*
The echo of the tuning-fork buzz lingered in the great round chamber. Uella had squealed and clapped her hands over her ears, falling backwards off the balustrade of a high balcony near the top of the tower, where they had moved for a better view of the fighting on the floor. Poltus winced and hissed, and Balan shuddered in the soft silk of a fresh smoking jacket.
“That was unexpected,” he muttered.
The monkeys on the floor below converged on the dais, where now only the dark-haired Miilarkian girl stood, shouting a name. The others scrambled up to join her and she started shaking the Circle Wizard by the front of his robes. Balan could not hear her words from the distance, but she was screaming. Booms echoed through the chamber as the hobgoblins began to beat on the barred door.
“What the hell was that?” Uella demanded.
“Trouble,” Balan said.
Several of the monkeys shouted at the Miilarkian in alarm, but she produced a dagger in either hand and hopped between the two platinum pillars flanking the Node space. Nothing happened. She hopped back the other way, and nothing happened that time either.
“The gate is not fully open,” Poltus said, sounding relieved. Balan did not share his emotion.
“Give it a minute.”
The Sable City Page 94