The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [50]
If this Ambelter revisited Uncle Multhas in the same room-and why not? Multhas spent hardly a moment anywhere else, these days-she could, with luck, magically follow him when he departed.
Uncle Multhas was a greedy, blustering fool. His sneering superiority blinded him to his own weaknesses as a wizard, and to the carelessness that would always keep him weak. Uncle Dolmur would never join anything that he could not control, and her own father was as gentle as a blubbering chambermaid, weaker in his sorcery even than Multhas.
No, if the Spellmaster of Aglirta wanted a real ally to win his kingdom-even, perhaps, a consort? he was not that old and ugly, after all-he should look past the elder Bowdragons, and see the most capable of the younger ones.
Herself. Maelra Bowdragon, aquiver with excitement now as her last deft spell fell into place and completed the subtle web that should trace Ingryl Ambelter, if he came again.
She drew in a shuddering breath, ran slender hands down over her hips to wipe them dry, and then hugged herself in sheer excitement. This might be the road opening before her at last. The road to power.
"And so," she whispered to her mirror, "there came the day at last when all Darsar knew-and feared-the name of Maelra."
The smile her mirror gave back to her then was truly frightening.
"Is there really much chance of Aglirta seeing the rise of another Bloodblade?" Lord Stornbridge asked, over the clatter of cutlery and the sounds of eager chewing. The boar was good, if he said so himself. It had a special something… yes, Maelree had outdone herself. Klaedra left all the roasts to Maelree for good reason. Very good reason.
The Tersept of Stornbridge sat back, smothering a contented belch, to hear what reply these overdukes might give. They were as strange as Vale talk claimed, to be sure.
Thank the Three for that. If he'd ever dared to treat old Faerod Silvertree-or even this Blackgult, in the old days-as he'd done these folk this day, he'd be dead now, or screaming his slow, agonized way toward a death he'd be longing for. Stornbridge shuddered and put such thoughts from his mind as the Lady Silvertree told him quietly, "So long as Serpent-priests walk Darsar, and cast ambitious eyes on the Vale, they could set another Bloodblade on the bloody road of swords that ends at Flowfoam. 'Tis the task of us all to stop that from befalling."
All of the Storn men listened to her in better humor than they had just a few breaths ago. Good food does that to men-and so does soothing magic of the sort Embra had cast upon Pheldane. No one would have called the Champion or the lornsar friendly toward their visitors, but they'd now found it in themselves to be civil.
Hawkril visibly brightened as a lithe, familiar figure strolled back into the room via the archway he'd recently raced out through. Craer Delnbone held a decanter in his hands, and wore a jaunty smile on his face. "Sorry I've been absent this long," he told the table. "The best vintages take some time to find, in cellars so extensive." He inclined his head politely to Stornbridge. "My compliments, my lord. Refinement of palate I of course expected of you, but I'd no idea your tastes ran so deep."
The tersept, who knew very well that his wine cellar consisted of a disused pantry stacked untidily with a dozen or so kegs of whatever wine was cheapest, nodded with a somewhat bewildered smile. The little thief had obviously plucked the decanter off the serving cart just inside that archway, but… what was he getting at?
"You should try some," Craer urged his friends, setting the decanter