Ed Greenwood - Arch Wizard

There was nothing to write on, though, and the monster was turning to regard him, slow and massive, baleful menace in its great gloating eyes even before their gaze found him.

Turning, so huge that its tread and throat-rumbling were shaking the high landing where he stood, sending small shards crumbling off the steps below and tumbling down to…

It was a greatfangs, the largest he'd ever seen, bigger than any dragon, and there were more of its kind-smaller, but each one still easily larger than a castle as they glided past-filling the sky behind it.

The greatfangs was reaching out its huge neck, crashing through a space in the castle in front of Rod that wasn't large enough for it. Its great bony beak of a snout came at Rod like a thrusting dagger, the flaring ridges of the widening head behind all those fangs hurling down stones with an ongoing clatter.

Folk were screaming and running out of the groaning, leaning keep now, as shattered stone-work plunged down around them.

Rod found himself staring in fascination at the forest of upthrust horns atop the head of the greatfangs, the many spines that defend the head of every greatfangs from the closing jaws of larger greatfangs and of dragons.

Staring as it all came nearer… he could do nothing with his bloody pen or his puny sword… the eyes of the greatfangs kindled into the bright glee of the devourer, its forest of fangs parted, and the snout came for him…

Rod came awake shouting.

Or had he cried out? The echoes of something were ringing in his ears, he thought, but Malragard seemed silent and empty around him.

He was sitting upright atop his heap of clothes, sweating, his heart pounding in fear as he stared into the darkness.

Fear… and anger, too, like red coals under it getting ready to flare. He'd not dreamed so vividly and so, so… energetically for years, and never had a dream held so much of the astonishing and utterly unfamiliar.

Malraun. It must be Malraun tampering with his dreams.

Oh, not deliberately, riding his mind and meddling-why bother, when a Doom of Falconfar could so much more easily blast any mind he could enter, or conquer will and thought and memory, to enslave the owner of the mind?

No, this was more, uh, automatic. As if it was happening to him just because he was inside Malraun's fortress, and so within reach of spells the wizard had cast to affect everyone like this.

Rod swiped the back of his arm across his drenched face.

So, were greatfangs flying through the skies above a keep somewhere in Falconfar, or smashing open the front of that fortress to turn and menace a man in a red cloak, who was standing alone on a high stone terrace one moment and gone into empty air the next?

Just because he, a Shaper, the Lord Archwizard of Falconfar, dreamed matters stood thus?

Or was he just a sleepy, deluded writer of thrillers and fantasy trilogies who had no real power at all? A bumbler who could do nothing in Falconfar unless some lurking wizard or other worked magic to make things happen, hiding behind Rod Everlar as a cover for their deeds…

Taeauna fought to scream out her rage, but managed only the faintest of gasps. Lorontar's will was a great fist of power against her feeble infant's fumblings, flooding through her and leaving her dazed and helpless.

Flooding through her not to slay or savage, but to soothe.

Caress and cozen not the mind of Taeauna of the Aumrarr, but that of the man sprawled atop her, the wizard who styled himself Malraun the Matchless.

To keep him deeply asleep, no matter what guards came shouting or seeking to shake him out of slumber, as morning came to Darswords.

Bound and helpless under him, Taeauna lay silent. Seething, but held in a grip that wouldn't allow her to so much as curse softly.

She'd never thought she'd miss cursing so much.

Iskarra shook her head again, trying not to spew what little was in her stomach. She'd just plunged out of spiraling red mists, a long and sickening fall that had ended-none too gently-in a landing on hard stone battlements in the gray and misty chill before dawn.

The battlements belonged to an unfamiliar keep that stood in a narrow green river valley, that was part of a labyrinth of side-vales, somewhere in the vast Raurklor.

She'd seen that much while hurtling down to… here.

Iskarra shook her head, wincing. Everything she looked at swam a little around its edges, and looked a trifle greener than it should. "What did you do to us?"

"Took you through a gate," Dauntra said tartly. "Wizards and high priests aren't the only ones who have a little magic."

"Yours came from something you carry, not a spell," Isk said calmly, trying not to show her horrible queasiness. "I was watching."

Dauntra shrugged, her smile fading not a whit.

"So where are we?" Garfist's grunt, from above and behind Iskarra, was as sour as it was resigned.

"Ironthorn," snapped Juskra, as she flapped her wings hard to slow her plunge-and dropped him the last foot or so onto the battlements. "The other end of it. Tesmer lands."

"This is Imtowers," Dauntra added softly.

Gar's grunt told all listening Falconfar that he was far from impressed.

He lurched to the rampart, looked down, then turned away. No escape there. Not and keep hold of life. He started the long trudge to where the battlements turned a corner, heading for where the hillside loomed and the drop would be less.

A dark shadow glided over him before he was halfway there, landed in his path, and folded her wings rather grimly.

The scarred Aumrarr wasn't in the best of humors. Garfist Gulkoun wasn't the lightest of men, and had the irritating habit, when dangling in the air as a burden, of twisting and kicking just as a side-gust struck. Wherefore her shoulders ached abominably.

"In there," Juskra told him, pointing.

Gar spared the stair-hutch she'd indicated not so much as a glance. He kept right on lumbering along the battlements toward her.

"Garfist Gulkoun," she added, voice sharpening, "that's the way down. Or rather, the only one that doesn't involve your neck-and probably most of the rest of you, too-getting thoroughly broken."

Face set, eyes flickering everywhere but at her as he strode, he gave no sign of having heard her words.

"Those stairs descend past three bedchambers that're very likely unoccupied this night, unless various of the younger Ismers have very swiftly returned from mischief they looked quite happy to be part of, in various elsewheres. The third step below the landing giving onto the main floor lifts up. The catch under it opens a door in the stairwell you'll never find otherwise, into the room where Lord Irrance Tesmer keeps the greater part of his spending-gems. In handy carry-coffers."

The striding man lifted a hand and firmly favored her with a gesture that was both dismissive and decidedly rude, and kept right on coming.

"Garfist," she added warningly.

He did not slow.

The Aumrarr sighed, bounded into the air in a violent clapping of wings that sent him staggering, and landed right behind him. He whirled with an oath, fists coming up, but it took her only a passing moment to slap the side of his neck as he turned.

His eyes went out like two snuffed candles, and he kept right on turning, plunging silently to the floor.

Iskarra darted forward, eyes wild. "What did you-?"

"Hush," Juskra replied soothingly, raising a hand on which a ring was glowing softly. That faint radiance certainly hadn't been there before. "He'll be able to move again very soon. And breathe."

Isk gave her a cold look. "If you've harmed him…"

"Very soon," Dauntra murmured, from just behind her.

The gaunt woman was unmollified. "We faced and fought Lyroses for you; why are you doing this to us?"