This much Kryalla could tell from what occurred so far.  But some piece of
the puzzle was missing.  She sipped at her mistwine and listened further.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

There it was again, Arcania mused.  The scrying force she had felt earlier.
Some wizard spied upon her, there was no question.  From within her domain,
for it was too close to have come from other soil.  That meant Zydrax had been
behind it, and not Bek.  She waited a brief moment, until the scrying focused
on her, then prepared the simulacrum.

The spell she used was very similar to what Kryalla had used in the Inn, to
make it appear she remained in once place while in actuality she was elsewhere,
but this was less elaborate in some ways and more in others.  She wouldn't
hear anything said in the location of the image, nor would anyone actually
physically present see it.  Only one looking at it through some magical means
would see the duplicate, still churning away at its writing, when in truth
Arcania was using the rogue wizard's own constructs as the final nail in his
coffin.

She went to the next room, where a painting of a map decorated the entire floor.
The magicks in the room were tuned to the construct occurring in the next.  She
already knew the source was close, and westerly in its direction.  Soon . . .
a point appeared, glittering red on a spot representing the western mountains
of the Heartland of Thyaris, the Dragon's Teeth.  The mounts were named for the
many dragons' lairs that were there, keeping watch over her borders.  However,
it didn't seem as though the dragons were aware of it.  Oh, well, Arcania would
get to that as it came.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Zydrax himself was carefully watching Arcania's every move in her study.  So
far, she had given no sign of being spied upon, but then again, she never did.
Foolish magess.  The runes outmoded her power, and her pride never allowed her
to admit it.  All generated by the Ring.

The lizard-man rushed into his chamber unannounced, and the runes guarding it
seized hold of the creature, wringing screams of unutterable agony for its
insolence.  Zydrax started, turning to see the last shards of bone crumble into
ashes.  The creature had thought something urgent enough to defy his warnings.
This bore investigation.

He left the watch on Arcania active, confident that nothing would change while
it was there.

The lizardmen outside his chamber were more obedient of their master's warnings
never to disturb him while he worked in his private chambers, but their
frantic wavings and bleatings, gesturing towards the parapets, could not be
mistaken.  Zydrax, for a brief moment, knew fear.

He arrogantly pushed it from his mind, when a booming voice, like thunder
rolling over the hills, reached his ears.

"Zydrax!  Your tower lays bare to the eyes of those who surround it!  Your
attempts to hide it are futile!  Come out, and do penance for your plotting!"

His heart fell.  Reaching the top of the parapet, he saw the army.

The entire ground to the east, all the way to the horizon, was covered with
daemons.  At the head of that army was none other than Arcania Dorval.

"Zydrax, I know of your scheming against the Empire, against the throne!  Your
devices are laid open to the naked scrutiny of all, your watches revealed,
your time is done!"

Zydrax's eyes bulged in fury and fright at once, as he ran to his chambers
again.

Arcania was still sitting there in her study.

And yet she was here, knocking at his very door!

"I do not think you understand me, Zydrax.  Let this explain my position
better!"

A crack, not of thunder or lightning or other such mundane weapons of lesser
wizards, but of the very stone of his tower, rang out in his ears.  The glow
of raw magical energy rushed through the mid-height below him, the cylinder
of the tower's shape crumbling before its force.  The stone walls shattered
inward, the tower's mass falling outward from the mountainside, hurtling
to the base of the hills before Arcania's amassed forces.  Lizard-men squealed
and were crushed in the dying tower's fall, but Zydrax's runes invoked the
possibilities of his survival.  A further construction of them from his Ring,
and the possibility that a hole large enough for him to easily fit through would
open in the wall next to him was brought forth, and then the notion that he
was as light as a feather, drifting to the ground as the rubble fell below him
without touching him.  The probabilities that made up reality were altered,
and his will was worked upon its being, such that he stood alone amidst the
ruins of his shattered abode.  It could be reconstructed with more magic, if
he wished, but first there was an insect to be squashed for her effrontery.

"Dark One, you arouse my wrath.  Flee with your little gnats, and perhaps I
will show mercy upon you," said Zydrax defiantly.  For emphasis, the green and
blue runes flew from his ring, formed into a large fiery boulder that bore down
upon the woman standing some distance away.

The boulder struck her, and instantly, it shattered, falling into the
nothingness from which he had called it.

Zydrax could do little but gape.  He examined the field of the magic of his
runes, could see no sign that they should have been disturbed.  But when they
touched her, they had simply unraveled, the boulder had disentigrated into less
than dust.  Zydrax didn't accept it.  He weaved more runes from the Ring,
turned them into chains of adamant that wrapped at the body and throat of
Arcania, threatening to wring the life from her upon contact.

They, too, disappeared.

"How can this be?!" he exclaimed.

"Probability runes," Arcania said with contempt.  "And the superiority
personality complex that goes with them, to judge from your words and actions
thus far.  I wonder that you never considered whether I might have encountered
such before, or that there might be other forces, more subtle ones, that can
deal with such careless tampering with reality.  Forces that I might be able
to wield against you."

She walked up to him, took the Ring from his finger.  Zydrax's mind couldn't
comprehend what was happening.  The daemons surrounded him, seized him.

"Oh," Arcania said, almost as an afterthought.  "You can move again now."
He hadn't even detected her holding magic, hadn't even had an inkling of what
was being done to him.  "Not that it will do you any good."  She turned to a
hunched, ebon carapaced daemon that stood at her side.  "He is yours.  When
you have finished with him, report to me at once."

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Pars sweated in the room BBD had prepared for him.  His attempts to uncover
the Shrouded One outside the Inn were unsuccessful for now, but why did
Zydrax not contact him?  He had been about to complete his demon-summoning
ritual, announce that Arcania was out of the way.

There.  The call of the crystal.  He palmed the azure orb in his hand, felt
the thoughts of someone else come to him.

"Greetings, Parsephulas," said Arcania.  Pars had difficulty concealing his
surprise.  She must have sensed it, but she gave no notice of it.  "I sense
that you have not yet drawn the Shrouded One into your trap.  Have patience.
Yosef will draw her to you soon.  However, I have some news you might find
interesting."  Pars' heart skipped a beat.  He knew, even before she said it,
what was to come.  "I have apprehended a rogue wizard named Zydrax, who had
established a tower in the western Dragon's Teeth and evidentally had been
plotting to summon a demonic horde to battle against my daemons and over-
throw me.  He had in his possession some books I had not noticed missing from
my library detailing names of such creatures' lords for use in the summoning."
Here it came.  The order to the Thurlans to tear him apart.  He was a dead man.
She knew.  "It has come to my attention that, since no indication that there
was an intrusion by outsiders into my libraries had been detected, one of my
own people must have provided it.  The daemons hold me in too much light to
do such a thing.  Have you any idea who that might have been, Parsephulas?"
Damn her, anyway.  She would have to toy with him over his doom!  "I did not
think so.  Oh, well, it was worth asking, though I know you are too *loyal* to
do such a thing.  Carry on in your search for the Shrouded One.  Oh, and Pars:
DO-NOT-FAIL-ME."  The last four words were pronounced with emphasis that he
could hear echoing with the pulsing in his ears.

He certainly didn't feel dead.  No, the Thurlans made no indication that they
were going to tear him apart.  There were twenty of them in the room and only
one of him.  Four had come with him, sixteen later at BBD's request.  They
simply stayed in their human shapes, playing cards as any normal soldiers might
be doing when off duty.  Yosef still sat tied up in the corner, glaring at
them all,though seeming to take perverse enjoyment at his apparent discomfort.
Maybe they hadn't been told yet.  No, they're concentrating on their games.  
Then what . . ?

The meaning of her words thudded home at once.  Yes, she knew, and no, she
wouldn't order him killed.  At least as long as he served her faithfully and
effectively.  A popping sound played in his ears.  It was his rebellious pride.


+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+
+	Kryalla Simuel the Shrouded One			  +
+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+
+	foleye@xanth.cs.orst.edu			  +
+=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=+