If Lord Constable Farland loved him not, too bad, and what a proud badge that dislike was, betokening his own proper fulfillment of his duties. A beloved seneschal was a lax seneschal, or even a seneschal happily and frequently bribed. And he would never be either the one or the other, by the Dragon on the Throne, oh, no, not Marthin Avath-
Someone interrupted his thoughts, just then.
Forever.
Someone reached out from a dark, yawning doorway just behind the strutting seneschal-where a door should not have stood open, a lapse Avathnar really should have noticed, though securing interior doors was more properly a constabulary duty-and briskly plucked the seneschal’s grandly plumed helm off his head. That headgear had always been a trifle too large for Avathnar, and came off easily-straight up, into midair. The same someone then stabbed a fireplace poker with brutal force, log-spike first, into the back of the seneschal’s exposed and balding head, crushing Avathnar’s overlarge skull like a raw egg.
There was just enough time, as the little man swayed onward but hadn’t yet toppled, to drop the helm back into place. A bare instant before Marthin Avathnar smacked down on his face like a large and fresh flounder being slapped down on a kitchen beating board to be flensed into mush for a fish sauce.
The wielder of the poker melted silently away, and a tomblike silence descended on the passage. It lasted for some time before the sound of distant boots arose, strolling in the right-or wrong, depending on one’s viewpoint-direction.
Marthin Avathnar had been a coldly polite, precise man. It was his duty to be so, but it was a duty that suited him and one he did all too well. Wherefore no one in Castle Irlingstar liked him. Not even his personal staff. As for the noble prisoners confined at Irlingstar, they didn’t like any of their captors much. So it was hardly to be expected two of them would grieve when they came upon Avathnar’s body. In fact, had a guard not been right behind that first pair of nobles, and hastened upon catching a glimpse of an armored form sprawled on the flagstones, they’d have swiftly plundered the dead man for weapons or keys. As it was, the two nobles merely bent to make sure the gleaming-armored seneschal of Irlingstar was dead, smirked when they saw he was, then went to lean against the nearest wall to fold their arms and enjoy the spreading tumult among their captors.
“I’m left quite desolate by this,” one noble murmured merrily.
“Oh?” another drawled. “Myself, I grieve deeply.”
“Desolated, are you? I was desolated once …” A third sneered, joining them.
“Go from this place,” the guard snapped at them. “All of you.”
None of the prisoners moved.
“Move,” the guard added. “Get you gone. Now.”
“Or?” A noble asked tauntingly, eyebrows rising in exaggerated fear.
“Or I’ll regard you as murderers, and execute you forthwith,” the guard said firmly, half-drawing his sword. “Before you can get word to your families or anyone else.”
Scowling, the three nobles pushed themselves off from the wall as slowly as they dared, dispensing rude gestures and insults, and retreated. Not far.
Glowering at them and keeping one hand near the hilt of his ready sword, the guard unlocked a door and struck the alarm gong waiting in the closet behind it. Then he went to stand over the body, giving it a glare for good measure.
This was going to be bad.
It was bad already, and if his years of service had taught him anything at all, things were going to get worse at Irlingstar before they got better.
Much worse.
The little eyeball floated just out of reach, just as it always did, its silent stare mocking him.
Mreldrake tried not to look at it, but he could feel the weight of its regard every instant, as he struggled to wield his new magic with ease and precision and not the wild, sweating messes his last few castings had been.
It was hard, hrast it all! Holding empty air together in a sharp, slicing edge of hardened force, an edge gathered around his own awareness, so he could “see” out of it at a distance and through solid walls and other barriers he couldn’t truly see through or around. That edge could cleave stone, with enough firm will behind it.
Far more strength of will than Rorskryn Mreldrake seemed to have, even when fiercely determined or desperate. Whenever he dragged his wavering edge of force into a wall or floor, the spell broke, leaving him reeling and clutching his aching head, half-blinded by a sudden flood of tears and momentarily at a loss to recall where he was or what he’d been trying to do.
Right now, in a bare room very similar to the one he was trapped in, on the far side of what until a short time ago he’d thought was a solid wall, a chicken was roaming freely. Pecking, strutting, even fluttering … as his will-driven edge of force pursued it, seeking to decapitate it.
It had seemed such a simple command: “Behead yon fowl.”
His view of the room wavered again, and with a curse he fought to focus the air once more into a sharp, clear edge. And … succeeded. He was drenched in sweat, tiring fast, and this hrasted chicken seemed to want to fly!
It fluttered its wings again, bounding into the air and squawking loudly. Across the room it scurried, flapping this way and that as it went, and bobbing up and down, too. Almost as if it were taunting him, just like the watching eyeball.
Die, you stupid bird, die!
Savagely Mreldrake bore down with his will, sweeping his invisible blade of force up and after the chicken.
Which obligingly landed, folded its wings, blinked, and started to peck.
It bobbed up, took a few steps, looked around-and bobbed again, a scant instant before Mreldrake’s blade swept through the spot where its neck had been.
“Nooo, you tluining little harrucker!” he spat, his mind-view of the room next door wavering again as his blade started to thicken, wobble, and slide toward collapse.
“No! Not this time!”
In a sharp surge of rage he narrowed the blade again and turned it, not caring if he crushed the fowl or starved it of breath by sucking every last whit of air in that room into his killing blade. This chicken was doomed!
Thinner and sharper than ever, the blade swept down. The chicken bobbed down to peck, took two slow steps forward without straightening up, then suddenly reared up to blink, look around, blink again, and look satisfied.
Which was when he finally reached it-and took off its head with the ease of a rushing wind, without it so much as uttering a peep. The bloody head landed with a wet plop behind him as his sharp awareness rushed on, and the room around him turned over and over, wavering … and was gone.
Exhausted, Mreldrake sagged down, stinging sweat running into his eyes, seeing his own prison chamber once more. The secret door he’d not known about before today, the one that connected his room to the one he’d just beheaded the chicken in, swung slowly open by itself to reveal the tiny, headless feathered bundle swaying amid much blood.
“Well, now,” came the voice of one of his captors out of the empty air above him. “Progress we can all be proud of.”
Yes, those words held distinct mockery.
“Rorskryn Mreldrake, you’ve earned your supper. Well done.”
Too breathless to answer, Mreldrake lay with his eyes closed, already knowing what the voice would say next.