I snatched up the phone and shoved it in my pocket, and using the seat of the chair beside me as a step, I mounted the table, and laughing uncontrollably I started to walk down the length of it towards him.

“Oh, Voice,” I said through fits of laughter. “You are such a precocious child! However did you think this stupid plan would work!”

The Voice came into my head in a fury. “I’ll destroy your son!” he cried. “You will not block me in this.”

“Yes, yes,” I said, laughing, taking one stride after another on the gilded blocks of the table. “I know. I have heard your threats before, haven’t I? Don’t you realize that I am the only one here who actually loves you?”

I had reached the end and suddenly sat down on the edge of the table to one side of Rhoshamandes, who was glaring at me now in fury.

I snatched my ax from inside my coat with my right hand, as with my left I grabbed Rhoshamandes’s left forearm, and I brought the ax down with a loud crash on his left wrist. In a tenth of a second it was done. The crescent blade flashed beautifully in the light.

The severed hand flew across the table. Rhoshamandes screamed in terror. Others around the table were gasping audibly, and shifting in their chairs.

Rhoshamandes stared at the hand, the blood pouring from his wrist, and tried to jerk himself free from me.

But just as I’d hoped, he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t move.

Marius and Seth and Sevraine and Gregory had all risen and were staring at him, pinning him there obviously with the Mind Gift as I knew they would.

The blood continued spurting out of his left arm, gushing on the table.

He tried to stifle another scream but he couldn’t.

“Is there any place,” I asked, “where we might burn that hand? I mean I can incinerate it here easily enough but I don’t want to scorch the table.”

“No!” he bellowed. He went mad trying to free himself from me, squirming, struggling against my hand and the invisible force that held him. I could see the preternatural flesh healing the breach at his wrist.

“You call that stupid little sorcerer’s apprentice of yours now,” I said, “and you tell him to free my son, or I’ll hack you up piece by piece. And I’ll burn each piece in front of you.” I leaned down and looked into his eyes. “Don’t think about trying to loose that fatal fire on me,” I said. “Or they’ll burn you black and dead at once.”

He was frozen in rage and panic. Unfortunate for him.

I yanked his arm out and swung the ax again right below his shoulder, slicing the arm free.

The screams that erupted from him shook the chandeliers. He stared down at the stump.