The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [25]
Something moved along the parapet, snatching Mressa's attention back to the here and now. A stone had swung open like a serving hatch, and the lass was lifting forth books from a hiding niche behind it. They looked like wizard's tomes, very like books she'd seen, twice or thrice, in front of the baron's highest-ranking wizard, Gadaster Mulkyn.
Something else moved, higher. She forced herself to glance up, in time to see Gadaster join the baron. They stood coldly smiling down at the young Lady Silvertree as she paged through the books in wonderment. Oh, horns of the Lady, was Mressa Calandue going to be the only witness to one more dark deed? A tongue Faerod would still the moment he thought of what it could say?
She was. There was a balcony below the battlements where Embra stood: a round platform jutting from the wall where the Lord and Lady Silvertree had been wont to sit and watch the river slide by on pleasant evenings. It was deserted, but Gadaster Mulkyn waved a hand, the balcony air shimmered for a whirling instant-and then Faerod Silvertree stood there looking out at the Silverflow, a goblet in his hand. He leaned on the balcony rail, seemingly oblivious to the girl above. She noticed him and stiffened.
Mressa glanced up at the high parapet in time to see the baron-the real baron-step back to stand just behind the wizard Gadaster. He watched as Embra stared at his image below her, glanced quickly all around-her eyes counted Mressa as a friend or as loyal furniture and slid on past the aging maid without pause-to ensure that she was alone, then flipped pages furiously, her head bobbing in frantic haste.
It seemed an eternity before she straightened, put out one slender arm like a sword to point at her father below, and said something sharp and clear.
The air above the balcony boiled and flashed, the entire castle shook, and baron and balcony were suddenly small, blackened fragments clawing at the air before plunging to the river below.
Guards shouted and came running, heads appeared at windows-and on the highest parapet a shining globe flashed into being around wizard and baron. Quivering, it drifted out into empty air, descending smoothly to where a young girl stood staring at the nothingness that had been a balcony. The voices of Gadaster and the baron came to Mressa as clearly as they did to Embra, spinning her around to stare up, her face as white as bone.
"A swift, vigorous, and natural aptitude for magic," the wizard murmured.
Faerod Silvertree smiled. "Good. She's going to be of more use to me-at last-than as a walking display of my jewels. Do what you will with her, Mulkyn, so long as she never dares disobedience. I can't abide faithlessness." And he smiled.
At his last word, Embra Silvertree's face changed. For a moment it held greater rage than Mressa had ever seen, a contorted flame of fury.
And then, because she was a Silvertree, it smoothed back into inscrutability, and the Lady Embra watched her doom come for her with her feelings hidden behind a mask.
3
Eluding Comprehension-and Worse
Of all the beasts that hunt humans, none is so widely feared as the nightwyrm. Darsar does hold more formidable monsters-and there are even a few thought to be more ruthless-but there is something about a glistening, eellike thing as long as ten men, that flies through the air like a giant bat and has jaws enough to devour an entire family at once, that makes men sob in terror.
There have always been nightwyrms in the valley of the Silverflow. They hang motionless in midair when the sun is high and bright, usually in the shade of deep forest thickets or floating above swamps where men do not go… and drift out to feed at dusk. A cow or several sheep or goats are better feeding than a human, but some nightwyrms love to hunt. Some delight in daylight snatchings. Some seem to love taunting and teasing humans by smashing traps set against them or repeatedly awakening humans in their beds-by plunges through windows, to upset the bed itself, and tumble occupants in all directions-to visit terror nights before