swiftly over his shoulder to make sure nothing was coming down the passage at him, and then started running uncertainly toward the fight. He couldn't just stand and watch his friends get…
The great sword sliced empty air again, the guardian turning now as fast as it could, spinning endlessly around as the velduke and the Aumrarr kept running to keep to its rearside, springing to attack it repeatedly from behind.
The helm started to turn around on the shoulders now, the better to keep them under scrutiny; Rod saw that and shouted, pointing, as he ran forward.
The velduke struck again, awakening more lightning, stabbing at the thing's left armpit. This time, when he fell away, lightnings remained, playing and crackling in the air at that joint. Taeauna darted in to hack and slice at the guardian's left knee.
The very tip of its sword caught her and hurled her away, blood spraying, but she waved Rod away and ran in at the thing again, calling to the velduke, 'Wonder how many more of these the wizard has?'
'I was never good at counting,' Deldragon bellowed back, slicing it again. 'One… two… many!'
Rod groaned at that pun, whether it had been meant or not, as Taeauna ducked in again to hack and hew at that knee, the guardian's metal shrieking and squealing with every step now.
Deldragon crashed feet-first into the thing, causing it to sway as it tried to turn. It grounded the tip of its sword for balance and managed the turn, slicing back along its own leg as cunningly as any street fighter, and caught Taeauna tarrying at its knee just an instant too long.
This time, the great blade caught her squarely. She folded up around it with a sob as it bit deep into her and hurled her away. Deldragon shouted in anger and dared to spring at the thing's chest, kicking it high when it was half-turned one way, and leaning back to slice in another.
A metal fist dashed him brutally to the floor for his daring, but with a slow, inexorable, grinding groan of metal sliding uneasily down metal, the titan toppled over, crashing onto its side on the tiled floor and bouncing.
Staggering and moaning in pain, his face a mask of streaming blood, the velduke shuffled in beside it, slicing under the helm and then one arm as they bounced up, seeking to sever them from the body.
The blades of his daggers burned like torches. Gasping, he was forced to fling them away as the white fire reached the hilts, but the helm and that arm bounced and clanged free of the construct's body, and the guardian rose no more, its legs and remaining arm thrashing in slow, metal-shrieking futility.
Deldragon stared at Rod over the thing for a moment. Then they hissed at each other in horrified unison, 'Taeauna!'
Rod could run much faster than the wounded velduke; he got to her crumpled body first.
There was blood everywhere, in a spreading pool around her, and more of it bubbled from her lips as she tried to speak, pointing up at him with a trembling, dripping finger.
Rod flung himself to his knees beside her, fumbling for his dagger, sliding in her blood and not caring. He had to-had to-
A hand that trembled almost as much as his own, but had a grip like a school workbench vise he'd once foolishly challenged, was suddenly around his wrist.
'Slaying her is hardly the mercy I was intending, man,' Darendarr Deldragon snarled in Rod's ear, his hoarse voice managing to sting with both fire and ice at once.
'I'm not… Let go of me!' Rod snapped. 'I'm saving her! I hope.'
His voice broke on the last words, and he fought not to choke on his own tears, but something- perhaps that-made the velduke let go of him. Rod winced and sliced down, hard, then roared in pain as fire blossomed across his palm.
'Mmm, mmm,' Taeauna managed to say, in her need, and together Rod and Deldragon got his bleeding hand to her lips. Rod had cut himself deeply, and there was plenty for her to drink, even if she couldn't manage to suck all that well.
Rod put his other arm around her and held his hand against her tongue; she was like the horses he'd ridden at camp, nuzzling him for sugar cubes. He nodded his thanks to Deldragon and was shocked to see clear awe on the velduke's face.
'Who…' he managed to ask, 'Who's the wizard we saw? If this is his tower, what did he do to Ult?'
'That was Arlaghaun,' the nobleman gasped, swiping blood off his face with one arm. 'Considered by most the real ruler of Galath, and the most powerful of the Dooms.'
Taeauna sat back into Rod's arm with a sigh. 'My thanks, lord. I'll live. I need more, but let Darr drink of you first.'
Rod nodded, but saw that his palm was almost healed. He held it out to the velduke and said, 'Cut me. My knife arm is a little occupied.'
'With a nice armful of Aumrarr, yes,' the noble agreed, reaching to take Rod's dagger gingerly. 'This is… Well, I can scarce believe it.'
'He's a Shaper, Darr,' Taeauna reminded the velduke, as fresh fire sliced across Rod's palm.
Then she turned her head against Rod's chest and added, 'Years ago, Arlaghaun managed something magical that allowed him to conquer Ult's mind, and add it to his own. He gained this tower and all of Ult's magic and knowledge. That face we saw for a moment, when his twisted awry, was Ult.'
Rod nodded. 'I recognized it. So he subsumed Ult…'
He stopped at the expression he saw in Deldragon's ice-blue eyes. No one had ever regarded him with naked, deepening awe before.
Fearfully, Velduke Darendarr Deldragon started to lap at Rod's bleeding palm.
The ring that let him fly over the pit traps was flickering and faltering by the time Arlaghaun reached the high hall where his spell had brought Yardryk and all the rest into the tower. He glared around, almost feeling the two brown flames of his own gaze.
The velduke, the familiar stranger, and the rest were long gone, of course, just as he would be, if he got across this room unscathed. He had spell-tomes and other magics aplenty hidden in a score of places across Falconfar. When he'd had time enough with them, whoever was turning Ult Tower against him would pay for doing so, painfully and in the end fatally. No one must defy a Doom and live.
He spent a shielding spell to shape a huge invisible cylinder of force across this last room, and sped along it.
Halfway across the hall lightnings burst from the mouth of a carved ceiling-boss, bolts crackling as they raked and then curled angrily around the cylinder of force, illuminating and clawing at it, their onslaught making it flicker and darken. They could destroy it, given long enough, but they would not he given that long enough.
Above his sharp nose, Arlaghaun's eyes narrowed; not all of his apprentices knew of that particular magic. There would be time to think on that later. Just now, he could see hidden doors swinging open in the walls of the great hall, and armored figures striding forth. Puny foes, but swift enough to reach the far end of his cylinder, deadly enough to an unprotected man, and numerous enough to overwhelm a lone foe.
Yet they were going to be too late. He was at the end of the cylinder, and willing it to swing away from himself, turning to serve as a great room-spanning ram, to thrust back those running armored automatons. That would win him time to do
The Doom of Falconfar strode up to the tall, ornate oval mirror that adorned one wall, turned it with his fingers, just a little, until he heard the hidden catches
Then he was hurrying down the short, curving, narrow way it had hidden, to touch the little glow on the rough stone wall at its end, and leave Ult Tower behind, through one of its most hidden gates.
'Fear my return,' he murmured, the metallic shrieks of his armored sentinels shouldering against stone after him, fading as the glowing mists took him, 'for I shall be exacting payment for this. And the price will be high.'
'He's gone!' Amalrys spat, slamming her hand down on a defenseless crystal in a rattle of protesting chain. 'Gone! Falcon take him and break him!'
She glared wildly around at the array of glowing crystals, seeing striding chaos in a dozen chambers of the
