Free Falconfar 03-Falconfar by Ed Greenwood Page A

these stairs ran down not to a door, but into the open darkness of a lower level, with passages running off—cold, dank stone, all blocks of different sizes, fitted together, with old mold everywhere on them—in several directions.
    Not deep enough. He needed solid stone around him to be safe from the talons behind him, though there was always the risk of being entombed by all their digging. Surely the greatfangs wouldn't keep after him forever, when there must be easier prey around? After all, he hadn't done them any harm; their rage couldn't be at Rod Everlar.
    Oh, shit. Unless a wizard was guiding their thoughts. Using them, like trained dogs, to do his digging for him. No, worse than trained—mind-thralled, enslaved to be as controlled as the knives and forceps a surgeon held in his hands when cutting into a patient.
    Urrgh. Enough of that.
    Rod banished thoughts of spurting blood and steaming red innards and got himself down the rest of the steps just as fast as he could scoop up the things he'd dropped. One of them had broken in half, and he stopped long enough to peer hard at it in the light of the spindle, then shrug and toss its pieces away. It didn't look as if it had ever held magic, but if it had, all that power was fled now. It was just broken.
    Someday, if he ever became Lord Archwizard in truth, he'd come back and find those two pieces and Shape them back together and make it something magic. Someday.
    If ever.
    Right now, he had four—no, five; one of them split into two about three strides along it—passages to choose from, and a greatfangs right at the head of the stair now, its long talons reaching down...
    Rod chose the largest-looking passage and sprinted along it, arms wrapped more securely around his loot. What need would a powerful wizard have to hide the way to his lower cellars? Who would dare go snooping after his secrets, when an invisible, silently waiting spell could turn them into frogs if they reached the wrong place?
    Wait. Turn him into frog, too?
    "Shit," he gasped aloud, running hard. "Shit shit shit shit shit." Ah, we writers; so eloquent, aren't we?
    He found himself grinning at that—a grin that widened as the passage came to an end in a stair leading down, a stair that for the
    first time had walls and—yes!—a ceiling of rough, chisel-scarred stone. Solid rock at last!
    It could end up being his tomb, yes, but then so could any patch of grass or castle room in all Falconfar, with a greatfangs—or six—chasing him. And the one fate might lurk in the future, whereas the other awaited him right now.
    The stairs started to curve, angling around to the right and becoming even steeper. Colder, too—and for the first time it occurred to Rod that the magic that gave the spindle its glow might have limits. He'd better know how to grope his way back to this stair in utter darkness, from wherever he ended up at the bottom of it.
    Which was going to be someplace pretty darned deep, by the looks of things. A vast labyrinthine world in the darkness under the earth, like in so many fantasy novels he'd read; so many endless copies of Moria?
    The stairs took a last abrupt hook to the right and ended, in another level of passages and doors that looked very like the one he'd just left.
    It was cold here, and very quiet; the noises of Malragard being destroyed had faded away entirely, leaving him alone in stillness.
    Where Rod stood, not fleeing anything for the first time in ages, realizing suddenly how tired he was.
    Bone-effin'-weary. Oh, his thoughts were racing along (here I am, not knowing where I am or what to do next or what all this stuff is that I'm carrying—as usual); he felt no urge or need to yawn or anything like that. It was his arms and legs, bruised and numb from all the unaccustomed work he'd demanded of them, that were tired right out.
    Not that anything like a soft bed looked likely, down here in all this stone. Still, perhaps behind one of these doors there'd be a heap