Wizard Of Rentoro

A narrow dark passageway led to the courtyard in front of the Great Hall. Blade came to the end of the passageway and stopped abruptly. In the center of the courtyard the stones were cracked and blackened, in one spot melted into blackish glass. All around the blackened area lay bodies. A few were slightly burned, but most were intact and fairly fresh. Nearly all the bodies were naked, and some of the men and women lay locked together. A barrel of wine had split apart and dumped its contents across the stones, and drinking cups, robes, armor, and daggers lay scattered everywhere. It looked to Blade as if a sort of open-air orgy had been suddenly, gruesomely, and fatally interrupted.

Blade finished examining the courtyard, then raised his eyes to the window of the Great Hall. Half of it was gone, blown out by whatever had interrupted the orgy and fallen in pieces on the stone below. The pale glow of a lantern was visible at the bottom of the window, and Blade thought he saw a human head silhouetted against the glow. Slowly he stepped out into the open courtyard, and as he did the head turned and Blade heard a familiar voice call out:

«Ho, Blade! Come up. I have much to say to you.»

It was the Wizard.

The man sounded perfectly normal, not even angry, but Blade still preferred to be careful. The normal route to the Great Hall would give anyone waiting for him a dozen opportunities to lay ambushes in the darkness. So Blade scrambled up the wall beneath the window, using his rock-climbing skills on the carved cornices and gargoyles. He found an entire section of window knocked cleanly out and swung himself in through it, dropping into combat stance the moment his feet hit the floor.

The Wizard showed no surprise at seeing Blade come in through the window instead of the door. He was sitting at a table under the window, with a view-ball in front of him. It was activated-Blade caught a glimpse of blue sky and stark, snow-crested mountains. Beside the view-ball lay a yard-long wooden stick with a silver ball on one end.

The Wizard rose and came forward to greet Blade. There was new gray hair at his temples and his eyes were red, but otherwise he seemed as vigorous and well-groomed as ever. Blade took three backward steps and drew his sword. «If you don't mind, I'd rather you didn't come any closer.»

The Wizard stopped and laughed softly. «So we are back to the first moves of our game, are we?»

«Yes, until I know what the game is.»

«Ah, it will not take long to tell you.» The Wizard's voice was low, his words were clear, and Blade could detect no sign of strain, tension, or loss of control in the man. He would almost have felt better if the Wizard had been raving and drooling. Under the circumstances, the man's calm was u

«You surprised me when you and Serana fled that night,» said the Wizard. «It was not a pleasant surprise, either. But when I thought over all you had done and said, I saw the truth clearly for the first time. Your destiny would not be linked to mine, at least not in Rentoro. So it was time to change my plans. My power would pass from Rentoro when I did, so what further use were my people?»

«You mean the Wolves?»

«Yes, and all the others as well. They had no further purpose. So the Wolves went against Morina, and did as well as they could without my aid. I would have been happier if Morina had perished along with the Wolves, but much was accomplished in spite of this failure.»

«Not all the Wolves are dead,» said Blade. «Some are finding places as leaders of Rentoro's new armies.» Perhaps it was not wise to say this, and certainly he didn't like the Wolves any better than before. Nonetheless he was disgusted by the Wizard's sending out his faithful Wolves to be slaughtered simply because he could not stand the idea of his people living on after him.

«Ah,» the Wizard said. «I would deal with them if I could, but the time for that is past. I have no one left to help me, unless you-no, I see that you would not care to, as much as you seem to have hated the Wolves.»

«You are quite right,» said Blade. «But where are the rest of your people? The castle seems to be deserted, except for a few bodies. Did they flee, or-«

«They did not flee,» said the Wizard quietly. He rested a hand on the view-ball and concentrated all his attention on the image. It dissolved, the view-ball seemed to become filled with boiling milk, then a new image started to form.

Blade was strongly tempted to take advantage of the Wizard's concentration and knock him unconscious. He did not like what the Wizard's story implied about the man's state of mind. A feeling was growing in him that the Wizard should not be taken back to Home Dimension, even if it turned out to be possible. Was the Wizard still capable of revealing his secrets and teaching his skills? Perhaps. But wasn't he even more likely to prove murderously dangerous? Sooner or later he would be stopped, but at what cost to the Project? What cost in lives? The more Blade thought about it, the idea of bringing the Wizard home seemed like bringing a man-eating tiger to a cocktail party.

Then the new image was formed in the view-ball, and the Wizard raised his hand to give Blade a clear look at it. Blade stared-and although he'd thought he was past being surprised or shocked by anything in Rentoro, his jaw dropped.

He saw the rugged, snow-covered surface of what seemed to be an endless glacier. Far off on the horizon jagged mountain peaks thrust up against a gray sky. The snow flew up in clouds, lashed by an icy wind.

The surface of the glacier was covered with frozen contorted bodies, both men and women. Blade recognized the clothes of castle servants and farm laborers, the armor of household guards and Wolves. Among the bodies a few living people crawled on all fours, like animals. With knives and bare hands they tore at the corpses all around them and crammed the frozen flesh into their mouths.

Blade forced his eyes away from the view-ball, but he could not quite make himself look at the Wizard. «You sent them all to the north?» he said, in a distant voice.

«Yes,» said the Wizard. «Many years ago I went into the frozen mountains beyond the crystal mines and placed skybridge crystals there. I thought I might someday need a road of escape. Every year I went back there and saw that the crystals were still sound.

«Then the end did come. You brought it. Those who had served me could not be permitted to live, yet I could not kill them all myself. So I opened the sky-bridge into the north. I told all my people they would pass across it to safety, in a land where no one would know them. They obeyed-«

«Not all of them.»

«No. There were some who rebelled, because they did not trust me. They had to be slain here in the castle. But most went across the sky-bridge, and now they are all dead or dying. Those who still live eat the flesh of the dead, Not even the bodies will be found, for they will vanish into the glacier and the glacier into the sea. To Rentoro, it will be as if all those who served in my castle and on my lands vanished into the sky. I did not leave Morina as a monument to my power, but I will leave this memory.» The Wizard's voice was begi

«Then I destroyed the sky-bridge, and by the power of my mind alone slew all those who had remained behind to guard it. You saw their bodies in the courtyard. Now only you and I remain alive in all the castle, and soon we also shall be gone. You will return to your England, and I will return with you. You have not served me here in Rentoro, but you will in England, and you will be the first of many to serve me there.»

With those last words, the Wizard snatched up the stick from the table and smashed it across Blade's sword arm. Blade felt the bone go and saw the sword fly across the room. He started to draw his dagger with his left hand, then suddenly the Wizard was assaulting his mind more strongly than ever before.