Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [13]
Lhansig Dlaerlin reeled back, dazed. Deft hands plucked his tunic up and over his head, blinding him.
He was struggling to draw breath when two very sharp things burst through the cloth and into his eyes… and there was no longer any need to scream.
White fire surged through the brain of the man who was always smiling and joking, and he opened his mouth in a last, soundless laugh as all he had ever been was sucked away. It did not take long.
Quick hands laid a silver harp pin on the wizard's breast-and then whimsically plucked up his unlaced codpiece and perched it on Lhansig's nose. It was a gesture worthy of the man, after all.
*****
"Great gods above!" Broglan gasped, rising from the body, looking old and sick as well as worried. The effrontery of this!"
The somber circle of shocked faces around him remained silent. Insprin, on his knees by Lhansig's motionless form, looked up and said quietly, "Nothing my Art can find."
Then put his codpiece back and cover him," Broglan said in sudden, savage anger, face going red, "before one of the guards comes in here, and the jest spreads all over the keep!"
"S-Some jest," Corathar said, white to the lips.
"Death is never far away, lad," Insprin said almost absently. Corathar turned a glare of mingled hatred and fear down at the older wizard. Not seeing it, the veteran mage added, "This was a clear warning to us."
Broglan looked down again at Lhansig's eyeless, staring skull. The flesh had been burned away, leaving the death-grin of the bones beneath. He shivered. "Even the Harper badge told us nothing?"
Insprin shook his head, and plucked the pin from Lhansig's breast. One of the younger mages drew in his breath, as if expecting deadly magic to be unleashed-but nothing happened. Insprin shot a reassuring look in that direction, and mutely held up the badge.
It gleamed in front of Broglan's nose in the flickering candlelight, and he took hold of it "Why a Harper badge?"
"One who was slain here-Hornblade-" Murndal said, "his was found on him, the seneschal said."
Broglan Sarmyn frowned, looking worried again. "This must be the work of Storm Silverhand. We were warned about her for good reason. She must be here already, lurking in the keep!"
He strode to the door, and then turned and snapped grimly, "Insprin, inform the seneschal and the bold-shield about Lhansig's… demise. Have the Purple Dragons search the Haunted Tower. I'll go to farspeak the royal magician."
Three
STANDING STONES AND
AUSPICIOUS ARRIVALS
The wards flickered one last time before settling down to a steady glow. Satisfied, Broglan Sarmyn seated himself at the table, sighed, and unwrapped the bundle he'd laid there. Black velvet unfolded into a circle with a diamond-shaped cushion at its center. On its puffed softness lay a flat-bottomed but spherical chunk of glossy black obsidian as large as Broglan's fist.
He took a deep breath, glanced around the room warily, and tapped the stone with a finger, murmuring a certain word under his breath.
The stone quivered and slowly lifted away from its cushion, wavering up into the air to hang above the table at about the level of Broglan's nose.
Broglan stared at it less than happily, the worry lines on his forehead deep again, and said, "Broglan Sarmyn, speaking from Firefall Keep. Lord High Wizard?"
"I hear you," the royal magician's voice rasped from the stone. It sounded sharp-but then, through speaking stones, it always did. "What news?"
"One of my team has been slain, presumably by the same creature or magical attack that killed the Lord Summerstar and the Harper agent," Broglan said heavily. "Lhansig Dlaerlin is no more-and we're no wiser as to how it was done. A Harper pin was left on bis chest for us to find, and the body was arranged in such a way to mock us."
"Burned out, and barred to all magic, as before?"
"Aye." It was a measure of how upset Broglan Sarmyn was that he forgot to use any of Vangerdahast's titles. His next words made that agitation very clear. "What should I do?"
The stone turned slowly in the air and