Kiril put off questioning the bleeding thief about the "trap." She said, "They'll flank us, but we can hold them. I'll take your right."

Gage nodded and drew a long knife into his left hand.

She unsheathed her weapon. A spark of well-being stole through her, but Angul failed to burst into blue flame. What?

"Angul, aid me!" she ordered.

These Knights Empyrean are aligned with the cause of righteousness, the sword imparted into her mind, and I will not destroy them.

"You bloodstained monster, help me or these brainwashed Knights will slay your wielder!" The sword remained adamantly unlit. Nor did it attempt to overpower her sense of reality...

The Knights most affected by the hellscream were shaking off its effects. They began to separate, intent on spreading out around Kiril and Gage.

Before they could implement their strategy, a pebble of flame skipped into the midst of the Empyrean Knights and exploded, briefly silhouetting them against a field of boiling red light before enveloping elf and horse alike.

Someone was throwing fireballs! And that someone had attacked the Knights, not herself and Gage, thank the Sign.

Kiril scanned the perimeter of the clearing. She spied two figures. One figure ... a human male, she saw, was gesticulating as if preparing to cast another spell.

Gage cried a new warning. She whirled to see the same Knight who'd skewered the thief retracing his path, this time his lance aimed at her.

She dropped into a crouch as she raised Angul in a vertical line, pointed at the earth. Her blade clashed along the lance shaft, deflecting the tip sideways then into the ground. The Knight held his seat despite the terrible jolt, but his lance remained behind. The impact nearly caused her to drop Angul; the blade was staying true to its promise, and provided her not one drop of supernatural strength, speed, or solidity of frame. At least it wasn't actively inhibiting her from using it as an ordinary weapon.

Gage flipped his grip from hilt to blade in a blink, then threw the knife after the Knight. His aim was off, and his target cantered forward, undeterred.

"What's wrong with your sword?" he asked, his voice weak. Blood continued to run from his wound.

Before she could answer, two of the Knights upslope launched their lances as if they were javelins. Gage stepped left and avoided the one aimed at him. Kiril stumbled, and the sharp pole plunged into her right leg, driving right through flesh and into the ground. An unfamiliar tug pulled through her entire body and she gasped in surprise.

One of the newcomers broke from the encircling eaves, moving from a standstill to full sprint instantly. The fire thrower remained partially hidden, his hands aflame with another spell.

The sprinter was a human—no, a half-elf in a black, tattered silk jacket. A slender sword was strapped to his back. He charged the closest Knight. A full ten feet before reaching his target, who failed to realize he was under attack, the newcomer leaped into the air, spinning as he did so, and delivered a flying kick straight into the mounted Knight's chest. As the newcomer landed gracefully, the Knight tumbled from his saddle and smashed limply to the ground.

Another Knight spurred his mount forward and slashed at the stranger, missing completely—the half-elf rolled beneath the mount's prancing legs, came up on the other side, and jerked the man off his horse. The unseated Knight crashed to the ground, and the half-elf followed him down with a brutal elbow to his windpipe.

With her left hand, Kiril pulled the lance from the earth, freeing her right leg. The shaft of wood still protruded from her flesh, and she could barely walk. Even with the unexpected aid from the strangers, she wondered if she would survive the day. She advanced, stiff-legged, down the slope, Angul held high but still nothing more than dumb metal in her weakening grasp.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Stardeep, Throat

Delphe stood on the Well's lip. Unsettling reflections played on her face. A stagnant wind blew up the shaft, tousling her hair and cooling her skin. A wind where none should be.

Something stirred below.

"Cynosure, initiate primary containment!" She glanced up at the idol of stone, iron, and crystal. The figure stared unblinking into the containment fires, as always. But from it, no answer came.

"Cynosure?" Delphe's stomach fell away as sweat broke on her brow. The wind up the shaft turned colder.

A crash, as of crystals breaking, or perhaps reality tearing, echoed through the Well. If Cynosure were somehow disabled, a full-scale containment breach could be moments away!

Delphe shrugged away the panic prowling her mind. Time to work. She extended her arms over her head, calling on her connection to the Cerulean Sign. An arc of silvery blue fire spanned her reach, then dropped into the Well, broadening as it fell toward the interface. She watched her magical quelling fold into the sun-bright chaos of the containment layer.

A green-gray burst of energy bounced back, flaring brightly before resolving into a ropy loop of phantom matter. The object gyrated and spun, almost like something alive, as gravity grabbed and pulled it back toward the scalding boundary layer.

One end of the spiraling phantasm flailed wildly and managed to touch the smooth side of the Well, and stuck.

Delphe gasped. Whatever had just emerged, or been projected from the Well, wasn't mere illusion, as sometimes happened when the Traitor dreamed. Whatever its origin, this sluglike entity had to be sterilized. Immediately.

Like an obscenely thick snail, the grayish thing began to inch up the concave wall of the Well. The light of the boundary layer failed to fully illuminate its sickly gray flesh.

"Cynosure, burn it!"

Nothing. The mind of Stardeep was focused elsewhere, if not worse. "Stars guide me," she murmured. Cynosure's wardenship had failed again.

The thing on the wall crept higher.

Delphe channeled the Sign. Blue fire warmed her chest, then burst out upon her arms, hair, and palms. Her eyes blazed, and she saw deeper into the slowly rising aberration.

Beneath its gray skin, the creature continued to modify itself, trading possibility for strength, raw energy for tissue, and dreadful desire for fell ability. It pulled mass from tiny particles in the air, and magical energy from the very spells meant to contain that which lay below it. It was fortifying itself, empowering itself. . .

The longer it was allowed to persist, the more difficult it would ultimately become to defeat! She couldn't wait for Cynosure to wake from its somnolence.

Delphe pointed down, recalled the proper key phrase, and spoke the awkward syllables. The dozens of glass slabs protruding from the Well's concave wall, spiraling down the sides, swiftly and silently retracted. The tentacle-like head of the creature, which had been reaching for the bottommost step, now found only a slippery, smooth surface, like the rest of the Well. At least Stardeep's manual functions remained accessible, despite Cynosure's absence. If that obscenity wanted to escape, it would have to inch the entire way.

Which should provide her with more than enough time to incinerate it, Cynosure be damned. Only one way to test her hypothesis.

Ragged words burned her throat. Arcs of energy trailed her gesturing hands as she wove an arcane discontinuity, a discontinuity shaped like a scythe. It burned with cerulean fire. The spellscythe neared the height of her magical arsenal, and cost her a large part of her strength.

For its part, the slender monstrosity continued to heave its way up the vertical shaft. As it moved, it shed streamers of gray flesh, like dead scales, revealing a larger, appalling bulk beneath. Silvered now, and sleek rather than stringy, the entity bounded an entire body length upward with a single leap, slapping onto the wall only fifteen or so paces beneath Delphe's protruding toes.