The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [57]
The seneschal nodded and strode for the door, but Baron Adeln brought him to an attentive halt with a few more words. "Oh, Presgur-start hiring any warriors you find within our borders, forthwith. Rogues, cripples, unbiddable malcontents, thickheads-I want them all."
The seneschal stood still with his back to his lord for two long, eloquent breaths, but said nothing. Then he nodded and resumed walking.
Adeln listened to the receding thunder of his boots and gave the ceiling a smile that had no mirth in it.
The woman rose from the bed, her bare body beautiful in the soft candlelight, and drew in a breath that was tremulous with excitement and fear. "I could learn to call you master. Scales don't sicken me… as you now know."
"Then kneel," the serpent-headed man replied, settling his robe about his shoulders and pointing at the bed before him, "and know the power I promisssed you."
A serpent crawled out of his sleeve and along his arm as she hastened to obey. "If you ssscream, you ssshall also perish," he told her, tracing a symbol on her breast with cold, glistening slime that began to glow. He promptly thrust the serpent forward. It reared back, swayed-and struck.
The woman whimpered and trembled as the serpent reared back again, its eyes glittering, and numbing fire washed through her.
"Sssuch venom slays all who serve not the Ssserpent," the snake-man told her. "Rise, sssister, and join in the most sacred service in all Darsar."
As she stood, the glowing symbol she wore flared into white brilliance, exciting the serpent. It arched over her again.
"Kisss the Initiator," the priest commanded. She bent forward to kiss the dry, scaled head, and it nuzzled against her lips. Boldly she licked it-and it left the snake-man's arm to crawl onto her breast and shoulders, and thence down her body.
"You are favored indeed," the priest told her, sounding almost irritated. He watched the serpent slither over trembling skin and added, "Move not-and you may yet live."
"Are these the catacombs?" Craer asked, looking around at walls glistening with damp. The passage they stood in was cold and smelled of earth, and the only light came from the small stone in the healer's hand. When he closed his fingers over it, as he did now, the effect was eerie.
"No," Sarasper said. "We'll need money in Sirlptar."
"The Silvertrees have vaults down here?" Craer asked, brightening. "No wonder they didn't want others exploring the place!"
"We passed the vaults some time ago, when those ghosts stopped following us," the Lady Silvertree murmured. "They stand empty."
"We're in the tombs," Hawkril said suddenly. "You want us to rob the dead."
As if his words had been a greeting, an eyeless, skeletal figure in armor suddenly glowed in the darkness not far ahead. It raised a spectral sword, but Embra waved at it disgustedly. It seemed to rush at her, then fade away to nothingness as it did so.
"Hawkril," Embra said calmly, "I don't mind, and the riches here belong to me. My father-as a cruel joke, I think-gifted me with Silvertree House when I came of age… the day they laid the first bindings on me, and shut me away on the isle for good. Think of it this way: you'll be helping a Silvertree carry some coins she needs, taken from ancestors who left them here for her."
Sarasper's sigh of relief at her words came much faster than Hawkril's slow, doubtful one. "The gold I saw was along here," he said briskly, leading them around a corner, to a spot where the passage was broader, and several wall stones bore protruding coffins, beneath inscriptions surmounted by relief carvings of the Silvertree arms. A long crack ran down from the ceiling across one tomb, and the end of its coffin lay shattered on the ground, among a few yellowed scraps of bone, a shattered skull, and a flood of still-bright coins. The armaragor hung back until his distance