The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [144]
Unheeded, the tears pattered onto the bloody furs.
The song of the Stone of War shook the Silent House as the dancers moved ever faster. The priest at their heart felt power, dark and mighty, rising within him.
There came a flash outside the circle, a radiance the Priest of the Serpent wasn't expecting. He frowned at it, peering to see. Perha-there was another!
When the second mysterious glow died, the priest saw that a headless man he didn't recognize was jerking and shuffling along in the dance, a tattered bat circling him. The man ahead of him was a warrior in the armor of Ornentar, head lolling loosely over a slit and gaping throat. There came another flash, and another, bringing two more warriors to join the circle of dying, foam-mouthed clergy.
The Priest of the Serpent gaped at them for a few moments and then shrugged and gave himself over to the awe and power of the ritual, accepting that the floating clouds of bloody bones and fragments that appeared next, bobbing and swaying in time with the rest of the dancers, had once been living men.
It wasn't the end that either Markoun or Klamantle had anticipated for themselves, but, then, few mortals of Darsar get to choose the time or manner of their passing.
As the torn bodies of bards and headless, scorched wizards joined the outermost ring of dancers, the delighted priest laughed aloud, and the ritual roared on…
A small, translucent castle of flasks and bottles stood on a certain marble floor in Urngallond. Beyond their gleaming spires was the lip of a tub inset in the floor, where four heads leaned back at ease, and there was much merriment.
"Gods!" Craer gasped, nearly dropping his half-full bottle into the warm, scented bathwater. "I'm as hard as a hammer!"
"Hah!" Sarasper snapped, swiping the wine out of the procurer's hand. "No more dallying with lady sorceresses for you!"
"Well," Hawkril rumbled, "I never thought I'd end up bathing with a lady wizard in water that's more wine and Craer's bladder juice than water! Hand me another of those, will you? Embra?"
The Lady Silvertree had fallen silent.
"Embra?" the armaragor asked roughly. "Is something amiss?"
The sorceress turned a grim face to him and then looked back down into the water-where the three men, getting themselves upright with sudden urgency, could see a glimmering glow.
"Lady?" Sarasper asked, "What's happening? Tell us!"
Embra's eyes were large and dark with apprehension as she lifted her head to look at him, wet hair trailing back over her shoulders. "Magic," she murmured, "tugging at the Stone."
Even as the words left her lips, the glowing Stone rose up like a giant mushroom shedding dew, making the bathwater bulge. Then it burst free of the water entirely, its glow blazing whiter and brighter as it ascended.
The Lady Silvertree clung to it, her wet fingers wrapped around it going white with the strength of her grip, and whispered a prayer to the Three.
The three men watched apprehensively as the Stone rose slowly and silently straight up into the air with the sorceress clinging to it, until she was hanging upright and dripping in midair, her dripping feet a hand's span above the water, and more…
Hawkril reached out one large and hesitant hand to grasp at her ankles, rumbling, "Lady Embra? Should I?…"
The sorceress flung her head around to look back at him down the glistening length of her body, the Stone now at full stretch above her head. "I-," she began, in tones of obvious bewilderment-and then the Stone suddenly brightened.
They saw wisps of steam drifting from her slender fingers like smoke as its heat banished the water on her skin. Then there was a sudden roar, and the Stone burst into green-and-golden flame.
Embra cried out in pain. The men below her, scrambling up with shouts of alarm, saw her fingers,