The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [45]
She looked at the armaragor, smiled crookedly, and added, "So there you have it; the just-the-flourishes tour. I always wanted to explore this place when I was young, but my tutors would never let me. They said they weren't sure if the curse worked when one stays a month at a stretch or if a few days here and a few there, over the years, adding up to a month, would cause the beast madness to come."
"What did you say about hauntings?" Hawkril asked quietly, his eyes very large. "Are there ghosts in this place?" The swordmaster glanced quickly at some of the six or so dark passages leading off the room, as if expecting a sudden parade of apparitions. He did not look disappointed when nothing appeared.
"Many," Embra told him sweetly. "Most are harmless and silent; they startle the eyes but do no more."
"Most," Hawkril echoed, rather grimly.
"One thing I should add, Lady," Sarasper put in. "The house is full of things that bear small magics, hidden away by Silvertrees long ago-or by me, rather more recently, to keep them out of the hands of the more daring intruders. If they'll be of use to fuel your spells…"
Embra looked up. "Yes! Can we collect a few of those and get down to the catacombs? There are old ward-spells on this house, but my father's mages won't be denied for-"
The floor shook, and there was a sudden roar and booming of rending stone. In its wake, the floor seemed to heave and roll under their feet, like a long wave lifting a boat.
"-ever!" Embra shouted. "Whither, healer?"
"Take none of these passages," the healer said warningly. "They're all-"
The passage behind Craer was suddenly gone, lost in a great cone of whirling wind and stones, and the roaring suddenly became deafening.
Hawkril grabbed the procurer, who was having trouble keeping his feet, and dragged him across the room to where Sarasper was frantically busy at the stones of the nearest wall. Embra stared at the magical whirlwind, seeing pieces of what could only be a shattered pillar tumbling around like chaff above a threshing floor. As she watched, the ceiling of the passage fell and was whirled away down the funnel of winds… a funnel that something was moving behind. Behind and above, on bat wings… another nightwyrm.
"These mages certainly have wild imaginations," she said bitterly, watching the ravening destruction come for her, right through the mansion that had stood for centuries. Across the stones it crept, shrieking.
"Lady!" She could just hear Sarasper's shout, and turned her head in time to see him tossing three small metal bowls, and as many statuettes, to her. "Defend yourself!" he cried, and then did something to the wall a few paces more distant. As he went, the healer left the wall behind him pockmarked with the niches he'd emptied, their little stone doors swinging crazily in the rising gale.
What opened under his hands this time was a little larger: a tall but narrow door, such as might be found in a servants' passage in Castle Silvertree. The healer hurled something small and glowing through its opening. Light burst into being, beyond.
"Through here!" Sarasper called, as Embra awkwardly fielded bowls and snatched at those that eluded her and bounced all around.
And then the floor obligingly whirled up to bring them to her, and she was tumbling helplessly in midair. Through a whirling chaos of dust and small stones she saw Sarasper spin through his opened door, cracking his head and his arm in the journey-as tapestries in another dark corner fell in a torrent of dust, burying a shouting Craer.
Then something large and heavy-booted smashed into her, snarling curses, and was whirled on toward the wall as she struck the floor, hard, and was suddenly deeper. Hawkril's vainly flailing