The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [134]
"Shall I slay this one?" she called, slowing.
"And rob me of the pleasure?" Craer called back. "Oh, all right!"
She shook her head at his mock dejection and hurled lightnings at the stranger-but the man vaulted over some crumpled shelving and was gone down a dark opening to unknown spaces beneath.
Embra frowned. "I'm reluctant to go down there," she told her companions, hovering above them. "Why not gather up on the balcony? From there we can see him approach if he returns."
"What?" Craer croaked, rubbing at his throat. "You've got this precious Stone everyone's after-let's begone, before all the rest of the wizards and outlaws in Darsar get here!"
"Soon, soon," Embra told him. "There's something I must do first!" She turned and flew to the glowing shafts.
Behind her, Hawkril and Craer groaned.
***
Ingryl Ambelter lifted his eyes from the scene that flickered in the depths of a glass globe up at the baron, raising his eyebrows in a silent question.
Faerod Silvertree smiled. "Treachery and young mages go hand in hand; when I deal with those young in sorcery, I expect no less. Wherefore I feel no loss nor loyalty when I must spend the life of such a mage. Klamantle has reached his final usefulness to us. Use him, by all means."
The Spellmaster nodded, turned with a grim smile, and murmured into the sphere, "Fleeing so soon, Klamantle? Ah, be brave!"
His fingers moved briefly, and he saw Klamantle stiffen as that magic reached him. The flying mage froze in midair, only his twisting, trembling face betraying a frantic struggle against its grip-and then turned, firmly under the Spellmaster's control, to fly back at the dome.
There was stark terror in Klamantle's eyes as he hurtled to his doom.
The Lady of Jewels hovered above the open books, quoting aloud. "Then did the Golden Griffon…," she muttered, moving restlessly in the air, her brow furrowed in thought.
Her face changed as something new occurred to her, and she deliberately brought the Stone in her hand into one of the shafts of light.
Nothing happened, and after a moment she thrust it into the next shaft of light, and watched nothing befall there, either. Shrugging, Embra went back to reading.
And gasped aloud, face growing pale. What she'd done with the Stone had made the writing on one page change.
If ye have but two Dwaerindim, the Sleeping King can be awakened thus: touch ye the two stones together, and say aloud…
Embra read the few lines over and over again, trying to burn them into her memory beyond all forgetting. She was almost done when the writing flickered under her gaze-and she was staring at what she'd read there earlier: cryptic clues as to the whereabouts of the Dwaer. Clues that she could make sense of readily enough, but that seemed, well, wrong.
"These point to Silvertree House," she said aloud at last, shaking her head. "But I must be wrong, or this a ruse-this Stone was right there, in yon pit."
As if her words were a cue, a bright flash and a deafening roar smote the Four, crashing into the dome on waves of flooding sunlight-as part of the dome was blasted down from above. Huge shards of stone hurtled down, dashing the sorceress to the floor but tumbling through books that hung untouched, intangible, and oblivious.
Shouting in alarm, the three men ran forward as one, seeking Embra.
They barely noticed something small and spiderlike land just behind their hurrying boots. Something that was bloody beneath the dust, and twitched slightly, like a tired spider. It was a man's right hand. Until very recently, it had belonged to the wizard Klamantle Beirldoun.
Faerod Silvertree was not a slow-witted man, but he seldom allowed more than malice to master his face and voice. He had kept silent, pretending ignorance, waiting and watching as all of his Dark Three wizards had unfolded their own separate treacheries. How best to use their misdeeds?
One tool was now shattered; it was time to temper another. "You made him a living spellblast," he murmured. "Rather wasteful, don't you think?"
Ingryl Ambelter