“Get away from the pinnacle,” screamed Iscalda as they burst out into the open. “Fly, Linnet! We’ll take you others!” She and Schiannath changed into horse-form faster than Grince had ever seen them do it.
“Help me, Grince.” Vannor, even with two hands, would have had difficulty hoisting Forral’s dead weight up on to Schiannath’s high back. Between them, however, he and Grince managed to hang the limp body over the Xandim’s withers, and Vannor leapt up behind. The thief ran back and hoisted Wolf into position, and leapt up behind him. Then the Xandim were off, racing down the valley, trying to get as far away from the shaking pinnacle as they could.—Forral blinked as the body of the Archmage turned transparent, and vanished into the misty haze that was the disintegrating field of conflict. In the eldritch realm Beyond the World, clearly nothing remained in the same form for very long. Even as he watched, the landscape, which at least had seemed familiar, faded back into the vast, shimmering green sphere in which he had found himself when he’d arrived. A cold spear of alarm pierced the swordsman.—Just how real had this titanic conflict been? When he returned to the normal world, would he still bear these wounds? And what of Miathan? “Oh Gods,”
Forral groaned. “Don’t tell me I’ll have to kill the bastard all over again.”
“You won’t. Wherever his body lies, he’s dead all right. You’ve seen to that.”
Forral turned to find Aurian and Wolf at his side. The Mage still wore her normal, earthly shape, but Wolf—the swordsman felt a fierce glow of joy and pride. At the Mage’s side was a sturdy young lad of about ten years, with brown eyes and dark, curling hair.
“Looks like his father, doesn’t he?” said Aurian softly.
“He has his mother’s magic, though—or he wouldn’t be here,” Forral replied proudly. “And what’s more,” he added with mock fierceness, “he has the same talent for being where he shouldn’t be that you had at that age.” Smiling, he held out his arms and embraced both Aurian and his son. In this place it felt strange—there was no sensation of physical touch, but instead there was a mingling, an exchange of energies and joy that felt just as good, in its own way, as a fleshly embrace.
Aurian touched his face lightly. “I never thought I’d see that dear face again,” she said. “And Wolf, too—he got the opportunity to meet his father after all these years. I’m so glad you had the chance to come back, my love.—This moment is worth everything.”
“Is it over?” Forral asked her, when he found his voice. “Now that Miathan’s dead, is his curse on Wolf removed?”
“No, Father,” the lad said—and Forral was pleased that he could answer for himself. “The curse is only partly off. Now that the Archmage is dead I can wear my human shape in this place, but until my mother finds the grail I’ll still be a wolf in the normal world.” He looked down at himself wonderingly.
“Weird, isn’t it? It’s not very efficient. You must use an awful lot of energy just to stay up .. .”
He was interrupted by the voice of Basileus. “You must leave here at once! Not only do you face great danger from my struggle with Ghabal, but your bodies are in grave peril back in your own world!”
Forral swore. So involved had his family become with their own affairs—the death of Miathan and the reunion with Wolf in his human form at last—that the struggle between the two Moldai, taking place on the far side of this immense green space, had been the last thing on their minds.
“Don’t wait!” Basileus urged. “You have no time. Get back to your bodies now!”
With an appalling tearing sound, the two Moldai pulled apart, their tentacles inflicting dreadful injuries even as they let go of one another. With their spirits locked in this deadly battle Beyond the World, they had no idea that their titanic struggle was wreaking such havoc in its mundane counterpart.—Basileus was in a pitiful condition, with great chunks of his body torn away, and many of his limbs bitten down to bleeding stumps. Ghabal, however, was in a far worse state, with most of his tentacles missing and his body mauled beyond recognition. The death of his Mage companion had seemed to drive away the last shred of sanity that he possessed, and he had attacked Basileus with reckless ferocity, not caring what damage he might sustain in the process.—All down the aeons, even before Ghabal’s madness had struck, he and Basileus, though forced into such close proximity, had never been in accord. Now, with an intense shock, Basileus realized that he could finish their agelong enmity once and for all. Though part of him cried out in disbelieving protest against killing another Moldan, he knew that in this case, there was nothing left to be done. The flight of the cats from Steelclaw had proved that. If he could not be stopped, then Ghabal’s evil influence would continue to pervade and pollute the mountains, and he would never rest until Basileus had been destroyed.
The Moldan braced himself to close with his injured enemy—and then remembered.—The humans must be warned, lest their helpless bodies be injured in Ghabal’s death throes. He flung out a few swift words of warning to them to return to the mundane world—and then struck at his foe one last time.
As the struggle continued, however, he soon realized that it was hopeless—the two Moldai were just too evenly matched. Basileus could inflict any amount of peripheral damage on his opponent, but simply could not get close enough to finish the fight without risking mortal injury to himself “Take him now, Basileus! I’ll hold him for you!”
The voice took the Moldan completely by surprise. “Chiamh! You should not be here!”
“Never mind that. You’ve helped me so many times—now I can repay you. Let’s finish this business.” Another vast, tentacled creature, its canopy patterned in vibrant purples and blues, drifted into position above the struggling Moldai. The slender, attenuated filaments of its limbs shot out and wrapped themselves around Ghabal, effectively trapping him and wrapping him round so that he could not escape.
Too fast to be seen, Basileus whipped his own tentacles around his enemy’s body, reeling the helpless Ghabal in toward his vast maw with its rows of sword-sharp teeth. Ghabal, already badly wounded, struggled fitfully, but lacked the strength to escape. Snarling, the demented creature heaped curses down on the heads of Basileus and the Windeye, but as he realized the hopelessness of his case, the curses turned to screeches of alarm interspersed with pitiful pleas for mercy. At the last moment, Chiamh let go of the mad Moldan, and the screeching increased to an agonized crescendo as Basileus tore him limb from limb.
The entire mountain range was shaken by the death throes of the Moldan. Forral came back into his body to feel the earth bucking and heaving beneath him as though the very mountains were writhing from a mortal wound. Wolf, with the resilience of youth—coupled with the fact that he had not fought in a formidable battle—had recovered first and was standing over the swordsman, whining anxiously and poking a cold nose into his face.
Already it was grey daylight. Forral found himself on the broad plateau that he had seen from the air on the approach to Chiamh’s vale—and of course, he was not back as himself, but was lodged once more in Anvar’s body. The transition was a wrenching disappointment. For a little while, he had experienced the joy of being himself again, whole and complete—but that was over now.
Iscalda was trying to elbow the wolf out of the way so that she could try to bandage the swordsman’s leg and his other injuries with strips of cloth that she had apparently torn from the clothing of everyone present.
“Aurian,” Forral gasped. “Where’s Aurian?”
“We don’t know,” Iscalda said tersely. “Linnet has flown back up the valley to look for her and Chiamh. The cats are missing too.”