The Dark Helms laughed.

They stood at ease, forming a ring in the dark, torchlit stone chamber, hands on hips, not a blade drawn. In their midst, emerald eyes blazing in fury, clad only in manacles attached to a few rattling links of chain, Taeauna of the Aumrarr swung a sword at them.

A sword that skirled and shrieked as it struck-nothing. Empty air as hard as stone, in front of every Dark Helm. Spells shielded them all from her steel, striking it ringingly aside amid sparks as she slashed and swung and panted, sobbing in frustration.

Rod Everlar snarled out his own frustration, standing in front of the magic mirror with the gauntlet that held the orb raised in front of him, fumbling with Klammert's notes.

"Take me there!" he spat, glaring at Taeauna and the Dark Helms, in the mirror before him. She was in a dungeon or a fortress somewhere-a large, bare, stone-lined chamber with iron torch-sconces in the walls, but that room could be anywhere…

"Take me to Taeauna!"

His shout made the orb against his palm quiver, as if it was an egg trying to hatch, and the gauntlet covering it grew a sudden glow. A glow that washed away again in a handful of instants, leaving the gauntlet as dark as ever.

In the mirror, the Dark Helms were advancing, crowding together, their ring tightening around Taeauna, and they were raising their own gauntleted hands.

"Take… me… to… Taeauna," Rod snapped, spacing the words out slowly in fierce determination as he glared hard at the image of the bare, wingless Aumrarr.

They were starting to slap her now, or rather, swinging their hands at her and letting that stone-hard air bludgeon her, driving her back and reeling, the sword clanging out of her grasp. She fell to her knees, crying out in pain-and Rod, trembling with the head-pounding effort of trying to will himself to her, roared out his own wordless rage.