by Dave Gross
Drakkar was already chanting his own spell as the Hulorn spread his foul magic across the hall. A ghastly green vapor coalesced in a line from the Hulorn to Tamlin's seat. It rippled along the table, spilling over to either side to touch the assembled nobles.
Tamlin flew up to the ceiling to avoid its effects, noting that Tazi had already faded into the shadows, and Larajin raised a warding hand before her face as she clutched the two-faced medallion of her goddesses.
On the floor, the noblemen began to melt, their bodies sinking like collapsed tents over their suddenly disjointed bones. Their flowing flesh melded and mingled, leaving behind their garments as a snake might shed its skin.
Throughout the horrid transformation, their mouths continued to shriek, their eyes rolling and their teeth gnashing as they bit and spit at one another. Only Fendo Karn and Brimmer Soargyl scurried backward unchanged, apparently protected by hidden talismans.
Tamlin whistled low and long.
"That was a dirty thing to do, Mad Andy. It will take us days to get that out of the carpet."
He flicked his fingers at the Hulorn, sending five crimson darts at the man's face. Ilchammar dispelled them with a dismissive wave of his hand. Upon one of his fingers, one of a ring of six topazes flashed and turned dark.
"Witty," the Hulorn replied. "If I had known you would prove so amusing, Thamalon the Lesser, I would have invited you to join my little coterie long ago."
From the floor in front of Drakkar, a night-colored stallion rose from a ring of fire. The conjured horse-fiend reared and stamped at the gibbering mass of mouths and eyes upon the floor.
Drakkar pointed at Tamlin, and the nightmare leaped upon the long table, leaving burning hoofprints in the polished oak surface. Before it could rear up to strike at its hovering target, a huge figure leaped down upon its back, gripping its fiery mane and pulling its head back.
"You told me he was dead!" Andeth spat at Drakkar.
"So I was informed," protested the wizard.
Astride the nightmare, Talbot hissed at the burns on his hand and legs, but he raised a gigantic sword and struck a glowing wedge out of the creature's neck. Molten blood oozed from its wound, and the demon horse stumbled off the table, falling into the hungry mouths on the floor. Talbot leaped clear with an actor's flourish and turned to hack at the fallen nightmare before it could rise again.
Andeth had produced another wand, this one garnished with bits of fur and scaly hide. He thrust it like a sword, and a dull glob of matter shot forth to stick on Tamlin's right arm. He tried to shake off the offending mass, but it spread instantly up and down his limb. Tamlin felt a momentary numbness, and he watched as his arm transformed into a huge black viper.
"How striking!" called the Hulorn. "You shall be the envy of Selgaunt with so daring an ornament."
The snake's head hissed and rose to strike at his face, and Tamlin fleetingly wished he'd taken Aldimar's helm as well as his cloak. He tried to grab his treacherous limb, but the snake writhed away from his grasp before rising to strike again.
Across the room, Talbot knocked down the Hulorn's guards two at a time. When one of them flanked him and raised his sword, his eyes grew wide and he let out a little choking sound before dropping his blade. As the guard fell to the floor, Tamlin briefly glimpsed Tazi moving on to another unwitting target, deftly avoiding the writhing mass of flesh and mouths that had been the Old Chauncel.
He wanted to help them, but it was all he could do to evade the attacks of his own venomous arm. At last he slapped it and spat out the syllables that sent a sheet of lightning coursing through the snake-and his own body. He shuddered and grimaced through the self-inflicted agony, but his reward was that the rebellious arm hung limp.
He looked up to see that Cale and Vox were leading the house guard in an attack on the Hulorn's men. While the soldiers clashed, Cale dashed through them, ducking under swords and between shields, leaving a trail of falling foes in his wake. He cut himself a path straight for the enemy wizards.
The Hulorn's laughter degenerated into an uncertain cackle. He and Drakkar hadn't been idle during Tamlin's struggle. A purple sphere shimmered around the Hulorn, and a wall of flame leaped up to block Cale and the Uskevren guards-no matter that its sudden appearance immolated a few of the Hulorn's own men. Their screams rose higher than the maddening chatter of the gibbering mouther that still crept over the floor.
The wall of fire ignited the hall's tapestries, and flames crawled up toward the ceiling. Tamlin had a sudden vision of Stormweather Towers falling to cinders all around him, just as the original structure had done years before at the hands of Uskevren foes.
"No!" he cried to everyone and no one in particular.
Nowhere in his restored memory was there a spell for extinguishing fire. All he could do was wreak more destruction, so he turned his attention back to his foes.
"Anabar!" he cried, hurling a stream of lightning toward Andeth.
The white energy dissipated as it struck the Hulorn's magical shield. Andeth laughed all the more.
"You rank amateur!"
"Mistress Thazienne!" cried Brimmer Soargyl. He stumbled away from the gibbering mouther, barely escaping its snapping teeth. "Let me convey you to safety. None of this madness need interfere with my proposal."
Tazi spared the man only a brief, incredulous look before pushing him back into the sprawling monstrosity on the floor. There he howled and screamed as dozens of jaws nipped at his ample flesh.
"Your suit," she said, "is refused."
Tamlin hurled fire, lightning, and pure energy at the monsters Andeth and Drakkar summoned, but the wizards conjured the creatures far faster than he could destroy them. Soon, the Uskevren guard was outnumbered by a small horde of rats, a trio of blubbery demons, and some hideous, floating, spidery sack of flesh that dipped its long claws down into the fray to suck at the combatants.
Cale maneuvered his way behind Drakkar, grabbed the man's chin, and cut his throat. The knife's edge barely scratched the wizard's skin, leaving a mark like a chisel's scratch on granite.
"Drakkar!" cried Larajin. Her arms were raised in an evocation of divine favor, and the smell of rose petals filled the room even over the acrid stench of burning wood and fabric. She held out her hands toward the mage, and golden light radiated from her palms. "The goddess can no longer abide your wickedness."
The wizard jerked as he felt the effects of Larajin's spell strip away his magical protection. Cale's fingers dug into his face, and his knife cut Drakkar a new, wider grimace.
"Dark and empty!" cursed Andeth, seeing his most powerful ally slain.
He backed into the dark recess of the draped alcove. With a wave of his conjuring wand, he summoned a cloud of tiny bats to swarm above him, blocking Tamlin's line of fire. He began shaking yet another wand.
"Cover me, men!" he ordered. "This is not over, Uskevren. Not by any means!"
"Tamlin!" cried Larajin. "He's getting away!"
Tamlin shook his head and smiled back at his half-sister.
"Can you put out that fire?" he asked.
"Yes, but the Hulorn!"
From the obscuring darkness of the alcove, Andeth screamed, "You! But why-?"
Whatever words he might have spoken next exploded in white radiance that scattered the bats and set the gibbering mouther to screaming even louder than before.
"Not to worry," said Tamlin. "He just met our new associate. Now, let's clean house."
EPILOGUE
Shamur's face was composed as she embraced Tazi and Talbot, but Tamlin knew she'd been weeping. He stood with her as his siblings went to their father, knowing they were saying their farewells. Tamlin had prepared them before they left home. He'd feared they would blame him for failing to save Thamalon. Instead, Talbot had turned cold and silent, Tazi turned to Steorf for comfort, and Larajin took Tamlin's hand to comfort him.
When they were ready, he led them through the gate.
"When did you know?" asked Sh
amur.
For a moment, Tamlin feared she was asking how long he'd kept the secret of Larajin from her, then he realized that she and Thamalon had spent almost a day together, and they'd already put that issue to rest. Shamur wanted to know when Tamlin realized when his father had died.
"As soon as we came through the gate, I had a feeling," he said. "When he wouldn't touch us, I realized why."
"He is a ghost."
"No," said a soothing voice. Malaika appeared beside them, her sad eyes somehow less tormented than Tamlin had seen them before. "Not a ghost."
"What have you done with my husband?" demanded Shamur.
"Only what he wished of me," said Malaika. "I have kept him awake here long enough for him to bid farewell to you and his family."
"I am his family," insisted Shamur.
"But not his blood," said Malaika. "To Aldimar was I secretly wed, and upon his death betrothed to his progeny. For years I waited, buried under the ashes of his home, until at last Tamlin came to me in dreams."
"I remember," said Tamlin, smiling wistfully, "but then the dreams stopped."
Malaika nodded and said, "Aldimar lingered within me, unwilling to travel on to his fate."
"I saw his fate," said Tamlin. "I wouldn't want it, either."
"It was far worse for him after the years he spent usurping your place. He was hard before, and greedy, but then he turned wicked and cruel."
"But my father," said Tamlin. "He won't face the same sort of…"
"See for yourself," said Malaika, gesturing toward Thamalon.
The others had left him and returned to Shamur. Talbot had one big arm over each of his sister's shoulders, and Tazi wiped at one eye with her wrist. Larajin looked cautiously toward Shamur, reluctant to approach.
Shamur regarded her husband's bastard through eyes so hard and gray they might have been river stones. For a moment, Tamlin feared she might slap the girl. Instead, Shamur opened her arms and welcomed Larajin into her embrace. The gesture set Talbot and Tazi both to weeping, and Tamlin made his escape before he lost the last fragments of his composure.
Thamalon smiled warmly at him as he approached.
"Well met, Lord Uskevren."
"Don't call me that," said Tamlin. "Not you."
"It makes me proud to know you are the one who carries on my name," said Thamalon. "You did well with the Hulorn. Perhaps you could have spared the house another scorching, but…"
"You always find something to criticize."
"I'm joking, Tamlin."
"I know," he said. "I know. I just wish you could…"
"I know. So did I, at first, but now that I've spent some time here, now that I've seen you and your brother and sisters fighting side by side instead of toe-to-toe, I know it is time."
"But there's so much you could teach me."
"I've taught you everything you need to know."
"But I wasn't listening!"
Thamalon laughed and said, "No, you weren't. Still, you heard enough of it. I'm tired, ever since coming to this place, wearier than you can possibly imagine. I need you to open a door for me."
"Which one?"
Thamalon looked up, toward a half-gallery upon one wall.
"That one feels right," he said. "I've said my good-byes, and I cannot bear to say them again without being able to hold your mother in my arms."
Together they flew toward the door. Its oak surface gleamed as they approached. When Tamlin opened it, he smelled summer grass and grape leaves. Sunlight poured down upon arbors and vineyards nestling between hills of deep green forest.
Thamalon sighed and drifted toward the fields, his sorrowful smile turning ever more content as he slowly twirled down into eternity.
*****
The cold wind whipped the Uskevren banners as the moon gleamed on the gold thread on the horse-at-anchor. Tamlin closed his eyes as he faced the wind. After a moment's reverie, he turned back to his lone companion on the rooftop.
"Where will you go?"
Radu shrugged and said, "East. Perhaps across the Moonsea." His uncovered face looked like a hideous mask, with sharp fragments of the bone blade that had crippled him jutting from his cheek and brow. "I will abide by our compact," he said.
"Stay well away from Selgaunt," said Tamlin, "and for the gods' sake, never let Talbot learn of our arrangement."
"So long as you continue to foster Laskar and Pietro."
"They shall be as cousins to the Uskevren, living here, within the halls of Stormweather."
"Then I shall never need to return."
Tamlin nodded to acknowledge the unspoken threat. He'd known his bargain with Radu Malveen would require that he allow the assassin to live and thus ensure that Tamlin would uphold his promises. In return, Radu had agreed to invoke his peculiar powers one last time. With the escape of his ghosts at the moment of Tamlin's death, he might have escaped his inevitable disintegration, but he'd willingly accepted it once more.
Tamlin felt a surprising admiration for the man who had killed him. He didn't like Radu Malveen, but he couldn't deny that the assassin had been faultlessly loyal to his family.
Together they looked out over the moonlit roofs of Selgaunt, Radu for the last time. From the vantage of Stormweather's highest tower, Tamlin could see the entire city from Mountarr Gate in the west to the farthest tower south of Selgaunt Bay. To the northwest, the Hulorn's weird palace looked unusually serene in its mantle of snow.
Who would reside there next was an issue the Old Chauncel had still not resolved. After their ordeal in the recent spell duel, they were even more fractious than usual. It could take months before a new candidate emerged for approval-assuming that Thamalon's proposal to eliminate the office entirely was dismissed. Without his personal efforts, Tamlin feared, it soon would be, then it was only a matter of time before a new Hulorn was chosen.
"Can he communicate with you?" asked Tamlin.
"He never stops," Radu said.
Tamlin suppressed a smile. It was hardly a humorous subject, but the thought of Chaney Foxmantle choosing to remain with his killer even after the Stormweather portal freed him from his leash amused Tamlin to no end. It also made him sad to think that Chaney could not bear to reveal himself to Talbot for fear that he would lure his friend to vengeance against a foe who might well kill him.
Tamlin said, "Actually, I meant Andeth."
"He is even worse."
"Serves you right," said Tamlin, who could only imagine the bitter ravings of the man called Mad Andy. Even if Tamlin couldn't punish Radu personally, it pleased him to think that someone would. "Now, get out of my city."
*****
They watched as the last of the wounded skwalos slowly rose above the bloody cobbles of the flensing grounds. It was a mere child, no larger than a trading cog. Its immature body was still as translucent as a wine bottle, and its membranous skin caught and refracted the sunlight to cast rippling patterns over the crowd, making the elves and humans alike appear to be standing fathoms beneath the waves.
"Don't look so sad," said Larajin. "Everyone is looking to you for strength."
She held onto Tamlin's arm, weary from exhausting her magic to heal the surviving skwalos. Even all of her divine powers had been barely enough to allow the crippled animals to return to the sky.
"You are the one they should thank," said Tamlin. "All I've done is repeal a few of my grandfather's most egregious dictates. It will take much more than a few merciful gestures to repair all the harm he has done."
Tamlin was surprised by both his strange sense of responsibility for the evil committed in his guise and his acute sympathy for the skwalos. The slaughter of a stag or boar hunt had never given him qualms, but these creatures were mined for their flesh and vapors while still alive. It was all he could do to keep his expression stately and assured before the Vermilion Guard. The elite soldiers were already suspicious of the sudden changes in their master. Tamlin knew there were whispers that the elves had somehow managed to po
ssess his body during the brief, aborted war. He hoped he would not have to electrocute a few would-be assassins to retain his authority.
Across from his honor guard stood the elves, who watched Tamlin every bit as carefully for any sign that his promised concessions were a ruse to buy time. Among the emissaries dispatched to ensure that he fulfilled his promises of the tentative truce were three ancient wizards, two women and a man. Beside them stood Malaika, her dark eyes full of mingled hope and caution. Tamlin had wanted to stand with her, to ask her a thousand more questions, but he knew that standing among the elves would only undermine the already crumbling loyalty among his men.
"I just wish everyone knew I wasn't the Sorcerer," he said quietly.
"Some know already," said Larajin, nodding toward Malaika. "Until the rest are ready for the truth, they need to believe their leader is still with them."
"For now, perhaps, but I can't keep trying to lead both our household and this… this dreamland."
"It isn't a dream, you know."
"I know," agreed Tamlin. "It just doesn't seem as real. It doesn't seem as important as…"
"Home?" offered Larajin.
"Home," he agreed. "Speaking of which, it is almost time to return. I promised Tal that I would write him a receipt for the gold we found hidden in Escevar's chamber."
"I think your word might be good enough," she suggested. "It's time you and he learned to trust each other."
"Perhaps," said Tamlin, "but Father would have wanted me to write a receipt anyway."
Larajin smiled wistfully and said, "No doubt he would. While you're at it, don't forget to talk with Thazienne about that Soargyl business. She still seems angry with you."
"I haven't forgotten," sighed Tamlin. "I just hope she doesn't punch me in the nose before I can finish explaining."
"Well, if she does, I won't be able to heal it until tomorrow."
"In that case, perhaps it is time I began to practice that stoneskin spell."