A Dragon's Ascension - Ed Greenwood [70]
And then Embra did something that hurt her very much, and hurled him away, freeing him from that slaying storm of fire. Hawkril crashed to the floor through many mindless Melted, gasping, too weak to even make his arms obey him as he flopped and panted.
Embra sobbed, and he struggled to rise. He couldn't even lift his head-and above him, around him, the entire room-vaulted ceiling, great broad battlefield of polished marble floor, and all-was shuddering! Craer skittered towards him, waving his arms crazily in a wild scramble to keep his balance and not fall headlong into the crackling spell-lightnings.
He couldn't even see Embra, somewhere beyond his feet where he couldn't look! "Three aid me!" he roared. "Any of you! Help!"
Four of them-kin to each other, and all "shes"… sisters?
Embra winced as they hurled fresh bolts into her. She didn't even know them, had never seen them in her life before! They couldn't be of Aglirta, they couldn't be someone she'd angered even unwittingly…
The pain! Ok, Three, the PAIN!
Yet she was alive, thanks to the old magics of Flowfoam running through her, and the River Throne to empower her own castings.
Oh, Hawk, what you must be feeling now, with none of those things!
Embra bit her lip again, not caring if she had any face left at all. If she could but raise a shield…
Thrice she tried-and thrice they smote her, just as it was about to form. They knew quite well what she was attempting, they must do, and so she could only fail: each time the shield started to form, they could overwhelm it with a fresh attack, and…
The palace had seen so many spell-battles, down the years, wild storms of magics, spitting and thrusting and exploding… and yet it endured. And she was linked to it-it could be her shield. Sink down through those Living Castle linkages, take on the cloak of stone, settle deep and dark and cool…
Yes… battered she was still, her body torn and wracked by their spells, but now the pain was but a dull, roaring ache, and she could think again. Weave spells again. Scry and probe and perceive again…
Fierce they were, these four. Young, and yes, sisters… strangers to her, yes, though there was a proud name woven into some of their incantations.
Embra frowned, and bent her will to listen. It was hard to sit still while bolts were spun that would be hurled to hurt her, to do nothing but wait for the twisting, sickening instant when the magic struck deep into her, clawed, and then receded amid spell-echoes…
Tala… Talasorn! That was it: Talasorn. There'd been a Talasorn in Sirlptar, a private man, of good reputation among mages. Where these his daughters?
And if so, or if not so, why were they savaging her?
Or did they slay everyone whose minds they met, while riding their sorcery?
"Lady forfend, what's that?" Baron Tarlagar gasped, as a man whose flesh was gray and hung from his face in grotesque wattles and flaps, for all the world as if it was wax frozen in middrip from a candle, lurched out of an archway and walked stiffly down the terrace steps, almost falling twice. The Melted strode unseeing right past the armaragors of the three barons, who watched it with open mouths and pale faces, and vanished into the trees of the southern-side Flowfoam gardens.
"Three Above," Loushoond said. "The Melted walk again!"
Ornentar nodded grimly. "That means a wizard awaits us. Let us go slowly, and skulk about this palace. A charge to the throne chamber may be a race to our deaths."
Tarlagar nodded grimly. "Better alive and barons, than dead with crowns on our heads."
Loushoond winced. "No grand bardic phrases, please! Say rather: the most attractive tactic is to carefully search this palace, avoiding the rooms of state until last-in hopes that only one surviving foe will face us there, when at last we do venture therein. A weakened foe."
"Not another wizard like Silvertree's Spellmaster," Tarlagar said