Falconfar 03-Falconfar Read Free Page B

or suchlike baubles, just waiting for some unsuspecting r-zrson to happen along, pick the glittering lure up out of the dust—and get taken over by the ruthless Lorontar, on the spot.
    Everyone seemed to think that he, Rod Everlar, was some sort of hero who would know exactly how to set Falconfar to rights and set about it, seeing into the minds of everyone, blasting the villains, lauding the gallant and aiding the oppressed. Hell, beyond the lorn and the Dark Helms and every wizard, he didn't even know who the villains were, though he was beginning to think every last knight and noble, except perhaps Velduke Deldragon and Baron Tindror in Galath, reveled in being as dastardly as they could be.
    Taeauna had brought him here to be Falconfar's savior and hero. Rod knew she now knew better, yet liked him anyway. Even if her respect for him as the all-knowing Fixer of Wrongs was gone and she knew he was a bumbling idiot without her constant guidance, she knew he tried to be a good guy, and his blood was still useful for healing, too, and—
    Oh, yes, that. He'd almost forgotten about that.
    Falling bruisingly onto his left shoulder for about the fortieth time—it would have been his nose, if his head hadn't been turned around hard to look over his shoulder—Rod watched tumbling stones and heaving tiles and a darkness that might have been Malraun the Matchless vanish down that greatfangs' maw and wondered if drinking his own blood could heal him enough to bring him right back to life after he'd died.
    Probably not, if he'd spilled it all.

     
    NARMARKOUN STARED UP at sharp-bladed death.
    The body that was now his was more shapely than most of his playpretties, and showed no signs of decay at all. His spell had long kept it supple and strong, not a decaying thing.
    He could see in the eyes of the men confronting him over their drawn swords—a motley band of warriors, a score of them or more, all strangers to him—that the bared body he now inhabited was beautiful.
    And that they were scared of him despite his whimpering on the floor before them, and his obvious lack of a blade. He—no, to their eyes, she-, he must not forget that—was no grotesque horror to any gaze, yet her sleekness was the cold gray of undeath, of the sort they'd been seeing—and hewing apart in terror—since they'd arrived here.
    Which had not been long ago, by the looks of them. He knew his holds held little in the way of warmth or food for the living, and this castle was no different from the rest. Nor treasure that could be easily found, for that matter. They'd come here seeking something they would not find.
    Which made them doubly dangerous. He had no spells left at the moment with which to fight them, no things of magic near at hand that he could snatch up to blast them with, and no more runes to whisk him to the safety of another body elsewhere, if he was hewn down now.
    In short, as the Falconfar saying went, if he walked not right carefully now, his striding would be straight to his final doom.
    "Slay me not!" he pleaded, hearing the hoarse, long-unused voice grate out of his throat higher and lighter than his own speech. Their eyes bored into him, looking him up and down, seeing him as a woman one moment, and an undead thing the next... and then a woman again.
    Well enough. He would be a woman, helpless and timid, and rope thereby to survive, to—
    "Who are you?" one of the warriors demanded, waving the tip of his sword through the air right in front of the kneeling, trembling woman's throat.
    "D-Daera, I am called," Narmarkoun replied, knowing it to be the truth. Even with the mind that had belonged to this body quite burned away and gone, the name clung to the skull. Even farmers' daughters knew their own names. "Daera. I am a slave to the wizard Narmarkoun, Doom of Falconfar. A pleasure-slave. This is his castle."
    "So much we know," another warrior growled. "Where is he?"
    "I know not," Narmarkoun replied, spreading her hands and