Once again the warty head swiveled and again Wiz stared into eyes as red as the fires of Hell. Then the eyes slid over him and the huge toadlike demon turned away. Soundlessly it half-dragged, half-hopped out of the square, heedless of the black-robed bodies it crushed beneath its great clawed feet.
“Odd,” the Watcher said, staring back into her crystal.
“What?” the wizard asked.
“There in the City of Night, a sudden flare of magic.”
“Is it the Sparrow?” the other asked eagerly.
“No, it is not the new magic.” She shrugged. “Perhaps just a remnant of the Dark League’s power.”
The other nodded. The Watchers were used to strange things happening in the ruined city. As long as they were not too powerful they were nothing to worry about or to be passed up the chain of command.
Still, the Mighty were frantic to find Wiz and this was an unusual occurrence. The shift commander looked up. “What have we got near the City of Night?”
“No assets in place right now,” the patrol commander called back from the other side of the pit. “There is a squadron of dragon cavalry that could swing further south and be there in two day-tenths.”
“Then send them south,” the shift commander told her. “Have them search over the City of Night carefully.” The patrol commander nodded and turned back to her crystal.
“Should we also inform Bal-Simba, Lord?” asked the deputy commander.
“No. No point in that. This may be nothing after all.”
With the flash and pulse of repeated magics still ringing in his ears, Wiz made his way to the large open space in the center of the city.
The forces unleashed as the wizards fought for their lives against Bale-Zur would provide a beacon, a magical flare big enough to be seen by the Watchers back at the Capital. Now all he had to do was mark his chosen vantage point and scan the skies for the dragon patrols which were sure to come south to investigate the magical maelstrom he had touched off. There was food and water in his pack for several days, and two more of the fire globes to make a final signal to guide the rescuers in. He had even taken the precaution of gathering up several long pieces of white fabric to use as marker panels. They would stand out vividly against the dark sand.
Carefully he laid down the white cloth taken from the chests in the shape of a large X. He anchored the pieces with handfuls of the fine black volcanic sand that floored the square. That done, he stood up, stretched and leaned over backwards to ease his aching back muscles.
Wiz looked up, squinting into the pale sun. The walls ran straight up and smooth for perhaps thirty feet. Above that they moved out in a series of steps. Like ranks of bleachers.
Like ranks of bleacher seats . . . Wiz looked around with a new comprehension. The black sand beneath his feet, the unclimbable walls, the seats above suddenly all made sense. An arena. He was standing in an arena. The central tower must have something to do with the events held here.
Wiz shuddered. Knowing what the Dark League had been he didn’t want to think about what those events must have been like.
Well, that’s over and done with, he told himself. Arena or not, it’s still the best place in the city to watch for help.
He looked over the tower speculatively. It was a squat oval with slanting sides perhaps four stories tall. The top was mostly flat with a large square block, man high, in the middle. In use the tower would have been as impossible to scale as the arena walls, but the earthquakes that had accompanied his attack on the City of Night had caused one section of the tower to collapse, leaving a crude stairway of large stone blocks up to the top.
Wiz hefted his pack, picked up his halberd and started across the sands to the tower.
There was a scuffling sound from the far end of the arena. Wiz turned and saw several lean wolf-like shapes almost as dark as the sand emerge from one of the doors.