Lyla was sleeping, drifting from dream to clouded dream, when she felt the urge. Wake up. She moaned, and shrank back further into the corner of the bench. Wake up. Stirring, she pressed her face into her arms. Wake up. The feeling was more urgent now. Wake up! Lyla subconsciously groped for her ever-present scepter, which had fallen from her hand during sleep. The cold metal touch of it roused her to wakefulness, opening her eyes.

The castle was quiet. Too quiet. Lyla felt a vague stirring of unrest, and stood. Feeling her way around the stone walls of the dark room, she located the doorway and blinked in the firelight from a mounted brazier in the hall. Gripping the wand tightly, she tiptoed down the corridor, listening. During this time of day, one could usually hear distant chattering from the servants in the kitchen, the clattering of kettles, and maybe even footsteps of patrolling guards as their thick-soled boots banged against the barren flagstone floors.

Lyla shivered, and turned toward the throne room. There was where she would find everyone, she imagined. No. She felt a subconscious tug, pulling her to walk the tall balconies around the courtroom. Biting her lip, she hesitated, torn between the two, wanting to find safety and reassurance among the cold-faced courtiers, and the impending sense of danger. She took the steps.

At the third balcony, which opened high above the deep-seated throne room, the wand-bearer stepped out and took a look, tightly clutching the golden rod. She stood above the back of the room – the throne with its dais was facing her. Courtiers stood still as statues in lifelike poses below. Cooks and butcher boys were scattered among the lords and ladies. It seemed the entire population of the castle was gathered here, in the great hall. The air was thick with a strange sense of unknown danger. Lyla herself stood still, her heart pounding frantically. She could somehow feel something coming – something darker and more evil than anything now in the castle.

She barely felt the scepter in her hand growing warm, didn’t notice anything but the feeling of gut-wrenching fear. Her eyes slid upward toward the great dome eight stories above the empty throne. Lyla’s knees weakened with fear, and she sank against the wall at her back.

She could feel it climbing… stealthy, yet bold. Then, too suddenly to comprehend, there it was. A bright, horribly blue light burst through the dome in a focused stream, falling down to the deepest reach of the castle, enveloping all within the great hall. The frozen courtiers and ladies below began to be sucked toward the center of the room, completely enveloped by the curtain of blue magic - for magic it was. Of that, Lyla was certain.

The entrapped people had little chance to escape – the light was gathering them up, gathering them into itself. It seemed to take ages, but was really only a few minutes later as the light converged into a giant bubble and began lifting out the pale, frozen humans, carrying them up, sacklike, to the top of the dome, there to disappear into the night sky.

Below the receding light, the throne room below was gone, devoid of people. The throne itself was missing, and the dozens of wall braziers were snuffed out. The awful feeling of evil was still very present, but slowly fading. Lyla began to shiver, and noticed that the rod in her hand was shaking strongly, as if a desperate creature were trapped inside and fighting to get loose. She tore her gaze away from the horrifying scene and looked down. The golden scepter in her hands was glowing with a soft light. Lyla somehow felt not… alone, anymore.

A strange current was flowing around her, through her, filling her with a relentless power. Suddenly she realized that she was standing at the edge of the balcony, chanting strange words, stretching out the scepter with both hands toward the blue curtain that had snatched up all those she knew. It had halted its progress, halfway to the top of the dome. Lyla could feel cold eyes suddenly turn upon her – a furious rage and a struggle to keep hold of the magic curtain. She could sense the will of the scepter fighting for control, resisting the power which pulled her to her knees. She cried out, tugging on the golden rod, unwilling to have this lifeline torn from her.

Her cry flung back the opposing force and forced it to retreat. Lyla could feel the unseen anger and humiliation as the full force of the unwelcome intruder raced back in an awesome torrent of power, buffeting her with winds of magic and undertows of evil. Still Lyla grasped the golden scepter, it’s soft golden light clashing with the blue, turning the frays of the battle an eerie green.

“No!” she screamed. “You shall not have us!” She swung the rod in a wild circle. “Leave us and go away!” Once again, the invisible foe was stung and flung back. Lyla saw that the blue curtain had sunken down, almost to the floor of the throne room. She sensed the intruder gathering its power for another strike, and impulsively pointed the rod at the stream of blue magic still suspended from the dome.

“Let my people go! So say I, Lyla of Turlen! Be gone, thou foul and evil demon!” A streak of gold flew from the crown-tip of the scepter, finding its mark in the bulbous sack of blue. For lack of a better description, the blue leaked to the floor. Frightened, but alive, courtiers and servants scrambled away from the puddles of blue and found safer places in various corners of the great hall. Rachelle’s throne was restored, just as it was before, but the braziers remained unlit.

Lyla could feel the intruder’s panic as it sought to find a way out, away from the unanticipated power of the scepter. It shot through the roof in a bright stream, disappearing into the cloudy night sky. Thunder clapped, then all was quiet.

Queen Rachelle and Sir Valon burst through the throne room doors.

“What is going on here?” Rachelle demanded.

The courtiers, relieved at the sight of their queen, and emboldened by the absence of the unknown intruder, all began to talk at once, pointing up at Lyla, still on the third balcony. She felt as though she’d fought one hundred years, and she was tired… so deathly tired. The scepter began to slip from her hands, which had gripped it so tightly before.

She had time to hear Rachelle’s unbelieving voice.

“She saved you all? With that broken wand?”

She saw Sir Valon start forward, his eyes on her.

“She’s falling! Quick!” but his voice was faint, his figure a blur.

The scepter landed on the flagstones with a loud clang and then she was falling and knew no more.