Falconfar 01-Dark Lord (54 page)

It still hurt like sin when he was violated or had something torn out or chopped off, but he was getting used to it.

It was true. One really could get used to anything.

He was getting weaker, yes; he had no idea how long he'd been here, but there'd been no food. No water, either, but the various monsters often forced open his mouth—or broke his jaw, if he resisted—and relieved themselves down his throat. Most of their urine was like liquid fire, or worse, but some was nearly water. Close enough, it seemed.

He was tired now; he was always tired. He ached, too, in every waking moment. So much for being a Shaper, or a Lord High Archwizard...

Rod was lying on his back, on the patch of cell floor that had just enough of a hump to serve him as a sort of pillow. There wasn't much left of his right leg below the knee since it had been crushed to bloody pulp by a laughing, cursing monster with a face like crawling eels, but it was slowly healing, and there were, as he'd already reminded himself, no pressing social engagements that he had to hurry and be on his feet for.

He didn't bother to open his eyes at the sounds of lightly trudging footfalls, but couldn't help being mildly interested. Whoever was struggling with the door-bar was weaker than the monsters.

His soon-to-be-visitor was breathing heavily, now, and setting down a lantern on the floor. Rod heard an uncertain, wary male voice murmur a brief incantation, and then a face seemed to form in his mind, like patches of frost spreading across a winter-lashed window.

It was the fat young scraggle-bearded apprentice who'd once hurled spells at him.

Yes,
said the whispering voice deep in Rod's mind.
YES.

And Lorontar the Archwizard reared up like a snake inside Rod and struck, lashing without warning through Rod's thoughts right into the fearful mind of the apprentice Klammert.

In a few terrified instants Rod became aware of the apprentice's name, that Arlaghaun had sent him to attempt the dangerous task of spell-probing Rod's mind because the Doom preferred not to risk his own wits, and that Lorontar had been biding his time down deep in Rod's memories for just such a chance as this.

And had now seized it.

Lorontar had ridden Klammert's probe right back into the apprentice's mind, overwhelmed him, and taken control of his body.

Rod opened his eyes in time to see Klammert turn and rush off down the passage. His contact with Lorontar faded with every running step, but he'd "heard" enough to know the thralled Klammert was hurrying to try to slay Arlaghaun.

Leaving the cell door open.

Rod Everlar rolled over, found his right foot coming back to what it should be, got up awkwardly on that shifting clubfoot, and staggered out into the passage.

He had no idea where he was, or what was the way out, but he could hear the faint din of Klammert's headlong rush out of the dungeon, up ahead; it was easy enough to follow it.

"Even a fool like Rod Everlar can manage that," he told the stone walls around him.

Politely, they declined to reply.

*   *   *

The gate of
spikes would have slain Klammert in an instant, if the running wizard had merely been Arlaghaun's apprentice. Lorontar, however, knew secrets of Ult Tower that the Doom of Galath had never learned, and had chosen this route well.

He flung his fat, borrowed body under the first portcullis, and then drew back before the second with perfect timing, hearing Arlaghaun's gloating laughter peal out of the empty air at so easily trapping him.

Wasting no time on a response, he touched the second portcullis and murmured the command that would make it melt away and trigger the backlash.

When Ult Tower shook and Arlaghaun's chuckles became a sudden, raw scream, Lorontar did allow his borrowed body to shape a small smile.

In the instant before he vanished, taking himself magically to where he could blast the Doom of Galath personally.

After all, traps and trigger-spells were expensive things; there was no sense damaging them when they might well belong to him very shortly.

Ruling Galath seemed to involve a lot of traps, these days.

Rod climbed two
sets of worn, bloodstained stone stairs before he was free of the dungeon and stumbled onto a floor of interlinked, furnished chambers. My, but there seemed to be a lot of other prisoners, he thought to himself, many of them things with hairy claws or tentacles protruding from their tiny cell windows.

By then, his foot was whole again, and the architecture of the smooth stone walls, the ledges and trim around the archways, and the lofty vaulted halls, was starting to look familiar. This was probably Ult Tower.

He started to move cautiously, recalling all the guardians. He had no idea where he should go, but if he found that row of glowing gates, almost anywhere in Falconfar would be better than here.

The great fortress seemed deserted, and no wonder. Every servant and guardian who had any wits to think was probably hiding and cowering right now. Anything that could make the whole place shudder and rock, as it was doing quite often, as he walked, was something to be avoided. A few stone shards and a lot of dust came raining down from time to time, but Rod could only shrug. If Ult Tower was going to come crashing down on him, there was nothing he could do about it. And after all the agonies of his imprisonment, he found that he didn't much care.

He turned a corner and saw a beaded curtain in an archway ahead. It was the first "filled" archway he'd seen thus far, so he went over to take a look. When Rod parted it with his hand, lightning bolts stabbed through him.

Doing nothing, of course, though they'd probably have slain anyone else. He peered into the room beyond, and whistled.

A glowing sword was floating horizontally above a huge, magnificently carved table. Plinths ranged around the walls were topped with carved heads that sported superbly made war helms, and as Rod stared at them, Ult Tower rocked under the fury of another unleashed spell, and the helms either acquired momentary glows, or lightnings crawled across their curves. One plinth was fashioned into the shape of two upthrust hands, and the rings on those carved fingers were winking and shining.

Rod shouldered through the curtain, and became aware of movement to his right. A half-suit of armor was floating silently off its plinth and drifting menacingly toward him, reaching out an arm to pluck a sword from the wall.

He ran forward and snatched the big sword out of the air over the table; the power in it ran numbingly down his arm and left all his hair standing on end. Without pause, the advancing guardian rose a little to clear the table, and drew back its blade to hack at him two-handed.

Rod rolled off the table and fell into a crouch underneath its lip. When the guardian drifted over the edge, a moment later, and started to turn, to descend and slice at him, he waited for his chance to strike at its open bottom. The moment he saw the emptiness inside the armor, he thrust his newfound sword up through it, hard.

Blinding lightnings blazed, and the armor flew apart violently, toppling plinths and splintering legs off the table which thankfully seemed to have about a dozen legs left and therefore refrained from collapsing.

Rod's glowing blade was flung back past him into the far corners of the room, and in its wake he discovered his sword-arm was as limp as a rag because it was shattered.

Really shattered; almost boneless.

Recalling the procession of enchanted items sent by Lorontar that had so mysteriously appeared and had sunk into him, Rod dragged himself out from under the table, plucked rings off the plinth's fingers, and worked them onto his own fingers; both the good hand and the shattered one. Some of them started to fade away almost immediately.

Smiling wryly, Rod crossed the room to select a suitable helm.

The bolts of
writhing lightning were emerald green, and tore through stone as readily as wood and flesh. "Die, Lorontar!" Arlaghaun roared triumphantly, brown eyes blazing like an eager fire.

"I did," the deep, dry, unfamiliar voice coming from the lips of his apprentice drawled, sidestepping the ravening destruction. "You should try it sometime. Now, for instance."

The lances of silver-blue magic that raced from his fingertips then were so many and so swift that the Doom of Galath barely had time to curse.

Behold Rod Everlar
, writer of fantasies. Strolling around this vast citadel fashionably dressed in... a helmet.
Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant.

Rod grinned wryly at the mirror he'd found, was probably magical, but it was much too small to step through as some sort of gate, and he didn't know what it was for or how to call on its powers, whatever they were, so he continued on with looking for swords and daggers. And if he couldn't find pants of some sort, at least a goddamn belt would do to carry them all with!

He probably needed every combat-useful shard of magic he could find. After all, if he might have to fight all of Arlaghaun's beasts and magical suits of armor or other toys, lorn, Dark Helms and apprentices—to say nothing of the Doom of Galath himself—he needed all the help he could get.

That he could carry, at least. There were a dozen helms back in that first room with the curtain, and a chair that glowed interestingly, too, but he couldn't carry everything.

Shaking his head at the appearance he'd presented in the mirror, Rod went to the next room, and peered in.

A whimpering woman stared fearfully back at him. She wore only chains, and manacles at her wrists and ankles secured her upright in a huge "X" in midair.

It was Taeauna.

The second stone
from the left-hand end of the row of tell-stones flared into sudden, starry light.

The slender, darkly handsome wizard turned to regard it, and calmly watched it shatter, hiss, and melt away.

"Well, now," Malraun murmured. "Something is very amiss at Ult Tower."

He spun gracefully around to ready his most powerful scrying-crystal, and added mockingly, "That's so sad."

The crystal started to glow and then burst with a shriek, hurling shards in all directions. If his personal wardings hadn't been up and active, one of them would almost certainly have beheaded him.

As it was, still in possession of his head, Malraun smiled, shook his head, and strolled into another room with a calmer demeanor than he truly felt, to awaken three lesser scrying-crystals.

It seemed like the Falcon itself was breaking loose at Ult Tower, and he intended to watch every moment of it.

"L-lord Rod?" Tears
were already streaming down Taeauna's face, but they seemed to flood forth even faster, dripping off her chin, thence to her breasts, and on to the floor.

"Tay!" Rod said eagerly, going to her. He raised a hand to her cheek, and tried to kiss her, but she shook her head and wept.

"Lord, I'm so s-sorry! I—"

"Taeauna, it wasn't you who threw me in a cell and tortured me. Now, let's get you free of these; do you know if any of these magical gewgaws I'm carrying can cut through chain? Without frying you, too?"

Taeauna shook her head again, as Ult Tower shook again, around them, in a thunderous rolling booming that numbed Rod's bare feet.

Rod tried to put a comforting arm around her, but his shoulder came to just under her armpit, so he went on tiptoe to kiss her, and say urgently, "Taeauna of the Aumrarr, I blame you for nothing. Nothing. But help me now. Tell me how to free you."

Her tears stopped suddenly and her head jerked up, eyes glowing like two lamps. She turned her head, as if startled and seeing him for the first time, and said softly, "Shaper of Falconfar, only the tears of Arlaghaun can part these chains. His tears, freely given. I need you to—"

"Swallow your lies, creature of Arlaghaun," said a mocking voice from behind Rod. "Listen to her not, Dark Lord. The real Taeauna is imprisoned inside her, somewhere; see those glowing eyes? That's Arlaghaun trying to lure you within reach."

Rod turned, selected the most powerful-looking sword from the bundle in his hands, hefted it, and said to the short, sleek, darkly handsome man he found himself facing, "And who are you?"

"I am Malraun. Also a wizard of Falconfar, but nothing at all to do with the Doom of Galath or his cruelties. I mean you no harm, nor this Aumrarr. Put your sword down; I have no quarrel with you."

"And if I do step aside, what do you plan to do?"

"Cut those chains and free her. You don't need anyone's tears—"

"Listen to him not, lord! This man is evil; he will carry me off and turn me into a monster!"

Malraun rolled his eyes, and said to Rod, "That's not your Taeauna talking. That's Arlaghaun, and he's desperate."

"He hasn't seemed all that desperate to me, thus far," Rod replied, keeping his sword up and in Malraun's way.

"He wasn't fighting just to keep hold of his life, then," Malraun replied. "He is now. He's awakened Lorontar from beyond the grave, as minstrels like to say, and much of yonder end of Ult Tower is vanishing as we speak, as they hurl spells at each other and Arlaghaun rapidly comes to the grim realization that he's far more of an overconfident idiot than he thought he was."