by Ed Greenwood
Only to vanish, instantly and silently, in the proverbial blink of an eve. Very much there one moment, and gone the next. Like a dream.
But this had certainly been no dream. Across the room, the severed ends of the power cable that the calmly murderous Dark Helm had sliced through were still swinging gently, back and forth, spitting sparks almost lazily out onto the floor.
Rusty stared at them, trying to remember where the nearest guns were, and how many locks he'd have to get through to get at them. Behind him, the huge metal fortress-door of Brain Central stood closed and gleaming. Silent and immobile, with who knew what sort of panic going on behind it.
Well, Hank knew, for one—and it was his problem now.
Faintly, far away, the wail of a siren arose, and the Head of Nrjurity found himself smiling humorlessly.
Or he could just wait for the police. It seemed Derek had taken Rusty Carroll seriously for once, after all.
Which just left him the colossal headache of dealing with all of the injuries and deaths, which—if the six Dark Helms and the... the creature that had flown in with them had been half as efficiently deadly as they'd seemed to be—could be many, plus all the inevitable lawyers, and shattered glass windows that until recently had been the outside walls of the company's corporate headquarters, and all of the electrical damage, too, and...
"No sign of them, Chief!" Pete said excitedly, whirling from the screens with fresh tears leaking from his eyes. "We're clear!"
And Rusty Carroll let out a deep breath he hadn't known he was holding until that moment, and smiled a smile so broad he thought his face might hurt.
The parade of colossal headaches ahead were nothing, nothing at all.
THE MAGIC SEIZED hold of him like a fist, bruisingly hard. He choked, trying to fight it, and—
Narmarkoun. The voice thundered in his head, coldly hostile and gloating. It was Malraun, and yet it was not only Malraun. It was older, deeper... colder.
The world whirled and flashed around him, and he found himself suddenly blinking in the changed light. He was in the open, under the sky, standing amid rubble on ruined stone tiles. It was somewhere he'd seen before, only never so smashed and ruined as this. Malragard?
Malragard, tower of his hated foe Malraun, and it had been Malraun who'd so tauntingly called him here.
Blinking as he called on all the magic he had left to him, gathering it for the coming fight, he stared all around.
Yes, it was Malragard, and here were his own Dark Helms, striding grimly through the tumbled stones with swords drawn, coming closer. Through billowing smoke they came—and greater darkness gathered overhead. His greatfangs were gliding through the sky, converging overhead... all six of them. But how-?
"Narmarkoun!" Malraun crooned. His voice came from behind Narmarkoun, not far off.
Even before he turned to face Malraun, fighting to stammer out a warding spell, Narmarkoun knew what he would see.
And what would happen to him.
Malraun was holding two horn-headed scepters, smiling faintly. The moment their eyes met, he unleashed those scepters.
And Narmarkoun screamed.
Could not help but scream as magic thrust into him, as sharp and as painful as any saw-bladed lorn sword. Then the claws of Malraun's cruel magic tore at his body, tugging it open, and he had no breath left to scream.
He was spun around, helpless, unable even to cry as the clawing magics tore at him and spiraled, whirling around him in a tightening sphere, drawing in close as they raked and tore.
His blood sprayed out of him in a mist, his legs wobbled and failed beneath him, a red fire of agony slashed across his world as one of his arms was torn away, and Narmarkoun sobbed as he fought to focus on one rune in his mind, the relic of a spell memorized long ago. His last hope, his only way out of this...
He was a helpless, bloody wreck already, armless, stumbling on shattered legs, whirled along by magics, reeling back... back...
He was vaguely aware of striking something hard, his shoulder and ribs giving way, collapsing into shards that stabbed through his smashed and broken body.
It was what was left of a wall, and the whirlwind of clawing magic moaned through it as if its cracked stones had been mere butter, or no more than smoke.
His body crushed, Narmarkoun writhed in agony, sobbing in the heart of a cloud of gore, clinging to one thing in his thoughts, a rune that blazed brightly...
By the time the whirling cloud of blood reached a second wall and collapsed into a wet smear of gore across it, the pitiful remnant of the wizard was no longer at the heart of it.
"AS WE PLANNED, Bel?"
"As we planned. Galath, departing just as soon—and as quietly—as we can. I'd rather not have to fight my way out of the home I grew up in."
"Not even if it means killing as many of the family as we can?"
NARMAKOUN PLUNGED INTO the rune, became the rune, and the agony suddenly ebbed away. He was whirling again, even faster than Malraun's savaging magic had spun him, rushing along far from the riven tower of Malragard, racing home.
His own cold castle. Its familiar silent chill unfolded around him and enshrouded him as he sped on, an eerily whirling glow whose approach made his undead playpretties turn to stare expressionlessly. On, on down long passages and through high, balconied chambers seared out of the solid rock, past many rotting shoulders and silently gliding legs, toward just one of his beauties, who awaited him on her knees, as naked as all the others, her mouth open and eyes staring in astonishment.
The glow of the rune he clung to was answered by an identical glow issuing from her mouth, from the matching rune that his spell had long ago left in her head for just this need.
A glow his rune raced towards, Narmarkoun whimpering in anticipation of the agony that was to come.
Rune met rune, and what little was left of his playpretty's mind died as her world, and that of her master, burst into soundless mage-light.
She writhed, jerked and flailed on the stone floor in the heart of the flaring and fading light. The other playpretties stared as Narmarkoun shuddered in the grip of greater pain than even Malraun's spell-clawings had brought him, fighting to master his new body while still unable to control his own reeling mind...
After what felt like a very long time, Narmarkoun felt his agony ebb and the thrashings and spasms of his new body lessen. He slowly became aware that he was sobbing, a deep and ragged mewling that died away into a wordless whimpering.
Which was about the time he realized something else. A severed head had just struck the stones beside him, to bounce and then roll past. A headless but otherwise shapely body followed, toppling loose-limbed.
Narmarkoun blinked, his whimpering ending in astonishment. As a sword flashed past, not far from his nose, to slice deeply into the cold, bloodless body of another of his playpretties.
Narmarkoun blinked again, hardly daring to look up. He was fresh out of runes.
ROD EVERLAR PELTED down seemingly endless stairs, step after racing step—how deep did Malragard go, anyway?—as he watched the open maw of the closest greatfangs looming behind him.
Half Falconfar, if they knew the Lord Archwizard was more than a mere fancy-tale, probably thought he could spin around, wave his hands, grandly declaim some thunderous words of magic, and in an instant blow the greatfangs—all of the greatfangs, all six of them—to a rain of blood and scales that would still be fading away as he dusted his hands together in satisfaction, turned away, and strolled down the last few steps.
Into what looked to be the cellars, or dungeons—did a Doom of Falconfar have dungeons, with prisoners or their forgotten skeletons dangling from walls in chains in every dark corner of them?—of Malraun's tower of Malragard.
Yet Shaping didn't work like that, and Rod was a Shaper, not a wizard at all. Still less a Lord Archwizard, able to lurk for centuries in the minds of others or in waiting magic swords or rings or crowns or suchlike baubles, just waiting for some unsuspect
ing r-zrson to happen along, pick the glittering lure up out of the dust—and get taken over by the ruthless Lorontar, on the spot.
Everyone seemed to think that he, Rod Everlar, was some sort of hero who would know exactly how to set Falconfar to rights and set about it, seeing into the minds of everyone, blasting the villains, lauding the gallant and aiding the oppressed. Hell, beyond the lorn and the Dark Helms and every wizard, he didn't even know who the villains were, though he was beginning to think every last knight and noble, except perhaps Velduke Deldragon and Baron Tindror in Galath, reveled in being as dastardly as they could be.
Taeauna had brought him here to be Falconfar's savior and hero. Rod knew she now knew better, yet liked him anyway. Even if her respect for him as the all-knowing Fixer of Wrongs was gone and she knew he was a bumbling idiot without her constant guidance, she knew he tried to be a good guy, and his blood was still useful for healing, too, and—
Oh, yes, that. He'd almost forgotten about that.
Falling bruisingly onto his left shoulder for about the fortieth time—it would have been his nose, if his head hadn't been turned around hard to look over his shoulder—Rod watched tumbling stones and heaving tiles and a darkness that might have been Malraun the Matchless vanish down that greatfangs' maw and wondered if drinking his own blood could heal him enough to bring him right back to life after he'd died.
Probably not, if he'd spilled it all.
NARMARKOUN STARED UP at sharp-bladed death.
The body that was now his was more shapely than most of his playpretties, and showed no signs of decay at all. His spell had long kept it supple and strong, not a decaying thing.
He could see in the eyes of the men confronting him over their drawn swords—a motley band of warriors, a score of them or more, all strangers to him—that the bared body he now inhabited was beautiful.
And that they were scared of him despite his whimpering on the floor before them, and his obvious lack of a blade. He—no, to their eyes, she-, he must not forget that—was no grotesque horror to any gaze, yet her sleekness was the cold gray of undeath, of the sort they'd been seeing—and hewing apart in terror—since they'd arrived here.
Which had not been long ago, by the looks of them. He knew his holds held little in the way of warmth or food for the living, and this castle was no different from the rest. Nor treasure that could be easily found, for that matter. They'd come here seeking something they would not find.
Which made them doubly dangerous. He had no spells left at the moment with which to fight them, no things of magic near at hand that he could snatch up to blast them with, and no more runes to whisk him to the safety of another body elsewhere, if he was hewn down now.
In short, as the Falconfar saying went, if he walked not right carefully now, his striding would be straight to his final doom.
"Slay me not!" he pleaded, hearing the hoarse, long-unused voice grate out of his throat higher and lighter than his own speech. Their eyes bored into him, looking him up and down, seeing him as a woman one moment, and an undead thing the next... and then a woman again.
Well enough. He would be a woman, helpless and timid, and rope thereby to survive, to—
"Who are you?" one of the warriors demanded, waving the tip of his sword through the air right in front of the kneeling, trembling woman's throat.
"D-Daera, I am called," Narmarkoun replied, knowing it to be the truth. Even with the mind that had belonged to this body quite burned away and gone, the name clung to the skull. Even farmers' daughters knew their own names. "Daera. I am a slave to the wizard Narmarkoun, Doom of Falconfar. A pleasure-slave. This is his castle."
"So much we know," another warrior growled. "Where is he?"
"I know not," Narmarkoun replied, spreading her hands and inwardly marveling at how swiftly Daera's voice went from a dry croak to husky smoothness.
The men's eyes flickered at her lithe movements, and the cold, calmly calculating wizard within her took care to quell the little smile that this body now wanted to make. "I have not seen him in these halls for a long time," she added.
"Oh? How many days?" yet another man snapped suspiciously. They all seemed to want to wave their swords menacingly when they spoke.
Daera shrugged her helplessness, on her knees before them, her imploring eyes large and dark. "I know not. It is hard to tell the passage of days here, walled in by the rock. It seems a long time. Who..."
She hesitated, making her question, when it came, sound bewildered and fearful rather than any sort of challenge. "Who are you?"
"We're—" one warrior started, but fell silent when the man standing beside him waved him fiercely to silence.
"We are of Darswords," another man said, his voice very deep and grim. "We fled Horgul's army, and found this place."
"Sought shelter," the first warrior added tersely, and stabbed out with his arm and sword in an arc to wave at the stone ceiling overhead, indicating the entire castle. "Does the wizard spend much time here?"
"He always has," she almost whispered. "I—I can only think something's happened to him."
One or two of the warriors grinned at that. "Our hope, too," one of them muttered.
"Great lords," Daera asked, raising her hands very slowly to them in entreaty, and then crossing her wrists over each other to signify her submission and willingness to be bound, "will you spare me? Please?"
The reply she got was more murmurings than words, as the men of Darswords looked at her and at each other. Most sounded undecided, a few suspicious, and a few—just a few—pitying. Yet Narmarkoun was most used to dealing with his own spellbound slaves, not fearful warriors of a small upcountry hold. In recent years—decades—he'd had as little to do with the living as he could.
"You are..." It was the deep-voiced man again; the rest fell silent. "You are the wizard's creature. Dead by magic, yet kept walking and talking by magic. How do we know he cannot control you from afar, even hurl spells at us through you?"
Falcon spit. Narmarkoun fought to keep all hint of anger from his—her—face.
"I am not dead!" she made herself say fiercely, turning to look at him. "No! I live, I breathe—only the eldest of the slaves here are kept from crumbling to dust by the wizard's spells! Take me out of this place, and you'll see! Out under the sun, in the wind and the rain, I'll crumble not! I will laugh, and kiss you for your kindness, and live!"
There. As pretty a piece of acting as he'd ever seen any deceiving woman do, in all his years. That ought to do it.
"You avoid answering me," the deep-voiced man said grimly. "I asked this: how do we know your master cannot control you from afar, and cast spells at us through you? I ask it again, and await your answer."
Narmarkoun made Daera stare up at him open-mouthed, a weakling rather than a challenger.
"I am patient," the deep-voiced warrior added, after a moment, "but my sword is not."
Daera drew in a deep breath, and replied with a hint of fierce desperation, "You don't know, and can't know—because I can't be sure, and I have been in his thrall for years. Yet he has never done such to any of us. Cast magic through us, I mean. He controls us by his hands, or magic in his gaze, or lashes us with spells—magic he casts at us, not through us at another."
The deep-voiced warrior took a pace forward, the tip of his sword rising ready at her throat, and stared hard into her eyes, as if he could read truth there, or falsehoods.
Daera stared back at him, seemingly unafraid now, almost defiant.
After a long, silent moment he nodded and took his sword away. "You mean what you say," he granted, "yet you have more you want to say. Fear of us and our swords is holding your tongue. Say it, whatever it is, and I'll not strike you down. I would rather know what is in your mind than have you cowed but simmering. Speak, woman."
"I will," Daera told him grimly. "You asked me where my master Narmarkoun is. I know not, but will help you search this castle to find him. I do not think he is here, but I tell you this, me
n of Darswords: if you do find him, you should not be too swift to swing your swords at him. He is a wizard, and all wizards are dangerous, yes—but if you faced a dragon, and knew where there was a sword that could slay dragons, would you not go and fetch it? I know Narmarkoun fears another wizard, one called Lorontar."
"Lorontar," one warrior breathed. "The Lord Archwizard of Falconfar."
"Night-fright legend!" another man snapped.
"The Ghost Wizard," someone else said uneasily, and shook his head in a dismissive grin that did not hold much bright confidence. "Dead, yet working fell magics still."
"Dead but not dead," Daera told them, "as I am not dead. If you do find Narmarkoun, you should work with him, as allies, against Lorontar's far greater evil. If you cut down Narmarkoun, and then think yourself safe, you will have broken your Archwizard- slaying-sword, and will someday face the Archwizard empty- handed. Darswords will be no refuge, even if Horgul is gone and no armies ever march again. Not with Lorontar the only wizard left in the world."
"So it's time to ally with wizards?" the deep-voiced warrior asked, in slow and heavy disbelief.
Daera lifted her head to stare hard into his eyes, nod, and reply firmly, "It's time. For the good—nay, for the survival—of Falconfar."
"YOU HEARD WHAT happened to Jaklar?" Talyss purred smugly.
"Torn to death by wolves," her brother Belard replied, turning from an open leather shoulder-satchel on the table before him. "Led by Amteira Hammerhand, who could not stop calling on the Forestmother all the while, as they snarled and bit and savaged him to pieces. Ate him alive. A fitting end, I'd say—and I'd say something else, too: the goddess of the Raurklor has changed holy servants. In an impressively bloody fashion, I might add."
His sister nodded, leaning against the door frame of his bedchamber with languid grace. "You're fully informed, as usual. Ready to leave?"
Belard sighed. "Yes, but without the gems I was planning to take with us. It seems someone robbed our dear parents before I could."
