Richard Byers - The Shattered Mask

"We have sentries watching all four faces of the castle?" he asked.

"Yes," Bileworm replied.

"Make a circuit," Marance said. "Make certain they're at their posts. Meanwhile, I will indeed attempt 'a little magic.' "

Actually, it would be one of the most powerful spells in his repertoire, which was why he hadn't used it hitherto. Sorceries drew their power primarily from the fundamental forces and structure of the cosmos, but also drained a measure of the caster's vitality. Ordinary wizards restored their strength with rest and nourishment, but, suspended between life and death as he was, Marance had discovered that such commonplace measures would not replenish him. Perhaps his liege lord had arranged it thus to insure that he wouldn't attempt to remain in the realm of the living forever, but must return in due time to the iron city of Dis.

Petty spells, like the ones that had summoned the osquips, lizard men, and tlincallis, leeched away such an infinitesimal fraction of his strength that he cast them freely. Greater magic, however, required enough to make him pause and consider. He saw little reason to hold back when the man he wished to chastise most of all was at his mercy.

He took out his bag and candle, held them high, and whispered the charm. The candle spat blue flame ten feet into the air, and then the ground began to shake.

The first tremor nearly jolted Shamur off her aching, unsteady legs. Clutching the gate to steady herself, she peeked out at the clearing.

Violet light pulsed on the snow at the foot of the motte, and then, with a sustained, grinding roar, twisting and thrashing as it emerged from its confinement, a black, vaguely manlike shape outlined in purple fire heaved itself up from beneath the shroud of white. Pale eyes glittered in its crude lump of a head. The sustained quaking ceased with its birthing, but its lurching strides were themselves sufficient to shake the ground as it started up the slope.

Shamur had once seen an earth elemental conjured, and she reckoned this creature was something similar. But this was much bigger, so huge that the sandstone battlements only came up to its breast. So immense that she had no hope of fighting it.

She started to scramble backward, and then, too vast to pass through the gate, without hesitation it simply walked through the wall. The bulwark exploded into rubble, filling the night with hurtling, plummeting scraps of rock.

One advantage of conjuring a servant tall as a tower, Marance reflected, was that he could watch it do its work even when it was standing inside an enclosure. The corrupted elemental lifted its fists above its head, then slammed them down, over and over again. Surely, it was smashing Thamalon and Shamur into jelly.

A creature created for rage and mindless destruction, the giant then proceeded to tear down the entire fortress, and the crash and rumble of stone thundered through the night. The rogues stared in awe. Bound by Marance's command to seek and slay the Uskevren, osquips, lizard men, and tlincallis advanced helplessly into the heart of the demolition, no doubt to be crushed by falling debris. With a modicum of effort, the wizard could have freed them of the compulsion, but given their ephemeral status, it scarcely seemed worthwhile. Like his band of scoundrels, he preferred to stand at his ease and watch the spectacle.

When the destruction was complete, Marance pulled his staff from the ground and murmured a spell of dismissal. The elemental crumbled like a clod of mud dissolving in a rainstorm.

Marance turned to Bileworm and said, "You quiz the sentries. I'm going to take a look at the wreckage."

Lengthening his legs to take longer paces, the familiar hurried away. The wizard headed for the motte, then glanced back at his two bodyguards, who, thus prompted, reluctantly trailed along behind him.

When he reached the crest of the mound, Marance saw that the devastation was, if anything, even more all-encompassing than it had looked from a distance. Absolutely nothing remained but a field of crushed stone and the heap of earth left by the departure of the elemental.

Bileworm loped out of the dark. "According to the watchers, the Uskevren never came out," he said. "Not over the top of a wall, and not through any sort of postern, either."

"They're buried somewhere beneath all this, then," said Marance, and with that utter certainty came a blaze of exultation tempered with just a hint of anticlimax. He'd craved his revenge for so long, and now, abruptly, the truly important part of it was over. "Farewell, Thamalon. We're quits now, or will be, once I kill your children." He started back down the motte, and his attendants followed.

"How long will the slaughter take, do you think?" Bile-worm asked.

"A day or two at most," Marance said, "for Nuldrevyn and Ossian both agree that the sons, Thamalon the Second and Talbot, are wastrels and fools. The daughter, Thazi-enne, might have more brains and gumption, but she's ill. I daresay the two of us can sit back and watch while our friends here"-he nodded at the bodyguards-"do the bulk of the work."

While the surviving osquips, tlincallis, and lizard men vanished, their summonings running out of power, Garris assembled the bravos for the trek back to the horses. Just as he declared them ready to depart, Marance noticed a small object gleaming in the moonlight atop a patch of trampled, blood-spattered snow. He idly stooped to inspect it, observed it was Shamur's brooch, and picked it up.

"A trophy?" Bileworm asked.

"If you like," the wizard replied. "A little memento to set on a shelf back home."

Tamlin had just succeeded in luring the giggling Nenda and Vinda, the buxom twins who served ale, wine, and liquor at the Laughing Gamecock, into the closet, when someone rudely took hold of his shoulder and shook him. He turned, opened his eyes, and the closet turned into his own spacious featherbed, just as, judging from the sunlight streaming through the casement, night had changed to morning.

Tamlin's head pounded, and his mouth was dry as dust. Squinting against the glare, he scowled at the freckle-faced, pug-nosed fellow who'd awakened him. "I could have you flogged for this," he said, and then regretted it, a little.

If Escevar resented this reminder that, although Tamlin's closest friend, he was also a mere servant, no one could have told it from his unwavering smile. "You told me to wake you," he said.

"Impossible," Tamlin said, "for you jolted me out of a beautiful dream into a hideous nightmare. Weeping Ilmater, my head!"

"I have the remedy," Escevar said, his auburn curls shining in the light from the window. "Hair of the dog." He gestured to the nightstand, and the uncorked wine bottle and silver goblet sitting atop it.

"You torturer!" Tamlin exclaimed. "Why didn't you point it out before?"

Disdaining the cup, he fumbled the bottle into his unsteady hand and guzzled from the neck. Usk's Fine Old, the spiced clarry his father made, slid down his throat to ease his hangover. It amused him to think how disgusted the old man would be to see him gulp it so. The bottle was half empty when he finally took it away from his lips.

"Better?" Escevar asked.

"Marginally," Tamlin said. In truth, he felt quite a bit better, but wasn't quite ready to relinquish the martyr's role. "Why in Sune's name did I want you to wake me?"

"You and I, Gellie Malveen, and some others are going hawking, and we're likely to be late if you don't hurry."

"I'm not going to be late. I'm not going at all. Gellie's an ass to plan an outing before noon." He made a show of settling back down on the bed.

"As you wish, Deuce. Sleep well." Escevar turned toward the door.

"No, wait," Tamlin forced himself to throw back his covers and sit up on the side of the bed. Though a fire still crackled in the hearth, the parquet floor was cold against the soles of his feet. "We were going to take Brom along, weren't we? And collect Fendolac along the way?"