The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [62]
The baron nodded briskly. "Wise enough. And how would you set about getting answers?"
"By scrying into the Silen-into Silvertree House. I took the liberty, when my fellow mages retired to sleep, of examining the records in your library of the wardings cast upon it. Many, of course, are unrecorded, but there is specific mention of a scrying key-that is to say, a spell that can slip tracelessly through the wards, without destroying or damaging them, to allow visual observation of what befalls within. By your leave, I would cast this key and learn more. I can, of course, so arrange the spell that what the 'eye' of the spell sees is shown to us both."
"Do so now, if possible," the baron bade his youngest wizard, in a deceptively mild voice that left Markoun in no doubt that he was being commanded. Yarynd bowed his head in acquiescence, moved two platters out of the way, and cast the spell with unhurried precision, avoiding any flourishes or attempts at a grand, mysterious manner. A floating oval of swirling hues, like a clouded mirror, appeared a few inches above the table, and Yarynd held his hands over and under it and spoke the secret words that he'd read in the records.
At once the scene cleared, and they were looking into a dark and empty room, with a square pit-shaft in one part of its floor and an open door in another corner. "This is the room inside the entry chamber, where-ah-"
"My armaragors lie crushed and entombed," Faerod Silvertree said gently. "Yes, go on."
Markoun cleared his throat nervously, and said, "By your leave, Lord, I shall attempt to move the spell-eye through that open door, investigating these various passages only if that route seems fruitless."
The baron waved a hand at him to do so, at about the same time that the ghostly shape of a high-helmed warrior drifted through the room, glaring about, and disappeared through a solid stone wall.
"Ah, the-"
"Silent House is haunted, yes," the baron said calmly. "You were about to scry beyond that door, as I recall."
"Yes, yes," Markoun said hastily, and then clamped his lips firmly shut to still further nervous gabbling, and moved the spell-eye. There was a short passage of several bends, and then another large room with a central pillar, a table, and a grand throne that looked to have been much hacked with large and heavy bladed instruments.
As they gazed at it, a part of the wall opened, and out of the hitherto-concealed door stepped a man with a short, neatly trimmed beard and a pleasant expression, dressed in the trail leathers of a vagabond or bard. His hair was brown, his age of the middle years, and his demeanor calm and assured; no man's servant.
"Do you know this man?" the baron asked. "I've not seen him before."
"No, Lord," Markoun said truthfully, watching the man approach another apparently solid wall and reach up to touch a particular stone.
"Move the eye to stay with him!" the baron said sharply. "Close, now, to see how he opens the wall!"
"Of course, Lord," the wizard replied, and added carefully, "he will be able to see the spell-eye if he turns his head."
"So he will," the baron agreed calmly.
They watched the man open a secret door, step through it as Markoun lifted the eye to hang directly above the man's head, and pull it closed. The man did not seem to notice their scrutiny as he strode along a dark, narrow passage, up a short flight of steps, and into a room where something gray and ever-coiling hung in the air.
"A veil of force, of the most powerful sort," Markoun identified it. The man reached through the magical field without hesitation or appearing to work any magic. No fires or lightnings destroyed him or severed his boldly reaching arm, and he drew forth a hand-size, mottled brown-and-gray stone sphere.
Markoun sensed rather than saw the baron leaning forward for a better view.
The bearded stranger hefted the stone in