I turned in time to see him catch a metal ball, which bounced once before us and dropped into his extended hand.
He brushed ashes from his black vest and ran a hand through his hair. Then he smiled and turned back toward the burning Keep.
“You’ve kept your promise to the Queen,” he remarked, “and I don’t believe there’s anything more for you here. Shall we go now?”
“Jasra’s still inside,” I answered, “having it out with Sharu.”
“I thought you were done with her.”
I shook my head.
“She still knows a lot of things I don’t. Things I’ll be needing.”
A tower of flame began to rear itself above the Keep, halted and hovered a moment, heaved itself higher.
“I didn’t realize,” he said. “She does seem to want control of that fountain fairly badly. If we were to snatch her away now, that fellow Sharu will claim it. Does that matter?”
“If we don’t snatch her away, he may kill her.” Mandor shrugged.
“I’ve a feeling she’ll take him. Would you care to place a small wager?”
“Could be you’re right,” I said, watching the fountain continue its climb skyward, following another pause. I gestured toward it. “Thing looks like an oil gusher. I hope the winner knows how to cap it — if there is a winner. Neither one of them may last much longer, the way the place is coming apart.”
He chuckled.
“You underestimate the forces they’ve generated to protect themselves,” he said. And you know it isn’t all that easy for one sorcerer to do in another by sorcerous means. However, you’ve a point there when it comes to the inertia of the mundane. With your permission…?”
I nodded.
With a quick underhand toss he cast the metal ball across the ditch toward the burning building. It struck the ground and with each bounce thereafter it seemed to increase in size. It produced a cymballike crash each time it hit, entirely out of proportion with its apparent mass and velocity, and this sound increased in volume on each successive bounce. It passed then into the burning, tottering ruin that was the near end of the Keep and for several moments was gone from sight.