The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [152]
"Writings? What writings?" The procurer seemed suddenly furious. "Does everyone know all the secrets of Aglirta but me?"
As the Stone of War faded entirely away, Hawkril laid a large and steadying hand on his friend's shoulder. They all looked at the Stone of Life; Embra was clutching it against her breast with both hands, as if fearing to lose it, too.
"Everyone feels like that betimes, Longfingers," the armaragor said roughly. "We just have to get up and go on. Just now, there's a king waiting for us-think of that! It's not every Aglirtan who gets to be the first to greet a king who's slept for a thousand years!"
Craer blinked at him, suddenly abashed. "You want me to greet him?"
"I thought you'd want the first chance to dip into his pouches and pockets," Hawkril said in dry tones. "You being the procurer… and the desperate one of us two, remember?"
And for once-just once in his swift, eventful life-Craer Delnbone could think of nothing to say.
Raurdro Muthtathen had never much liked this muddy little patch at the bottom of his river pasture. He'd failed to see why it remained so wet, with a stream either side of the field and no trees hereabouts with roots to hold the damp… and failed all over again right now, as he reached out with a hoe and a dark expression to uproot a tangle of muck weed.
And to stare astonished at the round, hand-size stone that appeared in midair with a brief, silent flash of light, right in front of him, and fell into the mud beside his hoe with a loud plop.
Raurdro reached down to pluck it out and hurl it to the stonepile back over his left shoulder, looking to the sky but seeing no playful bird or anything else that might have dropped or hurled it. Disbelievingly, he hefted the stone in his hand.
It was warm and made his palm tingle… almost as if it was alive, thrumming with its own inner energy. The astonished farmer stared down at it, his wits just beginning to tell him to throw it away, hard and fast, before…
The shimmering in the air behind him became the full-blown arrival of a gray-scaled woman in wine-dark robes. Her forked tongue darted at the farmer's back as she brought her hands up from her sides, in twin throws.
Her loud hiss brought Raurdro lurching around to face her-in time for his nose and cheek to take the wide-stretched fangs of the flying snake the serpent-priestess had launched from her left hand. The other snake swerved and darted over to sink its fangs into the wrist of the hand that held the strange stone.
And as Raurdro gurgled, stiffened, and took a step back-the last step he would ever take-the priestess pounced with the speed of a striking snake, snatching the Stone of War from his hand.
"Have my thanksss, dead man," she hissed, as the shimmerings started to take her away again. Her snakes darted hastily into the radiance so as not to be left behind, as a cold breeze arose out of nowhere to blow across a pasture in Ornentar… a breeze that ruffled the hair of the purple-faced, foam-lipped farmer who lay on his back, staring forever at a blue and cloudless sky.
Epilogue
Sunlight gleamed on a tabard that flamed with its own sun-the symbol of the Risen King of Aglirta. The wearer of the tabard would have topped six feet in height had he been standing on the ground. He was sitting in a saddle almost as high as that, on the largest and most magnificent horse the graveyard had seen for many a century. He wore a plumed hat, gauntlets as heavy and impressive as those of any fighting baron, and a coldly formal expression. Only his eyes betrayed his rising anger. They were like two tiny suns straining to join the competition.
"One does not," the herald on the horse said severely, "ignore a summons from the Risen King of Aglirta."
The old man standing in front of the Silent House squinted up at him. "I'm not ignoring it. I'm refusing it." He started to turn away, then looked back and said, "You're probably too young to appreciate the difference."
He turned away again and added without turning.