• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Faerla smiled. "Yes, he did-and-and, oh, Lameira, this is so exciting! Why, they tell me there're the bones of a wizard lying in a casket in the cellars, and traps everywhere down there, too-so we're not to go thither-and folk lying dead, and snakes as big as men lurking about that they haven't found yet, and the one they call the Lady of Jewels has chambers full of gowns all over with gems, enough to buy all Ragalar seventy times over, and she can walk right into the stones of this palace and then make its doors open and close and its lamps light and douse just as she sees fit, and-"

Lameira rolled her eyes. Ardent and demanding heroes or not, it was going to be a long evening.

* * *

"Now, now," Maevur Cardassa snapped, "there's no need to become restless. We'll just wait until the unpleasantness at Flowfoam is over, and then we'll make our move."

"Hmmph," an armsman said, staring around at the tilting tangle of half-rotten fishing huts for perhaps the hundredth time. "Couldn't we just invade as far as the Flowfoam kitchens tonight?"

There were chuckles and murmurs of agreement.

"No, we could not," the baron said severely. "I feel the pangs of hunger as deeply as any of you-"

"Deeper, by the look of you," someone at the far end of the boat commented, and there were more chuckles, which the baron loftily chose to ignore.

"-and yet I am disciplined enough to bide here in watchful patience until the time is right. We risk our very lives in this, I'll have you remember!"

"How will we know the time is right?"

"I-uh-well, when we see certain folk leaving Flowfoam," Cardassa said. "I'll tell you, you may be sure! And then we'll-"

"We're not going to be seeing many folk leaving Flowfoam, once it gets dark," another armsman observed loudly.

Which was about the same time as a familiar voice from high up on the bank cried angrily, "There you are! Three above, but we stood in the Throne Chamber in Flowfoam facing fell magic and Blackgult and all his bravos-and where were you? Alone we stood against them, and only through cool heads and fearlessness and-well, valor, though I say it myself-we prevailed! Aglirta has a new king-a motherless boy whom we can easily steer to our desires, or slaughter if he balks, and there'll be no need for swords right now, so-"

Maevur Cardassa had been puffing and staggering his way around a particularly ramshackle hut and down the bank all through these brave words, using his enchanted sword as a walking stick-but now he'd come to a disbelieving halt, with a straggling line of tersepts behind him.

Baron Cardassa stared at-Baron Cardassa.

Tersepts stared at their counterparts, and armsmen and Cardassan bodyguards aboard the barge looked from one to the other, eyes narrowing.

"Magic," an armsman growled. "I thought so!" He and Suldun of the bodyguards drew their swords together, and advanced on-the tersepts and the baron who were sharing this barge with them.

"So," the armsman began, as his blade thrust out to menace the false Maevur Gardassa, "who are you, really? Sirl wizards trying to ruin our bid for the Throne, or-?"

"Wh-what treachery is this?" the fat man just beyond the point of his sword gabbled. "Do your sworn duty, and attack yen impostors! I, Maevur of Cardassa, command you!

"What?" the baron on the shore howled. "What treachery is this? Those men aboard are the impostors! Slay them! Slay them with your swords now, before they can use their deadly magics on you!"

"It might be easier to slay them all," someone commented sourly-in the moment before the armsmen and bodyguards aboard the barge surged forward to hack at all the tersepts-some of whom promptly leaped into the river and sank like stones.

"Hold!" someone high on the bank roared, and there came the call of a battle horn. The baron and tersepts ashore and everyone on the barges swung around to look up, and found themselves gazing at a hundred or so armaragors and armsmen, some on horseback-and many with loaded crossbows leveled