by Ed Greenwood
"Lord and father," Mrythra replied softly, as she glided to the tapestries to depart before her mother's arrival, "nothing would give me greater pleasure."
The moon was shockingly bright; dangling like a heavy grainsack from Juskra, Garfist felt like a brightly-lit archers' target, and said so. Adding with a fierce hiss, "An' ye could fly a mite higher! That's the third tree ye've dragged me through!"
"The moonlight is precisely why I'm flying this low," Juskra snarled back at him. "One of the reasons."
"Hey? What d'ye mean by that?"
"She means you're fat and heavy, Old Ox," Iskarra said scornfully, from not far behind him, where she dangled beneath Dauntra on a single leather strap (Garfist was strapped to Juskra's waist by three).
"Not much farther now," Dauntra said soothingly, as Garfist started to snarl a less than pleasant retort. "Yon's Lyraunt Castle. So we come in low over the forest, from behind and in the shadow of those tall trees just ahead, then land yonder, in the shadows behind that thick stand, there. Things'd be easier if Lady Lyrose didn't have this love of open, expansive lawns."
"Oh, aye, the unbroken sward," Gar muttered. "And why is that?"
"How would you ever get through a day without that word 'why,' Gulkoun?" Juskra muttered, but Dauntra hissed at her sister and made courteous reply.
"Likely it was to make sure the stink of the moat was gone forever, so ponds and herb-beds were kept far from under her windows," the fairer Aumrarr said. "Watch, now; draw up your feet, Gar."
They skimmed low over-or cracklingly through, in Garfist's case-a last few trees, and descended to the earth in a running, flapping thump and thud of a landing.
Garfist growled wordlessly, but Juskra whirled around and hissed fury back at him, right in his face, as her fingers tore at the leathern thongs that bound them together. "Gods, how does a man get so fat?" were the last words of her furious whisper.
"Not flying about all Falconfar meddling in the business of others," he whispered back hoarsely.
"That's true," Isk put in soothingly. "We walked."
Dauntra snorted in mirth, then thrust slender fingers under the noses of Garfist and her sister. "Drop it, both of you!" She and Juskra were quickly reknotting the leathern thongs, to bind their carry-straps in place around their waists.
"You wait right here," Juskra hissed at Gar and Isk. "We'll cause tumult soon, at the foregate-the front gate. Then you go down there, over that little bridge by the pond, into the gardens. That side door should be unlocked; it's how the guards and the maids get out into the garden for their trysts. If anyone sees you, act like a panderer come from Irontarl with a wise one who sees to maids' complaints."
"Maids have complaints?" Gar growled. "More than other servants, I mean?"
Isk slapped him, an instant before Juskra gave him a look of withering scorn and snapped, "When women bleed below, and other things men never want to hear about. Just walk in there as if you belong there, and put the gems where we told you; the castle's simple to get around in. Any proper questions?"
"Just one," Garfist asked thoughtfully. "How many of you Aumrarr are still alive?"
"We don't-" Juskra hissed, but Dauntra put a hand on her arm and told her firmly, "Those who made such rules are all dead, and I'm obeying them no longer, no matter what it costs us in influence."
She turned to look at Garfist. "Gulkoun, I know not. All I can be sure of are the two of us, and I think Taeauna is still alive, though whether her wits are her own is another matter. So, three I can be certain of. Perhaps as many as six, or even nine. No more."
Garfist swore in astonishment.
"So that's why Dyune wouldn't say," Iskarra murmured.
Both Aumrarr nodded. "We aren't-weren't-supposed to. So no one would ever suspect how few we were. That's how we managed to wield any influence at all in places like Galath; scaring brawling barons into thinking a flying army could show up, any time, to chastise them."
"So you're telling us now because we'll likely all be dead before dawn," Garfist rumbled. "Well, thankee. Always nice to be sent to death by honest folk."
And without waiting for a reply, he set off down the hill, toward the little bridge.
The two Aumrarr hissed curses and sprang into the air. Hard and fast to the front of Lyraunt Castle they flapped, to create their promised diversion.
Still bellowing their startled fear into the night, Rod Everlar and the knights from Hammerhold suddenly found themselves-somewhere else.
Somewhere outside, under the bright moon, in a place that by the startled looks on Hammerhand faces all round him, Rod knew wasn't Ironthorn at all. They'd stepped through a magical gate, of course. Not one he'd ever written about, but he was beginning to realize that his books seemed to be more about bringing kingdoms and mountain ranges into being, here, and not the finer details. Even if he'd been the only Shaper ever to work on Falconfar, it seemed the sweep and strivings of everyday Falconaar life set about changing little things, the moment you'd lifted your pen, or your fingers from the keyboard.
The moment your Lord Archwizardly back was turned…
They were standing in a moonlit walled garden, at the base of a soaring castle keep larger, grander, and newer than any Ironthar fortress. The garden seemed to occupy the crest of a long hill that dropped away in the bright moonlight down to a small village. It was a Raurklor hold, by the familiar trees making up the seemingly endless forest all around. That slope was a long series of tilled fields outlined by hedge-walls of heaped stumps and boulders.
Syregorn and the oldest knight were both looking disgusted and hissing out curses.
"You know where we are?" Tarth asked him.
The warcaptain nodded. "I've been here before, on Hammerhand business. This is the hold of Harlhoh, hard-riding days distant from Ironthorn along none-too-safe forest trails."
He turned and waved disgustedly at the soaring tower whose garden door seemed to be the only way out of their enclosure, bar clambering up the stone walls. "Which makes this the tower of Malragard, abode of the wizard Malraun."
It was Rod's turn to curse bitterly, and he did so.
When he ran out of colorful things to say, Syregorn was standing close to him, and wearing a grim smile.
"So, Archwizard," the warcaptain asked softly, "when will you blast down this fortress, and Malraun the Matchless with it?"
Rod swore again, clumsily repeating himself. As he saw faces go hard and unfriendly all around him, he broke off and snapped, "Get me some parchment! And ink, and some quills, and a lamp and something flat and smooth to write on! Then you'll see some blasting down of things, I promise you!"
The knights exchanged puzzled glances. "Don't sound like the ballads much, do it?" Tarth asked Reld.
"Never does, when you're in it," came the laconic reply, as Reld stared through Rod Everlar as if the Lord Archwizard of Falconfar was some sort of earthworm he'd just fished out of his soup. "Never does."
Chapter Sixteen
"Ready?" "Skull… mindgem behind yer buckle… darklantern," Garfist whispered hoarsely, waving the cloth-wrapped helm that held the skull, nodding at Iskarra's midriff, then thrusting forward the closed-shuttered lantern.
"That's not what I meant," she replied softly, and kissed him. At first the fat former panderer sought to squirm away, growling gruffly incoherent protests, but then shrugged and surrendered to her insistent lips. The kiss went on for a long time.
When at last she released him because they both needed to breathe, he looked at her with a dark fire dancing in his eyes, as they stood nose to nose, and asked, "An' what was that for?"
"In case it's the last kiss we ever enjoy together," Isk whispered, eyes very large and dark.
"Oh, for the Falcon's sake," he said disgustedly. "Been reading too many o' them firelust chapbooks, ye have! I thought ye were wasting coin when we were last in the Stormar cities!"
"Wasting coin?" Isk snorted. "I was writing them, Gar, not buying them!"
"'W
riting 'em? An' drawing on what, for yer, ah, inspiration?"
"My memories of our earliest trysts, my lord love," she breathed, in wide-eyed mimicry of a love-struck young lass.
Garfist growled amused dismissal and chucked her under the chin. She belted him back, rather more forcefully, leaving him blinking.
"As for your inspiration, Garfist Gulkoun," she added severely, "I am well aware of what you got up to, every glorking moment my back was turned, with the dusky and all-too-willing wenches of-"
"Lass, lass, lass, that was work. A panderer can't sell wares he can't fairly describe, hey? I-"
Isk used only two fingers to whack Garfist's windpipe, but they were two very firm fingers. Instantly he fell silent, to tend to the task of busily clutching his numbed throat.
Which was just as well, considering how many heavily-armed Lyrose guards came rushing past the slightly-open door of the cell just then, and out through the scullery port into the night.
Lord Lyrose was well aware that other eyes besides those loyal to Hammerhand watched Lyraunt Castle by night for signs of lax vigilance. Wherefore it was high time to restore the regular patrols in the castle grounds.
Or so Iskarra read matters. Garfist wasn't troubling his head over it, of course. He'd be thinking just of the task at hand. Which was trying to breathe, just now.
Well enough. Isk devoted herself to the task at hand, too. Thinking for him, as usual.
The Aumrarr had given them directions that were clear and simple enough, but they still had to get to the right places, in an unfamiliar and unfriendly castle.
Nor did she feel overmuch like standing here in the darkness much longer. There were at least two dead men sharing this chamber with them, and a less than pleasant smell was beginning to rise.
Drawing in a deep breath despite the foul air, she stepped forward and swung open the door.
The passage outside was quiet again, and she tugged gently on the nearest part of Garfist-his left forearm, as it turned out-to tell him to be ready to move. Then she stepped boldly out the door.
The passage was empty. She faced the heart of the castle and started walking unconcernedly, trudging with the weary, slightly bored air of a servant who was supposed to be there, but Gar came out of the room in a rush and pounded past her, trotting along swiftly and gathering speed as he went.
Isk gaped at him in astonishment, then shook her head in exasperation and sprinted after him.
When she caught up to her man and clawed at the arm that held the lantern, he whirled with a growl, swinging the helm that held the skull at her like a weapon. She'd been expecting him to do just that, and ducked easily aside.
"Fool!" she hissed. "If we go racing through the castle, we look like intruders! Walk slowly, and if we see someone, embrace me and cozy up to the wall as if we're lovers who just couldn't wait to get somewhere more private!"
Garfist grinned. "Why do I get all the hard jobs, hey?"
"Gar, heed. This is serious! Our very lives depend on it!"
"Isk, lass, our very lives depend on everything we do. Yet grab at yer temper and douse the flames in those eyes; I'll go slowly, look ye. I'm-I'm running out of breath."
"I should think so," Isk muttered back. "Now come, we haven't got all-"
There were faint shouts from distant, unseen chambers off to their right, nigh the front of Lyraunt Castle. The Aumrarr were at the foregate.
Dauntra and Juskra had given warning that although they'd seek to draw the foregate guards out of Lyraunt and butcher them, they dared not press their attack if the defenders stayed inside the fortress. They could fight in the foregate, where they'd offend only against the outer ward that cried warning-but if they tried to pass through the crackling, waiting inner wards, Malraun's magic would both harm them and send warning not just to Lyrose eyes and ears, but alert the Doom himself, wherever he might be, that Aumrarr were trying to enter Lyraunt Castle.
That might make him merely shrug-or it might mean that Garfist and Iskarra would face the light entertainment of trying to defy an annoyed Malraun the Matchless, possibly the most powerful wizard in all Falconfar, with not much more weaponry than their smiles. And a skull whose grin could match theirs.
Yet if the winged women drew all the guards to the front of the castle, Gar and Isk just might be able to pull off this unlikely double task, and even get out again alive. Might.
"Well, we have to find this high hall to get to the turret stairs, right? So leave the skull in the arch there and then do all the climbing. My knees aren't what they used to be."
"Yes, and 'tisn't just your knees," Isk murmured darkly.
"Hoy!" Gar protested. "Ye've not complained before!"
He caught her darkly scornful look, and amended his words hastily. "Er, much."
Up ahead, guards sprinted across their passage, hurrying down a larger hall to the front of the castle. Close on their heels came more guards; one glanced in their direction, but his attention seemed rapt on a spear that seemed to be sliding out of his grasp.
Isk swiftly drew Gar against her, embraced him, and used her thin, bony hips to thrust him, stumbling, against the wall. "Kiss me," she hissed. "Look love-struck."
She'd positioned them so she could look past his arm. The next guards to rush past did give them a good look, but didn't slow.
"That's chance enough," she snapped. "We take the next side-passage. Walking along this one is like prancing out on a well-lit stage in any Stormar ladydance club you might care to name! There!"
Garfist obeyed, swerving into the dark passage she indicated. Before them loomed closed doors on all sides, an ornate little table under an oval mirror, and their new passage running only a little way before it ended in stairs, going up. Isk took them without hesitation.
"But-" Gar growled.
"They said the hall had balconies," Isk hissed back over her shoulder. "Well, once we're on one of them, we can toss the skull down into place, yes?"
"Ho-ho," Garfist replied thoughtfully, indicating agreement. The Aumrarr had warned them not to step into or through the arch, for fear of being plucked away to a "terrible doom in a terrible place" by the gate. Isk's idea bid fair to dodge that little pitfall just fine…
By then Isk had turned right along a passage at the top of the stair, and was about to step out onto… a balcony.
It overlooked a grand, high room with another tier of balconies above theirs, a largely empty room lit by four braziers, identical curved wrought iron standards, each as tall as a man.
The great chamber was deserted of people, thank the Falcon, but its far side held a grand staircase sweeping up to their level, a door on a curved wall that must from the Aumrarr description be the way to the turret stair, and, yes, the Three Thorns of Lyrose outlined in the center of the glossy black floor.
This could only be the right place to find the archway, unless Lyraunt Castle had two identical high halls.
Well, Lord Lyrose was thought to be crazed-or had that been his father? It had been seasons upon seasons since they'd last been in Irontarl-but neither Gar nor Isk thought he was that sort of mad. Which meant, if this was the high hall, the archway they sought was right underneath them.
Isk leaned out, looked down, then drew back and nodded.
"Give it me," she murmured. "You tend to hurl skulls about like weapons."
"When I hurl skulls about, they are weapons," Gar growled, unwrapping for all he was worth.
Isk put her fingers through the eyesockets of Orthaunt's skull the moment they were uncovered, lifted it up to face her, and murmured his name as tenderly as if saying farewell to a beloved relative. Then she leaned out, swung her slender arm, and threw the skull, gently and carefully. If it shattered…
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.