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."I have innate abilities to walk through walls and fade from view that Szass Tarn's defenses may not affect, or at least, not as strongly as they'd cancel out a sorcerer's tricks.If things go wrong, I'll have a better chance ofgetting away.So let me try to slip inside by myself, and if I succeed, we'll both go in tomorrow night."Bareris didn't like it.Now that they'd come this far, now that Szass Tam was only a mile away, the urge to press on burned like a fever inside him.But he couldn't deny that Mirror's idea made sense.In the dark, the Citadel loomed like a bizarre, multi-bladed weapon raised to gut the moon.Like any castle worthy of the name, it stood at the center of a patch of open ground and had sentries patrolling the battlements.Peering from between two of the buildings nearest to the fortress, Mirror watched the guards and timed them as they made their circuits.When he understood the routine, he waited for a gaunt, yellow-eyed dread warrior to trudge by, then darted forward.He didn't advance invisibly, because even if such a trick would work for him, it wouldn't for Bareris.So he sneaked as he had in life when creeping up on an enemy.He stayed low, kept to the deepest shadows, and reached the foot of the outermost wall without incident.He inspected the huge granite blocks and the mortared chinks between them.He doubted that an ordinary climber could scale the vertical surface unless possessed of exceptional skill.Not quickly enough, at any rate.Bareris, however, was inhumanly strong, remarkably agile, and knew charms to make himself stronger and more nimble still.Mirror judged that his friend could make it.That meant it was time for him to do the same, before the next guard came tramping along.Alternately checking to make sure the minimal hand- and toeholds didn't run out and watching the crenellated wall-walk overhead, he floated upward.With his head at merlon-height, he took another wary look around.This section of the battlements was still clear and, according to his estimation, should remain so for a little while longer.He rose until his feet were at the level of the walkway, then stepped through a crenel onto the ledge.It was conceivable that if Bareris made it only this far, he could help Aoth, Nevron, and the others translate themselves into the Citadel.But the bard doubted it, and based on all that the past hundred years had taught Mirror about Szass Tarn's wiles, he was inclined to agree.They assumed they'd need to cross the courtyard below, get past the inner wall, traverse a second bailey, and slip inside the towering central keep itself to have any hope of success.Onward, then.Mirror took a step toward the inner edge of the walkway—since Bareris knew a charm to drift down to the ground unharmed, the ghost didn't need to bother with finding stairs, either—and a sudden jolt of pain froze him in place.At the same instant, pale light shined from the stones beneath his feet.From the corner of his eye, he could just make out the crimson glyph that had appeared on the wall-walk three paces to his left.For a moment, he had a childish feeling that what had befallen him was unfair, because he hadn't actually stepped on the then-invisible sigil and wouldn't have expected it to affect a non-corporeal entity in any case.But he supposed that his predicament too, was an example of Szass Tarn's cunning.He strained to move, but paralysis held him fast.He silently called out to the god whose name he had never remembered but whom he nonetheless adored, and tried again.He took a tiny, lurching step, then a bigger one, and then the clenched, locked feeling fell away.But at the same instant, figures as shadowy and poisonous as himself surrounded him.Perhaps the necromancers kept themurks, as such undead were called, caged inside the wall, or maybe the flare of light had drawn them; focused on breaking free of his immobility, Mirror had missed the moment of their advent.Before he could come on guard, the spirits scrabbled at him with long, wispy fingers, their weightless essence raking through his.The attacks caused no pain in the physical sense, but they did something worse.Confusion and fear surged through his mind and threatened to drown coherent thought.Every day he struggled for clarity and purpose, for identity itself, and now the murks were clawing them to shreds.He called to his deity a second time, and for an instant, his shadow-sword blazed with golden radiance.The murks withered away to nothing
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