The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [28]
And the world whirled crazily and she was being set down lightly beside the sprawled, blankly staring body of the old healer. She knelt in haste, the Stone of Life pulsing as she held it out and down to touch a wrinkled, age-spotted hand.
Sarasper's grizzled jaw hung slack, and he looked very dead. The Dwaer flashed almost angrily as it touched him, and Embra found herself suddenly close to tears. They'd have given their lives for this, these three trusting men… the first three men she'd ever dared trust.
Only three. Some might never muster that many trusted friends in their lives, but it did not seem so large a host that she could afford to lose any of them. Dark misgivings rose within her in the moments before the healer groaned, threw up a feeble hand to wave away the world, and muttered, "Gods, what was I drinking?"
She and Hawkril exchanged a startled glance. It was enough to send them both into helpless sniggering laughter, bowed over and shouting mirth until the tears came.
"I don't find it all that funny," Sarasper grunted somewhere in the middle of it, in just the tones necessary to set them going all over again. Thus it was some time before Embra found herself bending over the crumpled body of the procurer, and losing all laughter in fresh foreboding. Gods, but he looked so small. Could such a body, whatever its sardonic spirit, have survived the draining? Could-
Craer coughed the instant the Stone touched him, grimaced, and then mumbled to the world, "No more hurling spells for me!"
"He's awake," Hawkril growled, waving his retrieved warsword above their heads in a flourish of relief. "Now tell us why all the haste, lass! What danger?"
Embra looked up at him with eyes that were large and grave, and then met the gazes of the others. "Well," she said, drawing in a deep breath, "the magic worked, but I could sense only one other Stone-because it's so close to us that it almost blinded and overwhelmed me!"
"How close would that be?" Sarasper asked, his eyes narrowing.
Embra shrugged. "About a mile or so… no more."
"No more cold courtesy, I pray. Well met, sirs," the Tersept of Sart said briskly, as they touched palms together. He swept out his arm in a gesture that bade them sit in the tall, arch-backed chairs drawn up like proud sword-guards around a large and gleaming table. Its ornate carving and the small and shining forest of decanters and goblets it held shouted the wealth of Sart to any eye that beheld it and the darkly splendid ranks of highboards, tallchests, and great orlors that loomed along the walls behind it. "Pray take wine, and eat. We have no care here for spilled food, nor ceremony-eat, drink, and be at home!"
"If I was at home," a man with dark and scowling brows and a hard-weathered face replied bluntly, "I'd feel a lot safer than I do right now and right here. How do we know that the king's wizards aren't listening to our every word?"
"The wizards of Sart hired to prevent just that tell me so," the tersept replied smoothly, "and assure me further that they far outstrip, in both numbers and puissance, the few bonfire-wizards who serve the River Throne. No less a warband than the feared Swords of Sirlptar defend our gates from hiding, behind the guards you saw. Be at ease, my Lord Factor."
"Oh?" The Factor of Gilth's tone was derisive, but he was lowering himself into one of the grandest seats and reaching for a goblet as he spoke. "The Lady of Jewels is a bonfire-wizard now, is she?"
"And if they call her so, what says that for their judgement?" asked a Sirl agent whose dark green silks, adorned with dozens of filigreed gold medallions, looked as if they cost more than six such tables. As he sat and reached for wine, he chimed where the others rustled.
"So far as we can tell," the tersept told his own goblet as he reached for a decanter and nodded to the three Factors of Sirlptar to take seats