The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [151]
"No!" he hissed, speaking to it as if it were a disobedient child. He held it in both hands and shook it. "I've a sword and my strength, and that's enough. Let clever folk play with you-and get burned for their troubles."
The Stone seemed to murmur in his ear, at first soothingly and reassuringly, and then inexorably and repeatedly, like a war drum driving armies on, until Hawkril was bent over it, straining to hear.
"Hawk? Hawk, what're you up to?" Craer asked sharply. He found his feet with easy grace and started across the cavern. Sarasper, too, was watching Hawkril in sudden apprehension.
The armaragor looked around at them like a guilty child caught stealing sweets and growled, "Nothing. Ah-nothing."
And then, with Craer Delnbone still six strides away and unable to do more than watch, Hawkril reached out with the Stone in his hand, like a small child experimenting, and touched it to a second Dwaer: the Stone of War, sitting on the blankets Sarasper had left some hours ago.
The Dwaerindim sang, and a sudden radiance appeared around them.
"Hawk!" Craer snarled in alarm. The armaragor hastily pulled the Stone Embra had carried for so long back to his breast, away from the other Dwaer.
The radiance stretched to follow it, brightening into an arc between them that arched and rose…
"Sarasper?" the procurer called urgently over his shoulder. "We may need a spell!"
The glow became man-high, and acquired colors… hues that shifted like threads in a rich fabric around the edges of its bland brightness. In her slumber, Embra made a small, disturbed sound.
Abruptly the radiance became a scene hanging in the air, like the scrying-scenes Embra had called out of the Stone. It was a view of someone none of them had ever seen before.
A man in gleaming black armor, all smooth and supple curves trimmed with silver, sitting in a vaulted room upon a throne made of flames, his head bent on his breast in slumber.
'The Sleeping King!" Sarasper gasped.
"Gods, yes!" Craer echoed, his voice hoarse with excitement. "The king!"
"He's real!" Hawkril added, in a trembling voice. His heart lifted in hope-as if all the rosy things he'd been told as a child about the Three providing for Darsar were true.
"Shaerith melbratha immuae krontor," Embra Silvertree snapped from where she lay, her words seeming to echo across the cavern. "Arise, Kelgrael! Awaken, Snowsar! Return to your throne, for Aglirta has need of thee! Shaerith melbratha immuae krontor!"
Her words echoed and rolled around them like thunder… and the eyes of the enthroned figure opened. His pupils kindled into twin flames, just as in all the tales.
"The king! The king!" they shouted together. The figure seemed to see them and smile-and then, quickly, started to fade.
"He's going!" Hawkril hissed desperately. "What shall we do?"
"Kneel to him," a sleepy Embra muttered from behind them, "and then go and find him."
"But where?" Craer snapped, as radiance and king faded entirely away together.
"I know that room," Sarasper whispered, all of the color gone from his face. "It's in Silvertree House. Embra must not accompany us-or she'll perish, to be sure: the curse of the Silent House."
"And how is it you know that?" Hawkril rumbled in astonishment.
"Something Baron Blackgult once said," the old healer said wonderingly. "I never knew what it meant until now."
They heard Embra gasp behind them, and whirled around, reaching for weapons.
The sorceress was stretching out her hand to the Stone of War-and her fingers were passing through it, as though it was but an illusion. It was pulsing with faint flashes of light, and with every flash its image grew more ghostly, fainter… and fainter…
"What's happening?" Craer snapped, his dagger in his hand. "Embra?"
"It's taking itself away," the Lady of Jewels said slowly. "Just