Back in the real world, Daphne had a firm list of three favorite sounds. The satisfying scratch of pen against paper, the whistle of a teakettle, and Mark’s carefree, all-out laughter. These were her top three throughout her adult life. The list hadn’t changed in quite a while.

In the moment after destroying the Prism, though, Daphne decided to switch out ‘whistling teakettle’ for ‘three griffins shouting your name as they come to your rescue.’

“Daphne!”

The sound was so faint at first, and coming from so high above her, that Daphne wondered if she was hallucinating.

Or dead, her brain offered helpfully. Maybe the Wordmaster blasted you with a fireball, and that’s just the sound of your life flickering away into oblivion.

Shut up, Daphne told her brain.

“Daphne!”

There it was again — much louder now, and closer, and definitely coming from somewhere above her head. She looked up.

“Muses,” she said weakly.

The flame-funnel she had created by reciting the complete Word of Truth was huge. It stretched all the way to the ceiling, towering over the Wordmaster on his puny twenty-foot dais. As it spun, it emitted a pleasant crackling hum, like a remarkably friendly tornado made of fire.

Daphne watched the top of the fire-tornado reach the ceiling, then curve gently downwards in her direction. It was too far away to see inside the spinning funnel, but in the next moment, that new favorite sound of hers rang out clearly from within, “Daphne!”

Three distinct, familiar griffin voices, calling her name as one.

Then the griffins themselves appeared, bursting out of the funnel’s mouth and soaring down towards her.

“Runar! Bjarni! Gjurdok!” Daphne wondered briefly if you could die from a happiness-explosion inside your heart, and decided instantly that she didn’t care. “How —”

Her call turned into a scream as the Wordmaster gave a howl of rage. With an ear-splitting roar, a visible Devouring Wind tore from his mouth and wrapped around Bjarni, the closest target. The fiery young griffin was torn violently off-course and began spinning, caught up in a painfully fast spiral designed to rob its victim of breath and consciousness.

Daphne heard a rage-cry tear from her own mouth. To her amazement, the fire-funnel responded, sending out a whip of flame that snagged the end of the smoky Wind trying to devour Bjarni. With a sharp tug, the flame-whip pulled the Wind towards the funnel, forcing the monster to release its hold on Bjarni. Then the funnel drew the sentient whirlwind into itself. The Devouring Wind gave a horrible high-pitched shriek as it was consumed, disappearing down the fiery tornado’s throat.

As a barely conscious Bjarni tumbled towards the ground, one of his flailing wings managed to land a direct hit on the hovering Wordmaster’s head. The Wordmaster lost concentration on the wind holding him aloft. He fell the few short feet to the dais and landed in an awkward heap, hitting his head on the stone with a resounding CRACK.

“My lord!” Beside Daphne, Amelia sprang into action. Unlooping a chaos-mind rope like the Mud Man’s from her waist, she spun it in a quick spiral, summoning a small wind to carry her up to the top of the dais.

As Amelia the Wordmage knelt by her prone master, Daphne rushed to join Runar and Gjurdok at Bjarni’s side.

“How?”

That was all she managed to get out, but Runar understood.

“I was going to ask thee, my friend.” He wrapped his golden wings around her in a brief, warm hug. “We were in the Chamber of Triunity, researching the Cleansing Flame, when it seemed as though the words were coming to life. A wheel appeared in the air, a wheel of fire, and…”

He trailed off, looking helplessly at Gjurdok.

“We heard thy voice,” the gray-white griffin continued gruffly. “Coming from the darkness within the wheel. Thou were proclaiming a Word of Truth.” He gestured to Bjarni, who was beginning to stir. “The young one here leapt into that darkness, and we followed. Thy voice continued to call us forward. When the Word of Truth was complete, we passed through another wheel of fire, and found ourselves here.”

“It was the Cleansing Flame,” Bjarni said weakly. He sat up and shook out his red-orange head plumage. “Thou summoned it, Loresmith. It is all just as we read in the scrolls. The Cleansing Flame opens the secret ways of Lore-light. It unites those who bear that light, connecting them across time and space.”

“I believe this fledgling is correct.” Gjurdok’s ancient eyes were shining as they looked at Daphne. “Thou summoned Lore-light, and opened its secret ways. Thou called, and we came.”

“And now that we are here,” Runar said, casting grim eyes upwards to the top of the dais, “what shall we do with yonder miscreant?”

As if in answer, the Wordmaster lurched to his feet, pushing away Amelia’s offered support.

“Beasts!” He bellowed. “Ignorant scum! Your thoughts are not worth draining. I will scatter them to the winds and leave you wordless!”

He opened his mouth and exhaled another visible whirlwind. The smoky form of the monster billowed out and then down, cascading towards Daphne’s group at an alarmingly rapid rate.

Daphne leapt to her feet.

“I’ll touch the depths and take the sky!”

The last line of the Word of Truth rang clear from her lips. Once again, the flame-funnel responded, snaring the Devouring Wind in one fiery tendril and pulling the monster down its throat.

“That move’s not going to work,” Daphne called up to the Wordmaster. “Fire eats wind. What else you got?”

Mark would be horrified. She could almost hear him in her mind, cringing and warning her not to trash-talk the Big Bad Evil Guy prematurely.

But she was enjoying it too much to stop.

“Come on!” Daphne yelled again. “Are you seriously just a one-trick pony? What else you got?”

“Yes!” Bjarni puffed out his chest plumage, getting fully into the spirit of things. “What else dost thou have, O Pebble Brain?”

Even twenty feet below, Daphne could feel the flash of rage in the Wordmaster’s eyes. He grabbed Amelia, hauling her upright and pushing her towards the center of the dais. At a snap of his fingers, the smoke-gray funnel reformed, this time swirling around Amelia’s head.

Amelia screamed.

She screamed, and kept screaming, on and on. Apparently, receiving all the drained word-power from the dungeons was incredibly painful for anyone except the Wordmaster.

Maybe it’s painful for him too, Daphne thought. But he’s just trained himself to take it.

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Her heart twisted inside out.

“Stop,” she heard herself whisper. Then, louder: “Stop! You’re killing her!”

But the Wordmaster wasn’t finished. He snatched the mind-chaos whip from Amelia’s hands and wrapped one end around his own waist. Then he bound the other end securely to Amelia’s outstretched arm, connecting himself to her.

Amelia’s screams shattered into fragmented whimpers as the toxic rope burned and scattered her thoughts.

“This is what I have, Daphne Green!” If the Wordmaster felt any of the rope’s painful mind-exploding effects, he didn’t show it. He spread his arms wide. “The word-power from all the stories trapped in my dungeon, distilled and amplified through my mightiest Wordmage!”

“You’re killing her!” Daphne repeated, her voice shrill with terrified anger.

“She has lost more than her life for Euloban already,” the Wordmaster replied cooly. He raised his hands. “And so shall you!”

Smoke billowed out from his hands, surrounding him in a noxious gray cloud.

Daphne flung herself at the dais. “We have to help her!” Her fingers scrabbled at the bare rock, searching for handholds. “We have to save Amelia!”

Gjurdok’s wings wrapped around her, pulling her back. “We must defeat the Wordmaster,” he said gruffly. “That is the only hope for any of us now. Focus, Wordsmith!”

As if to emphasize his point, a blob of smoky, sizzling oil splattered on the stone floor where Daphne’s feet had been seconds before. It oozed and bubbled, giving off a stench so loathsome that it alone nearly scattered Daphne’s thoughts from a foot away. She looked up just in time to see another noxious missile shooting out of the cloud that hid the Wordmaster from view.

“Back!” Runar shouted.

All four of them scrambled backwards to avoid the rain of mind-chaos sludge projectiles now pouring from the cloud. The cloud itself was growing, obscuring everything on the dais and stretching up towards the ceiling.

Staring at it, Daphne felt her own fury growing at the same rate. She raised her hand and bellowed the first Word of Truth that came to mind.

“Even this cannot unmake me!”

A tendril of flame flashed out from the nearby fire-tornado. It sliced through the Wordmaster’s smoke-cloud, dissipating the top half and bursting a few missiles in the process.

A wordless howl erupted from inside the cloud, and the muddy gray smoke billowed up again, twice as high as before. Another volley of sludge projectiles came raining down.

“No master can outmatch my heart!” Daphne called. As the flame-funnel responded with another attacking tendril, she turned to her companions.

“What do we do?” she panted, surprised at how tired she felt already. “I can keep fending the cloud off, but not forever.”

“Thy will is keeping the flame alive,” Runar said. “It is requiring a great portion of thy strength.” He turned to Gjurdok. “We must reach the villain himself, yes? Stopping him will stop the cloud?”

The ancient griffin was silent for a moment, keeping his eyes fixed on the cloud at the top of the dais. His white head plumage looked its own smoke-cloud, billowing out of his ears like he had swallowed part of the fire-tornado.

“Thou art correct,” he said at last. “Of course. His power is great, but we are many, and he is one. That is our advantage.”

Gjurdok looked at each in turn, accompanying his orders with a sharp glance from his piercing eyes.

“Runar, thou shalt bear the Wordsmith. Carry her around the back of the dais, and up to the top of the Cleansing Flame.” He pointed one wing to the towering flame-funnel. “Once there, Wordsmith, thou must fashion a great word-chain. Draw from the Lore-light thou hast already summoned. It need not be a long Word of Truth, nor a high level —”

“Back!” Bjarni yelled.

The fiery young griffin bowled into the group, pushing them out of the path of a particularly large sludge projectile.

“His range is improving,” Daphne panted. “That’s not good.”

“Any words will do,” Gjurdok continued calmly, picking up his orders right where he’d left off. “Perhaps even the entrance words thou used to call forth the Lore-light in the tunnels. Draw forth the chain from the tower of flame, and give it to Bjarni.”

The ancient griffin turned to the flame-colored youngster. “Thou, Bjarni, shall attack with the chain. Go the other way around to meet thy brother and the Wordsmith. Take the chain, and attack swiftly from the air.”

“He will not be able to see in the cloud,” Runar objected.

Gjurdok clacked his beak impatiently. “Bjarni is a Reader. His Aesthetics will guide him. Whether he hits the traitor Wordmage or the master-villain himself, it shall give us an opening.”

“Won’t he see us coming?” Daphne pointed out. “You said, ‘go around the back,’ but the dais is round. There is no back.”

“I shall command his attention.” Gjurdok shook out his wings as another large missile splattered on the stone floor inches away. “Our might is in Triunity. As the Wordsmith said, no master can outmatch our hearts!”

Then he leapt into the air with a defiant screech.

For a moment, Daphne stared open-mouthed at the ancient griffin zigzagging through the air. He looped and darted like a much younger creature, expertly avoiding the oily missiles and calling out the rest of the Word of Truth.

“Force can bend but cannot break me! In love alone lives freedom’s art!”

“Daphne!” Runar’s voice snapped Daphne out of her awe. She sprang up onto his back, and he and Bjarni shot into the air in opposite directions.

They took a wide loop around the room, streaking through the shadowed corners and soaring swiftly back towards the flame-funnel. Gjurdok was playing a dangerous game, passing as close to the cloud as he dared before darting away, but it seemed to be working. All the missiles were trained in his direction, and he had worked himself around to the opposite side of the dais from the fire-tornado.

The griffin brothers met at the mouth of the flame-funnel and hovered there.

“Wordsmith…” Bjarni whispered, but Daphne was already speaking. She stretched her hands toward the fire and proclaimed, quietly but clearly:

“Though it be lonely Following the ancient ways Watch for the Lore-light.”

These were the words that had opened the Eydis Way, defeated the dirt-monster, and revealed a light-road to the Under Library. They proved effective once again.

A gorgeous thread of glowing letters flashed out of the fire-tornado, long enough to hog-tie a few big bad evil guys at once. Bjarni caught the word-chain in his talons and soared towards the dais.

“It’s working!” Daphne cried, clinging to Runar’s neck.

“Thank the Phrases,” Runar replied. “Let us go to Gjurdok’s aid, for —”

Before he could finish, or even move, everything went wrong.

An impossibly long sludge-rope shot up from the floor, wrapping around Bjarni’s back legs and yanking him out of the air. Daphne looked to see Mud Man at the head of a crowd of similarly dirt-clothed Wordmages, pouring into the room through a small door in the corner.

“Bjarni!”

Runar gave an anguished wail and dove towards his brother. Then another sound tore through the room from within the smoke-cloud, scattering Daphne’s thoughts more painfully than a mind-chaos rope.

It was the enraged shriek of the Wordmaster, who had apparently found his target at last.

“Runar!” Daphne pulled at the golden griffin’s feathers. “We have to help Gjurdok!”

But it was too late. As she and Runar shot towards Bjarni, already almost surrounded on the ground, she heard Gjurdok’s final defiant cry.

“For Euloban!”

Then a massive oily sludge projectile struck the ancient gray-white griffin, and he plummeted to the stone floor.

Daphne was screaming, but no sound was coming out. Her mouth was frozen open. She felt darkness envelop her insides, like someone had snuffed out the candle she’d left burning in the window of her soul.

As if in response, the flame-funnel wilted. She saw it shrinking in the corner of her eye. By the time Runar landed roughly beside Bjarni, the fire-tornado was just barely taller than the dais.

“You see, Daphne Green?” The Wordmaster had risen through the cloud, floating on top of it so his cruel smile was clearly visible. “You are outnumbered and outmatched. Overmastered, if you will.”

“Daphne,” Runar croaked. “Help me!”

She stumbled off his back and knelt by Bjarni. The fiery young griffin was writhing, each twist entangling him more fully in the torturous mind-chaos rope. Daphne plucked the stoppers from two of her bottle-pendants. With Runar, she poured Eloquent Water on the rope to burn it away.

“Look around,” the Wordmaster crowed. “My Wordmages surround you. They wait only on my command. Surrender now, and I will spare you and your friends.”

“So you can throw us in the dungeons and drain us?” The words tore themselves out of Daphne, blistering her throat on the way out. “So you can make us part of your personal word-power buffet? No thank you!”

“The alternative is much more painful,” the Wordmaster sang.

“Thou heard the Wordsmith!” Bjarni’s voice was weak, but he struggled up as soon as his legs were free. “We reject thee and thy offer!”

Runar spread his golden wings to the gathering circle of Wordmages. “All of thee serve a traitor heart!” he called. “See what use he has made of Amelia’s faith!”

Daphne gazed around, but the Wordmages weren’t looking up at the dais. Amelia was still obscured by the cloud anyway. All her comrades were staring impassively at Daphne and her friends, like robots waiting for someone to throw the kill-switch.

“It is you who are the traitors.” The Wordmaster’s voice billowed out, hanging in the air like heavy, toxic fog. “You have proven yourselves enemies of Euloban. I have come to rid this world of your blight.” He raised his arms in command to the circle of his forces. “Release the Cleansing Flame!”

“Gladly,” called a voice from across the room.

All heads whirled around. There, at the main entrance of the hall, stood Eydis at the head of a throng of griffins and humans. The dark brown griffin leapt into the air, beating her wings like a drumroll.

“Thou art no Wordmaster,” Eydis cried in a roaring screech that shot through Daphne’s heart like an electric jolt. “We name thee plague, and we shall write the tale of thy fall.”

She turned to the crowd gathered in the archway.

“For the Story!” she roared.

“For the Story!” the throng echoed, and surged forward.

The final battle for Euloban had begun.