gazing and thinking.
A few steps away from him, the bed was no longer empty.
Chapter Twenty-Three
'Stop that,' Syregorn commanded coldly. 'Jelgar, be
The youngest of his three surviving knights sobbed uncontrollably, and all the warcaptain's roar accomplished was to make him flinch-and bolt down the passage, running wildly with arms flung wide and a wordless shout of terror rolling before him.
Door after door thundered under Jelgar's boots, and Onthras whirled around and looked to Syregorn for direction-should he fling out a hand to try to halt the runaway?
The warcaptain shook his head grimly, and pointed. Much nearer at hand, one of the glowing doors in the right-hand wall of the passage had grown brighter, and started to give off wisps of smoke.
As the three men of Hammerhold stared at it, the door started to bulge.
'Get back!' Syregorn bellowed at them. 'Thalden, with me! Onthras, go after Jelgar!
The door was visibly melting now, its substance-which had appeared to be solid stone-sagging and sliding from where it was bulging, running down its smoothness in long lines of wetness, blobs that left glistening, smoking threads in their wake.
Spitting out a stream of curses, Onthras ran for his life, sprinting down the passage after Jelgar.
Who seemed to have silently and utterly disappeared.
The third door Onthras stepped on gave way, swallowing him before he had time to do more than start to scream.
Then it banged shut again, swinging back up to cut off his cry in mid-bellow. Magic, or unseen hands, had thrust it back upwards and closed again, restoring the floor of the passage.
As Thalden and Syregorn stared at where Onthras had so suddenly disappeared, the bulging door creaked almost mockingly and… stopped melting. They watched the bulge seem to sink in upon itself, the door straightening a little, as a strange reek reached them. The stink of its burning, no doubt.
'Jelgar?' the oldest knight asked quietly.
'As good as dead,' Syregorn muttered. 'Time to look to our own skins, Thal. I'd say our errant Lord Archwizard is as doomed as Jelgar. Let's just try to find a way out of here.'
'Back outside, and over the garden wall?'
The warcaptain shook his head. 'I saw someone try that in the other direction, once. Malraun's magic slices and impales anyone passing over the top of a wall, as if the blades of a dozen-some swordsmen are at work. No, we must go on and out the front doors, if we can.'
'So, down this hall? What if more doors start to glow?'
'We get as far from them as we can, without stepping on a door,' Syregorn said almost calmly. 'I don't think they're really seeking to slay us. I think they're awakening because Rod Everlar is blundering near.'
'So the Doom cleared away or hid his most useful magic, departed, and left this place as a gigantic trap for the Dark Lord,' Thalden whispered.
The warcaptain nodded. 'Looks that way. Now let's see how well we two can avoid becoming incidental sprawled corpses.'
A smile almost touched Thalden's lips. 'Is there a wager in the offing?'
Syregorn shrugged. 'Not coins,' he replied grimly. 'Lives.'
He started off down the passage, striding carefully along the left wall to avoid the doors in the floor. 'Ours. Falcon be with us.'
As it bobbed and moved with every turn of Narmarkoun's head, the small, spinning brightness he'd conjured showed him a tiny Rod Everlar opening doors, trying to write on them, and birthing fire instead of words.
Narmarkoun watched with growing amusement, but less and less attention. The man was as clumsy and slow-witted as the most bumbling of wizards' apprentices; spying on him was good only for the passing entertainment.
Wherefore this particular Doom of Falconfar paid the silent little scene increasingly less heed, and bent most of his wits to exploring every gloom-shrouded crevice and alcove of what had been the castle of the
Lorontar's magic slumbered-and in some cases stirred-all around him. Yintaerghast held power beyond anything even Arlaghaun had ever hurled, certainly far more than preening, swaggering little Malraun wielded now, at the so-called height of his powers.
And if watchful, patient, nigh-forgotten Narmarkoun could gain even a small part of it…
Everlar's progress through Malragard was blundering, but much faster than his own. If a wall was thicker than its counterpart, or started a hand-thickness out from matching that other wall, Narmarkoun wanted to notice.
Soon enough, his diligence was rewarded. One of the curved stones forming the foot-collar of a pillar stood the slightest bit higher than its neighbors. Pushing it cautiously down caused part of the smooth, curved flank of the pillar to descend with it, revealing a horizontal niche about the size of a long-bladed dagger.
The hiding-place was full of rolled parchment. A scroll. Narmarkoun smiled a tight blue smile and used his belt dagger to carefully lever the long-hidden treasure forth.
A stone he'd taken out of a cracked stone lintel scores of rooms away held one end of the scroll to the floor as his dagger-point teased the tight roll open. He kept his face shielded from any eruptions in the crook of his arm, working by feel; to etch searing sigils on a scroll to await the unwary was a trick that had been old even in Lorontar's time.
When he got it entirely open-without any blast, roar of flame, or rising wisp of sinister spores-the toe of his boot served to hold down the innermost edge of the scroll so he could peer at it cautiously. Then study it more closely, with rising excitement.
This was Lorontar's writing, sure enough. He owned a few scraps of it, seized and stolen from across Falconfar over years of sly spying and covert spell-slayings, and had studied them long and often.
The elegantly-woven, nameless spell it set forth-crafted by Lorontar for his use alone, beyond a doubt-was a magic that could target from afar the sleeping mind of a specific, chosen being of…
Sending to that target creature whatever dreams the caster desired.
Narmarkoun nodded, his smile now wide and smug. This confirmed all his suspicions. Lorontar had long ago found a way to this other world, this 'Earth,' and perhaps to gain riches and magic from it; and someone, not too long ago-Arlaghaun, perhaps-had found another copy of this spell, and used it to bring the bumbler Everlar to Falconfar.
And now, Narmarkoun of Falconfar could fetch folk of Earth, too, and had the basic wits to choose someone more useful than Rod Everlar!
Firmly quelling his glee for as long as it might take, he drew in a deep breath, flexed his fingers, composed himself, and cast the spell as carefully as any calmly competent apprentice, visualizing the only man of Earth he knew.
He was promptly plunged into a welter of emotions-apprehension, above all-and racing thoughts. Just as he'd expected, knowing Everlar was awake. He saw bearded men in scruffy cloth overjacks, scribes they must be, sitting at desks beside piles of identical tomes which they were writing in, and handing to lines of supplicants… and a vast city, stretching to the horizon and dominated by many fortresses whose tall turrets thrust up into the sky higher than any temple or castle Narmarkoun had ever seen… and wagon-roads smoother than any courtyard, crowded with people along their edges and with wagons that looked to be made all of armor and were pulled by invisible steeds…
He resisted the temptation to bear down and seek to share what Everlar was thinking, as that couldn't help but make even the feeble-minded Earth dolt feel his presence. Instead, he performed the age-old mental dismissal
