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  But for the time being the problems of gathering intelligence outside the castle could wait. There was another question for which he had to find the answer as soon as possible: What had happened to his demons? Who, what power, had been able to sweep them out of the sky like so many drifting cobwebs?

  Having descended the ladder that led immediately down from the tower’s top, he started down the stairs, meanwhile casting about him with his own magical powers for an answer. But Wood was unable to confirm anything about the event he had just witnessed except that the demons were definitely gone. Whatever force had banished them had left no trace of itself behind.

  As soon as he reached a level of the tower where there were soldiers within easy call, Wood summoned several, then hurriedly sent them scurrying on ahead of him, bearing his orders in different directions.

  First of all he wanted to make sure that his important prisoners were secure. Particularly the one named Mark—Prince of Tasavalta, said to be the adopted son of a blacksmith named Jord. And the natural son—if the stories Wood had heard were true—of the enigmatic magician now called the Emperor.

  Could it really be true that this child of the Emperor, or anyone else, innately possessed such powers? Wood doubted that, but so far he had been unable to discover any other clue to an explanation for his demons’ disappearance.

  Mark had shown no sign of magical ability during his first brief confrontation with the Ancient Master. But if Mark was now shouting demons out of the sky, it could be assumed with a fair degree of certainty that he was no longer bound under the water by Wood’s enchantment.

  Reaching the lower levels of the castle, Wood now passed from the base of the aerie tower into the central keep. In a moment he had reached the room that he ordinarily used as his headquarters. On entering this chamber, his first act was to call for General Amintor.

  Before the general had arrived, a messenger came running to the wizard with information on the prisoners. The two men who last night had been sunken in the well were missing this morning. Not only that, but Lady Yambu was gone from what had seemed a secure cell in a tower.

  There was additional unlikely news. Lady Ninazu, who had arrived in a small boat last night and had been put into a waiting room to await her lord’s pleasure, had also disappeared along with her strange attendant. The bars on a window had been forced—

  “She came out here, to the castle, last night?” It was on the tip of the wizard’s tongue to demand to know why he had not been told last night of her arrival; but he, of course, had spent much of the night over on the mainland.

  A subordinate said nervously: “Your Lordship, if you will allow me to remind you, I informed you of the lady’s presence shortly after she arrived.”

  “You informed me? When was this? Where?”

  The officer quailed. “In the central courtyard, last night, sire. It was about an hour after midnight.”

  The man who made this statement now to Wood had not, in the past, impressed the magician as being more than ordinarily stupid. And he appeared to be currently in full possession of his faculties.

  Wood looked at him steadily. “Are you completely sure of this?” he asked.

  “It was last night, Your Lordship. Just as Your Lordship was entering the grotto with Lady Yambu. When I—”

  “Wait. Wait. Start over. Tell me all the circumstances of this supposed encounter between us.”

  The soldier he was questioning grew increasingly nervous, but Wood was patient. As the story came out it forced all of his other problems temporarily out of his mind. Someone, as recently as last night, had been successfully impersonating him within the castle. So successfully, indeed, that the idea of an impostor had never entered the minds of even his close associates.

  General Amintor had entered the room during the course of this questioning, had quickly grasped the situation, and now had a suggestion to make.

  “Sire, this strongly suggests one thing to me—that the Sword of Stealth has been introduced into your castle by one of your enemies. In fact I know of no other way such an impersonation could be accomplished.”

  Wood could think of at least two other possibilities in the realm of advanced magic for achieving such an effect. Using one of these himself, he was accustomed to being able to alter his own appearance between two modes, more or less at will. But he had to admit that Amintor was very likely right about the Sword.

  The Ancient One’s next step was to order a full alert of all his troops, and then a thorough search of the castle, and the fringe of island surrounding it, for the escapees.

  Then Wood informed his chief subordinates of where he himself intended to be during the next few hours while the search was in progress. If they believed that they saw him anywhere else during that time, they would be looking at an impostor. In that event they were to keep the masquerader under surveillance and bring word to their real master at once.

  Having issued these and a few other orders, Wood turned his attention to the castle’s garrison and the other components of its defenses. In what other way might they have been undermined without his knowledge?

  But here, at least, the reports he got were reassuring. Just under four hundred troops were present, well armed and ready for duty, within the castle walls. The morale of the men had reportedly been somewhat shaken by the events of the past few hours, and the Ancient One decided that his next step ought to be to address that problem.

  He commanded a general muster of all the troops except a few sentries who were to continue manning the walls. He intended to speak to his soldiers and reassure them.

  Certainly, he thought, the garrison ought to be more than adequate to defend these formidable walls against the strongest attack that the ragged followers of Honan-Fu could mount—assuming the old wizard had any followers left, and assuming he had indeed managed to make good his escape to the mainland. Now that a search for the prisoners had started, reports were coming in to Wood of the chance discovery of secret passages within the castle, and that kind of an escape no longer appeared such a remote possibility.

  Particularly with Draffut roaming the surrounding lake…

  Mustering almost all his men in a formation to hear their commander speak meant necessarily delaying the search for the escapees, but Wood determined to take that risk.

  From what the officers and the sergeants could tell him, it was not the doubtful capabilities of Honan-Fu that worried his troops. It was the mysterious fate of their mainland garrison, and, even more than that, it was Draffut.

  Wood could understand that last apprehension, because in a way he shared it. But he was not going to allow any kind of fear to demoralize his men.

  He strode out onto a high balcony, overlooking the assembled troops, hundreds of faces squinting up into the noon sun.

  “Hear me!” he roared in his amplified voice. “I know what bothers you, and in a way I cannot blame you, because in your ignorance you cannot help yourselves. Let me instead enlighten you.

  “To begin with, you have all heard rumors about what happened to the garrison at Triplicane. The truth is that they relaxed their vigilance when I was not there to protect them, and a powerful magician struck them down. He fled the field afterward, not daring to face me directly. I am here, and as long as I am your leader he is not going to come back. Enough on that subject.

  “The next most popular subject of rumors is yonder monster out in the lake. He’s fierce enough against boats, and, I grant you, against demons too, as some of you have been able to see for yourselves this morning,

  “But, as those of you who had to swim last night can testify, he is too tenderhearted to so much as scratch the skin of any human being. Did we lose a single man to him last night, for all his pranks and bellowing?”

  There had indeed been, as Wood well knew, at least one man reported drowned among the occupants of the capsized boats. But one man, among the dozens who had been tipped into the lake, might well have been sheer accident. At least no one wa
s brave enough to raise the subject of that one man now.

  “No, we did not!” Into the uncertain silence Wood shouted his own answer to his own question. “And we’ll lose none to the great dog, today or ever!”

  For some time he continued in this vein, and when at last he paused to consider the temper of his audience, he thought that they had been considerably encouraged.

  In a somewhat lower voice their master went on: “No, we can hold these walls against him. One sword or one pike or one arrow may not be able to do him much damage—but let him stand within our reach, and we can hew the flesh from his bones eventually, so he’ll have to back away or die. The walls here are at least twice as tall as he is, and he cannot climb them as long as we are alert and ready to discourage him in the attempt. And, let me say it again, he cannot, I repeat he cannot, ever do any one of us the least harm!”

  It was as rousing a climax for his speech as any Wood was able to conceive at the moment, and he let it end there. The troops, at a signal from their officers, managed to produce a cheer that had some energy and some flavor of spontaneity about it. Marching rank by rank out of the courtyard, they seemed to their Ancient Master to be moving with new determination.

  When he came in from the balcony, officers were waiting for him with more good news for the defense. There was plenty of stored food on hand, provisions prudently stockpiled by the castle’s previous owner, against the possibility of a siege that had never come. And there would of course be no difficulty about fresh water, even supposing that Honan-Fu and his allies could really manage to mount and maintain a siege.

  All in all, Wood foresaw no real problems in his defense of this castle, unless an attack should be made with sudden, overwhelming force. And there was no reason to anticipate anything of the kind.

  He had business outside these walls that he was anxious to get on with. But that business would require that he travel a considerable distance, and he did not want to leave the castle while there was a possibility of a successful impostor still lurking within.

  Once more Wood summoned General Amintor, and when the limping old soldier had arrived, discussed with him the friendly reinforcements that were supposedly on their way. Some of Amintor’s lieutenants ought now to be leading those troops—perhaps five thousand men in all—here from the west. This force was to form the nucleus of a large army that in time would move into the north, challenging Tasavalta and the other powers of that region for supremacy.

  Wood announced his intention of sending Amintor out now, riding the griffin. The general was to meet this army of reinforcements, which was still probably a two week march away, and survey its size, condition, and rate of advance. Then Amintor was to report back to Wood, within twenty-four hours.

  Amintor, experienced warrior that he was, could not entirely conceal his dismay when he heard about the means of transportation that he was to use. Wood had noticed in the past that the general preferred not to get too close to the griffin.

  “The griffin,” Wood assured him, “is very fast and reliable. It should be able to manage the distance in that time without any trouble. Well, what do you say?”

  The general thought briefly, then asked: “Will the creature obey my orders, sire?”

  “It will obey all the orders that you may need to give it. However, it will come back to me here tomorrow, whatever you may say to it in the meantime. See that you are on it when it begins its return flight.”

  Amintor bowed. If the thought of flying on a griffin terrified him, he was at least not trying to shirk the duty, and that was all that Wood could ask of him.

  The two men climbed to the aerie—Amintor getting up stairs and ladders slowly on his bad leg—and Wood gave the necessary magical commands. A moment later, squinting into the afternoon sun, he had seen the griffin and its somewhat reluctant rider off.

  Naturally Wood had remembered to inform the officers conducting the search of the fact that he was leaving his headquarters room, and of his destination. One of these officers met him on his way down from the high tower, with word that the impostor had been spotted. Someone looking exactly like Wood himself —in which of the two modes of his appearance the informant did not say—had been glimpsed by several people, looking out of one of the higher windows in the little-used central tower of the castle. As yet no attempt had been made to close in on the offender.

  “That is good. I myself will lead the way.” Resting his hand on the hilt of Shieldbreaker, Wood smiled grimly and set out to deal with the impostor.

  Chapter Twenty

  Zoltan too had managed to get some rest and nourishment. After rowing Mark and Honan-Fu out to Draffut, he had waited in the small boat until the Lord of Healing had healed the damage done by the Ancient Master’s magic, had restored the two men by holding them in his hands, and set them on an island. By that time some people from shore, members of the constabulary, were beginning to come out to Draffut, emboldened by whatever conversation the Emperor had held with them. Eventually Zoltan had gone back with some of these people to the docks at Triplicane.

  Meanwhile Mark, as soon as he was healed and had rested enough to feel nearly recovered, insisted on returning to the castle, where Ben and Yambu were still in peril. But Honan-Fu declined to go with him, deciding instead to stay for the time being on the small island where he had been placed by Draffut. This afforded the old wizard an advanced position from which he would be able to command the amphibious assault he was already planning in order to retake the castle.

  The town of Triplicane, like the rest of the territory surrounding Lake Alkmaar, was now free land once more. The only effective troops in the area still loyal to the Ancient One were now confined within the castle walls. The people who welcomed Zoltan ashore were rejoicing over this state of affairs, but by this time he was almost too tired to care. He talked briefly with some of the leaders of the constabulary in town, enjoyed a good meal, and then stretched out on a borrowed bedroll inside a shed.

  Zoltan did not awake until midafternoon. When he came out of the shed, he discovered that preparations for an amphibious counterattack against the castle were farther advanced than he supposed, and the attack was to be launched during the coming night.

  Already a surprising number of boats had been gathered from around the lake. Some of these were craft that had been successfully concealed from the invaders; and some were the very boats that the soldiers of the Ancient One had used in their invasion. These craft had been seized at the town docks after the destruction of the garrison, and were now to be turned against the enemy. Also included in the invasion fleet were two large rowboats that Draffut had overturned during the night, then righted and emptied so they could be easily rowed ashore.

  Transport for several hundred men was thus available. Nor had there been any difficulty in gathering sufficient arms. Besides the weapons that had been successfully hidden away during the brief occupation, enough more had been picked up from the field in front of the manor to arm at least a hundred men.

  Zoltan had heard that there were a few military survivors of that massacre, and he had even talked to one of them, a young private soldier in a dirty uniform of red and gray, who was now confined under guard in a shed next to the one in which Zoltan had been sleeping.

  The youth appeared somewhat fearful of what was going to happen to him next, but the main impression that he conveyed was of sheer gladness in being still alive.

  “Why are you still alive, do you suppose?” Zoltan asked him curiously after the prisoner had told him a brief version of the disaster.

  The other young man shook his head, as if at some wonder he could not understand no matter how he tried. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. When that show started, everyone around me, almost, started laughing … Were you there?”

  “No. But I’ve talked to someone else who was.”

  The former enemy shook his head again. “I just don’t know why I’m still here. Everyone was laughing, but I just didn’t see nothing t
o laugh at. Them girls having their clothes ripped off, that wasn’t funny. Nobody had ought to do that. And the little fella in the clown suit, he acted like he was trying to protect ’em, even if he got himself killed. I wouldn’t have had the guts to do that, but I didn’t think it was funny either.”

  “No,” said Zoltan. “No, I wouldn’t have laughed at that.”

  “And all the rest of my company are dead, they tell me, and here I am still alive. It’s strange. I’m just lucky, I guess.”

  Zoltan left him in the shed. The young man was still marveling at his own survival, and ready to tell the story again, if someone else would listen.

  * * *

  It was well after dark when the assault force finally pushed off, some two hundred men and a few women in more than twenty boats. Zoltan, having eaten heartily again, and armed from the common stock of weapons, was aboard one of them.

  * * *

  At sunrise, as soon as the brief sickness brought on by demons had suddenly abated, Arnfinn had gone on alone into the hidden rooms of the central tower. By that time he had temporarily given up trying to persuade Lady Ninazu to come with him. He didn’t know what was wrong with her—as near as he could tell, she was afraid that her brother would not be here after all. Or else she was afraid he would.

  As Arnfinn soon discovered, there were four rooms in this hidden suite, two on the level entered from the tunnel and two more just above, on the highest interior level of the tower. He spent an hour alone in these rooms, searching them carefully, making sure in his own mind that Ninazu’s brother was not here. No one was, except himself. Nor was there any sign that anyone had lived here very recently, nor was there anything about the rooms to make Arnfinn think they might have been used as a prison.

  The four rooms, two on one level and two on the next, connected by a single narrow interior stairway, occupied the top two stories of the central tower. The tower narrowed slightly here, toward its top, and none of the rooms were very large. All of them were furnished, and they did contain plenty of potential hiding places: there were beds with spaces beneath, disused cabinets and wardrobes, and closets stuffed with junk, much of it children’s toys. Arnfinn had done as thorough a job as he possibly could of searching through all these nooks and crannies, making sure that neither Kunderu nor anyone else was lying in concealment.