Keep quiet,Valas chastised, but Pharaun only laughed.
"It's going to be loud enough in here in just a moment," the mage said with a wink. Then he called back to the others, who were higher in the tunnel, up beyond where Valas could see. "Mistress, I've found a spot that will do nicely. Get Jeggred ready."
Valas heard Quenthel ordering the draegloth to kneel and the sound of a drawn dagger. Pharaun, meanwhile, laid a hand on Valas's shoulder.
"Excuse me," he said. "I need to get by."
Valas still wasn't certain what the mage was doing, but he flat-tened obediently against the cold stone, allowing Pharaun to squeeze past him into the cavern. Pharaun reached into a pocket of hispiwafwiand pulled out a tiny coneof glass. Rolling up his sleeve, he pointed the cone at the water at his feet.
"Chalthinsil!"hecried, his shout filling the cavern.
In that same instant, a cone of bitterly cold air erupted from the glass cone, filling the air with swirling frost. The magical cold struck the pool, instantly turning it to solid ice. Frost continued to roil in the air for a few moments more, coating the walls and ceiling of the cavern with sparkling white ice crystals. Then it vanished, leaving a chill in the air that made Valas shiver.
Pharaun tucked the cone of glass back into hispiwafwi.
"Perfect," he said again, staring down at the expanse of ice. "Nice and smooth. Just the thing to draw on." Then he shouted back over his shoulder, "Quenthel. I'm ready."
Behind him, in the tunnel, Valas heard a hiss of anticipation from one of the vipers in Quenthel's whip. A moment later he smelled the tang of freshly spilled blood. Quenthel appeared at the entrance to the cavern, and passed a cup to Pharaun. The mage clambered down the slope, holding the cup so its contents wouldn't spill.
Quenthel and Danifae crowded in behind Valas to peer past him at the cavern. Quenthel snapped her fingers, and Jeggred stalked down the tunnel as well, panting clouds of foul-smelling breath into the ice-cold air. One of his massive fighting hands was clamped around a spot on the wrist of his smaller arm. Blood welled out be-tween the clamped fingers and dripped onto the stone at his feet. A moment later, Ryld joined them, having at last given up his cautious watch over the tunnel behind them.
Pharaun was already out on the ice, moving across it in a skating slide. As the others watched, he pulled out a dagger and traced an enor-mous hexagonal star onto the surface, carving its lines deep, like troughs. When he was done, he stood a minute, looking for imperfections.
Quenthel frowned down at the mage."Six sides?" she asked. "Why not a standard pentagram?"
Pharaun shrugged and said, "Anyone can summon a demon with a pentagram. I like to do things with a bit more panache." He moved around the diagram, dribbling the blood from the cup into one of the lines he'd cut in the ice. After a few moments, he raised a hand and beckoned. "Jeggred, come here."
After a quick glance at Quenthel - who nodded her permission - the draegloth loped down toward the pool, dislodging rocks that tumbled down the slope to skitter across the ice. He crossed the frozen surface to the mage and obediently opened his hand, releas-ing his bloody arm when Pharaun gestured for him to do so. Taking that arm, Pharaun held the cup under the slashed wrist. When it was once again full, he motioned for Jeggred to re-clamp the wound, then continued limning the diagram in blood.
The mage had to repeat the process twice more before the pat-tern was complete. Despite the loss of blood, the draegloth remained impassive throughout the procedure. When Pharaun at last dis-missed him, Jeggred loped up the slope to join the others.
"Now," Pharaun said, cracking his fingers as he stretched, "for the difficult part."
From a pocket, he pulled a candle. He cut it into six pieces, trim-ming each back to expose the wick. He walked around the star, bor-ing a hole at each of the points and pushing one of the candies into it. Then he stood back and snapped his fingers. Six flames sprang to life as the candles began to burn. Their meager heat magically spread through the blood that had frozen inside the troughs in the ice. The blood melted and began to circulate, pumping through the veins of the hexagram.