The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [34]
Faerod Silvertree raised his other eyebrow. "If wounded, will she suffer?"
"Lord," Ingryl said carefully, "an unavoidable property of such magic is that any wounds keep the shielded one in constant pain."
"Good," the baron replied gently. "I don't want her getting too comfortable."
"One last property," Ambelter added. "Any mage of accomplishment who knows she is thus shielded can employ spells to trace her-or rather, trace the shield upon her-henceforth."
The baron grew a slow and evil smile, his dark eyes flashing almost green. Lifting his glass in salute to the three mages, he told it almost playfully, "'Tis well done. These three will be my swords where hitherto I've not been able to reach; rebels who unwittingly serve me. Grow strong in magic, my daughter-to be my dagger in the backs of those barons who stand against me."
Craer looked at the longfangs, and the longfangs looked back at Craer.
Silence hung heavy in the Silent House until there came a faint, wordless sound of pain from the Lady Embra as she twisted under the wolf-spider's furry bulk. Hawkril rubbed still-smarting eyes and beheld the monster clearly at last.
A longfangs, it seemed, looked like a spider cloaked in the pelt and lean, rippling muscles of a wolf. It had the jawed head of a giant wolf, and two of its spiderlike forelimbs also sported little rending jaws; the others were barbed at the joints.
As Hawkril watched, those barbs were the first things to melt away. Gradually the limbs followed, receding in slow and ghostly silence like mist stealing away before bright sunlight, until a sad-eyed and thin elderly man was kneeling, naked, on Embra's back.
Hawkril caught sight of his sword and retrieved it. Then he looked at Craer. "You called him 'Sarasper.' Who is Sarasper?"
The old man shuffled back from Embra on bony knees, leaving her gasping on the floor. She found breath enough to turn her head and say, "Yes, Craer, introduce us. And when you've done that, I'd like my clothes!"
The procurer smiled and turned to where his sack lay fallen. "Friends," he said over his shoulder, "meet Sarasper Codelmer, one of my elder friends. I lost track of him years back and only learned he was here not long ago, from another old friend."
"So it was Thalver who betrayed me, hey?" Sarasper growled almost wearily, running a mottled, dark-veined hand over his stubbled, jutting chin. "Old Thunder-sword… no better than all the others." His voice was thick and grating from long disuse, but he managed to make bitterness ring clear in its tones.
"He was dying on a Brightscar beach with three arrows through him," Craer said gently. "In the arms of a friend. Someone to spill his secrets to, and so find a little ease ere he died. Remember him not harshly."
"Hmmph," Sarasper replied gruffly, hunching his head down between his shoulders and shuffling away from them along the wall, eyes darting around the room ceaselessly. "How much did he tell you?"
"That you slew the real longfangs years ago and have dwelt in the catacombs here ever since, hiding from men… as a bat, a ground snake, or as the man-eating longfangs of the Silent House."
"Hiding from all men or just my father?" Embra asked, through tangled hair.
"From all barons, lass," the old man said shortly, darting a glance at her that strayed along her body for a longing instant before he looked away. "And who would your father be?" he asked the wall beside him.
"Faerod Silvertree," she said simply.
The old man looked at her sharply, and for an instant fur seemed to grow along his forearms. "He sent you to find me, sorceress?" he asked coldly.
Hawkril hefted the sword in his hand, but the old man never looked at it. His eyes glittered as he stared at Embra, hunching himself as if to pounce on her.
She shook her head, chin scraping the flagstones. "We three are fleeing his wrath and reach-or rather, that of his three mages."
The old man seemed to shrink a trifle and shuffled a little farther away. "So what of your spells, Lady of