He felt heat on his face, heat that should have blistered and then blinded him, that should have scorched his hair off, consumed his flesh, and sent his ashen bones tumbling, but instead washed over him and was gone, leaving him tingling in three places along his belts, where enchanted items had suddenly faded away.
Sacrificed to save him, Rod thought blearily, as the mind-voice shouted at him,
Aim the scepter! BLAST HIM!
He obeyed, but Arlaghaun was suddenly—not there. The hilltop was empty again.
Run to the tomb, and in,
the mind-voice commanded.
Look toward the gate as you go.
As if those words had been a stage cue, Arlaghaun appeared out of nowhere, standing just in front of his gate, his hands weaving the empty air in the intricate gestures of a powerful spell.
I THOUGHT so.
The mind-voice sounded very satisfied.
Fire the scepter at the gate. NOT at the wizard. At the gate.
Clenching his teeth, Rod did as he was told, knowing he had no choice anyway.
Close your eyes!
Rod wasn't quite fast enough. The gate's explosion not only shook the hill and flung him to his knees atop some very hard armor, to say nothing of the dead man inside it, but it also seared his eyes with a white flash that snatched all Falconfar away. A flash that showed Rod a glimpse of Arlaghaun, arms windmilling wildly, being hurled forward onto his face.
Get into the tomb!
Eyes running, barely able to get up and keep from falling, Rod stumbled and swayed his way around heaps of cooked warriors, seeking the front slope of the hill he'd fled along just moments earlier.
Hurry!
He couldn't see properly through the streaming tears, couldn't—
He stumbled over a dead Dark Helm, his arm slamming down onto rising grass. He had reached the front slope of the tomb. Rod clawed his way along it, trying to hurry, until he found the doorway and fell through it.
Get well in, then turn around. Don't stop hurrying.
Had the voice in his mind sounded sarcastic?
Rod obeyed, swiping at his eyes with his sleeve, the horned scepter warm in his hand.
When he got his vision clear enough to be able to see more than watery light and dark, he found himself staring at a rectangle of sunlight. In the distance, that sunlight was falling on a great heap of dead Dark Helms. A gray-robed man was climbing the far side of that heap, rising higher and higher as he gained its top.
It was Arlaghaun. He was looking right at Rod, and smiling.
Rod aimed the scepter, but the voice in his mind said sharply,
No. Waste it not. Put it bach in your belt, and draw forth the draeuth.
"The what?"
An image was thrust impatiently open in Rod's mind.
Oh. That strange metal thing he'd been guided to, back in the castle, that looked like a knuckleduster welded to a set of panpipes. Rod slid his fingers through its loop, and drew it out of his belt.
Now the arlaunkh.
"The—?"
A metal rod about the length of his forearm, this one, that curved gently to form a pleasant-to-the-hand grip. He'd been thinking of it as "the big scepter," but—
Right. Point the big scepter straight overhead, and the draeuth down the passage at the doorway outside. You fire them both like THIS. Do so.
Rod obeyed, feeling something that sounded and looked like the beige, many-popping-bubbled foam of a fire extinguisher spraying forth from one, and a cone of similar but white foam from the other.
An instant later, Arlaghaun shouted something triumphant, roiling flame came roaring into the tomb, and its stone-lined ceiling shuddered, cracked, and fell in on top of Rod Everlar.
The flames met the brown ray and wrestled with it, snarling; only a few tongues streamed past to lick at his arms and shoulders. The white ray melted away stones as they fell, burning a circle to the sunlight. So nothing crushed Rod's skull or broke his neck. Stones slammed down around him, though, bruising and wedging him, shattering bones with sudden, sharp pains that made him gasp and then shout.
Keep hold of them both, and keep firing, or you are doomed.
Arlaghaun's flame died away, but Rod could hear him chanting something that sounded like a spell.
Melt away any stone that could fall or slide sideways onto your head, then start blasting them down all around you, to free yourself. Hurry. You MUST free enough space for your arms to reach everything on your belts.
Rod obeyed, watching tons of stone melt away. Whatever Arlaghaun had cast came streaming down the passage again, and again fought the brown ray, beating it back this time almost to Rod's hand.
Aim the arlaunkh—the big scepter—at the ceiling of the passage into the tomb. Bring it down, just as the wizard collapsed the tomb atop you.
Rod obeyed again, and with a slow, thunderous roar, the passage disappeared.
Keep on freeing yourself. Down to your legs, now. Haste matters more than care. If you burn yourself, you'll heal. HURRY.
Arlaghaun was clambering over stones at the front of the tomb now, trying to get closer; Rod could hear them shifting and clattering as the wizard sought to climb up on top of the ruined hill.
To get at Rod Everlar.
Stones were slumping like butter around his ankles now, then just melting away. He could move, though lifting his left leg brought stabbing agony that left him panting and leaning against the stones that were still there.
Fuse those stones together, so they can't shift and trap you. Arlaghaun comes.
The arlaunkh failed quite suddenly, crumbling to dust in his hand.
The black scepter, now, the one with the eye. The eye is its tip, not its handle; the eye should face away from you.
The mind-voice was noticeably fainter.
Rod grabbed at the black scepter, almost dropped it, then straightened up, and found himself staring into Arlaghaun's burning brown eyes and soft, thin-lipped smile.
"So, Shaper, we meet at last."
Rod winced. Couldn't someone write better dialogue than that?
He aimed both the draeuth and the eye scepter at the wizard and intoned, "With the fate of all Falconfar hanging in the balance!"
It was Arlaghaun's turn to wince. "Did Lorontar actually say that?"
"Does it bother you, not knowing?" Rod asked, as sweetly and carefully politely as any unhelpful civil servant, and triggered both enchanted items.
Their raging onslaught battered something unseen in front of Arlaghaun's nose so fiercely that the wizard was forced to arch over backwards, away from the magic trying to slam into him.
Arlaghaun took a step back and lost his footing, to be hurled away over the rocks like a rag doll, out of sight down off the hill.
Rod laughed aloud. He hadn't really hurt the wizard, he knew, but it was nice to land a blow on that sneering face. For once.
Move not. Give your leg time to heal; shift your weight onto the other one.
The voice in his mind was back to being a whisper, now.
"Who are you?" Rod dared to ask it. Was it Lorontar, the long-dead Archwizard? Or—
"Lord!" The soft, urgent call was coming from behind him, accompanied by a high, chiming rattle of chain.
Rod whirled, so quickly his leg burned like fire.
"Tay?" he managed to cry, through the pain.
"Lord Rod!" Taeauna was crawling forward over rocks, bare except for metal collars about her throat, ankles, and high on her thighs; collars that were joined with dangling lines of fine chain. "Come quickly! You've wounded Arlaghaun sorely, and so given us time to escape! Come with me!"
No!
The whisper in Rod's head was frantic and fierce.
It's a lie! A trick! She's Arlaghaun's creature; believe not a word she says!
Rod shook his head as he clawed his way up over the rocks, bruising his knuckles in his haste, still clutching the draeuth and the scepter.
"Taeauna!" he hissed. "Are you... all right?"
"I have been Arlaghaun's thrall," she replied, waving one hand to indicate her bared self, and flick the nearest length of chain. "But if we hurry, now, and you free me..."
No! Whatever you do, don't go with her!
The whisper-thin voice in his head was shrieking now.
Arlaghaun controls every word that comes out of her mouth! Cleave to her, and you embrace your doom!
"Fuck
off"
Rod told the voice in his head firmly, and hurried over the rocks to Taeauna.
Mistgates was a
strong castle, soaring up like a great lone fang from a hard cliff of purple-gray rock that had stared into winter storms for centuries upon centuries, as defiantly as the face of any grim dwarf. High were its walls, so lofty that it had not one set of battlements, but two: a third of the way up its flanks, a crenelated balcony had been carved out, like the lower jaw of a gigantic dragon, for the use of bowmen seeking to feather targets on the narrow overland road that snaked up through rising rocks to skirt the front gates of the castle.
These days, with the master of Mistgates heeding not the Mad King in Galathgard, and so being shunned by most nobles of the realm and by fearful traders alike, few folk came along that road.
Yet there were travelers on it now, many of them. They wore the best of gleaming armor, mounted knight after mounted knight, their lances like a forest, but a forest bare of leaves for they bore no banners.
At first sight of them from the high battlements of Mistgates, galloping hard along the road that would bring them into the very lap of Velduke Mardrammur Mistryn, horns were winded over the castle, to sound an alarm.
Mistryn was one of the veldukes who did not ride to Galathgard upon the whim and pleasure of King Devaer, and most of Galath had heard by now, with Bowrock under siege, just how much the King of Galath loved veldukes who did not bend their knees to him often.
Wherefore the great doors of the castle were firmly closed and barred, after the best-armed and armored Mistryn knights and armsmen—enough to match the approaching knights, and to spare—had issued forth in full battle array, prepared with pikes and caltrops. On the walls above, a long line of archers stood ready.
The knights slowed their mounts as they came up to Mistgates, and drew no swords, but held up empty hands to wave "peace" and then "parley."
A tall man in armor whose painted breast-blazon proclaimed him the personal champion of Mardrammur stood forth to meet them, and called, "You ride in Mistryn lands, and are come to the gates of the House of Mard, and you are many and well armed. Yield unto me your names and purpose!"
The foremost rider doffed his helm, patted the neck of his snorting mount to calm it, and replied, "You know me, Roeglar. I am Samryn, loyal knight of Velduke Bloodhunt, and we before your gates are all now also knights of the King of Galath, His Majesty Melander Brorsavar, who rides with us!"
Roeglar gave him a hard look. "Brorsavar is king, now?"
"Brorsavar is king. Things change in Falconfar, sword-brother."
"That they do. And all too swiftly, these days. That they do."
"Well, have we leave to pass within?" Samryn clapped his hand meaningfully to his sword-hilt.
"I'm thinking, sword-brother. I'm thinking."
* * *
"This way," Taeauna
gasped, and was gone down behind some rocks with a rattle of chain. "Hurry!"
"Hurrying is all I seem to do, these days," Rod chuckled to himself, following her just as fast as he could.
Don't follow her!
the ignored mind-whisper shouted.
Rod found himself plunging face-first down into a cleft among the rocks, where Taeauna waited to catch him.
His weight bore her over on her back, of course, his face cushioned against the softness of her breasts.
"Oh, Lord Rod," she murmured, chains rattling around him as they bounced together, and he tried to mutter apologies. "I have worried about you so!"
"I... I love you!" she added, as he wallowed his way hastily up off her body. He'd been on the verge of daring to kiss her, but those words made Rod blink, hesitate, and then smile.
Which is when she leaned forward and kissed him.
No! Don't do this!
Her lips were warm and sweet and hungry, her tongue thrusting deep into his mouth, rolling and thrusting something that tasted spicy-sweet... Had some Holdoncorp idiot put chewing gum into Falconfar when he wasn't looking?
It tasted pleasant, though...
And it was even nicer to have Taeauna thrusting herself against him, her bare body like silk against him, her mouth making little moaning noises of want and need...
Jeez, this was like a bad sex scene in a film, some sort of porn feature with the woman in chains and... and...
...And why was everything getting so dark?
Dark around the edges... He stared through the dwindling, deepening hole that was left, at Taeauna's eyes... So sad as he stared into them, her mouth still so soft and sweet... Were those tears?