against the wall now, one hand to his forehead, the other implementing a simple but powerful shielding spell.
I was about to scream for Mandor to take the old boy out, when Mask hit me with a Klaxon spell which tempo rarily deafened me while bursting blood vessels in my nose.
Dripping, I dove and rolled, interposing the now-rising Jurt between myself and the sorcerer in the air. Jurt actually appeared to be throwing off the effects of Jasra's bite. So I drove my fist into his stomach as I rose and turned him into an even better position to serve as my shield. A mistake. I received a jolt from his body, not unlike a nasty electrical shock, and he even managed a brief laugh as I fell.
«He's all yours,» I heard him gasp then.
From the corner of my eye, I saw where Jasra and Sharu Garrul stood, each of them seemingly holding one end of a great long piece of macrame work woven of cables. The lines were pulsing and changing colors, and I knew they represented forces rather than material objects, visible only by virtue of the Logrus Sight, under which I continued to operate. The pulse increased in tempo, and both sank slowly to their knees, arms still extended, faces glistening. A quick word, a gesture, and I could break that balance. Unfortunately, I had problems of my own just then. Mask was swooping toward me like some huge insect - expressionless, shimmering, deadly. A succession of brittle snapping sounds occurred within the front wall of the Keep, where a series of jagged cracks raced downward like black lightning. I was away of falling dust beyond the spiraling lights, of the growling and the whining sounds - faint now within my ringing ears - of the continuing vibration of the floor beneath my half-numbed legs. But that was all right. I raised my left hand as my right slid within my cloak.
A fiery blade appeared in Mask's right hand. I did not stir, but waited a second longer before speaking the guide words to my Fantasia-for-Six-Acetylene-Torches spell as I snapped my forearm back to cover my eyes and rolled to the side.
The stroke missed me, passing through broken stone. Mask's left arm fell across my chest, however, elbow connecting with my lower ribs. I did not stop to assess damages, though, as I heard the sword of fire crackle and come free of the stone. And so, turning, I struck with my own more mundane dagger of steel, driving its full length up into Mask's left kidney.
There followed a scream as the sorcerer stiffened and slumped beside me. Almost immediately thereafter I was kicked with considerable force behind my right hip. I twisted away and another blow landed upon my right shoulder. I am sure it was aimed for my head. As I covered my neck and temples and mlled away, I heard Jurt's voice, cursing.
Drawing my longer blade, I rose to my feet, and my gaze met Jurt's. He was rising at the same time, and he held Mask cradled in his arms.
«Later,» he said to me, and he vanished, bearing the body away with him. The blue mask remained on the floor, near to a long smear of blood.
Jasra and Sharu were still facing each other from kneeling positions, panting, bodies completely drenched, their life forces twisting about each other like mating serpents.
Then, like a surfacing fish, Jurt appeared within the tower of forces beyond the Fount. Even as Mandor hurled two of his spheres - which seemed to grow in size as they fled down the chamber, to crash into the Fount and reduce to rubble - I saw what I believed I would never see again.
As the reverberation of the Fount's collapse spread and the groaning and grinding within the walls was replaced by a snapping and swaying, and dust, gravel and timbers fell about me, I was moving forward, skirting the wreckage, sidestepping new geysers and rivulets of glowing forces, cloak raised to protect my face, black extended.
Jurt cursed me roundly as I came on. Then, «Pleased; brother? Pleased?» he said. «May death be the only peace between us.»
But I ignored the predictable sentiment, for I had to get a better look at what I thought I had seen moments before. I leaped over a piece of broken masonry and beheld the fallen sorcerer's face within the flames, head cradled against his shoulder.
«Julia!» I cried.
But they vanished even as I moved forward, and I knew it was time for me to do the same.
Turning, I fled through the fire.
Knight of Shadows
1989
Chapter 1
Her name was Julia, and I'd been damn certain she was dead back on April 30 when it all began. My finding her grisly remains and destroying the doglike creature which I'd thought had killed her were pretty much the way it started. And we had been lovers, which I suppose was how things had really commenced. Long before.
Perhaps I could have trusted her more. Perhaps I should never have taken hex on that shadow - walls which led to denials that took her away from me, down dark ways and into the studio of Victor Melman, a nasty occultist I later had to kill - the same Victor Melman who was himself the dupe of Luke and Jasra. But now, perhaps - just barely - I might have been in a position to forgive myself for what I'd thought I'd done, for it seemed that I hadn't really done it after all. Almost.
That is to say, I learned that I hadn't been responsible for it while I was in the act of doing it. It was when I drove my knife into the side of the mysterious sorcerer Mask, who had been on my case for some time, that I discovered that Mask was really Julia. My half brother Jurt, who's been trying to kill me longer than anyone else in the business, snatched her away, and they vanished then, immediately following his transformation into a kind of living Trump.
As I fled the burning, crumbling Keep there at the Citadel of the Four Worlds, a falling timber caused me to dodge to my right, trapping me in a cul-de-sac of crashed masonry and burning beams. A dark metal ball flashed past me then, seeming to grow as it moved. It struck the wall and passed through it, leaving a hole one could dive through - a hint I was not slow in taking. Outside I jumped the moat, using my Logrus extensions to knock aside a section of fence and a score of troops, before I turned back and shouted, «Mandor!»
«Right here,» came his soft voice from behind my left shoulder.
I turned in time to see him catch a metal ball, which bounced once before us and dropped into his extended hand.
He brushed ashes from his black vest and ran a hand through his hair. Then he smiled and turned back toward the burning Keep.
«You've kept your promise to the Queen,» he remarked, «and I don't believe there's anything more for you here. Shall we go now?»
«Jasra's still inside,» I answered, «having it out with Sharu.»
«I thought you were done with her.»
I shook my head.
«She still knows a lot of things I don't. Things I'll be needing.»
A tower of flame began to rear itself above the Keep, halted and hovered a moment, heaved itself higher.
«I didn't realize,» he said. «She does seem to want control of that fountain fairly badly. If we were to snatch her away now, that fellow Sharu will claim it. Does that matter?»
«If we don't snatch her away, he may kill her.» Mandor shrugged.
«I've a feeling she'll take him. Would you care to place a small wager?»
«Could be you're right,» I said, watching the fountain continue its climb skyward, following another pause. I
