A Dragon's Ascension - Ed Greenwood [89]
He took two restless strides away, then spun around and snapped, "I'll take as many of them with me as I can, if I have to fill up all Silverflow Vale with blood doing it!"
As if in answer, the ground rocked, sending up birds from trees and bushes all over the graveyard in a squawking cloud of alarm.
A deep rumbling made the earth shudder beneath them, and Flaeros could have sworn that one of the tall old stone tomb markers, at least, swayed. That shuddering raced under the two men from the direction of the river, rippling under the Silent House-which groaned its own brief stony protest-and beyond.
They both looked towards the Silverflow. A dark cloud was curling up and away from Flowfoam Isle, high into the sky over the Vale.
It was a greasy brown-and-purple plume unlike anything Flaeros had ever seen before. As they watched, it seemed to be shaping itself with a life and sentience of its own, darkening swiftly into jet-black, but with none of the billowing that races up from a wood fire or the ruin of torched barns or castles. No, this smoke was smooth, as if-spell-shaped.
The two men saw the smoke become the dark image of a huge snake, rearing up to regard all Aglirta with its great dark eyes. A forked tongue licked out and vanished again, and then huge fanged jaws gaped, as if to swallow the Kingless Land entirely, splitting the sky with a vast maw of darkness.
And then, ere its jaws closed, the Serpent started to fade away-not scattering with the winds, but thinning out just where it hung.
The bard and the regent both looked at the Isle whence the apparition had come-and then Blackgult reached down a long and muscular arm to pluck Haeros bodily onto his feet.
"Come and bear witness, Bard of the Delcampers," he growled, "and try to think of a really striking tune for your next ballad, The Last Stand of Stormharp, will you?"
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Chapter Fifteen
Standing Too Close to a Throne
Darkness fell away as suddenly as a shroud snatched off a corpse, and the wisewoman sat back with a hiss of surprise and dismay. Had the impatient merchant known her better, he would have recognized dread in her face as she stared down at the tanthor cards, back up at him without seeing him, and then down at the cards again.
Them she saw, all right. Peering, and shaking her head as if she could not believe what she saw, and peering again, staring slowly at every last card, as though she'd never laid tanthor before!
Now, the blood she'd let drip from her fingers into the customary chalice had caught fire somehow in the dark and burned away in a trice, leaving behind only a thread of smoke, and he'd never seen that before, but there was nothing wrong with the array that he could see, nothing out of, place and no fault in the tanthor magic.
Aye, the cards were good!
Kirlstar could see that as well as anyone; their vivid blue spell-glows; were bright and strong on her black cloth now that the customary Shadow of the Gods she'd cast had passed. The heart of the array was crowded with gold-there, the Laden Ship, then a cluster of the Goldsack, the Fall of Gems, and the Crown and Rubies. Over there, the Wagonwheel, the Bright Castle, and the Fortuitous Bridge. No Map of Fools, no Brigand.
Snatch-how could this be a cause for dismay? He was going to be rich! He was-yes. Three Above, but he'd never had cards this good before!
The Hill of Skulls was the only bad card in view, below the cluster- battle, that meant, and the death of someone in it. Well, Kirlstar of the Splendid Silks certainly wasn't going to be joining in any battles soon! Leave that to the fools in Aglirta, now busily tearing their land asunder one more time, when they could be making coins hand over fist!
But what was this? The wisewoman was pushing his coins back across the table at him, her face as white as beached bone. " DIV the and of in to as no if voice a your All today.?"What?" Kirlstar roared, as dumbfounded as he was angry. "Cannot-? Woman, what foolery is this? Look at those cards-Goldsack,