bejewelled sword swung at his hip, and his movements had a lazy grace as one long-booted foot glided forward, followed-as always-by the other, taking him around a grassy path that he'd walked a thousand thousand times before. He would dearly love something to fight.
Dorgan sometimes prayed to the gods to bring an intruder into the garden-a man that he could bait a while before engaging him in furious swordplay, and subsequently slaying him and presenting him to the master. Even a little man would do.
He would have been surprised indeed to learn that the gods-the thoughtful gods-were finally, this morn, about to grant his wish.
It took three keys before Bralatar found the one that opened the gate-and by then, the magnificent-looking guard in the garden beyond was suspicious.
'How, now? What ails Areld?' Dorgan mused aloud as he strode toward the gate, hand going to sword and eyes flicking watchfully about to be sure that only one man stood there, not a concealed band of brigands.
Another thing… the dogs were never allowed in the garden! What was old Warhorn playing at?
'Areld?' he challenged, sword grating. 'What befalls?'
Areld swayed, one hand on the opened gate-but fell, toppling forward into the grass without a sound. Dorgan raced to stand over him, blocking passage through the gate, looking warily around for an archer or anyone waiting to rush in… but the woods beyond were empty of all but birds. Warhorn stood, patiently watching him.
Dorgan held the sword up between him and the dog, point out, just in case, and bent over Areld. 'Are you sick, man? D-'
Those were the last words he ever spoke. Something slammed into the small of his back and drove him into a sprawling fall onto the servant. Arms of flesh curved up to envelop his head, smothering him with ruthless efficiency.
Soon after, Dorgan and Areld carried a limp, pulped mass back out into the grounds, to the base of a certain tree where the turf was torn as if by a recent upheaval. 'You should have dug a large pit,' Areld said with dark humor. 'I'm sure we'll be able to fill it if this mage is as suspicious minded as most. There'll be beasts and human guards every few paces ahead of us now to keep intruders from ever breathing the same air as Lord Magnificent the Spell-Hurler.'
Retracing their steps, the guard and the servant passed through the garden, coming at last to the only way they could see into the castle: a stone door carved into the shape of a snarling human face, with two outstretched hands beneath it to serve as handles.
'Warded, or I'm a war dog,' the man who was not Dorgan muttered. 'I don't like the look of those hands.'
'So we slide past,' the one who was not Areld murmured, extending a ribbon-thin tentacle to point. 'Here- see?'
It took some time to flatten themselves out into creeping things thin enough to slip through a tiny gap between the crumbling stone and the old, slowly warping doorframe, with its carvings of satyrs and bunches of grapes and flirtatious sprites, but they passed through without incident, and without being seen.
They stood in a high, vaulted hall whose open bronze doors showed another, loftier hall, with a gallery at its far end, and many doors opening off it here, there, and everywhere. To the left, and nearby (by the smell) was the kitchen; the location of other features they could only guess at.
Wherefore the two men dwindled hurriedly back into the shapes of the two war dogs and padded into the hall with apparent aimlessness, sniffing as they roamed. The doors they passed were closed, but a broad, red-carpeted spiral stair ascended at the far end of the hall, and up this they went-on the theory that most wizards like to look out loftily over the lands around.
Partway up its ascent, the stair paused at a sunny landing, and Bolder slunk over to the small forest of ferny plants there. He peered through, uttering a short whuf to signal Warhorn that he'd found something of interest.
The two Malaugrym had retained their own eyes, far keener than those of a dog, and could readily see a small, slender, rather plain stone tower outside.
The tower was ringed by a moat over which tiny lightnings of amethyst hue flickered from time to time-some warding magic, no doubt. The moat in turn was surrounded by a strip of lawn. Flagstone paths led to the edge of the moat, but there was no sign of any drawbridge, and the paths also ran in a great arc in both directions, around the tower and out of view, flanking the walls of a gigantic building… the one in which they stood.
'Rich indeed, this wizard,' Bolder growled. 'Look: this house goes all the way around.'
Warhorn growled a wordless reply of exasperation. How long was it going to take to find a safe way out of this vast house, into the inner garden with the tower?
Not long at all, as it turned out. A two-headed panther, black and deadly, stalked into view on the circular lawn, and a door swung open as if it were expected. They saw a man, a goad in his hand, standing in the open door, and the great cat moved fluidly toward him.
'Feeding time for everyone,' Bolder grunted. They turned away from the window to hurry down the stairs.
A little distance along the passage they saw two women carrying bundles of linen. The maids frowned at them but did nothing beyond exchanging the question: 'What are the dogs doing in here, I wonder?'
Wagging their tails, the dogs passed on by, proceeding to a place where a momentary shift of a paw into a human hand opened doors that were not locked, skirted a strong smell of cat (they heard a questioning growl from the other side of a door they left closed), and found their way to the inner garden. No one shouted an alarm as the dogs pawed the door open and stepped out onto the lawn.
Strong magic tingled around them, and they looked this way and that in some haste. The lawn seemed deserted.
A huge, curved stone bench adorned the edge of the moat, and beyond it Bralatar saw what he was looking for: the top arc of an old, massive grating in the tower wall, moat water lapping into it. A privy chute.
'Come,' he said. He headed straight across the lawn. On the edge of the moat he shifted shape to grow flippers and tentacles, and heard Lorgyn's snort of alarm behind him as the stone bench suddenly shuddered and rose, stretching out hammerlike arms. A golem!
By then Bralatar was in the inky water, and too busy to worry about guardians on land: what felt like large hungry eels with teeth like daggers were savaging him. He grew tentacles, thrust one down an unseen gullet, and expanded, tossing bony spines out and through his foe until the water turned a dull red and the biting went away. He served another eel with same tactic, and another. By then, massive stone arms were crashing down into the water, and Lorgyn was splashing frantically to keep clear of their strength.
Bralatar made an eel-thing of himself and wriggled through the grating, ignoring a few nips from another unseen moat dweller. The stone chute ahead of him was as slimy and noisome as he'd expected, but rose clear of the water straight away. He wormed up it hastily, becoming a snakelike ribbon as he went in case the wizard was thorough-or crazed-enough to have traps partway up a dung chute.
Behind him, Lorgyn splashed around for a breath or two more before he was clear of the water. Bralatar spared him no attention, but spiraled steadily up the shaft, sending feelers ahead to probe for traps. Somewhere above them, someone was cheerfully whistling a very old bawdy tune.
He found nothing, but as his most cautiously questing tentacle rose a trifle up out of the privy seat to peer into the dark chamber beyond, a calm, soulless female voice said: 'Turn back,' and a radiance began to grow around the top of the shaft. The whistling broke off abruptly.
'Hurry!' Bralatar snapped, placing suckers on the stone around him and heaving hard. He catapulted up out of the shaft like some sort of flying squid, and thumped to the floor; he'd not yet begun to grow when a second thump heralded Lorgyn's arrival.
'Now who can that be?' an annoyed voice came to their ears through the chamber door. It sounded very near, and approaching. The mage was almost upon them!
Lorgyn laid a tentacle on Bralatar's shoulder and hissed, 'Distract him-those two women in the green tapestry room at the brothel; unclad, holding hands, and amazed at somehow ending up here…'
They shifted shapes with lightning speed, twisting, writhing, and arching like maddened things-and were done, linking their slim fingers together and adopting amazed and fearful expressions just as the door opened by itself, and a balding, beak-nosed man peered in at them over a leveled wand.
