Falconfar 03-Falconfar

by Ed Greenwood

  Garfist Gulkoun came out on a low balcony with Isk and the two Aumrarr, and shouted, "'Tis Galath, all right. Conducting their lords' business very much as usual."

  TAEAUNA WAS STRONGER than ever. Rod struggled vainly in her grasp, raging for all he was worth but unable to get free of her or move anywhere.

  "I've got to get out there!" he shouted at her, trying to break free of her and get out on the balcony. "They're all killing each other! In another ten-twenty minutes, there won't be any lords of Galath!"

  "And if you run out there," Taeauna snarled at him, shoving him away from the balcony, "in a lot less time than that there'll be no more Rod Everlar!"

  "Tay, I've got to do something! I just can't—"

  Taeauna shook him.

  "Listen to me!" she hissed. "You can do something that will help Galath—help Falconfar—greatly. You can get back into one of these rooms here and sit down and stare at the wall, while I stand guard over you, and gather your will and Shape again! That's what you do, Rod Everlar! That's how you made Falconfar great, and that's how you can save it now!"

  "But—but Shape what?"

  "Just quell all magic in yon throne room, so no wizard can cast anything!" Taeauna hissed at him. "Just that! Do it!"

  Rod nodded. "Right," he said. "I will. Lead me."

  "THERE! " JUSKRA SNAPPED, pointing past Garfist's shoulder. "There's Deldragon! Over there, across from the throne—see? Get to him! We must protect him!"

  "Us? Protect him?" Gar shouted, staring at her. "Look at him! Just how do y'see someone like that needing our protection?"

  Velduke Deldragon was hacking his way across the hall like a man possessed, ignoring challenges and shrugging off thrown weapons. He was making for the throne.

  The throne and the steps around it had become slick with fresh blood; even the Tesmers winced at the affray and ducked back through their secret door, vanishing. The moment Klarl Dunshar saw their departure, he turned and sprinted the other way, abandoning crown and throne in his desperate need to get away.

  Deldragon abruptly changed direction in the fray, and started hewing himself a path down the hall rather than toward the throne. It became clear to the four watchers on the balcony that the velduke wasn't after the crown or the throne.

  He was after Dunshar, the slayer of his king.

  "MAGIC," TAEAUNA MURMURED, "looks like a steady fire, shot through with lightning. A blue-white glow, when raw; other hues when spells make it so. Keep to the blue-white. You want it to be extinguished, to go dark. Shape it thus, Lord Archwizard. Shape it so, Rod."

  Eyes closed, lying on a cold stone floor, Rod saw glorious blue- white in his mind—and did his best to kill it.

  Melting it away from Galathgard was easy, but thrusting its destruction outwards was harder. Much harder. He couldn't do it, he... Wait. Malraun had done this, once, when linked to Rod's mind, and—yes. Yes! It was like shattering ice, so it could be shoved back and aside.

  And this, now, this casting that Rambaerakh had done a time or two; if he could Shape the same results...

  He could. Well, then, all men's ties to magic could be burned away. Like this. Things of magic would survive, until broken or worn out, but no spell would work, ever again, once his work was done.

  Not that it would be easy. It hurt—God, it hurt!—but he was doing it. Someday he might want to bring it back, but not if there would be other Dooms.

  No more Lorontars.

  Only Rod Everlar, the greatest Doom of all. Because he'd taken all magic away.

  The pain. Perhaps burning his own life to do it...

  Well, he wasn't going to stop. Not now, not after all this, after so many dead.

  Oh, but it hurt.

  "KINGSLAYER!" DELDRAGON ROARED, hacking aside a screaming knight, and thrusting his dagger at an armsman, who fled before him—and suddenly there was no one between the velduke and the fleeing klarl.

  "No!" Dunshar cried, finding his way blocked by men fighting among themselves. "No! I—I didn't mean to do it! They made me do it, the Lady Tesmer and her—"

  "I saw you go for the king," Deldragon said coldly, a sweep of his sword striking Dunshar's dagger away and taking most of a finger with it, "and I saw your daggers take his life. You slew him, Annusk Dunshar!"

  "And for that crime..." Garfist Gulkoun murmured eagerly, leaning well out over the balcony rail to watch.

  Dunshar turned and tried to flee again, babbling incoherently, then shrieking as Deldragon's sword caught him in one shoulder, spinning him around, and slapped his cheek hard when he tried to turn again.

  They were nose to nose again, and Deldragon's face was terrible.

  Dunshar's was white and drenched with sweat and trembling. "Don't kill me! Don't—I'll do anything! Anything! I'll—I'll—"

  "A song I've heard too many a time before," Deldragon said coldly, swinging his sword twice.

  Dunshar toppled silently, head almost severed. A strange lull occurred in the battle, and Velduke Deldragon found himself standing over the man he'd slain, stared at by men all around.

  "Dunshar killed Brorsavar," a lordrake cried, "and he just slew Dunshar. So he's the king—get him! Get him, and the crown is ours!"

  "'Ours?'" Dauntra asked. "Just how big is this crown, anyway?"

  One or two men just beneath the balcony chuckled at that— but everyone else was surging forward, shouting, swords rising against the man who stood alone.

  Deldragon shook his head in disgust, and ran to meet the nobles. Best take down the worst of them, if today I must die...

  "Enough of this," Dauntra said suddenly, swinging herself over the balcony rail. "Are you with me?"

  "Aye!" Garfist roared, shaking his fist—and toppling over the rail to crash down atop a baron, flattening the man to the ground and causing two more men to stagger, as Deldragon's blade cut down a corrupt lordrake.

  Juskra plucked up Iskarra with one hand and dropped her lightly to the ground behind Deldragon—where the bone-thin woman found herself staring into the eyes of a dozen onrushing armsmen.

  Nine: Juskra swooped, cutting throats as she came, and landed hard on the rearmost man, stabbing him.

  All four were down amid the blood and the dead now, hacking and hewing, guarding Deldragon's back and flanks.

  "Aumrarr!" someone shouted. "The wingbitches are among us!"

  "Pah! A handful! Hew them down! Hew them all down!"

  Slapping at their knights and armsmen with the flats of their swords, the few surviving nobles urged their men forward. None of them had ever been so close to the throne before; just a few more deaths might land them on it! Just a few—

  "For Deldragon! For Galath!" someone roared from beyond the closing ring, slashing a noble's neck and sending him reeling. "King Deldragon, for Galath!"

  It was Baron Tindror, one weary, bloodied armsman grinning at his side, and even before the lords could turn to face him, two of them lay dying underfoot, and the ring was broken.

  "Wizards? Where the glork are our wizards?" one of them cursed. He cast about and saw a man in robes, far off across the chamber, staring down at his empty hands in disbelief—before Deldragon's sword silenced his question forever.

  There were only a few nobles left fighting, now, a knot of desperate men. The little magics they'd trusted to see them out of a tight spot were failing them, now; doom was upon them. Leaving them just one satisfaction—

  An Aumrarr in their midst, this one without scars, whose beauty had distracted many an armsman just long enough for him to take a wound...

  Could not possibly fend off all their blades. Even as she sent a knight reeling back, six swords slid into her.

  "Die, wingbitch!"

  "Sister!" Dauntra screamed and sobbed, eyes bright.

  "No!" Juskra howled, bounding into the air and clapping her wings to buffet men backwards in all directions. "No!"

  Her sword felled two nobles as if they'd been dry firewood, and she flung it down to cradle Dauntra.


  "Sister..." Dauntra gasped.

  And died.

  "No!" Juskra howled. "No!"

  Arms around Dauntra, she sprang into the air—and she was gone, up and out of the throne room.

  MAERA KNEW WHERE she was heading now.

  The flat, thrusting stone in the forest.

  There it was, just a glade ahead. The Tesmer knights following her no longer mattered; her parents' anger no longer mattered, either. Lorontar was strong within her, and he would—he would—

  The power within her suddenly roiled and faded, sending her staggering. The grim knights behind her stopped and drew their swords, approaching warily.

  Bent over and helpless, Maera stared at them. "No!" she spat. "Not now! This can't—no!"

  LADY TESMER TURNED to her husband, horror in her face. "Do you—Irrance, do you feel it?"

  "I do," Lord Tesmer said grimly. And sighed. "I guess it's back to swords, then. And I'm getting no younger."

  LORD LUTHLARL RAISED one eyebrow. He'd never liked wizards much, and this one was no exception. The man's fee was staggeringly high, and now he was standing in Dlarmarr's best garden with both hands raised theatrically—and nothing at all was happening.

  "Is there," he asked silkily, "a problem?"

  "The spell," the wizard mumbled, looking sick. "It just... won't work."

  Lord Luthtarl smiled. The gesture he made to his bodyguard was almost leisurely.

  Perhaps wizards made good fertilizer.

  "YOU FAILED MY lord!" the knight said angrily. "And now he's dead. You'll not see one coin of your fee!"

  The wizard smiled. "Oh, no? While all of you go on butchering each other here in this Falcon-forsaken castle, I'll just whisk myself back to your arduke's bedchamber and take that coffer of gems he's so proud of. Along with, perhaps, that lush-bosomed wife of his, too!"

  The knight snarled, sword grating out of its scabbard.

  The wizard sneered, raised one hand, and murmured something.

  Then, with a look of astonishment, tried it again.

  He was still trying, a third time, when the knight drove his blade hard through his chest.

  All around him, bloodied armsmen roared approval.

  THERE WEREN'T MORE than a score of men still standing in the throne room, from one end to the other. Wizards were scuttling off in all directions like frightened rats, but everyone else looked more dazed than anything else, leaning on their swords wearily.

  Baron Tindror was looking for something. When he found it, he trudged across the bodies and strewn weapons, stopped behind Deldragon, and held it up.

  It was the crown of Galath.

  Gently, almost reverently, he settled it on Deldragon's head.

  "All hail King Deldragon of Galath!" he bellowed, and struck the nearest shield, almost toppling the tired armsman holding it. It rang like a gong. "All hail King Deldragon!"

  "All hail!" other men took up the cry, Garfist among them. Iskarra clung to him, still crying too hard to say anything. Juskra and Dauntra were gone, and she cared not who kinged it anywhere.

  "YOU DID IT," Taeauna said happily, and her arms were warm around him.

  Rod nodded vaguely. He was so tired...

  She was kissing him, wasn't she?

  "I—I DON'T WANT want the throne," Deldragon said slowly. "I am much the junior to many good men—"

  "Darendarr," said one of the oldest surviving nobles, "shut your jaws and sit on that throne. I'm glorked if I'm going through this again."

  "Aye," said another. "I pledge my allegiance to you, King Deldragon. Rule long and well."

  "Yes!" quavered another, who was older still. "And we know Tindror's loyalties, and I hear no one disputing, so..."

  "Well, all right," Deldragon said reluctantly, "but—"

  A ragged cheer drowned out whatever else he'd intended to say, and then another.

  After the third he smiled, shook his head, and went to the throne, limping a little.

  "Right, then," he said, turning before it to look down on them all. "Hear then my first decree: I want only one wizard to set foot in my land without my express invitation: Rod Everlar, who I name High Wizard of Galath."

  There were some mutterings, but Deldragon asked, "Any of you care to wear this crown?"

  The mutterings ended abruptly. "Right," he said with a weary smile. "More radical yet: I want an Aumrarr to be my Lady Herald. Many of you know her already: Taeauna."

  "OH, SHIT," TAEAUNA said suddenly. "No." She let go of Rod, only to take firm hold of his hand.

  "What's happening?" he asked, a little bewildered. "Where're we going?"

  "You'll see," she replied briskly, and towed him off into the gloom. Again.

  "WE CAN'T FIND them anywhere, Your Majesty," the knight said wearily. "And I mean anywhere. They're gone."

  Deldragon looked furious. "Have the trails around the castle scoured," he snapped, "and quickly! They can't have got all that far—"

  He blinked. There was a fat, shaggy man he'd seen before standing in front of him, with a rail-thin woman at his side.

  "Uh, Lord King?" Garfist rumbled.

  "Not now," Deldragon began, but the fat man held up one shovel-like hand.

  "Understand ye're short a High Wizard, an' a Lady Herald?"

  Deldragon stared at him.

  "Well," Gar rumbled, "we're here. Not an Aumrarr nor any sort of wizard, to tell truth—but we're here, an' the ones ye seek are... not. And I daresay we've wiles enough to outstrip what they have, four or five times over."

  "That's true," Isk commented, folding her arms across her breast.

  Deldragon stared down at them both—and burst into sudden laughter, gripping the arms of the throne.

  "It... it just might work, at that."

  "WHERE IS SHE now, Jusk?"

  The voice behind her was soft and gentle, and Juskra knew the speaker. She went on staring up at the moon from the battlements above the Ironthar forests, but replied finally, "I buried her yonder, on the hill. With Glaelra and Maethe and too many others."

  "That was rightly done," Taeauna murmured, and put her arms around Juskra.

  The Aumrarr sat like a statue for a moment, and then dissolved into wracking sobs.

  It might take days before she was done crying over Dauntra, but Taeauna was patient.

  "I KNOW WE have no appointment," the taller of the two men told Holdoncorp's receptionist, "but we have something vital to the future of your corporation. We really do need to speak to the project manager."

  She looked up at him over her glasses, as severely as she knew how. "And your name might be?"

  "Tethtyn," was the smiling reply. "And this is Mori."

  The other man smiled, and waggled two fingers, ever so slightly.

  The woman across the gleaming desk pushed a button almost eagerly.

  "Bert? Bert, can you come out here straight away? There are two men here to see Sam; it's very important."

  Bert wore shirt-sleeves and looked distracted, but he led them to Sam happily enough.

  The last he saw of the two strangers was of them striding into Sam's office. One of them was saying, "We've come to you with a proposal I think you'll find very interesting. It's about Falconfar..."

  The project manager closed the door then, leaving Bert one last glimpse of the two visitors. They wore identical mirthless smiles.

  TAEAUNA DREW DAGGERS from around her person—so many places, as she went on, that Rod stopped unrolling blankets to watch in open-mouthed fascination.

  When a dozen gleaming knives lay around her, she gave him a wink. She raised her hands, wiggled her fingertips in the air in a deft pattern, and murmured something.

  In silent and stately unison, the daggers all rose into the air, to hang in a ring floating above her. As Rod watched, they drifted out unhurriedly to surround him and the blankets and everything else, just within the walls of the tent.

  "Ready to attack any intruders?" Rod murmured. Taeauna nodded.

  "I thou
ght you had no magic left."

  "Nor did I," she purred triumphantly, crawling forward to where she could start to unlace his tunic, "but while you were rolling around drooling after working the dream-gate to take us from your Earth home to Malragard, I was plundering one of Malraun's private caches of magic. Falconfar needs no more

  wizards... and with spells gone, there'll be none. But I have a small armory of enchanted items, and know how to use them so most men won't know I'm not casting spells. It's been centuries since Falconfar has had a sorceress of power—and when the last Queen-Sorceress reigned, this world knew peace and prosperity. I'd like to bring that happiness to Falconfar again."

  "Starting with just one Falconfar man?" Rod teased, as she tugged away his tunic and pushed him down onto his back, straddling him on her knees as she started to unlace her leathers.

  Taeauna froze, her fingers halting amid the thongs as she stared hard at him.

  She bent low, her intent, serious face close to his.

  "Do you consider yourself a man of Falconfar, then, my lord?" she whispered.

  "Oh, yes," Rod Everlar growled, reaching out to tug her bodice apart and out of the way. "Yes, I do."

  Here ends Book 3 of the Falconfar Saga, the tale of the

  awakening of Rod Everlar, how he came to know that fantastic

  worlds can be all too real, and how much in the end he loved

  having learned that.

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE [named characters only]

  "See" references occur where only partial character names appear in the novel text (such as when a surname is omitted). Not all folk in Falconfar have family names; Aumrarr, for example, never have surnames.

  These entries contain some "spoilers" for FALCONFAR, and for maximum enjoyment of this book, should be referred to only after two-thirds or more of the text has been read.

  A note on the nobility of Galath: from lowest to highest, their ranks are knight, baron, klarl, marquel, arduke, velduke, lordrake, prince, king. A knight is a "sir," but barons and up are addressed as "lord" (it is acceptable to call the reigning monarch "Lord of All Galath," but "the Lords of Galath" are the collective nobility of the kingdom). Outside Galath, the "Lord" of a place is usually its ruler.