The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [136]
He'd moved the Stones only last night, to the only other place in the Vale he knew of that bore so many magics, like overlapping veils, that even the shrewdest prying-spell wouldn't find them. Until he knew who held the last Dwaer, Inderos didn't quite dare to use them when he didn't truly have to-and his other magics were surprisingly many for a man who'd never called himself a wizard, or worked magic openly. As he rounded a corner, two startled guards flanking a closed door snapped to alert watchfulness, and drew their swords.
"Pleasant day," the man in dark leathers greeted them easily, letting his swordpoint dip to the floor. "Thanglar called for me, and here I am." He flourished a shadowy scent-cloth airily, striking a pose.
Guards stared hard at him, their faces anxious and angry with fear. They'd been listening to the shouts, cries, and clang of steel from below for some time now, and were beginning to understand that death-painful death-was likely to claim them well before dark. "Who are you?" one snapped.
"I am the bard Inderos Stormharp," the man who should not have been standing before them told them grandly. "Thanglar requested my presence here… and I trust you'll not want to disappoint him any more than I do. The magics in my mind might just allow us all to escape the swords you hear coming for us now."
"I-" one guard said uncertainly; the other gave his fellow a hard look, fitted something that did not look like a key into an opening that did not look like a keyhole, and swung the door wide with a gesture.
Inderos thanked him with a nod, a smile, and the words, "Please stand guard here until we call for you-it shouldn't be long," and passed within. One of the guards started to sketch a Brostar salute, but let his hand fall uncertainly as the man in dark leathers strode by as calmly and arrogantly as any baron.
Those steps took Inderos into a robing room larger than many grand chambers, a tribute in silk and velvet and fur to the good taste, wealth, careful thrift, and steadily increasing girth of the Baron Brostos. No baronial garment, it seemed, had ever been thrown away, but merely hung here as the baron outgrew it or wore it beyond flourishing appearance. Racks upon wardrobes upon wooden baron-shoulder stands crowded on all sides; without pause or comment Inderos threaded his way through them, slowing only when he approached a far door, which stood open. His boots were silent on a succession of deep floor furs, and the room was lit only by a few low lanterns; the baron was not, it appeared, expecting to change his clothes at the moment.
Inderos cast a look behind him to be sure that neither the guards nor anyone else was creeping up behind him and therefore needed to be introduced to enspelled slumber, found no such person, and drifted to a halt behind a set of feasting robes that hung to their full and florid length upon a wooden shoulder stand. Unless someone in the room ahead happened to be peering through the doorway right at him, his arrival should pass unnoticed.
It did. One of the three men in the room wasn't looking at anything, and the other two weren't looking at anything but each other.
A wild-eyed man in brown velvets and silks who could only be Thanglar Brostos gone to fat-and into a total collapse of terror-was on his knees, weeping openly as he stared up into the coldly smiling face of… the wizard Huldaerus.
Hmm. Death, it seemed, did not easily claim the Master of Bats. Behind him was a blank-faced, tottering man who was lurching very slowly past the wizard, heading