Threads are slipping, one by one

Grand plans soon may come undone.

Arzath stood at his chamber window, shaking. He was always shaking, these days. No matter how hard he concentrated, no matter how stony his determination, he could not seem to calm the involuntary twitching of his muscles. It was as though they had developed a will of their own. His head hurt so often that he had almost become accustomed to it, but the trembling he could not ignore.

Nor could he ignore the nightmares, though he desperately tried. All of them involved Requar, in some form or another, returning to the valley and finding Arzath weak and vulnerable.

And then destroying him.

Arzath had confined himself to his tower room, allowing no one save his one remaining Human servant to attend to his needs. He could not afford to let the rest of his minions catch sight of him in this pathetic state; they would lose all respect for him, and worse, the smarter ones might even begin to suspect the truth. The Murons worried him, especially; they were extremely shrewd creatures, it would not take them long to work out the real reason behind their master's reclusiveness and odd behaviour.

If they hadn't deduced it already.

Arzath clenched his fists, digging his fingernails hard into his palms, relishing the spikes of pain that momentarily eclipsed the throbbing in his head. The Murons could not be allowed to discover the truth. Reverence of his magic was the only thing that bound them to his will. Without it, they had no reason to obey him, no reason to let him live, for that matter. Without magic, he was useless, nothing but an ordinary Human. No, he corrected himself bitterly, a less than ordinary Human, a weakling stripped of all strength and hope. But as long as a healthy measure of doubt remained, he still held some power over them.

He glared at his brother's castle across the river, letting the image of it burn into his eyes, fuelling his hate and anger, filling the empty, hollow space that the loss of his magic had gouged out of his soul. He began to laugh suddenly, not quite knowing why. Perhaps at the irony that his eventual downfall might come at the hands of his own minions. Or perhaps simply to keep the fear at bay.

He turned away from the window, his laughter ceasing abruptly, but his emerald eyes remained distant, still focused on the white castle in his mind. There had to be a way inside it. Something he had overlooked…

A glimmer of insight appeared amidst the red mist of pain inside his head. Or perhaps something that Requar had overlooked.

He spun back to the window, leaning out, peering intently at the castle again. He let his gaze lower to the rocky cliffs beneath it, to the glittering blue river, then to his own sun-ravaged bluff. Both castles were built on top of existing foundations, two ancient fortresses on two bluffs. Was it coincidence… or had those ancient ruins in fact been part of the same structure? Was it possible that there had originally been one giant fortress here? Perhaps… Arzath felt his heart begin to race… perhaps connected by tunnels beneath the river? Just how deep did the old foundations go?

He closed his eyes and searched his mind for memories of any such tunnels, but found nothing. There were still a few parts of his memory that were incomplete, never recovered after the accident, locked doors for which he had lost the keys…

"Dammit!" he cursed aloud. He needed Cimmeran! He ran his hands through his hair in agitation and strode across the room, trying to think. The servant was gone; he could not afford to waste time waiting around for his Murons to drag the wretched man back. He would have to figure this out on his own.

There was a tentative knock on his chamber door, so soft that he almost missed it, but it was nevertheless an unwelcome intrusion on his desperate thoughts. "Go away!" he wailed. He was pleased to hear the patter of footsteps as the servant hurried away.

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes again, gathering together the strands of his scattered thoughts, trying to weave them together. Supposing a tunnel did exist beneath the river. If he knew of it, then his brother undoubtedly knew of it as well. And Requar would have either destroyed it or blocked it with heavy defensive spells; otherwise, Arzath would have conquered his castle years ago.

But that was when Requar knew I was alive, Arzath thought. Now he believes that I am dead… He stopped pacing. At least, he could only assume that Requar thought him dead, could only hope that his accidental tap on the shield had not alerted his brother to the truth…

Assuming that he believes I am dead, he regained his train of thought fiercely, resuming his pacing. And assuming that the tunnel was still accessible in some way, there was a chance, albeit a small one, that Requar had forgotten about it, and hadn't bothered to maintain a shield there after he left. After all, who could possibly know of its existence save himself, Requar and Cimmeran?

Arzath leaped towards his desk and opened a drawer, pulling out pieces of parchment, studying them in shaking hands before discarding them on the floor. He had plenty of maps of his castle and the valley, but none indicated the presence of a river tunnel. Nor the room that housed his secret weapon, but that was as expected. He would never have marked something that important on a map. He hadn't anticipated being thrown off a cliff and losing his memory and magic, after all.

He rummaged through several more drawers and chests but found no further plans of the castle's foundations. Refusing to be disheartened, he strode across the room to the stand of servant's torches near the door and seized one. He didn't care that his hunch was based on a lot of vague assumptions, if there was the slightest chink in that bloody shield, he was going to find it!

He pulled open the door and swept out, descending the stairwell like a quivering black wraith.

Thumping footsteps boomed in the quiet corridor, shuddering the hanging tapestries. Kyosk wandered along his patrol route with monotonous steps, yawning frequently and blinking sleepily. His halberd rested on his shoulder, one huge, chunky arm draped over the handle. His enormous red spikes rose behind him, gleaming in dusty shafts of sunlight as he passed a window now and then.

How maddeningly boring his life had become in this castle, he mused, how he yearned for the smell of fresh blood on steel…

A servant came running around the corner and seeing the huge Grik in his way, edged along the wall to pass him, eyes fixed firmly on the floor in front of him.

Kyosk turned lazily to watch him, and then barked: "Oi!"

The young boy jumped in fright and tripped on his black robes, the neatly folded, gold-embroidered clothes in his arms tumbling to the floor.

Kyosk snorted with laughter. Excellent! Finally, something to amuse himself with for the rest of the afternoon.

"Where 'o you been?" the Grik demanded, though one glance at the fallen garments the servant was now hurriedly scooping up answered his question.

"M-master's ch-chambers!" the servant stammered, his eyes so wide they were in danger of falling out of his head. "He t-told me to go away!"

Kyosk swung the halberd off his shoulder and stretched his arms, listening to the joints click. "Don't blame 'im," he growled. "Who would wanna see a liddle snot like you?"

The servant looked as though he wanted to flee for his life, but couldn't seem to take his eyes off the huge blade in the Grik's hands. Clutching Arzath's clean robes to his chest, he backed away until he came up against a plinth supporting a large, black porcelain amphora. Realising that he was about to be trapped if he didn't move quickly, the boy darted along the wall to Kyosk's right, trying to slip past.

Kyosk lunged with the spike-tipped halberd and pinned the servant's robes to the wall. The boy gave a terrified yelp and struggled so frantically that he managed to tear himself free and flee back down the corridor and around the corner.

Kyosk sniggered. He liked a good game of Chase the Servant.

Yawning widely and raising the halberd to his shoulder once more, he trudged unhurriedly after the boy. He had just reached the corner when, to his surprise, the servant came racing back, so fast that he collided with Kyosk and bounced into the opposite wall. Growling, Kyosk snatched him by the throat as he tried to find his feet. "What are you doin', runnin' aroun' like a liddle rat?"

This time, there was an entirely new level of fear on the boy's pale face. He gasped a single word: "Master!"

Reluctantly, Kyosk dropped him, and the boy disappeared in seconds. The big Grik remained where he was, listening. From the adjacent corridor came a hollow tapping sound, and the faint swish of cloth. Quietly, he edged towards the wall and peered around the corner.

Lord Arzath emerged from a stairwell a short way down the hall. He was carrying a long-handled torch, leaning on it heavily and panting as though the walk down the stairs had taken a supreme effort. Kyosk's brows raised in surprise. The sorcerer looked incredibly ill, much as he had directly following the cliff accident. Obviously, his condition had not improved as much as he had led his Griks to believe it had.

Arzath leaned on the wall and fumbled in his pocket for something. Kyosk's brows lifted further. It was a tin of matches.

The sorcerer's hands were shaking so badly that he almost dropped the tin, but he managed to strike a flame and light the torch. He cast a wary eye down the corridor. Kyosk ducked hurriedly out of sight as the green gaze swept his way. He kept very still, holding his breath, but there was no incriminating shout.

Orange torchlight flickered on the wall to his left, then suddenly diminished in a rush of shifting shadows. Kyosk waited until it had faded completely before hazarding another glance into the hall.

He caught the tail end of the glow as it disappeared around a bend in the stairwell. Arzath had continued descending into the depths of the keep. Kyosk crept over to the stairs as quietly as a Grik could manage and looked down. He was tempted to follow Arzath – he even took one step down – but then hesitated. His master wasn't stupid, he would realise someone was following him very quickly. Kyosk decided that his life wasn't worth risking simply in order to satisfy his curiosity.

His crimson eyes narrowed. Besides, he now had all the evidence he needed to support the suspicion that had been slowly growing over the past couple of weeks. There was something intriguingly wrong with Arzath, something that he was trying to hide.

And Kyosk thought he had finally figured out what it was.

Loathing his decision, but convincing himself that it was necessary, Kyosk turned away from the stairwell and went to find Varshax.

* * *

Crysk groped blindly in the blackness. All light had vanished, and all sounds evaporated into cold, empty silence. He could hear nothing save his own laboured breathing and scrape of his shell against the wall. The passageway was so narrow that he was forced to edge through it sideways. As well as that, it had begun to spiral steeply upwards in a set of tightly curled stone steps. More than once, he had feared he'd wedged himself immovably into a corner, but each time had managed to struggle onwards.

He pressed on determinedly, mostly because he had no choice. The Murons were waiting if he dared to turn back. He was thankful that he could no longer hear their horrifying screams.

Nevertheless, he was dismayed that the passageway was leading upwards. He didn't want to go further up, he wanted to go down, far, far down, as far away from the Muron's awful eyrie as he could get. But there was still hope. Perhaps the stairs would eventually open out onto a landing somewhere.

He tried not to think about what he would do if they ended up on the roof.

He whimpered pitifully in the darkness, wishing he were back in the smoky, oily mess room, munching on a nice, burnt leg of mutton…

His hand landed on something that scuttled away. Crysk scrabbled for it eagerly, found the creature, and ate it. Whatever it was, it was crunchy, but not very satisfying.

Time slid endlessly on, locking the Grik away in a black world devoid of everything but himself and the stairs, which seemed ever increasingly to be taunting him. The grating of his body on the walls mocked his escape, making him rue his decision to venture into the eyrie, causing him to crumple under the weight of his own stupidity. These stairs had no end; he might well have been better off if the Murons had caught him. Perhaps this was his true punishment, to skulk here in the walls of the castle, forever, like the spider he had just eaten…

With a sudden jerk, he realised that he could see his stubby hand on the wall in front of him. There was a definite brightness emanating from above. Relief flooding through him, he struggled onwards, ignoring the cobwebs that stuck to his face and caught on the chunks of gold ore protruding from his shell. A short time later, the stairs finally ended and he stopped, squinting in the bright sunlight.

He had emerged, not on the roof as was his first heart-stopping thought, but into a small circular chamber. Six narrow windows ringed its black stone walls, filled with iron grates punctured with round holes. Hundreds of strands of hazy white light filtered through the holes, crossing the room, giving it the look of a gigantic, ethereal spider's web.

One of the shutters was open, letting in a thick beam of sunlight, which fell blindingly on a shining object in the middle of the room. Crysk blinked his eyes to clear the coloured spots from his vision.

It was a sword, balanced delicately on a metal tripod, pointing towards the open window like a compass needle. There, Lord Requar's castle was perfectly framed, like a painting on the wall.

Crysk looked around warily. It was a peculiar room: more than anything it resembled a cross between a metalworker's shop and an alchemist's study. A rack of weapons stood beside the stairwell on his left, rusted and draped with cobwebs. To his right was a wooden bench crammed with all sorts of miscellaneous debris: broken crystals, bits of metal, vials containing unguessable liquids and powders, pieces of parchment covered with notes, a quill pen, ink bottles, strange tools, and books: lots and lots of books. More books were stuffed into a thin bookcase wedged between the bench and the doorway, and yet more crowded in ungainly piles on the floor.

The ceiling was low and tapered, supported by iron struts. A single candle, half-drowned in wax, sat in a holder hanging by a chain from the centre strut. It swayed gently in a draught from the open window, making the strands of light flicker.

The room seemed harmless, but Crysk was nevertheless filled with an awkward sense of unease, as though he had stumbled onto something private. And worse than that… a single glance told him that there were no other exits, entrances or stairwells in the chamber. The windows were much too narrow to squeeze through. It was a dead end.

Crysk's shoulders slumped in despair and defeat. He moved forward into the room, wondering what to do next. Gloomily, he stared down at the sword in front of him, his attention momentarily riveted by its exquisite workmanship and beauty.

The sword was longer, leaner and more elegant than anything he had ever seen before. Certainly, it resembled nothing in the castle's armoury. The blade was polished to a flawless silver finish; he could see his reflection in it like a mirror. Two snakes – one black, one white – curled upwards from the hilt, entwined with each other and the blade in an everlasting embrace. The crosspiece and hilt were silver as well, and the pommel stone was round and gold. There was something curious about the hilt, however: there appeared to be a piece missing. At the junction of blade and handle was a cross-shaped depression, as though a small, bladed object such as a dagger might fit inside.

Crysk picked up the sword and turned it over in his hand. It was a pretty-looking thing, although far too light for his liking. It felt as though it might shatter like glass if he struck something with it. Definitely not made for Griks.

He wondered if it was Angel-made. It reminded him of the wondrous blades said to have been wielded by the fabled Sky Legion, an elite army of Angelical warriors that lived now only in stories of ages past. One such popular tale told of the last great battle between the Sky Legion and the Griks, whose chief ultimately slew the Angel leader and fashioned his gold feathers into a glorious cloak.

Crysk grinned and lifted the sword. He took up a fighting stance, adopted a menacing scowl, and thrust the sword at the air, imagining that he was Great Chief Dukogeg killing an Angel Legionary. The sword sparkled as though infused with mysterious power as he swished it through the beams of sunlight, pretending to parry and dodge invisible blows. Inevitably, a careless swing sent the blade smashing into the lamp hanging in the middle of the room. The candleholder broke off its chain and crashed onto the bench, scattering objects everywhere. A jar containing blue powder fell to the floor and shattered.

Wincing, Crysk waited until the tinkle of glass had died away, then hurriedly replaced the sword on its holder, taking several attempts to get it to balance properly. He tried to brush the spilled powder and glass under the bench with his foot, but stopped when the sole began to smoulder. He backed away to the doorway, his tiny black eyes growing wide.

"I never touched nuffin'!" he said defensively to the silent room, as though the grate-holes were hundreds of eyes glaring at him in accusation. He began to wedge himself back down the stairway, then froze suddenly in realisation.

There was nowhere to go.

"Blackwings!" he whimpered. "Blackwings waitin' fer me!"

He was trapped. He would never make it back through the eyrie, he would be slaughtered without some sort of weapon to fight the Murons off with, and he had nothing at all. Except…

He looked back at the sword.

The stupid thing would probably break when it hit the Murons' hard scales, Crysk thought as he shuffled through the darkness, the sword clutched in his fist. But it was all he had. I'll poke dere 'orrible eyes out, yeah! he told himself fiercely. All he needed to do was hold them off long enough to make the cover of the hallway: there at least he could run.

Eerily, the sword was emitting a faint silver luminescence, as though a bit of sunlight had remained trapped on the blade. This observation sent a dark shiver of warning through Crysk, but at the moment, he was too frightened to care.

He reached the end of the secret passage sooner than he expected, perhaps because he was so distracted by the terror of what he was about to do that time ceased to have meaning. Dust and cobwebs had collected on him, stuck in every crevice of his body. His heart was pounding rapidly. He paused uncertainly, staring at the narrow oblong of light and the grisly mound of bones beyond.

There were no Murons to be seen.

He listened, but heard no sound save the familiar gentle clink of the hanging chains. The echo they created was unnerving.

Swallowing thickly, he tightened his grip on the flimsy sword and stepped towards the opening.

There was a large black shape to one side, stark against the bones.

Crysk shoved himself back into the shadows, catching his breath. He braced himself for an attack, but the Muron did not move. He waited for several seconds, heart racing, then peered fearfully out.

The creature was dead. Its huge wings were splayed out at awkward angles, and its neck was broken. Its body was badly lacerated; flesh and scales had been torn off it in strips. Its yellow eyes were dim and lifeless. Crysk realised it was the same one that had broken its wings trying to get at him. He looked at the shredded wings and quickly turned away again, shivering.

Apart from the dead Muron and himself, the eyrie was deserted. The sun had shifted, leaving long, curved streaks of light high on the opposite wall and the rest of the chamber in cool shadow. Nothing moved within the inky darkness of the arches above him.

Crysk took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. He looked out across the bone-scattered floor. The only other exit was about ten yards away to his left. He wondered how to cross the bones without making too much noise, and quickly decided it was impossible.

So, taking another breath and a firm grip on his sword, he ran for it.

Almost instantly, the air was filled with fluttering black shapes, materialising out of nowhere as though the shadows themselves had come to life. Crysk stumbled in panic as one of them swooped at him from behind. He swung the sword with a cry, and was astonished to see black blood spray through the air and the Muron's arm fly across the room.

The Muron's scream nearly split the Grik's head apart. Crysk didn't bother to wonder about the unbelievable sharpness of the sword, he merely got up and kept running.

Another Muron landed on the bones in front of him, sending them tumbling, and leapt at him. Crysk thrust the sword in front of him, cringing, waiting for the inevitable, but the blade went right through the creature all the way to the hilt.

The Muron hardly seemed aware of its injury, if anything, it only seemed more enraged. It slashed and snapped at him viciously. Crysk threw himself to the ground, but not before catching a few sharp blows to the head and back. There was movement in the corner of his eye. Ignoring the pain and acting on instinct, he grabbed the handle of the sword in both hands and swung the Muron, still pinned to the blade, to shield himself against the one-armed Muron who had just lunged at him from behind.

The resulting blow caught the pinned Muron directly in the head, which shrieked and lashed out at its fellow. Crysk pulled the sword free and scrambled away as the two Murons snarled and hissed and attacked each other, momentarily forgetting the Grik.

Crysk ran for the hallway entrance, Murons all around him now. However, they seemed more cautious than before, hanging back, stalking him, waiting for the best moment to attack. Crysk, despite his terror, was filled with a thrilling surge of confidence at the stunning efficiency of his newfound weapon. He had the ability to hurt the Murons, to incapacitate them badly, maybe even kill them and they knew it.

"Hyah!" Crysk yelled fiercely, feinting at the nearest one, but to his disappointment, it did not leap away. It merely glared at him and snapped its jaws.

"Ssstupid little Grik!" a Muron perched atop the pile of bones hissed. "You do not know what you possesss!"

"Y-yeah I do!" Crysk stammered defiantly. "A sword!"

A few of the Murons laughed. It was a chilling sound.

"You hold your own death in your handsss," the first Muron whispered.

Crysk glanced nervously at the Murons on either side. They were hunched over, sharp teeth bared, eyes narrowed, ready to pounce. He wanted to shrink into himself, to disappear, anything to avoid those terrible hungry gazes. But he held his ground, tightening his grip on the sword as though his very existence was bound to it.

As, in fact, it was. Remember Great Chief Dukogeg, Crysk told himself.

"No," he replied, and his voice came out stronger than he expected. He gave it power until it rang out through the chamber: "I 'old yours!"

Hissing and snarling in anger, the Murons attacked.

They came at him in a rush of slashing claws and teeth. Crysk backed away, swinging the sword wildly in all directions. Blood and screams filled the air, but somehow the small Grik remained alive in the midst of the lethal whirlwind. Murons fell at his feet, cut down like firewood. Those that were wounded were torn and shoved aside with frenetic rage by their fellows, but despite the Grik's amateurish, clumsy swings, none could withstand the flashing silver blade. Scales that would have blunted or bent any other weapon cleaved like butter in the sword's breath.

There was a brief pause in the fighting as the last of the first wave was decimated. Crysk's escape route was unguarded, and he seized his chance.

At last, he felt the smooth, reassuring stone of the hallway beneath his feet. A Muron made one final lunge to stop him, and lost its head for the effort. Crysk fled down the broad steps, disappeared into the passageway and did not look back.

The Grik mess hall was crowded; some hundred and fifty boulder-like bodies crammed into the cavernous, windowless room for the evening meal. Stone benches were barely enough to carry the weight. The sounds of harsh laughter, grunts, growls, the ripping of flesh from bones and occasional crunching bang of a fistfight filled the air in a cacophony of noise. Torches spluttered and choked in their own smoke on the scorched walls.

No one looked up as the door creaked quietly open and a lone Grik lumbered through the room, heading for the long table where Grogdish sat with some of the guards.

Grogdish wiped bone fragments from his mouth with the back of his hand and was about to take a swig of dark, viscous Grik-brewed ale, when something large and black thumped onto the table amidst the half-eaten chickens. Despite himself, he jumped, slopping ale all over himself.

One startling yellow eye stared directly at him.

The entire table fell silent. The Griks, as one, turned and stared.

Crysk, the squat, immensely stupid Grik that they had teased and shoved into the Muron's eyrie earlier that morning, stood at the end of the table. He was covered in black blood, dust, cobwebs and his skin was chipped and gashed, but his tiny eyes were fiercely bright. He drew himself up as though he were the tallest Grik in the room.

"I told yers I'd bring back a head!" he said.