by Ed Greenwood
His business right now was with that second one; he swung it open as swiftly as he could, to reveal a luxurious, tapestry-hung bedchamber dominated by a huge fourposter and large, oval-framed pictures on the richly-paneled walls that held bright, moving scenes, like so many television sets tuned to different "exploring exotic global locales" programs.
Aside from a quick peer inside for Dark Helms or other lurking beasts or guards, Rod ignored the bedroom for now. What mattered was that the door connecting it to the bathchamber was open and could be held that way with the toe of his boot, and that he could write on it with his quill pen, to try Shaping again.
Calmly he dipped the quill, reached down, and started to write. He wanted to start low, in case the ink ran down the door and marred whatever he might try to write below it.
It did, but that hardly mattered. Even faster than on the parchment, his moving quill birthed fire in its wake, flames that flared up vigorously this time, blazing away merrily—and being echoed precisely, Rod saw with utter astonishment, on the bathroom's other door, long strides away!
He drew his quill back to stare, then tried to write again, watching that other door. Yes. Wherever his pen touched and burned the connecting door he was holding open, the door across the room that linked the bathroom with the passage that held Syregorn and the Hammerhand knights was burning, too, like he was writing on both doors at once, or as if they were carbon copies or linked by some sort of invisible tracing pantograph!
Rod cursed softly, and stopped trying to write. He was likely doomed to fail at Shaping from one end of Malragard to the other, no matter what he wrote on, or with.
Stepping back from the door, he took a long stride into the bedroom, let the still-smoking door swing shut behind him, and looked down at himself.
He wore pouches in plenty of Arlaghaun's mysterious magics, riding all of his crisscrossing belts and baldrics. Beneath and jutting out from between those many smooth bands of tooled leather were the now-hardened blobs and splashes of what had been metal armor. Rod shook his head.
No. He simply knew too little about what he was messing with to have hopes of intending to do something and then managing it. He'd literally be playing with fire, blundering about with magical effects—and unintended consequences—he knew nothing about, and wouldn't solve until too late, when it all blew up in his face.
About all Rod had that still seemed whole and reliable were his boots, the heavy war-gauntlets dangling from where he'd clipped them to one baldric, and one of his swords. It occurred to him that taking any clothing from the wardrobe-room hadn't even entered his mind. Now, he knew why. Without really thinking about it, he'd concluded Malraun would be able to trace him at will if he wore anything of Malraun's, no matter where he might go or how he might try to hide.
Rod sighed, becoming very much a scared and bewildered fantasy writer who didn't even know how to play at being Lord Archwizard of Falconfar, let alone wield the magical might of a Doom.
That was when he noticed that something had silently happened, in the few flashing moments he'd stood gazing and thinking.
A few steps away from him, the bed was no longer empty.
"STOP THAT," SYREGORN commanded coldly. "Jelgar, be still!"
The youngest of his three surviving knights sobbed uncontrollably, and all the warcaptain's roar accomplished was to make him flinch—and bolt down the passage, running wildly with arms flung wide and a wordless shout of terror rolling before him.
Door after door thundered under Jelgar's boots, and Onthras whirled around and looked to Syregorn for direction—should he fling out a hand to try to halt the runaway?
The warcaptain shook his head grimly, and pointed. Much nearer at hand, one of the glowing doors in the right-hand wall of the passage had grown brighter, and started to give off wisps of smoke.
As the three men of Hammerhold stared at it, the door started to bulge.
"Get back!" Syregorn bellowed at them. "Thalden, with me! Onthras, go after Jelgar! Get away from that door!"
The door was visibly melting now, its substance—which had appeared to be solid stone—sagging and sliding from where it was bulging, running down its smoothness in long lines of wetness, blobs that left glistening, smoking threads in their wake.
Spitting out a stream of curses, Onthras ran for his life, sprinting down the passage after Jelgar.
Who seemed to have silently and utterly disappeared.
The third door Onthras stepped on gave way, swallowing him before he had time to do more than start to scream.
Then it banged shut again, swinging back up to cut off his cry in mid-bellow. Magic, or unseen hands, had thrust it back upwards and closed again, restoring the floor of the passage.
As Thalden and Syregorn stared at where Onthras had so suddenly disappeared, the bulging door creaked almost mockingly and... stopped melting. They watched the bulge seem to sink in upon itself, the door straightening a little, as a strange reek reached them. The stink of its burning, no doubt.
"Jelgar?" the oldest knight asked quietly.
"As good as dead," Syregorn muttered. "Time to look to our own skins, Thal. I'd say our errant Lord Archwizard is as doomed as Jelgar. Let's just try to find a way out of here."
"Back outside, and over the garden wall?"
The warcaptain shook his head. "I saw someone try that in the other direction, once. Malraun's magic slices and impales anyone passing over the top of a wall, as if the blades of a dozen-some swordsmen are at work. No, we must go on and out the front doors, if we can."
"So, down this hall? What if more doors start to glow?"
"We get as far from them as we can, without stepping on a door," Syregorn said almost calmly. "I don't think they're really seeking to slay us. I think they're awakening because Rod Everlar is blundering near."
"So the Doom cleared away or hid his most useful magic, departed, and left this place as a gigantic trap for the Dark Lord," Thalden whispered.
The warcaptain nodded. "Looks that way. Now let's see how well we two can avoid becoming incidental sprawled corpses."
A smile almost touched Thalden's lips. "Is there a wager in the offing?"
Syregorn shrugged. "Not coins," he replied grimly. "Lives."
He started off down the passage, striding carefully along the left wall to avoid the doors in the floor. "Ours. Falcon be with us."
As IT BOBBED and moved with every turn of Narmarkoun's head, the small, spinning brightness he'd conjured showed him a tiny Rod Everlar opening doors, trying to write on them, and birthing fire instead of words.
Narmarkoun watched with growing amusement, but less and less attention. The man was as clumsy and slow-witted as the most bumbling of wizards' apprentices; spying on him was good only for the passing entertainment.
Wherefore this particular Doom of Falconfar paid the silent little scene increasingly less heed, and bent most of his wits to exploring every gloom-shrouded crevice and alcove of what had been the castle of the real Archwizard of Falconfar.
Lorontar's magic slumbered—and in some cases stirred—all around him. Yintaerghast held power beyond anything even Arlaghaun had ever hurled, certainly far more than preening, swaggering little Malraun wielded now, at the so-called height of his powers.
And if watchful, patient, nigh-forgotten Narmarkoun could gain even a small part of it...
Everlar's progress through Malragard was blundering, but much faster than his own. If a wall was thicker than its counterpart, or started a hand-thickness out from matching that other wall, Narmarkoun wanted to notice.
Soon enough, his diligence was rewarded. One of the curved stones forming the foot-collar of a pillar stood the slightest bit higher than its neighbors. Pushing it cautiously down caused part of the smooth, curved flank of the pillar to descend with it, revealing a horizontal niche about the size of a long-bladed dagger.
The hiding-place was full of rolled parchment. A scroll. Narmarkoun smiled a tight blue smile and used his belt dagg
er to carefully lever the long-hidden treasure forth.
A stone he'd taken out of a cracked stone lintel scores of rooms away held one end of the scroll to the floor as his dagger-point teased the tight roll open. He kept his face shielded from any eruptions in the crook of his arm, working by feel; to etch searing sigils on a scroll to await the unwary was a trick that had been old even in Lorontar's time.
When he got it entirely open—without any blast, roar of flame, or rising wisp of sinister spores—the toe of his boot served to hold down the innermost edge of the scroll so he could peer at it cautiously. Then study it more closely, with rising excitement.
This was Lorontar's writing, sure enough. He owned a few scraps of it, seized and stolen from across Falconfar over years of sly spying and covert spell-slayings, and had studied them long and often.
The elegantly-woven, nameless spell it set forth—crafted by Lorontar for his use alone, beyond a doubt—was a magic that could target from afar the sleeping mind of a specific, chosen being of... Earth!
Sending to that target creature whatever dreams the caster desired.
Narmarkoun nodded, his smile now wide and smug. This confirmed all his suspicions. Lorontar had long ago found a way to this other world, this "Earth," and perhaps to gain riches and magic from it; and someone, not too long ago—Arlaghaun, perhaps—had found another copy of this spell, and used it to bring the bumbler Everlar to Falconfar.
And now, Narmarkoun of Falconfar could fetch folk of Earth, too, and had the basic wits to choose someone more useful than Rod Everlar!
Firmly quelling his glee for as long as it might take, he drew in a deep breath, flexed his fingers, composed himself, and cast the spell as carefully as any calmly competent apprentice, visualizing the only man of Earth he knew.
He was promptly plunged into a welter of emotions—apprehension, above all—and racing thoughts. Just as he'd expected, knowing Everlar was awake. He saw bearded men in scruffy cloth overjacks, scribes they must be, sitting at desks beside piles of identical tomes which they were writing in, and handing to lines of supplicants... and a vast city, stretching to the horizon and dominated by many fortresses whose tall turrets thrust up into the sky higher than any temple or castle Narmarkoun had ever seen... and wagon-roads smoother than any courtyard, crowded with people along their edges and with wagons that looked to be made all of armor and were pulled by invisible steeds...
He resisted the temptation to bear down and seek to share what Everlar was thinking, as that couldn't help but make even the feeble-minded Earth dolt feel his presence. Instead, he performed the age-old mental dismissal that ended a working of magic.
A loop of sparks, visualized in a night-black void, and instantly—as always—the spell was done.
There'd be ample time to work it again when the Lord Archwizard—Narmarkoun felt his lips curling with contempt at merely thinking of that title, linked to the timorous dolt—was asleep, and drift in his dreams long enough to draw memories of others of Earth from him. New victims, to be Narmarkoun's own, and a road to conquering a new realm or two. Or even all of Earth.
Then something happened that dashed all Narmarkoun's glee away in an instant, plunging him from satisfaction to terror.
The scroll was still shimmering slightly, in the aftermath of the magic he'd roused from it. In the surges of that waning power, markings were appearing across the bottom of the scroll. Writings, in Lorontar's hand but scribbled in haste, on a slight angle from the darker, neater script that set forth the spell itself.
Notes, written by Lorontar, the real Lord Archwizard of Falconfar, about Shapers, one such in particular: Rod Everlar.
So unless the dolt now wandering dim-wittedly through Malragard had somehow lived for centuries without showing any signs of age or experience, Lorontar was very far from being as long dead as all Falconfar had thought.
And here he was, the wizard Narmarkoun—least in power of the Dooms of Falconfar, once one discounted foresight and spells of undeath—kneeling on the floor working magic in the heart of Yintaerghast, the spell-shrouded castle of Lorontar himself.
"FALCON!" GARFIST SNARLED, trying to claw his way past Iskarra, who stood in the way, flapping her arms in a sudden flurry as if trying to fly. " Get those glorking doors open!"
"Yes!" Isk hissed at him, her eyes hard and wild as she watched the monsters, now looking their way and starting to move from between the pillars. "Stand back and give me room!"
"Stop me vitals, woman, what're ye—"
Gar found himself staring at a pair of small but deliciously familiar breasts. They danced under his nose for the briefest of instants as Iskarra finally got her worn-through vest and ragged tunic off, into a untidy bundle where her hands met above her head.
He hadn't time to do more than gape before she swung the balled-up garments down like a swordsman using two hands on his blade to hew a foe, and grasped one of the large pull-rings of the great double entrance doors.
It awakened into a menacingly-crackling cascade of blue sparks and leaping blue-white bolts of lightning, as Iskarra cried out in pain, her hair springing out rigid to stand like a halo of tiny spears, and kicked at the ground to turn the ring.
The door ground open, swinging inward with the deep tone of a bell almost too low to hear—and Iskarra lost her hold, staggered back, and sat down hard, moaning.
Watching the monsters coming for them—even faster than he'd feared they could move, of course—Garfist charged over to scoop her up, cradling her to his chest in a tangle of helplessly shuddering limbs, ran in a tight circle so as not to risk falling by trying to halt and head in a different direction with his moaning burden, and darted out through the doors, into the glimmering beginnings of dawn.
Gloom-shadowed Harlhoh rose dark and still against that brightening horizon below, and Gar lumbered down a broad wagon-path toward it, gathering speed and hoping by all the gods there were and might be that he'd not fall, nor find all those hungry horrors snapping at his heels.
Surely they were guardians, enspelled to stay in the wizard's abode and menace intruders, not go chasing off across half a Raurklor hold... aye? Please?
Behind him, bright light stabbed out, falling on his back, and something roared hungrily. The grand entry hall of Malragard had erupted into bright and busy life.
Garfist Gulkoun cursed, briefly but fiercely, then shut up. He needed all his breath for running—or rather, panting so he could keep on running.
That roar came again, and this time it was echoed by a call that was high-pitched, bubblingly wet, and more angry than hungry.
Even over Gar's loud and quickening panting, both beast-calls sounded nearer.
THAT BED HAD been empty, its dark blue overshroud unblemished by pillows or—or anything.
Now there was a naked man lying spreadeagled on that dark blue cloth, wrists and ankles manacled to the four bedposts. Naked, hairy, and unconscious, head lolling and staring empty-eyed at nothing.
Those eyes saw nothing, but the face wore a look of terror, tinged with bewildered astonishment.
An expression that was probably pretty close to Rod's own. He knew that terrified, senseless face. It was Onthras, one of the Hammerhold knights who'd been chasing him mere panting moments ago.
So how? The magic of Malragard, of course. Onthras had been caught in a trap, or had been made part of a trap for Rod Everlar. But why? What sort of Doom of Falconfar crafts spells to do such a thing?
Rod stared at Onthras—or the thing that looked like Onthras—and slowly backed away, seeking another way out of the room.
Which is when he saw that, stare and peer about as much as he might, the bedchamber had only two doors: one out into the passage where the rest of the Hammerhand warriors presumably still were, and the one he'd come through, from the bathroom.
Now what?
After a moment, Rod used his sword to thrust aside the skirts of the bed, to see if he dared hide under it, and think.
A face like a
skull turned and grinned at him, out of the darkness.
It was a skull, Rod realized a moment later, as he fought down a scream and hastily backed away—and the skeleton in disintegrating skirts that had been lying under the bed clambered out from under it, beckoning to him grotesquely with one long, bony finger.
A BRIGHT WARNING blazed up in Malraun's mind again, rousing him out of a pleasant doze. He was... he was lying atop Taeauna in the bed in Darswords, both of them still moist with sweat. Oh, yes... he'd exhausted himself having his way with her.
Now something back in Malragard had been disturbed again, goading his ward-spells into whirling up in his mind to alert him, and—Falcon hurl, what was it now?
It was the undead husk of the sorceress Telrorna, whom he'd defeated years ago, and drained of life and spells but bound into his service forever, to be his slave beyond death.
She'd been aroused from the dusty spell-slumber he'd left her in, under the guest bed, by an intruder who could wield magic. Yet hadn't blasted her.
Rod Everlar, for all the thick-headed knights in Galath.
He really should do something about the pitifully blundering Lord Archwizard, but... well, it wasn't as if it was Narmarkoun, or an arduke of Galath who'd gathered a dozen hedge-wizards, or someone competent.
Malraun chuckled, finding himself on the edge of sinking into slumber again. He roused himself enough to clamber off the bed to where he'd left his other whips and scourges, find thongs enough to bind Taeauna's wrists and ankles securely to the bedposts, and tie her thus, arched out at full stretch and bound cruelly hard.
As he finished knotting and tugging, and sank down onto her again, she smiled up at him, mute but bright-eyed.
Part way through trying to smile softly back at her, Malraun the Matchless fell asleep again.
"So THAT'S WHY we couldn't see where Jelgar went," Thalden murmured, stepping through the magic and then back out of it again.