by Ed Greenwood
"Roger that," one voice rapped out of the speakers, in reply.
A moment later, an older voice drawled, "Copy. You're not kidding, are you, Rusty? This isn't just you checkin' to see if we're awake?"
"Negative," Rusty said flatly. "I mean it. Six crazies with swords that sure look real from here."
"Uh-huh. Who's their backup?"
Rusty snorted. "Cut it, Sam, this isn't a joke. They haven't got any backup, of course…"
Yet he hadn't checked, and a good security chief…
He clapped Sollars sharply on the shoulder in a wordless order that set the eye-man to punching buttons and turning magnification and camera-aim toggles like a frenzied spider.
Only to spit out some words of profane astonishment as the feed from Camera South Forty-Six came up on the big monitor, and his finger mashed down a button that brought the flashing sequence of images of empty golf course to an abrupt halt.
"Holy shit!" Rusty gasped, staring at the large screen.
"What?" Sam's voice demanded, over the beeping of a forklift truck backing up along the loading dock.
He was echoed almost immediately by Mase, head of Ground Floor Security. "Rusty, what's all the excitement?"
Rusty shook his head, then bent over the microphone again and snapped, "Sam, Mase, listen up! I am not crazy and this is not a joke. Got that?"
"Copy. Tell us!"
"Well, there's something following the six guys with the swords. Well back, but it's flying. Most of the time, anyway. Keeping to cover, like it's trying to keep hidden, but keep watch on what the six are up to."
"So this isn't just fans, then. This is serious."
"More than serious, Sam." Rusty drew in a deep, unhappy breath, and asked, "You-Mase, you too-have played Falconfar, right?"
The speakers made affirmative noises. Rusty nodded, his eyes never leaving the big monitor, and asked, "So you know what a lorn looks like? The flying faceless things?"
"Yup. Oh now, hold on there, Rusty, you're not expecting us to believe-"
"I don't believe it myself, but I'm seeing it. And I am not shitting you. Repeat: I am not kidding or joking or lying. And it's not some guy in a monster suit, or a clumsy homemade bolts-and-car-parts robot. Unless someone has found a way to send very realistic animated images over these monitors that I haven't heard about-with proper perspective, lighting, the works-there's a lorn out there, flying right at us!"
"Roger. So I bring along the riot rifles, not just the gas gun?"
"No! No, we-yes, damn it, yes. I've seen too many movies to…"
"Rusty." Sam's voice was kindly. "Your mom never tell you movies ain't real?"
"Just do it, Sam!" Rusty shouted. "Now! The Dark Helms'll be at our doors in a minute, and that thing's about two little hillocks behind them!"
"Roger, Rusty. Go eat your sandwich and simmer down. Or have you gulped it already, and washed it down with a little something extra?"
"I have not,'" Rusty roared, "been drinking! Now get going!"
"Roger!" Sam and Mase snapped back in hasty unison. The speakers promptly burped the two loud clicks of their switching off, presumably to snatch up their high-band handphones and run.
Staring at the front lobby monitors, Rusty started swearing. Those swords, and all that glass. The six crazies didn't have to use the front doors. Thanks to his imagination-and yes, all those movies-he could already hear glass shattering everywhere, and all those long-legged, icily elegant secretaries and marketing managers in all their down-front glass box offices screaming and fleeing in all directions.
As Dark Helms with sharp swords in their hands and rape and murder on their minds ran among them.
"Shit," Rusty told the microphone, without intending to, "I need a drink."
Rod Everlar drew in a deep, unhappy breath, then squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and flung open the door.
The passage was almost mockingly empty and silent. So where had Syregorn and his knights gone?
Ahead of him, probably, if all this time had passed and they hadn't burst into any of the rooms Rod had so fumblingly and cautiously wandered through. Perhaps they'd thought he knew the way out, and would just run as fast as he could toward it. Moving through Malragard, down the hill the fortress descended, to reach a floor or two below where he was now. Maybe.
Yet there was no reason not to believe the unhappy mutterings among the knights that death-spells would dice anyone trying to climb out over the garden walls-and there was no way to blast a hole in any wall, and so step right out of Malraun's trap, except magic that he didn't have and wouldn't know how to use if someone handed it to him. Not to mention that blowing a hole in the side of the wizard's home was more than a little likely to alert Malraun instantly about what had happened-and just where to find the guy who'd just done it.
So, walk along obediently in the death trap it was, and would have to be. Rod turned the way he knew to be away from the garden and-eventually-downwards toward Harlhoh, and the front doors, and started walking. Slowly, reluctantly, and as quietly as he could, avoiding all doors.
So when did he get to rescue the princess, slay a dragon, and accept a triumphal fanfare?
Or at least play the hero with some small degree of competence?
"Lock the doors!" Rusty roared, wondering where the bell Mase and his boys were; they should have been out on the lawn stopping these clowns well away from the building, not nowhere to be seen, as the Dark Helms-looking very much like dangerous thugs, now, and not awed, giggling fans-stalked up to the outer doors. "Lock the fucking DOORS!"
Sollars stared up at him, not knowing whether to be scared white or to grin at hearing Holdoncorp's grayhaired and straight-arrow security chief spitting out curses.
"You're in charge here," Rusty snapped at him as he unbuttoned his holster-and then sprinted away, heading for the service stairs. "Hank," he called to the largest and strongest of the custodians, "get out the fire axe and defend everyone on this floor, if any of those guys come out of the elevator!"
As he burst through the stairwell door and started plunging down flights of steps with wild bounds, the speakers at every landing crackled and came to life. Sollars had flipped a switch.
"Ah, gentlemen, welcome to Holdoncorp." Marie's usually butter-smooth and calmly professional voice sounded a little shaky, and no wonder. "Can I help you?"
"Yes," a deep, helm-bound voice snarled back at her. "Take us to those who know Falconfar."
There followed a loud crash of breaking glass. Amid the tinklings of falling shards that followed, and more than a few swiftly-stifled shrieks, the Dark Helm added in a loud and gloatingly menacing voice, "And mind ye do so quickly."
Rusty hurled himself down another flight of stairs. Quickly.
Rod blundered into the illusion of straight hallway stretching on the hard way; by bringing his foot down on the edge of the unseen descending steps and pitching forward, slamming chest-first down on the steps, and finding himself staring at the slumped corpse of Thalden bent over the giant crossbow quarrel that had torn through his innards and killed him. It was as big as a lance, and Rod realized with a start that a matching war-quarrel had struck the steps just beside Thalden, right about where his own head was now, chipping the stone ere it bounded away up the steps. He'd fallen right past it without even seeing it.
Hastily he got himself up and away from those particular steps. Picking up that quarrel, he used it to probe at the illusory passage, running on its unseen distances. There were side-walls to the steps, and an end wall with a door in it, facing the steps, and that wall ran straight up as high as he could reach; there was no gap or space through which he could move on.
So he either had to go back to the doors behind him, dare any traps Malraun had put on them, and find a way around this deadend… or it wasn't a dead-end, but the way onward, and he had to open that door.
The door through which two oversized crossbow bolts had fired, if that was the right word, one of them fast enough to
kill Thalden. The other had missed Syregorn and however many other Hammerhand knights had still been alive when they'd reached this door.
Everlar hefted it in his hand, then gingerly poked its far end through the pull-ring of the door, stood as far away as he could on the stairs, over against the wall on the far side from Thalden's body, and tugged.
The door opened with surprising ease-in well-oiled soft and smooth silence-and an unseen double-bow let go with a crash. Rod saw only blurs as another lance chipped the empty side of the steps and bounded up and on along the passage, while Thalden's body spasmed, arms and head bouncing wildly, as a second quarrel tore into it right beside the first.
Rod swallowed, but made sure to keep the door held open as he edged along the lance toward its dark opening. He could hear no sounds of reloading, a whirring windlass, or men moving about, beyond the door; the only breathing he could hear was his own. The bow had fired from about there and there, which meant he should be able to keep to the very edge of the doorway and step through without straying into the path of another war-quarrel.
Assuming there were no other little surprises waiting in, say, the doorframe.
Rod shrugged, swallowed, and carefully stepped through the door. He had to trust in his hunches, because they were all he had-and this looked to him like a mechanical trap, not manned and aimed. Unless Syregorn and the others had decided to make it so.
The moment he was in the darkness-a magical band or zone of utter pitch-black blindness, he decided-Rod stopped, lance in hand, and stood still to listen.
No breathing, no stealthy movements nearby that he could hear. Just deepening silence.
So he raised the crossbow quarrel in front of him, holding it in two hands like a quarterstaff, and stepped cautiously forward.
Here cometh the Lord Archwizard of Falconfar, with borrowed war-quarrel in hand. Tremble, all, and flee before him.
Two steps took him out of the darkness-it was a magical area, that ended in a wall as smooth as the black-tinted glass he'd seen in the foyers of various luxurious corporate headquarters-and on along a stone passage very similar to the one back beyond the stairs, except that it wasn't crowded with doors in its walls, floor, and ceiling.
A hall that stretched for only a short, straight run before turning into another flight of descending steps. The ceiling bent to descend on an angle with the steps, unmarked and unremarkable stone, and there were two small, closed doors on either side of the passage, just where the steps began.
Trap, Rod thought, eyeing them. But just how did it work, and what was the best way to pass those two doors?
Right beside one of them, he decided, choosing the right-hand one on a whim and walking to it as quietly and alertly as any cat-burglar, the war-quarrel held up and ready.
Use this borrowed spear of mine to bat aside anything that strikes at me out of the doors. Rush past, low and fast, with the quarrel held up like a shield.
He did that, and nothing happened. Save that he almost fell down the stairs beyond, skidding to a teetering halt on the lip of floor they descended from. Gingerly he tapped the topmost step with the quarrel, then shoved on it, hard.
Nothing happened. The stone was hard, solid, and not moving in the slightest.
Cautiously he rapped the wall beside the step, to make sure it didn't erupt with flames or a stabbing blade or anything else.
Nothing. Rod stepped down onto that step, and prodded the next one. Any corner he cut could cost him his life. As usual.
Rusty Carroll reached the door he wanted, flung it wide, and darted out onto the giant glass display case that was the ground floor front. It ended at a wall clad in black marble, right beside him, and he ran along it, down the back row of cubicles, gun in hand.
Where were th-oh.
Screams filled the air, a cubicle wall went over with a crash, and sparks sprayed from a dangling cable as a savagely-swung sword severed a johnny pole at one stroke. From somewhere he heard the unmistakable "pop" and high-pitched singing of one of the older, larger glass computer monitors bursting.
"Women in silk blouses, short skirts, expensive metal spike heels, and elegantly-decorated pantyhose were rushing everywhere, hair wild and eyes wilder.
And there, behind them, came one of the Dark Helms, swinging his sword back and forth as he came, two-handed, like a teenager smashing store displays and not expecting anything to stand in his way. He was chuckling.
Rusty fired at the man's throat. The man staggered, but the bullet whined away, the screams rose even louder from all around, and the Dark Helm neither slowed nor stopped. Instead, he headed straight for Rusty.
Who felt the sudden need for a fire axe.
Rod walked cautiously along a new passage. He'd descended two levels from where he'd met the skeleton, and was wondering how much farther he could go before Malragard ran out of hillside and he found himself in an attic or bedchamber of some house in Harlhoh.
This passage looked like it ended just ahead, in another descending flight of stairs, but he was learning not to trust his eyes. The quarrel, or spear, had saved him from-
"Lord Archwizard," Syregorn's voice greeted him pleasantly, from somewhere ahead. "Left alone, you must trudge through life slowly indeed. I was beginning to wonder if your magic had failed you."
Chapter Twenty-Six
Rod Everlar stopped, the war-quarrel feeling suddenly heavy and awkward in his hands. He was damned if he was going to flee like a scared child-and really, in this house of hidden traps, where did he dare flee to? — but the Hammerhand warcaptain was a veteran swordsman. It would be suicide to try to fight him directly.
So… what to do?
"Syregorn," he asked calmly, "have you been under orders to kill me, all along?"
"Yes," the warcaptain replied gravely, stepping into view through what looked like the solid descending ceiling of the passage, sloping down with the stairs as they went down to the door. Obviously the passage-or some part of it-ran straight on, along the level Rod was standing on. "You or the wizard whose tower we now stand in. Whichever of you survived your spell-battle, after we got the two of you together."
"So why have you disobeyed those orders?"
"I've done no such thing, Lord Archwizard." Syregorn made a sneering mockery of that title.
"Oh? So where," Rod asked, "is Malraun? If there was a spell-battle between us, I seem to have missed it."
"The wizard is obviously elsewhere. Probably with his army. The wizard, I said; it's clear to me now that you're no mage. You can't spell-battle anyone. So there's no longer any need to wait to see who survives a battle that will never happen, before I strike you down."
"Does Lord Hammerhand know you're disobeying his orders?"
Syregorn smiled, hefted his sword, and started to walk toward Rod. Slowly, almost strolling, his eyes alert and ruthless.
"I've not told you all the orders he gave me, and won't. You are, after all, an outlander, not a sworn man of Hammerhold. Yet take whatever comfort you can from knowing that killing you fulfills my orders, not breaks them. You cringing, good-for-naught coward."
It was Rod's turn to smile. "Was that meant to be an insult? It seems to me, I'm afraid, to be a fairly accurate description more than anything else."
"So you admit it? Or is this just a ploy to delay me? Desperate words from a man who has no way of defending himself but to hope he can somehow talk someone to death?"
"Er, pretty much," Rod admitted. "You don't think disposing of me will throw away a weapon Lord Hammerhand could use to finally rule all Ironthorn?"
Syregorn's smile was very thin. "No, I do not."
He was closing in on Rod, slowly and carefully, long sharp sword raised to slay. "Whatever paltry magics you may be able to work are tricks. Little ploys such as I or any man could work, if we ended up with a few treasures enchanted by others in our hands. It will take a lot more than little ploys to defeat Lyrose or Tesmer-just as it will take more than a little ploy to fool me. Outlander, yo
u are a dead man."
"Now who's trying to talk someone to death?" Rod replied, backing slowly away, keeping the quarrel up in front of him like a spear, and making his right elbow slide along the wall to keep himself close to it. He had to stay right against the wall, retracing the way he'd safely come already, in case walking down the middle of the passage landed him in any traps. After all, Malraun had to live in this place, and be able to stroll around it without facing death every few seconds; there must be some fairly simple "safe paths" through rooms and along passages. He hoped.
Syregorn stalked patiently after Rod, smiling a ruthless smile. Rod kept backing away, trying to recall how long this run of passage was.
"So you kill me," he asked the warcaptain, sounding calmer than he felt, "and then what? How are you going to get out of here alive?"
Syregorn shrugged. "Carry you, and use you as a shield. Let the traps savage your body. You won't be that heavy a burden, with some of the unnecessary limbs lopped off."
Rod tried not to shudder. "And if you find yourself facing Malraun?"
"Bargain for my life with all I can tell him-all you told me-of this world you come from, Lord Archwizard; this 'Earth.' A place he can rule. A place he'll need strong arms who know how to swing swords to guard and patrol for him."
"Strong arms like yours?" Rod let his amused disbelief rule his voice, to try to make his question a taunt.
"If men of Earth are like you," the warcaptain observed calmly, "my arm alone might be all that's necessary. It takes little skill to butcher-or cow-bumbling, unthinking children."
The heel of Rod's rearmost foot struck the smooth hardness of a wall, and Syregorn's contemptuous smile widened. Rod had reached the end of the passage; the stair that had led down into it had been narrower. He sidestepped to the left, kicked gently back, and felt the bottom step instead of wall. Waving his foot from side to side until he felt the side-wall of the stair, he backed into the stair.