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I circled away, concentrating on being Lerris, holding that barrier tight
around us.
The chaos-master s hair had turned totally white, and began to fall like
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snow.
Hsssttttt! I reeled backwards, a searing pain across my shoulders, feeling
like I had been slashed from behind.
Clank!
Oooo& Sephya exclaimed. The blade she had held lay on the floor,
white-hot from trying to pass the shield I held.
Thwick.
I skipped sideways, losing part of my tunic to the copper blade as Antonin
used my lapse of attention to strike.
GIVE& give&
Thwickkk!
I dodged again.
Twickk!
& and again&
& think& smart& mumbled Antonin. You ll never go home now& you know too
much& His words slurred, and his hands were shaking, and the short sword
dropped as if it were too heavy to hold.
Give& The last thought was nearly plaintive. Whhhssstttt!
Still another of Sephya s firebolts flared against the shield.
Clunk&
Antonin lurched toward me again, after dropping the now-too-heavy sword.
I dodged, but not quickly enough, as his fingers ripped at my forearm. Each
fingertip felt like a brand across my arm, and I forced order at those
chaos-dripping burn wounds, shoving Antonin back at the same time.
& damned&
I gulped as I looked at the white wizard. The hand that had clutched at
me-burning three white scars that still smoldered-that hand shriveled into
ashes. And the black imprint of my hand on his shoulder burned through the
white robes. As I gaped, the white-clad figure staggered, shriveling and
collapsing onto the marble in a crumpled heap.
Whhhhssstm!
Noooooooooooooo!
Sephya s scream echoed through the great room.
Since she had been unable to penetrate the shield I ignored her, ignored
the searing in my arm, and concentrated on keeping the shield intact until the
heap that had been the white wizard was truly dead.
Thhuuurruuummmmm& A low roll of thunder rumbled on and on, as if it
radiated from where I stood, rolling outward like ripples from a boulder cast
into a pool.
& thuuurrrummmmmmmmmm&
CRACK! A blade of lightning flashed outside from a cloudless sky, and I
flinched, but clutched my thoughts tight around the shield.
& thhhurruummmm& The growling in and under the skies, and the lingering echo
of the single lightning bolt, rolled and kept rolling outward and away from
the castle, until the thunder and the lightning were mere echoes far out
across the Westhorns.
Not merely physical, those sounds had carried far beyond my hearing, and I
shivered.
With a deep breath I dropped the shield and turned toward Sephya. She had
squared her shoulders.
Whhhhstttt!
The heat seared around me, but I deflected it, letting the white flame
sheet around me. I took a single step toward her.
Wwuhhhssstttt!
Another step carried me through and past her firebolt.
Whhhsssttt!
Moving as though through glue or old varnish, I managed another long step.
She backed up almost to the hearth.
Whhsttt!
A knife-another one of the bronze blades-appeared in her hand. Touch me
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and you lose her!
I stopped.
She lifted the knife and reversed it.
I threw all the order I had left in me at the knife, trying to order the
copper and tin, bend it away from chaos.
Ohhhhhhhh&
The muscles in her arms stood out as she tried to bring the knife toward
her body. I staggered toward her, pouring all the order-feelings I could
toward her.
Ugffff&
Clank&
Her legs bent, then buckled as she collapsed against a chair and bounced
onto the floor.
I half-walked, half-dragged myself across the white marble squares, toward
the doll-like figure sprawled between the white-oak table and the hearth.
After kneeling on one knee, I turned her face up. The slash across her fair
neck was more burn than cut, ugly as it looked, although the blood didn t help
appearances much.
I left it alone, afraid that any more order-meddling was dangerous, at
least until I gathered my own thoughts and strength back.
A quick look toward the white wizard showed me but a heap of white ashes.
Even as I watched, the white ash turned to dust, and the dust vanished into
the white haze that still filled the castle. Only the white robes and matching
white boots remained upon the white tiles of the floor.
I looked back at the unconscious Sephya, noting the slight build, the
reddish tinge of hair beginning to replace the black.
My stomach twisted, even as I gathered my last energies to break another
mental lock-this time, the one Antonin had provided for the woman who had
tried to keep eternal youth by letting Antonin s promises ensnare another
near-innocent from Recluce.
I had guessed but not known what had been done to her, not as Sephya, but
as another soul trapped in Antonin s web. In a way both Sephya and Tamra had
been trapped. Yet Sephya had agreed, knowing that Tamra would in time wither
away under Sephya s personality as reinforced by Antonin. The white wizard had
not lied, exactly; rather, he let Tamra think she was about to learn how to
control the powers she had always been denied. Tamra would not have known that
Sephya would control her body.
Thanks to Talryn and Recluce, Tamra had never learned, just as I had not
learned, that she already possessed that power all along. Except Tamra had
refused to accept her power, insisting that someone else declare her worthy;
while I had kept asking for the reasons, instead of acting, and the reasons
had nearly become an excuse for not acting.
I took a deep breath, knowing what had to be done before I lost my nerve as
I feared my father had.
Lerris, you can t do that!
I ignored the caution from somewhere far away, too far away for me to worry
about as I looked into the closed eyes of the slim, red-headed figure. Tears
were streaming down my face, but they, too, were distant from what had to be
done. If I had listened& but that was another question, and we all choose our
own demon-inhabited hells.
One deep breath, and I plunged, deep into the darkness, away from the
swirls of my own thoughts, away from the crumpled clothes that were all which
remained of the white wizard upon the floor of his about-to-crumble fortress
an palace.
Call the depths of the mind white darkness, the chaos that preceded chaos.
Call them what you will, but they are chaos, a chaos so formless that it
cannot bear description.
First, to find within that chaos the patterns that were, that had been.
What those patterns really were, I did not try to discover, for that would
have been yet another rape. Instead, as I discovered, touched, each gossamer
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thread, I restored it, not reading it, or the joys, tears, anger or boredom it
held, but replacing it as it had been before Antonin had changed Tamra s
temple to Sephya s harlotry. Even so, the hidden feelings plucked at my own
fears, my own worth. Had I the right? Who appointed me custodian? To decide
who should live and who should die?
I did what I had to do.
How long that took& that was how long it took& as long as destroying Frven
took my father, for it had to have been him and Justen, the brothers-one
building a nation to ensure chaos would never rule again, the other trying to
minister to the damned and their descendants in hell. As long as crossing the
deadlands& as long as my refusing to understand the eternal penance that had
ensnared my father& and Justen, the damned gray wizard, perhaps the only true
gray wizard.
One thread of memory, then another, and for all that I did not look as each
was replaced, with each thread grew the sadness. With each thread grew the
river of tears that should have flowed from the Westhorns to the Easthorns and
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