The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [168]
Ingryl Ambelter looked all around, smiled a little, and then lifted his head into the breeze, looked to the mountainside rising behind him, and took a few slow steps, leaving bloody bootprints in his wake. Gods, the pain! Oh, by the Serpent that sleeps not, when he was himself again…
Yes, now the desolation looked more familiar! What he sought would be right-here.
He plunged his hand into a tangle of stones, turned it so as to reach in under the protruding edge of a boulder as large as a cottage, and found what he sought. The Spellmaster drew it carefully forth: a tarnished handle attached to a mold-spotted metal coffer. It was latched with a slide that could be made to work even when brown with rust, and he demonstrated this, sighing with relief as the healing magics were revealed.
After the third muttered incantation, he felt much better… but the world still insisted on whirling, so he laid himself down on the ground, or fell.
The light had changed when he blinked up at the sky and knew where he was again. He must have been lying here for hours. Still, thank the Three, the pain was all gone. Now to-
Grass rustled, and Ingryl raised himself hastily on one elbow and felt for the wand at his belt. A man shouldered past leaves, shuffling clumsily-and at the first sight of his drooping, disfigured face the wizard relaxed.
Ingryl smiled as the first Melted stepped into the hollow, followed by another… and another, to stand blank-faced before him.
His smile broadened. "So it worked." He pointed. "Pick up yonder log." The Melted turned as one to obey, and the wizard chuckled.
"Now, where did Tharlorn hide the way into his lair, I wonder?" he asked the air aloud. There were more rustlings, and he turned to watch a dozen more Melted trudging into his dell.
"Ah, well," he told the uncaring sky, "I've certainly victims enough, now, to find all his traps…"
30
Thrones and Overdukes and More
Crowded now with all the mighty of the realm, the throne chamber looked a different place. Even the echoes were different. Armaragors and Flowfoam guards and bards stood shoulder-to-shoulder along the walls, and folk of rank crowded the benches-the surviving barons and tersepts stone-faced and full-armored in the front rows.
All save one. The Baron Blackgult, gleaming in the black plate armor that too many of those in the front row had seen on bloody fields of battle in years past, stood facing them all at the foot of the throne dais, with his arms folded across his chest and three fabled Dwaer-Stones circling almost lazily about his shoulders. His drawn sword was in his hands, and the faintest of smiles was lurking at one corner of his mouth.
From his armored boots a carpet of blue edged with silver stretched back to the doors of the chamber, flanked at the end of each bench with tall candlestands. Talk in the chamber had begun as murmurings, and slowly died away, until now all that remained was tense, watchful silence.
All eyes were on that dark figure, standing below the empty River Throne, yet very few of them saw the faint nod he gave the guards down the swordblade of the empty central aisle. They obeyed, shutting the doors with a boom, and trumpeters beside the doors blew a fanfare as the doorguards went down the aisle, blowing candles to dim the lofty chamber, until only the flickering clusters of candles on the dais remained alight.
The fanfare quavered to a last note that held and then faded-and in the moment of its dying, the Risen King quietly appeared on his throne.
There was a momentary gasp, and then heavier silence. King Kelgrael had faded into view from otherwhere, a ghostly, translucent figure of flickering magics; every eye could see the River Throne