The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [140]
He bent and touched the healing ring to the limp body of the procurer, smiled down at Craer's slack, empty face, and murmured, "Nary a hesitation or complaint, Delnbone. You've served me better than many a warrior-and all of my other procurers put together. Now, stop your bleeding and get you back to the Silent House, where your fellows have, I doubt not, great need of you."
Craer's eyelids flickered-and the man in dark leathers gave him a tight smile and wove the spell that would take him away, just as the procurer moaned and lifted his dagger.
Its shimmering had died away again by the time the Baron Blackgult straightened up from the body of Brostos, so recently used by his old foe Silvertree-and warriors with blood on their swords and the blazons of Glarond and Maerlin on their breastplates burst into the bedchamber.
Ezendor Blackgult gave them a brittle smile as they shouted at him. A bejeweled silver coffer that had been lying on the bed-pillows was in the crook of his arm, the humming of one of his rings telling him it held strong magic, he had his sword back, and blue mists were rising around him as the fartravel ring began its work.
Let them rend the body of Thanglar Brostos, no more than just asleep. To be sure that Faerod Silvertree was dead at last, he'd wrung its neck, doused it in lamp oil, and set its rich silks aflame with the nearest lit lamp.
They could stare at him all they wanted. He was fading away.
Blackgult waved at the charging guards cheerfully. He was going… going… snatched away by the magic to where he'd moved and hidden the Dwaerindim. He was going to the Silent House.
25
A Shortage of Kings
Two men whose rich robes were only outshone by their hauteur strode across a polished marble floor that seemed to stretch forever. As they passed pair after pair of flanking pillars worked into the likenesses of alert sentinels and welcoming women, they never so much as glanced at each other.
Stone-faced guards threw open the first huge, high doors of the Royal High Court at their approach, and the courtiers strutted on, looking neither to left nor to right-and never at each other. Bootheels clicking, they passed along a darker hall hung with many huge, rich tapestries. These were illuminated by drifting spell-motes that made their scenes of hunts in the high wilderlands and deep forests of the long-ago Vale seem alive, but the courtiers spared them not a glance.
The two came at last to the huge, high doors of the Inner Court. More stone-faced guards in gilded armor drew these open with gentle grace, to allow admittance to the throne chamber itself.
The courtiers strode straight down the center of its vast expanse of gleaming tiles, their swords jingling at their hips in the gentle chimings of gilded loops of chain and dangle-ornaments and even tiny bells, and drew nigh the steps that ascended to the River Throne, also called the Flame Throne, seat of the ruler of all Aglirta. The court seemed unusually quiet around them, but they looked neither to left nor to right, for their business was with none other than the king.
They bowed at the foot of those steps, made the bent-knee gesture that passes for kneeling among men who feel themselves too important to truly kneel before anyone but their wives, in private, and waited for the royal greeting, eyes carefully downcast. Neither wanted to be the one to slight royal favor by the tiniest misstep, so that the Risen King acknowledged the other first-for their quarrel was with each other, and they were come from near the mouth of the Vale upriver to see to the settling of it.
Silence stretched, until they could contain their tension no longer-and both peered up under their brows, more or less at once, at the River Throne.
And found it empty.
After a long, dreadful, disbelieving moment, they reluctantly dragged their heads around to regard each other, shared a look of amazement, stared again at the vacant throne-and