baubles, precious trinkets, and the power globe was all of those and more. It
was the most beautiful, potent piece she’d ever seen. If not for Randal, here
and witness, even despite Strat she would have claimed it for her own.
When he got it out, the floorboards creaked and the roof above began to smoke.
She could see that it singed him and that he’d expected that, now with the
timbers above flaring like tarred torches.
In the ruddy light. Randal knelt down, and she did also, and he told her what
words to speak.
Then he said, “Reach out and set it spinning-just a push with your palm will
do.”
As she touched the globe, Ischade felt a shock more intense than any she’d known
for ages-this was not a matter of raising dead or ordering the lives of lesser
mortals. This was a matter of power great enough to flout the gods.
And there was a bite to all Nisi magic, a corrosion different from her own. She
rocked back upon her heels, nearly mesmerized herself though nothing less could
have done it to her.
Randal pulled unceremoniously at her elbow. “Up, my brave lady. Up and out
before the beams fall down and roast us or she… comes back… somehow.”
And then Ischade realized that her sense of Roxane’s presence might be more than
just echoes from the globe.
Quick as smoke she got her feet under her and ran, Randal beside her, toward an
open window.
Once they’d scrambled through, there was a roar as deep as any dragon’s and the
whole house burst apart in flames.
And in the middle of the blaze Ischade could see the globe, still spinning,