Falconfar 01-Dark Lord (42 page)

The Aumrarr drew in a deep breath and then let it out slowly, shuddering like a terrified child. Her face was white.

"He's
the
Shaper," she whispered. "Until he dies, and most of Falconfar with him."

“Whole once more
," Arlaghaun murmured contentedly, striding naked across the room with water dripping from him in a racing flood.

He had to walk briskly away, he knew, and firmly quell what he wanted to do now: take a longing look back at the pool. Its glows would be beckoning, he knew, and that was when it was at its most dangerous. If he slid back into its warm embrace, that was when memories would leave him, unregarded until he later needed them, reached for them, and found them utterly gone.

Which could well be fatal to the friendless, much-feared wizard Arlaghaun, most feared of the Dooms of Falconfar, and rightly so.

He allowed himself a tight little smile as he took down his least favorite cloak to dry himself with, wasting no time in toweling but simply donning it as if he were dry and clad, and wearing it close-clasped around him as he walked on in search of what he really wanted.

His rings and the wandwing, yes, but here on the shelf nearby, his best sword of spells, its blade winking a welcome of sparkling stars to him as he half drew it and then slid it firmly into its sheath again. The pendant that would turn aside blades, and the gorget that would blunt most spells. An unseen dagger that only his questing fingers could confirm still rode in its sheath, to wear up one sleeve, and an archer's bracer that was anything but what it appeared to be, to wear up the other. The slumbering spells it stored flickered into life at his touch.

Yes,
these
were happy to see him, these familiar magics, loyal and worthy of his trust, his closest friends in Falconfar.

Not that they had many rivals for such a title. Arlaghaun shrugged. When he wanted loving arms about him, he could compel such company; the rest of the time he was spared all of the life-wasting fripperies of pleasing friends, doing things for friends, entertaining friends... Bah! Friends! What use were such leeches, but to drain his wealth and time and power from him, stealing his freedom as surely as they stole a coin-worth here and a coin there?

He needed to gird himself with his strongest things of magic in as much haste as he could manage now, to go hunting the familiar stranger, Deldragon, and the rest.

None of them must be allowed to live, to flee this place and tell their stories of his weakness to others. For if they could draw blood so easily, and others heard of it, half the wolves in Falconfar would rush in to try their luck.

He caught up breeches and a tunic impatiently, tugging them on over his still-damp body. Swiftly, before they found one of his gates, or managed mischief... The sword, kick his feet into boots, the rings now... Haste haste haste!

Like a vengeful whirlwind he strode past the mirror that showed him his own blazing brown eyes, sharp nose, and thin lips—thinner than usual right now, by the Falcon!—and rounded a corner. Flinging the right door wide, he strode—

Almost into a pit that should not have opened in the floor at all! What the Falcon?

Arlaghaun sprang over it, took another step, and swayed back as arms folded out of the walls, propelling scything blades. Their deadly arcs shrieked sparks from his shielding-spells as he ducked his head down and went on, skidding to a stop and... Yes, the floor was opening up under his boots again!

He was under attack from all the tricks, traps, and creatures of his tower!

"But..." he spat in vain protest, as the seemingly solid stone of a nearby pillar faded away to reveal a tall, thin creature that unfolded into something that looked like a grounded bat, or a flesh-covered spider; all long, grotesque limbs ending in talons or large-fanged jaws instead of hands.

Several of those jaws grinned unpleasantly as it stalked forward to greet him, great arms stretching to clutch and rend.

*   *   *

Amalrys smiled into
the glowing crystal with eyes that were very, very blue. "Dance, master," she murmured. "Dance as you force me to, and taste the whips, for once!"

Arlaghaun was raging silently in the depths of the crystal, loath to ruin automatons he'd created and beasts he'd captured and trained. He was beset on all sides, his brown eyes two flames of fury. His sharp-nosed face was bleeding copiously, laid open by the barbs of the krauglaur towering over him. Amalrys awakened bone scorpions and freed them from their hidden lairs, to join the fun.

At the very least, Arlaghaun was going to have to destroy a third of the tower guardians, spend most of his spells, and exhaust a good many of his enchanted items. Not to mention feeling just a touch of the pain and fear he so often and so gleefully visited on others. There was still a chance that he might forget just where all of his traps and spell-traps were, in the frantic heart of the fray, and she had no intention of giving him any time to think or catch his breath. It was time, and far beyond time, for the oh-so-ruthless wizard Arlaghaun to sweat a little.

"Bleed, master," she purred, watching the krauglaur lurch sideways in pain and thrust its daggerlike tail into the heart of Arlaghaun's failing shieldings, sending him staggering and wincing in a shower of sparks. "Bleed for me."

The crystal flared so brightly she turned her head away, honey-blonde hair swirling. When she looked back, the krauglaur and one of the bone scorpions had become no more than blackened legs and smoke, and Arlaghaun was stalking angrily past them, brown eyes afire, a black wand as long as a sword in his hand.

Amalrys whistled at the sight of it. "Master has left his temper behind him," she murmured. "Time to plant some doubts, by making some of the automatons attack him in the name of Ult."

A rune flared on the wand that Amalrys recognized; she passed a hand over the crystal to make it convey sound in time to hear her master's roar.

Yet she needn't have bothered; the air itself bellowed with Arlaghaun's voice, echoing around her in the small room.

"Klammert!" he was shouting, waving his wand to carry his voice from end to end of the tower. "Klammert! To me!"

Amalrys sneered. "Such a capable master! Yes, when things turn rough, just call on another apprentice. We're all so expendable."

“Sister," Dauntra snapped
, as Juskra started to dive again, "
must
you? We'll never reach the Doom of Galath at all if you stop to slay every last Dark Helm you see on the way!"

The fiercest of the four Aumrarr turned to deliver her reply with a glare. "I haven't slain a wizard in years, Dauntra. I'm out of practice. I judge a Doom to be worth about a thousand Dark Helms, so I'd better start killing them right now. I only see a dozen down there."

Dauntra grinned, shook her head helplessly, and waved her hand to signal Juskra to resume her dive.

When she did, her three sisters were right behind her.

*   *   *

The coach-horn, or
whatever it was, loomed up before his eyes, revolving, fading through other, impossibly large images of itself, and washed over Rod, leaving everything golden.

A deep, rich, darkening gold that swallowed him as he plunged into it, the sound and noise of Ult Tower fading somewhere above him as he sank down, down toward... a darkness, a black speck in the distance.

That grew as he raced toward it, or it rushed up to meet him, becoming a tall black castle, a fortress with a needle-spired tower at one corner, standing in a great forest, with the trees closest around it bare-branched and dead.

He was racing through those branches now, blurringly fast, whipping past their stark dead spikes and across an open sward before reaching the dark, waiting opening of the arched front door. Then into that swallowing gloom, not slowing, but flashing across a cavernous hall full of emptiness and dust to soar up a staircase, whirling through more archways and darkness, a bewildering succession of many silent rooms, and—

To a sudden halt.

In midair, in one dark inner room, frozen, staring at the back of a tall stone seat in this heart of Yintaerghast, able to see only the arm of the aged man sitting in it.

The chair that did not turn, as an old and cultured voice from its depths said without greeting, "As you have come to suspect, Rod Everlar, the splendid forest kingdoms you dreamed of and wrote about now stand alone, embattled holds menaced by prowling beasts grown both numerous and bold, and by the creatures who serve the three Dooms."

Rod tried to speak, and found that he could not. I lis mouth, too, was frozen. He wished he could see the face of the old man in the chair.

"Each of these three evil, warring wizards," that dry and gently sardonic voice continued calmly, "seeks to gather the most powerful spells and enchanted items from the ruined castles of long-fallen mages and kings, and so rise to rule all Falconfar. The Dooms have grown powerful, but more than that, they have grown impatient."

Rod tried to struggle, willing himself to move, clenching his teeth and trying to buck and twist and... nothing. He could do nothing at all.

The room seemed to slowly grow darker, until he could no longer see the walls, or the chair with that arm resting along it. The voice, though it spoke gently, continued as loud and clear as ever. "Most of what is left of Falconfar is ruled by hard-bitten warriors who want to be rid of all magic and wizards. They are fighting men, to whom every problem is a reason for war. These days, in Falconfar, the holds are never far from boiling out into open bloodshed. You can prevent the slaughter, Rod Everlar."

Me?

"Falconfar needs a Lord Archwizard again. Yintaerghast calls to you for a reason. Go there, and go within, and claim your destiny."

Shit. I have a destiny. There goes my life.

"Seek not to resist it, Rod Everlar. A world depends on you, the blood of thousands upon thousands will be on your hands, if you come not to Yintaer—"

Seething, Rod found that he could suddenly speak, so he snarled angrily, "Shut up and go away! Get out of my head!"

Darkness whirled around him, swift and bitter-howling, and with it came brightness, and deafening noise... and then Rod found himself on a hard stone floor in Ult Tower, blinking up at Taeauna and Deldragon above him, as a sword as big as both of them swept down at them all.

"Ho-hey! Lookee here
, Viper!" Garfist strained to reach over the width of a curved and fluted wooden chair and pluck up what had been slung over the ornately carved arm on its far side from him, almost entirely hidden in shadow. "A little beauty, by the Falcon!"

He held up a finely chased sheath with its own triple-stranded belt of fine leather. When he drew the dagger forth, its blade glowed like that of a lantern, and darkened as he slid it back home.

"Ho ho," he chuckled in delighted appreciation. "There's a fine little prize!"

"Indeed," Iskarra agreed politely, displaying a broad belt that gleamed with jewels that she'd wound twice around her tiny waist before buckling it above bony hips. "Not that I've been idle, mind you."

Garfist whistled in appreciation, and then said briskly, "Well, we'd best be on. The more we snatch, the more we'll have if we run into some apprentice or servant, and have to duel magic with magic, hey?"

"Hey," Iskarra agreed calmly. "Any such dueling will be yours to perform; I'll be fleeing into the next kingdom. For now, let us pass into the next chamber. This is a wizard's tower, remember; we're not going to get the chance to wander around here unregarded and unopposed forever, look you!"

They ducked through a curtained archway into a dimly lit room that seemed to be partly given over to storage, the rest dominated by some sort of work desk whose top was scarred with burned-in rings. "Alchemy," Iskarra judged. "Be careful what flasks you snatch, Gar; some of them may flame or burst if shaken overly much."

"If it doesn't look drinkable, I'll not be touching it."

"Gar, to you everything looks drinkable."

The fat man grinned broadly. "And I'm still here and flourishing, and larger than ever to prove it!"

Iskarra rolled her eyes and started looking along the shelves. Garfist gave her backside a friendly swat and sprang hastily back out of range, but received only a half-amused glare in return.