And the silent shrieking shadows gibbered noiselessly.
Suddenly Elyn found that she was listening, intently, not to the soundless tittering screaming shadows but to something outside the tower. “Hearken, Thork!” she sissed, and he ceased his rummaging. In the quiet that followed they both heard the faint cries of the warders atop the walls. . or within the courtyard. . and the harsh clatter of gears. “Andrak! He returns! Let us fly from here!”
Swiftly they strode from the chamber, Thork pausing to twist a knob that would latch the lock, closing the door behind with a click.
And outside, cloven hooves hammered up the road twisting ’round the dark companion spire.
Down the staircase along the wall they ran, down and through the clutching murk and across the library, past the books and tomes and scrolls and pamphlets and to the next open stairwell, Thork leading, Elyn following.
And a chariot boomed inward across the drawbridge.
Down into the smithy fled the twain, past the tables, past the forge, past the anvils, past the red throne and to the steps opposite. Down these they started, yet suddenly Thork stopped. “I have it!” he cried, and dashed back up the stone stair.
And through the gate hammered the Hèlsteeds, the iron-rimmed wheels slamming across the cobbles of the bailey.
“Wait, Thork,” cried Elyn, “you step beyond the protection of the amulet.” But the Dwarf was gone, not heeding her words; or mayhap her warning was lost in the labyrinth of shadows, the murk smothering the sound. Bewildered, Elyn ran after-the Wolfmage’s voice echoing in her mind: “. . one will die without the other. . ”-and she came back into the smithy; yet without Thork to guide her through the darkness she became disoriented and lost in the shadows-“. . without the other. . ” But suddenly she stepped to the edge of the gloom and dimly, by the rudden light of the glowing forge coals, she could see Thork across the room. He was at the table where lay the broken tools, and he reached out and took hold of the old rusted forge hammer with the cracked helve and the broken peen, and laughed, for what the eyes saw was not what the hands felt: the glamour cast upon the maul made it appear rusted, damaged, old, broken, yet his hands knew that this was the Rage Hammer, smooth, unbroken, with a marvelous balance and the touch and heft of starsilver. And Thork turned to go, and Elyn started to call out to him, yet suddenly, neither could move.
For Andrak had stepped into the room.
And he hissed arcane words. Words that burned into the mind and paralyzed. And his eyes glared into those of Thork. And pinned him in place as would a serpent’s gaze ensnare a rabbit.
Elyn wanted to scream, Run, Thork, run! but she found she could not, for though she was not the direct target of Andrak’s spell, still the very reflection of his power within the chamber rendered her virtually immobile: she could but barely move. Seeking aid, slowly, agonizingly, her left hand went to her throat, and clutched the silveron nugget. But even the touch of that puissant token did not break Andrak’s hold on her.
The Mage pushed back his hood, and Elyn did not know whether she looked upon a Man or an Elf. Dusky were his features, and narrow, his nose hooked, as a vulture. His slanted eyes seemed all black, and no pupil could be discerned. Casting aside the Hèlsteed whip that he bore in his left, he stalked toward Thork, one long grasping hand outstretched, claw-like, and an ebon substance coated his sharpened talons. And Elyn knew that it portended death to be scratched by the Mage’s black claws.
“So,” hissed Andrak, “it was you I sensed coming to steal that which I hold. Fool! Yet I give you this, Dubh: you have gotten farther than any other would-be hero who has sought after the accursed Kammerling: nine have tried, you are the tenth; all have failed; the last two, storm-slain by my hand.”
And suddenly Elyn knew that Andrak believed that Thork was alone; the Mage did not know that she stood in the shadows. And she knew that if she were but free, she could cut down the Magus with her saber. . yet she did not know whether she could reach him ere he slew Thork. What was wanted was a weapon in hand that could strike from afar: The Hèlsteed whip! Where did it skitter when he cast it down? She could not see it in the shadows. What else?. .-My sling! Fighting the stunning paralysis, with great effort, inch by struggling inch, Elyn managed to move her arm, to get her fingers to her waist, to slip her sling from her belt, to take it in throwing hand. But she knew that there was no way that she would have the control to untie the small bullet bag from her girt and undo the drawstring and withdraw a lead ball and load it. Yet even could she do all that, still she had not the wherewithal to sling a shot at the Mage, for she was like unto one who had been benumbed, nigh immobile. And so she stood there, left hand at her throat gripping the token of power, right hand at her waist holding her sling at her side.
And all the while Elyn had struggled to gain hold of her sling, Andrak’s voice had hissed through the shadows: “You are the tenth fool to come calling since that arrogant, preening Drake, Black Kalgalath, first bore the hammer unto me. Ten fools in twelve hundred years-three this year alone. Yet you are the only one to reach this spire, to breach my walls, to gain the tower, to step into this room, a trespassing for which you will pay a price beyond your worst nightmares.”
And beads of sweat stood out upon Thork’s brow as he struggled to move, yet not a muscle twitched, for he was the direct target of Andrak’s sorcery, and it was too powerful.
“Dubh,” sneered Andrak, “little did you know that my sentinel shadows shrieked warning the moment you intruded into my sanctum, my room atop this tower; but even so, still you somehow managed to escape being bound by my warding murk. Though I do not detect it, you must have some token of power about you, else you would even now be clutched in coils of blackness within my quarters. Heed! I would have that token so that in the future I may know how to ward against it, or one like it. Where is it hidden, Dubh? Where?. .
“Pah! You cannot answer, and it is of no importance, for I will find it when I have slain you.”
The dark Mage stepped the last step unto the transfixed Dwarf, Andrak’s voice once again a malevolent whisper. And there in the coils of twisting murk his hissing words fell like drops of death from a viper’s mouth: “Know this, Dubh, the manner of your death: When I touch you, you will break out in great dark pustules, and you will bloat, and turn black, and split open as would a days-old dead beast in a relentless Sun, and puss will spill from you as a malodorous flowing stream. Yet you will not be dead-though you will wish it were so-but alive instead, watching your own body swell and split and gush. Long will you scream in unremitting agony, to no avail, for you will indeed die in the end, not swiftly, mind you, but gradually, and in wracking pain in the days to come, amid the stench and spoil and corruption of your own body, a corruption that I will visit upon you. And slowly you will decay, a living rot, your shrieks becoming whines, becoming moans, becoming whispers, becoming a wordless bubbling as your lips decompose, as your lungs become a liquid putrescence, as your eyes dissolve, as your body becomes a cankerous liquescent running. In the end you will be nought but slime and bone. And when it is done, I will add another Dubh skull to my collection.”