A Meddle of Wizards. Alexandra Rushe

is not a rock. It is a god stone and very powerful. With it, your vitality can be restored.”

      “Uh-huh.”

      Talk about denial. She was so desperate to be well that her psyche had cooked up this garbage. Pathetic.

      “Come with me.” He held out his hand. “Help me save my homeland and you will be made healthy and whole.”

      “Mister, I wouldn’t go to the corner store with you, even if you were real. Which you are so not.”

      His handsome features hardened. Grabbing her by the arm, he pulled her close. “You are under a misapprehension. You have no choice. One way or another, you will accompany me. There are more lives at stake than your own.”

      Lifting the jewel, he began to murmur in that strange language, and the mirror over the mantel shimmered and pulsed in response.

      Something clattered outside the window, and he turned with a start. “What the–”

      Good old Mimsie. She’d promised to create a diversion and she had, rattling the garbage cans around and making one hell of a racket.

      Raine jerked free of the man’s hold and punched him in the nose. Hard.

      “Ouch.” She shook her throbbing hand and glared at him in outrage. “What gives? Dreams aren’t supposed to hurt.”

      He winced and prodded the bridge of his nose. “Now, see here, young lady,” he said as she drew back her fist. “Do not—”

      Raine took another swing at the man. He cursed and made a defensive move, and her fist glanced off his upraised arm and slammed into the jewel. It blazed bright as a miniature sun and flew into the air.

      A tremendous wind howled through the library. Books tumbled off the shelves. Vases and bric-a-brac crashed to the floor. The couch skidded across the room and Mimsie’s favorite Queen Anne chair smashed into the wall. Raine was lifted off her feet like a papier-mâche doll and tossed toward the mantel mirror. She screamed in helpless terror as the glistening surface of the glass parted like a pair of grotesque lips and swallowed her whole. She tumbled, head over heel, through darkness.

      Stars melted around her. Down, down she plummeted, toward a distant shard of light. The splinter of brightness widened, and she caught a fleeting glimpse of mountains and an ocean of trees. Then something slammed into her head and Raine knew no more.

      Chapter 2

      Magog’s Temple

      The broken moon Petrarr smiled upon the temple with crooked teeth. Una, her twin, glowed beside her, round and smooth as a new cheese. The moons were high in the sky by the time the priests had finished their cleansing rites. Chanting, they held their lanterns aloft and marched down the hill, swaying to the beat of the drums.

      When the last priest had droned past, Gertie crawled out of the woods and up the treeless slope on her belly. Pausing at the bottom of the stone stairs, she fixed her unblinking gaze on her quarry. Two men guarded the temple entrance. Torches flared on the landing and on either side of the ornate double doors. The wind shifted and Gertie wrinkled her nose. The humans stank of leather and sweat and the smaller one reeked of garlic. She crept closer, her body blending into her surroundings.

      Shifting their weapons, the guards peered into the darkness.

      Nervous as a lamb at a wolf’s wedding, Gertie thought with an inward chuckle. They sensed the danger, though they couldn’t see her. Trolls had a talent for camouflage.

      At the top of the wide stone steps she tensed her hindquarters and sprang at one of the guards, slashing his throat with her claws. He slumped to the pavement with a gurgling cry. The other man whipped around at the noise, his eyes widening when he saw the crumpled figure lying in a pool of blood.

      “Who’s there?” he demanded.

      His question ended in a shriek as Gertie lifted him into the air and fastened her jaws around his throat. The hot, sweet taste of blood filled her mouth. When the man ceased to twitch in her arms, she tossed the body aside and shed her disguise. Her muzzle and claws were wet with blood and the light from the torches threw her hulking shadow against the temple wall. Stepping over the dead man without a backward glance, she stalked across the landing to the temple doors.

      Mauric slid out of the darkness, a bloody knife in one hand. As he was human and could not cloak himself in the manner of trolls, he’d disguised himself with black garb. His pale skin was smeared with dark paint, and a black cloth covered his pale locks.

      He cleaned his knife and slid it back in his boot. “What took you so long? You’re slowing down.”

      “Don’t start with me. I shouldn’t have let you come. It’s far too dangerous.”

      The warrior’s eyes gleamed. “That’s the fun of it. In any event, you couldn’t have stopped me.”

      Gertie glared at him in annoyance. The young devil was enjoying this. They were deep in enemy territory with plans to kidnap the Dark Wizard’s ward, and he acted like it was a lark. She glanced around, her predatory instincts jangling from adrenaline. Glonoff and his soldiers were camped a short distance from the temple. Hara and her attendants were alone inside . . . now that the guards had been disposed of. It was now or never.

      “The moons are on the rise,” Gertie said. “We’re wasting time. We do not want to be here when Magog wakes up.”

      She stalked inside and looked around. Few outsiders saw the secret confines of one of Magog’s temples, unless they were being sacrificed on the altar. The shrine was vast, the ceiling lost in darkness. Fire danced in golden braziers, their flames casting flickering shadow monsters on the vast columns. On a dais in the center of the temple a gigantic statue of Magog was enthroned. Padding closer, Gertie studied the god’s features. He was as she remembered, golden and beautiful by human standards, but cruel. A blue sapphire the size of a man’s fist gleamed in one eye; the other socket yawned dark and empty.

      Hara Bel-a-Zhezar slept on the god’s stone lap, her head resting on a satin pillow. Her long black hair poured past her creamy shoulders and spilled over the edge of the stone table. The filmy gown she wore displayed her magnificent body to advantage. Tight at the waist and sleeveless, the garment exposed her round white arms and shapely legs. Her full breasts strained against the sheer cloth. Her face was flawless, with high cheekbones and a perfect nose. Long, sooty eyelashes rested in half circles on her flushed cheeks. Her full lips were parted, revealing a glimpse of white teeth. Today was her twenty-fifth birthday and her wedding day. She’d been promised to Magog, the mad god of Shad Amar, since birth. She was supposed to have married him at eighteen, but Magog had succumbed to one of his periodic bouts of madness, and the wedding had been postponed. Tales of Hara’s rage and disappointment at the delay had leaked past the borders of Shad Amar: precious gifts to mark the ceremony destroyed, wedding garments ripped to shreds or burned, and servants slain. Her parents gutted on the altar, or so people whispered.

      Her temper tantrum had been for naught. No one disturbed the god of Shad Amar’s darkness, not even Glonoff.

      Seven years had passed and Magog’s lunacy had receded. He was to appear in the temple at midnight to claim his bride. Tonight, Hara would come into her power, or so those squawkers in the Tower of Seers claimed. Gertie didn’t set much store by the seers or their mumblings, especially as the talisman Hara was fated to wield—according to prophecy—had been safely ensconced in the Hall of the Gods for thousands of years. Then, two weeks earlier, she’d received disturbing news. The Eye had been stolen. The thief’s identity was unknown, but Gertie was certain that Glonoff had stolen the Eye. His lust for power was well-known. With Hara and the Eye at his command, he would be unstoppable, satisfied with nothing less than control of all of Tandara.

      Gertie had never been one to sit by and do nothing, and she’d concocted a schemed of breathtaking simplicity. She would sneak across the mountains into Shad Amar, enter the temple, and snatch Hara from under the Dark Wizard’s nose. The trick would be to make a clean getaway. The thought of being caught