He could still feel the silent thunder of that fell and mighty magic all around him. It twisted the minds of all living creatures who entered Yintaerghast, slowly stripping away any magical knowledge-wherefore wizards less brilliant than Narmarkoun dared not enter.
It also, far less slowly, sapped any magics at work on intruders, which freed servitors sent in by wizards from the magics that controlled or saw through them.
Almost as an afterthought, it did one more thing, that made finding a way out of the castle again difficult. It caused all of the castle's empty windows to look out into a swirling void that allowed no creature to leap, fall, fly, or climb out; those who tried were thrust back in again by the suddenly-thickening, surging mists.
Narmarkoun had never witnessed this last effect before now, but then he'd never dared set foot in Yintaerghast before.
So he was immune to Lorontar's greatest magic-and so were his dead playpretties, so pale and silent as they stood yearningly outside the chamber door, watching him-but anyone else who might come to the cold castle in the dead wood would still face its harms.
Which made it the ideal hide-hold, for now, if he could pierce its mists. With Malraun's armies on the march and his own false selves being hunted energetically all over Falconfar, Lorontar's fortress made a great place to hide. And from that hiding, to magically spy from afar on Rod Everlar.
Or he would do, the moment he got the details of this last magic sorted out, and could see through that misty void-that "otherwhere" that wasn't really gathered around the outside of Yintaerghast, at all-whenever he pleased.
If Malraun hadn't conquered everything else and decided to come exploring Yintaerghast for himself by then.
Ah, well, nothing in life remains the same.
Narmarkoun smiled wryly at no one, and bent his will again to adjusting incantations and the subsumptions of certain herbs and powders, to give himself the means to spy on Rod Everlar as freely as he'd been doing for months, now, before coming to Yintaerghast.
He had already filled several tomes with careful notes about the so-called Lord Archwizard. Who was no wizard at all, but a Shaper, and a naive buffoon at that. Some "Dark Lord" to quake in terror at!
Yet Everlar was mysterious, and in those mysteries might well lie his own bright future.
Rod Everlar had come from somewhere, a world or place that was not Falconfar. A place where Narmarkoun could take refuge, and build power, and perhaps even conquer, while Falconfar was ravaged in Malraun's ever-widening war.
The army of monsters and mercenaries raised by Horgul, with Malraun standing behind him-and Lorontar quite likely standing behind the unwitting Malraun-had attacked one hold after another, conquering territory in a manner never possible when three strong Dooms stood in opposition to each other.
That uneasy balance had held for too long, as Falconfar had simmered beneath it. Now, with the lid off the cauldron and Malraun charging through the Raurklor, swords were coming out everywhere. City against city on the far southern shores of the Sea of Storms, Galath about to rise into civil strife again, and the new faiths-the Forestmother, and the rest-goading men everywhere to visit fire and sword on each other.
Distressing for a Doom who desired the cold, quiet caresses of the obedient dead, and simply a quiet place to study.
He might have to conquer a world to get those things, yes, but if it was a world as full of dolts as Rod Everlar, how hard could that be?
Chapter Seventeen
Iskarra and garfist stared at the six Lyrose knights advancing in slow, menacing unison, with Lord and Lady Lyrose sneering from behind them. They were tarrying rather than charging, and Isk and Gar could hear why.
The thunder of boots was growing louder down the tower stair, and Lyrose guards were rushing along the balcony Isk and Gar had just traversed, too. Dark-armored and eager, they seemed to have spears in plenty, but no bows. Thank the Falcon for small glorking favors.
Gar bent, plucked up the still-hot sword from the blackened bones of the guard slain by the wizard's skull, and ran to the tower door juggling it and swearing as it scorched his fingers, the charred remnants of its scabbard falling away in his wake.
A spear hissed down at him, and then another-but Orthaunt's grinning skull saw those as attacks, and lashed out with more green-gold fire. Two guards shrieked up on the balcony, and one of them toppled forward over the rail, to hang motionless, head-downwards, as he cooked. No more spears were thrown.
Aside from ducking low and running as far around the curve of the tower wall as he could get from the balcony, Gar paid no heed to any of this. He was too busy hurrying-and then thrusting the burned guard's weapon through the door-rings to try to bar the tower door shut. He doubted one blade could hold back all the guards in the tower and on the balcony, but it might take them some time to break it and force entrance. Oh, they could jump down over the balcony rail, aye, but that wouldn't be a flood he couldn't stand up to, and carve as they landed.
Isk snatched open one of the doors in the wall behind where he'd been standing with her, to try to get out. Discovering a trio of grinning guards waiting in the passage beyond, she flung herself at their ankles and tripped them helplessly forward into the room.
Gar whirled from the tower door in time to see them fall. Snarling, he unshuttered his darklantern.
As Lord Lyrose's bodyguard knights raised shouts, deciding to charge him after all, he flung it-high, hard, and flaming-into the tapestries just above and behind the sneering lord and lady.
Fire flared amid the folds of the old and dusty cloth in an instant. Lady Lyrose shrieked in dismay, Lord Lyrose roared out his anger, and a knight spun around and hurled his sword vainly at the flames.
Orthaunt's skull took that as another attack, and lashed out with another deadly green-gold beam.
As that doomed guard burned, Gar sprinted back to aid Iskarra.
She had already efficiently daggered her three guards as they crashed to the floor, sprawling atop each other. He joined her just as the blades of the foremost rushing bodyguard knights reached her-and the bone-dry tapestries really caught alight.
Flames rushed up the walls with a hungry roar, racing along the tapestries in a growing, deepening thunder to ignite lesser draperies tied back around pillars all along the balconies.
The knights hacked and thrust enthusiastically at Garfist, blades ringing off his frantic parryings, but Lord Lyrose shouted, "Knights of Lyrose! Back from him, you fools! Go get the maids and the steward and everyone from the stables, with all their buckets! The rooms back yon are all timbers and paneling! Hurry!'"
The knights hesitated, looking to their lord to be sure they'd heard rightly-and Garfist managed to slice the throat out of one of them with a wild, overbalancing slash.
He staggered helplessly, desperate to regain his balance, but the knights were no longer heeding him; more of Lyrose's roared commands were sending them obediently dashing off in all directions. One flung a dagger at Iskarra as he went. She eyed its whirling, oncoming blade, seeing there a blue, sticky sheen no steel should have.
"Darfly poison," she murmured, deftly plucking the dagger out of the air in front of her nose. "Nasty."
The tower door thundered again as guards behind it tried to wrench it open, and the sword Garfist had thrust through its rings resisted them.
Again they tugged, the swordblade bending slightly and shrieking in protest as the door buckled a trifle. A guard ducked between flames to vault down over the balcony rail and run to pluck out the sword from the hall side of the door, and Gar grinned and went for him.