A Dragon's Ascension - Ed Greenwood [114]
Though that seemed a suitably grand and arcane name for a wizard, he'd acquired a better one-a calling that had so eclipsed the name he'd been born with that few now remembered it. To all Darsar, when they thought about him at all, he was the Master of Bats.
He turned a page, his eyes seeming to glow for a moment, and nodded thoughtfully. This was how he spent much of his time, not being the sort of mage who loved bubbling and burning experiments, and crafting new magics that might-rarely-delight or do just what was desired, but that more often destroyed days of work or cottages or unfortunate apprentices-or all three. This was how most wizards spent their time: reading, and so learning new spells or magics to replace what they'd cast, and slowly losing their eyesight in the doing.
Huldaerus rubbed at his eyes now, as he set down the book, looking thoughtful. Hadn't Orstal done the same spell as this Waereuvin, but with a better incantation? Saving live frogs was always a good thing, considering the time one spent getting wet gathering them…
All around him, without any fuss, fluttering bats froze in midair.
The glow he'd conjured to read by sank away to nothing, and the Master of Bats stiffened in alarm, peering about, his eyes glistening palely in the darkness.
He'd felt no disturbance of his ward spells, no presence of any intruder… so what?
The bats were simply motionless. Not dead, not even enspelled that he could see, but-
The world rocked, and there came a thunderclap out of the north like a leaping fist, darkness flashing across the sky. From down below there came the sounds of glass breaking and falling from all his windows.
Aglirta. Oh, there were other places north of here, almost half Asmarand-but somehow Huldaerus knew that whatever had befallen to so shake the world, it had come from Aglirta.
Well, things always did, didn't they?
He smiled thinly at that, and murmured the word that summoned up out of the floor his scrying eyes. Gleaming spheres of nothingness melted up out of the solid stones, rising silently to become upright, glowing ovals of rathance, gently drifting as they arranged themselves in response to his will, almost filling the room.
Gently, slowly, the bats started to move again.
The Master of Bats peered into the nearest seeing sphere, bending his will to look upon… the Throne Chamber in Flowfoam. Always a good place to start.
His bats were fluttering around him as usual by the time the sphere showed him shaking stones-no, stones being flung everywhere-and something large and dark. Very large, by the gods! Huldaerus frowned at it for a moment, and then commanded his sphere to show him the outside of Flowfoam.
He was in time to see the head of the Great Serpent rise into view, men's bodies trailing from its jaws, turn to coldly regard something below-and then, as muscles rippled beneath its blue-black scales, plunge back down into… yes, by the Dark One, into a great gaping hole in the roof of Flowfoam Palace.
Well, well. The Great Serpent, free at last. That meant the bindings were broken, Snowsar was dead, and soon all Asmarand-all Darsar- would have a large, dark, and hissing problem to deal with. If they could.
If we can, rather. Archwizards and court mages and hedge-wizards all working together-hah, the Three alone knew when that would happen!-just might have power enough…
Was there anything here he truly dared not lose? If so, where to hide it?
The Master of Bats looked around at his tower, smiling slightly, and shook his head. He went back to his desk, put his feet up, and sent some bats to fetch a bottle of iyrilith from his cellars. The seeing sphere obediently drifted to hang right in front of him, and grew as he merged other spheres into it-until he could see every last glance and glare and shifting scale moving in the throne chamber.
The iyrilidi was cold and black and wonderful, with an aftertaste of cherries. Huldaerus sipped and watched other people dying.
Yes, it was still a good time to play vulture.
Chapter