Arch Wizard

Velduke Darendarr Deldragon strode along his high battlements, restless and not knowing why. Spread out below him, Bowrock stood tranquil in the moonlight, a light glimmering here and there among its roofs and towers. Modest when considered by an eye that could at the same time gaze upon his castle, yet far more prosperous than most places in Galath-or even the Stormar cities, with their reeking backstreets and grasping, desperate rib- daggers. Gaunt and starved and glaring out at the world with no hope.

'There's none of that here,' he told the night aloud, in almost fierce satisfaction, his words startling one of his sentinels into stepping out of his embrasure to peer along the wall to see who'd spoken.

Deldragon gave the man a nod and smile, pausing in his striding where the moonlight would fall full on his face and front, so he'd be recognized. And so he was; the man gave him a hasty salute and stepped back again.

Deldragon felt his smile widening; he strode forward again, heading for the corner, still far ahead, where this great keep ended and the wall-walk turned down its end wall for a few paces, ere sloping down to a lower, newer hall that ran on to the two turrets all Bowrock liked to gaze upon of nights like this one, when they stood awash in moonlight. He-

Faltered and almost stumbled. Why had his mind been suddenly full of blue skin with scales, skin covering an arm that might have been his own?

What could possibly bring such a scene into his mind, and so vividly? A spell, sent from afar? A whim of the Falcon, or some malicious Stormar god he'd never heard of? A wizard nearby, dreaming?

He knew of no wizards in Bowrock right now, mind, but that stood as nothing beside such a vivid mind- seeing, aye? Most hedge-wizards strode through life grandly proclaiming their magic to all, to make themselves seem mighty where the truth was far feebler, but real wizards-not just the fabled Dooms, but all their apprentices, and the sorcerer-lords across the Sea of Storms, too-could hide what they were, if they cared to.

All contentment gone, Velduke Deldragon stood in the moonlight frowning, wondering what to do. What could he do?

Was this a deliberate warning, or the Falcon's way of alerting him to a hidden menace? Blue scaled skin should tell him something, remind him of someone, but he couldn't-couldn't-had never known, his mind told him coldly.

He stared at nothing, seeing a blank stone wall and emptiness beyond in his mind. The empty field or chamber was its old, old way of telling him he knew nothing at all about something-but the stone wall was how he'd always known he was forgetting something. A broken down, ruined stone wall, under an open sky, but this was inside, a tall and strong barrier in front of his nose.

Something was being hidden from him. By whom, and how, he had no idea, but the very thought frightened him, leaving him shivering.

'Lord?' the sentinel asked hesitantly, from just behind him. 'Are you-is aught wrong?'

Deldragon lifted his head, set his jaw, and snapped, 'No. Not yet.'

He spun around, barely seeing the man, only vaguely aware that his sudden movement had made the man dip his spear menacingly and then hastily raise it again with an apologetic mumble.

Instead, he was seeing himself in bright armor again, riding among the tents of a great encampment. Inspecting an army; his army. His knights were coming forth from the tents to salute him, his men looking up at him with smiles on their faces, all the might of Bowrock arrayed across a great meadow and filling it…

'Yet I know what I must do,' he heard himself telling the guard, not really knowing why, and seeing no foe or battlefield. 'We must ready ourselves for war. All Bowrock must stand prepared to fight.'

The sentinel said not a word, but the moonlight was on his face, and Deldragon could read it well enough.

'Yes,' he said wryly, knowing his lips were twisting. 'Again.'

Rod found himself falling gently down through a red mist, a mist of flowers-flowers? — to stand before a stone gate he'd never seen before, in a misty forest. It was a gate with a fortress behind it, and warm firelight was flooding out around the chinks in the old and ill-fitting wooden doors of that keep. Doors that were suddenly guarded by nude women holding drawn swords. Women bare from the throats down, who had the dark, menacing helmed heads of Dark Helms.

'Who are you?' they challenged him, stepping forward to point their glittering blades at him.

'Rod Everlar,' he replied, bubbles flooding out of his mouth. Had they heard him?

'I thought so,' the foremost said fiercely, and tore off her helm. It was Taeauna, but she thrust her thumbs under her chin and peeled the flesh up and off, too, in a drifting mist of blood, to reveal-

The mouthless face of a lorn.

The other guards all laughed, and it was the shrill, cruel mirth of women who hated him.

'What is this place? Who's lord here?' he asked quickly, as they all started toward him.

'Zundarl rules here. We kill you in his name,' was the smugly chanted reply.

Zundarl? Who the hell was Zundarl?

Not a name he knew, nothing of his writing, but 'hell' was familiar enough. Hell meant a great dark gulf, and despairing shrieking from shattered skulls that still had eyes, staring redly at him as he fell into it, joining the general plunge down to-

Land lightly on his feet, on a high platform of stone, a great slab that shuddered under Rod's boots with the deep, approaching roar of the great winged beast that had just landed. The clap of its great wings set his red cloak-red cloak? Where'd he acquired a red cloak? — to swirling, buffeting him with gusts of wind that made him stagger. Cloak flapping, he hastily drew his sword, and had to thrust it far out into the air, just to hold his balance.

That blade was in his left hand, suddenly, and there was a quill pen in his right, a great white plumed feather larger than any he'd ever seen before, trimmed to a point that dripped dark red blood.

No, streamed dark red blood, in a constant welling that came from nowhere he could see. No feather could hold that much gore…

There was nothing to write on, though, and the monster was turning to regard him, slow and massive, baleful menace in its great gloating eyes even before their gaze found him.

Turning, so huge that its tread and throat-rumbling were shaking the high landing where he stood, sending small shards crumbling off the steps below and tumbling down to…

It was a greatfangs, the largest he'd ever seen, bigger than any dragon, and there were more of its kind- smaller, but each one still easily larger than a castle as they glided past-filling the sky behind it.

The greatfangs was reaching out its huge neck, crashing through a space in the castle in front of Rod that wasn't large enough for it. Its great bony beak of a snout came at Rod like a thrusting dagger, the flaring ridges of the widening head behind all those fangs hurling down stones with an ongoing clatter.

Folk were screaming and running out of the groaning, leaning keep now, as shattered stone-work plunged down around them.

Rod found himself staring in fascination at the forest of upthrust horns atop the head of the greatfangs, the many spines that defend the head of every greatfangs from the closing jaws of larger greatfangs and of dragons.

Staring as it all came nearer… he could do nothing with his bloody pen or his puny sword… the eyes of the greatfangs kindled into the bright glee of the devourer, its forest of fangs parted, and the snout came for him…

Rod came awake shouting.

Or had he cried out? The echoes of something were ringing in his ears, he thought, but Malragard seemed silent and empty around him.

He was sitting upright atop his heap of clothes, sweating, his heart pounding in fear as he stared into the darkness.

Fear… and anger, too, like red coals under it getting ready to flare. He'd not dreamed so vividly and so, so… energetically for years, and never had a dream held so much of the astonishing and