“O outrage!” cried Zulkeh. “O dishonor!”
“What’s the matter, master?” queried Shelyid.
The mage’s eyes seemed almost as red as the rune. “The matter? The matter? Look at the glyph, diminutive dolt!”
The apprentice approached and examined the glyph. “Looks like a rune, master,” he said. “A nasty-looking one, too.”
“Bah!” oathed Zulkeh. “Of course it’s nasty-looking! Not just nasty-looking, I might add, ’tis nasty in actual fact. Touch the thing without first draining its power, and your body will be blasted by lightning.”
“No kidding?” This from Ignace, still plastered to the wall.
The wizard bestowed his hot-eyed look upon the agent. “Do you doubt me?” he demanded. “Touch the thing, then!”
“No, no,” replied Ignace hastily, “wouldn’t doubt you for a minute!”
“Never question a professional at his work, myself,” added Greyboar. Even the snarl looked away from Zulkeh’s glare.
Zulkeh turned back to the table. “A rune!” he snorted. “A miserable, wretched, ridiculous rune. Not even an ideogram, much less a hieroglyph!
“Barbarous things, runes,” he grumbled. “To be expected, of course! Barbarous folk, northmen. Crude, uncivilized, not much better than savages.”
Seeing Shelyid inching toward the sack, the wizard made a peremptory gesture. “Cease and desist, lilliputian librarian! Think you I require assistance to remember the phrase which drains all power from a rune-glyph? Fie on such witless notions! Exists not a journeyman warlock in creation who could not, in his sleep, recite the infallible weird of those masters of barbarian lore, I speak, of course, of the Runettes Laebmauntsforscynneweëld!”
And so saying, the wizard began dancing and shuffling about, snapping his fingers, crooning the following tune:
“Who put the rune on the book, the book?
“Who was that man?
“He thinks himself quite grand!
“But he’s so very plain to see!
“Bebop! Shebop!”
The glyph faded away in less than a second.
Ignoring the exclamations of praise coming from the duo still plastered to the far wall, Zulkeh—not yet touching the book—announced, in a tone of supreme confidence:
“And now for the ward.”
All eyes were fixed on the Rap Sheet, at first in anticipation, then in puzzlement.
“The ward always takes a bit of time, Shelyid,” explained Zulkeh. ” ‘Tis always the third of the four relic guards, and its appearance is always delayed—this in the hope of lulling the ignorant would-be reiver to lay his hands upon the relic. To do so before unlocking the ward, of course, would be disastrous.”
“Would you be, like, fried alive or something?” queried the gnome.
“Bah!” oathed Zulkeh. “The cruder of the dooms we have already surmounted. Nay, Shelyid, the unwary seizer of still-warded relics finds himself drawn into the relic itself, there to spend eternity in the utter boredom of relichood. A horrible fate—even for a scholar!”
Zulkeh stretched his limbs, looked about. “Perhaps we could take some refreshment, Shelyid. ‘Twill be some time yet before the ward, its hope of an easy snatch frustrated, becomes manifest. The more potent the ward, it goes without saying, the greater its patience. The legendary wards of old were known to lurk as much as two full days before making their appearance. In these modern times, however, I doubt me we shall need to wait more than four hours, perhaps not more than—what? Already?”
Great was the sorcerer’s indignation.
“O scurrilous discompliment! O scabrous disesteem! O insult piled onto insult!” He stalked about the chamber, fists clenched above his head. Smoke and lightning issued from his ears. Shelyid quailed, for he naturally recognized in Zulkeh’s circular pacing the famed and dreaded peripatis thaumaturgae—counterclockwise, eleven steps to the circuit, with, of course, the semi-hop following each third completion of the circuit to throw off what demons might be tailing behind in the netherworld.
“Look at the thing!” he spoke. More accurately, bellowed with rage.
“It’s like a cage of glowing red bars, master,” said Shelyid. “Like the door to a vault, maybe, if a vault door was made of molten steel.”
“Precisely!” snarled Zulkeh. “It’s a vault ward! The most primitive, simple-minded, rudimentary, oafish, hebetate and thick-witted of all wards! I was tossing the things off like a short-order cook my first year at the University!”
He stopped his pacing. Glowered for a moment more, then began to speak. But before even a single word was finished, he hesitated.