Guerrand's vision was obscured by the naga's spell for brief seconds, time the beast used to rush forward, stinger-tipped tail slashing at the wizard. Drawing a small rod from his waist belt, Guerrand leaped toward the thing's tail and struck it. Crimson light flowed out from the rod to encircle the naga, constricting and crushing it. The monster thrashed in a frenzy and stiffened momentarily. But the unearthly glow returned to its eyes as it shook off the rod's effect.

The naga screeched its rage until Guerrand thought his ears would burst. It stopped only to stare at him warily, malevolent intelligence shining in its cruel eyes.

I'll distract it, came the thought into Guerrand's mind, so that you can kill it.

Startled, Guerrand scanned the room, spotting Zagarus perched atop a bookcase against the far left wall. No, he thought. The naga's too dangerous, Zag. I can handle it. Go back to our quarters.

But the sea gull was not so easily put off. I'm sure I can peck a snake without getting hurt. Zagarus spread his wings and launched himself into a slow glide across the vast, open room.

The naga was weaving back and forth, looking for an opening for its poisoned tail. Zagarus swooped low across the creature's back, slashing at the tiny blue- black scales with his beak. The naga's howl was more pique than pain. The snake-thing whipped its body around like a club so quickly that the sea gull was knocked to the floor.

Dazed by the blow, Zagarus scrambled on the hard tiles to get away from the naga. But he had hardly moved before a stream of smoking ichor sprayed from the naga's mouth and splashed on the gull's back. "Kyeow!" The bird thrashed on the floor as the feathers and flesh on his back bubbled away in sizzling gobs.

"Zag!"

A horrible, burning pain seared Guerrand's spine. He stumbled slightly from the shock, but his mind clung tenaciously to the magical formula he was reciting. In the time the monster had spent responding to Zagarus's unsuspected attack, Guerrand had prepared a spell. Through his and his familiar's shared pain, he recited the magical words before the naga could turn back to him. The floor beneath the thing turned to rippling white liquid. The enormous snake-creature let out another shriek of shock and pain as three-fourths of its length was abruptly rooted to the liquid floor. It fought madly to tear itself away, but without success.

Sensing its doom, the naga flailed in a berserk frenzy to break free. Slowly the last of its head sank, screaming, into the swells of the floor. The porcelain surface immediately returned to its original state, smooth and undisturbed.

Three quick steps brought Guerrand to where Zagarus had fallen. The faithful familiar was lying still, except for his breathing. It doesn't hurt so bad anymore, came the bird's thought, labored and slow. My body is so numb… I can hardly… feel anything…

Guerrand stroked the gull's dark, feathered head tenderly, his throat thick. I'm not ready to release you as •nv familiar, Zag.

Of course you aren't, Rand. Zagarus's thoughts came hard and broken, the effort nearly too much. I'm a ¦;ooded, black-backed Ergothian sea gull-

"The most strikingly beautiful of all seabirds." With a catch in his voice, Guerrand finished the sea gull's favorite description of himself. Zagarus's dark little eyes sank shut, and his labored breathing stopped. Crimson spears of pain pierced Guerrand's body, twisting upward through him to explode in his head. For several unendurable moments he felt as if he had been ripped in half, front and back, by talons of flame.

The mage fell to the floor. Then the pain fled, leaving only a heavy ache in its wash.

Lying on his side next to Zagarus's still form, Guerrand tasted blood in his mouth. The death of his familiar had caused the terrible reaction in his own body. Guerrand felt mentally weakened, and knew, too, that Zag's passing had drained him of magic that he could never regain. Whatever the cost to himself, Guerrand thought fiercely, Zag had been worth it. He reached out and ran a finger along the bird's white-tipped wings, his ebony back one last time. Rest well, friend. There was a hollowness inside Guerrand when, for the first time in more than a decade, there came no echoing response in his head.

Guerrand swallowed his grief and struggled to his feet. He half walked, half hobbled to where Dagamier lay near the door. Expecting that she, too, would be dead, Guerrand was surprised to find her breathing. The wound in her back was ugly. The flesh had blackened and shriveled away from the poison, but the wound wasn't terribly deep. He called Dagamier's name while patting her cheeks, but she responded groggily, as if drugged. Guerrand recalled the nagas' glistening bodies and realized they must have been armed with a paralytic or sleeping poison. He briefly considered running back to his own storeroom for a potion that would neutralize the poison, when a noise behind him in the depths of the white wing made him turn back to the portal.

But the blazing purple opening to the Lost Citadel was gone. Beneath where it had hovered, a much- changed Lyim sat upon a marble slab. Ezius was slumped at his feet, reaching feebly toward the reborn mage. Before Guerrand could do more than take in the scene, Lyim gestured with his hands, and the white- robed mage's head dropped to the floor.

"Lyim!"

Guerrand's old nemesis spun around with a look of joyous anticipation on his face.

"What have you done?" Even as he asked the question, Guerrand knew the answer.

Lyim stood above Ezius's body, smiling malevolently. His once-solid red robe was streaked in shades of bleached and baked red, and his jet-black hair was veined with white. His skin, however, was burned a deep red, with creases so deep they looked like sunbaked cracks. "You can't even imagine where I've been, or the things I've seen, Rand."

"Oh, but I can," Guerrand said, matching Lyim's glare. "I, too, saw the citadel, but I had the strength to turn back. The gods will not let your trespass go unpunished-for any of us." He unconsciously made the warding sign against evil.

Lyim's eyes narrowed. He was silent for a long time, his hands quiet at his sides. Then, unexpectedly, he grinned. It was like a flash of raw light. "Even after all that has happened between us, I can't quite bring myself to hate you, Rand."

A nerve leaped in Guerrand's jaw. "Strange, I have no trouble hating you." His brown eyes narrowed with unconcealed loathing, and he advanced on Lyim.

With a quickness that belied the pain still shooting through his body, Guerrand launched a spell of petrification, hoping to capture Lyim by turning him to stone. Gray dust materialized and swirled around the renegade mage.

Lyim watched it in amusement until, with a wave of his hand, he dispelled it. "We both know I have always been the better mage."

Guerrand bristled under the taunt. He wanted to unleash every bit of magic under his command, but was bound by the Council's directive to take intruders alive to face a tribunal.

He laced his fingers together into a lattice while shouting,

"Dattiva, meshuot, lathrey dattimsum!"

Thin bars of pure force sprang from the floor to encircle Lyim. Spreading outward and upward from a single point on Lyim's left, they threatened to enclose him. Lyim sprang toward the opening and leaped through before the cage could close. But the bars were quicker than he'd anticipated. They closed on his waist, trapping him partially in and partially out of the cage.

Lyim cast a spell on himself. His body began to swell. His muscles bulged and his chest expanded, straining against the shimmering bars. Massive hands gripped the bars and pushed, bending them outward. The cage of force twisted apart and Lyim stepped out, once again resuming his normal size. But the strain showed on his face.