by Ed Greenwood
He bit down hard, snarling in satisfaction—only to choke in sudden agony as she slammed the edge of her hand down on his throat. He tried to scream, then tried to sob, but couldn't find breath for either...
"B-B-BUT THE LADY Talyss—"
Klarl Annusk Dunshar's protest was as frantic as it was feeble.
Belard gave him a tight, steely smile and murmured into Dunshar's sweating, quivering face, "—has changed her mind. Is there something wrong with your hearing, Dunshar? Must I find a slightly less deaf noble of the realm to take over rebuilding fair Galathgard? For if I must, that would seem to make you... expendable."
"Nononono! Wah-huh-who would—would—"
"Lick her toes clean? I'm sure a kingdom this large must hold someone else with a tongue, and knees to crawl on, hmm?"
He tightened his grip on the lace that covered Dunshar's gorget, gave the dolt a good shake—and then let go disgustedly, allowing the klarl's limp body to crash heavily to the floor. The fair flower of House Dunshar was out cold, and had wet himself, to boot.
"This is all becoming steadily more tiresome," a familiar voice murmured, from behind him.
"Sister, this was your plan, remember?" he replied, turning with a smile. "Blame none of its more tiresome moments on me."
IN A SNARLING, seething frenzy Narmarkoun kicked out and rolled over, getting momentarily free of the Aumrarr. Clawing his way to his feet, he sprinted blindly away, treading on the cloth hampering him with his first stride, wrenching his head around over his shoulder, eyes watering too hard to see much more than a blur.
The closest shape was the Aumrarr, he knew, and she was right behind him. Narmarkoun kept right on running, glancing bruisingly off a fencepost and thankfully on through the open gate, back toward the house.
The house! In there, she could only come at him through the doorway, where he could turn and hurl quick spells through, to thrust her back. It would be his fortress while he prepared the right magics to deal with her permanently. Then it would become his shelter and Everlar's prison, while he leisurely searched it for its hidden magics and decided how best to leash this otherwhere and make it do his bidding, as he set about conquering Falconfar at last.
Lorontar was the only impediment left to overcome, the only—
Something fell hard on his legs, toppling him helplessly into a face-first skid in wet grass.
Falcon take this Aumrarr! She'd done it again! Even as Narmarkoun fought to get onto his knees so he could be back up and running, she was clawing and clutching at him like a hawk, fresh pain flooding him at her every blow.
"Taeauna!" Everlar was shouting, from not far behind. "Taeauna! I'm here! I'm—urkkh!"
Narmarkoun kicked out behind him viciously, struck something solid and heard the Aumrarr groan—and was free.
And up, sprinting toward the deck and the open back door. The idiot Shaper had obviously fallen on his face in his own garden, the Aumrarr was down and couldn't catch him now, and—
Something fast and heavy struck him between the shoulder blades as he rushed through the door, smashing him to the floor.
The Aumrarr, of course.
Enough! She was going to die, and she was going to die now! Not slowly and painfully, not pleading for her life or for a merciful death. No, she was just going to—
The spell that roared out of him was a simple thing from his youth, the only thing he remembered just now that was fast enough and free of any need for gestures or focal items. Feeble, but it did what he needed it to do. The Aumrarr's head and shoulders bounced off the wall with ugly sounding thuds, she gasped, and Narmarkoun was free!
He pushed her off, scrambled around the corner into a room that was crowded with discarded old furniture, stacked boxes of things, and of course books, and turned to rend her with a good sword-storm spell, like—
The kick swept Narmarkoun's feet out from under him and toppled him helplessly into one of the stacks of boxes. One by one, hard and heavy, they came down on him.
He couldn't even draw breath under all the bruising blows to curse. He fought to turn himself over and drag himself out from under them—as they started to spill all their contents all over him in a noisy flood of things that clanged or thumped or shattered like glass.
He managed it somehow, though, snarling out his rage and rising up to—
Be struck in the face by with a chair, breaking his jaw, sending teeth flying and slamming him back into another stack of boxes.
This one didn't collapse, but Narmarkoun couldn't even find his balance, let alone avoid the next swing, which hit him across his nose and forehead hard enough to make everything go momentarily dark.
He felt himself falling.
Then he felt nothing much at all.
HE WAS TOO slow, as usual, too far back. He wasn't going to get there in time.
"I'm not a hero, damn it," he gasped aloud, smashing his way through tangled dead branches and caroming painfully off tree trunks that were little larger than his arms, but much, much harder. Then, very suddenly, he was out of the trees and pounding across the dog-walking trail and into his yard through the open gate.
"Taeauna!" he shouted, seeing the wizard almost at the deck and Tay sprinting like the wind to catch up with him. Maybe Narmarkoun would be distracted by his yell, or look back to see him and stumble. Maybe. "Taeauna! I'm here! I'm—urkkh!"
Yep, hero to the last. He never even saw what he tripped over— just uneven ground, perhaps, unseen amid the clumps and trodden twists of wet grass—but he went down, painfully, full length onto his arms and belly.
Goodbye, wind.
He bounced his chin solidly a time or two against the ground coming to a painful stop, in trying to keep his eyes on Taeauna and the Doom. Neither of them faltered or slipped or looked back, of course, and he watched them both fall through the back doorway, into his house.
Up, idiot Lord Arch wizard. Up.
Rod was up again and running hard, the open back door looming up in front of him with surprising speed.
For once, an open door didn't slam in his face. He burst through the doorway in time to see Narmarkoun get free of where he and Tay were struggling together on the floor, and hurry through the first doorway on the left; Rod's storage room.
Taeauna turned on the floor and launched herself after the wizard, without taking the time to scramble up. Leaving the hallway free for Rod to come running right in after them.
We have to hit him before he can get a spell out, or we're both dead. Right here and right now.
Boxes toppled, the mage going down underneath them, and Rod skidded to a stop to avoid trampling Taeauna, who was taking box after box in the face as they hit Narmarkoun and rolled or bounced right at her.
I'm responsible for this—for this wizard being here, on Earth. And if he gets me, he'll make Tay his slave forever! My fault— mine! Must do something, or we're dead. Must do something!
Rod stared wildly around the room, then snatched the nearest chair off a stack of chairs. They were old, heavy wooden chairs that scratched the floor if someone dragged them, and—
Old, heavy, and solid. As the blue-skinned wizard struggled to his feet, Rod set his teeth and swung the chair, a big roundhouse sweep with all his strength behind it. Don't hit the ball, son, his father's voice came back to him, from years and years ago. Hit THROUGH the ball.
So he did that, putting his shoulders into it, turning his whole body, and doing his level best to destroy Narmarkoun's face.
Wham.
A moment later, he was staggering sideways, dazed.
He'd forgotten about the mind-link.
It felt like a truck had just hit him—or no, no, like a God-damned mountain had smacked Rod right in the face.
Through swimming eyes, he saw the wizard staggering back against boxes, reeling but not falling.
Gritting his teeth, knowing how much it was going to hurt, Rod swung the chair again at the blue face, just as hard as he could.
Arrrgh!
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No wonder Narmarkoun had been staggering!
Rod found himself staring blearily at the floor through a flood of tears as he staggered helplessly forward, not knowing where he was heading and utterly unable to stop.
Except perhaps by falling on his face.
Jesus, the floor was hard. It had rushed up to meet him so suddenly that he was on it, tasting the dust, before he could even blink.
So he blinked now, several times. It seemed to be one of the few things left that he still knew how to do. Lying still with the side of his face on the somehow comforting flatness was another.
Rod didn't think his nose was broken, but he wasn't so sure about his cheek. His head was on fire, and—
He screamed as his eyes seemed to burst, first one and then the other, driving needles of pure pain straight into his head behind them, leaving him blind as blazing agony spread—and then he was choking and gurgling, swallowing his scream in sudden fresh helplessness, as yet more pain seared his throat.
He was dying.
This was what it felt like.
Oh, God, no wonder people screamed so much...
MORL ULASKRO POUTED when he was concentrating. When he was frowning hard because he was thinking harder, he started to look just a little like a frog. Or, no... like a toad—yes!—an old and irritated toad.
On the other hand, despite the kindling danger they presented to each other, the fact that there were two of them, meaning Lorontar could discard either the former tomekeeper of Dlarmarr or the former underscribe of Hawksyl whenever the necessity arose, Tethtyn liked Mori. He wouldn't dream of pointing out to Mori what he looked like, at moments such as these.
Besides, he had no idea how ridiculous he himself looked, when it was his turn to cast the spell they were taking turns using. The spell that was guiding them closer and closer to—
Mori shivered, opened his eyes to stare at Tethtyn, smiled, and pointed past his left shoulder. "This way—and not far off, either!"
Tethtyn grinned, waved at his friend to lead on, and they plunged together through crowded saplings, down into the wooded valley they'd been skulking beside.
They hurried, excitement rising—yet feeling somehow safer in among these trees than out in all the blaring and rumbling noises and the glass-walled keeps and lights of this strange world where people seemed in so much of a hurry, and the armored boxes swifter than horses that seemed to be everywhere.
Tethtyn took a stinging branch across the face in the wake of his friend's noisy progress, thrust it aside, and grinned wryly. There was nothing like the frightening strangeness of another world to make one long for Falconfar, even with all its cruel rulers, fell mages, and murderous thieves and slavers. To say nothing of lorn and dragons and other horrid beasts.
Another branch. This one he broke off, and flung aside.
To think that wizards—the greatest and most powerful mages, that is, the thankfully few, like the Dooms and the fabled spellhurlers of old—walked these otherwheres all the time.
No wonder they went mad.
THE SECOND HARD swing of Rod's chair smashed Narmarkoun's head sharply to one side and left him shuddering—and then sliding limply to the floor in front of her.
Taeauna winced, remembering hits she'd taken that had been as hard as that.
In the other direction, Rod was reeling away too, obviously just as dazed, lost in the same pain that he'd just dealt Narmarkoun.
Both men were momentarily, but utterly, helpless.
Which meant her best chance to fell the last of the three Dooms of Falconfar, and save both their lives for a little while at least, was right glorking now.
It was the work of but a moment to pluck out the wizard's own belt-knife, and the next to plunge it into Narmarkoun's left eye.
Then out, even before he had time to more than start to sob in the breath he'd need to scream, to stab him brutally in his other eye.
Driving the dagger hilt-deep against his face just like the first thrust, so that it would pierce deeply into the brain. Rod would be in agony, but that couldn't be helped, and at least this was an agony that would end, and the wizard with it, not the first of the countless agonies Narmarkoun would have leisurely visited on them both with his spells, until he grew tired of it.
She snatched the knife back out again, trailing blood, as the wizard gurgled and started to sag.
Taeauna brought the knife down and under and across, cutting Narmarkoun's throat deeply, to prevent any last gasped words that might doom them all.
There would be magics tied to his death, of course, but Taeauna just couldn't count on managing to drag the dying man outside in time. In fact, she'd do better to fling down Narmarkoun's knife, turn and grab hold of the reeling Rod Everlar and get him outside—and then return to finish the killing.
So she did that, gasping in her frantic haste, running Rod halfway down his backyard before she let the wet grass claim him.
He sprawled on his face like a dead man the moment she let go of him, but she had no time to spare just now for gentling him.
The closed door that led down into the basement. The switch that her hand thankfully found before she had to slow on the precipitous, sagging old steps to search for it.
Duck low when springing, to avoid braining herself on the low ceiling beams. This was a "washing machine," and that was a "bicycle," leaning against another sagging heap of damp old boxes full of junk...
And there, beyond it all, was the workbench!
Hopefully, waiting on it would be what she'd so briefly seen in Rod Everlar's memories, what seemed now a very long time ago. Recollections she hoped weren't too old to still hold true.
Falcon be with me, they weren't! The hatchet was still there amid all the tools and old tool catalogues and lightbulbs and other clutter.
She snatched it up, whirled, and flung herself at the stairs.
'Twas time—if there was still time—to behead a wizard.
She rushed back up the stairs. Mages who retained their heads, Dooms in particular, were all too apt to rise and walk again, dead but not quite dead, and—
There was a tingling in the air, a weirdness wondrous strange that grew stronger and heavier as she ran, and Taeauna winced and clenched her teeth and ran on, knowing she might well be running right into the heart of a magical explosion that would dash her to bloody spatters on the disintegrating roof of this house, mere moments away—
Narmarkoun was just as she'd left him, lying face down in the long smear of his own blood, head at an odd angle thanks to his opened throat, his blood a spreading pool around it.
Falcon, be with me now. Swing just as if she was hewing wood in a hurry.
With all the strength in her arms, she brought the hatchet down.
STRIDING ALONG A passage in Bowrock, thoughts bent on the coming Great Court in Galathgard—or more precisely, on which of his fellow nobles would stand in support of the crowned head of Galath and who would attend, cloaked in false smiles of loyalty, with an eye to murdering King Brorsavar before he could tighter his rule over the realm—Velduke Darendarr Deldragon stiffened suddenly, blurted out a wordless snarl of pain, and almost fell.
"Lord?" an anxious knight called from behind him. "Lord Velduke, what's wrong?"
Fetching up against a cold, hard stone passage wall with a gasp. Deldragon managed to croak, "N-nothing, I believe. A sign from the Falcon, a little overwhelming in its suddenness, but no more than a sign of what I must do—or a warning, perhaps."
"A warning of what, lord?" the knight murmured warily.
His eyes still seeing, through a flood of pain, a blue mouth contorted in a silent scream, beneath eyes that were ruined wounds weeping blood, Deldragon shook his head.
Wincing at the head-pounding result, he replied grimly, "Trouble to come. In Galathgard, of course, and after. Perhaps even on our way there. I'll want every man full-armored, and as vigilant as if we were riding to war."
"Of course," the knight agreed. "After all, w
e will be."
Deldragon nodded, trying not to shiver. He felt suddenly empty weak and weary and... and... as sad as if he'd lost someone near and dear.
Someone with blue skin.
Someone who—it seemed—had been camped in his head for a good long time, a watchful, weighty presence lurking unnoticed in the darkness at the back of his mind.
Someone he knew, but did not know. Hmmm.
The only blue-skinned man he knew of was the wizard Narmarkoun, third and least of the Dooms of Falconfar. Had— Falcon forfend—had a wizard been his master, without him even knowing it?
If so, what had Narmarkoun the undead-tamer ridden him into doing? Deeds he obviously recalled nothing about, at all. How did Galath see the Lord of Bowrock, these days?
On his journey to the Great Court, should he bring along every last armsman, knight, and hedge-wizard he could muster?
Were there enough of them in all Galath to keep him safe against his fellow nobles and the commoners of the realm?
And if what he'd just felt was Narmarkoun dying, who had handed the powerful mage his death?
Was it someone all Galath should fear, sparing not another thought for the fate of Deldragon or Narmarkoun?
Darendarr Deldragon sighed, smiled briefly, then squared his shoulders, reassumed his customary stern expression, and strode on, the knight a careful pace behind his left shoulder.
Before he'd walked very far, a rueful smile crept back onto his face. He was beginning to understand why his father and mother, for many a year before they'd found their graves, had so often been stern or confidently smiling in public, and behind closed doors had so often sighed and demanded of the empty air, "Why me?"
Not that he ever recalled the Falcon swooping down to favor either of them with an answer.
IT HAD TAKEN four brisk blows, but the eyeless blue head was now rolling away across the floor. Above it, the air itself was beginning to emit odd sounds—strange jangling, singing chimes.
