The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [102]
Embra impatiently pulled free of the procurer's grasp, took a few strides to have room enough to twirl about with hands on hips, and snapped, "Of course I can walk, Craer-what's the point of all these games?"
Craer held up his hand in a gesture that at once both warded wrath and requested patience and used his other arm to point through the trees. "If where we left the lake lies yon, Lady, how judge you lies ruined Indraevyn from it?"
The sorceress frowned and then pointed. "About a mile in that direction."
The procurer quickly crouched and turned the sword on the ground to point exactly as Embra was. Then he looked up from it and told her, "You and I walk as far as we can and still remain where Hawkril can see us. He gestures to us to move this way, or that, until we're in line with the sword. Then I lay my blade down to point at where he's walking from, and we stay still as he carries Sarasper and the sword to us. When he reaches us, we do it all over again; I take the sword he brings in place of my own, and so on. Thus we walk more or less in the direction we intend. We've moved far enough from the water that we should go past the ruin, so as to come up to it on the far side."
"Where foes may be fewer, though we'd still best beware guards," Embra agreed, nodding in admiration of the forester's trick he'd described. "I fear half the mages in Aglirta, and more besides, are hurrying here to snatch the stone, if they can."
Craer nodded. "Have you any idea what's harming you when you use magic?"
Embra lifted her slender shoulders in a shrug. "A curse, perhaps. The work of Father's mages, almost certainly."
"Will killing them end the curse?" Hawkril rumbled.
They both turned to look at him in surprise for a moment before Embra nodded slowly. "It would, yes, I believe it would-if all who had a hand in its casting were slain."
He gave her a slow and silent nod in return, before turning to Craer and gesturing to him to begin moving where the swords pointed. As the procurer and the sorceress moved off through the forest together, all three conscious members of the Four wore thoughtful looks.
They spent the afternoon proceeding as Craer had directed. It was some time before Sarasper regained wakefulness, though his face was creased with a head pain, and he stumbled weakly instead of striding. Once they heard a brief commotion of battle-cries, the clash of steel, and an echoing spell blast-but during all that quiet journey they saw no living thing larger than a slinking tree cat.
The day wore on, and the time came when they must make a turn, and they did so, halting only when Embra lifted a hand and said softly, "Indraevyn must lie there, and stretching that way, before us."
Craer and Hawkril looked to their weapons; Embra felt around her person for the remaining enchanted House knickknacks she'd need to power any spells she might have to cast.
"It would be best," Sarasper murmured warningly, at her elbow, "if you cast no magic that is not desperately needful."
She looked back at him. "It would," she agreed gravely. "See to it, then, that my need is not desperate."
The healer grinned and spread his hands in an open, helpless gesture. They shrugged in unison, then started toward the ruins, moving as stealthily as possible. Craer took the lead, making hand signals as to how and when the others should follow.
They hadn't been creeping forward for long when a sudden flash of light occurred above the trees ahead. On its heels came screams of pain mingled with shouts of alarm and anger.
The Four looked at each other.
Craer silently signaled the advance.
12
Uneasy Mastery of Magic
Out of the bright and clear blue sky over the Glittering City, on an afternoon not soon to be forgotten in Sirlptar, two black, bat-winged, and serpentine monsters swooped down. Miniature dragons, they seemed, with men riding their backs.
As folk who glanced up cried out and pointed, older and longer-bearded ones looked, and saw-and ducked into doorways,