Arch Wizard

'Well, why'd they not just kill us, then?' Garfist rumbled. 'Why carry us-three days and nights of hard flying, mind! — over half Falconfar, to set us down here, in a deserted castle in the heart of a forest, that just happens to have barrels of flour and apples and a glorking stocked fishpondf They wouldn't even have had to fight us, to slay us; just soar high enough and let go!'

'Gar, are you truly that much a fool? Or just playing at being one to nettle me? They brought us here-away from our foes, too, mark you-because they still have a use for us, some task or other too risky to chance their own necks in. When they judge the time right, they'll be back to pluck us up and fly us right back into waiting doom, you'll see! I'll wager they've laid magic on us that tells them just where we are, and lets them watch and listen to us whenever they please!'

'Have they, now? Well, I hope they were listening last night, when I was teaching ye a thing or two about-'

'That will be quite enough, loosetongued Old Ox! We're not back in last night now, and I've had my fill of certain vices-'

Garfist leered.

'— to last me a season or two. It may take that long for the marks to fade.'

Garfist stepped back from his longtime lover-only to come to a painful halt. She hadn't relinquished her hold.

'Strange sort of thinking ye have,' he growled, pointing down at her hand. 'Had yer fill, have ye? Then why d'ye keep hold of me? And speak of me using it on ye? So, now, which is it? One, or the other?'

'Both,' Iskarra said tartly, but let go. 'These last few days, have you forgotten everything you've learned about women?'

'No, but I thought ye were better than all the rest,' Garfist said bitterly. 'Ye said not a word when I knotted the bedsheets and tried to climb out yon window; most lasses I've met would never have let me forget it.'

The bone-thin woman smiled. 'And worked their ways around, by now, from astonishment at finding some invisible spell that let in wind and rain but made the air as hard as stone to our passage, to having anticipated and told you about such a barrier beforehand, so they could scold you repeatedly for ignoring their advice and climbing out the window anyway!'

The large and shaggy onetime pirate, sometime trader, and constant swindler she'd spent so many years with frowned at her as he thought her words through, nodded, then grinned.

Iskarra smiled back. The grin hadn't taken long to appear, this time.

'So the Aumrarr have left us here-stowed us in a cupboard-until they need us again,' he said, still nodding. 'While back in Galath-'

'Back in Galath, Melander Brorsavar is calling himself king, and of course the nobles-sponsored by this greedy merchant of Tauren or that greedy one from some city on the Sea of Storms-are all fighting each other or allying with the royal forces. Castles burning, veldukes spurring their warhorses this way and that, creeks running red with the blood of the butchered… and we're well out of it all, Gar. No amount of loot is worth losing your head over, or having your belly slit open and being left staked out in a forest to await the hungry little jaws that come scuttling in the night.'

'Huh. Only if ye get caught.'

'Old Ox, how many wizards do you have to gawp helplessly at before you accept that you're going to get caught? Time and again? Galath is no place to be, just now.'

'I kept hearing the Aumrarr saying all their scrying and prying magic was going awry, and so was everyone else's, too,' Garfist responded, a little sullenly. 'Blamed it on Arlaghaun's death, they did.'

'Yes, detection spells are failing all across Galath, probably farther, upsetting spellhurlers no end. And aren't testy wizards the very sort of folk to be close and cuddling neighbors with, when you want to keep your neck intact? Think, Gar-think!'

'But all those battles… all that coin to be made…' Garfist said mournfully.

'You think there's some danger of Falconfar running out of battles, for you to make coin from?'

Iskarra's near-shriek of incredulity left her favorite shaggy swindler blinking. Then frowning again. Then, slowly, chuckling and nodding.

'All right, all right,' he said at last. 'There'll always be others. I'll grant ye that.'

'Why, thank you, sir!' came her reply, in mocking mimicry of a haughtily scandalized velduchess.

He snorted, then lost his grin again when a memory struck him. Looking thoughtful, he said slowly, 'One of those Aumrarr-the older, tall one, with all that hair-said there was war all across Falconfar.'

'Not all across, Gar. I heard her, too; she said it was spreading fast enough to soon be 'right across Falconfar.' War that was spreading as a warlord conquered hold after hold in a way no sword-swinger would have been allowed to, in the days when three Dooms glowered at each other and kept any one of their number from rising above the rest.'

'The one with scars said it was an 'Army of Liberation' that was marching to 'hurl down thrones.''

'No, Ox, you must learn to listen harder. She said that's what the warlord-Horgul- said his army was. She snorted when she said it, remember?'

'She did,' Garfist rumbled slowly, frowning as he fought to drag a hazy memory out into the light and give it a good hard glare. 'That mean it isn't?'

Iskarra turned away so he wouldn't see the wild roll of her eyes, and managed to turn the loud sigh she was about to emit into a 'Yes' that was as calm and gentle as kindly mother's. She hoped.

'Die, flap-wing bitch!'

The Galathan knight hacked at the swooping Aumrarr so viciously that when he missed, his sword broke on the flagstones with a ringing clang that flung shards into his face, sent others clattering off the wall, and left him numbed and helpless, reeling and groping blindly for that wall, or an Aumrarr wing, or anything to hang onto.

'No, Juskra,' Ambrelle snapped, from across the chamber. 'Fly clear. Don't kill him. His velduke may need him, when the time comes to cross swords with Horgul's army.'

'Horgul, Horgul, Horgul,' the battle-scarred Aumrarr replied, waving hands that held two wickedly-sharp daggers wildly in exasperation. 'That's all I hear from you, these days! That and Ironthorn, Ironthorn, Ironthorn!'

'Juskra!' the three other winged women in the room all cried, in swift and angry unison.

'Not in front of Galathan ears!' Ambrelle added furiously, waving at the still- blinded knight and his fellows across the room, who stood uncertainly in a doorway with swords out and faces stern with fear.

'All right,' Juskra said with a cruel grin, her gliding turn bringing her around to head for that door. 'I'll cut some off.'

That caused a general fleeing stampede of shouting men, swords ringing off stone walls, and pounding boots. Juskra dived after them as slowly as an Aumrarr with no rising air to ride could without falling on her face, and even swerved considerately aside when the knight who'd lost his sword came sprinting and stumbling along, seeking that same door, his face a mask of streaming blood.

One wild eye regarded her in terror through his gore, and she gave it a kindly smile and cheery little wave.

In reply the running knight shrieked, sprang into the air just high enough to brain himself on the curving edge-stones of the arch overhead, and crashed senseless to the floor beyond. Juskra landed lightly by his spasming, kicking boots, caught hold of the door-pulls, and drew the double doors firmly closed on the Galathans, ignoring the few who'd rallied to await her with swords raised.

As she kicked off from the stones and flew back to join her sister Aumrarr, they heard the door-bolts being slammed home in terrified haste.

'Mmm,' Lorlarra said scornfully. 'You'd think they'd never seen a woman with wings before.'

'More like they'd never heard the truth about us before,' Dauntra countered, from where she sat preening