by Ed Greenwood
She stared slowly around the ring of men, letting them see the rruth in her eyes.
At least, she hoped they'd see it as truth. They gazed back at her :n silent dismay, every one of them.
"Know that he has risen," she went on, "and has struck at • lalragard, seeking to seize the Master's magic. Lord Malraun rsed his magic to hurl himself from Darswords to his tower, to stop Lorontar the Terrible before the risen Lord Archwizard became too powerful for all Falconfar to defeat, standing together."
"And?" Olondyn barked.
"And my head took fire with that battle," she told them all grimly. "Malragard did not fare well, I believe. The third Doom of Falconfar—Narmarkoun—saw the battle as a chance to seize power from the both. I know not if my Malraun survives, or Narmarkoun... but I fear greatly that Lorontar, somehow, still exists."
"And you've... you've been walking down the trail with us this ray with all this in your head, telling us not a word of it?" Askurr's voice rose as high as a terrified young girl's. "Marching us into a battle of Dooms?"
Taeauna shrugged. "We are Falconfar's last hope. We and a man who was captive there, and may yet survive, too. Rod Everlar, the Dark Lord."
"So," Roreld rumbled slowly, "if we can rescue him, you mean..."
She nodded, wordlessly, and waited.
The storm was not long in coming. One moment they were all staring at her in silence, aghast, and the next they were bellowing and wagging their fingers in her face and waving their arms around. Rages born of terror, a roaring of frightened men.
She stood like a rock, silent and patient, and let the tumult break over her. When they all ran out of curses to shout, it was Olondyn who spat at her, "And you were marching us right into this, scheming wingbitch!"
Taeauna nodded. "I was."
"Rushing us to our slaughter!"
She shrugged and faced him squarely. "Perhaps. I know that we have a chance to destroy Lorontar, however slim. I know that if we slink away, scattering to our lairs and strongholds across Falconfar, that chance is lost—and that he'll come for us, one by one, and we'll be too few and too weak to cling to our lives. One by one he'll have us, like a night-cat pouncing on rats. Would you not want the chance to save your life, and all Falconfar? Rather than hurling it away, to live the rest of your life in fear, awaiting the doom you know will come?"
"I know nothing of the sort," Olondyn snapped. "A doom you proclaim, that I foresee not at all. Any wizard will need bodyguards, warriors to fight for him; why should he not choose Olondyn of the Bow?"
Taeauna shook her head. "You do not know Lorontar. I know him all too well. Dark Helms and lorn are his preferred troops— and hedge-wizards whose minds he burns out, so he can ride behind their eyes. Put all thought of paid service out of your head, Olondyn. Anyone who may have thought Lord Malraun cruel and imperious, consider this: what manner do you think a wizard will have when dealing with the world, when he prefers to be served by the dead?"
"Words," Zorzaerel growled. "All we have of this is your words, Lady. This Lorontar could be a kindly old sit-by-the-fire, for all we know."
"And if he is, and everything I say is a lie," Taeauna replied gently, "how much better a place will be Ironthorn, where three rival lordlings make war on each other every day, and have tested and ready armies, alert for any foe—when we are so few, now?"
"You," Askurr told her bluntly, "are crazed. I'll not listen to a word more from you—and I'll not follow you to certain doom."
There was a general rumble of agreement, and men started to move. "Bah," one warrior growled. "Give me swords any day, not spells I can do nothing to stop."
Taeauna stood still, turning only her head as she watched for a sword or two lashing out at her in anger.
None came. They drew back from her, not turning their backs until they were well away, then started tramping off in all directions, seeking their men.
"Hear me, all who are loyal to Falconfar," Taeauna called after them, keeping her voice flat and firm. "Rally to me, and walk with me to Malragard. Your swords can carve out our last chance."
None of the warcaptains even looked back. Except, after a few reluctant strides, old Roreld, who stopped and shook his head slowly at her.
Malraun's own men, the bodyguards who'd served him the longest—Eskeln, Gorongor, Tarlund, and Glorn—alone came to Taeauna, to stand with her, guarding her back and flanks. All of them stared at Roreld, who stared back and shook his head again.
"This... this is madness," he muttered. "Ironthorn's our death, I know, but a wizard's tower, now..." He shook his head again. "We could end up as Dark Helms, doomed to fight on after we die, until our very joints fall apart."
"Or we could save Falconfar, every lass and hearth of it we hold dear," Taeauna replied softly. "Instead of turning our backs and eaving that fray to others and dooming us all."
"So you say," Roreld said, sounding helpless. "It sounds so... unlikely." He waved empty hands, as if beckoning the Falcon to show him some sign. "Fighting wizards and dead things is not how I want to die."
Taeauna snorted. "We're warriors, Roreld. We could all be dead tomorrow. So don't wait for the morrow. Be magnificent today."
Roreld gave her a crooked smile. "You sound like a merchant trying to sell me something. For too high a price, and a thing I don't want, besides." He shook his head again—but turned and trudged toward her.
"I'm in," he said simply.
They embraced, chest to chest and thumping backs as warriors do, and in the heart of it he muttered, "Don't make me regret this. Tay, please don't make me regret this."
"I'll try not to. By the Falcon we all hold dear, I'll try," she murmured back, as they broke apart.
Taeauna looked around the ring of men. It was smaller now. Much smaller. Ten men, in fact, including Roreld's five. Veterans all, but still... ten men.
Ten men, against the greatest archwizard Falconfar had ever known.
She shrugged. Fewer graves to dig.
"If there's enough left of any of us to need burying," she murmured under her breath.
Gorongor, who had the keenest hearing, turned his head sharply. "Sorry, lady? What was that?"
"I said," Taeauna told him with a smile, "that I'm for yonder inn, for meat and drink before we start hurrying."
They nodded in agreement, and started across the clearing, ignoring the warriors everywhere who avoided their eyes, men hastening this way and that, making ready to start back to their own holds.
Horgul's army hadn't lasted long, after all.
So much for Liberation.
Taeauna smiled thinly. There'd be no liberation until all the Dooms were dead and gone, and Falconfar had no Lord Archwizard.
None but Rod Everlar.
"LORD ARCHWIZARD? I—I—some call me that," Rod stammered.
"Who're you?"
Sunken, shriveled eyeballs glimmered angrily back at him. "I'm a real wizard, 'Lord Archwizard.' The mage who built—and dug—this place, spell by spell. Back when the world was young and men kept their word—and all that sort of bog-twaddle. In the days when the Falcon flew our skies and was seen by all."
"The Falcon is real?"
"Of course it's real. Who d'ye think hears our curses, and heaps misfortunes on our heads for uttering them?"
"Lorontar," Rod said wryly. "Except when he's busy. Then Malraun and the other Dooms fill in."
The head dropped open its jaw—green-white flesh quivering— and made a hearty rattling sound that could only have been meant to be a laugh. It drifted closer to Rod.
"I like ye, man. Ye can't be a wizard. Ye lack the imperious rudeness, the spurning of humor. Yet... yet ye wakened all the Sleepers, just by blundering into their midst, and only one who can wield the most powerful magics can do that."
"The Sleepers?" Rod looked at the bobbing skeletons, who had now paused to stand in a ring around him, every skull turned toward him, the rusty remnants of their blades held so as to point to the ceiling. "These?"
The floating head sighed loudly. "Ye are an idiot, aren't ye?"
Rod managed a thin smile. "Guilty as charged."
"'Charged'?" The head backed away, eyes flaring up in rage or alarm. Then it seemed to relax, slumping down in midair. "Oh. Ye really don't know the first thing about magic, do ye?"
"No," Rod admitted quietly. "No, I don't."
DLARMARR WAS FAR from the largest and wealthiest port on the Hywond Shore, but it was one of the best.
In the oh-so-worldly opinion of Mori Ulaskro, tomekeeper of Lord Luthlarl's private library. Not that Mori had ever been farther from Dlarmarr than the village he'd been born in—Esker's Well, just the other side of Mralkwood Hill
Yet Mori was the tomekeeper, and so had read more about the Stormar ports than almost anyone he could think of, even if he'd never been to any of them but Dlarmarr. From the lord's highest tower, he could see Hywond itself, as a distant smudge down the coast, and what he thought was Telchassur beyond that, but at night the twinklings of their lights, the ship-fires lit atop their harbor-towers, were clear enough.
Hywond had the best shipyards and the largest fishing fleet on all the Shore, and Telchassur was supposed to be old and even wealthier, but neither of them had anything to touch Lord Luthtarl's library. Hy-folk used books as ledgers, writing coin- counts of the moment over the fading words others had written long ago, and Telchassur was a city where tales were told in tapestries and paintings and sculpture, or sung in long, eerie chants, not set down in books.
So Mori was quite content to stay snug in Dlarmarr—not even ducking out of the familiar warm dust and quiet of the library except when he was sent—and read, dreaming of places he would never see. From here, he could look out over the world—if only the world limned so colorfully on the fading maps that covered the top of the Shrouded Table—and know all. It was as good as commanding all.
Not that Mori had the slightest desire to become lord of anywhere, or was in any danger of becoming so. He did want to become locklar of the library, some day, when blind-and-deaf old Urvraunt was carried off by the Falcon. Urvraunt had never been a pleasant man, and as his senses failed and he increasingly needed Mori not just to scramble up ladders and fetch hard-to- reach tomes, but to find the right title among the rows even at chest level, hard by the reading table, his irritability was becoming a constant, snarling thing. Besides, he was beginning to smell— and not just of strong everember wine.
There was something else Mori would gain by Urvraunt's death, someday. The library keys, of course, but more importantly just one of them: the long black key that gave admittance to the Black Chamber. Where the books of magic—the books that lived, some of them, moving around by night, and reportedly even draining those who stole in to peer at them in the hours of darkness to withered old age—were kept.
Just once, when the locklar had been interrupted by a message from Lord Luthtarl, Mori had seen a lone book of magic lying open, and it had been an ordinary-looking, slender tome Urvraunt had sneered at as "poor and paltry enough." Yet the black and red, angular runes that made so many folk ill just by glancing at them had flowed under Mori's gaze and thrilled him, kindling something in his mind. Trying to read them—he took in no more than a line ere Urvraunt had come snarling back into the room— had thrown up vivid, half-glimpsed visions that had kept Mori awake and quivering all that night, and left him aching for more.
He was one of those who could read magic, could wield magic— and by the Falcon, one way or another, he would taste that flowing fire again before he died, and cast spells, and sweep past cowering folk in dark and splendid robes, and be a wizard.
Wizards could change the world.
MASTER ULASKRO," THE locklar greeted him with heavy sarcasm, "it seems the gulls have been relieving themselves all down the windows again. The windows outside my office. 'Do you therefore go out upon the balcony—now—and speedily perform such scrubbings as are necessary to let the sun shine once more unimpeded across my desk."
Mori knew better than to reply with anything except a bowed head and the words, "Of course, Locklar Urvraunt!"
He put all the toadyingly submissive eagerness into them he could, because he knew such a manner pleased rather than irritated the old man—and life ran more smoothly for them both when Locklar Urvraunt was pleased.
Brushes, bucket, and soap flakes were old, familiar friends, and so was the roof-cistern tap. Urvraunt seemed to find a lot of things around the library for his tomekeeper to scrub. In fact, it seemed is if Mori did a lot more maids' work than keeping of tomes.
Not that Mori particularly minded. It set him to seeing new things, getting some fresh air, and making little trips down to shops in Jlarmarr he'd never have seen otherwise. Which brought to mind a certain bakehearth on the steepest part of Orshandul Street, and hshcakes that melted in the mouth with a sauce that... that...
"Tomekeeper Ulaskro," Urvraunt snapped, "you're drooling. Stop standing there dreaming of feasts, boy, and get out there and clean my windows!"
Hastily Mori nodded and obeyed. Oh, so they were "my" windows now, were they? And all these years, he and everyone else in Dlarmarr had been so stone-cold sure that they were Lord Luthtarl's windows. Stiffnecked old toad. Urvraunt, that is, not kindly old Luthtarl. Of course, Luthtarl had been something less than "kindly" down the years, in dealings with pirates—personally gutting them before all his court—and visiting merchants who dared to feud in the streets of Dlarmarr through the daggers of their underlings, and even the haughty lords of Hywond, too—
Mori noticed the sun had suddenly gone out.
Now, storms were wont to strike Dlarmarr suddenly, but there was always a great roaring and moaning of winds, first, and the air turning either sultry-hot or icy, and—
He turned from washing the windows and gaped in utter disbelief.
The largest monster he'd ever seen—a dragon or a greatfangs or something else that had scales and huge raking talons and bat-wings broader than an entire wing of the lord's castle—was looming up over him, blotting out the sky.
Its wings were spread wide, slowing it, but it wasn't a heart-beat away from slamming into the balcony, and the library beyond the balcony.
Which meant that Lord Luthtarl was going to need a new library—and a new tomekeeper, too.
Mori tried to scream, but all that came out was a sob. There was a young man struggling feebly in one of the monster's massive, cruel claws—and the other claw was reaching out for him.
With all his might, Mori swung his bucket of soapy water at the creature's talons. The brush he'd dropped into it bounced off one tree-trunk-sized talon and fell away.
And then he was snatched into the air, a fire in his ribs and all the breath slammed out of him.
Stone shrieked below him as the gigantic creature raked at it, thrusting itself aloft, and Mori saw the balcony and some of the wall above it breaking away and falling, tumbling down into the courtyard he could no longer see. There were great bright gouges in the weathered castle stone.
This thing can shear through stone with its talons.
Someone was shouting and pointing, from a tower nearby. "Greatfangs! Falcon deliver us! A greatfangs! It's snatched someone.
A greatfangs. Winging its way strongly out over the Sea of Storms, now, rising higher, its tail lashing the air behind it.
Still fighting to try to breathe, Mori turned his head enough to see the man gripped in the monster's other claw. Their eyes met.
No comfort there, only despair.
They were both doomed.
The floating head acquired a peculiar expression—a mixture of dismay, a little disgust, a hint of incredulity, and a certain grudging respect—as it regarded Rod Everlar. "So ye admit it. Ye don't know the first thing about magic at all."
"No," Rod admitted, wondering if he'd just made the worst mistake of his life. "I just write about it. Making things up as I go along."
"Falcon. Well, at least ye know how to speak plain trut
h. That's more than most every wizard I've ever known could bring himself to do."
Rod shrugged, smiled, and spread his hands. "I've not met all that many wizards, but I wouldn't—couldn't—trust any I did meet."
"Oh? And just who have ye met?"
Rod drew in a deep breath. "Well, all the Dooms: Arlaghaun, Malraun, and Narmarkoun. And Lorontar, too. Oh, and there was a wizard in Wrathgard, and another—one of Arlaghaun's apprentices, I think—who conjured a gate in the cellars of Bowrock, and—"
"Enough. Well, now ye've met another. I am Rambaerakh, Slayer of Dragons."
Rambaerakh fell silent, beaming. Rod, feeling awkward, blurted, "Oh."
"Well, I see ye really did speak truth. Ye do know nothing about magic at all."
Rod managed a lopsided smile. "I was supposed to be impressed, learning who you are, I take it?"
"If by 'impressed' ye mean 'awed,' yes, ye were. I built this tower around and above us, and for many seasons ruled a kingdom from it. Rauryk, 'twas called. The Realm of Tall Trees."
"The Raurklor?"
"The Raurklor. Alone I slew a score of dragons—one at a time, of course, save for that night above Har Rock when two wyrms took wing against me. I created the first Dark Helms. Not that sneering pretender Lorontar, who killed wizards he got drunk and took their magic for his own, one after another, until the rest of us noticed—and then killed enough wizards more that we finally saw fit to seek him out. I ruled here, until I got just careless enough to make one mistake too many—guarding too much against Lorontar and mages he had his hands up the backsides of, and not against others. Which was when Malraun wrested my Dark Helms from me, hurled them against me until I was forced out of this tower, and there in the fields beset me with spells until dragons found me and took their revenge on me for their slain kin. Leaving me like this."
"Torn apart?"
"Torn, eaten, burned, and clawed. These aren't sword-scars below my chin."