Dark Lord

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“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.

Still grinning, the onetime pirate turned the other way to peer around and behind the desk.

"Aha!" he cried, almost immediately. In a crock on the floor down beside the desk were a cluster of canes and scabbarded blades, leaning back against the wall and nigh-invisible in the shadow of an untidy heap of parchments. A long, slender blade caught Gar's eye, and in an instant it was in his hand. He hefted it approvingly, drew it, and whistled softly in appreciation.

"Now this," he said, turning toward Iskarra, "is a beautiful blade! Might suit you, actually…"

There was a strange wriggling under his hand, a hiss, and Garfist found himself holding a serpent.

As the fanged head turned in his direction, jaws spread wide, he darted his other hand at it desperately, seeking to catch hold of it behind the jaws to keep it from striking. The rest of it was coiling angrily around his arm, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Something metal flashed through the air right in front of his fingertips, severing and carrying away the snake's forked tongue and causing it to rear back in writhing pain. Garfist got the hold he wanted, and squeezed as hard as he could as he lumbered forward so he could smash the snake's head against the wall. Repeatedly, hammering it until it was bloody mush all over his knuckles, and the wildly whipping body and tail were jerking in listless, dying spasms.

"Th-thanks," he gasped to Iskarra, as she marched past him to retrieve her hurled dagger from where it had embedded itself in the wall. She let the fragment of tongue fall away from it, unheeded, as she wiped it clean on a handy tapestry.

"Employ Vipers to slay vipers," she replied, giving his backside a friendly swat with precisely the same force and aim as he'd dealt her.

Whatever response Garfist might have intended to make was lost in a sudden, loud shout that seemed to come from the very air around them, resounding through the chamber they were in and those behind it that they'd just traversed: "Klammert! Klammert! To me!"

The echoes of those words were thunderous.

Iskarra frowned. "Sounds like that wizard."

Garfist grinned. "And he sounds a little upset, no?"

"Yes." Iskarra looked swiftly about. "Gar, I'm not staying in here; this is a dead end. I want to be somewhere that has doors, or a passage, or somewhere else I can see to flee into. If he unleashes an army of guardians…"

"Then through there!" Gar suggested, pointing hack through the arch and across the room they'd been in earlier. "We didn't open that door."

"Which was probably wisest," Iskarra muttered, following in his wake as the fat man lumbered across the room, hurling a chair aside.

The door swung open under his fist in silky, well-oiled silence, to reveal some sort of studying area with tomes on tables, and a staircase ascending between those tables, up into unseen levels above.

Somewhere above them, a door crashed open. In unspoken accord Iskarra and Garfist each ducked under a table on either side of the stairs.

They were still scrambling in and under when the lofty stairwell echoed with an excited, husky shout, "I come, master! I come!"

That cry was approaching rapidly, gaining volume as it grew closer, and they could hear hurrying, fast-approaching footfalls on the stairs. "My chance!" their rough-voiced owner gasped, as he came clattering down the last flight of steps. "My chance at last. Shine, Klammert, shine!"

Iskarra rolled her eyes, drew her sword, and moved to just the right place. She was hearing only one pair of hurrying boots; this Klammert dolt was alone. Whatever Gar did, she was going to…

Wait until just the right moment, and then bob up and thrust out her sword to trip this Klammert's racing feet, so that he-

Crashed face-first down the rest of the stairs at full rush, her blade clashing against Garfist's as he grinningly rose in perfect unison to do the same thing from the other side of the stairs.

With one accord they turned and watched the fat, young scraggle-bearded wizard slide heavily to a stop, his head and neck driven hard sideways by an unyielding wall.

Neither winced; they were too busy rushing forward to pluck wands and other useful-looking things from the sprawled apprentice.

Trading wide grins, their arms full of loot, Iskarra and Garfist rose to take themselves swiftly elsewhere in this gift-filled tower.

Taeauna and Deldragon stood their ground, setting their teeth and angling their blades-for the velduke, two puny daggers-just so. They were doing so, Rod realized, as he rolled to fetch up against a pair of shapely Aumrarr ankles, to protect him.

The great sword swept down. Deldragon and Taeauna met its force and thrust desperately forward to deflect it from Rod on the floor beneath it, but the sheer force of the guardian's swing drove them both to their knees.

The sword shuddered and squealed against the tiled stone of Ult Tower's floor, right in front of them;

Rod groaned as they ended up kneeling on him. "Roll under me!" Taeauna gasped, "and get out behind us!"

The great sword came crashing in again, backhanded, and this time it drove Taeauna and the velduke before it, sweeping them away from Rod so he could roll wherever he wanted.

The great metal automaton strode right after him. It took a slow step forward and swung its sword again; if Rod hadn't kept rolling frantically back down the passage the way they'd come, that gigantic sword would have bitten into him.

With a battle-shout, Velduke Deldragon leaped into the air and crashed into the thing from behind, slashing wildly with his daggers at the places where the metal plates met, and only enchanted air was holding the lumbering construct together. White lightnings crackled briefly along both blades and then died as the nobleman fell past, and Taeauna launched herself at it in his wake, high and hard.

The guardian staggered, swayed, and then started to turn, sword preceding its arms. Deldragon trotted around to keep himself behind it, and sprang again. This time, when he landed, his dagger blade was burning with a white fire, and the armored titan seemed to be limping. Taeauna hit it again, as Rod rolled to his feet, glanced swiftly over his shoulder to make sure nothing was coming down the passage at him, and then started running uncertainly toward the fight. He couldn't just stand and watch his friends get…

The great sword sliced empty air again, the guardian turning now as fast as it could, spinning endlessly around as the velduke and the Aumrarr kept running to keep to its rearside, springing to attack it repeatedly from behind.

The helm started to turn around on the shoulders now, the better to keep them under scrutiny; Rod saw that and shouted, pointing, as he ran forward.

The velduke struck again, awakening more lightning, stabbing at the thing's left armpit. This time, when he fell away, lightnings remained, playing and crackling in the air at that joint. Taeauna darted in to hack and slice at the guardian's left knee.

The very tip of its sword caught her and hurled her away, blood spraying, but she waved Rod away and ran in at the thing again, calling to the velduke, "Wonder how many more of these the wizard has?"

"I was never good at counting," Deldragon bellowed back, slicing it again. "One… two… many!"

Rod groaned at that pun, whether it had been meant or not, as Taeauna ducked in again to hack and hew at that knee, the guardian's metal shrieking and squealing with every step now.

Deldragon crashed feet-first into the thing, causing it to sway as it tried to turn. It grounded the tip of its sword for balance and managed the turn, slicing back along its own leg as cunningly as any street fighter, and caught Taeauna tarrying at its knee just an instant too long.

This time, the great blade caught her squarely. She folded up around it with a sob as it bit deep into her and hurled her away. Deldragon shouted in anger and dared to spring at the thing's chest, kicking it high when it was half-turned one way, and leaning back to slice in another.

A metal fist dashed him brutally to the floor for his daring, but with a slow, inexorable, grinding groan of metal sliding uneasily down metal, the titan toppled over, crashing onto its side on the tiled floor and bouncing.

Staggering and moaning in pain, his face a mask of streaming blood, the velduke shuffled in beside it, slicing under the helm and then one arm as they bounced up, seeking to sever them from the body.

The blades of his daggers burned like torches. Gasping, he was forced to fling them away as the white fire reached the hilts, but the helm and that arm bounced and clanged free of the construct's body, and the guardian rose no more, its legs and remaining arm thrashing in slow, metal-shrieking futility.

Deldragon stared at Rod over the thing for a moment. Then they hissed at each other in horrified unison, "Taeauna!"

Rod could run much faster than the wounded velduke; he got to her crumpled body first.

There was blood everywhere, in a spreading pool around her, and more of it bubbled from her lips as she tried to speak, pointing up at him with a trembling, dripping finger.

Rod flung himself to his knees beside her, fumbling for his dagger, sliding in her blood and not caring. He had to-had to-

A hand that trembled almost as much as his own, but had a grip like a school workbench vise he'd once foolishly challenged, was suddenly around his wrist.

"Slaying her is hardly the mercy I was intending, man," Darendarr Deldragon snarled in Rod's ear, his hoarse voice managing to sting with both fire and ice at once.

"I'm not… Let go of me!" Rod snapped. "I'm saving her! I hope."

His voice broke on the last words, and he fought not to choke on his own tears, but something- perhaps that-made the velduke let go of him. Rod winced and sliced down, hard, then roared in pain as fire blossomed across his palm.

"Mmm, mmm," Taeauna managed to say, in her need, and together Rod and Deldragon got his bleeding hand to her lips. Rod had cut himself deeply, and there was plenty for her to drink, even if she couldn't manage to suck all that well.

Rod put his other arm around her and held his hand against her tongue; she was like the horses he'd ridden at camp, nuzzling him for sugar cubes. He nodded his thanks to Deldragon and was shocked to see clear awe on the velduke's face.

"Who…" he managed to ask, "Who's the wizard we saw? If this is his tower, what did he do to Ult?"

"That was Arlaghaun," the nobleman gasped, swiping blood off his face with one arm. "Considered by most the real ruler of Galath, and the most powerful of the Dooms."

Taeauna sat back into Rod's arm with a sigh. "My thanks, lord. I'll live. I need more, but let Darr drink of you first."

Rod nodded, but saw that his palm was almost healed. He held it out to the velduke and said, "Cut me. My knife arm is a little occupied."

"With a nice armful of Aumrarr, yes," the noble agreed, reaching to take Rod's dagger gingerly. "This is… Well, I can scarce believe it."

"He's a Shaper, Darr," Taeauna reminded the velduke, as fresh fire sliced across Rod's palm.

Then she turned her head against Rod's chest and added, "Years ago, Arlaghaun managed something magical that allowed him to conquer Ult's mind, and add it to his own. He gained this tower and all of Ult's magic and knowledge. That face we saw for a moment, when his twisted awry, was Ult."

Rod nodded. "I recognized it. So he subsumed Ult…"

He stopped at the expression he saw in Deldragon's ice-blue eyes. No one had ever regarded him with naked, deepening awe before.

Fearfully, Velduke Darendarr Deldragon started to lap at Rod's bleeding palm.

The ring that let him fly over the pit traps was flickering and faltering by the time Arlaghaun reached the high hall where his spell had brought Yardryk and all the rest into the tower. He glared around, almost feeling the two brown flames of his own gaze.

The velduke, the familiar stranger, and the rest were long gone, of course, just as he would be, if he got across this room unscathed. He had spell-tomes and other magics aplenty hidden in a score of places across Falconfar. When he'd had time enough with them, whoever was turning Ult Tower against him would pay for doing so, painfully and in the end fatally. No one must defy a Doom and live.

He spent a shielding spell to shape a huge invisible cylinder of force across this last room, and sped along it.

Halfway across the hall lightnings burst from the mouth of a carved ceiling-boss, bolts crackling as they raked and then curled angrily around the cylinder of force, illuminating and clawing at it, their onslaught making it flicker and darken. They could destroy it, given long enough, but they would not he given that long enough.

Above his sharp nose, Arlaghaun's eyes narrowed; not all of his apprentices knew of that particular magic. There would be time to think on that later. Just now, he could see hidden doors swinging open in the walls of the great hall, and armored figures striding forth. Puny foes, but swift enough to reach the far end of his cylinder, deadly enough to an unprotected man, and numerous enough to overwhelm a lone foe.

Yet they were going to be too late. He was at the end of the cylinder, and willing it to swing away from himself, turning to serve as a great room-spanning ram, to thrust back those running armored automatons. That would win him time to do thus.

The Doom of Falconfar strode up to the tall, ornate oval mirror that adorned one wall, turned it with his fingers, just a little, until he heard the hidden catches click, then slid it aside to reveal the dark, narrow opening behind it. The glass had taken a long time to enchant, so he left it standing open behind him, hoping none of his guardians would shatter it while pursuing him.

Then he was hurrying down the short, curving, narrow way it had hidden, to touch the little glow on the rough stone wall at its end, and leave Ult Tower behind, through one of its most hidden gates.

"Fear my return," he murmured, the metallic shrieks of his armored sentinels shouldering against stone after him, fading as the glowing mists took him, "for I shall be exacting payment for this. And the price will be high."

"He's gone!" Amalrys spat, slamming her hand down on a defenseless crystal in a rattle of protesting chain. "Gone! Falcon take him and break him!"

She glared wildly around at the array of glowing crystals, seeing striding chaos in a dozen chambers of the tower as aroused guardians hastened to do whatever she'd goaded them to. She should calm them and return them to their resting-places, for Arlaghaun had destroyed many of them, and their own misadventures damaged more. Fires were raging in two rooms, and there was wrack and shattered ruin everywhere.

One scene caught her attention; blue eyes blazing, she thrust forward her manacled hands as if to throttle that crystal, the better to stare into its glowing depths.

She was seeing the row of gates out of the tower that all the apprentices knew of, and used often at the master's bidding, and the wide passage before them. Three intruders were sitting there together, in the lee of a riven, still-struggling armored guardian: rhe Galathan noble, the wingless Aumrarr, and the mysterious man who traveled with her.

As Amalrys watched, they rose, blood-spattered but seemingly unhurt, and looked to the gates.

Stop them, a voice thundered in her head, sending her reeling. Send the guardians against them! Let them not escape!

Mind whirling, drooling blood across glowing crystals-Falcon, she'd bitten her own lip, and no wonder, at that mind-thunder! — Amarlys sprang to do just as she was told, hissing commands and slapping crystals and…

Arching back and away from it all in a sudden spasm, control of her own limbs torn rudely from her, as a stronger voice than the first roared, "LET THEM GO. HARM THEM NOT!"

And so it was that the wizard Malraun became directly aware of the wizard Narmarkoun, in the torn and tortured depths of Amalrys's mind. Two furious mind-bolts lashed out as one, each seeking the death of the other… and each fading into futility as the ravaged mind around them exploded.

Amalrys collapsed across the array of scrying-spheres, her eyes two burnt and empty holes.

Smoke curled forth from her ears, mouth, and nostrils as her lips gasped the last thought she'd clung to: "Arlaghaun, I love you."

In the passage of Ult Tower where the row of gates hummed and glowed, Rod, Taeauna, and Deldragon turned at sudden rising sounds of thundering haste, to behold a host of clawed, bladed, armored things racing toward them from one end of the passage, and another, similar host hurrying from the other.

Great jaws, closing…

"Falcon!" the velduke cursed in a slow whisper, aghast, as they saw death coming for them.