The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [44]
"No, Tersept, you are not," Embra told him quietly. "We value the truth, and knowing what folk really feel, over all the empty fawning and false smiles the Vale can give us. Do you think your views surprise us?"
Stombridge regarded her silently, and then slowly shook his head. The Lady of Jewels gave him a faint smile-and then, as a flicker of movement from above caught her eye, she called on the Dwaer, the air sang and shimmered, and the few bowmen on the balconies who'd begun to stealthily reach for blades or quivers fell back to sleep again, arms dangling.
With one spell barely cast, Embra called on her Stone for another, bringing another probing spell down on platters all over the table. Faint sparkling radiances winked and crawled across the food. She put one ladylike finger into some nearby gravy, eyes narrowed, and then carefully licked it and turned her magic on herself.
"What is it?" Lord Stombridge asked, as if he could not very well guess what she was doing. "What's wrong, Lady Overduke?"
"Many things, Lord," Embra told him, lifting grave eyes to his as she put another gravy-coated finger in her mouth. "Wherefore none of us can be too careful." Sucking her finger clean, she added approvingly, "Your kitchens are good. My thanks."
"Yesss," Undercook Maelree said fiercely, cramming a knuckle into her mouth to quell the shriek of delight she felt rising within her. "She's done it! 'Tis in her!"
"Quiet, now," the Mistress of the Pantry murmured beside her-but it was a gloating murmur. "We mustn't warn our overduchal heroes they've ingested the plague until they've all tasted it."
The Undercook nodded, and drew back a little from the high gallery window. In the shadows the two women exchanged soft, menacing smiles. "A good day for the Serpent," Maelree breaDied, her fingers digging into Klaedra's shoulders with excited, bruising force.
The Mistress of the Pantry did not tear free of the painful grip and strike Maelree across the face for daring to touch her person-and that in itself was a measure of how delighted she was.
6
Madness and a Timely Flagon
Though I do what lovely ladies say, this will get me killed some day,' " Craer Delnbone sang softly and mockingly as he plunged down an unfamiliar passage, the groans of the guard he'd just kicked in the crotch fading behind him.
Bebolt that overenthusiastic cortahar, anyway! He'd delayed Craer just long enough to let the chamber knave he was chasing whirl into this side passage, and through one of these nigh-dozen doors. At least the fool had slammed it, marking his trail that much. Graul and bebolt all!
"Now, if I was a foolishly avid and attentive guard, I'd wait about here…" Craer murmured, springing high to catch hold of an old torch-bracket as he came to a corner. He grasped it for just the instant he needed to swing himself high and hard Yes! A blade slashed at where his face and throat should have been, the cortahar behind it snarling in cruel exultation. That snarl became a growl of surprise as Craer flashed past overhead, kicked off the far wall, and flung himself back in a twisting turn that brought his hand down hard on the guard's neck.
The cortahar grunted in pain-a grunt that rose into a whistle of alarm as Craer's waxed cord slapped across his throat. The procurer caught the garotte's far end, deftly pulled and jerked-and the gurgling, strangling guard's head was driven into the passage wall.
The man reeled, shaking his head and clawing at the air rather dazedly, so Craer bounced as he landed, bounding high to slam the cortahar's head into the wall once more.
This time the guard only managed to pull his face off the stone far enough to blink-before he went down in a limp, untidy heap.
"No, don't thank me," Craer told the senseless cortahar, retrieving his garotte. 'Just enjoy your slumber. The Three know if you deserve it.