by Ed Greenwood
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?
ISKARRA AND GARFIST stared at the six Lyrose knights advancing in slow, menacing unison, with Lord and Lady Lyrose sneering from behind them. They were tarrying rather than charging, and Isk and Gar could hear why.
The thunder of boots was growing louder down the tower stair, and Lyrose guards were rushing along the balcony Isk and Gar had just traversed, too. Dark-armored and eager, they seemed to have spears in plenty, but no bows. Thank the Falcon for small glorking favors.
Gar bent, plucked up the still-hot sword from the blackened bones of the guard slain by the wizard's skull, and ran to the tower door juggling it and swearing as it scorched his fingers, the charred remnants of its scabbard falling away in his wake.
A spear hissed down at him, and then another—but Orthaunt's grinning skull saw those as attacks, and lashed out with more green-gold fire. Two guards shrieked up on the balcony, and one of them toppled forward over the rail, to hang motionless, head-downwards, as he cooked. No more spears were thrown.
Aside from ducking low and running as far around the curve of the tower wall as he could get from the balcony, Gar paid no heed to any of this. He was too busy hurrying—and then thrusting the burned guard's weapon through the door-rings to try to bar the tower door shut. He doubted one blade could hold back all the guards in the tower and on the balcony, but it might take them some time to break it and force entrance. Oh, they could jump down over the balcony rail, aye, but that wouldn't be a flood he couldn't stand up to, and carve as they landed.
Isk snatched open one of the doors in the wall behind where he'd been standing with her, to try to get out. Discovering a trio of grinning guards waiting in the passage beyond, she flung herself at their ankles and tripped them helplessly forward into the room.
Gar whirled from the tower door in time to see them fall. Snarling, he unshuttered his darklantern.
As Lord Lyrose's bodyguard knights raised shouts, deciding to charge him after all, he flung it—high, hard, and flaming—into the tapestries just above and behind the sneering lord and lady.
Fire flared amid the folds of the old and dusty cloth in an instant. Lady Lyrose shrieked in dismay, Lord Lyrose roared out his anger, and a knight spun around and hurled his sword vainly at the flames.
Orthaunt's skull took that as another attack, and lashed out with another deadly green-gold beam.
As that doomed guard burned, Gar sprinted back to aid Iskarra.
She had already efficiently daggered her three guards as they crashed to the floor, sprawling atop each other. He joined her just as the blades of the foremost rushing bodyguard knights reached her—and the bone-dry tapestries really caught alight.
Flames rushed up the walls with a hungry roar, racing along the tapestries in a growing, deepening thunder to ignite lesser draperies tied back around pillars all along the balconies.
The knights hacked and thrust enthusiastically at Garfist, blades ringing off his frantic parryings, but Lord Lyrose shouted, "Knights of Lyrose! Back from him, you fools! Go get the maids and the steward and everyone from the stables, with all their buckets! The rooms back yon are all timbers and paneling! Hurry!'"
The knights hesitated, looking to their lord to be sure they'd heard rightly—and Garfist managed to slice the throat out of one of them with a wild, overbalancing slash.
He staggered helplessly, desperate to regain his balance, but the knights were no longer heeding him; more of Lyrose's roared commands were sending them obediently dashing off in all directions. One flung a dagger at Iskarra as he went. She eyed its whirling, oncoming blade, seeing there a blue, sticky sheen no steel should have.
"Darfly poison," she murmured, deftly plucking the dagger out of the air in front of her nose. "Nasty."
The tower door thundered again as guards behind it tried to wrench it open, and the sword Garfist had thrust through its rings resisted them.
Again they tugged, the swordblade bending slightly and shrieking in protest as the door buckled a trifle. A guard ducked between flames to vault down over the balcony rail and run to pluck out the sword from the hall side of the door, and Gar grinned and went for him.
Only to see Lord Lyrose himself charging to intercept his unwelcome guest.
"Burn my home, will you?" he snarled as he came. "Die, thief! Slayer! Bastard!"
"Well, it's nice to meet a pompous backwoods lordling who's so eloquent," Gar taunted merrily, slashing aside the running guard's sword and driving his free fist hard into the man's throat.
Choking, the guard reeled, and Gar flung himself across the man's front to get around him and put him in his rushing lord's way, tugging at the guard's sword at the same time. He came away with it as the man spun sideways under his jerking, then hopped, stumbled—and toppled helplessly to the tiles.
The tower door thundered again, nearby.
Lord Lyrose never slowed, trampling his own guard without hesitation to get at Garfist. The splendidly glittering Lyrose sword and dagger slashed out with a deft speed that made the fat, gruff swindler grunt in surprise, and hastily back away.
"Kill him, my lord!" Lady Lyrose shrieked, eyes blazing in fury. "Kill him!"
"With pleasure!" her husband roared back, adding a bellow of laughter that sank into a grinning sneer as he stalked forward, seeking to corner Garfist.
Across the great hall, the wizard's skull spat magical fire at another running guard, and Gar could see Iskarra dodging, darting, and stabbing with her poisoned dagger at six or seven more who'd rushed in the door she'd opened. Smoke was thickening in the air now as flames reached the roof-beams, and shouting could be heard from all over Lyraunt Castle.
Garfist gave way thoughtfully as his noble foe pressed forward. Well-trained with a blade this Lord Lyrose might be, but the lord was far more gloatingly confident than anyone but an utter fool should be—given that he'd rushed eagerly in to take on Garfist alone, when he could wait for his seeming scores of guards to take care of that slaying for him.
So Lyrose was trusting in something more than sword-skill. Probably magic.
No glowing rings, though the man wore quite a few, heavy gaudy things of gems on gold, and... hoy, now, that gorget looked out of place on a man otherwise unarmored... and it stood in the way of Gar's ha
ndy fist downing his lordship as easily as he'd sent yon guard choking and strangling to the floor, too, so...
Garfist sidestepped the next Lyrose thrust, skipping lightly sideways like a Stormar table-dancer to shift his bulk faster than sneering lords would expect. Lyrose gaped at his foe, then rushed to close the gap that had opened between them.
"Die, dolt! I am Lord Magrandar Lyrose—and I am the best swordsman in all Falconfar!" he hissed.
"Oh?" Gar asked mockingly, beating the lord's gleaming blade to the tiles with his own sword. "That declaration'll look nice on yer casket! Lord Maggot Lyrose, one more idiot who thought himself the best bladesman in the world—but was, of course, wrong about that."
Their blades rang off each other twice and thrice. Then Lyrose was snarling at him and thrusting viciously, but Garfist caught that splendid sword again with his own rougher blade, forced it down, and leaned deftly in toward the lord. Lyrose brought up his dagger with a triumphant "Hah!"
But the growling adventurer had timed his lean just right. Lyrose's dagger flashed between his arm and side.
Leaving him easily able to reach the target he sought. He wanted to slash—with more force than elegant deftness—away the lord's gorget.
His blade spun in, under its edge, slicing flesh and straps alike, and sent it ringing and flashing away through the air.
Bleeding copiously from his throat, Lord Magrandar Lyrose staggered back, staring at Garfist in open-mouthed shock.
Whereupon Isk smiled thinly, tossed her newly-acquired, poisoned dagger with her customary skill—and the lord of Lyraunt Castle suddenly sprouted steel in one eye.
He went down to the tiles in silence, two stumbling strides later, leaving Lady Lyrose to shriek out her own rage and rush forward.
For two wild strides before she realized her peril—and abruptly ducked aside, darted across the hall, and out a door.