by Ed Greenwood
These days, with the master of Mistgates heeding not the Mad King in Galathgard, and so being shunned by most nobles of the realm and by fearful traders alike, few folk came along that road.
Yet there were travelers on it now, many of them. They wore the best of gleaming armor, mounted knight after mounted knight, their lances like a forest, but a forest bare of leaves for they bore no banners.
At first sight of them from the high battlements of Mistgates, galloping hard along the road that would bring them into the very lap of Velduke Mardrammur Mistryn, horns were winded over the castle, to sound an alarm.
Mistryn was one of the veldukes who did not ride to Galathgard upon the whim and pleasure of King Devaer, and most of Galath had heard by now, with Bowrock under siege, just how much the King of Galath loved veldukes who did not bend their knees to him often.
Wherefore the great doors of the castle were firmly closed and barred, after the best-armed and armored Mistryn knights and armsmen—enough to match the approaching knights, and to spare—had issued forth in full battle array, prepared with pikes and caltrops. On the walls above, a long line of archers stood ready.
The knights slowed their mounts as they came up to Mistgates, and drew no swords, but held up empty hands to wave "peace" and then "parley."
A tall man in armor whose painted breast-blazon proclaimed him the personal champion of Mardrammur stood forth to meet them, and called, "You ride in Mistryn lands, and are come to the gates of the House of Mard, and you are many and well armed. Yield unto me your names and purpose!"
The foremost rider doffed his helm, patted the neck of his snorting mount to calm it, and replied, "You know me, Roeglar. I am Samryn, loyal knight of Velduke Bloodhunt, and we before your gates are all now also knights of the King of Galath, His Majesty Melander Brorsavar, who rides with us!"
Roeglar gave him a hard look. "Brorsavar is king, now?"
"Brorsavar is king. Things change in Falconfar, sword-brother."
"That they do. And all too swiftly, these days. That they do."
"Well, have we leave to pass within?" Samryn clapped his hand meaningfully to his sword-hilt.
"I'm thinking, sword-brother. I'm thinking."
* * *
"THIS WAY," TAEAUNA gasped, and was gone down behind some rocks with a rattle of chain. "Hurry!"
"Hurrying is all I seem to do, these days," Rod chuckled to himself, following her just as fast as he could.
Don't follow her! the ignored mind-whisper shouted.
Rod found himself plunging face-first down into a cleft among the rocks, where Taeauna waited to catch him.
His weight bore her over on her back, of course, his face cushioned against the softness of her breasts.
"Oh, Lord Rod," she murmured, chains rattling around him as they bounced together, and he tried to mutter apologies. "I have worried about you so!"
"I... I love you!" she added, as he wallowed his way hastily up off her body. He'd been on the verge of daring to kiss her, but those words made Rod blink, hesitate, and then smile.
Which is when she leaned forward and kissed him.
No! Don't do this!
Her lips were warm and sweet and hungry, her tongue thrusting deep into his mouth, rolling and thrusting something that tasted spicy-sweet... Had some Holdoncorp idiot put chewing gum into Falconfar when he wasn't looking?
It tasted pleasant, though...
And it was even nicer to have Taeauna thrusting herself against him, her bare body like silk against him, her mouth making little moaning noises of want and need...
Jeez, this was like a bad sex scene in a film, some sort of porn feature with the woman in chains and... and...
...And why was everything getting so dark?
Dark around the edges... He stared through the dwindling, deepening hole that was left, at Taeauna's eyes... So sad as he stared into them, her mouth still so soft and sweet... Were those tears?
Can't see... Everything going as gloomy as nightfall... That spicy-sweet taste rising again in his mouth...
No! Told you! Doomed! She's Arlaghaun's creature! DOOMED!
Fade to black.
THE HAND THAT came down on his wrist was slender and shapely and as strong as unyielding iron.
The stout onetime pirate struggled to free his hand, grunting and sweating and suddenly throwing all his weight behind a shove, followed by a titanic pull.
The delicate-looking hand remained right where it was, but its strikingly beautiful owner put her face very close to his.
Which meant her bosom thrust against him, somewhere just under his chin, soft and yet shockingly firm.
"Garfist Gulkoon," Dauntra of the Aumrarr said pleasantly, "or to use the name you were born with: Norbryn, if you try to steal from me, or any of my sisters, ever again, we shall remove a surplus part of your anatomy. Your right thumb, I think. If you try again, the left one. Then your male member, which I doubt you've been able to properly see for years, without the aid of a mirror, and then your nose. A man looks somewhat strange without a nose. Then we'll start on your fingers. This may perhaps have a detrimental effect upon your future endeavors, but frankly I care not. Now, do we understand each other?"
"Y-yes," Garfist managed to squeak, letting go of the little dagger he'd tried to draw out of her elbow-sheath". Without seeming to hurry in the slightest, she caught it in midair, her large and impish brown eyes never leaving his.
"Sorry," he muttered. "Uh... ah... how is it you know my... cradle name?"
"Old Ox, we know all about you," Dauntra said, and kissed him.
A moment later she drew back her warm lips from his, smiled again into his incredulous face, and added sweetly, "That's why I'm being so gentle with you. I could have just bitten off your nose and some fingers, and started chewing."
THE STONE FLOOR was cold and hard and uneven; Rod came awake shivering in the dark.
He was naked, and in some sort of room underground, probably a dungeon cell. He wasn't chained, and there didn't seem to be anyone else sharing the room with him. Or at least, he couldn't hear anyone else breathing but himself.
No Taeauna, no enchanted items, not even the little whispering voice.
There you're wrong, came the faintest of whispers. Fool of fools.
"Lorontar?" Rod asked.
Silence.
"Lorontar?" he asked again, raising his voice. It echoed back to him, and from a great distance away there came a faint, short grating sound.
Then silence again.
"Damn," Rod murmured, sagging back down.
I was right, the tiny voice deep in his head said, so faint he had to strain to hear it at all. Next time, listen to me, and believe. IF you get a next time, Rod Everlar.
"Damn," Rod said, more loudly.
There came no reply, so he lay still in the darkness, and let it swallow him. It was dark enough to suit his mood, at least.
After what seemed like a long time he sighed, got up to his knees, and started crawling forward, gingerly feeling in front of him with outstretched hands. It wasn't long before he came to a wall; he turned left and felt along it, finding the seams of what was probably a door. A little way beyond that was a corner, and it didn't seem to take all that long a time before he'd found his way all the way around the walls of his smallish rectangular room.
He laid back down again and tried to think of the real world, tried to recall things in all their vivid colors, smells, and... and...
Taeauna. Always her face intruded, smiling, lips parting to meet his... Or falling into his bed, that first time he saw her, bleeding and crying out for him, the Dark Helms bursting in on them...
Taeauna, who'd betrayed him. In the grip of Arlaghaun's spells, though, and she'd fought to show him that, at the end, when it was too late. She'd felt sad at his fate.
Where was she now?
For that matter, where was he now?
Well, trapped in Falconfar, that much was certain. Try as he might, he couldn't think
strongly enough of the real world, the world of Rod Everlar the writer, to leave this dark, cold place.
He was stuck here, presumably in Arlaghaun's clutches, for who knew how long? Until he died, perhaps, of thirst or the cold. A Shaper made powerless to shape...
Hmm. Perhaps...
He sat up against the wall, and started to sing, moving his hands through the air as if he was drawing some sort of intricate picture.
"Oh, I'm Shaping... shapes to change the world... shapes to make the Falcon fly where the Falcon has never flown before... just Shaping..."
If he could goad the wizard into sending someone to stop him...
He went on singing random nonsense about Shaping until he ran out of words, and then just hummed the notes of his "I'm just Shaping" refrain, over and over again. Waiting. I
There came a metallic crash in the distance, and then footfalls, and a light! A torch, glimmering and bobbing in the distance, showing Rod the door was just there, and had a tiny slot window in it, up high. Too high for him to peer through. No lock or handle or keyhole, no hinges that he could see.
The light grew, moving steadily nearer and nearer. Rod looked quickly around, to see if he'd missed anything in the cell, and to judge its size better. It was just a bare room—no water, no toilet hole, no manacles, nothing—and it was about twenty feet across by about a dozen deep. Just the one door, nothing of interest on the walls, floor, or ceiling...
The torch flared right outside the window, blinding-bright.
Rod hissed in pain and turned his head away. Too late, of course. He heard something scraping momentarily against a stone wall. The torch was being slid into some sort of holder, he guessed.
Then a bar was lifted, wrestled, and set down; a heavy timber, by the sounds of it. The door grated open.
If this had been the climax of a movie, or a crucial scene in some heroic novel, he'd leap to his feet, brain his jailer, and flee to freedom.
Rod sat right where he was, still blinded.
Someone with heavy feet came ponderously into the cell and took him by the throat.
The hand around his throat was huge and horribly strong, and it smelled. Of swamp-water and some sort of rank, underlying musk. Rod blinked, trying to see, and then decided against it.
Whatever this was, it probably wasn't human.
Rod felt himself being lifted off his feet and carried, strangling in that grip. Out of the cell, he thought, smelling the torch now, very near.
And then the torch moved, was thrust against him, and held there searingly.
Rod screamed, as loud and as hard as he could and then tried to stop, in horror, as he felt flames being thrust against his mouth.
God, the pain!
Every breath was an agony, every...
He barely noticed when the torch was returned to its wall-holder and he was carried a step back, into the doorway.
He certainly noticed when the creature's other hand slammed one of his forearms against the doorframe.
And then drew away, only to slam back hard, breaking his arm across that stone edge.
Rod screamed again, or tried to.
He went on with that raw sobbing as he was flung to the cell floor, kicked in the ribs until he was over on his back, and then fresh agony, like ice, took the hand on his other arm with him.
Moaning, rocking, Rod tried to see through streaming eyes. One arm was broken, and his other hand was—gone.
It had been chopped off, with one hard and heavy blow from a dripping axe.
A hand that was slimy, olive green, and with fingers the shape of fat carrots took up his severed hand from the floor.
Rod fell back, still trying to scream. The door slammed, the bar was dropped back into place, and the torch was taken away.
His mouth was a cooked ruin, his chest burned deep and raw, and...
Not a word had been spoken to him.
That I can remedy. Heed me henceforth. After all, I told you so.
The tiny voice, so deep in his mind and sounding now so weary and feeble, was scant consolation.
"Keep me sane," Rod told it, or tried to; the words came out more as bubblings than anything else.
Sane? Ha! YEARS too late for that!
Whatever reply Rod's pain-mazed wits might have come up with was lost in a sudden voice purring nigh his ear.
"We'll just see how swiftly you heal, Shaper." It was Arlaghaun, gloating openly. "Of course, just one trial won't suffice. I'll be sending quite a procession of visitors to you. Perhaps even your little chained Aumrarr."
Rod struggled to utter suitable obscenities in reply, but couldn't. So he settled for fainting, instead.
WHEN HE AWAKENED, a little later, all the pain was gone. He seemed to have his hand back, and his broken arm felt whole. He was tingling, though, all over.
Then he heard a whooshing sound, as if something was approaching him very rapidly. The air seemed to crackle, with a very high-pitched singing sound, and rose-red radiance surrounded him.
When Rod opened his gummy, encrusted eyes, and turned his head to look at where the magic had come from, he found himself staring through the open cell doorway at a distant robed figure, standing well down a stone passage beyond. It wasn't Arlaghaun, but someone younger. Younger and broader of shoulders and belly, with an unkempt, curly beard like a fringe all around his jaw.
The mage was glaring at him, a little fearfully, and raising his hands to warily cast another spell.
Another trial. Well, magic he could ignore, as it seemed to ignore him. Rod closed his eyes again. Briefly he entertained the idea of rolling to his feet and racing out of the cell, kicking the young wizard where it would hurt most and then running like hell... but no. Arlaghaun would be watching, and that brutal, slimy thing with the green hands was probably the least of the horrors that wizard could send to disembowel or acid-melt or sting or even lay eggs into him, his latest helpless captive.
Yes, Arlaghaun was watching right now.
Rod smiled, just to give the wizard something to think about.
"Wizard," he added, as another spell washed over him, "your doom is now inevitable. I was going to spare you, but now, I think not."
Mere empty words, but perhaps they would worry Arlaghaun, and give him something to try to unearth. Or something else to waste his time on.
Another spell cracked and crackled over him. Rod yawned, and went to sleep again.
"WHAT WOULD YOU say to me," Velduke Mistryn asked, over their third pouring of wine, "if I said I was seriously debating whether or not to kill you, here and now, and take the crown of Galath for my own?"
"I'm not sure, Mard," King Brorsavar replied quietly, his broad shoulders shifting not at all, neither of his hands heading for a weapon-hilt. "Is it something you feel it's likely you'll say to me?"
Mardrammur Mistryn smiled. "No. No, I don't think so. Not anymore."
After a moment, he added, "I can tell by your face that you're protected against the mranth."
"That and the fact I haven't fallen dead on that face just yet," the king said dryly. "Pity to taint good wine with it, though."
"For Galath, one must make sacrifices."
"Indeed."
ROD WAS GETTING used to the pain. Arlaghaun didn't send his apprentices to the cell often, just to try casting spells on his wounds or severed stumps from time to time.
Yet the Doom of Galath seemed to have a small army of cruel, malicious monsters that delighted in breaking limbs, raking open skin, and even eating hands and feet right off Rod Everlar's living body.
Seeking to learn the secrets or limits of a Shaper's healing and magic-immunity powers, my left testicle.
And it had been the right one, too, from time to time.
It still hurt like sin when he was violated or had something torn out or chopped off, but he was getting used to it.
It was true. One really could get used to anything.
He was getting weaker, yes; he had no idea how long he'd been here, but t
here'd been no food. No water, either, but the various monsters often forced open his mouth—or broke his jaw, if he resisted—and relieved themselves down his throat. Most of their urine was like liquid fire, or worse, but some was nearly water. Close enough, it seemed.
He was tired now; he was always tired. He ached, too, in every waking moment. So much for being a Shaper, or a Lord High Archwizard...
Rod was lying on his back, on the patch of cell floor that had just enough of a hump to serve him as a sort of pillow. There wasn't much left of his right leg below the knee since it had been crushed to bloody pulp by a laughing, cursing monster with a face like crawling eels, but it was slowly healing, and there were, as he'd already reminded himself, no pressing social engagements that he had to hurry and be on his feet for.
He didn't bother to open his eyes at the sounds of lightly trudging footfalls, but couldn't help being mildly interested. Whoever was struggling with the door-bar was weaker than the monsters.
His soon-to-be-visitor was breathing heavily, now, and setting down a lantern on the floor. Rod heard an uncertain, wary male voice murmur a brief incantation, and then a face seemed to form in his mind, like patches of frost spreading across a winter-lashed window.
It was the fat young scraggle-bearded apprentice who'd once hurled spells at him.
Yes, said the whispering voice deep in Rod's mind. YES.
And Lorontar the Archwizard reared up like a snake inside Rod and struck, lashing without warning through Rod's thoughts right into the fearful mind of the apprentice Klammert.
In a few terrified instants Rod became aware of the apprentice's name, that Arlaghaun had sent him to attempt the dangerous task of spell-probing Rod's mind because the Doom preferred not to risk his own wits, and that Lorontar had been biding his time down deep in Rod's memories for just such a chance as this.
And had now seized it.
Lorontar had ridden Klammert's probe right back into the apprentice's mind, overwhelmed him, and taken control of his body.
Rod opened his eyes in time to see Klammert turn and rush off down the passage. His contact with Lorontar faded with every running step, but he'd "heard" enough to know the thralled Klammert was hurrying to try to slay Arlaghaun.
