Arch Wizard

face of Syregorn, who'd drawn back his sword for a roundhouse beheading slash, and was now taking a long stride forward, to right at the foot of the steps, to put his entire weight behind his blade.

His boot came down, the floor sank about an inch under it, the beginnings of a look of alarm arose on the warcaptain's face-and the floor sprang up behind him with a sound like thunder.

An iron arm Rod couldn't properly see thrust the flagstones of the floor up and aside like a huge trapdoor. A revealed row of barbed iron spears much larger than the war-quarrel in his hand shot upright with such force that all three of them burst through Syregorn's body-neck, chest, and belly, right through his war-leathers-before the knight could even finish bringing his sword around to hack Rod open.

'Glaaaagh!' Syregorn cried, or tried to, around the blood bursting explosively from his mouth. He stared at Rod in enraged and incredulous agony, then struggled to say, 'Gglord Archblughizard-'

Then his stare became fixed, and he said nothing else at all.

As Rod watched, the warcaptain's body sagged, and the sword clanged down out of his hand.

Syregorn went right on staring at nothing, blood trickling down his chin and dripping from him. His slumped body was now hanging from the spears.

Rod Everlar looked away from Syregorn's face, slowly whispered out all the curses he could think of, and tried to stop the spear-quarrel-in his hands from shaking so uncontrollably.

He was alone now in Malraun's tower; every last one of the Hammerhand knights he'd come into Malragard with was now dead. He was on his own.

'So,' he mumbled aloud, fear rising in his throat like a sudden hot flame, 'what sort of horrible trap will get me?'

A plate-glass wall makes a deafening noise when it shatters. A noise loud enough to drown out and sicken even hardened executives. Holdoncorp was a company both wealthy and young; in its brief history it had always had rising stock, and money to spare to out-lawyer trade rivals, so its vice presidents-however bright and veteran they might consider themselves-were far from truly hardened.

Moreover, the shattering of the front wall brought other shocking sounds flooding to the ears of the vice presidents. Screams and shouted curses from the second truck crammed with Loading Dock Security men, as the lorn darted low at their heads, and nearly caused them to crash into the front wall of the corporate headquarters the way the first truck had. The truck now disgorging dazed and bleeding men in all directions-some of whom barely had time to shout before Dark Helm swords found their throats.

Movies to the contrary, it takes a lot of strength to sever a human head-and a very sharp sword.

It seemed at least one of the Dark Helms had both, and a savage sense of humor besides. He caught up Sam Hooldan's head, now permanently wearing a gaping look of utter astonishment, and threw it hard and high over the cubicle walls.

Where it landed, bounced wetly, landed again, and started to roll. Almost right to the gleaming shoes of Jackman Quillroque, where it gaped up at him in unseeing, utter astonishment too.

The Executive Vice President stared down at it, then lifted his head to look firmly away, jaw set and mouth tight and grim. He was fighting hard to keep from throwing up.

He had been lucky to get this far.

More and more, Malragard seemed like one great trap around him. Rod sat on the stairs in its empty silence, trying not to look at the forever-staring Syregorn, and fancied-or was it more than mere fancy? — that Malraun's tower-fortress was listening to him, waiting for him to do or say something before it pounced.

Leaving him as satisfyingly dead as all the rest of the intruders. Rod swallowed, finding his throat dry with fear, and wondered just what by all Falconfar he was going to do.

Well, not blunder on until he got caught in some trap or other, for starters. Which meant he'd die of thirst or starvation or whatever cruelness Malraun could think up, when the wizard came home-whichever applied first.

Hmmph. He had no magic to speak of, and only in wild fantasy books did magic 'just conveniently happen' when you needed it. There was, for example, fat hooting chance he could get himself whisked back to Ironthorn-to a guard-filled Lyraunt Castle, and likely death! — just by finding the right spot in the walled garden and waiting for the magic to work again. No; if the teleport magic worked that way, half the Lyrose warriors would have tramped through that garden to die bloodily all over Malragard already, or Malraun would have set up some sort of nasty welcome in his garden, or something like that.

He couldn't go on, unless he wanted to die. So he'd better retrace his steps, right now while he still had some chance of remembering just where he'd put his feet. Back until he got to that bed where the skeleton had been, and the room beyond that, with all the clothes. Make a bed by heaping clothes on the floor and using more to cover himself, go to sleep on it, and try to dream.

If he could shatter Malragard in his dreams, he might be able to destroy it for real, and so break himself a way out.

Or get himself killed when it collapsed.

Rod shrugged. What other hope did he have?

And he had managed to go from his bedroom to Falconfar, the night Taeauna had literally fallen into his life, just by being upset and thinking of Falconfar hard enough. While Dark Helms were trying to kill them both, too.

So… well, if this didn't work, he'd be in the same boat he was in right now, and he could sit and despair, seeing no way out, all over again.

Or he could get lucky, and find something in those rooms he could write on, and with, and do his Shaping thing.

To get Taeauna back, and Falconfar free of wizards forever.

Except one: Rod Everlar, Lord Archwizard of Falconfar.

Well, fatuous that title might be, but it beat being Rod Everlar, unhappy writer. Sitting home alone wondering what was happening in the world he now knew was all too real.

Sitting home alone, without Taeauna.

'Can't…' Garfist Gulkoun huffed, wobbling almost to a halt, 'carry ye… much longer… Snakehips.'

He promptly turned his ankle on a cobble, and fell headlong-thankfully into a night-shadowed Harlhoh garden. Iskarra flung herself from his arms, covering her face and throat as she rolled. Some folk left sharp stakes and worse in their gardens.

'Gah! Grrr! Hah!' Gar snarled, lashing out around him with his fists at imagined foes.

Thankfully, no one shouted back, and there were no barks or howls. Folk in Harlhoh, it seemed, kept no dogs, and spent their nights behind secure shutters and heavy barred and bolted doors.

Malraun was probably the reason for that.

Iskarra smiled wryly at that thought. She'd never expected to be thankful for the Matchless Doom of Falconfar, even briefly and in passing. She found her feet, got back to Gar, and hissed at him to shut his row, except to tell her if he was all right.

'I am not all right,' he growled, lurching to his feet and stamping hard on someone's flowers to see if his ankle would bear him. It held up, though a wet rustling told Isk that the half-seen thar-da bush behind the flowers hadn't. 'I inhabit a world ruled by crazed wizards and their minion-monsters. I'm supposed to be happily retired by now, settling into my dotage with young things bringing me sweet meals and snuggling into my arms-'

'A-hem,' Iskarra interrupted him meaningfully.

'Oh, lass, lass, worry not!' Gar rumbled, waving one large and hairy hand. 'I'll share 'em with ye!'

'Pray accept my deepest thanks,' Iskarra told him icily.

Garfist blinked at her. 'Isk, what's got into ye? I rescued ye from yon deadly monsters, didn't I?'

Behind them, the garden rose up into a dark and towering mountain, spilling them both off their feet as the ground quivered and then erupted under their boots.

'It seems not,' Iskarra panted into her man's face, as she dashed past him, tugging at his arm as she went. 'Run!'

'That's all we ever do, it seems,' he grumbled mournfully, as he turned, lowered his head, and burst into a