The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [125]
The Lady Silvertree turned and found Craer at her elbow. "We-are we alone here?" she asked, almost fiercely.
"No, L-Embra," the procurer replied. "That lurker I saw, and at least one more mage… probably more than that, besides; they're all still here, somewhere."
"I've got to get a look at those books," the sorceress told him. "But how?"
"Can't you fly up there, with a spell?"
"Of course. It's bows I'm worried about, and-"
"Worry about the bolts and arrows," Hawkril rumbled in her ear. "Never the bows."
"Funny, funny man," she told him out of the side of her mouth, and took a stride forward, and then another. Her companions didn't try to stop her this time.
"Can you raise a shield, like that mage outside?" Craer asked.
Embra put her knuckles to her mouth. "Yes, but any wizard can destroy such a magic," she said slowly, "and I can't fend off dozens of crossbow bolts. I don't know about getting into those columns of light and keeping my spells active, either. How?…"
"Just do it," Craer urged her, "but don't stop and hover-dart this way and that, swoop, drop suddenly, and never stay still. If someone fires at you, fly away, but try to mark where the shot came from and men get above it-high above it. We'll run there and see if we can't silence the bowman."
Embra looked at him, fires of excitement rising in her eyes, and then plunged both hands almost greedily into her bodice, brought out two rather battered-looking knickknacks, and hissed incantations in furious haste. A small, wet sound in the next row made Hawkril dart around the corner, where he found a sagging warrior pinned to the shelves with a heavy war quarrel, a dark ribbon of blood spreading out from the man's twitching feet. The dying man had been there for some time, by the looks of all that spilled blood. Hawkril shot glances up and down the aisle but could see no foe to be wary of.
He was just turning back into the row where the Four had fought the warriors when Embra rose into the air, glided along the tops of the shelves with the toes of her boots almost touching the weathered wood, and then reached the curving wall of the dome and soared up along it.
No arrows reached for her, and they could hear no sound in the dark, dead library but their own breathing.
"I hope the lass isn't chasing a trap," Hawkril muttered. "You saw that wizard's hand pass through the tome? Those books aren't even here."
"It's only in bards' tales that folk cast mighty spells and spend bags upon bags of gold to build traps everywhere," Craer murmured back. "The books lie open- 'tis some sort of message intended for mages."
"Or passing pigeons," the armaragor grunted. "If that's not too much of a stretch, outside a bard's tale, that is."
"Funny, funny man," Craer told Hawkril out of the side of his mouth, in devastating mimicry of Embra's tones.
The armaragor grimaced and then stiffened as the Lady of Jewels swooped out of the great arc of the dome, curling around its far surface where runes were written. She peered at them narrowly, slowing in her glide, and then soared again. The men of the Four tensed, straining to hear the rattle of a windlass or the thrum of a bowstring, but the library seemed eerily quiet.
Embra plunged into view again, now clearly curling around the columns of faintly glowing air. She slowed, peered, and then circled away, coming back to the same book again, and then tossed her hair back and soared up into the dark heights of the vault again. Craer nodded approvingly.
"Then did the Golden Griffon rage… At his forever foe enthroned.. in the splendor of a nest new and strong raised," Embra Silvertree murmured to herself, the dusty air whistling past her shoulders. "His foe would be a Silvertree and the nest Silvertree House, if the writing is old, or Castle Silvertree if 'tis recent. Probably 'tis old…"
She bit her lip and plunged down out of the heights once more, peering at the dark arcs of shelving as she descended, seeking bows