by Ed Greenwood
Only a fantasy game designer could come up with this.
It was too damned ridiculous.
Rod was staring at two tawny, muscular legs that ended not in the paws that should have been there, but sticky, splayed feet like a gecko's.
The beast moved carefully, planting each foot securely before unpeeling the other behind it from the stones, then repeating the process... for all the world as if the sticky toes anchored it to the ground. Maybe they did; its bulbous, tapering body was made of swirling smoke that trailed behind it as it moved.
At the front end were great fanged jaws and an arc of four eyes that seemed to float in the air above them.
A maercrawn!
A which? Several memories had rushed up into Rod's mind to hand him that name, and were now crowding and overlapping confusingly. Deadly, for all its ridiculous looks, another added helpfully.
The maercrawn took two more slow, silent steps toward Rod, who found himself thinking that the beast's legs looked as strong and sleek as a lion's—and opened its jaws impossibly wide.
Rod stared at them.
It was as if a construction site backhoe had opened its scoop- bucket, and was trundling towards him. Except that it was ringed by very long, sharp teeth, and was coming straight for him.
CAREFUL," TAEAUNA MURMURED, her voice so low and soft that the men with her had to stop to hear her.
Which was exactly what she wanted them to do. Rushing around Malragard—this floor of it, at least—was apt to be fatal. For those who wanted to live, caution and stealth were imperative. The traps were many, and Taeauna didn't know precisely where and what all of them were, or how they worked. She suspected Malraun's longtime bodyguards knew even less than she did, once they stepped past their simple, memorized warnings like "don't step here unless you want to die." She'd overheard Eskeln muttering that to himself, once, as they clambered over the rubble of a fallen ceiling, toward a gaping doorway beyond.
They were not alone in the ruins; they had all heard enough to tell that, even if they'd not seen Narmarkoun and his Darsworders plunge through the riven walls ahead of them.
As Taeauna had kept her ten warriors advancing slowly and carefully through roofless, rubble-strewn rooms, Malragard had been noisy around them. They'd heard screams and clattering noises, and once, the ringing din of falling roof-timbers.
The fallen stone underfoot was endless, and slipping through it a slow, noisy, and chancy process. However, they were now coming at last to passages and chambers that had retained their ceilings— and could hear scuttling sounds, ahead in the dimness.
"I—I like not the look of this," Roreld growled, voicing what it was clear they all felt.
Taeauna nodded, keeping her voice soft enough that they all had to lean toward her to hear. "This floor of Malragard is thick with traps meant to kill intruders. What little is left of the floors above holds scant interest for us; Malraun was well aware that thieves tend to believe the lord of any tower will keep his precious things up high, where he rests his head of nights, so he kept his treasures hidden low, instead. Wherefore we should seek a stair down; if they're not now blocked, two such are near. We want the closest one, ahead over that way, because getting to it is far safer than seeking the other."
Old Roreld rolled his eyes. "Saf-er," he emphasised.
Taeauna shrugged. "What better than that do any of us have? Were you a weaver who never left the back room of some Stormar shop except to trudge up to the loft above of nights, to snore, rather than out wandering wild Falconfar earning your coins and bread with your blade, you'd not be 'safe.' 'Safer' is all any of us can hope for."
"A cheery thought, to be sure," he growled, but gave her a grin. "All right, Lady Bright-Tongue, lead us on to glory. Safer glory."
"L-LORD NARMARKOUN," MEREK said uncertainly, halting in a doorway. "I mislike the look of this room, ahead. 'Tis... not safe."
"I tremble," the wizard announced calmly, giving them a smile of merry menace. "I quaver. Proceed, bold Merek. Tarrying now is even less safe. For you."
The men of Darswords stiffened silently. Narmarkoun shared his smile with all of them who dared look at him, and added, "Believe me."
One long-fingered blue hand strayed to his belt, and started to stroke the dagger sheathed there—the knife that had been Taroarin's—almost lovingly.
Merek stared at the smiling wizard for a moment, then bowed his head, hefted the sword in his hand, and without a word started trudging forward through the rubble. Tresker nodded as if agreeing with something that had just been said, and followed, right behind him.
Narmarkoun's smile widened.
THE MAERCRAWN PADDED closer.
Rod fell back, hefting the undluth. All he could think of was another vivid memory, welling up unbidden in his mind wreathed in excitement: a severed but not dripping dragon's head, floating in the air across a valley. The head turned slightly as it drifted along, peering at things as if very much alive.
Among other things, it was watching armored men fleeing it, clanking toward horses they would never reach—as the head opened jaws that gaped just like the maw of the maercrawn, and gave them fire.
The fire roared as it consumed, drowning out screams and all as armor smoked and blackened, and men within it ran in frenzy... and died.
A spell cast by Lorontar had conjured up the great draconic head from a tiny fragment of bone from the skull of a dragon. A spell Rambaerakh had always coveted...
Rod shook his head, trying to push the memory away.
Yes, yes, yes, but how was this going to help him now? He was going to be eaten, damn it!
"Nressae," he snarled, sudden fury rising to join his fear.
He drew back his hand and dashed it forward again, lashing the creature's gaping jaws with bronzen fire.
The maercrawn sprang into the air, hissing, but Rod was already scrambling in the wake of his strike, fearing the thing would rush and bite at him—and it did, snapping savagely at where he'd been standing.
It came so close that he could feel the air stirring along the side of its jaw, and smell a faint lemongrass scent that must be the beast's natural reek. But Rod wasn't stopping to sniff and marvel.
He kept running along the beast's body, keeping low, waving the undluth back and forth so fire raced along the quivering, floating length of the impossible thing.
In his other hand he waved the staff, finding a use for it: keeping his balance during all of this capering, as he cooked the maercrawn's body.
And it was cooking, as surely as if he was grilling it out on his back deck.
Like a maggot he'd once seen in science class, it started to writhe and twist, bending and spasming. He lashed it again with fire, and again, stumbling in loose stone rubble but keeping his feet somehow and not slowing down. He had to keep ahead of its turn, had to keep moving, or he was dead.
"So this is what warriors do, and this fire-spewer is my sword," he hissed aloud, feeling angry and scared and excited all at once. "Hah!"
Rod liked the sound of that defiant yell, so he did it again, seeing the monster shudder now. Where he'd slashed it earlier, lines of tiny flame licked and flickered.
Belatedly he wondered if he should have kept quiet, if there were worse beasts wandering Malragard right now that would hear him and come looking for food.
Then the maercrawn turned toward him, jaws low and closed and shaking in pain and in anger, like a bull lowering its head to charge, and Rod forgot all about whatever noise he might be making, turned, and dashed up and over a heap of rubble, yelling in fear. He ducked into a doorway, turned hard right and spun around to bring the undluth up without even looking at where he'd blundered into and what else might be waiting there for him.
And the maercrawn charged after him, up and over the rubble and plunged through the door to wheel and face him as he slashed it wildly with fire, again and again, just trying to stay alive. He had to last long enough to have a chance to turn and run again, before the massive
jaws could close on him.
They clashed together very close to him, and Rod scrambled frantically on, slashing the air with the undluth in a frenzy, trying to slice the maercrawn right apart with the magical fires but knowing somehow that they did little harm to its jaws, and that he had to try to reach its floating body to really hurt it.
Then the stone floor suddenly gave way under him, and he was falling, plunging into darkness with a startled yell—with those backhoe-sized jaws open wide, and plummeting right after him.
TETHTYN FOUND HIMSELF standing on a hard, smooth stone floor, in a fortress chamber with only half a roof. The rest of what should have kept out the sun and rain and stars lay strewn in a great drift of stone that began not a handwidth from his left boot. As he peered at the mound of stone and across it, looking for doors but seeing only half-buried remains of crushed, once grand furniture, Mori suddenly appeared atop the heap.
Blinking, his fellow apprentice wavered, almost fell, waved his hands wildly for balance, slid down the stones a little way, and recovered himself. Tethtyn waved to him and turned to look in the other direction, where three gaping doorways awaited.
Malragard, this was, all around them. Or at least it was supposed to be, and the translocations hadn't taken them astray yet. So this ruin was the tower of the wizard Malraun, Doom of Falconfar for long seasons but now dead. Amid the rubble and the crumbling walls lay hidden much powerful magic, Lorontar was coldly sure in the darkest corners of their minds—if only Mori and Tethtyn had arrived in time.
So here they were, in haste and with their heads ringing with a dark warning to expect lesser wizards, warriors, and the Falcon alone knew who and what else hastening in to slay them and snatch up any magic that might be lying around.
"Seen any magic yet?" Mori asked quietly, wading down through shifting stone to join him—and looking back at it, hard. Nothing stirred under it, or erupted to tower over them in menace, as Tethtyn shook his head.
"No," he murmured, keeping his voice barely above a whisper, and turning to point sharply at two of the doorways.
Mori tilted his head to listen, then nodded, hearing it too.
From just the other side of the wall, beside the right-hand doorway, came the faintest of sounds: a slight shifting of stone on stone, as if something had crouched down on another heap of fallen stone, tensing to spring.
Both novice wizards kept their eyes on the doorway as they stepped apart from each other, shaking their sleeves back and flexing their fingers, readying themselves to hurl some of the spells from Indrulspire. The battle spells, rams of force and invisible blades and jets of scorching flame.
"Come," Mori muttered under his breath. "'Tis the waiting I hate. Come at us..."
At that moment a huge, scrambling, catlike beast, bristling with writhing tentacles that ended in jaws, bounded through the doorway and loped toward them, its claws shrieking on the stones.
"Falcon spit," Tethtyn gasped, as he spread his hands in a flourish and wreathed it in fire.
They were fast, but almost not fast enough. Lorontar was rising inside both of them as a ball of flame exploded around the loping tentacled thing, and it squalled and started to thrash and roll in helpless agony. The two novice wizards sprang away from it, tracing frantic symbols in the air.
Mori was a shade faster than Tethtyn, which proved valuable when the keening monster came lolloping off the heap of stones and right at him, still burning and mad with pain.
Mori's hasty spell hauled hundreds of stones out from under its racing paws to rise up like a curling wall in front of it, curling over its head and collapsing onto it like a breaking wave, burying it in stones with a thunderous, room-shaking crash.
"Over there!" someone shouted, from far off across the ruins, as flames leaped and danced under the stones, and the buried bulk surged, convulsed, and went still.
Move, came the cold command in both their minds, and Mori and Tethtyn obeyed. Find magic. Avoid battle.
With one accord, the two wizards rushed to the doorway farthest from where that shout had come from, burst through it and sprinted across the room beyond. No rubble, no monsters, and an intact roof. Deserted and dimmer than the chamber they'd just come from, with closed, featureless doors in two other walls. Mori and Tethtyn exchanged glances and shrugs, then went to the door straight ahead.
"Up," Tethtyn panted, as they flung it wide and stared into another deserted room—this one dominated a by a grand feasting table with highbacked chairs drawn up along either side of it, and a matching credenza flanking it on its far side. There were closed doors in all three of the room's other walls. "We should look for a stair up. Wizards build towers to get up high, so they can feel safe, and work their magic in those high rooms."
"No dispute," Mori replied breathlessly, "but where is such a stair? I saw nothing but sky back there, where the ceiling was gone—no higher floors or side-towers. Do we try to scale a wall, somewhere, to look around?"
"And show ourselves to whoever shouted, back there? What if they have bows?"
"Dung of the Falcon," Mori snapped. "Did you have to say that?"
Magic. Seek magic. Go deeper. Little is left of higher.
The voice in their minds was cold and implacable.
"Deeper," they murmured in unison, hurrying again, down the length of the room to the door at the far end. Somewhere behind them, several rooms back, they heard the crash and rattle of the heap of loose stones being disturbed as several creatures charged through it.
Go deeper.
"Yes," Tethtyn replied, as his hand fell on the pull-ring of the door. He wrenched it open, heedless of who or what might be waiting beyond, and found himself staring at a flight of worn stone steps—leading down into darkness.
He plunged down them without hesitation, following them as they curved slightly to the left, with Mori right behind him.
"Where do you think," the tomekeeper from Dlarmarr gasped, as the light failed completely and they had to slow to avoid stumbling and falling into the unknown, "these stairs lead?"
"Down," Tethtyn replied, with sudden glee at his own wit. He laughed aloud—and then stumbled and fell as the steps suddenly ended and his feet found a flat stone floor he wasn't ready for. He crashed onto his face with Mori on top of him, and hastily conjured handfire, scrambling free and rolling over to see—Mori, chuckling wryly at him in the pale light of his own kindling light.
"Well, that was certainly graceful," the tomekeeper said. "We did close the door up there, didn't we?"
"No," Tethtyn replied. "Not unless you closed it."
Mori swore softly, then brightened. "There was that spell..."
"No," Tethtyn said firmly. "Casting's as tiring as digging; no wonder wizards are all so bad-tempered. Let's save all the energy we have left for battle-spells. We're going to need them."
Mori swore again, and added, "We are. Look."
His arm was pointing into the darkness. Tethtyn looked along it, saw the glint of large yellow eyes glaring back at them, and threw his handfire.
Its light exploded in front of a great leonine face, which narrowed its eyes in hatred—and exploded into a great bound forward.
Two frightened wizards hastily stammered out the same word— and two invisible blades plunged through the great cat's half-seen breast while it was still in the air, jaws opening, paws extended.
Instead of landing in a charge that would turn into a bloody rush, the beast shuddered in midair and landed belly-down on the unyielding stone with a great crash, already dying.
Mori and Tethtyn circled around it, running hard into the darkness whence it had come, lit by Mori's handfire as Tethtyn conjured a new flame as fast as he could.
Ahead of them, a musky, heavy beast-smell was growing stronger, and they slowed, still unable to see much of anything. The reek was everywhere, and they were heading right into it.
Something skittered underfoot, and they both froze, aiming their handfire and peering hard.
There w
as a bone, large and long and well-gnawed, still rocking gently on the stones where Mori had unintentionally kicked it. It looked very like one of the long bones of a man's leg.
They stepped forward even more cautiously, and soon saw other, smaller bones: ribs.
"A lair? Of the thing we killed?" Mori muttered, coming to a stop again.
"Or a whole den full of them, with the rest still waiting for us. somewhere up ahead?" Tethtyn murmured back.
He held up his handfire to see farther—and it seemed to catch fire on the passage wall beside him, tracing a straight vertical line.
Hastily he moved his hand away. The line winked out.
He looked at Mori. Who stared back at him, then shrugged and reached out with his own handfire.
The line reappeared, and Mori extended it by moving his hand along the wall. Tethtyn peered at the route the line was taking along the otherwise smooth stone, then moved his own handfire and made another line spring into being.
They were tracing the outlines of a door.
Tethtyn looked at Mori again, remembering the last spell they'd looked at together.
"Do it," Mori whispered, and Tethtyn laid his glowing hand flat against the cool stone, and murmured the word he remembered reading. The wall melted away under his palm.
The space beyond the now-empty doorway was dimly lit from above. Flat stone floor, a large, silent room with many open doorways. The mages cast wary looks back up their dark passage of bones, then leaned into the new room to peer around.
As they did so, a man fell down into it from above, and a weird- looking monster—all jaws and smoke—plunged after him.
Their landing shook the room.
Tethtyn's fingers glowed blue, and answering glows flared up from where the man had fallen.
"Magic!" the two wizards shouted, as one—and flung up their hands to hurl the mightiest battle-spells they'd learned.
ROD LANDED HARD, feeling a sharp pain below his left knee and high in his right shoulder and knocking all the air out of his lungs. His abandoned staff clattered loudly on the stone floor nearby, bouncing to a stop.
