Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [46]
Storm matched his grim smile and said, Vangerdahast is wont to say: not quite so fast, Sir Broglan." She saw Insprin and Hundarr both Hide grins at that, as she put her band very slowly into her bodice and drew forth something small. A ring.
She held it up. "Azoun did give me this," she said, "to use if I ever needed to command any lord, officer, official, or common citizen of Cormyr, in his name. It compels you to obey me as if I were the king."
Four pairs of eyes bulged in astonishment. Vangerdahast had seen to their training properly; they all recognized it, though there could scarcely be more than a dozen such items in all Faerun.
What impressed the wizards so much as it gleamed on her palm was a Purple Dragon ring. She held it up, turning it so they could all see what adorned the gold band: a tiny sculpted dragon of electrum, heat-tinted to a delicate mauve and surrounded by a disk of silver. "Will you test its veracity, Sir Broglan?" she asked, almost reverently.
Broglan's face held awe as he stretched forth his hand to take it. The three other wizards drew in close to watch as he held the ring in his open palm, touched it with one finger, and said hoarsely, "Azoun rules."
Immediately, a clear and cultured voice-King Azoun's-arose from the ring. "As the war wizards guard," it responded.
Eyes widened among the watching wizards. They looked at Storm with more respect than she had ever seen in their eyes before. She crooked two fingers in a beckoning motion, and Broglan reluctantly tipped toe ring back into her hand. "Are you prepared to obey me, Broglan?" she asked him quietly. "Or will you be forsworn before your king?"
"I-I… what precisely do you want? I have very specific instructions on some points," Broglan said, face twisting anxiously. "I-I can't just…"
With a firm hand Storm pushed aside the wand that was that was leveled at her chest, stepped up to him, and said, "You have a speaking-stone hidden away hereabouts. Use it."
Broglan blinked at her. "Pardon?"
"Confer with Lord Vangerdahast," she said briskly. "Get his permission to work with me, if you feel you need it. Or talk to His Majesty, if you'd prefer-but in the meantime, it can hardly hurt to show me Athlan's notes, which I know you've hidden here somewhere… "
Storm had turned to survey the faces of the watching mages as she spoke her last sentence-and was rewarded by Hundarr Wolfwinter, who glanced involuntarily at a certain tome on the bookshelves behind Broglan's chair.
Without another word, she stepped around the senior war wizard, the skirts of her gown hissing past She snatched down the book Hundarr had looked at. It was the work of but a moment to thumb its latch, flip open the cover, and discover that it was a hiding-tome rather than a real volume. Curled up in its central well were a few pages of ink-scrawled parchment.
Storm flicked the topmost page open between her thumb and finger, seeing only the words, "Beware the Walker of the Worlds," before book, parchment, and all were roughly snatched away from her.
Broglan stared at her, eyes blazing. "Lady Silverhand! Kindly wait until I have spoken with Lord Vangerdahast, if you don't mind!"
She sighed theatrically and said, "Well, get on with it, then."
Behind them, one of the younger war wizards snorted in amusement. When Broglan swung around to see which of them it was, Storm pounced on the black velvet bundle that now lay on his table.
By the time he turned back from glaring at both of the younger mages, the fist-sized sphere of obsidian was already rising smoothly up from its cushion at the center of the black velvet circle. A slight smile on her face, Storm sat in his chair, her arms folded on the table.
"What do you think you're doing?" he almost screamed, lunging at the table-and then bringing himself to a halt, inches away from crashing into the furniture. The speaking stone came to its own stop