Arch Wizard

'You put a proposition to us,' Talyss Tesmer said to him, as calmly as if she was clad in finery, with armed Tesmer knights surrounding her, drawn swords backing her every word, rather than standing nude in a forest hollow, clad only in her long hair. 'Tell us now: Why? Why did you want to see a Tesmer brother and sister ruling Ironthorn? What were you looking to gain from this? What hold did you plan to have over us?'

A slender, black-clad arm pointed down at him from the tree-limb above, rings on its fingers suddenly kindling to glowing life, and Belard sidestepped smoothly, to menace Cauldreth Jaklar from one side, almost from behind him. An instant later, Talyss moved too, her bare feet utterly silent, to put the priest squarely between her sword and Belard's.

The Lord Leaf's face slowly went pale.

'By the Holy Forestmother,' he said slowly, 'I-'

'No tricks, priest!' Nareyera snapped, from overhead. 'No calling down your goddess on us! Just answer my sister's questions!'

Cauldreth Jaklar closed his eyes, let out a long, shuddering breath, and seemed to dwindle a little, before their eyes.

'The Forestmother,' he said quietly, 'wants me to tend to the forest, and not meddle as much in the lives of castle-folk and farmers as I have been. Yet she has charged me to make very sure that Ironthorn remains a place of modest farming and woodcutting, and is never home to folk who would even think of burning trees to cut into the Raurklor and expand beyond the vale. So I cannot rule Ironthar, but I need those who do to know the will of the Goddess, and agree with and uphold it.'

He spread his hands. 'I know well that Ironthar most like and trust other Ironthar, so I wanted those rulers to be of Ironthorn, not outlanders. I hoped you Tesmers would be my rulers. Yet it seems I was wrong.'

He lifted his head, eyes all cruelty now, and spat a word none of them understood.

A moment later, every living tree branch and twig that was in, around, and over the hollow trembled violently. Then, with a hissing like the sound of a thousand angry serpents, they all started to grow, thrusting forward with frightening speed.

The priest smiled at the heart of it all, untouched, as the feverishly-growing branches reared up and stabbed at the three Tesmers like striking snakes.

Rod Everlar stood alone above the by-now-familiar heap of clothes that seemed determined to grant him no rest, and sighed.

Some Shaper of Falconfar. A prize fool, more like, rushing around trying to rescue Taeauna without knowing what I'm doing.

'Yes,' he said aloud, sighing again. 'Looking back, it's hard to see it as anything better than one blundering foolishness after another. I suppose that's one way to describe the career of a reckless hero as well as an utter failure, but… I'm no hero, that's for sure.'

He started to pace. 'Not that I ever claimed to be a hero or wanted to be a hero. I just wanted to help Taeauna… and right now, to help free her.'

He clenched his fists, remembering that moment of thinking of Falconfar so vividly he'd managed to bring himself and Taeauna here… or had he? Could it have been Taeauna, working with him, that managed it?

Well, he had to try. Clenching his teeth as well as his fists, Rod shut his eyes and strained to picture Taeauna in his mind. Her every movement, her smell, her eyes when they looked at him with scorn-and admiration-and amusement-and exasperation, and a dozen other occasions… and the feel of her skin against his when they'd been in that bed together in Bowrock, and…

Rising pain distracted him. Looking down, he saw blood dripping from between his fingers. He'd tightened his fists so hard that he'd driven his fingernails into his palms.

And for nothing. It hadn't worked. He was still here in Malraun's tower. Alone.

Or so he hoped.

Letting out his biggest sigh yet, he flung himself down on the heap of clothes, and tried again to get to sleep.

So he could dream of destroying Malragard and striding across Falconfar like a mighty colossus, smashing castles and Dooms of Falconfar with snarling blows of his fists, and reaching down to pluck up Taeauna, the wingless yet beautiful Aumrarr of Falconfar.

Hoping, as he did, that she'd not spit at him with rage and disgust, and spurn him on the spot.

Silence, and a pale white glow.

All around him, yet far away as he floated, screaming but silent, agonized but numb, staring but blind…

Narmarkoun. He was Narmarkoun, wizard… Doom of Falconfar. And he was in Yintaerghast, chill and empty… yet somehow watchful, all around him…

Yes, he was… he was floating in tangled and torn spells, drifting in midair, their pearly glows the radiance he'd been seeing.

Shieldings, by the looks of their ruination, all bound up around him against one wall of the small, hidden chamber where…

Yes, where spells that must have been cast by Lorontar himself, long, long ago, were still at work on a distant living mind.

He remembered shrieking rage, and being blasted and hurled away by a furious mind that wanted him dead yet barely perceived him, and knew him not.

Yet now he felt… splendid. Not cold or bruised or hungry, not tired, and not hurt in any way. The shieldings-and where had they come from? Magics of Lorontar, left waiting for just such a moment of calamity? — seemed to have spent themselves not only keeping him from the slightest harm, but in healing and renewing him!

He felt marvellous. Narmarkoun swung his feet down, flexing one scaly blue arm and marveling at its fresh, gleaming, new appearance. The moment his boots touched the floor, he was upright and standing calmly amid the shieldings-which were fading away now, and growing dim as they settled toward the floor and vanished before they reached it…

He made no move toward the bright floating image of the brain. It was as alive as ever, magic surging around it and pounding through it in a soundless tumult of power. He shook his head in admiration, and more than a little fear. This could only be the work of Lorontar, and as such it must be older than the oldest Galathan noble lineage, yet it was as powerful, as vibrant, as if it had been cast mere moments ago.

The mind it was keeping conquered was alive and aware and seething at being enslaved, and in the instant he'd tasted its regard it had seemed somehow female… and human but strangely, subtly different than human-or most humans.

A mind that was in Falconfar, and active-not sleeping in some tomb or in the spell-frozen guise of a statue. Active somewhere distant from here, and-he somehow knew, as he gazed on those rushing, humming flows of magic-long under the control of this spell.

It was a mind of power, too. Not necessarily a wizard, but someone who had known and wielded magic enough not to be awed by the very thought of it.

Perhaps, if he-no. He'd been blasted once before, smashed down helplessly in a moment of passing thought. He might well not survive a second contact, if he probed with any determination and gave that captive brain more of a mind-moot to lash out at him through, and longer to do it in.

Best to just withdraw, healed and hale. It was enough to know that Lorontar had left magics behind to control and compel, spells that worked yet, and that held entrapped the mind of some female creature-it could well be a beast rather than human, perhaps a dragon Lorontar had desired as a steed-somewhere in Falconfar. Flight… yes, it was a mind that had known flight. And a mind that had influenced others of its kind, so that by working through it, Lorontar had held a measure of influence over them, too.

Yet he'd best stop thinking about that captive mind, right now, lest he draw its attention again, and taste another, harder, lashing-forth.

Turning his gaze from the glowing image of the brain at the heart of its eternally rushing whirl, Narmarkoun made his way quietly along the wall and out of the little hidden chamber not nearly as cautiously as he'd come in.

Up into a Yintaerghast as quiet and deserted as before, yet seemingly now familiar and welcoming. It