The Best of the Realms, Book I

THE GREATEST HERO WHO EVER DIED

J. Robert King

The stormy winds that swept up from the Great Ice Sea often brought unwanted things to lofty Capel Curig. Tonight, in addition topelting snow and driving gales, the wind brought a hideously evil man.

None knew him as such when he tossed open the battereddoor of the Howling Reed. They saw only a huge, dark-hooded stranger haloed inswirling snow. Those nearest the door drew back from the wind and the vast formprecipitating out of it, drew back as the door slammed behind the drippingfigure, slammed, and shuddered in its frame. Without discharging the ice fromhis boots, the stranger limped across the foot-polished planks of the Reed to atrembling hearth fire. There he bent low, flung a few more logs on the flames,and stood, eclipsing the warmth and casting a giant shadow over the room.

The rumble of conversation in the Reed diminished asall eyes in the tiny pub turned furtively toward the ruined figure.

Silhouetted on the hearth, the stranger looked likesome huge and ill-formed marionette. He lacked an arm, for his right sleeve waspinned to the shoulder and his left hand did all the adjusting of his fetidform. Deliberately, that widowed hand drew back some of his robes, but thesodden figure beneath looked no less shapeless. For all his shifting, he didnot remove the hood from his head, a head that appeared two sizes too small forhis body. Beneath the hood, the man's face was old and lightless, withcold-stiffened lips, a narrow black beard, and a hooked nose. In all, his formlooked as though a large man hid within those robes, holding some poorlyproportioned puppet head to serve as his face.

He spoke then, and his hollow voice and rasping tonguemade the patrons jump a bit.

"Can any of you spare a silver for a bowl ofblood soup and a quaff of ale?"

None responded except by blank, refusing stares. Noteven Horace behind the bar would offer the stranger a glass of water.Apparently, all would rather dare his wrath than know their charities hadprovided sustenance to him.

The man was apparently all too acquainted with thisresponse, for he shook his head slowly and laughed a dry, dead-leaf laugh. Afew staggering steps brought him to a chair, vacated upon his arrival and stillwarm from its former occupant. There he collapsed with a wheeze like apunctured bellows.

"In the lands of Sossal, whence I hail, a man canearn his blood and barley by telling a good tale. And I happen to have such atale, for my land gave birth to the greatest hero who ever lived. Perhaps hisstory will earn me something warm."

Those who had hoped to dismiss him with bald glaresand cruel silence tried turning away and speaking among themselves. Horace, forhis part, retreated through a swinging door to the kitchen, to the graydishwater and the piles of pots.

Unaffected, the shabby wanderer began the telling ofhis tale with a snap of his rigid blue fingers. Green sparks ignited in air,swirled about him, and spread outward like a lambent palm in the heavydarkness. The sparking tracers lighted on all those seated in the taproom, andeach tiny star extinguished itself in the oily folds of flesh between apatron's knotted brows.

The faint crackling of magic gave way to a single,hushed sigh. In moments, the place fell silent again, and the tale began.

"The lands of Sossal were once guarded by a nobleknight, Sir Paramore, the greatest hero who ever lived…"

Golden haired, with eyes like platinum, Sir Paramorestrode in full armor through the throne room of King Caen. Any other knightwould have been stripped of arms and armaments upon crossing the threshold, butnot noble Paramore. He marched forward, brandishing his spell-slaying longsword Kneuma and dragging a bag behind him as he approached the royal dais.There the king and princess and a nervous retinue of nobles ceased theirconference and looked to him. Only when within a sword swipe of His Majesty didParamore finally halt, drop to one armored knee, and bow his fealty.

The king, his face ringed with early white locks,spoke.

"And have you apprehended the kidnappers?"

"Better, milord," replied Paramore, risingwith a haste that in anyone else would have been arrogance.

He reached into the bag and drew out in one great andhideous clump the five heads of the kidnappers he had slain.

The king's daughter recoiled in shock. Only then didKing Caen himself see the wide, slick line of red that Sir Paramore's bag haddragged across the cold flagstones behind him.

"You gaze, my liege, on the faces of the hoodlumsyou sought," the knight explained.

In the throat-clenched silence that followed, thewizard Dorsoom moved from behind the great throne, where his black-beardedlips had grown accustomed to plying the king's ears.

"You were to bring them here for questioning,Paramore," said the wizard, "not lop off their heads."

"Peace, Dorsoom," chided the king with anoff-putting gesture. "Let our knight tell his tale."

"The tale is simple, milord," repliedParamore. "I questioned the abductors myself and, when I found themwanting of answers, removed their empty heads."

"This is nonsense," Dorsoom said. "Youmight have simply cut the heads off the first five peasants you saw, then broughtthem here and claimed them the culprits. There should have been a trial. Andeven if these five were guilty-which we can never know now-we do not know whoassigned these ruffians their heinous task."

"They were kidnappers who had stolen away thechildren of these noble folk gathered around us," Paramore replied witheven steel in his voice. "If anything, I was too lenient."

"You prevented their trial-"

"Still the wagging tongue of this worm,"Paramore demanded of the king, leveling his mighty sword against the meddlingmage. "Or perhaps these warriors of mine shall do the task first!"

The great doors of the throne room suddenly swungwide, and a clamor of stomping feet answered. . small feet, the feet ofchildren, running happily up the aisle behind their rescuer. Their shrillvoices were raised in an unseemly psalm of praise to Sir Paramore as they ran.

Seeing their children, the nobles emptied from thedais and rushed to embrace their sons and daughters, held captive those longtendays. The ebullient weeping and cooing that followed drowned the protests ofDorsoom, who retreated to his spot of quiet counsel behind the throne. It wasas though the sounds of joy themselves had driven him back into the darkness.

Over the pleasant noise, the grinning Paramore calledout to the king, "I believe, my liege, you are in my debt. As was promisedme upon the rescue of these dear little ones, I claim the fairest hand in allof Sossal. It is the hand of your beautiful daughter, Princess Daedra, that Iseek."

Paramore's claim was answered by a chorus of shoutsfrom the joyous children, who abandoned their parents to crowd the heels oftheir rescuer. From their spot beside him, the children ardently pleaded theknight's case.

Daedra's bone-white skin flushed, and her lips formeda wound-red line across her face. The king's visage paled in doubt. Beforeeither could speak, though, the children's entreaties were silenced by an angrycry.

"Hush now, younglings!" commanded a thin nobleman,his ebony eyes sparkling angrily beneath equally black brows and hair."Your childish desires have no say here. The hand of the princess has beenpledged to me these long years since my childhood, since before she was born.This usurping knight-" he said the word as though it bore ataint-"cannot steal her from me, nor can your piteous caterwauling."

" 'Tis too true," the king said sadly,shaking his head. He paused a moment, as though listening to some silent voicewhisper behind his throne. "I am pressed by convention, Paramore, togrant her hand to Lord Ferris."

Sir Paramore sheathed his sword and crossed angry armsover his chest.

"Come out, wicked mage," said the knight,"from your place of hiding in the shadow of this great man. Your whisperingscannot dissuade my lord and monarch from granting what his and mine and theprincess's hearts desire."

With that, Paramore touched the handle of his mightysword, Kneuma, to dispel whatever enchantment Dorsoom might have cast on theking. Then he snapped his fingers, and the tiny percussion of his nails strucksparks in the air. The king's retinue and the king himself, as though awakeningfrom a dream, turned toward the shadow-garbed mage. Dorsoom sullenly answeredthe summons and moved into the light.

"Milord, do not be tricked by the puny magic ofthis-"

"Hush, mage," replied King Caen evenly,regarding Dorsoom through changed eyes. He turned, then, to address thethin nobleman. "Lord Ferris, I know the hand of my daughter has beenpledged to you since before you could understand what that pledge meant. Buttime has passed, as it does, and has borne out a nobler man than thee to takethe princess's hand. Indeed, he has taken her heart as well, and mine too, withmany great deeds that not a one of them is equaled by the full measure of yourlife's labors."

"But-"

The king held up a staying hand, and his expressionwas stern.

"I am now convicted in this matter. You cannotsway me, only spur me to anger, so keep silence." His iron-hard visagesoftened as he looked upon Sir Paramore. "By royal decree, let the word bespread that on the morrow, you shall wed my darling child."

A cheer went up from all of those gathered there save,of course, Lord Ferris and the mage, Dorsoom. The joyous voices rung the very foundationsof the palace and filled the stony vault above.

It was only the plaintive and piercing cry of onewoman that brought the hall back to silence.

"My Jeremy!" cried the noblewoman, wringinga light blue scarf in tender, small hands as she came through the doors."Oh, Sir Paramore! I've looked and looked through all this crowd and evenchecked with the door guards, and he is not here. Where is my Jeremy?"

Sir Paramore stepped down from his rightful placebefore the king and, tears running down his face, said, "Even I could notsave your son, with what these butchers had already done to him…."

"And her cries were piteous to hear," thecloaked man muttered low, and the crowd in the pub soaked in the sibilantsound of his voice, "so that even evil Dorsoom shut his ears-"

"That's it, then. No more ale for any of you. Idon't care how strong the gale's ablowin' out there; there's a stronger one inhere, and it's ablowin' out this stranger's arse!"

It was Horace, fat Horace who'd tended the bar in thattiny crevice of the Kryptgarden Mountains and fed eggs and haggis to thegrandfathers and fathers and sons of those gathered there. In all that time,the good folk of Capel Curig had learned to trust Horace's instincts aboutweather and planting and politics and people. Even so, on that singular night,regarding that singular man, Horace didn't strike the others as their familiarand friendly confidant.

"Shut up, Horace," cried Annatha, afishwife. "You've not even been listening, back there banging your pots soloud we've got to strain our ears to hear."

"Yeah," agreed others in chorus.

"I hear well enough from the kitchen, well enoughto know this monstrous man's passin' garbage off as truth! He makes out KingCaen to be a dotterin' and distracted coot when we all know he is strong andjust and in full possession of himself. And what of Dorsoom, cast as somemalicious mage when in truth he's wise and good? And Lord Ferris, too?"

Fineas, itinerant priest of Torm, said, "I'm allfor truth-as you all know-but bards have their way with truth, and barkeepstheir way with brandy. So let him keep the story coming, Horace, and you keepthe brandy coming, and between the two, we'll all stay warm on this fiercenight."

The stranger himself extended that trembling left handthat did the work for two and said with a rasping tongue, "It is yourestablishment, friend. Will you listen to your patrons' desires, or turn meout?"

Horace grimaced and said, "I'd not throw a rabiddog out on a night like this. But I'd just as soon you shut up, friend. Asidefrom lyin', you're puttin' a dreamy, unnatural look in these folk's eyes, andI don't like payin' customers to go to sleep on me."

That comment met with more protests, which Horacetried unsuccessfully to wave down.

"All right. I'll let him speak. But, mark me: he's got your souls now. He's worked some kind of mesmerizin' magic on you withthe words he weaves. I, for one, ain't listenin'."

Nodding his shadowed and dripping head, the strangerwatched Horace disappear into the kitchen, then seemed to study him hawkishlythrough the very wall as he continued his tale.

"Though Lord Ferris's forked tongue had beenstilled that morning before the king and nobles and children, his hands wouldnot be stilled that night when he stalked through the dim castle toward SirParamore's room.

"But one other child of the night-the ghost ofpoor dead Jeremy-was not allied to the sinister plans of Ferris. Indeed, theghost of Jeremy had sensed evil afoot and so hovered in spectral watch on thestair to Paramore's room. When he spotted Lord Ferris, advancing dark at thefoot of the stair, Jeremy flew with warning to the bed foot of his former bosomfriend, Petra…."

Petra was a brown-hairedgirl-child and the leader of the pack of noble children. Jeremy found her abedin a castle suite, for the children and the parents had all been welcomed byKing Caen to spend the night. Poor Jeremy gazed with sad ghostly eyes on theresting form of Petra, sad ghostly eyes that had once gazed down on his ownstill body, lifeless and headless.

"Wake up, Petra. Wake up. I have terrible newsregarding our savior, Sir Paramore," the child-ghost rasped.

His phantom voice sounded high and strained, like thevoice of a large man pretending to be a child.

And Petra did wake. When she glimpsed her departedfriend, her brave girl-heart gave a start: unlike greater ghosts decked indiaphanous gossamers, poor Jeremy had no body upon which to hang such raiment.He was but a disembodied head that floated beyond the foot of her bed, and eventhen his neck slowly dripped the red life that had once gushed in buckets. Sogrotesque and horrible was the effect that Petra, who truly was a brave child,could not muster a word of greeting for her dead companion.

"It's Lord Ferris," the ghost-child saidurgently. "He plots to slay our Sir Paramore where he sleepstonight."

Petra managed a stammerand a wide stare.

"You must stop him," came the ghost's voice.

She was getting up from the feather mattress, arrayingthe bedclothes around her knees. With the sad eyes of small boys-who see smallgirls as mothers and sisters and lovers and enemies all at once-poor Jeremywatched Petra's delicate hands as she gathered herself.

At last she whispered, "I'll tell Mother-"

"No!" Jeremy's voice was urgent, strident."Grown-ups won't believe. Besides, Sir Paramore saved your life thismorning. You can save his life now, this evening!"

"I cannot stop Ferris alone."

"Then get the others," Jeremy rasped."Awaken Bannin and Liesle and Ranwen and Parri and Mab and Kara and theothers, too. Tell them to bring their fathers' knives. Together you can saveour savior as he saved us."

Already, Petra was tying the sash of her bedclothes ina cross over her heart and breathlessly slipping sandals on her feet.

"Hurry," commanded Jeremy. "Even now,Lord Ferris is climbing the stair toward Sir Paramore's room!"

Upon that urgent revelation, Petra gasped, and Jeremywas gone.

Alerted and assembled in the next moments, the childrenfollowed Petra to the stair. It was a long and curving stairway that led to thehigh tower where Sir Paramore had chosen to bed. The steps were dark, litmainly by a faint glow of starlight through occasional arrow loops in the wall.But when Petra and her child warriors began to climb, they saw ahead of themthe vague, flickering illumination of a candle.

"Quiet now," whispered she.

Bannin, a brown-haired boy half her age, nodded seriouslyand slipped his small hand into hers. The twins Liesle and Ranwen smiled ateach other with nervous excitement. Meanwhile, Parri, Mab, Kara, and the others clustered atthe rear of the pack and set hands on their knives.

"That's got to be the candle of LordFerris," Petra mouthed, indicating the light. "We've got to be quiet,or he'll know we're coming."

The children nodded, for they adored Petra as much as Jeremy had when he lived. And they followed her, doing their very best to besilent and stealthy, though children have a different sense of that than doadults. They proceeded on tiptoes, fingertips dragging dully across the curvedinner wall, childish lips whispering loud speculations. As they climbed, thelight grew brighter, their fear welled higher, and their voices became froggyfrom the tension of it all.

With all that muttering, it was no wonder they camearound one of the cold stone curves of the stair to find the narrow, black,long-legged Lord Ferris poised above them, his wiry body stretched weblikeacross the tight passage.

"What are you children doing here?" he askedin an ebon voice that sent a cold draft down the stairs and past the children.

The brave-hearted crew started at that rude welcome,but did not dart.

Petra, who alone hadn'tflinched, said stonily, "What are you doing?"

The man's eyes flashed at that, and his gloved handfell to the pitch-handled dagger at his side.

"Go," he said.

The group wavered, some in the rear involuntarilydrawing back a step. But Petra did something incredible. With the catlike speedand litheness of young girls, she slipped past the black-cloaked man and hisknife. She stood then, barring the stairs above him.

"We stay. You go," she stated simply.

Lord Ferris's lip curled into a snarl. His handgripped her shoulder and brusquely propelled her back down the stairs. Herfooting failed on the damp stone, one leg twisting unnaturally beneath her.Then came a crack like the splintering of green wood, and a small cry. Shecrumpled to the stone-edged steps and tumbled limply down to thechildren, fetching up at their feet and hardly breathing.

They paused in shock. Young Bannin bent, alreadyweeping, beside her. The others took one look at her misshapen leg and rushedin a fierce pack toward the lord. Their young voices produced a pure shriekthat adults cannot create, and they swarmed the black-cloaked nobleman, whofumbled to escape them.

They drove their fathers' knives into the man'sthighs. He toppled forward onto them and made but a weak attack in return,punching red-headed Mab between her pigtails and, with a flailing knee,striking the neck of Karn, too. The first two casualties of battle felllifeless beneath the crush, and the steps under them all were suddenly slickwith blood.

As though their previous earnestness had been feigned,the children fought with berserker rage. They furiously pummeled and stabbedthe man who lay atop them, the once-bold Ferris bellowing and pleadingpiteously. At one point in the brawl, Parri dropped down to take the crimsondagger from Mab's cold hand, then sunk it repeatedly into the back of thenobleman.

Yet Lord Ferris clung tenaciously to life. His elbowswept back and cracked Liesel's head against the stone wall, and she fell in aheap. Next to go was her twin, Ranwen, who seemed to feel Liesel's death inkindred flesh and stood stock-still as the man's fallen candle set her ablaze.Ranwen, too, was unmade by a clumsy kick.

Aside from the bodies that clogged the path and madeit treacherous with blood, Lord Ferris had only poor Parri and two others tobattle. His weight alone proved his greatest weapon, for the next children wentdown beneath him, not to rise again. That left only bawling Bannin and broken Petra below, neither able to fight.

The man in black found footing amidst the twistedlimbs of the fallen, then descended slowly toward Bannin and Petra.

"Put the knives away," said he, sputterscoming from his punctured lungs.

The boy-child-young, eyes clouded with blood, ears ringingwith screams-drew fearfully back a few paces. Petra could not retreat.

"I told you to go, you little fiends!" growled Lord Ferris. Red tears streaked his battered face. "Look whatyou've done!"

Bannin withdrew farther, his whimpering giving way tofull-scale sobs. But Petra, with a monumental effort, rose. The desperatecracking of her leg did not deter her lunge.

Through bloodied teeth, she hissed, "Death toevil," and drove Parri's blade into the nobleman's gut.

Only then did Sir Paramore come rushing down thestairs, just in time to see wicked Lord Ferris tumble stiffly past a triumphant Petra. She smiled at him from within a sea of scarlet child's-blood, thencollapsed dead to the floor.

The death of the child in the story coincided oddlywith the death of the fire on the hearth; the stormy night had reached itsdarkest corner. But the rapt crowd of listeners, who sat mesmerized in thestoryteller's deepening shadow, did not even notice the cold and dim aroundthem. Horace, in the now-frigid kitchen, did.

It was Horace, then, who had to trudge out in the snowfor more wood. He wondered briefly why none of the patrons had complained ofthe chill and dim in the taproom, as they had tirelessly done in days andyears past. As soon as the question formed in his mind, the answer struck him: The stranger's story had kindled a hotter, brighter fire this evening, and byit the people were warming themselves.

Aside from lying slurs on King Caen, Dorsoom, and LordFerris-dead now? Horace wondered, fearing that much of the story might betrue-no crime had yet been committed by the stranger, not even a stolen bit ofbread or blood soup. And his story kept the patrons there when Horace wouldhave thought folks would flee to their lofted beds. But something was not rightabout the stranger. The hairs on the back of Horace's neck, perhaps imbued bythe naturalmagic of apron yokes and years of honest sweat and aches, had stood on end themoment the man had entered with his swirling halo of snow. As the darknessdeepened, as Horace heard snatches of the wicked tale that held the others inthrall, his uneasy feeling had grown to wary conviction. The man was not merelya slick deceiver. He was evil.

Despite that certainty, despite the outcry of everysinew of his being, Horace knew he didn't dare throw the man out or he wouldhave a wall-busting brawl on his hands. Even so, as he bundled wood into thechafed and accustomed flesh of his inner arm, he lifted the icy axe that leanedagainst the woodpile and bore it indoors with him.

In the taproom beyond, the stranger was bringing histale to its inevitable end….

There was much that followed the cruel slaying of theinnocent children: Sir Paramore's shock at the assassination attempt, theshrieks of parents whose children were gone for good, the trembling praise ofthe king for the deeds of the fallen, the empty pallets hauled precariously upthe curving stair, the filled pallets borne down on parents' backs, thebrigade of buckets cleansing the tower, the stationing of guards to protect theprincess's betrothed…

And after it all, Sir Paramore prayed long to the mischievousand chaotic heavens, to Beshaba and Cyric and Loviatar, seeking some planbehind the horrific affair. When his shaken mind grew too weary to sustain itsdevotion and his knees trembled too greatly beneath him to remain upright, SirParamore hung the spell-slaying Kneuma on his bedpost and crawled into hissheets to vainly seek sleep.

Without alarm or movement, and as soon as the knightwas disarmed and disarmored, the mage Dorsoom stood inside the closed andbolted door. Sir Paramore started, and an approbation rose to his lips as hesat up in bed.

But the mage spoke first, in a sly hiss: "I knowwhat you have done, monstrous man."

Sir Paramore stood up, gawking for a moment in rageand amazement before reaching for his spell-slaying sword. His hand nevertouched the hilt, though, for in that instant the mage cast an enchantment onhim that froze his body like ice.

Seeing Paramore rendered defenseless, Dorsoom saidwith a cat's purr, "Most folk in this land think you a valiant knight, butI know you are not. You are a vicious and cruel and machinating monster."

Though he could not move feet or legs or arms, SirParamore found his tongue: "Out of here! Just as my young knights slewyour assassin, I will slay you!"

"Do not toy with me," said the black-beardedmage. "Your sword dispels magic only when in your grip; without it, youcan do nothing against me. Besides, neither Ferris nor I am the true assassin.You are."

"Guards! Save me!" cried Paramore toward theyet-bolted door.

"I know how you arranged the kidnappings. I knowhow you hired those five men to abduct the noblemen's children," said themage.

"What?" roared the knight, struggling topossess his own body but bringing only impotent tremors to his legs.

The guards outside were pounding and calling forassurances.

"I know how you met with your five kidnappers topay them for their duties," continued the mage. "But they receivedonly your axe as their payment."

"Guards! Break down the door!"

"I know how you took the clothes of one of thekidnappers you had slain, dressed in them, masqueraded in front of thechildren as him, and in cold blood slew Jeremy for all their eyes to see. Iknow how later, in guise of the noble knight you never were, you rushed in tofeign saving the rest of the children," said the mage, heat entering histone for the first time.

The guards battered the bolted door, which had begunto splinter.

Paramore shouted in anguish, "In the name of allthat is holy-!"

"You did it all for the hand of the princess; youhave killed even children to have her hand. You orchestrated the kidnapping,played both villain and hero, that you might extort a pledge of marriage inexchange for rescuing them."

The tremors in Sir Paramore legs had grown violent; bythe mere contact of his toe against the bedpost, his whole pallet shook, as didthe scabbarded sword slung on the bed knob.

"I know how you sent this note," the mageproduced a crumpled slip of paper from his pocket and held it up before him,"to Lord Ferris, asking him to come up tonight to see you, and knowingthat your 'knights' would waylay him."

"It's not even my handwriting," shouted Paramore.

He shook violently, and the rattling blade tilted downtoward his stony leg.

Louder came the boot thuds on the door. The crackle ofsplintering wood grew. With a gesture, though, Dorsoom cast a blue glow aboutthe door, magic that made it as solid as steel.

"And in that bag," cawed the mage, knowinghe had all the time in the heavens, "in the bag that late held the fiveheads of the five abductors lies the head of Jeremy-the head you carved out toform a puppet to appear at the foot of Petra's bed!"

The mage swooped down to the sack of heads, but hishand never clasped it. In that precise moment, the mighty sword Kneuma jiggledfree and struck Paramore's stony flesh, dispelling the enchantment on him. Amouse's breath later, that same blade whistled from its scabbard to descend onthe bended neck of the sorcerer.

As the razor steel of Paramore sliced the head fromthe court magician, so too it sundered the spell from the door. The guards whoburst then into the room saw naught but a shower of blood, then the disjoinedhead propelled by its spray onto the bed and Dorsoom's body falling in a heapacross the red-stained sack, soaked anew.

Seeing it all awrong, the guards rushed in to restrainParamore. Whether from the late hour or the outrageous claims of the wizard orthe threat of two warriors on one, Sir Paramore's attempt to parry the bladesof the guards resulted in the goring of one of them through the eye. Thewounded man's cowardly partner fell back and shouted an alarm at the head ofthe stair. Meantime Paramore, pitying the man whose bloodied socket his swordtip was lodged in, drove the blade the rest of the way into the brain to grantthe man his peace.

An alarm went up throughout the castle: "Paramoreis the murderer! Stop him! Slay him!"

Sir Paramore watched the other guard flee, then kneltbeside the fallen body at his feet. A tear streaked down his noble cheek, andhe stared with unseeing eyes upon the sanguine ruin of his life. Determined toremember the man who destroyed it all, he palmed the head of Dorsoom and thrustit angrily into his sack, where it made a thudding sound. Then he stoodsolemnly, breathed the blood- and sweat-salted air, and strode from the room,knowing that even if he escaped with his life, he would be unrighteously banished.

And he was.

"And that, dear friends," rasped the robedstranger, his left hand stroking his black beard, "is the tragic tale ofthe greatest hero who ever lived."

The room, aside from the crackle of the hearth fireand the howl of the defiant wind, was dead silent. The people who had oncescorned this broken hovel of a man stared toward him with reverence and awe. Itwasn't his words. It wasn't his story, but something more fundamental abouthim, more mystic and essential to his being. Magic. Those who once would havedenied him a thimble of water would happily feast him to the best of theirfarms, would gladly give their husbands and sons to him to be soldiers, theirwives and daughters to him to be playthings. And that ensorcelled reverence wasonly heightened by his next words.

"And that, dear friends, is the tragic tale ofhow I came to be among you." Even the wind and the fire stilled to hearwhat had to follow. "For, you see, I am Sir Paramore."

With that, he threw back the yet-sodden rags that haddraped him, and from the huge bundle that had been the body of the strangeremerged a young, elegant, powerful, platinum-eyed warrior. His face was verydifferent from the wizened and sepulchral one that had spoken to them. Thelatter-the dismembered head of Dorsoom-was jammed down puppetlike past thewrist on the warrior's right hand. The dead mouth of the dead wizard moved eventhen by the device of the warrior's fingers, positioned on the bony palate andin the dry, rasping tongue. Throughout the night, throughout the long telling,the gathered villagers had all listened to the puppet head of a dead man.

The old man's voice came from the young man's mouth ashis fingers moved the jaw and tongue.

"Believe him, ye people! Here is the greatesthero who ever lived."

A brown-black ooze clung in dribbles to Paramore'sforearm.

Only Horace, stumbling into the taproom, was horrifiedby the sight; the depravity did not strike the others in the slightest. Thesimple folk of Capel Curig left their chairs and moved wonderingly up towardthe towering knight and his grisly puppet. They crowded him just as thechildren had done in the story. Cries of "Teach us, O knight! Lead us,Paramore! Guard us and save us from our enemies!" mingled with groans andtongues too ecstatic for human words.

In their center, the beaming sun of their adorationstretched out his bloodied hand and enwrapped them.

"Of course I will save you. Only follow me and bemy warriors, my knights!"

"We would die for you!"

"Let us die for you!"

"Paramore! Paramore!"

The praises rose up above the rumble of the wind andthe growl of the fire, and the uplifted hands of the people could havethrust the roof entire from the inn had Paramore only commanded it.

The adulation was so intense that none-not even thegod-man Paramore himself-saw Horace's flashing axe blade until it emerged redfrom the knight's gurgling throat.