noise.
‘Get the bodies in quickly!’ Smhee said, and they dragged the corpses inside.
They expected the dreaded mage to walk in at any time, but he still had not
appeared when they shut the door.
Smhee whispered, ‘Anyone coming by will notice that there is no guard.’
They entered the next room cautiously. This was even larger and was obviously
the bedroom. The bed was huge and round and on a platform with three steps. It
was covered with a rich scarlet material brocaded in gold.
‘He must be working in his laboratory,’ Smhee whispered.
They slowly opened the door to the next room.
The burbling became louder then. Masha saw that it proceeded from a great glass
vessel shaped like an upside-down cone. A black-green liquid simmered in it, and
large bubbles rose from it and passed out the open end. Beneath it was a brazier
filled with glowing coals. From the ceiling above a metal vent admitted the
fumes.
The floor was mosaic marble in which were set pentagrams and nonagrams. From the
centre of one rose a wisp of evil-smelling smoke. A few seconds later, the smoke
ceased.
There were many tables holding other mysterious equipment and racks holding long
thick rolls of parchment and papyrus. In the middle of the room was a very large
desk of some shiny reddish wood. Before it was a chair of the same wood, its
arms and back carved with human-headed dragons.
The mage, clad in a purple silk robe which was embroidered with golden centaurs
and gryphons, was in the chair. His face was on the desk, and his arms were