The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [158]
The armaragor and the procurer sprinted across the cavern like men possessed.
"Embra!" Craer howled, long before he reached his stricken lady. "I need your healing here!"
Lady Silvertree did not reply. Hawkril fell to his knees as he skidded to a halt, and put his arms around her as gently as a feather seeking the earth. "Lass," he rumbled, "how fare you?"
"He… touched my mind," the Lady of Jewels whispered. "Trying to enslave me through the old enchantments. Ingryl Ambelter, the Spellmaster of Silvertree Castle, lives yet!-and he's stronger than ever."
Arkle Huldaerus came awake out of a vengeful dream as magic thrummed through him, washing over him with only a hint of its full fury. He blinked up into a young, beautiful, and unfamiliar face bent close to his, and thus lit dearly in the spark-shot glow of the magic she was hurling at his chains, and shook his head. Surely he was still asleep, and dreaming?
No, Master of Bats, this is no dream.
The mind-voice was so strong and cold and cruel that Huldaerus was stunned, too awed to even breathe.
A chain parted, and he fell a few feet down the wall, fetching up at the end of the remaining chain with a jerk. Manacled and swaying helplessly, he dared not even cower. How could one so young have such power? Such fell wisdom?
Oh, of course, how foolish of him. 'Twas a spellspun disguise, it must be. Long, raven-dark hair falling in smooth splendor over a clinging black gown. Slender hips, great dark eyes-a semblance that would make more than one man swallow at the sight of her.
The Master of Bats swallowed now, as the last chain was severed in a burst of calmly wielded magical fire, and he fell to the floor of his prison cell. The landing was hard, but bats fluttered up from his boots and sleeves as he bounced and winced, and he smiled up at them.
The young sorceress waved a casual hand, and unseen magic snatched Huldaerus briskly to his feet, steadying him when his long-unused legs wobbled. He clung to the wall, drawing in deep, shuddering breaths, and when he trusted himself to stand, turned to face his unknown rescuer and gave her a smile. She'd freed him, and still stood here, so it followed that she wanted something of him.
"Arkle Huldaerus, at your service, Lady," he said, his voice starting out rough but sounding pleasant enough after a few words. "And you are-?"
The sorceress smiled, something dancing in her eyes that made the heart of the Master of Bats, lonely recluse that he was, leap in sudden hope. Wisps of magic stirred about her, cloaking her in a soft halo of spell-glow, and he dared to let his smile widen, and his hand extend in friendsh Magic slammed him back against the wall so hard that one shoulder shattered audibly, and a rib gave way below it. Huldaerus writhed, pinned helplessly, as that same thrusting force casually crushed one of his bats after another, as a bored vintner might squash grapes, plucking each out of the dark air and whisking it to within a handlength of his nose before slaying it.
As the small, brittle, and very dead lumps pattered wetly to the stones, each weakening and sickening him with its fall, he became aware through tears of pain that the darkly beautiful face looking into his had changed.
Framed by that long, magnificent hair now was a human skull, grinning at him with eyes that were two glittering lights of old and mighty mockery. They were the last thing to remain, as the lithe body and then the bone-face melted away from around them-and then one of them winked, and they vanished, too.
Arkle Huldaerus leaned against the wall in utter darkness, spitting blood onto the unseen stones at his feet, and felt his manacle-free wrists in slow disbelief. Any moment now he'd awaken properly, and find himself back on that cold and endlessly patient wall…
But when at last he stumbled away from where he'd been chained, letting his fingers