The servant reached up and with bony, pale fingers, revealed Leot’s face completely to the newcomers.
No pupils stared from the sockets, only the whites. The drawn, dead face looked years older than the man Tyros recalled, as if Leot had aged a hundred years. The soulless whites looked directly at the crimson-clad mage, but Tyros saw no recognition, no sign that Leot still existed in the shell before him.
With a shudder, he eyed the shadow servants again … and knew at last their origin. Valkyn might not have needed the chanting of clerics and wizards to keep Atriun in the sky, but he had other uses for his fellow spellcasters. These mages, including old Kendilious, had all suffered so that Atriun could fly. Now Leot had been added to their unholy list.
The master of the citadel studied Leot’s deathly face with the detachment one might have used studying a speck of dust. “As I thought. Not much left. We’ll have to remove him soon.”
A fury so great that he couldn’t control it welled up within Tyros. Again he recalled Leot distracting the gargoyles in the tower in Gwynned. If not for the rotund wizard, it would have been Tyros hanging between these columns, his life burned from him.
Tearing himself free, Tyros lunged at Valkyn. Magic might be beyond the crimson wizard, but his hands were strong enough to throttle his foul counterpart. All he had to do was get them around Valkyn’s throat.
Inches from his goal, his hands turned against him. Tyros’s fingers snaked for his own throat, trying to squeeze the life from him. He grew more furious and tried to fight back, but his hands inched closer and closer.
“Tyros!” Serene called. “It’s just as if you tried magic! Don’t think about it! Let the hate go!”
Tyros tried desperately to forget his hatred of the other mage, to forget what Valkyn had done to Leot and others. He found it almost impossible, the image of the White Robe’s slack expression still haunting him.
Finally, though, Tyros’s hands relaxed, once more under his control. However, the effort he had put into saving himself had cost him, and he fell to one knee, trying to regain his strength.
The exhausted mage turned his thoughts to Serene, imagining the sorrow and horror she must be going through. To find out how horrific Valkyn had become and how oblivious he seemed to his own evil had to have shaken the cleric’s faith to the core.
Tyros heard the harsh sound of boots and saw the robe of Valkyn near him. Still gasping, he looked up at the monstrously cheerful countenance of his captor.
“Yes, full of vigor, and more strength than I could have imagined! You should never have gotten as near as you did!”
Near? Dwelling in his failure, Tyros thought about the futile attempt he had made. Near? He might as well have tried to leap the length of the New Sea!
“I think this charade’s gone far enough.” Without warning, Valkyn touched the tip of the wand against his adversary’s temple.
A shock went through Tyros, and he blacked out.
* * * * *
For Serene, the day had become an endless horror. She had expected the worst when the gargoyle had snatched her off the griffon and taken her into Castle Atriun, but events had far exceeded even her most terrible nightmares.
When the gargoyle had deposited her in this grand chamber, the cleric had expected to confront some sinister servant of the goddess Takhisis, only to have instead a smiling Valkyn greet her with open arms. She had thrown herself happily into those arms, paying no heed to the change in the color of his robe. Even then Serene had assumed he wore them only because his captors demanded it.
Only when he had commanded the gargoyles to bring him Tyros had she at last admitted to herself that the one for whom she had so long hunted was not a captive, but instead the ruler of the flying citadel.
Even then Serene had tried to convince herself that Valkyn could not be the monster events so far had portrayed him. She could live with his apparent desertion of her, and even his raising of Castle Atriun the cleric could understand. It had always been Valkyn’s dream to unlock the secrets of such magic and refine them. But Serene found it impossible to explain away the deaths and devastation in Norwych caused by his citadel.
He had noticed her growing coolness toward him, and although the mage had still smiled, that smile had been tinged by something she had never seen before in him, an emotion dark and unforgiving. Yet all the while Valkyn had treated her as his lost love, caressing her softly with his gloved fingers. Serene, attuned to Branchala’s love of nature, had found the gloves unnerving, as if they represented a lack of humanity.
Then, when the gargoyles had finally brought Tyros in, the cleric saw for herself the terrible truth concerning her former love.
Tyros had not recalled this first encounter, not after what Valkyn had done to him, but for Serene it would ever be burned into her memory and her soul.
Valkyn had been very courteous, actually pleased by the presence of a wizard who understood his desire to create such a prize. Despite that, he had never allowed Tyros any semblance of freedom during their conversation, the monstrous Crag and two other gargoyles making certain of that.
Valkyn had talked on and on about the struggles of his research and the sacrifices he had made. He had asked Tyros about his own research, and when the other had not been forthcoming, Valkyn had simply gone on. To the despairing cleric, it seemed the maddening scene would continue forever.
Then Tyros had unleashed the spell he had been patiently working on since being brought to his captor.
The magical flash of light had not harmed the gargoyles much, but it had startled them into releasing their grips. Then, unlike his attempt during their second encounter, Tyros had managed to actually lay his hands on the still smiling Valkyn, grappling with him. Serene had stood there, struggling with old emotions and newer ones concerning Valkyn. That, to her regret, had slowed her reactions. Had Serene joined with Tyros immediately, they could have taken Valkyn and ended this terrible dream. Instead, the cleric had hesitated, pleading silently with the Bard King to tell her what to do.
By then it had been too late. Even the cleric could sense the sudden surge of sorcerous energy erupting from Valkyn. Tyros had been thrown back, shocked by miniature bolts of lightning so intense that they had left the black mage’s gloves in burned tatters … and thereby revealed yet an even darker secret of the citadel’s master.
Valkyn’s hands no longer resembled anything human.
Scaled and scabbed, they looked as if they had been burned, flayed, then put together by someone with only a vague concept of their previous appearance. Most frightening, though, had been the glittering fragments speckling the hands from wrist to fingertips, glittering fragments that looked crystalline and gold, just like the tip of the wand Valkyn had pulled out a moment later.
“I had expected more sense, more appreciation from you, Tyros,” Valkyn had said. He touched the palm of one of his hands with the wand. An inky black material had formed, spreading quickly over the hand until it covered it completely, a new glove hiding the deformities that Serene could only guess he had willingly given himself. A moment later he had covered the other hand as thoroughly. “We shall have to remedy this impetuousness of yours before we next speak.”
Putting the wand away, Valkyn had then reached both hands toward the captive. Tyros had struggled, but now the gargoyles held him tighter.
“Valkyn!” she had called out. “For our love, don’t kill him!”
“Oh, you needn’t worry, my serenity,” he had merrily responded. “I’m only making him a little more manageable.”
His fingertips had touched Tyros’s temples, immediately causing the latter to scream and scream and scream. This time Valkyn’s gloves had not burned away, but she could still make out magical energy flowing from one man to the other.