Chapter Nine: Rampage

The first thing Wist saw as Robon carried her out of the house was the small army of ragtag villains that Blister had so efficiently gathered. Most of them were lounging about in the middle of the street, chatting, laughing, or squabbling amongst themselves; some of the bolder ones had climbed the front steps of the house and were standing on the porch when Swenhild and the others came out. One look at their new commander was enough to send them scurrying back down to the street as fast they could go.

Nearly all of them were wearing weapons of some kind - mostly daggers and battered old swords, though a few carried long bows or slings. One huge fellow was brandishing a heavy spiked club, which he waved about as easily and as carelessly as anyone else might wave a fly swatter. No one was standing very near him. Many of them also held torches, which Blister had asked them to bring.

Swenhild looked them over with satisfaction. They were as unpleasant and malicious-looking a collection of people as she could have hoped for. She stepped forward into the torchlight. There was a gasp from the crowd - most of her followers were now seeing her clearly for the first time.

What they saw was a woman so tall she was near to a giantess, clad in black from neck to feet. They saw that not only her hair but every part of her that they could see was of purest white, except only her eyes, which were glowing red from one corner to the other, like fires in the snow.

Suddenly silent, the crowd drew back, creating in front of the house an open space like an arena, or the stage of a theatre. Swenhild grinned, but stayed where she was. After a minute she began to speak.

"Friends, cronies, and companions!" she cried. "Listen to me! I have come to sweep this miserable town right off the map, and I'm going to do it by dawn tomorrow! Will you help me?"

Blister had done her work carefully. "Yes! Yes!" the rabble shouted back at the witch. There were cheers and piercing whistles.

Swenhild's yellow grin widened. Now she came down the steps onto the street, her arms spread wide as though to embrace the crowd. Behind her Blister came also, with her thin smile, then Robon, holding Wist, then Kell, Soren, and Skean.

Swenhild signalled for silence, and was about to speak again when a sudden shout arose from the crowd.

"Look behind you!" someone shouted.

Swenhild wheeled around in time to see Heron drop from the awning at the front of the house onto the back of Robon the fisherman. Heron had been holding a cloth bag. Before anyone could react Robon was down on the ground with the bag on his head. Heron was down with him, and Wist was rolling free.

"Run, Wist!" Heron screamed, struggling to get free of Robon, who had landed across his leg.

Wist needed no urging. She picked out a thin spot in the crowd and started towards it at top speed.

After three steps she found that she was unable to move.

"Oh, don't run off now, dearie!" cackled Swenhild. There were guffaws from the onlookers. "Things are just starting to get interesting!"

Robon was back on his feet. At a word from the witch he lumbered forward to retrieve Wist, who was frozen in position nearby, like a statue of a runner. Robon carried her back behind Swenhild and stood there awkwardly with her in his arms, as though he were afraid that even in her paralysed state she might somehow escape him.

Heron leapt to his feet as soon as Robon's weight was off him, but Blister was ready for him. She grabbed him under the arms and brought him dangling to her mistress. Swenhild in turn took him by the collar and belt and with a contemptuous grin hurled him away from her.

Her throw was aided by magic. Heron rose high above the heads of the crowd before he began to descend, and it seemed then that he would be smashed against the side of the house against the street. But just in time his fall slowed, and, to the disappointment of Swenhild's followers, he came to earth on the lawn of the house as gently as a leaf in autumn. When he looked up, astonished to be still alive, he found himself face to face with Evermorn.

"Thank you," Heron said. "I thought I'd had it!"

Evermorn smiled and nodded.

"That is why I was able to help you," he said. "If you had not been in mortal danger my vow would have forbidden me to interfere."

Heron thought about that for a moment.

"Why did you make a vow like that?" he asked at last in a puzzled voice. "Wouldn't it always be getting in the way of what you want to do?"

"Often enough," agreed Evermorn. "Yet I would not unmake the vow even if I could. If you ask me another time I will try to tell you why. But look!" he said, pointing in the direction of Swenhild. "What is happening now? Isn't that your friend's old master?"

"What? Voltan? I saw him just half an hour ago at Grey Garland Hall. He said he would try to do something, but he wouldn't say what."

Heron looked, and saw Voltan step into the open space on the street in front of the witch. He stood without speaking, leaning on his staff and looking at her, for so long that at last Swenhild said, "Well? What do you want now? You're not going to go on about the girl again, are you?"

"Nay," came the answer. To Heron, Voltan sounded a little nervous. "My name is Voltan, lady. I am a servant of the Grey Garland. Who are you?"

"Titania, Queen of the Fairies," answered Swenhild with a snicker. "That's why I'm so dainty."

The crowd laughed. Voltan didn't.

"You are no fairy," he said. "But it is plain you are a sorceress. What Garland do you serve, lady? Is it the Black?"

"I don't serve anything or anyone," snapped Swenhild, "least of all a bunch of flowers. Listen, puppy, my name is Swenhild. Do you want to call me a sorceress? Go ahead. I call myself a witch. Either way, this insignificant town of yours is going to be rubble and dust by morning, and you and all your flowery friends aren't going to stop me. Now get out of my way!"

She stepped forward threateningly. Voltan flinched, but stood his ground.

Swenhild scowled malignantly.

"No? Then enjoy this!"

She raised her hands, fingers extended towards Voltan, and framed her lips to speak a word of power. Voltan took another step back.

Then he said, "Now!"

At once there was loud hiss, and five beams of silver light sizzled through the air to form a box that surrounded Swenhild on all sides.

Heron gasped, while Evermorn murmured appreciatively, "Very nice! Very creative!"

The beams hung in the air, so dazzling at first that Heron could not make out where they were coming from. Then he saw that at each corner of the five-sided box a sorcerer stood, each one holding out a crystal-tipped wand. The silver beams came from the crystals, joining each one to the two nearest it. Outside the enclosure they formed, everything was as before, except that Swenhild's followers were muttering to each other in fear or anger at this new development.

Inside the box, where Swenhild was, a strange thing was happening. The air seemed to have thickened; it swirled around the witch like liquid glass. It held her the way flypaper holds a fly, so that she could neither move nor speak. Her eyes showed rage as the five sorcerers began to advance slowly and cautiously towards her, shrinking the box.

"Somehow I didn't think it would be that easy," Heron said to Evermorn. He sounded relieved, but almost disappointed that there had not been more excitement.

"You needn't think so even yet," replied Evermorn softly. "Do you not see the witch?"

"Yes. What about her?" asked Heron. "Oh, I see! She's moving again!"

"The Pentacle of Wands is strong sorcery," Evermorn said. "Yet Swenhild has the power to overcome it."

It was true. With the strain of great effort showing on her face Swenhild was moving, although so very slowly that it was difficult at once to see. The movement was in her arms - she seemed to be trying to bring her hands in towards her face, almost as though she were getting ready to pray.

"That is odd," remarked Evermorn. "It almost seems that she's signalling surrender. Of course, the Pentacle has already drained much of her strength. It may be days before she recovers completely. Even if she were to succeed in escaping there is little she could do. Perhaps she realizes that."

"I guess so," agreed Heron uncertainly. Somehow it wasn't quite what he expected from Swenhild.

The witch's crowd of followers also saw what was going on. There were sighs of disappointment as it began to appear that there would be no destruction of Thelos this night after all.

But not all of them were content to take it lying down. They could see that there were fifty of them to only six sorcerers, five of whom were occupied in restraining Swenhild. Voltan, standing by himself, absorbed in watching Swenhild, seemed like an obvious first target. One man at the front of the crowd drew a dagger from his belt. Voltan's back was an easy mark five or six steps distant. The man took the dagger by the blade and drew his arm back for the throw.

There was an alarmed shout, a woman's.

"Voltan! Behind you!"

Voltan wheeled around. The man with the knife hesitated, one instant only. In that instant a shaft of blue fire crackled from Voltan's staff and struck the man's hand. He screamed in sudden pain, and the dagger clattered to the cobbled street. Before anyone else could make a move towards it Yinna broke through the ranks of people, picked it up, and carried on to join Voltan.

"Sorry!" she said. "I should have seen him sooner. I was watching the show."

Voltan smiled weakly. He looked as though he were about to faint.

Yinna looked around her distrustfully, alert for further danger from the hostile crowd. Then her eyes fell on Wist, still captive in Robon's arms, still paralysed from Swenhild's spell.

Although Wist was as motionless as a statue, something in her eyes caught Yinna's attention - a pleading look, she thought, as though Wist wanted to cry out, or to shout something, but was prevented by the spell from doing so.

There was nothing Yinna could do. At last she turned away from Wist and towards Swenhild, who was still, with dreamlike slowness, bringing her hands together in what looked so strangely like a sign of surrender.

But there was no surrender in her ghastly white face. The witch's lips were pulled back over her yellow teeth in an expression so strained that it even alarmed the five sorcerers advancing little by little towards her, and made them hesitate. By now they were very near to her, almost within arm's reach.

Then Swenhild spoke.

It cost her a terrible effort to move her lips and tongue while in the grip of the Pentacle, and her voice was so weak and hoarse that most of those watching did not hear. But the sorcerers heard her say, "Stop, stop. One step closer and the girl dies!"

At once the wide, charred palm of Robon the fisherman moved to Wist's throat. The wizards looked at each other, wondering what to do. Voltan's face sagged as he realized that Swenhild was not beaten until Wist was out of danger. Heron moved closer to Evermorn and gripped his arm. Swenhild's mouth tautened again into a strained grin, and her hands came closer together at her neck.

And Wist, unable to move, was panicking. She tried to speak, to shout, but her voice would not answer the commands of her brain. "Stop her!" she wanted to scream. "Don't let her do up the chain!"

But all she could do was watch helplessly as Swenhild's hands at last reached their target, and searched beneath the folds of her cloak for the ends of the golden chain.

She joined the clasp. There was a gasp from half a hundred throats as Tormadeus appeared, shimmering, golden, as tall as the tall, rich houses that lined the street. With an effortless flick of his foot he sent one of the sorcerers sprawling, and the Pentacle was broken: Swenhild was free.

The witch cackled gleefully. Wist's heart sank when she heard an answering bellow of laughter from the throat of the demon himself. There was a wild cheer from Swenhild's little army. The giant with the spiked club lurched forward and shouted, "Which way, mistress? Where do we begin?"

Swenhild shouted hasty orders to Tormadeus, who lifted her up in the palm of his hand as though she weighed nothing, and sat her on his left shoulder where she could speak directly into his ear. Swenhild looked around her in every direction, deciding where to go. Then she said something more to the demon. He put forth his arm and smashed his clenched fist down on the roof of the house Swenhild had used.

There was a roar of approval from the excited crowd as the roof timbers splintered like matchsticks, and cracked shingles fell like hail all around. Then Tormadeus began to walk, not hurriedly, but moving along quickly with his giant strides. He stopped to uproot a stout tree, which he wielded like a club to lash out at the houses as he passed them.

From his shoulder, her face aglow with hate and hideous joy, Swenhild screamed orders in his ear, shouted encouragement at her followers, hurled volleys of taunts and insults at the hapless sorcerers she was leaving behind.

The street in front of the demon was empty - those who saw his huge figure approaching made all haste to get out of his way. But behind him the wild throng that Blister had gathered followed riotously.

Not a window in any house they passed remained unbroken, not a garden untrampled. Into the richer-looking houses one or a few of them would boldly enter, to steal money, or silver knives, or wine; or to smash vases, hack paintings, put furniture to the torch. In short minutes the work of a hundred years was turned to rubble, to heaps of broken stone and timber, with here and there little bonfires spitting sparks into the air, ever threatening to spread into the kind of raging inferno that could consume a whole city.

And at the head of the procession, always, was the huge, terrifying figure of Tormadeus the chain-demon, with the witch Swenhild at his ear, with the tree-trunk club in his monstrous hands, with his bellows of laughter like rolling thunder as he brought the weapon down again and again all around him.

Voltan and the five sorcerers who had helped him now stood together in the open street and wondered forlornly what they should do. Swenhild seemed to have forgotten them, as she had forgotten Wist and Heron. The witch had even forgotten her four henchmen, or else abandoned them.

Robon still had his big hand wrapped around Wist's throat. But now he looked around him with an amazed, frightened expression on his broad face. Yinna nudged Voltan and the two of them walked over to speak with the fisherman and his companions. It seemed that all four of them were coming slowly to their senses now that the witch was gone.

Robon opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, too bewildered to know what to say. He looked down at Wist, who returned his gaze, frightened as she was. Robon took his hand from her throat, and set her on her feet, then watched blankly as she tottered stiffly away towards Voltan. Finally he sat down on the steps with his head in his hands, staring at the ground between his feet as though he were afraid to look up. His three companions seemed to be in no better condition.

At Voltan's signal two of the sorcerers came to attend to the men. He himself meanwhile bent down to hug Wist.

"You've had quite a time, I think!" he said. "We'd better find you some place where you can take it easy for a while. I know how it feels to come out of a paralysing spell."

"That's right," agreed Yinna. "The sooner the better."

"No!" cried Wist, so sharply that Voltan jumped. "Voltan, don't you know what she's doing? She's going to destroy Thelos. We've got to stop her!"

"I know," Voltan replied. He could hear all too plainly the shouts of Swenhild's little army, mingled with shrill screaming, and the sound of timber and glass being smashed; and he could smell the smoke that was starting to drift down the street from the fires that had been set. "That is not your job, though, Wist. My friends of the Grey Garland and I will do what we can. Shrivel and blast that Swenhild, anyway!" he ended in a complaining voice. "I don't feel like doing anything dangerous tonight!"

Wist said nothing, though she looked anxious. Voltan gave her a long stare to make sure that she would be all right, then he turned to Yinna.

"Would you look after her, please?" he asked. "I don't think I'll be gone long, whichever way it goes."

Yinna looked startled.

"You're not suggesting that I stay here, while you go off and have all the fun?"

"Alas, it seems that sorcery is wanted this time, and not thievery," Voltan answered. "Otherwise I'd gladly stay here and let you have the glory, I promise you. Fun, you say! It doesn't look like fun to me!"

One of the sorcerers who had been tending Robon and the others now came over and said, "It is not well with these four, Voltan. The witch used her power roughly with these men - I cannot say how soon their minds will be whole. But who will stay with them while we go to battle?"

As if in answer to the question there came a sound of footsteps a little way up the street, and Evermorn appeared with Heron beside him.

"I might attempt their care, perhaps," he said, "since my vow forbids me from joining you against Swenhild."

Voltan nodded.

"That's it then," he said. He turned to his companions. "Let's go. Are the horses all right?"

A minute later the six sorcerers were mounted and galloping away after Swenhild, towards the centre of the town.

"Thank goodness you're all right, Wist!" exclaimed Heron as soon as the sorcerers were out of sight. "But don't you wish we could have gone with them?"

"I-I don't know," Wist confessed. "Just now when Voltan said I had to stay here, I was so relieved I nearly cried. You can't imagine what Swenhild - Well, anyway. I was glad he didn't want me to go. But, oh, Heron, she's so powerful, and with Tormadeus on her side I don't think Voltan and the others will be able to stop her."

"Then neither could you!" objected Heron. "You don't have a tenth of Voltan's magic! Swenhild would eat you alive!"

"She might," Wist said slowly. "But there's one thing - a little thing. Maybe it's nothing at all, but what if it was the only way? Oh, Heron, I should have made Voltan take me along! If only I hadn't been so afraid!"

"Well, it's too late now, anyway," Heron said flatly. "And just as well," he added with a shudder. He did not like the idea of Wist heading off into danger again, especially without him.

But now Evermorn looked up from tending Skean, and said, "Perhaps it is not too late. What was your idea, Wist?"

Before she could reply Heron turned on the sorcerer furiously.

"What are you trying to do?" he shouted. "Get her killed? Well, you don't have any right to talk! You and your dumb vow! You could probably stop Swenhild with your little finger if you'd just take the time off from being so almighty pure! Not you, though! So what if Thelos gets destroyed? So what if goodness knows how many people get killed? So what if you've got the power to stop it? That's not as important as your vow, is it?"

Evermorn's eyes were in shadow, their expression hidden. But the lines on his face seemed deeper than usual as he answered, "Have you not guessed, Heron? My vow is my power, just as the demon Tormadeus is the golden chain. They cannot exist separately. If I broke the one, I would lose the other, and be of no help to anyone. To serve the White Garland is to serve the vow, even when you would give everything - your life, your happiness - to let it go." His expression lightened a little as he added, "Besides, Thelos is not yet destroyed. Come Wist, tell us your plan."

Defeated, Heron turned away. Wist put her hand on his shoulder to comfort him, but it was to Evermorn that she spoke.

"It really might not be anything," she repeated hesitantly. "Maybe you can tell. This afternoon, just when Blister caught up with us, Tormadeus was sitting up on the saddle. He had made himself visible for Heron, but I didn't want Blister to see him, so I told him to vanish."

"Hmm. Sensible enough. And did he?"

"No! That's just it. He disobeyed me."

Heron turned towards them again, interested in spite of himself.

"That's right!" he agreed. "I noticed it too, but I forgot. A lot of things have happened since then, and it didn't seem that important. Just surprising. I thought he was supposed to do everything you told him."

"I thought so too," said Wist. "But then I remembered something you said, Evermorn. He said that he was made to serve the wearer of the chain, and that he didn't have any choice. And you said, 'Perhaps you are freer than you think'. Wasn't that it?"

Evermorn nodded, smiling slightly.

"I remember."

"Well," Wist continued, excitedly now that she was coming to the point, "I think that's what he was doing when he stayed visible - discovering for himself whether he really was freer than he thought."

"I find that to be a very interesting idea," said Evermorn.

"I also thought that maybe he was trying to give me a signal," Wist added. "As though he was saying that he could choose not to obey, if there was need. Do you understand now? That's why I should have gone with Voltan."

"You must be crazy!" cried Heron. "You just want to get yourself killed! I saw Tormadeus just now, and he didn't look to me like he was thinking about disobeying Swenhild! He looked like he was having the time of his life! Don't you see, Wist? He likes being big and powerful! After all, he's a demon, not a human being. Why should he care what happens to Thelos? Didn't you hear him laughing?"

"He does care!" retorted Wist hotly. "You should know that Heron, you were with him nearly as much as I was. He just lost control or something when Swenhild put on the chain and he was suddenly so big again, the way he was in the old days. I don't know if Kalassin made him to be good, or if it just turned out that way, but he is good!"

"He was good when he was with you," Heron answered. "But you're not an evil witch. You keep talking about him as if he was a person, Wist, but he's not. He's just a - a kind of tool. He'll be good if you are, and if you're bad, he will be too."

"I think that's a rotten thing to say!" cried Wist. "If he was here I'd show you just how wrong you are!"

Just then there came a loud crash from up the street, and the sound of splintering glass. A moment later a flood of people poured around the corner, townsfolk and outlanders running as fast as their legs would take them. But they could not run fast enough to escape the huge strides of the horrifying apparition that pursued them.

It was Tormadeus, but changed almost beyond recognizing. This was not the helpful little fellow that Wist had befriended, nor even the half-mad, gleeful giant they had seen earlier setting off with Swenhild to destroy Thelos.

The Tormadeus thundering towards them now had the same golden skin, the same size and the same shape as when they had last seen him. But his face was cold, furious, full of hate. His half-parted lips were twisted in a hideous scowl that seemed to flicker from moment to moment between bitter anger and unbearable pain. His head sloped brutishly forward from his hunched shoulders; his arms stretched out graspingly as though seeking an innocent neck to throttle. Most horrible were his eyes, those eyes which had once been deep blue from corner to corner, and were now almost solid black, with only a few fast-disappearing flecks of blue remaining.

On his left shoulder Swenhild still rode, her frantic energy no less now than ever as she screeched encouragement and instructions in the brawling demon's ear.

"Squash them! Squash them like insects!" came her nightmare voice above the din. "Rip them in pieces and scatter them on the wind!"

Tormadeus stooped and attempted to scoop up some of the fleeing crowd to obey Swenhild's command, but the screaming folk somehow managed to avoid his grasp. He snarled and came on faster. Now only moments separated him from Wist and her friends. She looked at Evermorn in panic, but the white wizard seemed to be in a daze; he looked back at her with a slight smile but said nothing.

Heron was tugging at her sleeve.

"Wist! We've got to get out of here! Quickly!"

Wist turned from one to the other of them, confused and unsure. All around them people were fleeing for cover as Tormadeus swept down on them. Finally she shot a desperate glance at Evermorn. "Heron's right!" she shouted. "Run!" When Evermorn still did not move Wist turned away, and let Heron guide her as they ran toward the porch were Robon and the others were sitting.

But she had delayed an instant too long. With a savage scream of triumph Tormadeus snatched them up, Evermorn in one hand, Wist and Heron in the other, and held them out at arm's length for Swenhild to inspect.

The witch crowed delightedly when she saw whom it was that her slave had captured.

"Oh, dearie me, what a lovely surprise!" she cried, clapping her hands. "The ugly little thief-boy! The magical milksop! And you, my dear!" Swenhild leaned forward dangerously on her high perch as she pointed at Wist. "I am so glad to have you along!"

Just then there came the sound of shouting and running footsteps from down below. It was Blister, with others not far behind.

"Mistress, mistress!" Blister called. Swenhild ignored her.

"Now what shall we do with you?" she mused, eyeing each of her three captives in turn. Evidently she had no thought for anything else until these enemies had been dealt with.

Blister was trying vainly to climb the demon's huge leg, but his breeches came down only to his knee, which she could not reach, and his skin was too smooth to grip, so that she kept on sliding back.

"Mistress!" she called louder, "listen to me!"

Swenhild glanced down impatiently.

"Oh, step on her, will you!" she said, and Tormadeus lifted his foot to obey even as Blister scampered hurriedly aside. It was lucky for her that she was quick. The demon's foot slapped down with a thud that shook the street, and left his print a hand's breadth deep in the cobblestones.

Blister had not given up even yet.

"Mistress, the town guard are fighting back against our people, and driving them off! What shall we do?" she cried plaintively.

This time Swenhild answered.

"No matter, my dear," she called down to Blister, who looked both confused and relieved that the witch was no longer insisting that she be squashed. "We don't need them. Tormadeus is an army all by himself. But before we deal with the town guard, we have to think of something amusing to do with these three. What do you think, dearie?" she went on, speaking now to Tormadeus. "Would you like to bite off their heads?"

The demon's black eyes turned on each of the children in turn, studying them, and then on Evermorn. His tongue crossed his lips then disappeared again with a sound like a great wave slapping the seashore. Wist and Heron blanched, but Evermorn showed no fear. He stared back at the demon, smiling slightly.

"I promise you," he said, "if you take my head for your supper you'll have an ache in your stomach that even Kalassin couldn't cure. Surely you wouldn't want that?"

Tormadeus pulled his lips back in a snarl.

"When I bite off your head," he replied in a low, harsh voice, "I will spit it out without swallowing and watch it roll away down the street." He brought his left hand, containing Wist and Heron, nearer his mouth. "These others will satisfy my hunger."

"What did I tell you?" muttered Heron, wriggling frantically but with no effect in the demon's grasp. "There's only one way out, Wist. Evermorn!" he went on in a raised voice. "Can't you tell he means it? You've got to do something!"

"My vow - " the wizard began, but Heron cut him off.

"What good is your vow if you're not alive to obey it?" he shouted. "And even if you choose to die, what gives you the right to choose for Wist, and for me?"

Evermorn made no reply, and there was a sudden silence, broken only by Swenhild's chuckling as she waited for the demon to act. Tormadeus stared briefly at Evermorn with something like puzzlement flickering in his black eyes, then again at the children, as though he had made his decision. His left hand came nearer still to the cavern of his mouth.

Wist shrieked. The sharp edges of the demon's teeth were like rows of giant axeheads; his throat was a crater with no bottom.

She was hardly aware of anything else - of the rubble-strewn street below, and the sound of footsteps; of Swenhild's shrill cry: "Now, dearie! Bite them now!" The thick bronze fingers encircling her chest and pinned arms seemed to grip more tightly than ever. She and Heron were like tiny doll-figures in the massive hand, with only their heads protruding between the finger and the thumb.

"Bite them!" repeated Swenhild, but still the demon hesitated, and now he lifted the children to his eye level as if to study them more closely.

Wist gazed horror-stricken into the blue-blackness of the wide eyes, and for a moment her panic disappeared in a wave of pity for her captor.

"Oh, poor Tormadeus!" she murmured. "I know you don't want to hurt us!"

She searched his face for a reply, but his eyes were as expressionless as black midnight.

"Bite them now!" the witch urged him. "Obey me at once!"

On the word 'obey' the demon's hesitation ended. He extended his arm up and away to its full length as though in a salute of some kind. The children, now that they were no longer so near his face, had a startled glimpse of the street below. It had filled up with people: the straggling remnants of Swenhild's army, some honest citizens who had been pursuing them, and a number of onlookers, including Blister, Yinna, and the small band of Grey Garland sorcerers. Every eye was turned tensely upwards; in that dizzying moment Wist had the strange sense that no one in the whole area was breathing.

Then Tormadeus pulled back his lips to bare his teeth. There were loud gasps from below. Without taking his eyes from Wist, he opened his right hand, releasing Evermorn. The white wizard floated unharmed to the ground.

Wist and Heron looked at each other apprehensively, but the demon gave them no time for any other reaction. He opened his hand just enough to shake Heron free, while still gripping Wist with his thumb against his palm. Heron tumbled into the empty air, to be caught up by Evermorn's magic for the second time that evening, and gently set down on the street amongst his companions.

Now the demon's hand closed again around Wist. Swenhild was furious at seeing the others released and was shouting threats at him from his shoulder, but he paid no attention to her.

He opened his mouth wide, and Wist trembled.

Suddenly there was a streak of silver light from below. Tormadeus had no time to react. Voltan's wizard-blast caught him on the side of the face, and blackened the golden skin there. The demon flinched, but quickly recovered.

Then he began to laugh.

"A good shot, little wizard," he boomed through his chuckles, "but unneeded! I will not harm our friend. I have remembered - I do not need to obey!"

"Of course you have to obey!" screeched Swenhild furiously. "I'm wearing the chain!"

"It is hard to refuse the wearer of the chain," answered the demon, "yet it may be done. In the end even I am free; even Evermorn is free of his vow when all is said and done."

"He is?" blurted Wist in astonishment. "He wasn't going to save us from you!"

"That will never be known," Tormadeus said. "Perhaps not even by him. But enough talk. Come, Wist! Come, everyone! There is work to be done!"

With Swenhild on his left shoulder, and Wist on his right, he set off along the street to repair the damage he had wreaked earlier. Where walls had been toppled, he straightened them; where trees were uprooted, he set them back in the ground; where fires raged he stamped them out with his huge feet or brought water from the river in wine vats to douse them. Behind him came the sorcerers, to repair with their magic the damage that strength alone could not cure: the broken windows and trampled gardens, the burned tapestries and the smashed statues.

Even now Swenhild had not given up her efforts to make the demon obey her. Tormadeus bounded from street to street, and through the town, following the path he had taken earlier at the head of the witch's army. It was all Wist could do to cling to his right shoulder, clutching at the neck of his tunic to keep from tumbling off. But on the other shoulder stood Swenhild, and kept her feet with the balance of a circus rider. All the time she was shouting, directly in the demon's huge ear, and the strain of refusing her will showed from time to time in small lines around his eyes.

At last he halted, seized the witch in his left hand, and held her before him. He balled his right hand into a fist and raised it above her head like a hammer.

"End your prattle, sorceress!" he roared, "or I will end it for you!"

"So be it," muttered Swenhild.

The demon restored her to his shoulder, and went on with his work. The witch kept her word and was silent.

They entered a wide street where the houses were tall - tall enough that the balconies of the upper floors were at the level of the demon's shoulders. On some of these the bronze railings had been twisted out of shape; now the golden hands of Tormadeus, swift and strong, straightened them once more.

But in the middle of this work there came a clatter of hooves, and the sound of rolling cartwheels. Wist looked down, and saw an approaching haycart, but in the uncertain streetlight she could not distinguish the rider.

Apparently Swenhild's eyes were keener. At that moment it happened that the demon's left side was turned to the houses, and his right to the street, so it was a simple matter for the witch to leap onto the nearest balcony, and from there start clambering down towards the street.

"Mistress, hurry!" came Blister's cry, for it was she who drove the haycart. "There is still time to flee!"

"Flee?" roared Tormadeus. "Flee the justice of the sorcerers and the town? Not so, witchling!"

Swenhild was by this time nearly at ground level. Tormadeus stooped and extended his hand to trap her again. But with a cackle of vicious glee Swenhild reached with one hand to her neck, unclasped the golden chain, and flung it into the street.

In the blink of an eye the demon vanished, and Wist was falling through empty air to the cobblestoned street. She landed with a thump, twitched, then did not move.

Swenhild cackled again, and leaped into the haycart behind Blister.

"To the docks!" she screeched.

Blister cracked her whip; the horse neighed and took off at a gallop towards the river and the bay.

When the town folk and the sorcerers came to the spot only moments later, it was already too late for any hope of pursuit, though many of them took up the chase all the same.

The others - among them Yinna, Voltan, Evermorn and Heron - stayed behind, and sadly took up the still body of Wist, and the golden chain.