"They've come for us…" the students all turned to face him as he spoke, "we must defend the school."

"But there's hundreds of them!" an adept said.

"It doesn't matter," Tariel stepped to the fore, "Maerhyn's right, we must defend the school."

"Everyone trained in the use of Holy Bolt, take the back ranks.  Merton, Zal, set up Firewalls before us.  Tariel, you join me on the high wall so we can send Lightning Bolts down into their ranks."

"Yes, Maerhyn." Tariel bowed slightly

"Aliandra, you and the other Sorceresses will concentrate on breaking the ranks with cold-based spells, keep them disorganized."

"I'm on it."

They took their positions, ready to give their lives up to protect the Vizjerei's last mage school.  Spells flew in the night, but the undead were gaining the edge in sheer numbers.  Sand, bones and mana flew through the air; decimation was everywhere.

"Maerhyn," Tariel screamed over the din of electricity, "we're running out of mana."

The old man either could not hear or was not willing to listen to his apprentice.  He continued to send blasts of blue-white fire into the army of skeletal warriors.  Maerhyn was old and strained with the continuous use of magic; he was on the verge of collapse. 

"Maerhyn, you don't have the stamina to hold this up, please!"

"Boy!" Maerhyn didn't turn to talk to him; "if you say one more word about what I can't do I'll kill you myself."

"There's more coming, we're doomed!" Aliandra shouted up at Maerhyn and Tariel.

"Maerhyn, let's abandon this school, we can't win!"

"Fireball, Tariel, do it now!"

Tariel went into the stance, conjuring forth the energies necessary for the spell.  His vision flashed and pinwheeled before him as he drew on the very last of his reserves.  He shut his eyes as he felt his consciousness wanting to flee him, and concentrated all the harder.  After seconds were each one felt like an eternity, Tariel felt the flash of immense heat as the Fireball finally took form.  He opened his eyes to see it streak down towards the skeletons and explode in a fierce conflagration.  The ranks broke and scattered, but did not cease their attack.  Tariel felt Maerhyn's hand on his back.

"That was very good, Tariel."

"But it wasn't enough…" Tariel stood, downcast.

"It was all you could do, the angels save us."

A blue light bathed the assembled crowd of adepts; they all turned to face the highest parapet of the school.  There stood a man silhouetted against the night's sky, his voluminous robes twisting and tousled by the wind.  The sky above him was a riot of reds and orange, like a firestorm about to erupt.  Then three huge meteors fell from the heavens, their fiery bulk slamming into the army of undead and erupting into huge walls of eldritch flame.  The undead were all perishing in the intense heat of the blaze; most of those that remained had taken to their heels.  Then the blue light faded and the stranger was gone, he had taken out most of the army with just three spells.

"My God of Light!  What the hell kind of magic was that?" Tariel asked, awed.

"That was the magic of olden times…"

"Who was he?"

"I do not know… I do not think I wish to know…"

The other skeletons were slowly pulling away from the decimation, routed by the force of the blasts.  The other adepts were picking off the slower and wounded with Holy Bolts and Firebolts.  Once the battlegrounds were relatively clear, they all returned to the school's proper, all of them still excited from the battle.  Tariel and Maerhyn were the last to join their fellows in the Hall of Lectures.

"Did you see that?" Zal exclaimed, gesturing the explosions with his hands, "I mean BOOM and there all just lying there, dead."

"That was fantastic!" Merton added.

"Did you do that, Maerhyn?" Zal asked the old man.

"No, he was with me, shooting Lightning Bolts down into the crowd."

"And who cast the Fireball? Setharel asked.  Aliandra and Tariel exchanged glances, but Tariel, in an unusual display of humility, said nothing.

"Listen, all of you, I am very proud." Maerhyn stated, "you have all proven your worth today, both as spellcasters and as a team." 

Tariel took Maerhyn and led him to his bed; the man was pale and looked wasted and tired.  No doubt the conflict had been a considerable strain on his venerable frame.  His breathing was shallow and raspy, and he was having difficulty staying awake.

"Maerhyn, you know who it was, don't you?"

"Tariel… I do, but it is unwise to ask such questions."

"Why?  A spell that powerful I have never seen."

"There are many things under Heaven and above the Hells, and even the Vizjerei have not catalogued them all." Maerhyn was quickly fading to sleep.

"But who was he?"

"Nevermind it, let me sleep…"

Tariel left him then, the questions still burning in his mind.  Such power from so little energy, and in a form he had never seen before.  Such power… he thought of his studies and how useless they would be if he had to face that man, the one who had appeared from nowhere and had decimated hundreds of undead minions.  There were tales of mages who could have once done that, mages with the lore of the angels at their disposal.  He went back to the adepts' rooms, where his peers had mostly already begun to sleep off the night's excitement.  Tariel sat down on his bunk, but sleep wouldn't come to him.  He kept seeing the cloaked figure on the parapet in his dark robes, weaving a spell that he had never even heard of.  The figure in the cloak, something about him called to young Tariel, something about the way he looked.  It was like some half-buried memory.  Then it was gone and sleep overtook him with the picture still on his mind like a black frieze.