And inadvertently, Candlemas had penetrated the blank spot on his map. It turned out that the One King had set up wards to prevent scrying, so no one might learn he was undead. Clever, but more clever was Candlemas who, through his agent the barbarian, had made the One King bobble his wards. A red dragon dropping in tended to distract a body, alive or otherwise.

So Candlemas had killed two birds with one stone: he'd finally beaten Sysquemalyn and increased his knowledge. And knowledge, every mage knew, was the only lasting power.

But suddenly, out of nowhere, a shimmering portal had snatched away Sysquemalyn and his barbarian. "Unbelievable!"

"Like my little surprise?" came a laughing query.

The mage whirled to see Sysquemalyn, still dressed in her faux-pirate's garb, stride jauntily into his workshop with a thick book cradled in her arms. The woman raked back her red hair, which complemented her flushed cheeks, and wiggled her hips as she walked, making her sword harness jingle.

"I'm brilliant, am I not? And a fine actress! And even though your meaty barbarian is still alive, I've gotten the book the Big White Boar sought. So I win this round-"

"Shut up! Shut up! Stop jabbering! How did you get away?"

"Get away?" The woman blinked at his rudeness and confusion. "From what? Oh, the blob? I commanded it to yank me through the portal so what's-his-name would follow me! I made the fiend, silly. It's my servant."

"Made it? Your servant?"

"Don't mock me, Candlemas." Green eyes flashed beneath red brows. "I'll concede you won the second test, or whichever number this is, but now we're even again, so we'll defer our crude gratifications. Neither of us wants to be flayed alive, after all. So I've initiated another test, and the game continues-"

"Game?" Candlemas jammed his finger against the palantir. "You'd play a game there? I've never seen a portal like that, but I've read of them! It looks as if you opened a doorway into the Nine Hells! Is that true?"

The redheaded wizard replied with a tsk and a wave of the hand. "You're being petulant and picky. I think you're jealous!"

"So it's true." breathed the mage. "I can't believe even you could be that mad!"

"And I can't believe you're that boring. I'm leaving." She minced for the door, sword swinging in time to her red-striped hips. But she stopped and leveled a red-nailed finger at him. "Ken this, hedgehopper! I know perfectly well what I'm doing. I'm in complete control. And with what I'm learning, I'll soon be way beyond you, running an empire with the Dead White Fish emptying my chamber pots while you're still here dosing sick cows or whatever you-What?"

Seeing the horror on his face, she peered behind her.

A shimmering portal had opened in the workshop. From it flowed a giant that resembled a jaundiced genie. Its head was anvil-shaped, its mouth a gaping gash lined with jagged teeth, its eyes black holes like tears in a blanket. It was bright yellow.

One, two, then nine hooked arms rippled and wrapped around the quailing Sysquemalyn. In seconds, she was being dragged into the portal.

Face twisted in terror, she fought by both rattling off protection spells and grabbing at furniture, then by clawing for a hold in the cracks in the floor when she fell and struck her chin. The nine hooked hands mauled her, shredding leather and clothes and skin until blood spurted and hair tore.

Candlemas wanted to dive in to save her, or to utter a spell, or hurl a magical weapon. But he stood frozen by some unseen, unknown force and couldn't even blink.

Then the bleeding, sobbing Sysquemalyn was dragged through the portal, her red hair disappearing last. Her screams were cut off as the portal winked out.

Candlemas could move again, and the first thing he did was grab the table's edge to support his shaking legs. But even that comfort soured, for something flickered on its surface: the palantir.

Bidden to scry out sources of magic, the black glass globe now revealed a rocky field wherein another portal flickered open. Candlemas guessed the area was somewhere north of Tinnainen. But what magic was working there?

He bit his lip as the portal widened, disgorging a rolling ball of fire that splayed open like flaming oil. But this flame ran uphill, swarming over rocks and up a scrawny tree, igniting it like a torch. The flame continued onward, slithering around rocks and, upon touching a pool of water, evaporated it.

Hellfire, he thought. The real thing. But how…?

The globe flickered, revealing another magic source. Here was a field of rye, and above it, another portal. This one widened by hundreds of feet, then disgorged thousands of writhing maggots and grubs that spilled onto the field.

Another flicker, and a ghoulish arm poked from a portal, only to be sheared off as the spasming orifice winked shut. Another flicker, and the sea boiled to steam as more hellfire appeared underwater. Then another, and another, and another.

Never had Candlemas seen so much magic occur in so many different places at once. Toril-the whole world-had sprung hundreds of leaks.

Leaks from the Nine Hells.

Then a face materialized, a female mage whom Candlemas had met in the past, but whose name he'd forgotten. She shrilled, "If anyone can hear, in the name of the gods, send help! My caverns are overrun with trolls by the thousands! They're-" Her face disappeared. Moments later, a lesser mage flickered in, yelled Candlemas's name, and begged him to contact Lady Polaris and inform her that purple slime ran in rivers inside his manor, originating in his workshop.

There were more reports crackling over the ether, more fiendish invasions, more eruptions in the fabric of magic. Some deaths, many losses, boundless destruction.

"May the gods help us all," Candlemas breathed. "Sysquemalyn's cracked the wall to the Nine Hells. The fool, in her blind trifling she's endangered Netheril itself!"

A shriek interrupted his dread thoughts. Running to the door of his workshop, he shouted down a corridor, then froze. A gigantic black bat pursued a screaming maid. More spun up the stairwells, forcing him to slam the door shut. Dashing to the window, he saw thousands more fluttering around Delia, attacking anything that moved for its blood.

The horror had come home.

Candlemas beat his forehead in terror and frustration. Only the greatest archmages of Netheril had ever dared to challenge the Nine Hells, and most of them had never returned. Sysquemalyn had been sucked into its maw, and her and Candlemas's home, indeed their entire world, was under attack. The high mages of the Netherese would come soon to investigate, and they would trace the trail to here.

Their punishment for Sysquemalyn, and himself for not stopping her, was too awful to think about.

He had only one choice.

Standing still, he raised both hands over his head, first and fourth fingers extended.

And raised a high, wailing keen.

And disappeared.