Arch Wizard

Revolted and suddenly furious again, his fear gone, Rod shook off the gauntlet on his free hand and put it into the pouch that held the rings. Fumbling with the chain until he got its clasp open, he started putting on rings, working by feel and never once taking his eyes off the lorn.

It went on eating, affecting unconcern, but it was watching him closely.

Which meant, for one thing, he dared not retreat. And would be dead once night fell, or sooner. Probably sooner.

Ult Tower, don't fail me now…

Two of the rings made his fingers tingle. Rod raised his hand until he could see them. Staring at the one on the left, he tried to will it to do something. Anything.

Nothing happened. He tried visualizing flames shooting out of it to scorch the lorn, saw the lorn blazing and blackening, collapsing, slate-gray hide melting and crumpling… nothing.

He gave up, and glared at the ring on the right, bearing down with his will until he was trembling and sweating, his head starting to pound. Suddenly-

Nothing happened. And went right on happening, damn it.

The sword… no, it wasn't reacting to the rings, even though their tingling was growing stronger.

Blazing up like Rod's temper. A God-damned arsenal of magic he'd snatched from Ult Tower, things that glowed and hummed and bloody well buzzed-and not one of them, not one of them, could he make work. The bloody armor had damned well melted away!

He-

No. No, none of it was going to work. Not at all. It would tease him, glowing and humming and tingling like fury, but-

Shaking his head, Rod reached down, plucked up his gauntlet, and slid it back on.

It promptly flared into bright life. Some of the metal fingers spat sudden flames into the air.

The lorn stiffened again, lifting its head.

Rod quickly closed his gaping mouth, made himself smile, and pointed at the beast's inscrutable skull- face.

And a thin tongue of flame spat from his fingertip, right at the lorn.

The beast was gone before the fire arrived, dropping its meal in a sudden scramble, great clap of slate-gray wings, and bound into the air.

It was fleeing! Just like that!

Up it climbed, clawing at the air with its wings in seemingly frantic haste, racing up at the hole in the canopy of leaves that was letting the sunlight in, as Rod wagged his finger at it and pointed again, rage and-yes, exultation rising in him.

His jet of flames fell well short of that lashing tail, but the lorn looked back at him fearfully, and flapped all the faster.

Rod sighed. It was getting away.

No, it had got away… and was gone.

He looked down at all that was left of the Aumrarr-one severed foot, still encased in its boot-and, exultation gone in an instant, had to fight down a sudden urge to vomit.

Sighing harder, he turned away.

Somewhere overhead, the lorn gave tongue to a strange, ululating call.

Chapter Four

Why here, me Viper? Why Stormcrag Castle? Locked in an' with spells to keep us that way? What'd we do, that-' A strange, ululating call echoed across the endless green treetops of the Raurklor, startling Garfist Gulkoun into silence in mid-rumble, and causing the skeletally thin woman in the tattered leathers and once-grand, fur-trimmed cloak to fling up one bony hand in an imperious signal for silence.

Iskarra thrust her head sharply to one side, like a snake seeking to taste the air, and listened hard.

The call came not again, but they sat for a long time in silence ere the stout and growling man who'd been in mid-bluster before the unfamiliar cry dared to rumble, 'What was that?'

His longtime companion shook her head slowly, but said nothing.

'Isk?' he growled, a few breaths later.

'It was a strange call,' Iskarra said waspishly. 'Is your hearinggoing now, too?'

Garfist rolled his eyes in exasperation, belched loudly, and started to pace again. 'No, Viper mine, there's nothing wrong with my ears! It's my patience as has broken-again and again, mind-

since we got here!'

'Gar,' the woman once infamous as the Viper said patiently, uncoiling herself from where she'd been sitting on the room's lone table with her back to the wall, and striding to the window in the thigh-high boots she'd spent three days prying all the hobnails out of, to make them quiet, 'I have noticed this. Even before you remarked on it. The first time.'

The bright, acid edge to her voice seemed lost on the burly, pacing-once-more man, who waved his large and hairy hands in the air in wild circles of exasperation, and growled, 'How can ye take it all so quietly?'

'With all your noise, 'quietly' isn't a term I'd apply to these last few days,' Iskarra replied, peering intently out over the endless forest in search of anything flying or clambering… or just different about the view. It was a search she knew would end in failure, and so was not disappointed.

Giving up, she swung around to face the striding Garfist, and stepped forward at just the right moment to deftly reach out and clap her cupped hand under his codpiece, dragging him to a painfully startled halt.

'Hoah! What? Viper! I-'

'Could start using this on me, you know, while we wait,' she said warningly, keeping hold of his rather tender area with one hand and raising her other to the thong-loops of her bodice.

Garfist blinked. His Vipersides was about as buxom as a boar-spear, but she could bend her body as alluringly as any slithering snake-and ply her tongue better than any serpent he'd ever seen. Not that he was in the habit, mind, of entertaining snakes that way…

'Old Ox,' Iskarra said coldly, 'stop blinking at me as if a thought is battering at your thick skull demanding entry with utter lack of success, and listen.'

By means of the handle she refused to relinquish, she towed him over to the wall, thrust his great shoulders back against it, and tapped his chest with the forefinger of her free hand.

'Now,' she said, as severely as any nursemaid teaching a rebellious youngling, 'when was the last time we didn't have to scramble for coins? Or think about where we could find a bed that wasn't a-crawl with biting bugs or within easy reach of some thieving night-knife? Or get endless meals for free? Or have our own place to stay, as warm and as roomy as we could want for, with no one hounding us over debts or because of what we'd done to them a few days back? Our own glorking castle, mind you?'

'Our own prison, more like.'

'You think I don't know that? What I don't know is why you can't just accept that it's a prison we can't get out of, and relax. Rest a bit. Eat like the utter boar I know you can be, given feastables enough! Find the most comfortable bed, in all these bedchambers full of comfortable beds, and get in some snoring!'

'I–I-' Garfist shook his shaggy head, words failing him. 'It's just-just… It sticks in my gullet, it does, to be so swindled! Reward, they said, not imprisonment! See it or not, there's a wall of magic around the fishpond and garden as hard as rock and as high as I can throw a stone! We're penned in here like beasts! Strange sort of reward, indeed, those four feather-lasses gave us!'

'Reward, my left teat, Gar,' Iskarra snapped. 'Those four wing-bitches wanted us well out of Galath, too far away to worm our ways back into any of its castles-and all that gold and wine and jewels just lying about for the taking-without them seeing us coming, all the way down open, wind-howling, arrow-filled Sardray.'