The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [117]
Part of the armaragor's wall exploded into purple flames, and he flinched, backed away, and asked, "See?"
"If you hadn't been so quick to roast my best warriors," the Baron Silvertree told his two younger mages, "this task would not now be yours. So put away those scowls, take up the shielding spells, and bestow them on my daughter without delay." He leaned forward in his seat, and asked silkily, "Or is there something else-terribly pressing-you wish to tell me at this time?"
Klamantle looked up at the familiar ceiling of this chamber in Castle Silvertree and said nothing, but Markoun, after darting several glances at his fellow mage, burst out, "Lord, both of us are less than enthused with the act of riding a conjured nightwyrm down into a cauldron of battling mages, but Klamantle has a plan."
The baron quirked an eyebrow. "One that has robbed him of his powers of speech, perhaps?"
Klamantle brought his eyes down from the ceiling, his face smooth and blank, and said, "I happen to have once visited Lake Lassabra, Lord. I can spelljump us both thither, and from there we can approach the ruined city with stealth enough to hope to accomplish our task."
The baron's eyes turned to meet those of his Spellmaster and collected an almost imperceptible nod. He extended his hand toward the mages' worktables. "Apply yourselves, then, and let us see victory therefrom."
When two robed backs were turned, the Spellmaster approached the baron's table and set down a cloth with something inside it: two palm-size glass globes. Ingryl let the fold of cloth he'd peeled back drop back into place over them and murmured, "In these, we shall see as if staring out of their belt buckles."
The baron nodded and wordlessly reached for a decanter.
When the mages departed and the globes glimmered to life, rising a few inches off the table, the first thing to be seen in the depths was the shore of a lake ringed by trees.
The second-the baron stiffened and leaned forward in his seat-was a hail of arrows, leaping from the nearest of those trees!
Stones erupted into dust and smoke, and Sarasper fell on his face with a gasp. "It's no use," he panted, across the little open space between them-ground that it would mean instant death to try to cross. "He knows exactly where we have to get to, and until those scepters run out of magic, he can blast the ground we have to traverse as he wills!"
"How long does it take scepters to run out?" Craer snapped.
"Centuries," Embra told him, with the ghost of a smile. Sarcastically the procurer echoed it, and then peered around the edge of the wall again. A scepter spat, the ground erupted in a line of racing flames, and Craer sniffed at it and pulled his head in again, spinning smoothly around on his haunches to face Hawkril and Embra.
"He's behind that stub of wall on the left," the procurer told them. "Have you some sort of blasting spell, Lady?"
"I do," Embra confirmed, eyes narrowing. "Why?"
"Because I'll need you to strike him down right after I do this," the procurer replied, scrambling to his feet, "and right before I need the healer!"
And he put his head down and sprinted around the end of the wall that was sheltering them, straight out into the open and running hard for the library door.
Sarasper gaped at the running figure, and then shouted, "No! Come back, you dung-witted purse picker! Come back!"
He leaped up from his own sheltering wall and took two running steps after the procurer-just in time to have all Darsar erupt in front of his face as a scepter blasted Craer Delnbone off his feet and hurled him through the air like a child's rag doll.
14
Borrowing Privileges
"Craer!" Embra screamed, leaping to her feet. Beside her, Hawkril sobbed. Fists balled and shaking, she turned to face the hulking armaragor just as he spun around and lumbered toward the end of their wall. "No!" she cried. "No!"
He put his head down and did not slow. Desperately the Lady Silvertree flung herself to