.

Something had hurled her magic back at her. Something had stood against the ravening power of a Dwaer-Stone, in a defiance she'd begun to think was impossible unless the gods themselves-

Another Dwaer. Eyes narrowing, Embra looked at the saddlebag on

Craer's back. It was ahead of her, directly between her and the fleeing king- and his would-be slayers, too.

She ran on, trying to keep the procurer in view as he ducked and dodged around and over the crates, hurling daggers at the warriors ahead- until at last he ran across an open space, and she could snatch the two breaths she needed.

Holding up her Dwaer, Embra gasped out an enchantment-and her Stone blazed up brightly.

Craer staggered in mid-run as something tugged sharply upward at his saddlebag-and then burst right through its leather, spinning up into the air and blazing as brightly as Embra's own Stone.

Something flashed and crackled back and forth between the two Dwaerindim, like a double-ended arrow sent flashing from one deadly bow to another and back again.

Still running, Craer looked up at the sudden explosion of light over his head-and promptly sprang up onto the nearest crate, leaping high and…. closing his fingers around the stump of the severed priest's hand holding the Stone. Craer's weight dragged it down, the sheer flowing force of magic passing between the two Dwaerindim making his entire body shudder, and landed hard on the crate, falling forward to the floor and rolling to his feet still running…

Just as Hawkril's warsword stabbed desperately out-and a scant swordlength in front of its tip, the two running warriors both snarled in triumph, and together drove their blades through the body of the fleeing king.

The Sword of Spells

Dolmur Bowdragon straightened with a sigh that sounded suspiciously like a sob. His arms trembled as the spell-flame dancing amid the three Bowdragon brothers wobbled, sputtered-and Died, in a spitting of sparks.

Multhas sat back, his face gray with effort and despair. Ithim fell to the tiles, weeping bitterly.

In the searching linkage they'd forged, the three brothers had grimly found the faintest trace of their missing Maelra-but just now, as they'd closed in on her, those faint, distant traces had been chopped off, as if by a knife. There could be little doubt that they'd just felt Maelra Bowdragon die.

Another of their bright young gone-the last one who'd had power enough to impress anyone with sorcery. Dolmur clutched the arms of his chair as if his fingers were talons that could pierce and crumble wood, and stared up at the high ceiling above, feeling sick and empty. How soon would it be before the dome above him, and all others in Arlund, resounded to the stride of some conquering mage?

Unless they bred again, to some sorceress who was a very Dragon of sorcery, the Bowdragons were doomed. Cathaleira, Jhavarr, and now Maelra-the brightest children had all gone to Aglirta, and had all been slain.