Dark Lord

was waiting for a moment of ease, in Highcrag, and then…'

Though her face remained calm, she drew in a ragged breath before adding, 'I dared my life to reach you because I was losing it anyway. You were there, dreaming of me, so close. My spilled blood and resolve were enough to open a Way between us. Your power is all mighty, even in your dreams, even when you… know not what you do. You are Falconfar's only hope.'

Rod grimaced. 'Not to place any pressure on me, or anything like that.'

Taeauna shrugged. 'I am desperate. I would do anything with you, or,' she lowered her voice to a murmur, but kept her eyes on his, 'to you, to save Falconfar. You are the only sword I know of, to smite the Dooms. Ach; the other three Dooms, I mean.'

Rod spread his hands. 'Very grand. Stirring, even. But what does my having all this power really mean? I've read fantasy novels aplenty where innocent good guys-and gals-blunder along, saved by their own predestiny, to the end of the book, and then suddenly know the Right Thing To Do, and destroy the Dark…' His voice trailed away as he realized what he was starting to say.

'Dark Lord,' Taeauna said for him, with a little smile. 'Yes. Our Falconfar legends say the same, many times over. Yet I believe you won't be an ignorant innocent when you face the Dooms, if you can reach the right place before you meet with them. Going to that place will break the spell on you, and your memories will return.'

'And then?' Rod felt a stirring of excitement within him, a deep, crawling energy that he'd never felt before. This was all so much wishful talk, wasn't it? And yet… and yet…

'When your memories are restored, you should be able to write with power, so your pen can swiftly change Falconfar back to what it should be. Restore we Aumrarr, destroy the wizards and their Dark Helms, make mages who are simply local dabblers in magic and monsters rare beasts rather than nightly prowlers nigh-everywhere. Return wars to disputes that erupt betimes, not the ceaseless warfare that has become the daily lives of all Falconaar.'

Well, that was easily said. Write what, exactly? Who was to say it would work? Or if his pen could really affect things, what exactly should he write? What if his changes begat consequences that were worse? Or that he didn't even know about, until it was far too late…

Yet in his mind, he was already seeing himself writing the words 'No more Dark Helms' on parchment with a quill pen, then watching all of them instantly fade away into empty, collapsing armor and then dust, clear across vast Falconfar.

Enough. Time enough to burn that bridge once he was standing on it. Keep to the specifics, the next step here and now. 'What is this 'right place?''

Taeauna looked very solemn. 'I know not,' she whispered, 'which is why we'll wander after we're away from Hollowtree and Highcrag. But you will know it. In your dreams.'

'B-but… I don't remember my dreams! Not since I got here!' Rod protested, staring at her.

Taeauna stared back at him.

'Oh, shit,' she said savagely. As all the color drained out of her face, and bleak despair rose into her eyes.

CHAPTER FOUR

They were both on their feet, the Dark Lord and the Aumrarr, striding back and forth in the freshening winds. Huddled against their dismay, they paced among the rocks, back and forth past each other, trying to think.

'So do we just wander the whole world in hopes I'll know this 'right place' when I see it?' Rod Everlar asked incredulously at last, seeing no other possible road. He did, however, picture this 'right place' being some jungle- covered ruin slumbering on one continent of Earth while he scoured a busy city on another.

Taeauna whirled to face him. 'That's just what we'll have to do!' she said, her voice fierce with sudden resolve. 'No matter how long it takes, and no matter how far we must travel! And the reason we'll give to all for our journeying: I'm an Aumrarr guiding you to work off a blood-debt to your family, and you are a man on a death-quest.'

These Rod did remember from his writings. The Aumrarr-and only the Aumrarr, as far as he could remember-recognized blood-debts to kin when one of them slew an innocent person through mischance or misunderstanding. A task or service was done, often a rescue or guiding. Death-quests were a widespread Falconfar custom, wherein still-hale elderly folk journeyed to where an ancestor was buried, to arrange to also be buried there. 'Aren't I, uh… a little young for a death-quest?'

'You won't look so when I'm done with you,' Taeauna replied, giving him a not-so-sweet smile. 'Mud rubbed into your face to hide the fire-soot I'll use to draw wrinkles on you, winterleaf in your hair to streak it white, and a kerchief around your head to make you look old and cold, and to keep rain from washing away your wrinkles.'

'And where are you going to get a kerchief?'

Taeauna held up one of her blankets, and a dagger.

Rod winced. 'Isn't there some other way?'

Taeauna shrugged. 'We can burn all we have as a beacon, and lie down here on the rocks to see which of the Three Dooms gets here fastest, to blast us to bare bones.'

Rod sighed. 'I'll hold the blanket taut, and you cut, okay?'

'Okay,' Taeauna replied. Her mimicry of his resigned 'why the hell not?' tone was perfect.

Rod hadn't walked this much in a day since he was a teenager, out camping. And he hadn't liked camping that much.

He was tired, he was cold-the breezes were decidedly chilly, up in these hills-and his feet hurt.

Taeauna was still striding along as smoothly and tirelessly as some sort of young acrobat, sleek and supple, ducking and crawling like a wisp of the wind rather than a winded, clumsy, skinning-knees-and-elbows novel writer. Usually she was just ahead of him, but sometimes she turned to look back behind them, then let him pass and followed him with hand on sword, glaring around alertly.

Yet no Dark Helm or monster had come lunging out at them thus far. In fact, aside from tiny, distant vaugren circling lazily high in the sky, they'd seen nothing living that wasn't a plant, all the way.

They soon saw something dead, all right. Their trail led them past the ancient, abandoned ruin of a castle that even the vaugren seemed to shun. Something that stank like old sewage lay rotting inside it, something so large that its ribcage formed arches of bone that towered above their heads as they stalked warily past.

A neck as long as Rod's driveway stretched up a crumbling castle wall, limp and broken, to end in a severed, insect-swarming mess not far from-

'Aughh!' Rod hissed, trying not to vomit. 'What's that?'

High above them, crowning the end of a collapsed wall, perched a leathery, many-horned, greenish-brown monstrosity, a little bigger than Rod's body, that looked a little bit like the head of a triceratops Rod had seen illustrated in dinosaur books. If, that is, triceratops had sprouted dozens of dark, corkscrew-spiraling horns, like antelope or mountain goats or whatever, and tusked fangs around a great jaw like an overgrown cane toad or horned devil or-or-

'Its head. This was a greatfangs, when it lived, and that didn't end all that long ago,' Taeauna told him, sounding troubled, her sword drawn in her hand. 'I know not how it came to be here, in Ornkeep, but…'

Rod was watching her bone-white face. 'But you want to,' he said, after it became clear she wasn't going to say anymore. 'So, do we run like hell, or is it too late for that?'

The Aumrarr shook her head. 'Nothing could slay a greatfangs thus except a wizard's spell, or a true dragon; not even another greatfangs has jaws large and strong enough to behead one of its kin.' She shook her head again. 'I've only seen two dragons in all my days.' Looking straight at Rod-a look that laid bare to him just how tremblingly afraid she was-she added, 'And I've seen a lot of Falconfar. Come.'

And she walked into the ruin without waiting for his reply, heading for one of the stone staircases that ascended.