by Ed Greenwood
"Does it? As I recall, Lord Hammerhand claims all Ironthorn, but rival Ironthar lords dispute that. Are you sure neither of them welcomes wizards as allies?"
He fell silent and waited, seeing grim uncertainty on both loyal Hammerhand faces. The moment they shot swift looks at each other, Rod added quietly, "So do you still dare to kill me or turn me away, when I come to Hammerhand in friendship?"
It was Briszyk's turn to sigh heavily. "You seek audience with Lord Burrim Hammerhand?"
"I do. In peace." He spread his hands. "No blades, and no spells."
Urlaun spat in Rod's direction, but lowered his sword. "Wizards need neither, sometimes. They can talk a man to death!"
Rod grinned. "Now that, I'll grant you. I'll try not to, though. All right?"
Briszyk and Urlaun traded glances again. Then the older guard waved his sword in a beckoning command and said curtly, "Well enough. We'll take you to Lord Hammerhand. You walk in front of us, though, and keep your hands away from your belt. Start casting a spell, and—"
He hefted his sword meaningfully.
Rod nodded. "I understand. Which way is the trail?"
"That way," Urlaun said, pointing with his sword.
Rod stumbled forward down the slope obediently. He'd descended perhaps half a dozen strides when the younger guard muttered, "You don't act like an Archwizard."
"Oh?" Rod asked over his shoulder, not turning his head. "How many Archwizards have you watched closely, recently?"
Neither guard made any sort of an answer to that.
DYUNE OF THE Aumrarr knew she was dying.
She was drooling blood, but it felt like she was spitting out fire. Fire that slid out of her endlessly, welling up a-fresh inside her to replace all she leaked out. She could feel nothing but searing fire on her left side—even the left side of her face, now—and her right side felt weak and sick.
Dyune tried to lift her hand, and the sick feeling surged, raging through her and leaving her gasping. Healing was only two rooms from here, but it might as well have been kingdoms away across Falconfar.
"Dying, all of us," the shaggy man muttered suddenly, close by on her right. "Less ye've got healing up yer sleeve, woman with wings."
"I do," Dyune gasped, or tried to; it came out very much like a whisper.
A handful of moments later she found herself shaken feebly—fresh fire rocked her, forcing out sobs—as a battered face glared into hers nose to nose, and its owner growled, "Where? Where and how—and no tricks, now! Or I'll—I'll—"
"Kill me?" Dyune fought to smile. "I tremble, man."
"Glork ye! Ye're dying, Aumrarr! Can't ye leave off sneering at us poor idiot bumbling man-folk for one glorking moment?"
"Evidently not," Dyune managed to hiss, but her smile was real this time, and the shaggy man saw that.
"Garfist Gulkoun am I, an' this is my Iskarra, yonder," he told her, blood welling out of his mouth. He spat it out scornfully to one side, and added, "And ye found us here because four Aumrarr put us here. After flying us here across Falconfar three days and three nights, too!"
He regarded her for a moment, and then added, "Seeing as we're dying, too, will ye tell us just what enraged ye so, finding us here in Stormcrag Castle? Is it sacred to ye wingbi—er, Aumrarr, hey?"
Dyune hadn't the strength left to laugh or groan, she found; all she managed was a sort of croaking, heaving choking. "And I attacked you," she spat out, when she could form words again.
Garfist merely nodded. "Ye wouldn't happen to be right sorry over it, and have healing magic handy, would ye?"
Dyune tried—and failed—to laugh again, and settled for whispering, "Will you heal me, and make peace between us, if I tell you where healing magic is hidden?"
"I will. Strike me if I lie!"
Dyune smiled at that, and whispered, "Then go out through that door you were trying to get through. The room beyond has three doors in its far wall. Open them—and leave them open. They're weighted to swing shut; use chairs or your boots as wedges, to keep them open. Then close the left-most of the doors, twist its pull-ring to the right, right around a full turn and more. Once you hear a click, wedge the door wide open again, and you'll reveal a stone on its sill, right by its hinge, that's darker than the rest. Push it down. You can then pull out the standing part of the doorframe the door swings closed against. There's a niche full of vials, all the same. Drink two and bring two each back, for your lady and for me. Then I'll say more."
"Heh. Just a little trust, eh?"
"All I can spare, man. All I can spare."
The man let go of her, and Dyune sank back into her pool of gentle fire. Warm and welcome it grew slowly cooler and deeper... deeper...
Abruptly she was shaken awake again, as ungentle fingers thrust her head upright and dug at the corners of her mouth.
"I'm—I'm—" she struggled to say, before her mouth flooded with water. Water that was like minted ice, minted ice that had caught a-flame and was sluicing away the deep, smoldering fire that had claimed her left side and crept through much of the rest of her, too...
Dyune arched and gasped, shuddering, as the pain ebbed. She'd tasted these healing quaffs before; Garfist hadn't played her false. She'd helped fill the vials—many seasons ago, it seemed—from an enspelled healing pool the Aumrarr had found in the castle of the dead wizard Heldohraun, and—
Ah! She could see again, tears blinked away and shudderings done, and beheld the man and the woman sitting on either side of her. Garfist had her sword in his hands, and Thinbritches—Iskarra, that's what he'd called her—held her dagger.
"Peace?" she asked them, with a wry smile.
"Peace," they replied, in perfect unison.
Dyune let her smile sag in relief, drew in a deep breath, and asked, "Do you know why four of my sisters brought you here? And who they were? How did you come to meet them? I—"
Garfist waved the sword. "Hold tongue, there! I'll be forgetting all you ask, in a breath or two!"
"Another thing," Iskarra said crisply. "We have the blades, remember. So, a question answered for a question answered."
She leaned forward to fix Dyune with a steady look that wasn't quite a glare, and added, "To your first: no, we know not why we were brought here. We have our suspicions, but they're just that. Our suspicions. Some Aumrarr seem to delight in keeping secrets. I'm going to hope you're not one of them." Wagging the dagger in her hand like a disapproving finger, she asked, "As Gar asked and you avoided answering, O Nameless Aumrarr, what's so special about Stormcrag Castle?"
Dyune stared at her for a moment. "I did, didn't I?" she said slowly. "Iskarra and Garfist, I am called Dyune. This castle once belonged to a wizard-king, long ago, but for centuries has been a hide-hold of the Aumrarr. A refuge, where we hide folk and things and ourselves, when the need arises."
"Falconaar say Stormcrag Castle is haunted, and stands lost in the heart of the Raurklor," Garfist growled, almost accusingly.
The Aumrarr shrugged. "Well, it is haunted, and does stand near the center of the Raurklor. It's hardly 'lost,' though. We're right in the heart of embattled Ironthorn, with the Lyrose vales all around us."
"The who?" Iskarra asked sharply.
"Haunted by what, exactly?" Garfist asked, just a little more slowly.
"Ghosts of things—headless floating warriors who swing swords, huge four-armed skeletons fused together out of the bones of many smaller dead beasts—we hopefully won't see. They appear to those who try to walk in and out of Stormcrag, or use magic against its wardings. They are bound to thwart such farers, not harm Aumrarr who fly in and out of the castle."
"Someone or something keeps this place clean, and mends its leaks and shutters when storms get in," Iskarra said warningly. "I don't think you're telling us true and full, Aumrarr."
"There are ghostly Aumrarr, too, but they keep themselves hidden from non-Aumrarr," Dyune admitted. "Forgive me; secrets are all the armor most Aumrarr ever wear; sharing them is not something I
am in the habit of doing." She managed a faint smile. "Now, I believe you owe me another answer, before I share more."
"The four who brought us here were Ambrelle, Juskra, Dauntra, and... Lorlarra," Iskarra replied. "Now, who or what are 'Lyrose vales,' and why is Ironthorn embattled this time?"
Dyune rolled slowly onto her side and sat up. She was pleased to see that neither her sword nor her dagger were raised menacingly against her. "You know Ironthorn has three lords, bitter rivals who make war on each other constantly, yes?"
"Yes," Garfist and Iskarra said together.
"Well, Lord Magrandar Lyrose holds sway over three small valleys that make up southwestern Ironthorn. Those valleys are separated from each other by Harstorm Ridge, a long, steep-sided height that's covered with thick forest and roamed by many monsters—"
"What sort of monsters?" Garfist interrupted suspiciously. The sword did come up, this time.
"Any sort we can find, spell-snare, and bring here," Dyune told him wryly. "Prowlcats and sharruk bears, mostly."
"So 'haunted' Stormcrag Castle stands atop this ridge, and your hungry roaming beasts keep Ironthar away from the gates," Iskarra put in.
"Exactly. Only the bravest Lyrose foresters set axe to even the outermost trees of Harstorm. None that I know of have dared climb the slopes of the Stormcrag."
"So we're sitting in the middle of all this right now," Garfist said slowly. "The war between the lords; how fares it now? What's befallen this last season or so?"
Dyune shrugged. "You've time to spare, don't you? Well, now... Ironthorn is mainly farms in the forest, but it has its gemadars, too, so Stormar now know and care about Ironthorn, and—"
"We know about gemadars an' Ironthar swords," Gar interrupted. "An' we know Hammerhand is strongest of the three, but Lyrose an' Tesmer defy his rule, calling themselves 'Lord of Ironthorn,' too. Hammerhand is the gauntlet on blood, Lyrose the caltrop, and Tesmer the diamond. Tesmer has most of the gem-mines, but is the least of the three. If I remember me a-right, Burrim is the Hammerhand lord right now, Melvarl—there's a sly, dark sneering villain, if ever I met one!—is Lyrose in Lyraunt Castle, an'... Lance? Ranee?... is Tesmer, an' his lands lie along the Imrush."
"Irrance Tesmer," said the Aumrarr, "and Melvarl lords it no longer. He raped and butchered Lady Venyarla Hammerhand, and Burrim caught and killed him for it. Wherefore Burrim now has no wife, and Magrandar son of Melvarl is Lord Lyrose. A cruel echo of his father; less brains, backbone, and subtlety, though he knows it not."
"You're telling us," Iskarra said dryly, "That it's much safer inside this castle—even with Aumrarr bursting in trying to kill us—than out there in Ironthorn, where the warring never ends."
Dyune nodded. "And every visitor becomes another sword in the hand of someone, to use on someone else. Until that sword shatters."
"NELTHRAUN," THE DARKLY handsome man said gently, to the face flickering between his upraised hands in the air before him, "I truly don't care if the timing is inconvenient, or how many coins this will cost you. I need your warriors armed and hurrying to Ironthorn now. Or I'll need a new Lord of Stelgond."
He strolled across the room, the floating face hanging in the air staring at him going slowly pale, and added casually, "If that brutally unsubtle threat isn't sufficiently clear to you, I can make another. This, for instance: gaunch-eels eat humans very slowly, from within. I'm sure you'll find it entertaining to watch your daughter die—it will take days—and then your wife, all the while knowing you'll be next. Unpleasantnesses that can all be avoided, if you just obey me. As you swore to do, when I named you Lord, remember?"
"Y-yes, High Lord Malraun! Of course! I was merely informing you of the effects of mustering my armsmen at this time, not disputing your command! I'll be leading the swords of Stelgond north before nightfall!"
"That's very gratifying to hear," Malraun purred, and flung his arms wide, ending the spell. The face vanished into a brief-lived cloud of whirling sparks; he strode right through them on his way to the meal that was now waiting for him. Or should be, if certain servants wanted to retain their heads.
In the meantime, his armies were gathering and converging. Armies no other could match—or hope to stop.
The bracelets on Malraun's wrists crackled as the poison-seeking spell awakened. He had not outlasted Arlaghaun, and withstood Narmarkoun all these years, by being careless. The newest Doom had come at last, true, but his scryings had long since told him that Rod Everlar was a blundering weakling who hailed from a far place indeed, who knew very little about magic or Falconfar. There was no need to worry about anything Rod Everlar might do.
Wherefore a relaxed and smug Malraun the Matchless went to enjoy his repast without further care, unaware of one silent, hidden little problem known as Lorontar.
DYUNE SHOOK HER head. "Burrim has sons, and a daughter, too, but his real strengths are his fearlessness and clear wits, and his three loyal warcaptains: Darlok, Tarlkond, and Syregorn. He is the strongest, and holds most of Ironthorn—all the northern part—for good reasons."
"Lyrose is the hated one," Iskarra murmured.
"Hated by outlander merchants who tell their hatreds to wider Falconfar? Yes. Wanton cruelty, sneering at everyone who's not kin to you, and seizing any traders' wares you like the look of, without paying a lone coin for them, earns such regard. Moreover, the current Lord Lyrose, Magrandar, is driven to outstrip the deeds of a more famous—and far more capable and level-headed—father. His wife Maerelle is as hotheaded as he is, and so are their children. Some summers back, they seemed not only to be rushing to accomplish their own doom, but to have very nearly reached that cliff. Whereupon Magrandar did the only wise thing I've heard of him doing, in all his life. Perhaps he was bullied into it, and perhaps he seized upon it in desperation, after Hammerhand slew his father and came after him, intending to eradicate House Lyrose whatever the cost."
"He accepted the aid of the wizard Malraun," Iskarra murmured.
"Eagerly. Malraun's spells hurled back Hammerhand's forces, shattering most of his knights. The Doom gave Lyrose a personal shield that heals wounds dealt by metal weapons and by poison—though he feels the agony and momentary debilitation of the wounds. As far as we Aumrarr can tell, Malraun has been largely absent from Ironthorn since, but he may have given Lyrose far more—or installed his own hidden creatures in Lyraunt Castle, as some whisper. Yes, Lyrose is best... avoided."
"I care naught for how Ironthorn tears itself apart, and who tries to lord it over the place, once I'm not sitting in the heart of it," Garfist rumbled. "What of the last lord—the one who has the gems all the rest of Falconfar cares about?"
Dyune shrugged. "Lord Irrance Tesmer rules over the valley of Imrush, supported by perhaps the most ruthless and informed Ironthar of all: his wife Telclara. Whose manner is icy, and whose will is stronger than most swords. We suspect another Doom is working through her."
"Narmarkoun?"
"He's the only one left, if it wasn't Arlaghaun or the Dark Lord—and if there are no other fell wizards of power who are wise enough to act more covertly than the Dooms."
"Why," Iskarra asked curiously, "do the Aumrarr suspect a wizard is behind Telclara? Can't Falconaar be evil or ruthless all by themselves?"
Dyune smiled. "Well, does this seem, ah, usual to you? Given Telclara's unhesitating cruelties? She no longer admits Tesmer to her bed, but herself selects bedmates for him from beautiful slave-girls she purchases from Stormar slavers, who in turn procure them in raids on the most southerly cities of the Sea of Storms. She slaughters each of them after they bear him a child. Children she deems acceptable are named heirs of the blood Tesmer, and trained to war; they have three daughters, followed by six sons, all by these means."
Garfist sighed. "Could ye Aumrarr have chosen a slightly less crowded a snakepit to toss us in? War-torn Galath, for instance? Or are ye determined to hurl us all over Falconfar?"
Dyune smiled again. "No, that's a fate we reserve for the newe
st Doom. The Lord Archwizard of Falconfar, Rod Everlar."
"Oh? And what's he ever done to ye?"
"It's not what he's done, so much as what we fear he will do. Very soon now."
HALF A DOZEN strides after they'd passed under the raised portcullis of Hammerhold and marched straight ahead into the open center of an echoing, bustling entrance hall—that had promptly fallen into a hush, as hurrying courtiers had stopped to stare—Briszyk stepped right in front of Rod, forcing the Archwizard of Falconfar to come to a hasty, unsteady halt. Their noses almost banged together.
"This will go best," the senior guard said very firmly, keeping his voice low and quiet, "if you obey calmly and say almost nothing, this next little while. The Lord Leaf will be less than pleased at our bringing any stranger into the presence of Lord Hammerhand, let alone a wizard. To say nothing of someone calling himself the Archwizard. Many bows will be aimed at you, but rest easy, and none of them should be loosed at you. For now, stand right here and move not."
He and Urlaun scurried off into the depths of the castle, in opposite directions, without waiting for any reply.
Rod was only too happy to obey, even under the deepening, unpleasant feeling of being stared at by curious and fearful Hammerhold cooks and retainers who poked their heads out of various doors and panels to level hasty stares at him ere swiftly vanishing again. None of them looked happy; a sadness seemed to hang over the castle.
As he stood waiting, heavily armed and armored Hammerhand guards came trotting quickly up to him in twos and threes. They were uniformly grim-faced and silent, and avoided meeting his gaze as they hastily readied crossbows. More of their fellows promptly followed.
By the time Urlaun came hurrying back, Rod was ringed by so many ready bows that the Hammerhand defensive strategy was clear. Not even a battle-ready Archwizard could work much harm—they hoped—before he'd be fairly torn apart by war-quarrels speeding in from all directions to pincushion him.