Dark Lord

spatters of dark, wet blood that wasn't his own. Blood that shouldn't-couldn't-be there. But was.

'Suppose you tell me,' he said carefully, 'how I became a 'Dark Lord.' And what this evil is, that I've done. Uh, and who 'us' is, that I've done it to. And what you want of me.'

The Aumrarr stared at him. 'So it's true. One of the wizards has stolen your memories.'

'Stolen my-?'

She flinched back from his shout as if he'd thrust one of those black swords right into her, and Rod swallowed whatever he'd been going to shout, waved an angry hand through the air between them as if to clear something aside, and snapped, 'Explain. Please.'

'Yes, Lord Archwizard,' she agreed hastily, sliding sideways off him with more grace than he'd thought any gravely injured person would be able to manage. On her knees, shattered armor dangling from her, she began, 'There are not many of us Aumrarr left, for Falconfar has grown darker. There are ever more Dark Helms, the wizards command fearsome beasts to prowl and strike at will, and…'

Rod found himself staring at Taeauna's front, bared almost down to her crotch. He'd seen her intestines spilling sickeningly out of a great gash, but that wound was now gone. Under a darkening smear of drying blood, her stomach was flat and whole.

'How did you…?' he blurted, gesturing almost helplessly at her.

Her eyes grew larger, and fear came back into her face.

'Have you forgotten everything, lord?' she whispered. 'Your blood healed me, just as it healed you. You have that power. The wizards have lusted after it for as long as Falconaar can remember.'

Rod frowned. 'Falconaar? And my blood heals- why? Because I’m 'Lord Archwizard?' Or the 'Dark Lord?''

Taeauna closed her eyes, sighed so hard she started to tremble again, and then opened them and said patiently, like a teacher instructing a child, 'Your writings change Falconfar, and every sage and wizard knows it. We Aumrarr, whom you created, know it. There have been other writers, many others, before you, but their creations are now but dim shadows before the fire of your pen. Thousands upon thousands of people in this, your world, visit Falconfar in their dreams, and their dreaming gives us strength, too, but it is the scribes of this world that anchor and shape us, and you are the strongest of them all. So strong that we Falconaar, the people of Falconfar, call you the Lord Archwizard, where none have been so named before you.'

Rod stared at her, and then looked across the room at the bookshelves he couldn't quite see in the gloom, picturing the row of seven books there, with their familiar, vivid covers, and… and he looked back at Taeauna, at this slender, blood-covered and very real woman kneeling in his bedroom, and forced himself to say, 'You called me Dark Lord, too. What's this 'evil' I've done?'

'The rise of the Dark Helms,' she whispered, sounding suddenly scared again. As if she expected him to hit her. 'Ever more monsters, and the drifting spells that twist hares and stags and cattle into things of claws and fangs that come for us. 'Tis said you've gone mad, mad with power, or that the wizards have struck at your mind with their spells. Even the stones sprout fangs, so men dare not climb seeking mushrooms in the caves anymore.'

The Mouths of Stone. More Holdoncorp mischief, like the Dark Helms. Almost all the monsters would be their work, too. In his books, a monster was met, fought, and killed. Only in the computer games did beasts sprout in endless numbers, springing up to menace no matter how fervently players slew them.

Rod looked toward the door and said something rude, spitting out the words slowly and deliberately. The room that held his computer-and the Holdoncorp games-was down a hallway beyond the door.

He'd hated what Holdoncorp had done to Falconfar, hated it enough to reverse and lessen some of their misdeeds in his later books, but their relentless rush to turn his quaint, cozy little world of forests and castles into a few enclaves of desperate knights trying to hold off Hitlerian hosts of marching Dark Helms had soured him on the whole world. Besides his dreams and the odd entry in his notebook, these days he seldom thought or wrote about Falconfar. He'd gone back to the grim-jawed thrillers of spies and missiles and gunfire in the night that sold so head-shakingly well, and…

'Lord?' that soft, purring voice came again, hesitantly. 'I came seeking you because we need you. Falconfar needs you. If you turn me away now, the darkness will soon drown us all.'

Rod stared almost helplessly at the woman kneeling before him in her slashed and bloody armor. 'I… Taeauna, I'm having a hard time believing any of this. I mean…'

He waved empty hands, clawing the air as if he could snatch some sort of answer out of it, but didn't really expect to. Then he started to say more, but knew not what, and settled for shaking his head in helpless dismissal.

Falconfar darkening, just like the real world around him. Society ever grimmer, lawsuits and terrorism and pollution, dire warnings of oil and everything else running out…

Falconfar had been his dream of what he wanted to see. What his dreams showed him, over and over again, bright and beautiful. Glorious skies of magnificent dawns and sunsets above fairytale castles that crowned grassy heights among vast, rolling forests, dragons flying lazily by at a safe distance…

He stared at the woman on her knees before him. Those emerald eyes, grave and anxious, never left him.

Taeauna, she'd called herself. Taeauna of the Aumrarr. She was slender, graceful, and probably taller than he was if she stood up, even without her wings. He'd felt her weight, her touch, even had her blood on him. Right now-he glanced down-it was drying, dark and sticky, on his legs and his underwear. He could smell her. She was real. Falconfar was real.

And suddenly, Rod Everlar very much wanted to see those castles, bright in the morning. And gold at sunset, as soft purple dusk stole in over battlements, and torches and lanterns were lit.

He didn't much want to see Dark Helms, or meet an angry dragon or wizard, but wasn't he a wizard, by Taeauna's reckoning? Couldn't he change things with a wave of his hand?

Christ, he must be going crazy.

He shook his head again, turning away, but those castles wouldn't go out of his mind.

Falconfar.

What if it was real?

Rod realized his heart was leaping with eager excitement, like when he was young and looked forward to Christmases and camps… and girls. Before he'd discovered just how cruel real women could be.

'Taeauna,' he began slowly, starting to turn around again. And swallowing.

He wanted to see Falconfar for himself more than he'd ever wanted anything before.

And he was suddenly afraid this was a dream, and he'd turn and find his bedroom dark and empty, with no blood and no Taeauna. And he'd still be alone.

As alone as he'd been for so many years now, with his family and close friends all dead, losing himself in his writing, laughter and companionship something glimpsed only in books and romantic movies.

Green eyes caught and held his, and snared his breath as well.

Almost angrily he looked away from her, at the bed. Still swimming in blood. Christ, he'd be in trouble if anyone got in here and saw that.

So much blood. He shook his head and peered more closely at Taeauna. Her severed wings, of course, were still missing. 'You're sure you're healed? Completely?'

She shrugged, and it was the easy movement of one who feels no great pain. 'I feel well enough, lord. Your blood is pure power.'

Rod smiled incredulously. 'Will it work on me, too?'

'In Falconfar, any wounds that befall you will swiftly heal,' the Aumrarr replied, leaning forward with her eyes shining in sudden hope, 'but in this world, the swords of the Dark Helms can slay you easily.'

As if her words had been a signal, there came a deafening clash of cymbals.

Rod was staggering dazedly back before he realized that the ringing shriek had been made by his bedroom window, bursting into the room in a shattering spray of shards, driven by a thrusting black-bladed sword!

Taeauna ducked under its point as swiftly as a striking snake, to snatch her dagger from the bed.

Rod shouted wordless fear as more windows broke somewhere down the hall. Black-helmed knights were hacking at his window frame, trying to chop the muntins aside so they would have room enough to climb in.

'They mean to slay us both, lord!' Taeauna shouted from beside the bed. 'We must hie to Falconfar!'