The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [137]
"I've lifted my spell of silence, Brostos," the wizard said pleasantly, "but if you scream or shout again, the Baron Silvertree here will throttle you."
Thanglar Brostos uttered something that could only be called a squeak of disbelief as the dead man bore down on him. The wizard's smile widened. "Oh, yes, this is Faerod Silvertree, though the body until recently belonged to someone else-one of your stable-guards, I believe. Its joints will begin to fail soon, but by then we won't need it."
Huldaerus rubbed his hands together gloatingly as the dead man took Baron Brostos by the throat and shook him. Thanglar whimpered, clawing tentatively at the dead fingers as he looked pleadingly at the wizard.
The Master of Bats gave him an even wider smile. "Not too tight to breathe? No? Good, good. That will last, Brostos, just as long as you answer my questions." He paced a few idle steps, and looked around at the opulent bedchamber. Drenched in silks and velvets and gilded hanging lamps, it looked more like a Sirl pleasure-house than the room where a baron slept. Huldaerus shook his head a little, sneering at it.
"It's fortunate I was able to drag you back from your little spell-jaunt without hurting you," he remarked. "The Silent House is such a dangerous place… and you left it empty-handed, didn't you?"
The wizard turned to regard some things floating in midair behind him. The movement just left Inderos clear passage to peer at the tiny whirling spell-cloud and its contents: a dainty, spiral-gilded scepter, and a huge finger-ring set with a pale blue gemstone that would just be as long as the hidden bard's longest finger. "The reason I'm here, Thanglar, rather than somewhere else getting Faerod a body stronger and more handsome than yours, and one men waving swords won't so quickly recognize as baronial, is all the magic you've collected over the years. I know this isn't all of it-and I also know that you're going to tell me where everything else is. Every last little thing. Or I'll have the good baron here break all of your fingers, one by one."
"Uh-uh-uh-" the Baron Brostos gabbled desperately, through the cold dead hands wrapped firmly around his throat. The Master of Bats grinned down at him.
"Start with just one thing," he suggested, his voice a mockery of kind concern. "Another ring, perhaps."
The wizard lifted his gaze idly from the sweating face before him, letting it rove to a nearby dark doorway-and found himself looking right into the eyes of Inderos Stormharp.
Lightning cracked from his hand bare moments later, setting feasting robes aflame and sending wooden stands tumbling. The body that should have fallen among them, stiff and smoking, however, ducked and dodged and raced forward, spell-glows winking on gloved hands. The charging man bore a sword whose edges shone with their own racing glows, and his face-his smiling face-seemed somehow familiar.
Huldaerus reared back in alarm. "Faerod!" he snarled, as if dead ears could hear, as he frantically goaded the walking corpse into action. Brostos was flung aside as the shambling body wheeled around, almost toppling, and reached-
Far too late, and far too slowly. A gloved fist crashed into a wizardly stomach, and as Huldaerus staggered back and fell with a most undignified sound gurgling from his lips, he thrust lightnings-the only spell he could muster and hurl fast enough-from his fingertips right into the eyes of his attacker, mere inches away.
Lightnings that never reached their target, though a ring exploded in bright waves of rending magic, causing the swordsman in dark leathers to cry out in pain as he lost a finger. The wound could not slow the blade already sweeping down, however-and Huldaerus the Master of Bats had only a brief feeling of intense cold in his throat and a crazily whirling glimpse of the luridly painted ceiling before the darkness claimed him.
As the wizard died again, Inderos found himself hacking repeatedly at a