The wizardess passed her wand over the pedestal and smiled at the result.
“This is the key. If I neutralize the spell and move this, we can remove all else in this place.”
“Be careful, Light.”
“I will my Sun.”
Slowly and carefully Shiara began to unravel the spell binding the staff to the pedestal. She made a final sweeping gesture and the spell flickered and died.
In spite of removing the spell and in spite of her urgent desire to finish this business, Shiara was reluctant to touch the evilly-glinting object before her. She had handled such staffs of other wizards before, but there was something about this one that awed and dismayed her.
Finally she placed her hand upon it and felt the waves of magic flow through her. It seemed as if a dark and vastly deep space opened up around her, inhabited by huge shadow things that pressed close, whispering offers of power, the fulfillment of all dreams and the slaking of all lusts. She had but to wield the staff and . . .
Quivering, Shiara fought the temptation. She lifted the staff and carried it across the chamber at arm’s length as if it were a poisonous serpent.
The waves of magic beat stronger against her, calling to her more and more clearly. In a fit of panic Shiara tried to drop the staff and found she could not. Now it was the staff which was holding her.
All too late Shiara saw the deadly nature of the trap. The demon at the gate, the spells upon the common items were sufficient to ward off an ordinary thief or hedge magician. To penetrate those and unravel the maze of spells within the cavern and ultimately to possess the key would take someone truly skilled in magic. One of the Mighty, or a black-robe wizard of the League.
The whole cavern and all the magics within it existed simply to sort the untalented or the incompetent from the powerful and to lure the powerful to the sceptre. The sceptre was the last and deadliest trap of them all.
No, Amon-Set was not dead, not truly. Within the smoky purple depths of the scepter he had waited out the ages, waiting for one whose body and skill he could use to live again. The snow-white corpse on the crystal bier was indeed dead. But his soul lived within the sceptre; lived, hungered and awaited its prey.
The wizard who was skilled enough to grasp the sceptre of Amon-Set was a suitable vehicle for his reincarnation. And that was the true purpose of everything here. To find such a one and put them in a position where Amon-Set could possess them and so live again.
Shiara could feel herself ebbing away as the alien presence intruded. She twisted and struggled in the grip of the long-dead sorcerer. She fought back with every bit of skill and knowledge at her command.
It was a hopelessly uneven fight. She felt the chamber’s magics convulse and yield under her desperate thrusts, but the core of Amon-Set locked her in an ever tightening embrace.
“Now!” a strange creaking voice cried from the door of the chamber. Shiara realized vaguely that someone else had entered the fray.
Cormac whirled at the voice and saw Jul-Akkan stumble into the room. Shiara could not break Amon-Set’s hold on her, but her struggles had loosed the grip of the guard spells.
Cormac’s sword flickered at the wizard with the speed of a striking snake, but not fast enough; even weakened Jul-Akkan was faster still. His hand flicked out and Cormac screamed and dropped to the floor.
Without pausing, Jul-Akkan leaped across the room and grasped the sceptre with both hands.
For an instant three beings warred. Then with a final mighty effort Shiara was able to let go of the cursed thing. Jul-Akkan fell back with both hands planted on the sceptre and his eyes widening as Toth-Amon took him.
Shiara staggered and shook her head. Through pain-dimmed eyes she saw Cormac writhing in the final agonies of a death spell and the one who was Jul-Akkan writhing in the throes of rebirth. In seconds Cormac would be dead and Toth-Amon would be loosed upon the world again. Her Sun and her World both teetered on the brink of destruction.