Falconfar 03-Falconfar (8 page)

Not that there was much left of Malragard just here, right above his head.

He'd have to be cautious, disarranging all this debris as little as possible. If a greatfangs spotted him, there was nothing left to stop its jaws reaching down out of the sky and ending his life in one swift, painful bite.

Rod shivered, hurriedly banishing an all-too-vivid image of that from his mind. Bumping his knee on something jagged and painful, he wobbled to his feet, almost falling, caught hold of a leaning beam just long enough to get his balance, then won free of the tangle of wreckage that had been hampering him.

Whereupon he promptly slipped, rushed ahead for a few helpless, staggering steps, and dropped to one knee—his other one, thank whatever gods or angels there might be—to regain his breath and calm, and have a good look around his new location.

There! That glow, yonder; it must be from whatever it was that had fallen on him, earlier. It was small, and metallic, but from what he could see of it, looked more like some sort of ornamental turned spindle of the sort that adorned cheap imported brass bedsteads, rather than a tool or a weapon.

And a glow almost had to mean magic.

Which would have been great, if he'd known the first damned thing about using any Falconaar magic. Oh, he'd dreamed and seen wizards point wands and suchlike, and unleash leaping lightnings and roaring flames and worse, but it seldom seemed to work when he, Lord Archwizard of Falconfar, tried it.

That meant it was only a matter of time before a greatfangs talon, or another wizard, or some six-year-old holding a sharp knife, killed him. Painfully.

A death that wouldn't please him at all, even if he had found that magnificent Falconfar, the land of his dreams, was real—all too real—and walked its ways. Nor would it help poor Taeauna any, and he'd promised her he'd rescue her. Before that, he'd promised her he'd deliver Falconfar from the Dooms, and their Dark Helms.

She knew better, now, what a powerless idiot he was, but he was tired of disappointing her, too.

So he was going to get up, fetch that glowing thing and anything else that looked useful—all the stuff that had fallen out of that cupboard looked to be there, strewn around amongst what was left of the cupboard and the wall it had been fastened to—and go play the storybook hero.

It was time, damn it. It was way past time.

His stomach rumbled suddenly, so loudly that he stiffened, afraid a greatfangs would come diving at him.

Thinking of 'time,' when was the last time he'd eaten?

It was past time for a lot of things. He rose cautiously and picked his way forward, keeping low. He probably wouldn't like a meal of raw, dripping greatfangs flesh any more than he'd like a greatfangs enjoying a meal of raw, dripping Rod Everlar.

He reached the glowing thing, bent down to take it—it did look like some sort of spindle, which probably meant it was either utterly useless or could destroy kingdoms if he waved it the wrong way—and then paused, fingers only inches from its gentle, steady glow.

What if Lorontar—if any wizard—could trace him in an instant, if he was carrying it?

Hell, what if all the greatfangs could trace him, sensing just where he was trying to hide?

"Hang it," he muttered. Reaching down, he took firm hold of the spindle-thing, and found it to be warm and somehow alive. Or containing slow pulses or waves of energy, or... something.

It flared into sudden brightness, and he hastily curled his body around it and wished fervently that it would go dark.

And it did.

"Son of a bitch," he hissed under his breath, and willed it to glow again.

Silently, obediently, it did, but he was already firmly ordering it to go dim again, in his mind.

It did that, too, instantly and silently, without the least fuss.

"Well, now," he whispered jubilantly, crouched in the wreckage. "I've got me a flashlight!"

Now why, with dragon-like beasts that could bite him in a half in an instant tearing apart his hiding-place around him, did that make him feel so suddenly, wildly happy?

"Huh," he told the solid, heavy spindle-thing in his hands, idly noticing that it didn't look like any metal he recognized, being somewhat like the old chrome trim on the first car he'd driven, gleaming something like silver... but silver that was the bronze color of vintage champagne. "Guess I am a Lord Archwizard after all. Or a mad idiot. All happy over a frikkin' flashlight."

He cast wary glances up and around, to see if any greatfangs were gliding nearer. He hadn't heard anything nearby, but...

No. No huge dark bulk with wings or jaws. Good. He reached for the nearest of the small, unrecognizable items the spindle had been lying among, wondering what it would turn out to be. A dishmop, perhaps?

"I have no particular liking for wizard's gates that whisk you far away at a single step to somewhere unknown, either," Talyss Tesmer snapped at her brother, "but the alternative is walking across the entire damned Raurklor. With all its bears, and snakes, and—and worse. Day after day, fighting our way through dagger- sharp thornbushes and under leaning trees that could fall on us and through swamps full of lurking things and dung-reeking mud. Don't be a fool, Belard!"

"I HAVE NO particular liking for wizard's gates that whisk you far away at a single step to somewhere unknown, either," Talyss Tesmer snapped at her brother, "but the alternative is walking across the entire damned Raurklor. With all its bears, and snakes, and—and worse. Day after day, fighting our way through dagger- sharp thornbushes and under leaning trees that could fall on us and through swamps full of lurking things and dung-reeking mud. Don't be a fool, Belard!"

"Sister," came his cold reply, "I've spent more than enough years acquiring a hearty distaste for being called that. 'Fool' is a name I got tired of ten-and-six summers ago. Care to choose another word?"

"Stonehead?"

"That will serve, yes," Belard replied evenly—and grew a sudden grin. "So where's this gate, then?"

AROUND HIM, EVERYTHING shuddered again, and a wall crashed down in a thunderous roar of falling stone. At least one greatfangs was still tearing Malragard apart.

Hidden—he hoped—in the shadows of two fallen ceiling-beams under a tangle of split and splintered boards, Rod peered at the meager collection he'd retrieved. Most of the cupboard had been full of things that were now broken, and some of them didn't look as if they'd ever been interesting. Six objects, however—the spindle-flashlight one of them—he'd kept, and carried across the room to his newfound refuge to get a better look at.

There was a hexagonal mottled brown stone that filled his palm, worked to a glossy-smooth finish and graven with some complicated-looking runes or designs. It certainly looked magical, and it had been wrapped in what had once been an opulent- looking cloth, and stuffed into an ornately carved coffer that was now so many shards of polished purple-white bone.

And there was a—

Something that was half-roar and half thunderous gurgle of hunger rang out suddenly, from above and behind him.

Rod Everlar didn't wait for the world to turn darker as the great bulk of a surging greatfangs blotted out the sky again. Cradling his loot against his chest, he flung himself across the littered floor in a stumbling, slipping run, put his shoulder to a door he'd looked at on his way to the corner, and kept right on running.

Behind him, walls that no longer had a roof over them, and bared, sagging beams that had once been part of that roof, were driven aside in a loud, approaching thunder.

Crashing into half-seen furniture and hoping by all the fiends in Hell that Malraun hadn't left any traps waiting just ahead, the Lord Archwizard of Falconfar sprinted on into the unknown, fresh fear clutching coldly at his heart.

What would it feel like, to be bitten in half by teeth longer than you were?

THE WINGLESS AUMRARR blinked at a bedchamber ceiling she'd seen before, wondering why it seemed to waver so much.

"Taeauna," she murmured, after a long and dazed time during which the ceiling ceased to cascade past her eyes. "I am Taeauna."

Her face was wet with tears. They dripped from her as she sat up, probing with her fingers at a stinging pain just above her chin. Her fingertips came away laced with blood; she'd bitten through her own lower lip.

Hunh. Small wonder, by the Falcon. The mind of Lorontar had been a dark and terrible thing, and it had been riding hers long enough to leave deep wounds. Even before she'd won herself deeper ones, lashing out at it.

She shuddered at the memory of that awful, awful...

Taeauna found herself up and staggering across the room, feeling ill and wanting just to get away.

She slammed into a wall and clung to it, tugging at it and then caressing it as if it had been the comforting chest of a lover, leaning her cheek against it and gasping out her pain and confusion and the urge to empty her guts...

This was the bedchamber where she'd lain with Malraun, in Darswords, yes. Malraun who was now... no more, his mind blown out like a candle, his body taken over by Lorontar.

Lorontar who was gone, too, but not dead. Somehow she knew that, just as she knew she was Taeauna. Oh, there were shadows in the corners of her mind that were still Lorontar—enough to tell her he yet lived, and enough not to let her forget the cold truth that he could reclaim her mind and body at will, that she was like a child with a knife to his darkly triumphant host of leering, battle-ready warriors—but for now, she was Taeauna.

Free of Malraun's thralldom forever. And for now, free of Lorontar's far deeper and mightier mind-slavery. For now.

Though she had never left the twisted, sweat-drenched tangle of the bed behind her, for a few fierce moments she had stood on the topmost floor of riven Malragard under the open sky, with greatfangs wheeling across it like gigantic bats above her, and Rod Everlar—kind, bumbling, good-hearted Rod Everlar, the only hope Falconfar still had, but little more skilled than a child, for all the fury of his resolve and the might of his Shaping, when he could manage to Shape—fleeing like a terrified rabbit from the lightning-hurling triumph of Malraun. She had seen Malraun seized, hollowed out and enslaved by Lorontar.

The true Lord Archwizard of Falconfar, a mage stronger than any she'd ever felt before, who lived beyond death in a horrible cold, malicious patience... who'd been awaiting Rod Everlar's coming, luring him with spell-spun dream visions.

And with her.

She, Taeauna, had brought Rod here to Falconfar, and Lorontar had made her do it. He'd been at work on her for season after season, twelve winters and more—probably her whole life— without her knowing it.

For all she knew, he'd been at work in the minds of all the Aumrarr, perhaps even seeing to who they bred with, to fashion them into his unwitting tools—ever better tools—to turn up Shapers as miners turn up gems amid rocks. To find Shapers, and bring them to him.

So Lorontar could use them to reshape Falconfar to what he wanted it to be, and in time to come leave undeath for full life again.

Taeauna blinked, turning away from the wall to find herself panting, knuckles at her mouth. Now how had she known that?

He hadn't managed it, though. Yet.

He was still stealing the bodies of others, burning out their minds and riding their bodies until death came for them or he tired of them. Or a better body came within reach.

What body was he in right now? Malraun's—or had something better happened along?

Taeauna stared down at the bed, forever empty of the cruel wizard who'd forced her upon it—then shook herself to put such thoughts behind her, and strode away.

Her armor was a tangle of straps and plates, in the corner where she'd so hastily torn it off under his mind-goading, to bare herself to him. She plucked up the shiny-worn, smooth, sweat-soaked leather jack she wore beneath its plates, and pulled it on.

The straps still needed mending, the buckle that rode on her left hip still bit into her. Familiar, reassuring; she reached for her crotch-cloth, with its long laces.

She had to get to Malragard. Malraun was gone—and that was one good thing for Falconfar, even if a worse wizard than he'd ever been was now striding the kingdoms in his body—but the man he'd been trying to slay, that any one of the six greatfangs might well have been about to devour, might yet live.