The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [144]
"Keeping you alive long enough to admire my handiwork," Sarasper muttered. "We're not alone in here anymore, Lady. Try crawling for a bit, not standing up and waving your arms around, hey?"
"A new tactic that'll confuse our foes, hmm?" Embra murmured back, as she rolled over onto her stomach and started to crawl towards the archway he was pointing to.
From out of that archway Craer bounded over her with a shrill scream, hurling his dagger with one hand and a piece of stone he'd snatched up somewhere with the other, at an unseen foe beyond.
"Something like that," Sarasper agreed in dry tones, joining the sorceress in the archway as someone else screamed, Craer laughed, and there was a crash and clatter from where he landed. "I think we've more than fulfilled our turn at being confused already."
"Oh, yes," Embra agreed with a heartfelt sigh.
"Oh, yes," Saerlor Dyndrie said grandly, squaring his chest and flicking one up-pointed end of his magnificently waxed moustache with an idle finger. "I personally witnessed the Fading of the king."
"You did? Good, good," Ingryl said eagerly, resisting a sudden impulse to rub his hands together in satisfaction. He turned to the guard. "You may leave us."
"But-" the guard began, and found himself measured by the Spellmaster's level stare. The wizard's eyes promised slow and certain death, its bestowal befalling soon… if he was worth bothering about at all, and not merely ignored. He took a step back, uncertainly.
"I will," Ingryl said softly, "inform the king about your diligence and loyalty… or lack of it. Believe me, I will."
The guard gulped visibly, and then saluted, whirled around, and stammered, "Returning to throneguard, lord!" as he set off at a swift march. He looked back just once, whereupon Ingryl gave him an encouraging smile.
"And just who, sirrah, are you?" Saerlor Dyndrie demanded. "A wizard, so much I can guess, but by what right do y-"
Ingryl Ambelter knelt humbly before the courtier to hide his spreading smile, the one word he had to whisper, and the pouring of a certain powder from one of his palms into the other. A swift tingling in his palms told him the enchantment was at work; he did not have to wait long.
Saerlor made a small, whimpering sound. Surging upright, the Spellmaster clamped his hands over the courtier's mouth and grinned into the man's suddenly despairing eyes. They stared at each other in silence as Ingryl's magical worm wriggled slowly into Saerlor's mind, peering this way and that at memories. The courtier squirmed, tried to call out… and then, as the wizard released him, simply swayed on his feet, staring at nothing and making a sort of growling moan, deep in his throat. For where the worm went, it gnawed and tunneled, destroying the mind it was ransacking. Ingryl needed only particular, recent memories… and they poured out readily enough, vivid and almost eager to flow forth.
It had been the ritual of the Fading Away, yes, and as far as he could tell, undertaken voluntarily by the Risen King, although it was possible the Faceless had forced him into it, and not merely guarded him. The Serpent had manifested, no doubt to try to slay Snowsar and thus break the binding. It had failed, and therefore, still bound, must now be Driven Down. No wonder the Hissing One at the moot on the hill had been so upset.
The scenes Saerlor remembered left the Spellmaster a little wary. For all his haughty ways and preoccupation with looks, trappings, and wealth, the courtier was (or had been; he was little better than a drooling statue now) a good witness. Ingryl hadn't known there were that many Faceless… and where were they all now? Was every second palace maid or cook a Koglaur? Was he being watched right now?
Well, set a wolf to hunt a wolf. Who better to make miserable the lives of the lurking Faceless than the Snake-lovers?
Turning away from the swaying, moaning courtier without a backward glance, the Spellmaster hastened to the nearest hidden door-a panel between two pillars carved into likenesses of Dathgath and Elroumrae,