Extinction

Pharaun, too, saw her stumble. One of his hands whipped into a pocket of his piwafwi, and a moment later he was smearing something across his eyes as he chanted a spell. As Danifae struggled to her feet on the shifting surface?causing that pebble noise again?Pharaun's eyes widened.

"Danifae!" he shouted. "You're standing on a rotted chest that's spilling gems?but more importantly, there's a wand just to your right. Grab it!"

Quenthel's head snapped up, and she asked, "A wand?"

Danifae began patting the still-invisible pile on which she stood. Valas, meanwhile felt a growing sense of unease. Someone, or something, was watching. Once again, his eyes flicked up to the ceiling.

The scout saw that his intuition had been right. The eyes of the gods in the mural were different. They'd been dull, flat stones a short time before, but had begun too glow red, like angry coals.

Then they blinked.

"Venom's kiss," Valas swore under his breath. Then, as two pairs of glowing red eyes detached themselves from the ceiling and drifted down into the room, he shouted. "Pharaun! Quenthel! Above you?wraiths!"

Jeggred was the first to react. Grasping Quenthel's shoulders, he gave her a shove that forced her down into contact with the floor. Her feet touched the portal and she disappeared. The draegloth then turned and tried to do the same to Pharaun but the mage twisted out of his grasp, kicking Jeggred. The blow forced he draegloth into the portal, and he too disappeared.

Valas grunted, Jeggred's actions had been too deliberate?and too disrespectful?to have been anything but Quenthel's orders. Quenthel had obviously briefed him well in advance about what to do should wraiths attack?and her tactics were sound. She and Pharaun were vital to the quest, but the others could be sacrificed. Pharaun, however, had guessed what was coming?and had decided, wisely or not, to stay and fight.

The mage yanked from his pocket the tiny pouch he'd been reaching into earlier. With a serpent-fast motion, he pulled from it a pinch of diamond dust and flung it into the air. As a pair of wraiths swooped in to attack him?their location revealed only by their glowing eyes?Pharaun shouted his incantation. Unable to stop themselves in time, the two wraiths plunged into the diamond dust. As they struck it they wailed?a hollow, anguished sound that raised the hair on the back of Valas's neck. Their eyes winked out as the powerful spell snuffed out the necromantic magic that had sustained them.

Unfortunately, there were, as the rogue had correctly warned, more than just those two. Dozens of glowing red eyes erupted from the ceiling and descended into the room like tiny, paired embers falling from a burning building.

Seeing that, Pharaun glanced quickly between the wraiths and Danifae. What he was thinking was plainly written on his face. Should he save his own skin by escaping through the portal?or should he stay and protect her?

The wizard began to levitate down coward the portal, then paused abruptly and stared hard?not at Danifae but at something near her feet. Instead of fleeing, he reached into his pouch for another pinch of dust.

The hesitation nearly cost him his life. Unseen, one of the wraiths swooped down behind him and, with a hollow death-rattle of laughter, swept through his body. As its glowing red eyes erupted out of Pharaun's chest the Master of Sorcere shuddered, his face slate gray.

Three more of the wraiths descended with murderous purpose toward Danifae. Raising her morningstar, she braced herself to meet them, even though she must have known the futility of it. The magical weapon might account for one of the ghostly undead, but the other two would almost certainly kill her a heartbeat later.

Acting purely on his soldier's instincts, Valas touched the nine-pointed star pinned to his chest and stepped between the dimensions. He materialized beside Danifae just as the ball of her mace whistled past his head, exploding with sparks as it struck a wraith. Losing her balance as her weapon met no resistance, Danifae stumbled.

Seizing the opportunity, the other two wraiths rushed forward. Before they could close with Danifae, however, Valas leaped into the air, his magical boots propelling him upward. Arms wide, he drove the points of his kukris into the wraiths. As Danifae's mace had, the blades passed through the bodies of the wraiths without stopping. The one in his right hand exploded with magical energy, but the one in his left merely tore a rent in the keening wraith's mistlike body.

Unable to avoid following through on his knife thrusts, Valas found both arms engulfed by wraiths. A shudder passed through him, and he fell back to the ground in a barely controlled landing, stumbling on the invisible, shifting gems. He thought his heart was going to falter and stop as the ache that chilled him to the bone was drawn upward into his chest. Then it was gone, absorbed by the amulet that hung around his neck, which suddenly felt much heavier.