Arch Wizard

shelf. 'Asprarr, Belphorna, Paeldoanch, Davvathlandar.'

'Seeds,' Syregorn explained curtly. 'Is everything on the shelves these same metal coffers, or is there anything else?'

Rod looked, then shook his head. 'Spade or something of the sort hanging from the end of this shelf,' he replied, 'but aside from that, no. Just the seed coffers.'

'Then go on down the room and open that door,' the warcaptain ordered gently. 'Now.'

Malraun let all the contempt he felt show in his face as he said quietly, 'Look at me.'

They obeyed, stiffening into enthralled immobility as they met his burning eyes. His spell-probe was swift and brutal, rather than the insistent drifting deeper into their minds they were used to; this violation tore and bored on and ravaged all it found, leaving the shrieking chaos of nightmares to come.

What he found was clear enough, and surprised him not at all.

They were utterly terrified of him, so lost in their fear that they weren't far from gibbering on the dancing edge of insanity, but beneath that they were grieving the death of Lord Magrandar Lyrose-who had betimes been the lover of them both, Malraun learned, though Maerelle hadn't known that until this moment. Disgust at their craven brother was also strong in their minds, and deeper still he found ingrained fear, awe, and respect for Malraun the Matchless. They intended no treachery against their benefactor, and scorned Magrandar's small deceptions and treacheries against the Doom of Harlhoh as dangerous and futile foolishness. They believed they would have a better chance of shattering the moon than successfully defying the one called Malraun.

Learning that last belief should have left him satisfied, but Malraun found himself still angry. Soothing their minds not at all, he brusquely enspelled them both into stasis, then used the force-wand to wall them away in their corner behind an unseen barrier only someone mightier than a hedge wizard could breach, that would fade only after a day or so.

It was time to search Lyraunt Castle properly. Someone had been at work here, and if it was Narmarkoun, he knew his fellow Doom wouldn't be able to resist leaving a mocking little message or salute to tell Malraun who had been toying with his tools.

If he found no such flourish, another foe was at work-and discovering who would suddenly become the most important matter in his life just now.

Unless, that is, it was already too late.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Malraun the Matchless padded back out of the great hall, teeth clenched. Dark anger was rising within him again, so strong and sudden that it threatened to choke him-and so seethingly futile. He'd searched every last damp corner and gaudy chamber in Lyraunt Castle-long, wearying work it had been, too-and knew that from top to bottom of the fortress, no enemy was lurking. Just cowering maids, cooks, and guards, and the two Lyrose women who now ruled them all. Or would, if they hadn't all fled by the time Maerelle and Mrythra got awake and free of his magic-or been replaced by plundering Hammerhands.

Yet trace or no trace of a foe, someone who loved Malraun the Matchless not at all had been at work here. Witness the talking skull of Orthaunt hovering in the room behind him-and who could have managed to hide such a thing for so long, but a Doom of Falconfar or someone aided by an Archwizard of like power? — and the mindgem. Both waiting in his gates to harm or trap him, two sneering salutes from… whom?

Narmarkoun, most likely. And yet… somehow, this didn't feel like Narmarkoun's work. And if there was one thing Dooms of Falconfar named Malraun had proven to be good at down the years, it was hunches and feelings. Narmarkoun was busily scheming, yes, but what had befallen here in Ironthorn, to the Lyroses and to Lyraunt Castle had been the hand of someone else, some other baleful lurking mind.

Oh, he'd been wise enough not to blunder through either gate, nor try to use any magic at all on all that was left of Orthaunt, despite the skull's cold taunts, and so had suffered not a scratch. More than that, he'd enjoyed smiting and hurling down cattlelike Ironthar here and in Irontarl.

Yet Magrandar Lyrose was gone, and all of Malraun's magic couldn't bring him back. Which meant Ironthorn was as good as lost to this Doom of Falconfar, if he didn't spend far too much time-time he now lacked-steering and supporting these Lyrose women, shaping them into becoming what he needed them to be.

Indulging himself here in Ironthorn this morn had been costly. He'd spent magic out of these wands as if he'd been hurling dry tinder into an already-roaring bonfire, and gained nothing but guesses about who was behind it all, nothing but wind and fancies-and-and-

With a snarl of frustration and rage, Malraun spent more precious power from the wand he liked to use least of all, and took himself back to Darswords in an eyeblink.

He was not quite swift enough to get himself gone before a long, hollow laugh rolled out of the great hall. Cold and mocking mirth, meant for his ears.

By the Falcon, but there'd come a day when he'd enjoy destroying Orthaunt's skull!

Rod sighed, put his hand on the door's pull-ring, and drew it open.

Nothing happened. Silence and darkness reigned, both in the room he was standing in, and in what he could see of what looked like a small, featureless passage stretching past, beyond the door.

'Stay right where you are,' Syregorn ordered, pointing his drawn sword at Rod like the wagging finger of a long-ago, hated schoolteacher.

Rod stared back at the warcaptain. 'I'm the Lord Archwizard of Falconfar,' he said calmly. 'Remember?'

'You are a helpless coward, and a fool,' Syregorn replied coldly. 'Obey me, and we just might escape this place alive. Defy me now, and you doom yourself more surely than you do the rest of us. I'll see to that.'

Rod gave the warcaptain his best expressionless look, trying to seem far calmer than he felt. Then he turned and stepped through the doorway into the passage beyond-and vanished along it.

'After him!' the warcaptain snarled, and the knights of Hammerhold boiled through the garden door into Malragard, waving their swords in thunder-booted haste.

Only to lurch to a cursing, baffled halt in the passage. They'd seen the bumbling outlander stride to the right, beyond the inner doorway they'd just come through. He'd gone right down this very passage, that seemed to stretch away from them forever into the night-gloom. Floor, walls, and ceiling, its every surface was studded with closed, identical stone doors.

'Gone' was right. There was no sign at all of Rod Everlar.

Taeauna was gone from the bedchamber, but the bed had been neatly made. On it, three outfits-garments and matching belts and boots-were laid neatly out for him.

By the Falcon, the Aumrarr was a peerless cloak-and-boot maid, too!

Malraun grinned despite his rage, and snatched up the darkest finery. Clawing his way into it with more haste than elegance, he buckled the belt of wands around his middle, stamped the boots onto his feet, and hurried out of the room.

Morning was nigh gone, but Darswords was quiet rather than bustling. On all sides of him men were slowly gathering wood into corpse-pyres, ignoring more energetic workers: the rats that were scuttling and gnawing, the vaugren tugging at flesh and flapping their wings at each other in scores of half-hearted disputes, and the flies busily buzzing.

These vermin were at work on the dead, of course, who lay everywhere, heaped and sprawled where they'd fallen, or blasted into charred cantles and spatters. Yestereve, there had been more slaughter here than anywhere else the Army of Liberation had fought thus far. Now, most of his weary army was dozing, lounging boots-up idly playing at dice or cards, or slumped asleep in little groups among the dead, wherever they'd been sent on make-work errands.

Malraun's lip curled. Out came a wand he used very seldom, as he peered this way and that, seeking the least-spoiled bowers of the grandest houses, and amid their shade… there!

With a cold and ugly smile, he met the startled eyes of Horgul's most trusted surviving battle-lord, and triggered the wand.