by Ed Greenwood
Also by Ed Greenwood
Forgotten Realms
Shandril's Saga
Spellfire
Crown of Fire
Hand of Fire
The Elminster Series
Elminster: The Making of a Mage
Elminster in Myth Drannor
The Temptation of Elminster
Elminster in Hell
Elminster's Daughter
The Shadow of the Avatar Trilogy
Shadows of Doom
Cloak of Shadows
All Shadows Fled
The Cormyr Saga
Cormyr: A Novel
Death of the Dragon
The Harpers
Crown of Fire
Stormlight
Double Diamond Triangle Saga
The Mercenaries
The Diamond
Sembia
"The Burning Chalice" - The Halls of
Stormweather:
A Novel in Seven Parts
The Knights of Myth Drannor Trilogy
Swords of Eveningstar
Swords of Dragonfire
Other titles
Silverfall: Stories of the Seven Sisters
Other Novels
Band of Four Series
The Kingless Land
The Vacant Throne
A Dragon's Ascension
The Dragon's Doom
The Silent House: A Chronicle of Aglirta
First published 2010 by
Solaris an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,
Riverside House, Osney Mead,
Oxford, OX1 OES, UK
www.solarisbooks.com
ISBN: 978 1 906735 61 6
Copyright © Ed Greenwood 2010
The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.
10 987654321
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library.
Designed & typeset by Rebellion Publishing Printed in the US
The Story Thus Far
ROD EVERLAR, A successful author of Cold War-era action thrillers and fantasy novels set in his imagined world of Falconfar, is astonished one night when Taeauna—one of a race of good winged warrior-women he created for his fantasy books—literally falls out of his dreams, onto his bed. Badly wounded and beset, she pleads with Rod to aid her and Falconfar.
Rod discovers the world he thought was created only in his imagination is all too real—and that its people believe he, Rod Everlar, is its Lord Archwizard or Dark Lord, the most powerful of the "Dooms," powerful wizards who can literally change Falconfar with their magic.
Plunged bewilderingly into a medieval fantasy world that's familiar but also dangerously different from his imaginings, Rod is swept into a civil war in the kingdom of Galath. One of the Dooms, the wizard Arlaghaun, is controlling the King of Galath, and seeking absolute tyranny over the Galathan nobles.
For years, the three other Dooms—the wizards Arlaghaun, Malraun, and Narmarkoun—have fought each other, in a struggle that none of them could win. Rod's arrival shatters the stalemate between them, just as Arlaghaun is on the verge of seizing control over Galath.
There are signs that a long-dead wizard of matchless might, Lorontar—the only Lord Archwizard of Falconfar before Rod— is stirring, somehow still alive (or undead), and seeking to control the living.
At the end of DARK LORD, the first novel of the Falconfar saga, Arlaghaun is slain in Ult Tower. The wizard Malraun appears, snatches Taeauna, and magically whisks her away as his captive, leaving Rod Everlar raging helplessly, desperate to rescue her but not knowing how.
As the second Falconfar book, ARCH WIZARD, begins, Rod tries to follow Taeauna, using magic he doesn't understand, but instead arrives in the distant vale of Ironthorn, where three self- styled Lords (Hammerhand, Lyrose, and Tesmer) are locked in a struggle against each other for rule of the valley—a long-term struggle that has just flared up again with the slaying of the Hammerhand and Lyrose heirs in a forest skirmish.
Taken to Lord Hammerhand, Rod asks for help in finding Taeauna and ends up taking part in an assault on the castle of the rival Lyrose family, where Lord Hammerhand insists Taeauna must be. Hammerhand secretly intends to use Rod's powers as Lord Archwizard to destroy or greatly weaken his hated foes the Lyroses, then have Rod killed, considering wizards far more dangerous than rival Ironthar.
During the assault, Rod and the band of Hammerhand knights are magically transported to distant Malragard, the tower of the Doom Malraun (ally of the Lyroses). Its defenses kill the knights, one after another, but Rod manages to stay alive, and eventually manages to sleep and dream, "Shaping" (altering the reality of) Falconfar. He dreams, among other things, of Malragard collapsing around him—and it does.
Before their deaths, Hammerhand's knights had drugged Rod Everlar to compel him to tell the truth, and questioned him about where he'd come from. The wizard Narmarkoun used magic to spy on this questioning from afar, and so learned about our Earth from it; enough to pique his interest. He sends a lorn and some Dark Helms to Earth, to mount an attack on Holdoncorp, the computer gaming company that owns the rights to the world of Falconfar. Like Rod Everlar, some of its programmers have the unwitting power to affect "reality" in Falconfar, as Shapers, and Narmarkoun is determined to gain control of all Falconfar by controlling—or killing—all of the Shapers who can influence it. Through the eyes of Rusty Carroll, security chief of Holdoncorp, we see Narmarkoun's forces attack the company's corporate headquarters and butcher their way through Holdoncorp staffers.
Meanwhile, two rough, veteran and aging scoundrels and adventurers, Garfist Gulkoun and his longtime partner Iskarra Taeravund, have blundered into the midst of Rod Everlar's adventures and become captives of the Aumrarr, who repeatedly whisk them away from trouble but keep them captive because they will soon become "useful" or "necessary." For just what, the Aumrarr decline to say. As FALCONFAR begins, these Aumrarr have been reduced to two, Dauntra and Juskra, and they have promised to fly Gar and Isk across most of the vast forest known as the Raurklar to the land of Galath, for their safety and to await their future moment of usefulness.
The wizard Malraun has also been busy, with a captive, mind- controlled Taeauna at his side. He has been aiding the Army of Liberation, mustered by the Stormar warlord Horgul (who has been acting under his influence), and with Horgul's death, leading the Army himself. The Army has conquered hold after hold, heading for Ironthorn.
Unbeknownst to Malraun, the infamous Lorontar, the long- dead Lord Archwizard of Falconfar, still exists in undeath, and has invaded (and is hiding in) Taeauna's mind. After the army conquers the hold of Darswords, distant meddling by the wizard Narmarkoun (who, though he doesn't know it, has himself fallen under Lorontar's mental influence) unintentionally breaks Malraun's control over Taeauna, allowing Lorontar to control her instead. Not realizing this, and awakened by the chaos in his own mind caused by the ruin of his distant tower of Malragard, an enraged Malraun magically transports himself to Malragard, to destroy the cause of that destruction: Rod Everlar.
Back in Ironthorn, its third ruling family, the Tesmers, have long been the agents of the wizard Narmarkoun (just as the Lyroses were backed by Malraun), though they fight among themselves almost as fiercely as they strike out against their rivals. We see two of the many Tesmer children, Belard and Talyss, a brother and sister who've lon
g hated each other, enter into a secret alliance, steal wealth from their parents, and depart Ironthorn. Which is when their mother reveals to her husband that he's not their father; of all their children, these two were sired by the wizard Narmarkoun—and, it now seems, have inherited his magical skills.
As the wizard Malraun appears in Malragard, to destroy Rod Everlar, Lorontar uses his control over Narmarkoun to make that wizard whisk the surviving Dark Helms he sent to Earth to Malragard, and take himself there, too, to do battle with Malraun. Lorontar has already broken Narmarkoun's control over his "greatfangs," huge dragon-like flying monsters he has been breeding and training—and all six of them are now racing toward Malragard, to attack and destroy their master.
Finding himself beset on all sides, Malraun reaches back to the mind of his thrall, Taeauna, to whisk himself to her side, back to Darswords and away from peril—and Lorontar gloatingly reveals himself and strikes at Malraun with spells.
The wizard goes mad, hurling magical destruction right and left—including blasting the wizard Narmarkoun.
As ARCH WIZARD ends, Malraun's body, now controlled by Lorontar, stalks toward Rod Everlar. Lorontar declares he'll now take Rod's body from him, Rod feebly tries to flee—and from out of the sky, six huge greatfangs swoop down, jaws agape, seeking to devour the wizards they so fear and hate.
For what happens next, read on...
ROD EVERLAR STARED into wide-mawed death.
Down out of the skies it came, hurtling at him six-fold, darknesses so large that they almost blotted out the sky.
Six creatures out of nightmare. Out of his nightmares, literally. The dragon-like, long-tailed, scaly bat-winged monsters called greatfangs.
In the forefront were the two largest wyrms, leviathans both larger than the wizard's tower had been before its fall. Their gaping jaws were large enough to swallow not just Rod, but hundreds of knights standing with him—if he'd had such an army.
Instead, he was fleeing quite alone, plunging frantically down a stone stair he was sure one of the greatfangs would swallow, railings and steps and all, stumbling and falling as he fled blindly on and down, head turned back over his shoulder to watch those huge mouths coming for him.
Neck straining, Rod couldn't look away, couldn't stop watching :oom rush down on him, fangs as tall as trees framing dark red maws, the glaring eyes above fixed hungrily, angrily on him...
He was going to die here, die horribly in those chewing jaws, moments from now. There was no escape. Already the gaping maw of the foremost greatfangs was framing the blindly lurching body of Malraun, staggering after Rod down the stair.
It had probably swallowed Taeauna already; he could see and -ear no sign of her, though he was still shouting her name to the skies.
And if she was gone, what was the point of going on? Why not just lie down and let a hungry greatfangs take him?
Taeauna, emerald eyes flashing as she swung her sword in battle.
Cat-graceful, raven-black hair swirling about her shoulders as she ran.
Laughing at him around a doorway, mouth crooked impishly... or eyes large and dark with fear, captured in a moment when she feared for his fate.
Gods, what beauty! What fire. Trusting in him even when she was contemptuous of his ignorance, or despairing of his failings. Watching over him, defending him, a veteran warrior protecting a foolish younger brother.
The one who'd dragged him here, who'd plunged him into Falconfar and kept him alive. His guide, his bodyguard, his... everything.
"Everything," he sobbed aloud, as he lost his footing and slammed into another landing, bouncing his chin and one hand bruisingly off unyielding stone.
He scrambled to his feet and fled downwards, seeing not the stair but Taeauna again, eyes fixed on his imploringly as he'd seen her last, from afar, a captive.
So beautiful... and gone now, no doubt engulfed and tumbled into the scalding innards of a greatfangs, drowning in the roiling acids of its gullet, silent forever and... and lost.
He loved her, damn it.
And was lost without her.
No Taeauna...
It had all happened so fast.
Rod had awakened from a dream of Malragard collapsing into ruin around him to discover he'd been shaping in his dreams, and the tower was falling.
Then Malraun had appeared, raging madly at the destruction of his tower, and lashed at Rod Everlar with spell-lightnings—then burst into lunatic laughter and turned the lightning bolts stabbing from his fingers to felling all the Dark Helms.
Rod had been rolling desperately away over cracked and heaved stone tiles, fleeing snarling lightnings, but he'd seen and heard Malraun well enough.
With a roar of triumph, Malraun summoned glowing wands and scepters out of the rubble to his waiting hands, spurning most of them to choose and use just two: two horn-headed scepters that forcibly summoned the wizard Narmarkoun from elsewhere—and then tore him apart in a whirling, tightening sphere of clawing magics.
A calmness had fallen on Malraun then, though his eyes were burned away by the fiery magics he'd hurled. He'd smiled sightlessly at Rod and revealed himself as the returned Lorontar, the Archwizard of Falconfar. Who'd hidden in the mind of Taeauna for a long time, and now conquered the body of Malraun, searing that wizard's mind into mad ruin in doing so.
Still smiling, Lorontar had announced his intention of entering and enslaving Rod's body, to gain both Rod's power to alter Falconfar and Rod's knowledge of Earth—and stormed into Rod Everlar's mind.
Only to be beset by Taeauna, rising in sudden mental assault to lash out at Lorontar's sentience from behind. Either she'd been here at Malragard, somehow, or she'd savaged the ancient wizard through their mind-link, from wherever else she was. Freeing Rod to flee, as the six greatfangs plummeted down out of the sky, jaws opening.
Yet the Archwizard had rallied, seeking again to wrest control of Rod's body from him, as Malraun's body staggered on and the greatfangs descended.
Was Taeauna dead?
Rod Everlar cursed bitterly, wanting to pray but not knowing how.
Was he dead already, and just didn't know it yet?
Or did he have a few moments left, before dark, scalding oblivion?
"SO WHAT'S THIS inn ye're taking us to?" Garfist growled, clutching the heavy coffer of gems tightly to his massive belly. It hadn't been his for very long, and he couldn't shake the feeling that it was going to be snatched away from him, somehow. Soon.
"The Stag's Head," Juskra replied, a little grimly, from out of the wing-beaten night just above him.
She was one of the strongest Aumrarr, and a scarred veteran of many battles, but the stout and bear-thewed adventurer dangling from her carry-harness was heavy, and the coffer of Tesmer gems they'd stolen from Imtowers not so very long ago wasn't light either. "We'll not be getting anywhere near that far this night, mind. If the Falcon smiles on us, we might get as far as Telphangh before dawn catches us, and we have to set down."
"Have to set down? How dangerous is Sardray, these days?"
"Dangerous enough," Juskra told him tartly. "They've heard of bows and arrows in Sardray, you know."
"Fat man," Dauntra broke in sharply, from where she flew a little behind Juskra and off to one side, bearing the far lighter burden of Garfist's bony companion Iskarra, "let Jusk save her breath for flying. I'm struggling here, just carrying Isk, and you must be more than thrice her weight!"
"An' it's all muscle, too, look ye!" Garfist grunted triumphantly. "Yet I hear ye, an' I'll leave off talking to my steed, an' talk at ye for a bit. So, what's this Telphangh place, hey?"
"An Aumrarr ruin that other folk shun. That we told you would be our first stop on our way to Galath, remember? It's what's left of an old stone tower, perched on a crag in the heart of the wild Raurklor."
"An' why's it shunned?"
"It's shunned," Juskra put in coldly, "because it's haunted."
"Haunted?"
"Haunted," Dauntra agreed firmly.
"Aye, I heard well enough. I mean, by what?"
"Ghosts. And worse things."
Garfist frowned, and kicked at the air to twist himself around to face Dauntra—a habit that made Juskra's shoulders ache and her temper smolder. "There're worse things than ghosts?"
"Evidently," Dauntra told him sweetly.
"Wingbitch," Garfist growled, "don't toy with me. Ye seem to need us to do yer dirtydark deeds, often enough, an' for that ye need us whole and willing. An' we'll not be so if ye treat us like prisoners, or friends who just happen to be idiots to be chided, an' lied to, an' not told things."
"Gar," Isk said warningly.
"Nay, Snakehips, I'll not be shushed! Who's up here in the night air rushing past to hear us, after all?"
"The lorn who just rose up out of those branches, back yon, to follow us," Dauntra replied quietly.
IN THE SUDDEN silence that fell after the man in black armor vanished in mid-sneer, Rusty stared across the littered security room at Pete.
Pete Sollars stared back at him, lower lip quivering and eyes wide and staring with fear.
After a while, he whimpered.
Which left him a less than ideal candidate for answering any question the Head of Security of Holdoncorp Headquarters might put to him, but Rusty snapped it out anyway.
"Are—are they all gone, Pete?"
"Ooounnh?"
"The monitors, Pete," Rusty snapped, using the flashlight in his hand to point fiercely at the bank of security screens. "Are they all gone?"
Tears were still rolling down Peter's face, but the security observer shook himself, gabbled something apologetic, and scrambled back to his desk, not bothering to pick up his chair or use it. At least Rusty hadn't had to tell him who "they" were.
Only seconds ago, he and Peter had been facing the sixth Dark Helm, large and menacing in his black armor and full-face helm, sharp and glittering sword in hand, stalking forward to murder them both.
