and whisper, 'Stay away from yon table for now, and don't look at it with any interest at all. Those are enchanted things, laid out to show Deldragon's spies by your reactions if you're a wizard or not. Whatever you do, don't pick any up, handle them, or take them. Just leave them be; overlook them. They bore you and mean nothing to you. Except that veldukes put some odd decorations in their guest chambers.'
Rod had vaguely noticed a glossy-polished table ahead with a row of small objects on it. He firmly quelled his impulse to turn his head and look at it properly, and settled for moving his mouth to a shapely Aumrarr ear and breathing into it, as softly as possible, 'Deldragon's spies? Is he a foe, then?'
'He's… careful. As all Galathan nobles must be. The careless lords are already dead.'
Any velduke's castle has many rooms, not all of them grand or well used, and the personal keep of Darendarr Deldragon was no exception. There were dozens of dark stone rooms on the damp southern side of its cellars that had been left to the rats and dust for years, and in one of them now, the air suddenly started to glow.
The glow grew, becoming many small points of light that silently spiraled around each other. They whirled ever-faster, rising up from the floor into a tall, thin column, spinning and… suddenly coalescing into a young, alert- looking man in robes who clutched a large and bulging sack.
Taerith Saeredarr peered all around, turning quickly to look in all directions for signs that anyone else was about. Seeing nothing but darkness, now that the glow that had delivered him had faded, and hearing nothing but his own breathing, he put the sack on the floor, held it there with one hand, and pivoted again, more slowly, listening very carefully this time.
Nothing.
Leaving the sack, he went to where he knew the door was. It stood open with only more darkness beyond; he looked and listened again.
Silence stretched, and Taerith slowly relaxed. It seemed there was no life nearby; possibly there was no one on this level of the cellars at all, just now.
Which was ideal. He returned to his sack and raked a heap of kindling out onto the floor, surrounding it with sticks and framing it with two small logs. Leaving the rest of the firewood in the sack and pushing it aside to stand as a barrier of sorts between the flames he was going to make and the door, Taerith drew forth a flint and a steel striker from behind his belt buckle, and set to work fire-starting.
He got sparks almost immediately, into his waiting, bone-dry tinder. He let it smolder until it caught, fed it more kindling, and then blew on it at just the right moment. His fire flared.
His hand went again to his belt, and drew forth a small metal token shaped like a coin. Twigs were snapping, now, and smoke began to rise as his blaze quickened. Taerith dropped the tantlar carefully into the heart of it and stepped back, drawing a dagger so he could cast a manydaggers spell if a Deldragon knight or servant burst into the room.
Then he waited, heart racing. Fear was raging in his dry mouth and pounding innards, but he had been an apprentice to Arlaghaun long enough to fear his master far more than intruding into a castle whose folk would probably seek to slay him on sight.
The fire freshened, building into a small, steady snapping of sparks and streaming of flame, smoke drifting out and away, stealing from the room out into the passage beyond.
And something ghostly started to appear in the air above the little fire. Shoulders, a helm-covered head… that head turning to glare, a raised sword slowly melting into view…
Faint and distant sounds arose, from far beyond the passage outside the door, and Taerith's head jerked up. Fast,
Getting closer fast. Deldragon's guards, for all the coins in Galath. Smoke does have a smell that carries…
Taerith raised the dagger in one hand, kissed it and then kissed his other hand, lifted that hand with the fingers curled just so, and waited.
They'd not use bows, not indoors, in such small, dark rooms. Wherefore he could afford to wait until just the right moment.
Which was…
A knight burst into the room, lantern waving wildly in hand, sword out and seeking the fire.
Taerith cast the spell, his first murmured words bringing the man's head snapping around to stare at him. The knight charged and Taerith stepped carefully away from the wall and fed him a stream of phantom daggers, blades of magical force flashing out like half a dozen arrows fired nose-to-tail to thud home in the man's throat arid face, shredding it into a red cloud and tatters of flesh.
The headless body ran on, stumbling, and Taerith kept walking, striding aside to let the dead knight collapse into the spot where he'd been standing.
The Dark Helm above his fire grew solid, muttered a curse, and hopped hastily out of the flames as Taerith made his daggers loop around the walls of the room, to await another foe.
Another foe came, and then another; two Deldragon knights burst through the doorway, waving their swords. They shouted a challenge to the Dark Helm and charged, even as a second Helm started to appear in the fire.
'Tantlar magic!' one of them shouted, and clawed a horn from his belt. Its call came out as a weak, wavering blurting as Taerith sent all of his flying daggers arrowing into the knight's neck from behind, almost severing his head. The other knight felled the Dark Helm and rushed at Taerith who fled along the wall, willing his conjured daggers to strike.
The second Dark Helm stepped out of the flames and lunged at the running knight, who struck aside the blade reaching for him, reeling and hopping to try to keep his balance. Taerith's daggers caught up with him as he regained it, parried the Helm's sword, and slashed his foe's head so hard that the helm went flying.
Those daggers sank home, and the Deldragon knight groaned, staggered, and went down, but when Taerith willed his flying weapons up and out of the dying man, their blades were dwindling and wreathed in swirling smoke; the magic of the spell was fading.
Another Helm was materializing above his fire already. Taerith hurried forward to nudge the logs closer into the flames and heard more shouts in the distance. They sounded like names; someone was calling for the missing knights, wanting to know what they'd found.
Well, strolling through the cellars to give them the answer 'death' hardly seemed practical now, when they could be shown it firsthand.
Taerith grinned at his own gallows humour, daring to start enjoying this foray at last. The third Dark Helm stepped out of his fire, gave him a nod, and headed for the door, even as the shadow-shape of the fourth began to form above the flames.
A horn sounded, echoing from far off in the cellars, and Taerith lost his smile.
The tantlar wasn't bringing through his master's warriors fast enough to defeat a lot of knights. Oh, shit.
He had another teleport spell to take him home, but certain death at his master's hands awaited him if he used it now, with the task not done. The well to poison, all the other lesser apprentices to bring through, the entire keep to be scoured of magic items…
He had another manydaggers spell, too, and conjure armor that would slow swords striking at him, but not much else. If it came to fighting knights, he was doomed.
'No,' Taerith hissed, fear starting to rise in his throat.
'Oh, yes,' the fourth Dark Helm disagreed gleefully, shouldering past him into the passage beyond.
Taerith watched the fifth one slowly form with a growing sense of dismay. Too slow, much too slow…
The room was thick with smoke, now. Should he dump out the rest of the wood around the fire in a ring and move to another room?
Perhaps he could hide, and let the Dark Helms battle all the knights he could hear hurrying this way. Perhaps…
The passage lit up with the light of many lanterns, laced with racing shadows. Taerith cursed in earnest and hurried to the back of the room. He dare not teleport without putting up a proper fight. He discovered his hands were shaking just about the time the fifth Dark Helm charged at the door, the sixth appearing wraith-like above the
