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.A form like an eagle made of dazzling white light leaped from the end of the staff, the visible manifestation of a spell crafted specifically to annihilate undead.The blazing raptor plunged its talons into the reaper's naked rib cage and disappeared, leaving the skeletal assassin unharmed.Like so many spells that Szass Tam had attempted of late, the magic had twisted awry.Its ragged black cerements swirling around it, the reaper swung its scythe.Szass Tam leaped out of range and the dark blade streaked by him, leaving ripples of distortion in its wake.Szass Tam spun his staff through another pass.Eight orbs of blue-white light flew from the weapon, accompanied by thesmell of thunderstorms.The spheres struck the reaper in quick succession, each discharging its power with a blinding flash and a crackle.The servant of chaos stumbled backward, and portions of its filthy cerements caught fire.But the barrage didn't blast it to splinters as it should have.As soon as it ended, the thing rushed in for another strike.Szass Tam attempted another retreat and backed into a worktable.The scythe spun at him and he hurled himself to the side.The black blade sheared through a bronze statuette of Set, a serpent-headed Mulhorandi god of magic.The stroke liquefied it, and it splashed into droplets and spatters.As he scrambled backward, distancing himself from the reaper, Szass Tam could only infer that the random fluctuations in mystical forces had rendered his staff and its stored magic useless.He had no way of knowing if any of his other spells would work any better, or even if he'd have the chance of find out.Evoking an effect from the ether required more time and precision than releasing one already stored, and an aggressive attacker like the reaper could make it impossible for a wizard to conjure successfully.As the creature rounded on him, he focused his thoughts on the red chalk.It was still enchanted, and still responsive to his unspoken will.He bade it hurtle at the reaper to scribble on its bony face and crown.With luck, the unexpected harassment would distract the reaper for a precious moment, until it decided that the chalk was insignificant.Without waiting to see if the trick would work, Szass Tam reached for one of his many pockets.He snatched out a tiny ball of compressed bat droppings and sulfur, flourished it, and rattled off the first words of an incantation.The reaper stopped swiping at the chalk and charged its animator.That was unfortunate.It meant Szass Tam wouldn't be able tosmite the creature with the crude magic he was creating without catching himself in the effect.But he didn't abandon the effort.He had to put the reaper down before it hit him with its scythe.A spark streaked from his outstretched hand and hit the reaper's sternum.It exploded into a blast of crimson fire.The detonation threw Szass Tam backward and the heat seared his body, particularly the parts that still had flesh.But liches were preternaturally resistant to harm, and he also carried a ward against flames.Thus, though the blast tore much of his robe away, it left his limbs in place.In fact, it didn't even stun him.He reeled, caught his balance, and came on guard in a wizard's fighting stance, staff gripped to conjure, strike, or parry as needed.As it turned out, he didn't need to do anything.When the blaze subsided, scraps of bone and tatters of burning garments littered the floor.Only the scythe remained intact, its blade warping and melting the granite on which it rested.Szass Tam drew a deep breath.Without actually needing to breathe, he couldn't truly feel winded, but even after centuries of undeath, the old, useless habits of mortality sometimes manifested.That had been too close, and it infuriated him.An archmage should have little trouble coping with an entropic reaper, fearsome as the creatures were to lesser folk, and yet the entity might easily have slain him.But there was no point in bemoaning his weakness.He'd do better to ponder what he'd discovered.When intricate magic had failed, his instincts had prompted him to resort to a basic evocation of elemental force.That succeeded, and he thought he knew why.The Red Wizards had developed their art to a level lesser mages could scarcely imagine.Their spells incorporated all sorts of sophisticated shortcuts and enhancements.But those features achieved their efficacy by exploiting the subtle interplay of the forces comprising the Weave.With the Weave annihilated, those same mechanisms had become a hindrance.Szass Tam's spells could no longet tap into all the elements they required to work.Trying to perform magic that way was like attempting to carry water in a bucket with a hole in the bottom.Of course, most enchantments took advantage of the Weave to one degree or another, and until the realm of magic stabilized, even a basic spell might run afoul of the same problem.But it wouldn't happen as often.So long as Szass Tam acted in accordance with this new limitation, he might be able to function effectively.And if he shared his insights with his necromancers, they too—He sighed.No.For the most part, they couldn't, not anytime soon, because they weren't immortal archmages with his breadth and depth of learning.Most of them had only ever studied Thayan thaumaturgy, and it would take time to retrain them.By then, his rivals, wielding the brute strength of their legions, might gain such a decisive advantage that even sorcery couldn't counter it.He had to find another way to stave off defeat, and after a time, an idea occurred to him.It would require another divination, and he summoned a blue crystal globe into his hand.For the time being, he'd had his fill of opening windows into the infinite.The world of mortal men in general, and of warriors in particular, was good for Mirror.It filled him like water filled a cup, or perhaps it unblocked a spring of essence that welled up inside him.Either way, it dulled the ache of emptiness.Yet despite its solace, he sometimes felt obliged to let go of it.He needed to step into a place that, he'd posited, on one of the rare occasions when his thoughts were clear enough for suchconjectures, existed only within himself.In effect, he turned himself inside out like a pocket.Whatever and wherever the place was, it was dangerous, for so far as he'd ever discovered, nothing existed there but a cold whisper of wind that rubbed away at everything his commerce with the material world had given him.For that reason, he never stayed long.He opened himself to its corrosive power then hastily retreated, like a man fingering a sore tooth then snatching his hand away.Yet now he tarried, for instinct told him there truly was something to find, something the living world could never provide.And though he had no idea what it was, if he recovered it, perhaps he could mend an ill and wash away dishonor.So he took a stride and then another, fading with every pace.The wings of her many bodies beating, Tammith peered into the darkness.She, Bareris, and a half dozen griffon riders were scouting ahead of the combined hosts of Eltabbar, Tyraturos, and Pyarados, looking for signs of the enemy, the blue fire, or any hazards the flames might have created.It had certainly passed that way, scouring away vegetation and sculpting the earth into spires and arches.Eviscerated, virtually pulverized, the remains of a herd of cattle littered a field
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