The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [22]
"Can't a Dwaer bring us back to life?" Hawkril growled in a near-whisper, glancing around as if the crumbling walls themselves were listening.
Embra shrugged. "Perhaps, but I don't know how to make this one do that, so the answer is no. But hear my thoughts on your task. Blundering about the countryside trying to winkle out where the Dwaerindim lie by prying news out of every talkative carter and farmer in every tavern will just make foolish targets of us all. So will spying on barons, tersepts, and wizards-all of whom have something to hide or keep safe from thieves even if they've never even heard of a Dwaer, and will assume we've come to seize. So. I'll use my magic, if you'll aid me, to trace the other Stones."
Sarasper gestured at the Dwaer hanging at her breast. "And how will you succeed if spell-searchings can be so easily blocked?"
The Lady Silvertree nodded and leaned forward, impatient in her eagerness. "I won't try the open prying others have used, like that you saw me block here and when we were speaking with the king. That way can be blocked easily by those who know how and are awake and alert. If it does succeed, it shows both Stone-holders to each other and opens a way between them-a doorway whose threshold can span miles, from one edge of known Darsar to the other, if need be, so that a single step takes one across territory it takes months to traverse. Monsters, missiles, and the like can race or be hurled through such a door, as can spells. Nothing and no one near either end can be deemed safe by any prudent person."
"So instead-?" Craer prompted her, thoughtfully tapping the flat of his dagger blade against the nails of his curled fingers.
"Instead," Embra answered, "I'll work a subtler, ongoing magic that seeks unleashed Dwaer magic like a hound sniffing for the scent of a hare. A slow 'this direction feels better' spell that should escape detection."
Those words brought a crooked smile to one face in the room. It was not one of the three men gathered around the sorceress, nor even a face any of the Four knew was there. It adorned the gray visage of a head that hung unnoticed in the shadows: a floating, disembodied human head whose lips widened into a soundless chuckle-just before it vanished, winking away silently.
Nor did that exit go unnoticed. In deeper shadows well behind where the head had been, around the sagging end of a collapsed shelf, another face smiled in its turn. This one had a body beneath it and a beard adorning it-all of which withdrew behind the shelf in soft silence moments before Craer lifted his head to glance in that direction.
The bearded man did not reappear after the procurer glanced elsewhere-but something else moved, even farther back in the gloom. A small bat took wing from where it had been clinging to the ceiling, swooped out one of the rents in the walls, and flapped away across the ruins. It, too, seemed to smile as it went.
Another bat flapped past the windows, free to come and go in the night as he was not.
The man sat alone in his chair in the deep, waiting silence, and swallowed his rising bitterness.
The voice seemed to come out of the darkness right beside the Baron Loushoond's elbow. "You are alone, and seated in shadow?"
He almost cursed, and did flinch, but fought down the urge to jump out of his chair and snarl in his fear, and instead said slowly, making his voice as calm and deep as he could, "I am. Loushoond keeps its bargains."
"That," the voice said dryly, "is good."
The Baron Loushoond's right hand closed around the comforting hilt of the short sword he wore under his robe before he asked, "Shall I unhood the lantern?"
"Do so," came the reply, and as the light flared forth the Lord of Loushoond found himself staring at the robed and cowled figure he'd expected, its