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.The sword was still in my hand – it was part of me now, at least until I passed it onwards – and was pulling me back towards the fight.I allowed it to lead me onwards, realising – to my dismay – that the monster was concentrating on regenerating its lost arm.It paused to give me a look of utter malevolence and I shivered.The hell-kin were the embodiment of pure undiluted evil.I kept walking forwards until I was back inside the circle.The demon howled and leapt forward, trying to come down hard on me.I ducked back and then stabbed up towards its chest.The sword went inside and, this time, I focused my power and will through the blade.There was a massive burst of white fire and the demon simply disintegrated.I found myself kneeling on the floor, shocked and a little stunned.Only the traces of magic ahead of me pulled me back to my feet and onwards.No one stepped out to bar my path, or even to try to delay me.The passages opened up into a single vast chamber, right at the heart of the Hill Fort.I was standing on a balcony over a massive pool of boiling light.I knew, at once, that it was the nexus of wild magic.It bubbled and seethed under me, reminding me that going too close would be dangerous.Some of the odder magical races had only come into existence when they’d fallen into wild magic.I’d met intelligent cats, dogs, mice and hamsters, to say nothing of weird crosses between humans and animals.They could never have lived in the mundane world.And, right at the centre of the chamber, high above the pool of magic, I saw Cardonel.And, lying in front of him, I saw the girl.Strong arms grabbed me from behind.“I’m sorry, Dizzy,” Robin said.“I cannot let you interfere.”Chapter Thirty-ThreeI struggled, but she was surprisingly strong and unworried by the sword.It was no longer in my hand.It took me a moment to realise that it had returned to its position inside me, although it was no longer painful.Robin had me in a grip that steadily made it harder to struggle, so eventually I had to relax.She pulled me over towards one side of the wall and pressed me against it.A moment later, my hands and feet were stuck in what felt like glue.“Dizzy,” a tired voice said.“I wish you had not come.”I looked over in surprise.There was an old man hanging beside me on the wall.I stared; the cheekbones and voice were familiar, but everything else had aged.I had known that Master Revels was much older than me, yet I hadn’t realised just how many rejuvenation spells he’d been forced to use, not until I saw him with all of his power draining away.It was the only way they could have held him prisoner, but it had brought him to the brink of death.“I had to come,” I said.I had been determined to rescue both him and the girl.He was my teacher, the one who had tried to warn me about the danger of trusting a half-elf, and she was my responsibility.I didn’t know her, but it was my fault that she was on the verge of being sacrificed.“I.what can we do?”Master Revels shrugged.Even that took a great deal of energy from him.“How did you get into the building without being stopped?”“I had help,” I said.I wasn’t going to name names, not here.“What happened to you?”“I went to see the Nameless Elf,” Master Revels admitted.“I figured that if elfish magic was involved in capturing the ghosts, he was the most likely suspect.I didn’t get there.I was attacked by your friend the day I left you, after the vampire, and lost the ensuing fight.”My eyes opened wide.“He beat you?”“A keen observation, Dizzy,” Master Revels said, “And most annoying to my ego.Yes, he and his friends caught me by surprise and beat me.They knocked me out.when I woke up, I found that most of my power had been drained, leaving me with just enough to keep myself alive.Since then, I have been hanging here, waiting for the end of the world.”I stared.“He isn’t going to destroy the world,” I protested.“He just kept saying that he wanted us all to be magical and.”“Don’t you know anything about the fundamental nature of human desire?” Master Revels snapped.“You give everyone in the human race the powers of a god and we will rip ourselves apart like rats in a sack.We’ll become worse than the elves, even if we don’t start attacking the Great Powers.And if we do, we run the risk of blowing up the entire universe by interfering with the forces that keep it balanced.Your lover boy wants to save his life and, in doing so, is going to doom us all.”I shivered.“I know,” I admitted.I didn’t want to face it, even though I no longer had any illusions.I looked over towards the girl.She’d been restored to human form, but she’d moved from one nightmare to another.Cardonel had placed her on a stone table and tied her down with golden cord.She could barely move, yet alone escape her fate.“How long do we have?”“The magic will surge at midnight,” Master Revels said.“He will kill her then and follow her ghost.”As if the word had opened my eyes, I was suddenly aware of the ghosts in the room.There were thousands of them, all spinning through the air
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