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either gone or made so small even he could not sense it, but he doubted
neither senses nor experience. Both of those had kept his hide intact for
longer than he could tell.
He had no doubt, either, that whatever had found him had been looking for him.
Now the question was, who lay behind the gate and the spell? Rr garn and the
rrôn branch of the Night Watch? Baanraak doubted they had the subtlety for
such a delicate little spell. They were bludgeoners, not surgeons. Some old
god suddenly overcome by a rash of foolish courage and derring-do? Not
likely after years of persecuting any who crossed him, Baanraak feared little
from any old gods save the few remaining immortals. And even they had not
crossed paths with him in ages beyond reckoning.
Someone related to his little Vodi?
If this hidden watcher shared a link with the Vodi, Baanraak might have more
of a challenge facing him than he d expected.
He looked at his mound of dirt and said, Who do you number among your friends
and champions, my Molly? Who would dare me to save you? I think there must be
someone& and I wonder if I might not gather this hero of yours in and mold him
as I ll mold you.
Baanraak had the clean, unspelled gold. He could not claim the artistry of the
great resurrection masters of ages past, but he knew the resurrection spells
well enough to create something simple and lasting.
Then, in the distance but from another direction, a different gate opened.
This one announced itself by a soft, discordant click, followed by a rush of
the death-spawned energy that characterized the dark gods. Click followed
click followed click.
The incoming dark gods were some way off, but that wouldn t last. They were
coming. Heroes and villains, and him with his Vodi in the middle. Interesting
times, Baanraak thought.
Copper House
Viewing the terrain surrounding Baanraak s hideaway on Dalchi, Lauren found
out that Qawar had been right. An army of dark gods rrôn and keth and a mix of
other creatures from a string of murdered worlds poured out of conjoined
gates, one after another after another.
No chance of getting in, getting Molly, slaughtering Baanraak, and leaving but
then, much as she had hoped, she hadn t thought there would be.
There would be war. Lauren had never been in a war before.
She studied Qawar, who looked hugely unhappy at the idea of being involved
with this. She bet he d be even unhappier at the idea of going first into a
fire zone. She didn t blame him, but she also wasn t going to send
inexperienced magic users through to stand against God-only-knew what. You
any good at casting tough shields?
Qawar nodded. Anything that will keep me alive I ve learned to excel at.
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Good, Lauren said. When we get ready to go through, you ll go first. You
can cast and maintain the shields I m guessing you aren t much of a fighter.
I m more of a flee-er. But I don t need to go through to cast shields. I can
shield them as they go through the gates good, tight individual shields. I m a
master at those. And the shields will just get stronger four worlds down.
Right.
Lauren turned to Seolar. You can see the dark gods down there. Anything about
the terrain work for you?
Seolar and Birra studied the view through the gate; then Seolar said, Can you
change the angle a bit?
What do you need?
A& map view. From above.
Lauren complied, and Birra and Seolar studied the ground, then grinned at each
other. They were thinking about defending against this point, Seolar said,
pointing to Baanraak s high ground. If we could approach them from here& and
here&
We could catch them between crossfire, Birra said. They picked their ground
with the idea of attack, not defense.
So you need gates to two points that will open at the same time, Lauren
said. I m going to need to line the wall with mirrors in here. I ll create
enough gates that you ll be able to send through a dozen men in a wave, six at
a time to each of your two destination points. That would be tough holding
that many big gates open across that much distance for the amount of time she
would need was going to be exhausting. But sending men through one at a time
seemed like a bad idea to her.
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