D& D - Greyhawk - Night Watch (38 page)

The wizard’s rage revealed itself in his face. His dark eyes flashed with bits of lightning as the cone of power once more shook the ground. “'You’ve stopped my army!” the wizard shouted. “You haven’t stopped me. And you could never have done even that much without outside interference.” He pointed an accusing finger. “Who gave you that sword?”

Garett inched another step closer. “I see now,” Garett said applaudingly. “If your army had won, you would have ruled Greyhawk. Or, if your army failed but Ellon Thigpen died in the fighting, you, as Kentellen Mar, still stood a high chance of becoming mayor. With your magic, you could have manipulated the election, as long as you had Prestelan Sun out of the way.”

The wizard backed up a step. He caught Ellon Thigpen by the hair and twisted his head sharply, eliciting a muffled cry of fear and pain from the mayor. “Come no closer! ” the wizard warned. “He is no bird!”

Cursing, Garett backed up a pace. At least no more tremors rocked the Citadel. He had succeeded in some measure at distracting his enemy. “What I still haven’t figured,” he shouted as the wind roared around him, “is why the murders of the five people in Old Town? What value was their deaths to you?”

The wizard put on a hideous grin. “Ah, but that wasn’t me,” he answered, attempting a tone of innocence. “I even

sent Cavel to investigate.”

“Cavel? ” Garett glanced quickly around and spotted the blond boy not far away, crouched, ready to spring again, awaiting only a command from his master.

The wizard shook his head and gave a chiding cluck of his tongue. “You should have checked the victims’ connections to Sorvesh Kharn, Captain,” he sneered. “I believe your master of thieves decided to do a little house cleaning at the guildhall.”

“But the altar!” Garett protested. “The sigil painted on the wall!”

Again his foe clucked. “What kind of detective are you, Captain, that you don’t realize how many people have access to your reports? And did they not already include information about that old fool, Cat, who managed to escape me, and what you found carved on his wall? Sorvesh Kharn merely took advantage of your suspicions to cover his acts.” It was possible, Garett had to admit. Sorvesh was clever and slippery, and his spies were everywhere. He easily could have gotten those reports. But Garett shook his head. One element didn’t fit. “There was a creature down there. It killed two of my men and wounded one.”

The wizard pointed, smiling. “Cavel,” he answered. “I told you, I sent him to investigate. It was he who altered the symbol, smearing the blood-painted horns into proper wings.”

“Then you are a Hierarch!” Garett charged, shaking his fist as he stole forward another pace.

“You sightless fool!” The wizard raised his hands and raked the air with taloned claws. Behind him, the cone of power rippled. The roof under Garett’s feet came alive, tilting first one way, then another.

“If you bring this building down, you’ll be crushed, too!” Garett shouted, desperately trying to keep his balance.

“Will I?” the wizard answered tauntingly, waving his hands, sending another ripple through the cone.

Ellon Thigpen managed to scream even through the bandage stuffed in his mouth. The parapet cracked and buckled under him, and he pitched over the edge into space. Garett hesitated no more. With an angry shout, he hurled himself at Kentellen Mar’s doppelganger. The wizard shrieked and jumped away as Garett swung Guardian. The point drew a bloody streak and, at the same time, flared with emerald fire.

Garett paid no attention. He had forced the wizard back far enough to make a grab for Ellon. He caught the mayor around his legs, dropping Guardian in the process. With all his strength, he held on as Ellon screamed and struggled in terror. His arms were all that saved the man from a swift flight to death.

But another shriek made him turn his head. The wizard touched the bleeding cut on his cheek, but it was not the wound that made him scream. His flesh began to melt and flow, his bones to shift and bend. His frame shrank, becoming smaller. Hair and eyes changed color. So did his skin, turning sallow. Whatever magic had changed him into the image of Kentellen Mar, Guardian’s touch had destroyed. It was an older, more frail man who stood there now. He screamed again and clutched once more at the throwing star in his back, unable to reach it.

Again the cone of power faded.

Raging with pain and failure, the wizard cast a baleful glare at Garett, who clung helplessly to Ellon Thigpen. His gaze shifted to Guardian. “I don’t know where you got this sword, or what it is,” the wizard hissed in an ancient, raspy voice. “But it will end your miserable, meddling life!” He stooped and reached out to claim the enchanted sword.

A dagger clattered against a section of the crumbling parapet. Though it missed, it was enough to make the wizard recoil. Garett strained to see over his shoulder, to see where the dagger had come from.

Blossom pulled herself up from the trapdoor, drawing her sword as she ran across the roof. It was she who had

saved him! But Cavel saw her, too. The child flung himself at her, wrapping himself around her legs, sending her sprawling. He was on her then with teeth and nails.

“No!” the wizard wailed. He bent for the sword again. Risking his own precarious balance, Garett kicked out desperately, knocking Guardian out of his reach. “Damn you!” the wizard shrieked. “At least it can’t protect you now!” He thrust out his hands over Garett, and a black force radiated from his fingers.

It was Garett’s turn to scream as that force touched him. His insides turned to fire, and his brain burned. In horror, he watched his flesh turn black and liquify. A fine sheen of wet feathers appeared on his arms. With all his desperate might, he strained, bones and joints cracking even as they transformed, and he hauled Ellon Thigpen to safety. Garett screamed again, a shriek of purest raw pain as his body changed.

The wizard looked smugly away from Garett. “Get away from her, Cavel!” he ordered, and apparently the boy obeyed. The wizard stretched out his hand and spoke again. “Leeches for you, woman. Lots of leeches!”

Blossom’s scream shattered Garett’s heart. Resisting the pain of transformation, he rolled and flopped toward Guardian, but when he reached with his left hand to grasp the sword, he had no fingers, only sleek, shining pinfeathers. With a gasp of despair, he twisted over, and his right hand, still human, or near-human, curled around the hilt. He drew the sword to him and hugged the bare blade.

Immediately, the transformation began to reverse. The fire in his body lingered, though, every nerve tingling as if it had been scraped raw. But he had no time to think of himself. Blossom continued to scream as she clawed at the dark slugs that crawled on her flesh and sucked her blood. He struggled up to his hands and knees.

The wizard had no more interest in Garett. “Cavel!” he called, his own voice weak and full of pain. “We’ve lost! Spread your wings! Carry us away from this cursed city!”

The blond boy ran to the center of the roof and raised his arms. His transformation was much swifter and far more dramatic than Garett’s. An arcane light gleamed in his round eyes. He opened his mouth and screeched a birdlike cry, and his body began to grow and change.

Garett crawled toward Blossom, dragging the sword. His strength returned slowly as the tingling in his body subsided. He rose to his feet. He staggered, walked, and finally ran. Blossom thrashed, driven half mad by the leeches she had learned to hate. Garett didn’t hesitate. He struck her on the back with the flat of Guardian, and the sword flared.

Gratefully, she turned around to face him, but the shock had not gone out of her eyes, and she sank into his arms. Garett barely had strength to hold her, so he lowered her gently to the roof.

Cavel’s transformation was almost complete. Huge and spectacular, he spread his wings, and their span was greater than the width of the Citadel’s roof. His black eyes glittered, and the full moons frosted the crest of his head.

“What is it?” Blossom muttered weakly, lifting her head to stare in fearful wonder.

Garett shook his head as he knelt with his arm around her. “I don’t know,” he answered simply. “I hate magic.” She forced a weak smile. “I remember.” Then she added. “Me, too.”

Cavel stretched a wing downward, and the wizard, the Hierarch, climbed carefully upon it and settled himself astride the great bird’s neck.

A familiar voice called suddenly from the trapdoor. “Cap’n? Blossom?”

Garett found strength to shout. “Burge! Stay back! Don’t come up here!”

But the half-elf poked his head up through the door and gawked in disbelief. The sight was not enough to deter him. As he tried to climb onto the roof, the bird-thing flexed its wings and brushed Burge aside. Then Rudi, too, popped his head up through the door. He, at least, had sense enough to duck as the wondrous beast swept into the sky.

“Captain Starlen?”

Garett twisted around at the sound of Ellon Thigpen’s voice. The mayor sat huddled in the shadow of the parapet, hugging his knees.

“If I’ve been unfair to you in the past,” Ellon said weakly, nervously, “I apologize. I’ll make up for it. I swear I will.”

“\bu just stay put,” Garett warned him. “Don’t move from there.”

Higher and higher the bird gyred over the Citadel, past the moons and into the night. Then, with a great banking curve, it turned and sailed straight at Garett and his allies. Past the top of the Citadel it flew, and as it skimmed the roof, the wizard leaned out and extended his arm. A blue-white tongue of fire seared away a section of the parapet.

Rudi sprang onto the roof and launched an arrow at the monstrous bird, but if it struck, the shaft had no effect.

Past the moons it swept again, and once more it turned.

“I thought it was the bird alone that fought Prestelan Sun!” Garett exclaimed as Burge and Rudi ran over. “But he rides it! He rides it!”

“Who rides it?” Burge said in bewilderment.

The bird sailed back, moonlight burning on its wings, fire lashing from the wizard’s outstretched hand. Rudi dived aside, rolled, and came to his feet with an arrow in his hand. He set it to the string and fired as the bird passed directly overhead. A blazing scorch raced across the roof, straight for the diminutive warrior, and only Burge’s quick-thinking tackle knocked Rudi aside in time.

Screeching, the bird turned again, and fire lashed down toward the Citadel. But as it came on this time, Garett remembered Prestelan Sun and his green-glowing shield. He had no shield, but he had Guardian. “Stay down!” he ordered the others. He ran to the edge of the roof. The parapet had been blasted away. Far below, people still stood in

the square, too mesmerized by the battle to flee.

Garett searched for the wizard, high on the bird’s great neck. For an instant, he fancied their gazes met. The bird screamed, and the wizard yelled as he reached out. A rose of fire blossomed before Garett’s eyes. Its heat touched his face.

You might have gotten away, the watch captain thought with a surreal calm as he threw himself aside at the last instant. Now die! A round, blackened circle marked where he had stood a moment before.

He flung Guardian with all his might, and the sword streaked like a shooting star, blazing an emerald light, straight for the heart of the great bird as it passed overhead. Like a bolt it struck, and the thing that was Cavel shrieked a horrible cry as feathers exploded from its chest. Its wings faltered. A crackling green lace-work of energy rippled around the fantastic creature for an instant, then disappeared. Cavel gave another cry. Gigantic wings fluttered uselessly. As it fell, another, far more human cry echoed its own.

arett sat in Ellon Thigpen’s private office in the

palace of the lord mayor, his feet propped up on a

comfortable stool, a drink of rare wine near his left

hand.

“I don’t mind telling you,” Ellon Thigpen said paternally. He lounged in a plush chair on the other side of the desk, his hands folded over his stomach, his eyes gleaming from the wine. Since his formal investiture in a small, quiet ceremony a few days earlier, Ellon had mellowed considerably. “It was the hells dragging that damned bird’s huge carcass out of the river. Cargo shipping was tied up for nearly two days. It crushed part of a major pier when it fell, too, but we finally managed to haul it up onto the west bank, where we burned it. If there’d been some way to roast it properly, we could have fed the Slum Quarter for a year.” Garett knew all that, but he listened patiently. The mayor had grown quite friendly since their adventure on the Citadel’s roof. There was no point in mentioning all the complaints from the High Quarter and the Garden

Quarter when the wind carried the smelly smoke over those particular sections of the city. At least they had their streetlights back. Garett had found the twelve missing wizards turned into birds and locked in cages in a basement corner of Kentellen Mar’s old house in the Artisan’s Quarter. A touch of Guardian’s blade was enough to restore them.

“No sign of the imposter’s body, I suppose?” Garett asked.

Ellon Thigpen shook his head. He grew quiet for a moment, then looked up pensively. “Have you concluded that other little investigation?” he asked.

Garett nodded as he took a sip from his cup. “All five of the murdered Old Towners were thieves who, despite repeated warnings, had refused to join the guild. That’s hearsay, of course, but we interviewed a lot of folks. And of course, there’s no concrete proof, and no one will testify. But they all told pretty much the same story.”

Ellon shook his head. “Even the little girl?”

Garett nodded again. “Especially the little girl. Turns out that she was quite the pickpocket, single-handedly supporting her mother and a baby sister.” Garett shrugged and took another drink of wine. “But you know the guild rules. An independent can work just so long, then it’s join or get out of town.”

“So Sorvesh had them killed,” Ellon Thigpen said wistfully. “Sometimes I hate the way things operate in this town. ‘Business as usual’ has a very dirty sound to it.” “Well,” Garett said, staring into the red liquid in his cup as he swirled it around and around. “No one’s in a better position to change things than you.”