Shadow Prowler (20 page)

“No, we shall do it today!” Zemmel was not smiling any longer. His eyes glinted angrily. “The star charts are favorable for tonight! Today or never. Because there will not be such a night for another forty years.”

“I propose an official vote on this insane idea!” Valder snapped curtly.

“Speak on this matter,” said Panarik, nodding and looking round at the assembled magicians. “Who is in favor of using the Horn to destroy the Nameless One’s defenses?”

“I am opposed,” said Valder.

“I am not certain that it will work, but I have complete confidence in the skill and experience of my respected colleague Zemmel,” said Elo, drawing out his words slowly. He set the Horn on a plinth that had been made ready in the center of the mirror floor. “I am in favor.”

“Naturally, this is exactly what I wish to achieve,” said Zemmel, giving Valder a mocking look
.

“I am opposed,” Ilio said with a frown. “If only because the full Council should decide.”

“I am also opposed,” said O’Kart. “We ought not to wake a sleeping giant. Afterward, as we know, it is very difficult to get him to go back to sleep again.”

Three against two
.

Now everything depended on what Panarik would say. If the votes were
evenly divided, then the side supported by the master would win, for the simple reason that his vote carried more weight than the votes of the others
.

“Zemmel’s arguments are entirely convincing,” the head of the Order said after a moment’s thought. “Let us try it. I am in favor.”

Now no one could go against the decision of the Council
.

The magicians stood in a circle round the mirror on which the Horn was lying
.

Valder saw Ilio’s glum face opposite him. The ogrophile was on Ilio’s right, with his book in his hands, and Panarik was on his left. The indifferent, abstracted Elo was standing stock-still on Valder’s right, and O’Kart was in the position between the Sullen Archmagician and Zemmel
.

A feeble circle. Three magicians were missing and the others would have to call on all their skill
.

“What is our task?” the elf asked.

“Simply open yourselves up. I need your power. Pass it through the Horn. Stream twelve, profile eight, if you please,” Zemmel replied, opening the old book at the right page. “And now . . .”

Valder remembered that phrase very well
.

It was the phrase used to teach pupils to concentrate instantly and activate their energy. And now the archmagicians’ energy began passing through him and pouring into the Horn in a thin purple stream
.

To his right Elo’s azure-greenish power, with the scent of fresh leaves, reached out and entwined with O’Kart’s fiery red stream. Panarik and Ilio also joined in
.

A radiance appeared around the Horn, it pulsated and began changing color. The fiery red flame of a dragon was replaced by an orange sun, which was transformed into a yellow autumn which, in turn, changed to the green leaves of the forests of Siala, then became a bright blue spring sky, the bottomless blue Western Ocean, and then once again, as at the very beginning, became the all-consuming dragon fire. It was this very property—of changing its color under the influence of others’ magic—that had earned the Rainbow Horn its name
.

The first few minutes passed quietly. The artifact responded well, behaving in a stable fashion and giving no cause for alarm. And Valder did not feel any dizziness from the constant drain of magic
.

“Intensify the flow! Ilio, you are working for me now.” Zemmel’s voice sounded intent, focused
.

The magician was about to attempt the most difficult part of the task—arousing the magic of the ogres
.

“Elo, realign the flow, you have deviated three degrees toward the sixth coordinate.” Panarik’s voice rang out sharply in the total silence
.

The master was not only directing his own power, he was still able to pay attention to the work of the other archmagicians. Elo started in alarm and directed his azure-green ray to where Panarik had indicated
.

Zemmel began a plaintive chant in the ancient language
.

For only the second time in the history of the Order the ancient speech of the ogres was heard in its tower—the speech that had once awoken the magic of Kronk-a-Mor
.

“Some kind of difficulty in the second field,” Ilio murmured. “Valder, why is your power dissipating?”

Valder himself was beginning to feel that he had to make a greater effort and concentrate harder to control the flow. He had the feeling that something was drawing off a small amount of magical energy
.

And then he suddenly realized
.

Because of the quarrel with Zemmel he had completely forgotten about the magical shield, which he had not bothered to remove. And now it was glowing feebly on the boundary of his awareness, interfering annoyingly with the direction of the flow, consuming power like a leech. But it was impossible for him to remove it—if he was distracted for a second, the circle would be broken, and he could only imagine the catastrophic consequences that the liberated flow of energy would produce
.

“It’s all right. Nothing that I can’t handle,” Valder hastily assured his friend
.

Panarik cast a dark glance at him. Unlike the others, he could see the obstacle. Which meant that when this was all over, Valder would face a very difficult conversation with him
.

Hours seemed to go by in the Council Hall. There was a tenacious, pulsating pain growing stronger in Valder’s temples—the price for his magic
.

The magic enveloped the group in a warm, glowing cocoon, pulsating gently, spreading out into a multicolored aura and flowing into the Horn in a waterfall of power. The entire hall was filled with energy. It was intoxicating—you wanted to bathe in it, reach out your hands to take possession of it forever. With its help you could create mountains and rivers, heal thousands of sick people, even bring the dead back to life. A single tiny
speck of it was enough to destroy all the enemies of Valiostr. It could rid the world of Siala forever of ogres, giants, orcs, and dozens of other creatures hostile to human beings. Valder was overcome by euphoria, a feeling of might that made anything possible
.

“Something’s wrong!” said O’Kart, alarmed. “Fluctuations!”

“I don’t feel anything. Where?” asked Elo, turning his head.

“To the right of the third field, directly above the artifact.”

“But where? I can’t see it!”

And then Valder noticed it, a little black dot of decay on the rainbow radiance of the Horn. The dot was pulsating to the rhythm of Zemmel’s voice, quivering like a candle flame in a gusty wind. And it was growing. . . 
.

“Stop!” Valder barked, his throat suddenly dry. “We have an unplanned surge of energy!”

“We extinguish the circle now,” Panarik commanded. He had also seen the particle of Darkness that had been born
.

“Don’t dare!” squealed Zemmel. “It will kill you.”

“Nonsense!” the master said, and began closing down his flow of power.

“Ghaghaban!”
Zemmel suddenly shouted, throwing his hand out toward Panarik with the fingers twisted into a freakish sign
.

The master went flying back against the wall and slumped onto the floor with his rib cage ripped open. The magician’s death broke the circle and four magicians went flying in different directions. Only Zemmel was left at the Horn
.

The rainbow radiance dimmed and became as black as the murderer’s heart. No longer under control, the flows of energy seized on their freedom and four blinding shafts of magic struck upward, vaporizing the ceiling and the roof of the tower. A cold wind burst into the tower, driving an army of snowflakes round in a jolly dance
.

The fifth flow, the one that had been controlled by the now-dead Panarik, struck horizontally, passing through Elo as he got up off the floor and reducing him to dust, then made a huge hole in the wall of the hall and disappeared
.

As Valder, stunned, tried to get to his feet, the energy fell on his shoulders like a hungry bear. The mirror floor onto which he had been thrown reflected his pale, contorted face with blood seeping from the nose. The bitter taste of magic burned his throat, it passed through his body in shafts, gnawing into his bones and causing him appalling pain. An ocean of power controlled only by Zemmel splashed all around him
.

“Murderer!” shouted Ilio, who had got to his feet. Forgetting his magical gift, he went rushing at the traitor with his fists held up
.

Zemmel, reveling in the newly awoken Kronk-a-Mor, took no more notice of his opponent than a giant does of a mosquito. A click of the fingers, a an incomprehensible phrase in ogric, and Ilio cried out as he fell into the hole that appeared below his feet as the floor parted. The edges of the mirror came back together with a squelching sound, burying Valder’s friend
.

“You!” Valder shouted, jerking himself up onto his knees, but he was suddenly swathed in supple black cables of power
.

“Quiet.” Zemmel’s voice was quite imperturbable. “I’m busy.”

“What are you doing, you madman?” Valder shouted, trying to break free. “Don’t you understand what you’ve set free?”

“I understand. The Master explained it to me. He taught me how to wind you all round my little finger and become immortal. In a few minutes I shall be the equal of the Nameless One, or even more powerful! Why, the Nameless One, that incompetent, will bow his head before me!”

“Who is this Master?” asked Valder, trying not to pay any attention to O’Karta, who had begun to stir, and to continue distracting Zemmel
.

“You don’t need to know that. Dunces like you are altogether too proud of the might of the Order, you have no idea at all of the might that will soon be mine! Awakening the Kronk-a-Mor proved incredibly easy. All I needed was the Horn and five idiots willing to give me their power. I have studied the language of the ogres, I have pored over their books for decades, mastering the ancient secrets of shamanism. I have achieved my own immortality, and I do not give a damn how many of you are dispatched into the Darkness after Panarik!”

“Go there yourself!” shouted O’Karta, and struck at Zemmel with the hammer of fire
.

Boooom!
the flame roared, and the snowflakes melted in the unbearable heat
.

The black bonds loosened, and Valder added his own power to the redheaded archmagician’s second blow. But Zemmel merely swayed, and the flames flowed down off his clothes like a waterfall
.

The traitor struck a terrible blow in reply. The air trembled and thickened and a semitransparent crimson sphere came hurtling toward the two magicians. Valder could see a densely interwoven Air, Earth, and something else
incomprehensible. All he had time to do was to activate his extinguished shield and throw all of his energy into it
.

An azure wall sprang up between him and Zemmel and the battle spell crashed into it, shattering it into hundreds of thousands of bright blue sparks that scattered across the ruined Council Hall like grains of millet. The sphere lost speed and changed direction, but it still caught Valder a glancing blow
.

A shaft of fire penetrated Valder’s chest and exploded, and he collapsed onto the floor. He writhed and twisted, wheezing hoarsely in his pain, and missed the moment when O’Karta struck with fire again, this time not at Zemmel, but at the Horn, from above which the black magic was pouring out into the air
.

This blow sent the Rainbow Horn spinning across the mirror floor and, having lost its stable base, the power escaped from Zemmel’s control
.

“What the . . .” was all that the traitor had time to say before all the power of the Kronk-a-Mor that had already been accumulated struck back at its master like a sledgehammer, then dived into the mirror and retreated deep below the Tower of the Order
.

The Council Hall was immediately flooded with silence. There was only the cold wind howling through the holes in the walls and snowflakes falling from the night sky
.

“Are you alive?” asked O’Karta, walking across to where Valder was lying.

“Yes, but it’s only a matter of time.” The magician tried to smile. Blood seeped out onto his lips
.

There was a hungry weasel in his chest, devouring his lungs. It was getting harder to breathe. Valder had no illusions about his own condition
.

“Excellent,” the redheaded archmagician said. “You’ll live for another fifteen minutes. Quite long enough.”

“Enough for what?” Valder asked, sitting up and keeping his hand against his chest as he spat blood onto the mirror floor
.

“To carry the Horn out of the tower.” The Filander held out the artifact that had somehow appeared in his hands. “Get a move on. You’ll have an eternity for lying down.”