protective field.
Will was stunned. He’d never encountered a magic that could do that. He fired a force-lance at the vampire, then cast his blur spell. His attack went to waste, though, for a split second before he acted, Tintabel’s body exploded into a cloud of gray dust, expanding to fill the entire room. A voice began to laugh, echoing through the chamber, and he recognized it as Androv. “It’s a shame you ruined my fun, but it changes nothing.”
The king’s elementals were helpless to find a target, and Lognion himself was attempting to repair his defense to no avail. He dismissed it so he could cast another, but it was too late. The dust swarmed toward him, covering his body and filling his mouth and nose. The sovereign of Terabinia didn’t even have a chance to scream before the air was taken from him as his lungs filled with gray powder.
Will was dumbfounded. He couldn’t attack the dust without killing the king, but the king would soon suffocate if he couldn’t do something. And should I do something? If the king dies during this fight, is it really so bad?
Still unsure whether Androv had hidden himself while controlling the dust, or whether Androv was the dust, Will used the rod to send out another chime. The return tone indicated that the room was clear of hidden foes. Is he really the dust itself?
Lacking a better option, Will activated the rod’s iron-body transformation, then summoned his falchion and used the silver-sword spell to cover it with argent flames. Last but not least, he sent another thread of turyn into the rod and cast another of the new spells Ethelgren had showed him, a water-breathing spell.
The name was something of a misnomer though, for the spell did nothing of the sort. Instead, it created a highly concentrated zone of air within the caster’s throat while simultaneously sealing the mouth and nose. The end result was that the caster could survive for up to thirty minutes without air, while the main drawback was that it made it impossible to speak. But that’s an acceptable problem if you’re dealing with poison gases, Ethelgren had told him.
Will didn’t know if the gray dust was poisonous, but he definitely didn’t want it in his lungs.
The king was on his knees, clutching at his throat, and as Will watched he sagged to the floor, his chest heaving and moving, though nothing entered or exited his mouth but more gray powder. His hands tensed into claws and then relaxed as he finally lost consciousness.
Will had been preparing a spell while he watched, and when the king passed out he released it, surrounding the body with a force-dome barely large enough for two men. The dust exploded up and out of Lognion’s mouth, swirling around the inside of the makeshift cage. Will moved closer, readying his burning sword.
His plan was simple, force Androv to resume his human form, then strike him down with the sword. He didn’t know if it would work, but it was the best he could come up with. According to Ethelgren, the argent flames could destroy almost anything, vampire, human, or even tree, as Tiny had demonstrated.
After a moment, Androv’s body reformed from the dust, and he stood smiling at Will with naked fangs that lent an entirely different feeling to the expression. “Please let me out, William. I’m dying to give you something.”
Will could have dismissed the force-dome and then struck, but he wanted Androv kept busy. Sure enough, a second later, the vampire pointed one finger at Will and released another gray bolt of power. It struck the inside of the dome and began devouring the force-wall, crawling around the edges of it like acid on burning flesh. Will stepped to one side and swung the sword. It passed through the fresh opening and completely bisected the pompous wizard.
The flames guttered, and smoke billowed out as Androv screamed and collapsed on the floor in two large and very separate pieces. He glared hatefully at Will.
Dismissing the force-dome, Will swung again, hoping to end the master vampire completely, but the fiend smiled and exploded outward, blinding Will with a thick, gray cloud that swirled around him as it expanded. He could hear