Elaine Cunningham - The Best of the Realms, Book I

Without alarm or movement, and as soon as the knightwas disarmed and disarmored, the mage Dorsoom stood inside the closed andbolted door. Sir Paramore started, and an approbation rose to his lips as hesat up in bed.

But the mage spoke first, in a sly hiss: "I knowwhat you have done, monstrous man."

Sir Paramore stood up, gawking for a moment in rageand amazement before reaching for his spell-slaying sword. His hand nevertouched the hilt, though, for in that instant the mage cast an enchantment onhim that froze his body like ice.

Seeing Paramore rendered defenseless, Dorsoom saidwith a cat's purr, "Most folk in this land think you a valiant knight, butI know you are not. You are a vicious and cruel and machinating monster."

Though he could not move feet or legs or arms, SirParamore found his tongue: "Out of here! Just as my young knights slewyour assassin, I will slay you!"

"Do not toy with me," said the black-beardedmage. "Your sword dispels magic only when in your grip; without it, youcan do nothing against me. Besides, neither Ferris nor I am the true assassin.You are."

"Guards! Save me!" cried Paramore toward theyet-bolted door.

"I know how you arranged the kidnappings. I knowhow you hired those five men to abduct the noblemen's children," said themage.

"What?" roared the knight, struggling topossess his own body but bringing only impotent tremors to his legs.

The guards outside were pounding and calling forassurances.

"I know how you met with your five kidnappers topay them for their duties," continued the mage. "But they receivedonly your axe as their payment."

"Guards! Break down the door!"

"I know how you took the clothes of one of thekidnappers you had slain, dressed in them, masqueraded in front of thechildren as him, and in cold blood slew Jeremy for all their eyes to see. Iknow how later, in guise of the noble knight you never were, you rushed in tofeign saving the rest of the children," said the mage, heat entering histone for the first time.

The guards battered the bolted door, which had begunto splinter.

Paramore shouted in anguish, "In the name of allthat is holy-!"

"You did it all for the hand of the princess; youhave killed even children to have her hand. You orchestrated the kidnapping,played both villain and hero, that you might extort a pledge of marriage inexchange for rescuing them."

The tremors in Sir Paramore legs had grown violent; bythe mere contact of his toe against the bedpost, his whole pallet shook, as didthe scabbarded sword slung on the bed knob.

"I know how you sent this note," the mageproduced a crumpled slip of paper from his pocket and held it up before him,"to Lord Ferris, asking him to come up tonight to see you, and knowingthat your 'knights' would waylay him."

"It's not even my handwriting," shouted Paramore.

He shook violently, and the rattling blade tilted downtoward his stony leg.

Louder came the boot thuds on the door. The crackle ofsplintering wood grew. With a gesture, though, Dorsoom cast a blue glow aboutthe door, magic that made it as solid as steel.

"And in that bag," cawed the mage, knowinghe had all the time in the heavens, "in the bag that late held the fiveheads of the five abductors lies the head of Jeremy-the head you carved out toform a puppet to appear at the foot of Petra's bed!"

The mage swooped down to the sack of heads, but hishand never clasped it. In that precise moment, the mighty sword Kneuma jiggledfree and struck Paramore's stony flesh, dispelling the enchantment on him. Amouse's breath later, that same blade whistled from its scabbard to descend onthe bended neck of the sorcerer.

As the razor steel of Paramore sliced the head fromthe court magician, so too it sundered the spell from the door. The guards whoburst then into the room saw naught but a shower of blood, then the disjoinedhead propelled by its spray onto the bed and Dorsoom's body falling in a heapacross the red-stained sack, soaked anew.

Seeing it all awrong, the guards rushed in to restrainParamore. Whether from the late hour or the outrageous claims of the wizard orthe threat of two warriors on one, Sir Paramore's attempt to parry the bladesof the guards resulted in the goring of one of them through the eye. Thewounded man's cowardly partner fell back and shouted an alarm at the head ofthe stair. Meantime Paramore, pitying the man whose bloodied socket his swordtip was lodged in, drove the blade the rest of the way into the brain to grantthe man his peace.

An alarm went up throughout the castle: "Paramoreis the murderer! Stop him! Slay him!"

Sir Paramore watched the other guard flee, then kneltbeside the fallen body at his feet. A tear streaked down his noble cheek, andhe stared with unseeing eyes upon the sanguine ruin of his life. Determined toremember the man who destroyed it all, he palmed the head of Dorsoom and thrustit angrily into his sack, where it made a thudding sound. Then he stoodsolemnly, breathed the blood- and sweat-salted air, and strode from the room,knowing that even if he escaped with his life, he would be unrighteously banished.

And he was.

"And that, dear friends," rasped the robedstranger, his left hand stroking his black beard, "is the tragic tale ofthe greatest hero who ever lived."

The room, aside from the crackle of the hearth fireand the howl of the defiant wind, was dead silent. The people who had oncescorned this broken hovel of a man stared toward him with reverence and awe. Itwasn't his words. It wasn't his story, but something more fundamental abouthim, more mystic and essential to his being. Magic. Those who once would havedenied him a thimble of water would happily feast him to the best of theirfarms, would gladly give their husbands and sons to him to be soldiers, theirwives and daughters to him to be playthings. And that ensorcelled reverence wasonly heightened by his next words.

"And that, dear friends, is the tragic tale ofhow I came to be among you." Even the wind and the fire stilled to hearwhat had to follow. "For, you see, I am Sir Paramore."

With that, he threw back the yet-sodden rags that haddraped him, and from the huge bundle that had been the body of the strangeremerged a young, elegant, powerful, platinum-eyed warrior. His face was verydifferent from the wizened and sepulchral one that had spoken to them. Thelatter-the dismembered head of Dorsoom-was jammed down puppetlike past thewrist on the warrior's right hand. The dead mouth of the dead wizard moved eventhen by the device of the warrior's fingers, positioned on the bony palate andin the dry, rasping tongue. Throughout the night, throughout the long telling,the gathered villagers had all listened to the puppet head of a dead man.

The old man's voice came from the young man's mouth ashis fingers moved the jaw and tongue.

"Believe him, ye people! Here is the greatesthero who ever lived."

A brown-black ooze clung in dribbles to Paramore'sforearm.

Only Horace, stumbling into the taproom, was horrifiedby the sight; the depravity did not strike the others in the slightest. Thesimple folk of Capel Curig left their chairs and moved wonderingly up towardthe towering knight and his grisly puppet. They crowded him just as thechildren had done in the story. Cries of "Teach us, O knight! Lead us,Paramore! Guard us and save us from our enemies!" mingled with groans andtongues too ecstatic for human words.

In their center, the beaming sun of their adorationstretched out his bloodied hand and enwrapped them.

"Of course I will save you. Only follow me and bemy warriors, my knights!"

"We would die for you!"

"Let us die for you!"

"Paramore! Paramore!"

The praises rose up above the rumble of the wind andthe growl of the fire, and the uplifted hands of the people could havethrust the roof entire from the inn had Paramore only commanded it.