Crown of Fire - Ed Greenwood [89]
Mirt sighed. "Azoun, is it? Well, then. Hold yet blades back a moment." He turned and waved his companions back off the porch, followed them, and turned as his boots touched the dirt of the road.
There, in the full light of the porch lamps, he slowly drew a dagger that glowed – the guards traded glances-and he dropped it pointdown in the earth at his feet. Upending the empty sheath, the old man twisted it in a certain deft, delicate way. Its steel tip slid sideways and open, revealing a tiny cavity; out of this Mirt plucked something and held it up. It was a ring.
"In Azoun's name-," he rumbled formally, holding the ring up between finger and thumb so they could all see it in the flickering light of the lamps, "I ask immediate audience with Tessaril Winter. Lord of Eveningstar."
"A Purple Dragon ring," the herald said wonderingly. "I've never seen one in the hands of an outlander before." "Well, now you have," Mirt said testily, "and no, I didn't steal it. Azoun gave it to me when I guarded his two infant daughters, years ago, when-but that's not for me to tell without his word. Well?
What's it to be? Defy Azoun or let us in to talk to Tessar? By the burning lashes of Bane, I've kissed her often enough!"
As the full darkness of night descended softly on Eveningstar, Lord Tessaril Winter lay abed, lounging in the warmth of the dying fire. King Azoun ruled this pretty village through her, and matters both great and small sometimes weighed heavily on her mind. Today, it had been Lord's Court, and she'd had to disentangle several nasty trade disputes and sit through much blustering. She cared nothing for the threats, but the shouting had given her a headache that had taken three hot mugs of soup and much quiet to quell.
She yawned and shook her head ruefully, set aside the spellbook she read every night after she'd used a spell, blew out the lamp, and waited for slumber to take her.
The four chains her bed hung from creaked once as she settled down, and then all was dark and silent. ror a time…
The roar of spellfire awakened Tessaril. She sat up in the hanging bed acid looked out tier west window in time to see flames licking at the night sky. Snatching up a wand in one hand and tier sword in the other, she strode to the north window, using the tip of tier scabbarded blade to hook down a robe front a peg along the way.
It was a long way down from her chambers at the top of the tower, and a wizard going into battle should never get out of breath. Tessaril tossed the wand and blade ahead of tier as she vaulted the windowsill, whispering the word that evoked a spell that let her fall the three floors to the ground slowly and gently. By the time her feet touched the grass just outside the tower, she was dressed.
Snatching up wand and blade, Tessaril let herself into the ground floor of the tower through a secret door that would open only for her and trotted to the main hall, shaking the sword free of tier scabbard as she went. She burst out the front door with wand and blade both held high, expecting trouble.
Mirt's words still hung in the air as Lord Tessaril herself strode out into the light. All around her, men stiffened, and the herald said, "Lord, you should not-"
The rest of his words were lost as Tessaril tossed sword and wand aside with a clatter and ran across the porch to kiss the fat man who held the ring. Even in her bare feet, the slim, ash-blond Lord of Eveningstar stood taller than everyone else present, and she moved with fluid grace and a warrior's speed.
Tessaril flung her arms around the old merchant.
"Mirt! Old Wolf, I'd never thought to see you here in Eveningstar! Come in. come in! Who are your friends?" Mirt managed to keep a grin off his face as she dragged him into her tower, through a throng of astonished Cormyrean faces. Narm didn't.
Goblets of wine were in their hands a moment later as Tessaril waved them toward her audience chamber. "Come in here and tell me what business presses you so urgently," she said, making signs to the guards-who