They were almost trotting by the time they reached the passage, and Gar couldn't resist a look back over his shoulder, to make sure no tentacle was arcing up out of the glow to reach after them.
He saw none, but when he turned back again, Isk's face was turned his way and wearing a pale expression that told him, as clearly as if she'd shouted it, that she'd pictured a reaching tentacle too.
The new passage was short and dark and lined with more closed doors, running about a dozen strides ere it turned sharply to the left and became another stair down. The feeling of being watched faded as they followed it down into another room.
This one was empty of everything but a simple, smoothly-finished stone table, and was lit by moonlight streaming in a large window that appeared to be just an arched hole cut through a thick castle wall. There were no bird droppings or any stirring of moving air, though, and a faint tingling sensation built within them as they drew near to it; magic was alive here, and seemingly preventing anything passing through the opening.
Iskarra stopped three careful steps away and peered out into the moonlit night. She could see that they were fairly high up, perhaps half the height of Deldragon's battlements back in Galath. Far too high to jump out of and land alive, even if the window's magic allowed their passage.
A vast forest-the Raurklor, by the looks of it-began not all that far off, and stretched away to join the stars at the straining limits of her eyesight; nearer to the wall, the land fell away to the left in a series of walled, farmed plots, down to the roofs of what looked like one edge of a town. The Raurklor hold of Harlhoh, no doubt.
Isk looked back over her shoulder; Gar was looking out into the night with an irritated expression on his face. When their eyes met, he jerked his chin in the other direction, to where the room emptied into yet another passage, in a clear message:
Iskarra nodded, and led the way.
Malragard remained as still and silent as a tomb around them, as if its owner and any servants he might have had abandoned it.
Isk knew, without their trading any words at all over the matter, that Gar felt the same way she did about this silence.
It was bad, and betokened danger to come. Probably soon.
Down the years, Iskarra had learned to trust such feelings, though she often wished she was wrong to have them.
She never had been yet, though, and didn't feel like wagering on her being so, this time.
After all, the Great Falcon did have a sense of humor-and it was not a kind one.
The passage forked almost immediately, one end a short stub lined with closed doors, and the other becoming another short flight of descending steps, to a lone closed door.
Isk went down, listened to the utter silence from beyond the door, then opened it into… another large, moonlit room. Stepping aside so Garfist could see it, too, she gestured silently to indicate he should leave it standing open, too, in case they needed to retreat back this way.
He nodded, and they went on into the brightening moonlight together.
Behind them, by itself, the open door silently drifted closed. Then, with the same utter lack of sound, it started to melt, its shape shifting into… a dark oval, a… great pair of fanged jaws that gaped open, awaiting anyone trying to go back through.
Standing alone in dark Yintaerghast, Narmarkoun beheld not the dark shadows before him, but a bright eye floating in the air, a scene from afar conjured by his own magic.
One side of that scene flared bright like fire, in a continuous struggle against Malragard's wards and shieldings, a battle that blinded his far-seeing if he looked toward the fortress.
Yet he had no interest in looking at Malraun's abode. Not while there was a man lying on his back in the farthest corner of its walled gardens, babbling out all he could say, just as fast as he could.
Since hearing that the fabled Dark Lord had come to Falconfar at last, he'd hungered to know more about this mysterious Rod Everlar's origins.
Now, hearing these babblings, he chuckled in triumph.
At last he had heard enough.
Enough to craft a dream-gate that would reach into this 'real world' Everlar came from, this 'Earth.'
Narmarkoun banished his spying-scene with a wave of his hand, strode into the room he'd made ready, and set about casting it.
Why wait? Dooms of Falconfar age just like lesser men.
Besides, he'd always wanted to conquer a world.
He flung up both hands, said a careful word, and felt Yintaerghast tremble all around him.
Then, slowly, here and there, the darkness started to glow. Lorontar's long-sleeping magic was awakening. It would feed and aid his own.
Narmarkoun took up a wand he'd left ready on the table, and said a word to it that its maker had never intended it to obey. It started to burn in his hand, like an impatient candle, its flame spreading out into the air around him. Yintaerghast's tremble became a deepening hum.
The third Doom of Falconfar allowed himself a broad, triumphant smile, and started in on the long and difficult incantations. Though lengthy, the magic was relatively simple, being a lone casting that created a single, stationary effect; the trick would be to imagine this other world vividly enough from what Everlar had said of it, so his gate would reach out to it, and not somewhere in Falconfar.
Intent on his words and the wand burning away to nothingness in his hand, Narmarkoun never noticed what briefly formed on the wall right behind him.
The face of Lorontar, first Lord Archwizard of Falconfar and builder of Yintaerghast. It looked down on Narmarkoun, smiled a triumphant smile of its own, then faded away again. Unseen by any overconfident Doom of Falconfar.
Chapter Nineteen
The large, brightly moonlit room ended in a matched trio of windows and another stair down. To get to them, Garfist and Iskarra had to walk the length of a long stone table that hac large pages of untrimmed parchment laid out neatly along it. They gave these only brief, cautious glances, mindful of all the old tales of curse-spells erupting to afflict those who gazed upon the wrong runes.
Old tales those might be, and wildly grown in the telling as such stories always were, but all old tales were born of
Isk's eyes were keener, and she was in the lead, so it was she who spun away from the table to catch hold of Garfist, half-turn him away from the parchments, and murmur in Garfist's ear, 'Yon's a boastful little history- unfinished, of course-of the great deeds of Malraun the Matchless. I saw mention of his glorious victories- seemingly several, by the Falcon! — over the hated Arlaghaun, to say nothing of Malraun's triumphs over Stormar lords who foolishly defied him, Galathan knights too stupid to surrender to a mage, and upstart wizards and petty rulers in many a Stormar port.'
Garfist grinned mirthlessly. 'This is Malragard, all right. An' proclaim me unsurprised at what its master has written. Snakehips mine. Self-delusion and spinning grand fantasies would seem to be vital skills to mastering wizardry, aye?'
'Indeed,' Iskarra whispered, waving at him to speak more quietly. 'Yet reading that drivel doesn't make me sneer at him or count myself lucky I'm not crazed enough to become a mage. It makes me want even more to get
'The stairs,' Garfist whispered hoarsely, bowing to her and gesturing as floridly at them as any powdered and face-painted Stormar palace servant might do, to visiting nobility, 'await ye.'
Iskarra made a face at him, and stalked soundlessly toward them. At their head she spun, pointed accusingly at him, then at the parchments, then shook her head grimly.
Gar rolled his eyes. ''Tis
