Arch Wizard

Chapter Sixteen

"Ready?" "Skull… mindgem behind yer buckle… darklantern," Garfist whispered hoarsely, waving the cloth-wrapped helm that held the skull, nodding at Iskarra's midriff, then thrusting forward the closed-shuttered lantern.

"That's not what I meant," she replied softly, and kissed him. At first the fat former panderer sought to squirm away, growling gruffly incoherent protests, but then shrugged and surrendered to her insistent lips. The kiss went on for a long time.

When at last she released him because they both needed to breathe, he looked at her with a dark fire dancing in his eyes, as they stood nose to nose, and asked, "An' what was that for?"

"In case it's the last kiss we ever enjoy together," Isk whispered, eyes very large and dark.

"Oh, for the Falcon's sake," he said disgustedly. "Been reading too many o' them firelust chapbooks, ye have! I thought ye were wasting coin when we were last in the Stormar cities!"

"Wasting coin?" Isk snorted. "I was writing them, Gar, not buying them!"

"'Writing 'em? An' drawing on what, for yer, ah, inspiration?"

"My memories of our earliest trysts, my lord love," she breathed, in wide-eyed mimicry of a love-struck young lass.

Garfist growled amused dismissal and chucked her under the chin. She belted him back, rather more forcefully, leaving him blinking.

"As for your inspiration, Garfist Gulkoun," she added severely, "I am well aware of what you got up to, every glorking moment my back was turned, with the dusky and all-too-willing wenches of-"

"Lass, lass, lass, that was work. A panderer can't sell wares he can't fairly describe, hey? I-"

Isk used only two fingers to whack Garfist's windpipe, but they were two very firm fingers. Instantly he fell silent, to tend to the task of busily clutching his numbed throat.

Which was just as well, considering how many heavily-armed Lyrose guards came rushing past the slightly-open door of the cell just then, and out through the scullery port into the night.

Lord Lyrose was well aware that other eyes besides those loyal to Hammerhand watched Lyraunt Castle by night for signs of lax vigilance. Wherefore it was high time to restore the regular patrols in the castle grounds.

Or so Iskarra read matters. Garfist wasn't troubling his head over it, of course. He'd be thinking just of the task at hand. Which was trying to breathe, just now.

Well enough. Isk devoted herself to the task at hand, too. Thinking for him, as usual.

The Aumrarr had given them directions that were clear and simple enough, but they still had to get to the right places, in an unfamiliar and unfriendly castle.

Nor did she feel overmuch like standing here in the darkness much longer. There were at least two dead men sharing this chamber with them, and a less than pleasant smell was beginning to rise.

Drawing in a deep breath despite the foul air, she stepped forward and swung open the door.

The passage outside was quiet again, and she tugged gently on the nearest part of Garfist-his left forearm, as it turned out-to tell him to be ready to move. Then she stepped boldly out the door.

The passage was empty. She faced the heart of the castle and started walking unconcernedly, trudging with the weary, slightly bored air of a servant who was supposed to be there, but Gar came out of the room in a rush and pounded past her, trotting along swiftly and gathering speed as he went.

Isk gaped at him in astonishment, then shook her head in exasperation and sprinted after him.

When she caught up to her man and clawed at the arm that held the lantern, he whirled with a growl, swinging the helm that held the skull at her like a weapon. She'd been expecting him to do just that, and ducked easily aside.

"Fool!" she hissed. "If we go racing through the castle, we look like intruders! Walk slowly, and if we see someone, embrace me and cozy up to the wall as if we're lovers who just couldn't wait to get somewhere more private!"

Garfist grinned. "Why do I get all the hard jobs, hey?"

"Gar, heed. This is serious! Our very lives depend on it!"

"Isk, lass, our very lives depend on everything we do. Yet grab at yer temper and douse the flames in those eyes; I'll go slowly, look ye. I'm-I'm running out of breath."

"I should think so," Isk muttered back. "Now come, we haven't got all-"

There were faint shouts from distant, unseen chambers off to their right, nigh the front of Lyraunt Castle. The Aumrarr were at the foregate.

Dauntra and Juskra had given warning that although they'd seek to draw the foregate guards out of Lyraunt and butcher them, they dared not press their attack if the defenders stayed inside the fortress. They could fight in the foregate, where they'd offend only against the outer ward that cried warning-but if they tried to pass through the crackling, waiting inner wards, Malraun's magic would both harm them and send warning not just to Lyrose eyes and ears, but alert the Doom himself, wherever he might be, that Aumrarr were trying to enter Lyraunt Castle.

That might make him merely shrug-or it might mean that Garfist and Iskarra would face the light entertainment of trying to defy an annoyed Malraun the Matchless, possibly the most powerful wizard in all Falconfar, with not much more weaponry than their smiles. And a skull whose grin could match theirs.

Yet if the winged women drew all the guards to the front of the castle, Gar and Isk just might be able to pull off this unlikely double task, and even get out again alive. Might.

"Well, we have to find this high hall to get to the turret stairs, right? So leave the skull in the arch there and then do all the climbing. My knees aren't what they used to be."

"Yes, and 'tisn't just your knees," Isk murmured darkly.

"Hoy!" Gar protested. "Ye've not complained before!"

He caught her darkly scornful look, and amended his words hastily. "Er, much."

Up ahead, guards sprinted across their passage, hurrying down a larger hall to the front of the castle. Close on their heels came more guards; one glanced in their direction, but his attention seemed rapt on a spear that seemed to be sliding out of his grasp.

Isk swiftly drew Gar against her, embraced him, and used her thin, bony hips to thrust him, stumbling, against the wall. "Kiss me," she hissed. "Look love-struck."

She'd positioned them so she could look past his arm. The next guards to rush past did give them a good look, but didn't slow.

"That's chance enough," she snapped. "We take the next side-passage. Walking along this one is like prancing out on a well-lit stage in any Stormar ladydance club you might care to name! There!"

Garfist obeyed, swerving into the dark passage she indicated. Before them loomed closed doors on all sides, an ornate little table under an oval mirror, and their new passage running only a little way before it ended in stairs, going up. Isk took them without hesitation.

"But-" Gar growled.

"They said the hall had balconies," Isk hissed back over her shoulder. "Well, once we're on one of them, we can toss the skull down into place, yes?"

"Ho-ho," Garfist replied thoughtfully, indicating agreement. The Aumrarr had warned them not to step into or through the arch, for fear of being plucked away to a "terrible doom in a terrible place" by the gate. Isk's idea bid fair to dodge that little pitfall just fine…

By then Isk had turned right along a passage at the top of the stair, and was about to step out onto… a balcony.

It overlooked a grand, high room with another tier of balconies above theirs, a largely empty room lit by four braziers, identical curved wrought iron standards, each as tall as a man.

The great chamber was deserted of people, thank the Falcon, but its far side held a grand staircase sweeping up to their level, a door on a curved wall that must from the Aumrarr description be the way to the turret stair, and, yes, the Three Thorns of Lyrose outlined in the center of the glossy black floor.

This could only be the right place to find the archway, unless Lyraunt Castle had two identical high halls.

Well, Lord Lyrose was thought to be crazed-or had that been his father? It had been seasons upon seasons since they'd last been in Irontarl-but neither Gar nor Isk thought he was that sort of mad. Which meant, if this was the high hall, the archway they sought was right underneath them.

Isk leaned out, looked down, then drew back and nodded.

"Give it me," she murmured. "You tend to hurl skulls about like weapons."

"When I hurl skulls about, they are weapons," Gar growled, unwrapping for all he was worth.

Isk put her fingers through the eyesockets of Orthaunt's skull the moment they were uncovered, lifted it up to face her, and murmured his name as tenderly as if saying farewell to a beloved relative. Then she leaned out, swung her slender arm, and threw the skull, gently and carefully. If it shattered…

The wizard's brain-bones plunged toward the floor, arcing in smoothly beneath the balcony to pass through the center of the arch.

Where it suddenly stopped in mid-flight, a halo of white sparks briefly appearing around it and then as swiftly vanishing again, and hung motionless, grinning endlessly out into the deserted hall.

Which was when Garfist, leaning out to watch, lost hold of the helm they'd brought it in, made a grab for it too late, and stared in dismay as it plummeted to the glossy black stone below.

It landed with a terrific echo-raising crash, bounding up high off the floor with the force of its strike, only to crash down again. And again. Bouncing with loud enthusiasm to a raucous rolling stop.

Tapestries twitched below, as if someone was plucking them aside to see the source of the noise, and Gar and Isk hastily backed off the balcony. A door slammed open in the hall behind and below them. They froze, back in the gloom of the open curtains that flanked the balcony door, as a Lyrose guard burst into the room, spear clutched in both hands.

He saw the still-rocking helm-and then the skull.

Which promptly told him, in a deep but quaveringly ghostly voice: "Beware!"

Its tone was mocking, and the paling Lyrose guard grimaced and hurled his spear.

The skull ducked aside in its hovering, to let the spear whistle through the arch and crash down on distant crockery and what sounded like ringing, bouncing metal flagons somewhere in the unseen distance below.

A fell greenish-gold light kindled inside the skull, drawing a fascinated Garfist back to the balcony rail to watch what befell. He was in time to see it shoot out of one of the skull's eyesockets, in a bright ray that struck the guard high in the chest.

The Lyrose warrior fell over backward, or tried to. The moment his boots were off the floor, he was caught in the skull's magic-and hung quivering in midair, leaning back but unable to fall, as his chest swiftly blackened… and started to melt away.

There were gasps of fear and amazement from beneath the balcony-from behind where those tapestries had been plucked aside, no doubt-but they were lost in the sudden, raw shrieks of the guard, as terror gave way to agony.

Those screams were as frantic and high-pitched as a bewildered child's, but they faded away almost immediately. And no wonder; the flesh of his throat and lungs had melted away, leaving blackening bones. As Garfist stared, wincing, they suddenly slumped to the floor with a clatter.

Isk was already plucking at his arm, wearing a look of relief.

Ah, that they'd not have to stay and try to protect the skull, aye…

Willingly Gar followed her around the balcony, hastening along in the same awkward crouch she was using, to keep low and hopefully out of sight of anyone watching from below.

There was a door at the end of the balcony that opened into the tower they sought, and Isk was clawing it open.

To reveal another Lyrose guard, rushing up its curving steps to reach the landing where the balcony met the stair. As the door swung open, he glared at Garfist along the balcony, and charged.

The warrior never even saw Iskarra behind the door. One of her long, slim legs took him across the ankles as he sprinted-and he crashed down helplessly in front of Gar with such jaw-shattering force that Gar's leap to bring both boots down hard on the back of the man's neck seemed almost unnecessary.

The guard spasmed and writhed silently under Gar for a few moments, then went limp; the fat former panderer snatched up a Lyrose dagger and sword and rushed to join Isk, who was crouching on the tower stair landing, using one knee to hold the door open for him.

Then they heard the thunder of many boots descending down that stair. It was almost loud enough to cloak the rising noise of more hurrying boots approaching from somewhere behind Garfist. He met Iskarra's dismayed gaze with a grim look of his own as he rushed toward her, and pointed down the tower stair.

She uncoiled out of her crouch like a striking serpent and was on down those curving steps a bare stride in front of him. Together they rushed around its bend and found… that it ended in a stone floor, at a door that opened into the grand chamber they'd just been looking down into. The way on down into the cellars beneath the tower was a barred and locked trapdoor-and its lock was a massive thing, almost as large as the helm Garfist had dropped.

Iskarra was already snatching open that door. A guard came rushing at her from somewhere, grinning-but had to duck away as Garfist's blade slashed at his face. The fist of Gar's other hand, wrapped around a solid Aumrarr hilt, took the man in the throat, sending him staggering down to his own hard meeting with the floor.

The great chamber looked even grander from where they were now, racing across its glossy-smooth black tiles, seeking a way out. Yonder was the great arch where Orthaunt's skull hung in the air grinning at them, over there was a pair of double doors that obviously opened into a wide passage heading to the front of the castle, and behind-

The tapestries that they'd seen being plucked aside, earlier, parted again as half a dozen Lyrose warriors-knights? Well, they wore the best darkly-gleaming plate armor Garfist had seen this side of Galath, from head to toe-strode forward into the room. Some of them were unshuttering hand-lanterns as they came, and the others were drawing long, gleaming swords.

Behind them were two menacingly-smiling, grandly garbed people who could only be Lord and Lady Lyrose.

"So two alley-dregs intruders have dared to burst into our home," the lord purred, "undoubtedly to steal." As his wife's sneer became a cruel smile of anticipation, he added softly, "No need to keep these alive to question. Use your poisoned blades, loyal warriors of Lyrose."

It was cold in Yintaerghast. The place was a massive stone fortress, yes, with gaping window-holes aplenty in its walls to let the winds whistle through, but the ruined castle of Lorontar wasn't just dank and chilly. Its dark, looming walls and floors held a deeper, bone-numbing, somehow alive cold, that seeped into one's body and sapped alertness and feeling, and… and life.

Narmarkoun grimaced. His lips had long ago tightened into a grim line; even after he'd slain the last lurking beast in the deepest dungeons, and shattered the last clever trap-magic he could find… and long after the magics he'd devised had clearly triumphed over Lorontar's great shield-spell.

He could still feel the silent thunder of that fell and mighty magic all around him. It twisted the minds of all living creatures who entered Yintaerghast, slowly stripping away any magical knowledge-wherefore wizards less brilliant than Narmarkoun dared not enter.

It also, far less slowly, sapped any magics at work on intruders, which freed servitors sent in by wizards from the magics that controlled or saw through them.

Almost as an afterthought, it did one more thing, that made finding a way out of the castle again difficult. It caused all of the castle's empty windows to look out into a swirling void that allowed no creature to leap, fall, fly, or climb out; those who tried were thrust back in again by the suddenly-thickening, surging mists.

Narmarkoun had never witnessed this last effect before now, but then he'd never dared set foot in Yintaerghast before.

So he was immune to Lorontar's greatest magic-and so were his dead playpretties, so pale and silent as they stood yearningly outside the chamber door, watching him-but anyone else who might come to the cold castle in the dead wood would still face its harms.

Which made it the ideal hide-hold, for now, if he could pierce its mists. With Malraun's armies on the march and his own false selves being hunted energetically all over Falconfar, Lorontar's fortress made a great place to hide. And from that hiding, to magically spy from afar on Rod Everlar.

Or he would do, the moment he got the details of this last magic sorted out, and could see through that misty void-that "otherwhere" that wasn't really gathered around the outside of Yintaerghast, at all-whenever he pleased.

If Malraun hadn't conquered everything else and decided to come exploring Yintaerghast for himself by then.

Ah, well, nothing in life remains the same.

Narmarkoun smiled wryly at no one, and bent his will again to adjusting incantations and the subsumptions of certain herbs and powders, to give himself the means to spy on Rod Everlar as freely as he'd been doing for months, now, before coming to Yintaerghast.

He had already filled several tomes with careful notes about the so-called Lord Archwizard. Who was no wizard at all, but a Shaper, and a naive buffoon at that. Some "Dark Lord" to quake in terror at!

Yet Everlar was mysterious, and in those mysteries might well lie his own bright future.

Rod Everlar had come from somewhere, a world or place that was not Falconfar. A place where Narmarkoun could take refuge, and build power, and perhaps even conquer, while Falconfar was ravaged in Malraun's ever-widening war.

The army of monsters and mercenaries raised by Horgul, with Malraun standing behind him-and Lorontar quite likely standing behind the unwitting Malraun-had attacked one hold after another, conquering territory in a manner never possible when three strong Dooms stood in opposition to each other.

That uneasy balance had held for too long, as Falconfar had simmered beneath it. Now, with the lid off the cauldron and Malraun charging through the Raurklor, swords were coming out everywhere. City against city on the far southern shores of the Sea of Storms, Galath about to rise into civil strife again, and the new faiths-the Forestmother, and the rest-goading men everywhere to visit fire and sword on each other.

Distressing for a Doom who desired the cold, quiet caresses of the obedient dead, and simply a quiet place to study.

He might have to conquer a world to get those things, yes, but if it was a world as full of dolts as Rod Everlar, how hard could that be?