To what? The lad did not want to find out.
The wizard Arquiuius's current casting, a potent summoning spell, frightened Halloran as had none of his mentor's previous incantations. The creature within the mage's pattern had been taking shape for three days and nights now, and each hour it seemed to add another oozing pustule, bloated tentacle, or drooping moist orb. Presumably these were eyes, Hal guessed, though they numbered several dozen on the bloblike form that now occupied the entire center of the laboratory.
Kreeshah… barool… hottaisk. He repeated the words again, but his mind threatened to wander. The hour was early, before the sunrise, and he had had scant hours of sleep during the course of his master's current incantation. Still, I should be more disciplined, Halloran reminded himself, thinking of all that he owed to the wizard. Arquiuius had found him as an orphan, a seasoned street urchin who had lost his family to war, and had brought him here. For the last years of his childhood, Halloran had worked at odd tasks for the wizard. Now, as he progressed through adolescence, he was beginning to learn the secrets of arcanery from Aquiuius. Perhaps, one day, Halloran would be a wizard as mighty as his master!
Placing each footstep carefully on the smooth, worn stone of the stairway, the young magic-user made another circuit. One more to go…
"What am I doing here?" He mouthed the question in genuine curiosity. Of course, he knew he possessed the aptitude that Arquiuius had recognized years ago. Now the youth could send an arrow of magic exploding from his finger, or cause an unsuspecting peasant to fall asleep at his plow. He could subtly charm an innkeeper into granting a free night's lodging, or cause a magical light to blossom in a darkened room. Never, Arquiuius recently proclaimed, had an apprentice mastered so much while still years from growing his own beard!
The steps passed too quickly, though Halloran's deliberate pace slowed even further as he approached the landing and its great oaken door.
"Why didn't I take up sword and shield like my father?" he lamented. But he had no time to answer that question.
The great door swung silently open, as if of its own accord, and Hal tried to still his trembling hands as he stepped into the lab. The acrid smoke spilled constantly from the beaker in his hands, causing his eyes to water. Nevertheless, he was able to see that the shape in the laboratory had sprouted more limbs. In several places, large regions of moist suckers appeared in its skin, opening and closing like the mouths of primitive fish.
Arquiuius sat as he had for three days and three nights, legs crossed before him and eyes locked open. The wizard had always been thin, but now, to Halloran, he looked absolutely cadaverous. Beyond him, the window, its eerily tilted horizon showing the deserts of Thay barely illuminated by the growing light of imminent dawn. Of course, Hal knew that the tower, not the horizon, was the cause of the tilt, but Arquiuius's bizarre distortion of gravity never failed to take him by surprise.
Now, Hal hissed a voice in his brain, and he knew the wizard spoke to him, though the old man's lips made no sound. Carefully the youth stepped around the looming shape, steadying his nerve as he extended the still-spuming beaker to Arquiuius.
Suddenly a pinkish tentacle lashed out from within the beast's magical confines. With growing horror, Halloran saw that the foul limb pressed the boundary of the shape inscribed on the floor, slowly pushing through the enchanted barrier.
Now! The wizard's command echoed in the youth's mind. Quickly he turned back to his teacher. Hal's heart quickened in dismay at the sight of Arquiuius's face. Was that fear he saw?
The blob wriggled once more, and then a stalk of obscene flesh hurled itself toward Halloran. Reacting by instinct alone, he sprang backward, saving his life by scant inches while the lightning blow struck the beaker from his hands.
"No!" Arquiuius's voice was audible this time, and full of acute terror.
The beaker crashed to the stone floor and shattered. A cloud of red gas whooshed upward from the contents, and the young apprentice stumbled backward.
He gaped at the sight of a huge mouth emerging from the smoke, heard the wizard's shrill death cry. Row after row of long, curving teeth stretched wide, spattering drops of acid drool onto their pathetically shrieking victim.
Halloran's primal instincts claimed him. He bolted from the lab, tearing around the many circuits of the descending stairway until, breathless, he dashed out the door in the base of the tower. Here he stumbled and fell headlong. He had forgotten to adjust for the slanting gravity of the tower as he stepped into the world beyond.
Quickly springing to his feet, the young man ran into the desert. His heart pounded and his lips grimaced across his clenched teeth. Nothing could make him return to that nightmarish world. Even as the tower rumbled and collapsed into dust behind him, he did not slow his desperate pace.
Nor did he look back as the settling dust pile slowly brightened with the light of the dawning sun.
Thousands of green, red, yellow, and blue feathers joined in a vast circle of brilliant color, forming a huge canopy. The steady, silent pulse of feather-magic, of pluma, lifted and lowered the canopy, gently fanning the hallway. Nevertheless, the forehead of the slave stationed beneath the fan glistened with perspiration as he bowed obsequiously to the Eagle Knight approaching him.
The veteran wore a tunic of black and white feathers, entwined by pluma into a fiber that could stop the penetration of the sharpest obsidian blade. Crimson plumes hung freely from the knight's arms, flowing through the air as he walked, and a short cape floated easily behind him.
Wordlessly, the Eagle Knight removed his feathered helmet, handing it to the humble manservant before the great doors. He took a dirty shawl from the servant, covering his handsome features with the filthy cloth, suppressing a grimace of distaste.
The servant looked down, embarrassed by the knight's debasement – but such was the will of Naltecona.
"You may enter the presence of the Revered Counselor, Honorable Captain of Hundredmen." The servant quietly opened the door.
The knight stepped into the room, his eyes downcast, his coppery face expressionless. Immediately he knelt and kissed the floor. He rose and walked toward the dais, repeating the submissive gesture two more times before he stood below the throne of power. The warrior averted his eyes from the plumed figure before him, resting his gaze instead upon the raggedly dressed row of courtiers and clerics behind the splendid throne.
"Most Revered Counselor, I regret to inform you that our expedition against the Kultakans ended in disaster. The enemy fought well, luring us into ambush. Many of our warriors have gone to the flowered altars of Kultaka."
Naltecona reclined along the floating cushion of emerald feathers, his eyes half closed. They must not see my distress! he thought grimly. "You yourself, plus two of your comrades – and three Jaguar Knights as well – shall offer your hearts in penance to Zaltec. Pray that he is satisfied!"
"I can but hope that our First God finds my companions and me worthy substitutes." Still the knight's face bore no expression.
"We will learn tonight." The counselor rose and turned away from the man he had just condemned to death. He ignored the slowly swirling fans suspended in the air around him, then suddenly pushed in annoyance past the magical plumes to step across the dais. "We will send another expedition tomorrow! Thus will the Kultakans learn the wages of defiance!"
The Eagle Knight showed no emotion. He kissed the earth before his ruler and backed to the door, stopping twice more to repeat the ritual of submission.