Something cold coiled around his wrist.
Another one slapped around his waist.
Revulsion filled him, and he thought Up! frantically, but the tentacle-owner was ready, and pulled down harder as he pulled up. His chest ached—this was taking too long. In a panic, Rod thought of water boiling into vapor inside a skin.
The tentacle on his wrist exploded.
Rod snapped his sword out and slashed through the manacle around his ankle as something huge hooted in pain and wrath beneath him, its voice filling all the watery world. Fear and horror battled inside him, and he chopped at the tentacle around his waist. Blood spurted from it, deepening the reddish cast of the water. He chopped again, saw another tentacle slamming down out of the murk and slashed at it, then chopped one more time at the arm around his waist. It fell free and he rocketed upward, agonized hooting echoing about him.
Rod shot out of the moat twenty feet into the air before he managed to contain his emotions enough to level off. Then the guilt hit, because the whole crag echoed with the agonized hoots coming from under the water. At least he could put the poor beast out of its misery.
So he did; he opened his mind, searching, winced at the pain coming from under the water but zeroed in on it, and poured every ounce of mental energy into a sudden searing stab.
Three arms lanced out of the water, straight and stiff, then went limp and fell back.
Rod floated in the air, shaken but relieved; the hooting had died, and so had the monster. The air and water were quiet once more. Rod sighed, then turned his attention to the gate before him. Shadows clustered there; below the iron teeth of the portcullis, it was dark and filled with gloom.
Rod screwed his courage to the sticking place and floated on in.
Darkness enveloped him, darkness filled with eerie moans. Not just one, mind you, but a dozen—first one, then another, then a third, then a fourth and a fifth and a sixth, a tenth, a twelfth, each on a different pitch, in a different voice, one dying as another began. Each voice held a different emotion, but the spectrum wasn't narrow—anger, lust for revenge, agony, horror, remorse—filling the whole castle with a droning, heartsick chord.
Something glowed in front of Rod, quickly becoming clear—the gowned form of a young woman with a bare skull beneath long, flowing hair, jaws parted in a wail of despair. Before Rod could shrink back, she faded, and a man appeared off to the side, a man with a sinister, scarred, malevolent face, and a skeletal body clothed in rags. He lifted a hand as though to strike, but faded even as he swung. A third spectre appeared opposite him, cloaked and hooded, baleful eyes glowing from the shadows within, a bony hand reaching out toward Rod.
He stepped right through it. There was a deep chill as the ghost's hand passed through his arm; then it was fading behind him. The next ghost appeared, but Rod drifted straight ahead, ignoring the fear that clamored within him—he was used to ghosts.
Not that he was ruling out a booby trap in phantom's guise, mind you. He was also drifting six inches off the floor, in case of sudden trapdoors or bear traps.
Finally, he grew tired of the phantoms and remembered his will-o'-the-wisp. With an impatient mental shrug, he made the ball of light appear in his hand. It gave off enough light to show him the stone walls and the arch-way beyond, but not enough to banish the ghosts; they kept appearing and disappearing before him as he moved toward the Great Hall, flanked by an honor guard of phantoms. The fear was still there, but it was contained by a feeling of irritation—after all the strain of getting in, he had expected something more than a trip through the Fun House.
Then he went through the archway, and found it.
The dais at the end of the hall was lighted by fireballs. Between them, on a tall, skinny throne, sat a bald man in a long red robe.
"Who comes against the sorcerer Brume?" demanded a deep and cavernous voice.
It was spooky, considering that the old man's lips hadn't moved; but Rod rechanneled the spurt of additional fear into irritation. He frowned. "Against you? Why do you automatically think I'm against you?"
The sorcerer sat immobile for a minute, nonplussed (Rod hoped), then answered, "None would come nigh Brume with goodwill. What seekest thou?"
"My right mind," Rod said instantly. "You cast a spell of madness on me, sorcerer. Take it off."
The man's lips peeled back from pointed teeth, and shrill, manic laughter filled the hall. Even though he was braced, Rod was shaken.
"Come closer," the deep voice commanded, though the laughter still echoed. "I would see the worm that dares command Brume."
Rod narrowed his eyes and marched right up to the dais—and wished he hadn't. Here, he could see the man's eyes. They were bloodshot, staring, and unfocused—mad.
Now the sorcerer spoke through his own lips, and his voice was like the wind through a thin reed. "Why dost thou think 'tis I that have laid madness on thee?"
"Who else would?" Rod countered.
"Hast no enemies?" the sorcerer demanded. "Are there none else who would wish thee ill?"
"There are a few," Rod admitted. Privately, he was beginning to wonder to whom the deep voice had belonged.
"Ask of those who have fought thee, then," the sorcerer commanded, and the deep voice proclaimed, "Thou art naught to Brume, mortal man. Why should he care for thee, he who hath ranked demons at his command?"
"Not the only thing that's rank," Rod growled. "As to the 'why,' I think you know who I am, and what I'm capable of. I tell you again: remove your spell!"
"I tire of this game," the sorcerer snapped, and fire blazed up between them, a sheet of flame that quickly ran in a circle around Rod, then began pressing in.
Smoke rose from his cloak, and Rod yelped at the burn. Hallucination or not, this was entirely too convincing for comfort. He fought to concentrate, managed a semi-trance where he thought of an ice cube crunching in on itself at absolute zero—and the flames died down.
The sorcerer stared.
"You mean you didn't know who I was?" Rod set a foot on the step up to the dais. "Now, about that spell…"
"Avaunt!" Brume threw a lightning ball.
Rob hopped aside, drawing his sword, dropped to one knee, and leaned the sword against the dais. The lightning ball swerved toward him, hit the sword, and grounded out with a huge explosion.
The sorcerer's eyes bulged.
Rod tapped the charred remnant of sword, frowning, to see if it was too hot to touch. He thought of the ice cube again, then picked up the sword, envisioning a yard-long rapier. The blade renewed itself, taking on the sheen of good steel once more. Rod nodded, satisfied, and looked up at Brume. "I get it. You really are a magic-worker—in Gramarye, I mean; there, you're an esper. A pyrotic."
"What fool's words are these!" the huge voice boomed, and a spear detached itself from the wall and shot toward Rod.
Rod sidestepped, parrying with the sword. "Okay, so you're a telekinetic, too! Want me to show you what / can do?"
The sorcerer's eyes narrowed and, suddenly, Rod was floating off the floor, turning upside down. "Hey, look! You already showed me you were a TK! Okay for vow!" He dove at Brume, pushed with his own mind. He felt the thrust of force that tried to deflect him, but bored on through it. The sorcerer shouted in alarm and shot out of his chair, dodging aside from Rod in the nick of time.