The Towers of the Sunset - L. E. Modesitt [174]
“If you will permit me . . .” The minstrel uses a sliver of wood to transfer the flame from the table lamp to the candle.
In the glow from the taper, the small castle seems to glitter, though the walls are clearly solid, if somewhat sketchily etched in the hammered metal.
“Tin?” asks Aemris.
“Alas, Guard Commander, I do not know. The space between the metal is filled with a plaster, I think.” He laughs, an empty sound. “I could not have carried this were it solid metal.” He coughs and looks toward the pitcher on the table.
“Your pardon, Rokelle. You entertain us and bring a gift, and we keep you standing and thirsty.” Llyse nods, and the serving boy pours a goblet and sets it before the empty chair between the guard commander and the arms-master. “Please join us.”
“I would indeed be honored.” He eases himself into the chair and reaches for the goblet. “Singing’s a thirsty business even when you’re appreciated.”
Llyse frowns again, and her eyes flicker from the minstrel to the candle-lit model of Westwind and back to the minstrel. “What news might you bring?”
“There is always news, your grace. Where might I begin? Perhaps with the Black Wizards . . .”
. . . sssss . . .
Llyse’s eyes turn to the candle within the miniature castle; it flares brighter and hisses before subsiding.
“. . . say the fires that are sweeping Montgren come from the renegade Blacks of Recluce, though that I would not know . . . and the orchards of Kyphros are dying, Weindre’s daughter has pledged fealty to the Tyrant.”
“We’d heard that.”
Rokelle takes a deep pull from the goblet before continuing. “The Whites have pledged to aid both Hydlen and Kyphros.”
“I wonder how much it will cost us all,” murmurs Krynalleen into her goblet.
Llyse’s brow remains knotted, although her eyes stay on the minstrel. Her lips purse, and she clears her throat, as if to speak.
CrracccKKK!
A flare of fire, like the impact of lightning, shatters the table and throws instantly charred bodies across the hall, flattening the guards at the lower tables.
Even before the echo has died, another gout of white fire flares across the Great Hall, turning the two tables holding the senior guards into another instant bonfire. In the wavering heat, a hooded figure is outlined momentarily before beginning to fade.
A single blond guard sees the fire that issues from the near-invisible hooded figure, and almost faster than thought, she draws and throws her cold iron blade.
“Ooofff . . .”
Another smaller fire flares.
Overhead, the roof creaks as two beams smolder, and from the distance, the sound of blade against blade echoes in the late-summer evening.
The blond guard retrieves a blade from an unmoving figure. “Quarters! Quarters, damn you!”
Tra-tra!
The watch trumpet echoes from the Black Tower, even as a healer’s face turns white over the four crumpled and blackened figures on the dais, even as the blond warrior rallies the remaining guards.
CXXII
CRESLIN CRUNCHES THROUGH the crisp green root on his plate, swallowing the last hard bits. “It’s really not bad.”
“Not if you like edible shells. You must have teeth like iron.” A pair of quilla roots remains on Megaera’s plate.
“You should eat them, your grace.” Aldonya peers from the kitchen at the redhead. “They help keep the skin soft and clear.”
“I’ve done well enough so far in life.”
“They are tasty,” Creslin adds.
“Stop it. Both of you. I’m not going to eat the rest of them, and nothing you say will change that,” Megaera protests.
“Nothing?”
“Wait until she carries a child, your grace. Then listen to what she says.”
“Stop it, you two,” Megaera orders again. “I refuse to eat something that sounds like shells when you chew it and tastes like the proverbial wizard’s brews.”
“If you say—” A white, soundless thunderbolt flares within Creslin’s brain, and he shudders, putting both hands on the table to steady himself. He shudders again, looking at nothing.