Croaker:
Bomanz faced the Lady from another angle. He saw a ghost of fear
touch her matchless features. “Ardath,” he said, and
saw her fear become resignation. Ardath was my sister.
“You had a twin. You murdered her and took her name. Your
true name is Ardath.” You will regret this. I will find your
name . . .
“Why do you threaten me? I mean you no harm.” You harm me by thwarting me. Free me.
“Come, come. Don’t be childish. Why force my hand?
That will cost us both agony and energy. I only want to rediscover
the knowledge interred with you. Teaching me will cost you nothing.
It won’t harm you. It might even prepare the world for your
return.” The world prepares already. Bomanz!
He chuckled. “That’s a mask, like the antiquarian.
That’s not my name. Ardath. Must we fight?” Wise men say to accept the inevitable with grace. If I must, I
must. I will try to be gracious.
When pigs fly, Bomanz thought.
The Lady’s smile was mocking. She sent something. He did
not catch it. Other voices filled his mind. For an instant he
thought the Dominator was awakening. But the voices were in his
physical ears, back at the house. “Oh, damn!”
Wind-chimes mirth.
“Clete is in position.” The voice was Tokar’s.
Its presence in the attic enraged Bomanz. He started running.
“Help me get him out of the chair.” Stancil.
“Won’t you wake him up?” Glory.
“His spirit is out in the Barrowland. He won’t know
anything unless we run into each other out there.”
Wrong, Bomanz thought. Wrong, you insidious, ungrateful wart.
Your old man isn’t stupid. He responds to the signs even when
he doesn’t want to see them.
The dragon’s head swung as he hurtled past. Mockery
pursued him. The hatred of dead knights pounded him as he hurried
on.
“Get him into the corner. Toker, the amulet is under the
hearthstone in the shack. That damned Men fu! He almost blew it. I
want to get my hands on the fool who sent him up here. That greedy
idiot wasn’t interested in anything but himself.”
“At least he took the Monitor with him.” Glory.
“Pure accident. Pure luck.”
“The time. The time,” Tokar said.
“Clete’s men are hitting the barracks.”
“Get out of here, then. Glory, will you do something
besides stare at the old man? I’ve got to get in there before
Tokar reaches the Barrowland. The Great Ones have to be told what
we’re doing.”
Bomanz passed the barrow of Moondog. He felt the restlessness
within. He raced on.
A ghost danced beside him. A slump-shouldered, evil-faced ghost
who damned him a thousand times. “I don’t have time for
it, Besand. But you were right.” He crossed the old moat,
passed his dig. Strangers dotted the landscape. Resurrectionist
strangers. Where had they come from? Out of hiding in the Old
Forest?
Faster. Got to go faster, he thought. That fool Stance is going
to try to follow me in.
He ran like nightmare, floating through subjectively eternal
steps. The comet glared down. It felt strong enough to cast
shadows.
“Read the instructions again to make sure,” Stancil
said. “Timing isn’t critical as long as you don’t
do anything early.”
“Shouldn’t we tie him up or something? Just in
case?”
“We don’t have time. Don’t worry about him. He
won’t come out till way too late.”
“He makes me nervous.”
“Then throw a rug over him and come on. And try to keep
your voice down. You don’t want to waken Mother.”
Bomanz charged the lights of the town . . .
It occurred to him that in this state he did not have to be a
stubby-legged fat man short on breath. He changed his perception
and his velocity increased. Soon he encountered Tokar, who was
trotting toward the Barrowland with Besand’s amulet. Bomanz
judged his own startling swiftness by Tokar’s apparent
sluggishness. He was moving fast.
Headquarters was afire. There was heavy fighting around the
barracks. Tokar’s teamsters were leading the attackers. A few
Guardsmen had broken out of the trap. Trouble was seeping into the
town.
Bomanz reached his shop. Upstairs, Stancil told Glory,
“Begin now.” As Bo started up the stair, Stancil said,
“Dumni. Um muji dumni.” Bomanz smashed into his own
body. He seized command of his muscles, surged off the floor.
Glory shrieked.
Bomanz hurled her toward a wall. Her career shattered priceless
antiques.
Bomanz squealed in agony as all the pains of an old body hit his
consciousness. Damn! His ulcer was tearing his gut apart!
He seized his son’s throat as he turned, silencing him
before he finished the cantrip.
Stancil was younger, stronger. He rose. And Glory threw herself
at Bomanz. Bomanz darted backward. “Don’t anybody
move,” he snapped.
Stancil rubbed his throat and croaked something.
“You don’t think I would? Try me. I don’t care
who you are. You’re not going to free that thing out
there.”
“How did you know?” Stancil croaked.
“You’ve been acting strange. You have strange
friends. I hoped I was wrong, but I don’t take chances. You
should have remembered that.”
Stancil drew a knife. His eyes hardened. “I’m sorry,
Pop. Some things are more important than people.”
Bomanz’s temples throbbed. “Behave yourself. I
don’t have time for this. I have to stop Tokar.”
Glory drew a knife of her own. She sidled a step closer.
“You’re trying my patience, son.”
The girl jumped. Bomanz uttered a word of power. She plunged
headlong into the table slid to the floor, almost inhumanly limp.
In seconds she was limper still. She mewled like an injured
kitten.
Stancil dropped to one knee. “I’m sorry, Glory.
I’m sorry.”
Bomanz ignored his own emotional agony. He salvaged the
quicksilver spilled from the bowl that had been atop the table,
mouthed words which transformed its surface into a mirror of events
afar.
Tokar was two thirds of the way to the Barrowland.
“You killed her,” Stancil said. “You killed
her.”
“I warned you, this is a cruel business.” And:
“You made a bet and lost. Sit your butt in the corner and
behave.”
“You killed her.”
Remorse smashed in even before his son forced him to act. He
tried to soften the impact, but the melting of bones was all or
nothing.
Stancil fell across his lover.
His father fell to his knees beside him. “Why did you make
me do it? You fools. You bloody damned fools! You were using me.
You didn’t have sense enough to make sure of me, and you want
to deal with something like the Lady? I don’t know. I
don’t know. What am I going to tell Jasmine? How can I
explain?” He looked around wildly, an animal tormented.
“Kill myself. That’s all I can do. Save her the pain of
learning what her son was . . . Can’t.
Got to stop Tokar.”
There was fighting in the street outside. Bomanz ignored it. He
scrabbled after quicksilver.
Tokar was at the edge of the moat, staring into the Barrowland.
Bomanz saw the fear and uncertainty in him.
Tokar found his courage. He gripped the amulet and crossed the
line.
Bomanz began building a killing sending.
His glance crossed the doorway, spied a frightened Snoopy
watching from the dark landing. “Oh, child. Child, get out of
here.”
“I’m scared. They’re killing each other
outside.”
We’re killing each other in here, too, he thought. Please
go away. “Go find Jasmine.”
A horrendous crash came from the shop. Men cursed. Steel met
steel. Bomanz heard the voice of one of Tokar’s teamsters.
The man was deploying a defense of the house.
The Guard had made a comeback.
Snoopy whimpered.
“Stay out of here, child. Stay out. Go down with
Jasmine.”
“I’m scared.”
“So am I. And I won’t be able to help if you get in
my way. Please go downstairs.”
She ground her teeth and rattled away. Bomanz sighed. That was
close. If she had seen Stance and
Glory . . .
The uproar redoubled. Men screamed. Bomanz heard Corporal Husky
bellowing orders. He turned to the bowl. Tokar had disappeared. He
could not relocate the man. In passing he surveyed the land between
the town and the Barrowland. A few Resurrectionists were rushing
toward the fighting, apparently to help. Others were in headlong
flight. Remnants of the Guard were in pursuit.
Boots pounded upstairs. Again Bomanz interrupted the preparation
of his sending. Husky appeared in the doorway. Bomanz started to
order him out. He was in no mood to argue. He swung a great bloody
sword . . .
Bomanz used the word of power. Again a man’s bones turned
to jelly. Then again and again as Husky’s troopers tried to
avenge him. Bomanz dropped four before the rush ended.
He tried to get back to his
sending . . .
This time the interruption was nothing physical. It was a
reverberation along the pathway he had opened into the Lady’s
crypt. Tokar was on the Great Barrow and in contact with the
creature it contained.
“Too late,” he murmured. “Too damned
late.” But he made the sending anyway. Maybe Tokar would die
before he could release those monsters.
Jasmine cursed. Snoopy screamed. Bomanz piled over the fallen
Guardsmen and charged downstairs. Snoopy screamed again.
Bo entered his bedroom. One of Tokar’s men held a knife
across Jasmine’s throat. A pair of Guardsmen sought an
opening.
Bomanz had no patience left. He killed all three. The house
rattled. Teacups clinked in the kitchen. It was a gentle tremor,
but a harbinger strong enough to warn Bomanz. His sending had not
arrived in time. Resigned, he said, “Get out of the house.
There’s going to be a quake.”
Jasmine looked at him askance. She held the hysterical girl.
“I’ll explain later. If we survive. Just get out of
the house.” He whirled and dashed into the street, charged
toward the Barrowland.
Imagining himself tall and lean and fleet did no good now. He
was Bomanz in the flesh, a short, fat old man easily winded. He
fell twice as tremors shook the town. Each was stronger than the
last.
The fires still burned, but the fighting had died away. The
survivors on both sides knew it was too late for a decision of the
sword. They stared toward the Barrowland, awaiting the unfolding of
events.
Bomanz joined the watchers.
The comet burned so brightly the Barrowland was clearly
illuminated.
A tremendous shock rattled the earth. Bomanz staggered. Out on
the Barrowland the mound containing Soulcatcher exploded. A painful
glow burned from within. A figure rose from the rubble, stood
limned against the glow.
People prayed or cursed according to predilection.
The tremors continued. Barrow after barrow opened. One by one,
the Ten Who Were Taken appeared against the night.
“Tokar,” Bomanz murmured, “I hope you rot in
Hell.”
There was only one chance left. One impossible chance. It rode
on the time-bowed shoulders of a pudgy little man whose powers were
not at their sharpest.
He marshaled his most potent spells, his greatest magicks, all
the mystical tricks he had worked out during thirty-seven years
worth of lonely nights. And he started walking toward the
Barrowland.
Hands reached out to detain him. They found no purchase. From
the crowd an old woman called, “Bo, no! Please!”
He kept walking.
The Barrowland seethed. Ghosts howled among the ruins. The Great
Barrow shook its hump. Earth exploded upward, flaming. A great
winged serpent rose against the night. A great scream poured from
its mouth. Torrents of dragonfire inundated the Barrowland.
Wise green eyes watched Bomanz’s progress.
The fat little man walked into the holocaust, unleashing his
arsenal of spells. Fire enveloped him.
Croaker:
Bomanz faced the Lady from another angle. He saw a ghost of fear
touch her matchless features. “Ardath,” he said, and
saw her fear become resignation. Ardath was my sister.
“You had a twin. You murdered her and took her name. Your
true name is Ardath.” You will regret this. I will find your
name . . .
“Why do you threaten me? I mean you no harm.” You harm me by thwarting me. Free me.
“Come, come. Don’t be childish. Why force my hand?
That will cost us both agony and energy. I only want to rediscover
the knowledge interred with you. Teaching me will cost you nothing.
It won’t harm you. It might even prepare the world for your
return.” The world prepares already. Bomanz!
He chuckled. “That’s a mask, like the antiquarian.
That’s not my name. Ardath. Must we fight?” Wise men say to accept the inevitable with grace. If I must, I
must. I will try to be gracious.
When pigs fly, Bomanz thought.
The Lady’s smile was mocking. She sent something. He did
not catch it. Other voices filled his mind. For an instant he
thought the Dominator was awakening. But the voices were in his
physical ears, back at the house. “Oh, damn!”
Wind-chimes mirth.
“Clete is in position.” The voice was Tokar’s.
Its presence in the attic enraged Bomanz. He started running.
“Help me get him out of the chair.” Stancil.
“Won’t you wake him up?” Glory.
“His spirit is out in the Barrowland. He won’t know
anything unless we run into each other out there.”
Wrong, Bomanz thought. Wrong, you insidious, ungrateful wart.
Your old man isn’t stupid. He responds to the signs even when
he doesn’t want to see them.
The dragon’s head swung as he hurtled past. Mockery
pursued him. The hatred of dead knights pounded him as he hurried
on.
“Get him into the corner. Toker, the amulet is under the
hearthstone in the shack. That damned Men fu! He almost blew it. I
want to get my hands on the fool who sent him up here. That greedy
idiot wasn’t interested in anything but himself.”
“At least he took the Monitor with him.” Glory.
“Pure accident. Pure luck.”
“The time. The time,” Tokar said.
“Clete’s men are hitting the barracks.”
“Get out of here, then. Glory, will you do something
besides stare at the old man? I’ve got to get in there before
Tokar reaches the Barrowland. The Great Ones have to be told what
we’re doing.”
Bomanz passed the barrow of Moondog. He felt the restlessness
within. He raced on.
A ghost danced beside him. A slump-shouldered, evil-faced ghost
who damned him a thousand times. “I don’t have time for
it, Besand. But you were right.” He crossed the old moat,
passed his dig. Strangers dotted the landscape. Resurrectionist
strangers. Where had they come from? Out of hiding in the Old
Forest?
Faster. Got to go faster, he thought. That fool Stance is going
to try to follow me in.
He ran like nightmare, floating through subjectively eternal
steps. The comet glared down. It felt strong enough to cast
shadows.
“Read the instructions again to make sure,” Stancil
said. “Timing isn’t critical as long as you don’t
do anything early.”
“Shouldn’t we tie him up or something? Just in
case?”
“We don’t have time. Don’t worry about him. He
won’t come out till way too late.”
“He makes me nervous.”
“Then throw a rug over him and come on. And try to keep
your voice down. You don’t want to waken Mother.”
Bomanz charged the lights of the town . . .
It occurred to him that in this state he did not have to be a
stubby-legged fat man short on breath. He changed his perception
and his velocity increased. Soon he encountered Tokar, who was
trotting toward the Barrowland with Besand’s amulet. Bomanz
judged his own startling swiftness by Tokar’s apparent
sluggishness. He was moving fast.
Headquarters was afire. There was heavy fighting around the
barracks. Tokar’s teamsters were leading the attackers. A few
Guardsmen had broken out of the trap. Trouble was seeping into the
town.
Bomanz reached his shop. Upstairs, Stancil told Glory,
“Begin now.” As Bo started up the stair, Stancil said,
“Dumni. Um muji dumni.” Bomanz smashed into his own
body. He seized command of his muscles, surged off the floor.
Glory shrieked.
Bomanz hurled her toward a wall. Her career shattered priceless
antiques.
Bomanz squealed in agony as all the pains of an old body hit his
consciousness. Damn! His ulcer was tearing his gut apart!
He seized his son’s throat as he turned, silencing him
before he finished the cantrip.
Stancil was younger, stronger. He rose. And Glory threw herself
at Bomanz. Bomanz darted backward. “Don’t anybody
move,” he snapped.
Stancil rubbed his throat and croaked something.
“You don’t think I would? Try me. I don’t care
who you are. You’re not going to free that thing out
there.”
“How did you know?” Stancil croaked.
“You’ve been acting strange. You have strange
friends. I hoped I was wrong, but I don’t take chances. You
should have remembered that.”
Stancil drew a knife. His eyes hardened. “I’m sorry,
Pop. Some things are more important than people.”
Bomanz’s temples throbbed. “Behave yourself. I
don’t have time for this. I have to stop Tokar.”
Glory drew a knife of her own. She sidled a step closer.
“You’re trying my patience, son.”
The girl jumped. Bomanz uttered a word of power. She plunged
headlong into the table slid to the floor, almost inhumanly limp.
In seconds she was limper still. She mewled like an injured
kitten.
Stancil dropped to one knee. “I’m sorry, Glory.
I’m sorry.”
Bomanz ignored his own emotional agony. He salvaged the
quicksilver spilled from the bowl that had been atop the table,
mouthed words which transformed its surface into a mirror of events
afar.
Tokar was two thirds of the way to the Barrowland.
“You killed her,” Stancil said. “You killed
her.”
“I warned you, this is a cruel business.” And:
“You made a bet and lost. Sit your butt in the corner and
behave.”
“You killed her.”
Remorse smashed in even before his son forced him to act. He
tried to soften the impact, but the melting of bones was all or
nothing.
Stancil fell across his lover.
His father fell to his knees beside him. “Why did you make
me do it? You fools. You bloody damned fools! You were using me.
You didn’t have sense enough to make sure of me, and you want
to deal with something like the Lady? I don’t know. I
don’t know. What am I going to tell Jasmine? How can I
explain?” He looked around wildly, an animal tormented.
“Kill myself. That’s all I can do. Save her the pain of
learning what her son was . . . Can’t.
Got to stop Tokar.”
There was fighting in the street outside. Bomanz ignored it. He
scrabbled after quicksilver.
Tokar was at the edge of the moat, staring into the Barrowland.
Bomanz saw the fear and uncertainty in him.
Tokar found his courage. He gripped the amulet and crossed the
line.
Bomanz began building a killing sending.
His glance crossed the doorway, spied a frightened Snoopy
watching from the dark landing. “Oh, child. Child, get out of
here.”
“I’m scared. They’re killing each other
outside.”
We’re killing each other in here, too, he thought. Please
go away. “Go find Jasmine.”
A horrendous crash came from the shop. Men cursed. Steel met
steel. Bomanz heard the voice of one of Tokar’s teamsters.
The man was deploying a defense of the house.
The Guard had made a comeback.
Snoopy whimpered.
“Stay out of here, child. Stay out. Go down with
Jasmine.”
“I’m scared.”
“So am I. And I won’t be able to help if you get in
my way. Please go downstairs.”
She ground her teeth and rattled away. Bomanz sighed. That was
close. If she had seen Stance and
Glory . . .
The uproar redoubled. Men screamed. Bomanz heard Corporal Husky
bellowing orders. He turned to the bowl. Tokar had disappeared. He
could not relocate the man. In passing he surveyed the land between
the town and the Barrowland. A few Resurrectionists were rushing
toward the fighting, apparently to help. Others were in headlong
flight. Remnants of the Guard were in pursuit.
Boots pounded upstairs. Again Bomanz interrupted the preparation
of his sending. Husky appeared in the doorway. Bomanz started to
order him out. He was in no mood to argue. He swung a great bloody
sword . . .
Bomanz used the word of power. Again a man’s bones turned
to jelly. Then again and again as Husky’s troopers tried to
avenge him. Bomanz dropped four before the rush ended.
He tried to get back to his
sending . . .
This time the interruption was nothing physical. It was a
reverberation along the pathway he had opened into the Lady’s
crypt. Tokar was on the Great Barrow and in contact with the
creature it contained.
“Too late,” he murmured. “Too damned
late.” But he made the sending anyway. Maybe Tokar would die
before he could release those monsters.
Jasmine cursed. Snoopy screamed. Bomanz piled over the fallen
Guardsmen and charged downstairs. Snoopy screamed again.
Bo entered his bedroom. One of Tokar’s men held a knife
across Jasmine’s throat. A pair of Guardsmen sought an
opening.
Bomanz had no patience left. He killed all three. The house
rattled. Teacups clinked in the kitchen. It was a gentle tremor,
but a harbinger strong enough to warn Bomanz. His sending had not
arrived in time. Resigned, he said, “Get out of the house.
There’s going to be a quake.”
Jasmine looked at him askance. She held the hysterical girl.
“I’ll explain later. If we survive. Just get out of
the house.” He whirled and dashed into the street, charged
toward the Barrowland.
Imagining himself tall and lean and fleet did no good now. He
was Bomanz in the flesh, a short, fat old man easily winded. He
fell twice as tremors shook the town. Each was stronger than the
last.
The fires still burned, but the fighting had died away. The
survivors on both sides knew it was too late for a decision of the
sword. They stared toward the Barrowland, awaiting the unfolding of
events.
Bomanz joined the watchers.
The comet burned so brightly the Barrowland was clearly
illuminated.
A tremendous shock rattled the earth. Bomanz staggered. Out on
the Barrowland the mound containing Soulcatcher exploded. A painful
glow burned from within. A figure rose from the rubble, stood
limned against the glow.
People prayed or cursed according to predilection.
The tremors continued. Barrow after barrow opened. One by one,
the Ten Who Were Taken appeared against the night.
“Tokar,” Bomanz murmured, “I hope you rot in
Hell.”
There was only one chance left. One impossible chance. It rode
on the time-bowed shoulders of a pudgy little man whose powers were
not at their sharpest.
He marshaled his most potent spells, his greatest magicks, all
the mystical tricks he had worked out during thirty-seven years
worth of lonely nights. And he started walking toward the
Barrowland.
Hands reached out to detain him. They found no purchase. From
the crowd an old woman called, “Bo, no! Please!”
He kept walking.
The Barrowland seethed. Ghosts howled among the ruins. The Great
Barrow shook its hump. Earth exploded upward, flaming. A great
winged serpent rose against the night. A great scream poured from
its mouth. Torrents of dragonfire inundated the Barrowland.
Wise green eyes watched Bomanz’s progress.
The fat little man walked into the holocaust, unleashing his
arsenal of spells. Fire enveloped him.