The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [115]
Too puny to stand up to anyone in a fight, too small to carry on the docks, and knowing no other life but the docks… no one would want such a boy. No one would trust such a boy, what with his scrambling along rooftops, hiding, and pranks. A thief, a worthless vagabond… an orphan. Left alone to die.
Craer Delnbone lifted his head from the rough shakes of the roof and asked the uncaring mists fearfully, "What do I do now?"
He waited, but the mists chose not to answer.
"See who it is, Sarintha," the baron said, and as her long hair brushed along his bare body on her silent way off the bed, he did something to the bedpost beside him and drew forth a wand from it. If any of the other women entwined around him in the bed in that bright dawn noticed that he'd trained it on the door-and, of necessity, squarely on Sarintha's shapely back, as she drew on a silk robe that concealed nothing and went, as he'd bid-they said nothing.
"The Spellmaster," she called in the huskily musical voice that had first attracted the baron to her charms, and let the little circle of armor plate in the door fall back into place while she awaited his reply.
Faerod Silvertree allowed one eyebrow to lift loftily before he said calmly-as if dawn visits from the most powerful of his mages occurred every morning-"Show him in, and get you speedily to the baths, all of you. No tarrying to listen, mind… unless, of course, any of you believe your beauty would be improved by the loss of your ears to a hot iron."
One hastily suppressed squeal was his only reply, amid a flurry of slitherings and pillow clamberings and pale bodies bobbing away across the floor furs. Sarintha was the last, rising from kneeling by the door she'd opened to close it again, then sprinting for the archway into the baths.
Spellmaster Ingryl Ambelter almost turned to watch her go-almost. His shoulders quivered as he quelled the movement, and his baron almost smiled at that. Almost.
"Yes, Ingryl?" he asked, instead, not bothering to cover himself… or the wand in his hand, resting on a pillow and aimed rock-steady at his most powerful wizard.
A wizard who seemed weary this morning. "I've news I know you'll want to hear, Lord," Ingryl replied, "won for you through great, night-long magical striving. The Lady Embra and her three companions are at the ruins of lost Indraevyn, in the Loaurimm Forest, seeking one of the Dwaerindim. Ambitious mages from all over Aglirta, and beyond, are there, too, pursuing the same prize. The place is both a deathtrap-and a golden opportunity to seize magical greatness for Silvertree."
"If we gain one of the legendary Dwaer, you mean?"
Ingryl nodded.
"And your plan for gaining it?"
The Spellmaster echoed the baron's almost-smile. "I believe the Baron of Silvertree would be tactically astute to immediately order his mages Klamantle and Markoun thence, carrying touch-delivery shielding and listening spells for the Lady Embra, with their most pressing orders being to get to her and deliver those shields first, before and above all else. If they fell into battle with other explorers of ruins, thereafter, and we were to observe and guide them through my spells…"
"The Baron of Silvertree's beliefs concur with yours in this matter," Faerod Silvertree told him. "When this is done, and Embra safely back in thrall or spellchains, shall I lend you, say, four of my love-chamber girls for a night?"
The Spellmaster did look quickly over at the archway that led to the baths, this time, but his face was as carefully impassive as one of the baron's own armsmen when he looked back at his master and replied, "That would please me, Lord. Please do."
Morning brought death to Indraevyn in earnest. From where the silent man lay, sprawled atop a creeper-shrouded tower, he could see a conjured spellstalker crushing armsmen with its fists, the mage who controlled it crouched in a thicket unaware that three armaragors were creeping up behind him with naked daggers in their hands; at least two separate spellbattles between rival