Realms of Shadow - Lizz Baldwin [106]
The hissing mind-voice fell silent, but its echoes still thundered in their heads, and it was only with difficulty that Halvundrar Cormaeril managed to speak, his voice thick, slow, and awkward.
"What… must we do?"
Keepsecretkeepsilent heedmy words!
The voice slowed, mind-speaking each word carefully and firmly, as an angry father might deliver a warning of great importance to a child.
Royal Magician must be slain. First get from her key to Iltharl's Vault. Very powerful magic therein. Take it, cleanse your fair land, and set someone suitable on the throne. Yourselves, for instance. Soon it will be time to strike. Very soon.
In their minds appeared a sudden, vivid image-of a long-barreled key, its silver plate tarnished with age, its wards large and fluted, its handle worked into a dragon's head, jaws agape.
Darkness descended like a curtain, and their minds were their own again. They could see nothing of the pit and the ridiculous-looking, trumpet-shaped bulk shuddering in it, clawed arms and stinger moving restlessly.
Maerlyn Bleth shivered. So that was a phaerimm.
His mind whirled the image of the key they must seize from the Mage Royal in front of him and took it away again.
A flying city of shadow wizards come back from ancient Netheril. All the Realms endangered, Cormyr the closest prize… it was using them, that thing down in the pit, using them like the brainless cattle it so obviously and scornfully believed them to be. When the time was right, its spells would lash out or it would stab at their very minds.
But plots are easily spoken and harder in the doing. Mistakes inevitable-oh, hadn't the gods taught far too many Cormyrean nobles that. Mighty magic is always a weapon worth having-and if Cormyr was doomed, after all these centuries, at least the House of Obarskyr could be driven down in richly-deserved slaughter first, every last screaming woman of it, those sneers wiped off their faces as they saw the nobles they and their forebears had so wronged working revenge upon them at last.
He was grinning like a wolf, Maerlyn knew. Teeth flashed in the dim light around him as they hastened out of the cavern together. Every last one of his fellow conspirators was grinning savagely too.
Ah, but it would be good to see the Obarskyrs get theirs at last.
* * * * *
The Steel Regent struck again, grunting with the effort, and Caladnei reeled. Every blow of Alusair's onslaught was like a hammer in her head, and the Mage Royal was fast acquiring a blinding headache.
Both women were drenched and staggering as they circled each other, cotton tunics plastered to their curves and errant hairs escaping sodden headscarves. Gods, but the princess was as fast as a striking snake!
Her wooden practice blade swept around again, and this time Caladnei dodged away to avoid parrying, stumbling in her weariness.
Her own sword was an edgeless bar of force, maintained by her will alone, and-
Alusair thrust past her guard, their blades binding, and Caladnei shouted in pain.
"No," the Steel Regent snarled, as the Mage Royal gasped and held up a hand in a gesture of surrender, "don't give up on me now! A murderous noble won't stay his steel because you wave to him that you're winded."
They were circling each other again, both caked with the sand of the practice-floor where they'd clinched, kicked, and tumbled earlier in their bout. Shamra the Healer stood watching them carefully, ready to step in if either woman lost her temper and went too far, or took a wound through a slip at the wrong instant.
"I did not… seek this office," the Mage Royal snarled between gasps. "I didn't want this title… these duties…"
The Steel Regent's grin was as wry as it was fierce.
"I've heard those very same words before,