by Ed Greenwood
"Hey," Iskarra agreed calmly. "Any such dueling will be yours to perform; I'll be fleeing into the next kingdom. For now, let us pass into the next chamber. This is a wizard's tower, remember; we're not going to get the chance to wander around here unregarded and unopposed forever, look you!"
They ducked through a curtained archway into a dimly lit room that seemed to be partly given over to storage, the rest dominated by some sort of work desk whose top was scarred with burned-in rings. "Alchemy," Iskarra judged. "Be careful what flasks you snatch, Gar; some of them may flame or burst if shaken overly much."
"If it doesn't look drinkable, I'll not be touching it."
"Gar, to you everything looks drinkable."
The fat man grinned broadly. "And I'm still here and flourishing, and larger than ever to prove it!"
Iskarra rolled her eyes and started looking along the shelves. Garfist gave her backside a friendly swat and sprang hastily back out of range, but received only a half-amused glare in return.
Still grinning, the onetime pirate turned the other way to peer around and behind the desk.
"Aha!" he cried, almost immediately. In a crock on the floor down beside the desk were a cluster of canes and scabbarded blades, leaning back against the wall and nigh-invisible in the shadow of an untidy heap of parchments. A long, slender blade caught Gar's eye, and in an instant it was in his hand. He hefted it approvingly, drew it, and whistled softly in appreciation.
"Now this," he said, turning toward Iskarra, "is a beautiful blade! Might suit you, actually…"
There was a strange wriggling under his hand, a hiss, and Garfist found himself holding a serpent.
As the fanged head turned in his direction, jaws spread wide, he darted his other hand at it desperately, seeking to catch hold of it behind the jaws to keep it from striking. The rest of it was coiling angrily around his arm, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Something metal flashed through the air right in front of his fingertips, severing and carrying away the snake's forked tongue and causing it to rear back in writhing pain. Garfist got the hold he wanted, and squeezed as hard as he could as he lumbered forward so he could smash the snake's head against the wall. Repeatedly, hammering it until it was bloody mush all over his knuckles, and the wildly whipping body and tail were jerking in listless, dying spasms.
"Th-thanks," he gasped to Iskarra, as she marched past him to retrieve her hurled dagger from where it had embedded itself in the wall. She let the fragment of tongue fall away from it, unheeded, as she wiped it clean on a handy tapestry.
"Employ Vipers to slay vipers," she replied, giving his backside a friendly swat with precisely the same force and aim as he'd dealt her.
Whatever response Garfist might have intended to make was lost in a sudden, loud shout that seemed to come from the very air around them, resounding through the chamber they were in and those behind it that they'd just traversed: "Klammert! Klammert! To me!"
The echoes of those words were thunderous.
Iskarra frowned. "Sounds like that wizard."
Garfist grinned. "And he sounds a little upset, no?"
"Yes." Iskarra looked swiftly about. "Gar, I'm not staying in here; this is a dead end. I want to be somewhere that has doors, or a passage, or somewhere else I can see to flee into. If he unleashes an army of guardians…"
"Then through there!" Gar suggested, pointing hack through the arch and across the room they'd been in earlier. "We didn't open that door."
"Which was probably wisest," Iskarra muttered, following in his wake as the fat man lumbered across the room, hurling a chair aside.
The door swung open under his fist in silky, well-oiled silence, to reveal some sort of studying area with tomes on tables, and a staircase ascending between those tables, up into unseen levels above.
Somewhere above them, a door crashed open. In unspoken accord Iskarra and Garfist each ducked under a table on either side of the stairs.
They were still scrambling in and under when the lofty stairwell echoed with an excited, husky shout, "I come, master! I come!"
That cry was approaching rapidly, gaining volume as it grew closer, and they could hear hurrying, fast-approaching footfalls on the stairs. "My chance!" their rough-voiced owner gasped, as he came clattering down the last flight of steps. "My chance at last. Shine, Klammert, shine!"
Iskarra rolled her eyes, drew her sword, and moved to just the right place. She was hearing only one pair of hurrying boots; this Klammert dolt was alone. Whatever Gar did, she was going to…
Wait until just the right moment, and then bob up and thrust out her sword to trip this Klammert's racing feet, so that he-
Crashed face-first down the rest of the stairs at full rush, her blade clashing against Garfist's as he grinningly rose in perfect unison to do the same thing from the other side of the stairs.
With one accord they turned and watched the fat, young scraggle-bearded wizard slide heavily to a stop, his head and neck driven hard sideways by an unyielding wall.
Neither winced; they were too busy rushing forward to pluck wands and other useful-looking things from the sprawled apprentice.
Trading wide grins, their arms full of loot, Iskarra and Garfist rose to take themselves swiftly elsewhere in this gift-filled tower.
Taeauna and Deldragon stood their ground, setting their teeth and angling their blades-for the velduke, two puny daggers-just so. They were doing so, Rod realized, as he rolled to fetch up against a pair of shapely Aumrarr ankles, to protect him.
The great sword swept down. Deldragon and Taeauna met its force and thrust desperately forward to deflect it from Rod on the floor beneath it, but the sheer force of the guardian's swing drove them both to their knees.
The sword shuddered and squealed against the tiled stone of Ult Tower's floor, right in front of them;
Rod groaned as they ended up kneeling on him. "Roll under me!" Taeauna gasped, "and get out behind us!"
The great sword came crashing in again, backhanded, and this time it drove Taeauna and the velduke before it, sweeping them away from Rod so he could roll wherever he wanted.
The great metal automaton strode right after him. It took a slow step forward and swung its sword again; if Rod hadn't kept rolling frantically back down the passage the way they'd come, that gigantic sword would have bitten into him.
With a battle-shout, Velduke Deldragon leaped into the air and crashed into the thing from behind, slashing wildly with his daggers at the places where the metal plates met, and only enchanted air was holding the lumbering construct together. White lightnings crackled briefly along both blades and then died as the nobleman fell past, and Taeauna launched herself at it in his wake, high and hard.
The guardian staggered, swayed, and then started to turn, sword preceding its arms. Deldragon trotted around to keep himself behind it, and sprang again. This time, when he landed, his dagger blade was burning with a white fire, and the armored titan seemed to be limping. Taeauna hit it again, as Rod rolled to his feet, glanced swiftly over his shoulder to make sure nothing was coming down the passage at him, and then started running uncertainly toward the fight. He couldn't just stand and watch his friends get…
The great sword sliced empty air again, the guardian turning now as fast as it could, spinning endlessly around as the velduke and the Aumrarr kept running to keep to its rearside, springing to attack it repeatedly from behind.
The helm started to turn around on the shoulders now, the better to keep them under scrutiny; Rod saw that and shouted, pointing, as he ran forward.
The velduke struck again, awakening more lightning, stabbing at the thing's left armpit. This time, when he fell away, lightnings remained, playing and crackling in the air at that joint. Taeauna darted in to hack and slice at the guardian's left knee.
The very tip of its sword caught her and hurled her away, blood spraying, but she waved Rod away and ran in at the thing again, calling to the velduke, "Wonder how many more of th
ese the wizard has?"
"I was never good at counting," Deldragon bellowed back, slicing it again. "One… two… many!"
Rod groaned at that pun, whether it had been meant or not, as Taeauna ducked in again to hack and hew at that knee, the guardian's metal shrieking and squealing with every step now.
Deldragon crashed feet-first into the thing, causing it to sway as it tried to turn. It grounded the tip of its sword for balance and managed the turn, slicing back along its own leg as cunningly as any street fighter, and caught Taeauna tarrying at its knee just an instant too long.
This time, the great blade caught her squarely. She folded up around it with a sob as it bit deep into her and hurled her away. Deldragon shouted in anger and dared to spring at the thing's chest, kicking it high when it was half-turned one way, and leaning back to slice in another.
A metal fist dashed him brutally to the floor for his daring, but with a slow, inexorable, grinding groan of metal sliding uneasily down metal, the titan toppled over, crashing onto its side on the tiled floor and bouncing.
Staggering and moaning in pain, his face a mask of streaming blood, the velduke shuffled in beside it, slicing under the helm and then one arm as they bounced up, seeking to sever them from the body.
The blades of his daggers burned like torches. Gasping, he was forced to fling them away as the white fire reached the hilts, but the helm and that arm bounced and clanged free of the construct's body, and the guardian rose no more, its legs and remaining arm thrashing in slow, metal-shrieking futility.
Deldragon stared at Rod over the thing for a moment. Then they hissed at each other in horrified unison, "Taeauna!"
Rod could run much faster than the wounded velduke; he got to her crumpled body first.
There was blood everywhere, in a spreading pool around her, and more of it bubbled from her lips as she tried to speak, pointing up at him with a trembling, dripping finger.
Rod flung himself to his knees beside her, fumbling for his dagger, sliding in her blood and not caring. He had to-had to-
A hand that trembled almost as much as his own, but had a grip like a school workbench vise he'd once foolishly challenged, was suddenly around his wrist.
"Slaying her is hardly the mercy I was intending, man," Darendarr Deldragon snarled in Rod's ear, his hoarse voice managing to sting with both fire and ice at once.
"I'm not… Let go of me!" Rod snapped. "I'm saving her! I hope."
His voice broke on the last words, and he fought not to choke on his own tears, but something- perhaps that-made the velduke let go of him. Rod winced and sliced down, hard, then roared in pain as fire blossomed across his palm.
"Mmm, mmm," Taeauna managed to say, in her need, and together Rod and Deldragon got his bleeding hand to her lips. Rod had cut himself deeply, and there was plenty for her to drink, even if she couldn't manage to suck all that well.
Rod put his other arm around her and held his hand against her tongue; she was like the horses he'd ridden at camp, nuzzling him for sugar cubes. He nodded his thanks to Deldragon and was shocked to see clear awe on the velduke's face.
"Who…" he managed to ask, "Who's the wizard we saw? If this is his tower, what did he do to Ult?"
"That was Arlaghaun," the nobleman gasped, swiping blood off his face with one arm. "Considered by most the real ruler of Galath, and the most powerful of the Dooms."
Taeauna sat back into Rod's arm with a sigh. "My thanks, lord. I'll live. I need more, but let Darr drink of you first."
Rod nodded, but saw that his palm was almost healed. He held it out to the velduke and said, "Cut me. My knife arm is a little occupied."
"With a nice armful of Aumrarr, yes," the noble agreed, reaching to take Rod's dagger gingerly. "This is… Well, I can scarce believe it."
"He's a Shaper, Darr," Taeauna reminded the velduke, as fresh fire sliced across Rod's palm.
Then she turned her head against Rod's chest and added, "Years ago, Arlaghaun managed something magical that allowed him to conquer Ult's mind, and add it to his own. He gained this tower and all of Ult's magic and knowledge. That face we saw for a moment, when his twisted awry, was Ult."
Rod nodded. "I recognized it. So he subsumed Ult…"
He stopped at the expression he saw in Deldragon's ice-blue eyes. No one had ever regarded him with naked, deepening awe before.
Fearfully, Velduke Darendarr Deldragon started to lap at Rod's bleeding palm.
The ring that let him fly over the pit traps was flickering and faltering by the time Arlaghaun reached the high hall where his spell had brought Yardryk and all the rest into the tower. He glared around, almost feeling the two brown flames of his own gaze.
The velduke, the familiar stranger, and the rest were long gone, of course, just as he would be, if he got across this room unscathed. He had spell-tomes and other magics aplenty hidden in a score of places across Falconfar. When he'd had time enough with them, whoever was turning Ult Tower against him would pay for doing so, painfully and in the end fatally. No one must defy a Doom and live.
He spent a shielding spell to shape a huge invisible cylinder of force across this last room, and sped along it.
Halfway across the hall lightnings burst from the mouth of a carved ceiling-boss, bolts crackling as they raked and then curled angrily around the cylinder of force, illuminating and clawing at it, their onslaught making it flicker and darken. They could destroy it, given long enough, but they would not he given that long enough.
Above his sharp nose, Arlaghaun's eyes narrowed; not all of his apprentices knew of that particular magic. There would be time to think on that later. Just now, he could see hidden doors swinging open in the walls of the great hall, and armored figures striding forth. Puny foes, but swift enough to reach the far end of his cylinder, deadly enough to an unprotected man, and numerous enough to overwhelm a lone foe.
Yet they were going to be too late. He was at the end of the cylinder, and willing it to swing away from himself, turning to serve as a great room-spanning ram, to thrust back those running armored automatons. That would win him time to do thus.
The Doom of Falconfar strode up to the tall, ornate oval mirror that adorned one wall, turned it with his fingers, just a little, until he heard the hidden catches click, then slid it aside to reveal the dark, narrow opening behind it. The glass had taken a long time to enchant, so he left it standing open behind him, hoping none of his guardians would shatter it while pursuing him.
Then he was hurrying down the short, curving, narrow way it had hidden, to touch the little glow on the rough stone wall at its end, and leave Ult Tower behind, through one of its most hidden gates.
"Fear my return," he murmured, the metallic shrieks of his armored sentinels shouldering against stone after him, fading as the glowing mists took him, "for I shall be exacting payment for this. And the price will be high."
"He's gone!" Amalrys spat, slamming her hand down on a defenseless crystal in a rattle of protesting chain. "Gone! Falcon take him and break him!"
She glared wildly around at the array of glowing crystals, seeing striding chaos in a dozen chambers of the tower as aroused guardians hastened to do whatever she'd goaded them to. She should calm them and return them to their resting-places, for Arlaghaun had destroyed many of them, and their own misadventures damaged more. Fires were raging in two rooms, and there was wrack and shattered ruin everywhere.
One scene caught her attention; blue eyes blazing, she thrust forward her manacled hands as if to throttle that crystal, the better to stare into its glowing depths.
She was seeing the row of gates out of the tower that all the apprentices knew of, and used often at the master's bidding, and the wide passage before them. Three intruders were sitting there together, in the lee of a riven, still-struggling armored guardian: rhe Galathan noble, the wingless Aumrarr, and the mysterious man who traveled with her.
As Amalrys watched, they rose, blood-spattered but seemingly unhurt, and looked to the g
ates.
Stop them, a voice thundered in her head, sending her reeling. Send the guardians against them! Let them not escape!
Mind whirling, drooling blood across glowing crystals-Falcon, she'd bitten her own lip, and no wonder, at that mind-thunder! — Amarlys sprang to do just as she was told, hissing commands and slapping crystals and…
Arching back and away from it all in a sudden spasm, control of her own limbs torn rudely from her, as a stronger voice than the first roared, "LET THEM GO. HARM THEM NOT!"
And so it was that the wizard Malraun became directly aware of the wizard Narmarkoun, in the torn and tortured depths of Amalrys's mind. Two furious mind-bolts lashed out as one, each seeking the death of the other… and each fading into futility as the ravaged mind around them exploded.
Amalrys collapsed across the array of scrying-spheres, her eyes two burnt and empty holes.
Smoke curled forth from her ears, mouth, and nostrils as her lips gasped the last thought she'd clung to: "Arlaghaun, I love you."
In the passage of Ult Tower where the row of gates hummed and glowed, Rod, Taeauna, and Deldragon turned at sudden rising sounds of thundering haste, to behold a host of clawed, bladed, armored things racing toward them from one end of the passage, and another, similar host hurrying from the other.
Great jaws, closing…
"Falcon!" the velduke cursed in a slow whisper, aghast, as they saw death coming for them.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I can't believe this!" Garfist Gulkoon said I delightedly, launching himself into a slide.
Shining gold coins parted in two waves before his ample chest as he came slithering down the highest of the bright, golden hills that filled the little room, in a cascade of gleaming wealth, to fetch up against the back wall beside Iskarra in a prolonged and hissing crash. "Bright fancy-tales often talk of rooms full of gold, but this is real!"
"Nice it is, to know your wits still work, Gar, if slowly," his longtime partner replied bitingly, parting the little belly and striking breasts her reunited crawlskin had given her, and raking handfuls of coins inside. "Everyone has to keep their coins somewhere, and this wizard obviously has too many to fit them all into boot heels and moneybelts. I presume you've refilled yours?"