Free Return of the Sorceress by Tim Waggoner Page A

enigmatic smile.
    “You tell me.”
    Maddoc scowled. “This isn’t amusing anymore. There are spells I could cast that would allow me to determine the truth, but they are somewhat involved, and take a certain amount of time to perform adequately.”
    “Right,” she said. “And you looking like you’ve got one foot and a couple extra toes in the grave.”
    Maddoc’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t deny Nearra’s charge. “I admit that I am not currently up to my full strength. But that’s due in large part to the last enchantment I worked.”
    “The sleep spell, you mean,” Nearra said.
    Maddoc shook his head and Oddvar laughed.
    “No, I cast another spell while you were sleeping,” the wizard said. “I reapplied the paralysis spell, the one that will completely immobilize you if Asvoria emerges and wields her powers. And she won’t be able to counter it so easily this time; I’ve had months to research ways to make the spell much stronger than when I last cast it upon you.”
    Maddoc hobbled forward and gazed deep into Nearra’s eyes.
    “If you are in there, Asvoria, if you work even the simplest of magics, you shall be paralyzed. And then you’ll be mine at last!” The evil wizard chuckled, the sound more like a raspy cough than a laugh.
    He turned turned and shuffled toward the door. “Follow me,”he said without turning back to look at her. Maddoc walked out of the chamber, Oddvar following close on his heels. Nearra hesitated for a moment longer, but realizing she didn’t have any other options, she did as Maddoc commanded.
    The wizard led them down a gloom-shrouded corridor. They walked past a number of wooden doors, and Nearra wondered what dangers might lurk behind them.
    Before long they came to an open entrance that led to a spiral stairway. They ascended the stone steps and stepped off to walk down another corridor, Maddoc stopped before a door. He made a small gesture and the lock clicked open, and the door swung inward of its own volition. Maddoc then indicated that Nearra should go in first. She didn’t want to, but she
did
want to keep Maddoc in doubt as to whether she or Asvoria was in control, and she knew Asvoria wouldn’t hesitate to go into the room. So Nearra stepped inside, hoping that she wasn’t walking into another trap.
    Maddoc and Oddvar came in after her, and then the door swung shut, though it didn’t lock this time.
    Nearra looked around. Lining the room were shelves filled with books, scrolls, and stacks of loose vellum. A large fireplace was set into the wall opposite the door, in which a fire was blazing away, though it did little to dispel the room’s chill. In front of the fireplace was a carved wooden and leather chair and a polished mahogany side table. Several feet from the chair stood a full-length wardrobe mirror, the glass surface spiderwebbed with cracks.
    But the feature that dominated the room was the large tapestry hanging on the wall above the fireplace. It portrayed a striking woman in a green dress trimmed with red fur. She had long raven-black hair and intense violet eyes. Around her neck hung a medallion shaped like a sun, and at her feet rested a silver sword.
    Nearra knew at once that the woman was Asvoria.
    “I don’t know what the sorceress used this room for,” Maddoc said. “When I first discovered Cairngorn Keep nearly twenty years ago, the room was empty, except for the chair and that tapestry. It took me more years of research to discover that Asvoria had placed her spirit into the tapestry in a last desperate attempt to escape a group of so-called heroes that had come to the keep to capture her. And it took even longer for me to discover a way to free her spirit from the tapestry and implant it into the body of a living person.” Maddoc looked at Nearra. “In case you’re not following along, that would be you.”
    She turned to Maddoc. She knew that by saying what she was going to say next, she would destroy any illusion that