Both wizards nodded. "Very well, then," Sarim continued. "Master Oriseus, you are the challenged party. The first casting is yours."

Oriseus sketched a flamboyant bow. He wheeled once to wave to the crowd of onlookers, his teeth flashing white in his dark face. Then he raised one hand, muttering a toneless chant under his breath. Aeron felt the flow of power that snapped to the conjuror's outstretched arm as he expertly demanded power from the Weave of the muggy air around him. A crackling blue nimbus sprang into sight around Oriseus. With an odd snickering laugh, the conjuror pointed at Telemachon and sent a lashing bolt of cerulean energy dancing away from his aura. Acrid ozone reeked in the air.

The High Diviner planted his staff in the ground, took a half step back, and shouted a quick word that was too potent for Aeron's mind to grasp. The dancing bolt of energy swerved from his heart and struck the staff instead, grounding with a shower of sparks and an angry roar.

Oriseus's first thrust parried, Telemachon readied his counterstroke. With businesslike precision, the diviner barked a phrase of forgotten words that resounded with contained power. Aeron sensed the intangible tendrils of the Weave as Telemachon turned Oriseus's own life-force against him. Aeron had a sudden impression that Oriseus's skeleton was shining through his flesh and robes, scorching hot inside his body.

The conjuror grunted and staggered back, wisps of smoke escaping from his lips. "I didn't think you had the ruthlessness to wield such a spell, Telemachon," he gasped. He dropped to one knee, but through sheer effort of will, he managed to raise a field of negation that broke Telemachon's fiery grip on his bones.

The old diviner wheezed with fatigue, but Oriseus was not in much better shape. The conjuror took a long moment to catch his breath, stood up on unsteady feet, and with determination called out a summoning. A lean, powerful beast with bone-edged jaws appeared on the ground between Oriseus and his foe. Aeron recognized it from his studies-a leucrotta, a dangerous monster of the northlands. Students and novices alike retreated from the field of battle, pushing back four or five nervous steps. Oriseus raised his hand and sent the creature at Telemachon in a bounding leap, its jaws gaping wide.

The diviner started to speak a spell that would destroy the monster, but it was too swift for him. It seized him in its jaws and, with a quick twist of its head, sent him sprawling, his left arm raked to the bone. Telemachon shrieked and scrabbled backward awkwardly, his girth preventing him from escaping. The leucrotta darted in to finish him, but from some hidden reserve of strength, Telemachon managed to cough out a word of dismissal. Even as its jaws snapped at his face, the leucrotta disappeared, banished back to whatever place it had come from. In the sudden silence, Telemachon whimpered in pain and flailed to find his feet, but somehow he did so. "I cry foul! No summonings are allowed in the duel, not unless the creature is bound and controlled!"

"The creature was under my control," Oriseus retorted.

"You cast no binding spell upon it," Master Sarim observed from the side.

"Had you watched my spell carefully, you would have seen that I bound the monster as I summoned it." Oriseus grinned suddenly. "It's a refinement I worked out a long time ago. Now, have you had enough, Telemachon? You can end the duel by yielding."

Blood dripped from Telemachon's mangled arm, but defiance blazed from within the old man's heart. "No, I'm not done yet," he said. "It's my turn, I believe."

He took two steps forward to his staff, still stuck upright in the ground, and seized it in his good hand. Blue energy crackled and snapped as Telemachon summoned the first spell that Oriseus had cast back from the ground. He shouted a long spell of rolling, brittle words. The staff disintegrated in his hand, and the blue nimbus disappeared, sinking back into the ground again. But a moment later, a brilliant column of energy exploded under Oriseus's feet, ravening skyward as the spell burst free of the earth. Oriseus was bathed in white-hot power, his flesh blistering and bursting wherever the blue-white energy touched him. He reeled back and fell in a smoking heap.

Aeron blinked the afterimage from his eyes, stunned. Oriseus was dead; he had to be. No one could have survived that. But to his amazement, the sizzling wreckage stirred and slowly rose. Oriseus was badly injured, but Aeron could detect the fraying remnant of a sorcerous halo that had protected him from the worst of the blast.

Oriseus's cheerful manner was gone, replaced by deadly hate. "Again you surprise me," he croaked through blackened lips. "Let me show you how it's done, old man."

Oriseus began to weave a spell, his hands turning and flashing as he muttered a cold and inhuman invocation. Aeron strained forward, trying to see what Oriseus was doing, but he could not sense the Weave at work. The delicate web of earth, air, fire, and water remained untouched. Even Oriseus's own life-force was undimmed by his efforts. Aeron realized that the conjuror was employing the shadow magic, the power he'd shown to Aeron on that afternoon on the ruined ramparts. A clot of darkness formed in the air in front of Oriseus, growing larger as his chant continued. How does he do that? Aeron wondered.

Oriseus cried out with an inarticulate shout and released the sphere. The darkness darted forward, leaving streaming shadows in its wake as it arrowed toward Telemachon. The Master Diviner raised a barrier of gleaming light, but the dark sphere punched through it like a spearpoint through thatch. It engulfed the portly wizard, seeming to crumple the substance of his body as if he were a paper doll consumed by an unseen flame. Telemachon's screams were swallowed by the thing that destroyed him. In a matter of moments, nothing remained of the High Diviner.

The black sphere bobbed, flickered, and faded into oblivion. The assembled college was silent with horror and shock. After a long moment, Master Sarim strode into the field. "Oriseus? What has befallen Lord Telemachon? What did your spell do?"

The conjuror raised his eyes, hot and hateful. "If he failed to deflect it, he did not survive," he said. "It was a potent enchantment."

Sarim's face darkened. "You slew him?"

"He had his chance to yield," Oriseus replied. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I am injured and must seek aid." With an iron effort, the conjuror turned awkwardly and staggered toward the college grounds. Within a few steps, several lesser masters and students-the adherents of his faction-caught him and helped him off the field. Aeron watched him go, dazed. It didn't seem possible that Telemachon was dead. He drifted over to the place where Telemachon had vanished, seeking some sign of the fallen master.

"Telemachon was your sponsor, was he not?" Master Sarim stood nearby, evidently as shaken as Aeron.

"Yes," Aeron replied. "I never thought that he would meet his end this way."

"Nor I, Aeron." Sarim scowled, glancing around. No one else was near. The novices and students wandered away from the field in a daze. "Listen, Aeron. I know that you have been spending some of your time studying under Oriseus's tutelage. Do you know how he worked the spell that doomed Telemachon?"

"He is capable of drawing on a source of magic that I can't yet perceive," Aeron replied. "He's been showing me some of his lore, but I don't yet understand how he does it."

"Be careful of him. There is more to Oriseus than meets the eye," Sarim said. He paused, watching Aeron closely. "Where are your allegiances, Aeron?"

Aeron considered the question carefully. "I'm not ready to abandon my studies, not yet. I want to know what power he wields and master it if I can."

Sarim nodded. "It occurs to me that with Telemachon's death, Oriseus and his allies in the senators' faction control a majority of the council. They'll pick whomever they like as his successor."