Aoth jerked his upper body away, leaning over Brightwing's neck, and although it came so near he felt the sickening chill of it, the ghost's hand fell short. He drove his spear into its chest, snarled a word of power, and channeled destructive force into the weapon.

The ghost dissolved. Brightwing spread her wings and arrested her plummet.

"Are you all right?" Aoth asked.

"Yes," Brightwing croaked, her voice more crow than eagle.

He studied the black, suppurating sore where the phantom had wounded her. "Are you sure?"

"I said yes!"

"All right, but let's take a moment to catch our breaths."

The griffon veered, climbed, and carried him to a clear section of sky. Aoth took the opportunity to study the battle raging around and beneath them.

His fire-touched eyes could see nearly everything clearly, even at a distance and in the dark, but at first he wasn't sure he'd be able to make sense of it all. So much was going on.

Swimming devils and zombie leviathans tore at one another.

Archers and crossbowmen shot their shafts. Ballistae threw enormous bolts, and mangonels, stones. Wizards hurled bright, crackling thunderbolts and called down hailstones.

Galleys and cogs maneuvered, seeking the weather gage or some comparable advantage. One vessel drove its ram into the hull of another. Dread warriors flung grappling irons, seeking to catch hold of a nearby ship and drag it close enough to board. Aquatic ghouls tried to clamber onto what had been a fishing boat, with nets still lying around the deck, while legionnaires jabbed at them with spears.

Fighting from one of the largest warships, Iphegor Nath and some of the Burning Braziers alternately hurled holy fire at enemy vessels and at any particularly dangerous undead that wandered within range. Suddenly, quells appeared among them, shifted through space by the wizards in their midst.

Shadowy figures in swirling robes, glowing mystic sigils floating in the air around them, the apparitions were capable of sundering a priest from the source of his power. Warrior monks, the Braziers' protectors, charged the quells with burning chains whirling in their hands.

Aerial combatants soared, wheeled, and swooped around the sky. A balor struck at spectres with its fiery sword and whip. Half a dozen griffon riders loosed arrow after arrow at a skirr, one of the huge, mummified, batlike undead, while dodging and veering to keep clear of fangs and talons.

Gradually, Aoth sorted it all out, or at least he thought he had. It seemed to him that up in the air, neither side had gained the advantage, which meant that the flyers stayed busy with one another. They couldn't domuch to exploit their elevated position to threaten the ships below.

The same was true of the swimming horrors. They seemed equally matched, and as long as that held true, they wouldn't pose much danger to either fleet.

But happily, not every part of the battle reflected the same furious, lethal stalemate, with men, orcs, and conjured creatures struggling and perishing without tipping the balance one way or the other. In the ship-to-ship combats, the true heart of the conflict, the council was faring better than its foes.

Szass Tam had as many ships as his rivals, vessels filled with formidable undead monstrosities, but as Thessaloni Canos had predicted, their crews didn't handle them well. The council's vessels came at the enemy ships from behind or amidships, and only grappled them when it was to their advantage.

The necromancers' thaumaturgy was more reliable than that of their fellow Red Wizards, but combined, the powers of the other orders were more versatile. In addition, they had all the priests they'd evacuated from Bezantur-servants of Kossuth, Mask, Cyric, Umberlee, and every other Thayan god except Bane-backing them up with their own kind of magic.

By the Great Flame, Aoth thought, am I truly seeing this? Has Szass Tam overreached at last? He remembered all the times when the zulkir of Necromancy had feigned weakness to lure his foes, then snapped a trap shut around them, and was afraid to believe what he was seeing.

Then one of the black ships faded into a vague shadow of itself. Another abruptly went flat, like a paper cutout standing upright on the surface of the sea.

At first Aoth surmised that the necromancers aboard the two vessels had activated some sort of defensive enchantments. But then Brightwing said, "What are you peering at?"

"Two of Szass Tam's ships look different. Can't you see it?"

"No."

After another moment, Aoth couldn't, either. The two vessels appeared normal.

But that didn't matter. He suddenly thought he understood the meaning of what he'd observed, and if so, perhaps the council could maintain its edge no matter what tricks Szass Tam held in store.

"Find Lallara," he said.

The zulkir of Abjuration rated an even larger and more formidable ship than Iphegor Nath, and was accordingly easy to locate. When Brightwing dived out of the night sky, voices cried the alarm. Crossbowmen in the high sterncastle raised their weapons, and Red Wizards, their wands and staves. For an instant, Aoth was sure that his eagerness to share his discovery would be the death of him.

Fortunately, Lallara screamed, "Stop, you idiots!" Her minions froze.

Brightwing landed in the sterncastle between the archwizard and the parapet. She did so lightly, but even so, the planking groaned beneath her weight. "Thank you, Mistress," said Aoth.

"What do you want?" Lallara said.

"I've observed something. We wondered where Szass Tam got a fleet, and now I know. He created the black ships with illusion magic. They aren't entirely real."

Lallara spat. "Nonsense. If that were true, I'd be able to tell. Or the diviners would. Or the illusionists. But no one else has discerned such a thing."

Aoth took a breath. "Your Omnipotence, there's something I haven't told you. The blue fire in my eyes gives me absolute clarity of vision. So if I've ever accomplished anything of note in the service of the council, if I've ever given sound advice, then please, heed me now. Because if the black ships are made of illusion-"

"Then a circle of abjurers should be able to cast counterspells to expunge them from existence," Lallara snapped. "I don't need you to instruct me in basic magical theory." She called for several lesser wizards to attend her, and they came scurrying.

Lallara arranged them in a circle with herself at the center, directed their attention to the nearest black ship, and started a long incantation with an intricate structure and rhyme. Her assistants chimed in on the refrain. Aoth, whose system of battle magic concentrated on attacks and was mostly devoid of feats of abjuration, felt lost immediately.

But he had no trouble comprehending the results of their effort. The dark ship abruptly vanished, dumping the dread warriors and necromancers aboard into the sea.

He knew the abjurers wouldn't be able to make all the enemy vessels disappear. Some would prove impervious to their magic, especially if Szass Tam himself had taken part in their creation. Still, Aoth had given his allies a potent new weapon.

"Well done," he said.

Lallara turned and glared at him. "Why are you still here? Your place is with your men, if you're not trying to shirk the fight."

He sighed. "I'm on my way."

"No, wait. Fly to the senior illusionists and tell them what you told me. They may be able to unmake the black ships as well."

Standing in the prow of his flagship, his staff of drowned men's bones in his hand, Szass Tam gazed over the water and smiled. "I should have made a greater effort to win Thessaloni Canos over to my side. Or had her assassinated."