Page 133 of The Dryad Storm

Vogel flicks his finger at Warren Gaffney, and Fallon nods once before thrusting her wand toward the Mage.

The ice soldiers leap clear over the crowd, carried on great gusts of wind power, and land around Mage Gaffney.

“No,” Mage Gaffney pleads with Vogel. “Excellency,please...”

The ice soldiers thrust their finger-spears into Warren Gaffney.

“Aughhh!” he screams, then gurgles, then is silent as his bugged-out green eyes shift to frigid gray, his body icing over before shattering into a pile of bloodied shards.

The hall rustles with agitated emotion, a combination of zealous satisfaction and fearful awe stark in the air.

“?‘Entertain not a disbeliever,’?” Vogel intones before he raises his Shadow Wand, bolts out a blast of silver-dark fire at Warren Gaffney’s icy remains and quickly renders them to char.

Vogel turns to Fallon once more in unspoken command.

Nodding, Fallon thrusts her wand forward, and her ice soldiers and tree all blast into mist that’s absorbed, in a sweep of gray frost, into Fallon’s wand.

Vogel scans the now silent sea of Mages. Raising his free hand, he thumps his fist lightly against the white bird marking the chest of his uniform. “Pray with me, Mages.”

Vogel launches into the prayer—“Oh Blessed Ancient One. Purify our minds. Purify our hearts. Purify Erthia from the stain of the Evil Ones.”

The entire hall joins in reverentially, violence thrumming through the prayer, an ocean of unstoppable Mage power rising.

Vogel senses the ice-cold rush of Fallon’s approach before she sweeps into the Sun Hall’s command tower, a panoramic view of Issaan’s Shadowed expanse visible through the tower’s ring of huge floor-to-ceiling oval windows.

Seeking a private audience with his Black Witch, Vogel flicks his finger at the two glamoured pyrr-demon soldiers bracketing the hall’s arching entrance. The demons exit, shutting the grayed door behind them.

Vogel surveys his beautiful Ice Witch and breathes in her glorious scent of icy wind as she stills, her power increasingly grayed by the Shadow Wand’s linkage to her lines.

“You will deploy back south and annex all of Southern Ishkartaan for the Magedom,” Vogel commands.

He can sense the glorious surge of anger through Fallon’s power as she chafes at this command, a sudden chill overtaking the room.

“I seek to move against the Dryad Whore and her allies,” Fallon insists.

Vogel’s domineering smile is undimmed. “All in good time, my Black Witch. But we must wait.”

The room’s temperature dips, hoarfrost needling to life across the oval panes of glass. “Giving their power a chance togrow?” she challenges.

Vogel narrows his gaze at her, silver fire flashing along the edges of his vision. “No,” he counters, “toweaken. Let the Fae Witch and her allies have their shielded moment. Dryad power is seasonal. Linked to Light. And soon, my Ice Witch, the world will darken as your winter descends.”

Fallon’s eyes widen with evident surprise as Vogel closes his eyes and sends out a mental call. The papery sound of wings fluttering descends, a multi-eyed raven swooping down from the rafter overhead to alight on Vogel’s shoulder, talons biting in.

Images from his multitude of Shadow ravens flood Vogel, images the Dryad Witch can’t shield.

Vogel opens his eyes and narrows his focus in on Fallon once more. “My runic eyes are in the Dyoi Forest. I am watching the Dryad Witch and those trapped there with her. As the scale of power begins to tip more strongly in our favor, I will draw her to us.”

“How?” Fallon demands.

Vogel pulls out a Shadowed stone, the Amaz rune emblazoned on it transformed into a steely clouded gray. Intoning a spell, he closes his eyes and forms a detailed mental picture.

A ripple slithers over his skin, and Vogel shivers then opens his eyes. A dart of glee spikes through him in response to the astonished look on Fallon’s face. Shetakes in the glamour he envisioned and the stone brought into being—a young Mage with vivid blue hair, kohl-lined eyes, a pierced lip, and a blue dragon tattoo running along the side of his neck, a blue lightning design encircling the column of his throat.

“Trystan Gardner,” Fallon breathes.

Triumph courses through Vogel as he draws in a deep breath and concentrates on a new glamour, his form shifting to what he knows is that of a tall, purple-hued, young Urisk man with Gardnerian green eyes and violet garb, his features bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Dryad Witch’s.

“This must be Or’myr Syll’vir,” Fallon murmurs, awe icing through her aura, “the staen’en witch’s abomination of a cousin.”

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