The Kingless Land - Ed Greenwood [83]
Glacial eyes met, expressionlessly, for a very long time. The dagger rose and fell in an easy rhythm, and the eyes belonging to the wizard looked away first.
Baron Silvertree preferred to keep his wizards out where he could see them-and they could keep an eye on each other-not off by themselves, free to work mischief. He also liked to keep them busy at his tasks… not pursuing little betrayals of him on their own. It was a source of some satisfaction, on mornings such as this one, to enter his audience chamber and see them hard at work. This required that he arrive at different times, to keep them attentive and respectful, never knowing when he'd appear.
So though he'd just as soon have dallied the morning away in his vast bed with his six maidens of chamber, this time he hurried them through satisfying and bathing him, let them dress him in a silken robe, and then strolled to his audience chamber in their company, to enjoy a lavish morn meal there.
His greeting, as the maidens knelt to serve him food, was jovial, but his wizards acknowledged it as briefly as bare civility allowed. The baron smiled thinly. All three mages were hard at work: Markoun on a way to heal his blinded eye or perhaps replace it with a copy of his good one; Ingryl on a means of hunting down the lost Lady Embra; and Klamantle eavesdropping on the minds of Silvertree agents in baronies up and down the River Coiling, to learn the latest news and confirm continued loyalty.
Of the three, Klamantle seemed the most oblivious; the spell he was employing involved its caster concentrating on distant thoughts by staring into the flame of an oil lamp.
Wherefore the baron was startled when the quietest of his wizards suddenly staggered back from his worktable with a raw-throated shriek and began stumbling about the room screaming and clawing at his eyes. Wisps of smoke seemed to lick out from between his fingers.
Ingryl didn't even look up, but everyone else in the room watched the agonized mage, and grew pale. The oil lamp was trailing smoke, its flame gone, and the baron caught the remaining eye of Markoun and snapped, "Where was he scrying?"
The youngest mage looked at the nut half-shells on Klamantle's map, and said grimly "Adeln. Someone there worked magic upon him." Then he looked at his stricken colleague and asked hesitantly, "Klamantle?"
The reply was a howl of pain and despair as Beirldoun whirled to look at him, dropping his hands away from his face.
Markoun shuddered. Klamantle's eyes looked to be gone-two holes, it seemed, out of which twin plumes of smoke were boiling. The wizard's mouth trembled, and then a fresh spasm of pain seized him, and the screaming began anew.
The maidens around the baron were wincing and shrinking away from the stricken mage, but Faerod Silvertree went on calmly eating. Markoun looked at him and then over at Spellmaster Ingryl, who was working on at his own spell without pause, and shook his head in disbelief. Then he turned back to his own worktable, drew in a deep breath, and reached for the clay he'd been using to craft himself the likeness of an eyeball. The sobbing and howling grew louder, and twice Markoun reached for a scroll and then drew his hand back. Finally he turned, frowning, and tersely cast a deeper slumber spell, stepping forward to catch Klamantle's suddenly limp and silent body and lower it to the floor.
The smoke was dying away now, and Markoun could see that his colleague still had eyeballs… seared white eyeballs. He shivered and looked up to discover the baron's gaze on him. There was something approaching contempt in Faerod Silvertree's eyes.
"I can't work with that noise going on," Markoun explained.
The baron shrugged. "One can learn to. Look yonder." He inclined his head toward Ingryl Ambelter, who was calmly and unhurriedly adjusting two padded jeweler's clamps to hold one of Embra Silvertree's hairs stretched taut in front of him. "I shall set him the task of restoring Beirldoun's eyes before evening."
Markoun nodded. "Forgive me, Lord, but I cannot help but