Dark Lord

fast as his racing thoughts had taken him; that story, that he'd created Ult Tower for, had been one of his favorites. Still was.

Yes, this could be Ult Tower. He couldn't see any 'black' stone, but any room could be sheathed in smoother, lighter stone. Or be covered in stucco or paint, if it came to that. So if this was Ult Tower, where was Ult?

Across a stretch of empty tiles, facing them, a man was suddenly standing in the room, watching them alertly.

Rod blinked again; that stretch of stone floor had been bare a moment ago.

The man held no sword, nor anything else. He was clad in gray, wore rings that winked with lights of their own, and there were more lights playing along a high collar or curving horn-like thing that swept up from one gray shoulder, the one that didn't have a cloak draped over it. It looked as if the man had grown one leathery, featherless Aumrarr wing that he'd curved toward the way he was facing, and that it had then been cut off, leaving only its fan-shaped root, permanently curved forward. Into something that looked very much like some sort of science fiction-ish weapon; the curve was topped with a row of winking openings that looked like the maws of a fighter plane's wing-cannons.

Obviously a wizard, but not Ult, surely? Rod supposed wizards could make themselves look like anything they wanted to, or perhaps not, because if they could, surely some of them would choose more handsome appearances, to lure the eyes and open the arms of passing lovely ladies. But Rod had always pictured, and written about, Ult as old and short and chubby-cheeked, looking out at the world in a kindly manner over spectacles. A little like a Rockwell Santa Claus without the beard and the overly red nose and cheeks.

This man was taller, rather younger, and well, meaner. Or at least looked to be, by the fire in his dark brown eyes and the twist of his thin lips. He had sharp features, the nose especially, but would have been termed 'handsome' in a leather jacket and jeans, swaggering and posing outside a bar. Aside from that firing-horn thing sweeping up from behind his shoulder, he wore dark breeches and a matching tunic, with a half-cloak over them that drooped to cover his behind on their low side, and reached his belt at the highest point in its raked edge. Dark gray, all of it. Shaped eyebrows, razored sideburns running down the curve of his chin, close-cropped hair but dipping to his shoulders at the back. The Dark Helms and lorn were all hastily and silently kneeling to him, and he had an air of command. He looked more like some sort of stylish secret agent than anything else.

And Rod hated him on sight.

He was staring right at Rod, their eyes meeting like swords crossing.

'And just who are you?' he asked, his voice gloating, sparing not an instant of attention for Taeauna or Deldragon.

Rod knew he was reddening. 'Who are you?' he snapped back. 'And what have you done with Ult?'

His words seemed to strike the man like a blow across the face, and the name 'Ult' echoed and rolled thunderously around the room, as if he'd shouted it in a voice as deep as stone.

Behind Rod, Taeauna made a sound that was not quite a gasp, and not quite a sob, and the velduke whispered something that was probably an amazed curse.

The gray wizard staggered back, the skin of his face rippling and twisting, and his eyes turned blue, staring pleadingly at Rod and the others. His face twisted and stretched as he shrank away from Rod, spreading into chubby cheeks… for all the world as if Ult was inside him, straining to break free. Then the wizard's jawline returned, wavered, slid away again…

Deldragon aimed his sword and sent a crackling bolt of fire racing at the wizard; it struck empty yet unyielding air just in front of the gray-clad mage, clawed along it, and then surrounded him, rushing tongues of flame that could not touch him.

The force of the flames bent the wizard's body back from the waist and made it shudder at first, but as they watched his face slid back into the semblance they had first seen, he straightened, and his lips twisted into a sneer.

Deldragon cursed, swung his sword so that its flames slashed across the breasts of the Dark Helms and lorn who'd begun drifting toward him, and thrust out his other hand at the wizard, a ring on his forefinger winking brightly.

Nothing seemed to race or fire from it, but the wizard acquired a look of horror, backed away swiftly, and then started to scream.

They saw his gray garments darken and then swiftly start to melt away, and the flesh beneath them receded almost as fast, the mage's shrieks rising with terror as he turned and ran.

Rod thought he got a glimpse of the man's face slipping again, but before the fleeing wizard ducked out an archway and vanished, everyone in the chamber clearly saw bared bones down his fleeing back, as flesh and all melted away. The Dark Helms and lorn, looking rather scorched, fled after him.

So much for that wizard, for the moment at least; what about the other one?

Rod turned sharply to look, and was in time to see the golden-haired young wizard who'd demanded their capture in the cellars stiffen and stop trying to cast a spell with his remaining hand as Rosera sliced into it viciously with her dagger. Severed fingers flew.

Over that mage's screams, Deldragon snarled, 'Friends, I must get back to Bowrock!' 'There are gates all over this tower, to places all over Falconfar, if the wizard you just started turning to bone hasn't changed them,' Rod said, remembering his tales of Ult, 'but how we'll find the one for Bowrock, I don't know.'

Taeauna stepped between them. 'By recognizing what we can see through the gate. So let's hunt out the gates and start looking through them-quickly! If we see the wizard again just get through whatever gate you're standing in front of at that moment!'

'We're with you,' Rosera said quickly. The velduke rounded on her.

'Not until you tell me what that is, Rosera,' he mapped, pointing at the flesh-pink, ambulatory thing that now looked less like a gigantic tongue and more like a huge inchworm, as it arched and slithered, arched and slithered up her leg. 'And what you were up to in my keep!'

The fat man behind Rosera started forward, his face hardening and arms spreading wide.

Deldragon shrugged and raised his sword meaningfully.

Stand back and belt up, ox,' the bone-thin woman said quickly. 'Leave this to me.'

The dagger spun from her hands like flashing lightning.

Past the velduke's ear it went, before he could so much as start to swing his sword her way.

Taeauna raised a pointing hand, and Deldragon spun around instead.

Rosera's dagger was standing forth from the throat of the golden-haired wizard. His dark purple eyes stared back at them in helpless horror, a wand falling from his maimed and bleeding hands.

Then he gurgled, his knees gave way, and he sank toward the floor. Halfway there, magical glows occurred in the air around him, brightening and swirling. As they watched, the dying wizard's body seemed to fade, and the glows claimed it and the wand, before the body could strike the floor, leaving only the dagger to clatter on the tiles.

The velduke whirled back to face the woman who'd thrown it. She was standing just as before, but had just put a wide, falsely merry smile on her face. 'Well, y'see, Lord Deldragon,' she said brightly, 'my name is Iskarra, and 'tis like this…'

'I'll bet,' the velduke said dryly.

'How much?' the fat man asked quickly.

Deldragon rolled his eyes, stroked his mustache, and then waved to them beckoningly as he started to stride across the chamber. 'Let us walk as we talk. That wizard won't be gone forever, and if we haven't found one of his precious gates and got ourselves through it before he gets back, there'll be no more time for talking, for any of us.'

Iskarra smiled crookedly. 'But plenty of 'forever.''

Arlaghaun sobbed as he lurched against a wall for perhaps the fortieth time. He didn't slow down. He didn't dare slow down.

The fragments of a shattered mirror showed him his own sharp nose and blazing brown eyes at the next wall he fetched up against. He snarled at his own reflection, and staggered on.