Arch Wizard

Falconfar, with not much more weaponry than their smiles. And a skull whose grin could match theirs.

Yet if the winged women drew all the guards to the front of the castle, Gar and Isk just might be able to pull off this unlikely double task, and even get out again alive. Might.

'Well, we have to find this high hall to get to the turret stairs, right? So leave the skull in the arch there and then do all the climbing. My knees aren't what they used to be.'

'Yes, and 'tisn't just your knees,' Isk murmured darkly.

'Hoy!' Gar protested. 'Ye've not complained before!'

He caught her darkly scornful look, and amended his words hastily. 'Er, much.'

Up ahead, guards sprinted across their passage, hurrying down a larger hall to the front of the castle. Close on their heels came more guards; one glanced in their direction, but his attention seemed rapt on a spear that seemed to be sliding out of his grasp.

Isk swiftly drew Gar against her, embraced him, and used her thin, bony hips to thrust him, stumbling, against the wall. 'Kiss me,' she hissed. 'Look love-struck.'

She'd positioned them so she could look past his arm. The next guards to rush past did give them a good look, but didn't slow.

'That's chance enough,' she snapped. 'We take the next side-passage. Walking along this one is like prancing out on a well-lit stage in any Stormar ladydance club you might care to name! There!'

Garfist obeyed, swerving into the dark passage she indicated. Before them loomed closed doors on all sides, an ornate little table under an oval mirror, and their new passage running only a little way before it ended in stairs, going up. Isk took them without hesitation.

'But-' Gar growled.

'They said the hall had balconies,' Isk hissed back over her shoulder. 'Well, once we're on one of them, we can toss the skull down into place, yes?'

'Ho-ho,' Garfist replied thoughtfully, indicating agreement. The Aumrarr had warned them not to step into or through the arch, for fear of being plucked away to a 'terrible doom in a terrible place' by the gate. Isk's idea bid fair to dodge that little pitfall just fine…

By then Isk had turned right along a passage at the top of the stair, and was about to step out onto… a balcony.

It overlooked a grand, high room with another tier of balconies above theirs, a largely empty room lit by four braziers, identical curved wrought iron standards, each as tall as a man.

The great chamber was deserted of people, thank the Falcon, but its far side held a grand staircase sweeping up to their level, a door on a curved wall that must from the Aumrarr description be the way to the turret stair, and, yes, the Three Thorns of Lyrose outlined in the center of the glossy black floor.

This could only be the right place to find the archway, unless Lyraunt Castle had two identical high halls.

Well, Lord Lyrose was thought to be crazed-or had that been his father? It had been seasons upon seasons since they'd last been in Irontarl-but neither Gar nor Isk thought he was that sort of mad. Which meant, if this was the high hall, the archway they sought was right underneath them.

Isk leaned out, looked down, then drew back and nodded.

'Give it me,' she murmured. 'You tend to hurl skulls about like weapons.'

'When I hurl skulls about, they are weapons,' Gar growled, unwrapping for all he was worth.

Isk put her fingers through the eyesockets of Orthaunt's skull the moment they were uncovered, lifted it up to face her, and murmured his name as tenderly as if saying farewell to a beloved relative. Then she leaned out, swung her slender arm, and threw the skull, gently and carefully. If it shattered…

The wizard's brain-bones plunged toward the floor, arcing in smoothly beneath the balcony to pass through the center of the arch.

Where it suddenly stopped in mid-flight, a halo of white sparks briefly appearing around it and then as swiftly vanishing again, and hung motionless, grinning endlessly out into the deserted hall.

Which was when Garfist, leaning out to watch, lost hold of the helm they'd brought it in, made a grab for it too late, and stared in dismay as it plummeted to the glossy black stone below.

It landed with a terrific echo-raising crash, bounding up high off the floor with the force of its strike, only to crash down again. And again. Bouncing with loud enthusiasm to a raucous rolling stop.

Tapestries twitched below, as if someone was plucking them aside to see the source of the noise, and Gar and Isk hastily backed off the balcony. A door slammed open in the hall behind and below them. They froze, back in the gloom of the open curtains that flanked the balcony door, as a Lyrose guard burst into the room, spear clutched in both hands.

He saw the still-rocking helm-and then the skull.

Which promptly told him, in a deep but quaveringly ghostly voice: 'Beware!'

Its tone was mocking, and the paling Lyrose guard grimaced and hurled his spear.

The skull ducked aside in its hovering, to let the spear whistle through the arch and crash down on distant crockery and what sounded like ringing, bouncing metal flagons somewhere in the unseen distance below.

A fell greenish-gold light kindled inside the skull, drawing a fascinated Garfist back to the balcony rail to watch what befell. He was in time to see it shoot out of one of the skull's eyesockets, in a bright ray that struck the guard high in the chest.

The Lyrose warrior fell over backward, or tried to. The moment his boots were off the floor, he was caught in the skull's magic-and hung quivering in midair, leaning back but unable to fall, as his chest swiftly blackened… and started to melt away.

There were gasps of fear and amazement from beneath the balcony-from behind where those tapestries had been plucked aside, no doubt-but they were lost in the sudden, raw shrieks of the guard, as terror gave way to agony.

Those screams were as frantic and high-pitched as a bewildered child's, but they faded away almost immediately. And no wonder; the flesh of his throat and lungs had melted away, leaving blackening bones. As Garfist stared, wincing, they suddenly slumped to the floor with a clatter.

Isk was already plucking at his arm, wearing a look of relief.

Ah, that they'd not have to stay and try to protect the skull, aye…

Willingly Gar followed her around the balcony, hastening along in the same awkward crouch she was using, to keep low and hopefully out of sight of anyone watching from below.

There was a door at the end of the balcony that opened into the tower they sought, and Isk was clawing it open.

To reveal another Lyrose guard, rushing up its curving steps to reach the landing where the balcony met the stair. As the door swung open, he glared at Garfist along the balcony, and charged.

The warrior never even saw Iskarra behind the door. One of her long, slim legs took him across the ankles as he sprinted-and he crashed down helplessly in front of Gar with such jaw-shattering force that Gar's leap to bring both boots down hard on the back of the man's neck seemed almost unnecessary.

The guard spasmed and writhed silently under Gar for a few moments, then went limp; the fat former panderer snatched up a Lyrose dagger and sword and rushed to join Isk, who was crouching on the tower stair landing, using one knee to hold the door open for him.

Then they heard the thunder of many boots descending down that stair. It was almost loud enough to cloak the rising noise of more hurrying boots approaching from somewhere behind Garfist. He met Iskarra's dismayed gaze with a grim look of his own as he rushed toward her, and pointed down the tower stair.

She uncoiled out of her crouch like a striking serpent and was on down those curving steps a bare stride in front of him. Together they rushed around its bend and found… that it ended in a stone floor, at a door that opened into the grand chamber they'd just been looking down into. The way on down into the cellars beneath the tower was a barred and locked trapdoor-and its lock was a massive thing, almost as large as the helm Garfist had dropped.

Iskarra was already snatching open that door. A guard came rushing at her from somewhere, grinning-but had to duck away as Garfist's blade slashed at his face. The fist of Gar's other hand, wrapped around a solid