Far from a woman in chains forcing her way past a door in Ult Tower, a short, slender, and darkly handsome wizard rose from his claw-footed chair in one lithe movement to clench his fists, the better to hurl his will at her.
"Yes," Malraun breathed, putting all of his fierce will behind that word, feeling the distant Amalrys yield to it and embrace it as her own. "Yes, little unwitting slave," he murmured, "strike down your tormentor at last. Let there be one fewer Arlaghaun in the world."
As agile as any dancer, still thrusting his way deeper into the mind of Amalrys, he spun around and sprang back onto his chair, bouncing several times until his body was at rest again, his concentration never wavering.
"And if his slaying is beyond you this day," he remarked almost pleasantly, "let him taste torment, and be afraid, and be lessened. Aye, see that you humble Arlaghaun the Mighty."
He smiled, and told the ornately painted ceiling above, "For increasingly, his swaggering truly bothers me."
In a dark chamber of slowly dripping water, where every solitary drop plummeting the height of a castle into a patiently waiting pool awakened its own uncaring echo, the tall, blue-skinned wizard Narmarkoun sat alone, as always, and at ease.
Nearby stood the staff he'd been augmenting, upright in the air though there was no hand to hold it there. The cold fires of his spells still flickered up and down its length betimes, reflecting back off his scaled hands.
He smiled.
"Goad her indeed, Malraun, and think yourself her master," he told the darkness. "Succeed or not, survive or not. I care not. Her mind is an open door into yours, and you are mine as surely as she is, whenever I care to reach out and take you.
"And then squeeze."
The watchers saw the gold-hued bauble disappear entirely into Rod Everlar's palm, sinking out of sight beneath his unbroken, unblemished flesh.
With a squeal of grinding metal, the armored guardian took another step forward, blade reaching out menacingly.
Rod Everlar reeled, raised a hand to his head, and fell, toppling onto his face without a sound, to lie in an unmoving heap right in front of the lumbering guardian.
Taeauna rushed to stand over him, sword raised against the reach of the looming guardian. Garfist and Iskarra looked at each other and with one accord spun around and fled back along the passage, leaving Deldragon standing alone where he was, stroking his mustache as he watched the guardian take another ponderous step, and then another.
The velduke seemed to reach a decision. He drew his dagger and snapped at the Aumrarr, "Get back! Yon guardian will kill you."
"If it does," Taeauna told him, her voice trembling on the edge of tears, "it does. Nothing in all Falconfar matters more than keeping this man alive right now."
Deldragon stared at her as the guardian took another slow step, and swung its sword that was longer than either of them stood tall, up and back, ready to sweep down and shear through anything less solid than an ox or a stone pillar. Then it paused again, waiting, motionless and expressionless.
The velduke stared up at it, then drew another dagger from his boot and hurried to Taeauna. "He's a Shaper, isn't he?" he asked quietly, his eyes very blue.
The Aumrarr drew in a deep breath and then let it out slowly, shuddering like a terrified child. Her face was white.
"He's the Shaper," she whispered. "Until he dies, and most of Falconfar with him."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Whole once more," Arlaghaun murmured contentedly, striding naked across the room with water dripping from him in a racing flood.
He had to walk briskly away, he knew, and firmly quell what he wanted to do now: take a longing look back at the pool. Its glows would be beckoning, he knew, and that was when it was at its most dangerous. If he slid back into its warm embrace, that was when memories would leave him, unregarded until he later needed them, reached for them, and found them utterly gone.
Which could well be fatal to the friendless, much-feared wizard Arlaghaun, most feared of the Dooms of Falconfar, and rightly so.
He allowed himself a tight little smile as he took down his least favorite cloak to dry himself with, wasting no time in toweling but simply donning it as if he were dry and clad, and wearing it close-clasped around him as he walked on in search of what he really wanted.
His rings and the wandwing, yes, but here on the shelf nearby, his best sword of spells, its blade winking a welcome of sparkling stars to him as he half drew it and then slid it firmly into its sheath again. The pendant that would turn aside blades, and the gorget that would blunt most spells. An unseen dagger that only his questing fingers could confirm still rode in its sheath, to wear up one sleeve, and an archer's bracer that was anything but what it appeared to be, to wear up the other. The slumbering spells it stored flickered into life at his touch.
Yes, these were happy to see him, these familiar magics, loyal and worthy of his trust, his closest friends in Falconfar.
Not that they had many rivals for such a title. Arlaghaun shrugged. When he wanted loving arms about him, he could compel such company; the rest of the time he was spared all of the life-wasting fripperies of pleasing friends, doing things for friends, entertaining friends… Bah! Friends! What use were such leeches, but to drain his wealth and time and power from him, stealing his freedom as surely as they stole a coin-worth here and a coin there?
He needed to gird himself with his strongest things of magic in as much haste as he could manage now, to go hunting the familiar stranger, Deldragon, and the rest.
None of them must be allowed to live, to flee this place and tell their stories of his weakness to others. For if they could draw blood so easily, and others heard of it, half the wolves in Falconfar would rush in to try their luck.
He caught up breeches and a tunic impatiently, tugging them on over his still-damp body. Swiftly, before they found one of his gates, or managed mischief… The sword, kick his feet into boots, the rings now… Haste haste haste!
Like a vengeful whirlwind he strode past the mirror that showed him his own blazing brown eyes, sharp nose, and thin lips-thinner than usual right now, by the Falcon! — and rounded a corner. Flinging the right door wide, he strode-
Almost into a pit that should not have opened in the floor at all! What the Falcon?
Arlaghaun sprang over it, took another step, and swayed back as arms folded out of the walls, propelling scything blades. Their deadly arcs shrieked sparks from his shielding-spells as he ducked his head down and went on, skidding to a stop and… Yes, the floor was opening up under his boots again!
He was under attack from all the tricks, traps, and creatures of his tower!
"But…" he spat in vain protest, as the seemingly solid stone of a nearby pillar faded away to reveal a tall, thin creature that unfolded into something that looked like a grounded bat, or a flesh-covered spider; all long, grotesque limbs ending in talons or large-fanged jaws instead of hands.
Several of those jaws grinned unpleasantly as it stalked forward to greet him, great arms stretching to clutch and rend.
Amalrys smiled into the glowing crystal with eyes that were very, very blue. "Dance, master," she murmured. "Dance as you force me to, and taste the whips, for once!"
Arlaghaun was raging silently in the depths of the crystal, loath to ruin automatons he'd created and beasts he'd captured and trained. He was beset on all sides, his brown eyes two flames of fury. His sharp-nosed face was bleeding copiously, laid open by the barbs of the krauglaur towering over him. Amalrys awakened bone scorpions and freed them from their hidden lairs, to join the fun.