Arch Wizard

sleepy concern.

Then that radiance took him to distant Lyraunt Castle in a glowing, tingling instant, and faded away.

He was standing on the Three Thorns in the center of the great hall, with flames blazing away above him, smoke and corpses everywhere, and-

Malraun waved both hands in a mighty magic that swallowed the tapestries and hall ceiling alike, hurling them high and far up into the starry night sky, and leaving the fires nothing to feed on.

Above, the last few flickering flames fell toward him, slumping into sparks as they came, and… were gone.

Something struck the tiles right beside his leg. Malraun sprang aside and turned, even before a second spear cracked off slightly more distant tiles and skidded away across the hall.

The balcony rail was crowded with hard-eyed guards, glaring at him and hefting spears. With a silent snarl, the naked Doom waved his hands again. Magic surged out of him-and the balcony was suddenly empty of men, its ceiling and back wall dripping and glistening with fresh red gore.

He turned on his heel to peer around the hall. It no longer had a ceiling, but then fire was no longer raging in Lyraunt Castle. Yet someone had set that fire, and-

Malraun spotted an all-too-familiar face among the nearest bodies on the floor, and cursed bitterly.

Gorget gone. Taking two swift steps, he drew the dagger up out of Lord Lyrose's eye. Darfly poison, and a Lyrose blade at that. A family slaying, then.

He thrust the dagger right back into dead Magrandar's eye-and yawned, rage ebbing before a sudden rush of weariness. Idiots.

Well, at least this wasn't Hammerhand work. So it could wait until morning, when he wasn't so workmule- tired from killing wizards. And when he wasn't standing naked in a castle far from home, with only pitiful remnants of magic left. Another balcony full of guards with spears wouldn't be all that welcome, just now…

Stifling another yawn, he cast another spell-and vanished. Sleepily padding across a dark bedchamber where Taeauna's arms awaited, back to his bed in Darswords, having never noticed a certain silently-smiling floating skull-or a bone-thin woman and a fat, gruff man who were decidedly not of House Lyrose.

A handful of moments later, a dozen maids and stablehands rushed into the room, water slopping from their buckets as they slowed.

They stared around in the gloom, smelling smoke and scorched stone, but seeing nary a flame that wasn't in a brazier.

Then they saw the bodies on the floor, the balcony a-drip with blood, the floating skull, and the lack of tapestries.

It took another few gasps and oaths before a shriek went up from one maid-as she pointed tremblingly at their lord, lying dead on the tiles with a dagger sticking up out of his eye.

There were other screams, but more than a few of the maids stole reluctantly forward for a better look. And when they'd looked, and were sure, they gave the corpse of Lord Magrandar Lyrose some good, hard, heartfelt kicks.

'That was Malraun!' Iskarra hissed, panting from their long climb. 'A glorking Doom of Falconfar!'

'Don't look like much bare-assed, do he?' Garfist growled back, pausing for breath three steps above her. 'He'll be back come morning, mind-after he's finished rutting with whoever he so hastily left to come here and blow the roof off the hall! So let's thank him, very quietly, and be done with setting our trap and get gone from here! At least he took care of all Lyrose's guards!'

'I'm not so sure his kills were anywhere near 'all' of them, Old Ox,' his partner panted, 'but yes, let's do it and begone! Do we try to find the Aumrarr and use their wings to get well away? Or try to hide in the forest, and make our own way back to…'

'Heh,' Garfist agreed, 'that needs more thinking on, don't it? The Raurklor's dangerous for a band of less than, say, twenty armed knights at the best of times. Given what the wingbitches said about his warning-wards, d'ye think Malraun the Matchless has an Aumrarr-sniffing spell?'

They looked at each other in the faint magical gloom that filled the upper reaches of this tower, until Iskarra spread her hands and shrugged to signify she could not even mount a worthy guess.

Then she looked up the spiraling tower stair past him and hissed, 'Not much farther. Who was this bedchamber built for, anyway? A babe who was a family monster? Child princes or princesses kidnapped from elsewhere? An Aumrarr, perhaps, so she'd learn to fly?'

Garfist shrugged. 'Who knows why lords with castles do anything? I think they're all more'n a little mad; all that gold and power rots a man's brain.'

Isk smirked. 'So when did you have lots of gold and power, that I missed noticing?'

Garfist was above her on the stairs, so he didn't bother with a clever reply. He just broke wind into her face. Noisily.

The stairs ended in a plain stone door that wasn't locked. Gar and Isk traded glances over that before Garfist warily turned the door-ring and pushed the door gently open.

Inside they found no lurking monster, nor any guard. Just a high, uncurtained bed that nearly filled the room, and dust in the corners.

'Under it, right up nigh the headboard,' Garfist rumbled, before Isk could remind him. 'Give me the gem.'

'No, my fat beloved,' Isk panted gently. 'Let's catch our wind first, and then I'll do the crawling beneath. Someone may want to find this bed intact-and a Doom arriving and finding it broken will be wary, for sure.'

'No Doom's going to climb all those stairs,' Garfist growled. 'Not when he has spells to spare.' He held out one hairy hand. 'The gem.'

Ignoring him, Iskarra strolled along the far side of the bed, both hands on her belt buckle, fingers undoubtedly touching the mindgem she'd slid into the little pouch she'd sewn behind it some seasons ago.

Halting at the head of the bed, she turned and gave him a strange little smile. 'I've decided something.'

'Aye?' Garfist asked warily. That sweet tone of hers was not one he liked overmuch; it always betokened something bold. And dangerous.

'I'm going to step through the gate, and drop this little mind-trap-stone behind me. After you precede me through, of course.'

Garfist stared at her. 'Now who's gone crazed? Without any gold an' power, too!'

Isk shook her head, still wearing that odd smile. 'I'm not a wizard. Nor are you. So we'll be fine, yes?'

'If 'fine' means happily stepping into the unknown, when that unknown is a wizard's lair!' Garfist growled.

'Well, Malraun won't have made a gate that would hurt him, if he came home from here through it,' Iskarra replied, the mindgem now gleaming in her hand, 'for isn't this a bolthole he might use when hurt, or desperate, or in haste, or when trying to sneak into his own home because, say, another Doom has broken into it? And if we stay here in Ironthorn, half Falconfar-the armed, warlike half-are either in our laps already or will soon be here. Arriving ready to kill everyone, even before all the wizards start blasting. If we stroll quick and quiet out of a wizard's tower, we might well make it. It's folk trying to get in that have all the trouble.'

'Wizard's tower,' Garfist rumbled slowly. 'Gems, wine, gold… Isk, ye're going to get us killed some day, ye are!'

He let his wagging, reproving finger fall-and grinned widely. 'So let's be about it!'

He held out his hand, Isk took it, and he pulled, hauling both hard and upward. She came flying into his arms like the scrawny sack of bones she so nearly was, and they embraced amid chuckles.

Then they went down on their knees together. Isk promptly gave way until he was lying atop her on the floor, their arms around each other. Garfist glanced at the bedframe beside him, then at the dim dustiness