Lord Dorn could not sense the golems anymore. The last of them had been defeated. He thought for certain with the wards down, his creations would make short work of the guardians. He had underestimated his opponents. His earlier elation waned, and the pressure of the headaches returned. A dark cloud covered his thoughts. He blew apart a window, reentered the building through an empty office, and climbed the stairs slowly back to the observatory. Hesz, Kraten, Lhars, Tom, and Catherine MacDonnell watched silently as he entered, measuring his mood, which was clearly not victorious. “How’d we do?” asked Tom. We? thought Dorn. How fared we? The plan was Dorn’s, its execution as well—yet Tom took it upon himself to share some of his master’s failure. Since Dorn could not very well punish himself, he was grateful for a volunteer. The power of the lay line swelled within him. He said the words and made the hand gestures and shot Tom out of an east-facing triangular window. The man arched over the city before he lost momentum and plunged seventy stories into the icy waters of the East River.
