The Vacant Throne - Ed Greenwood [41]
"Lady, we need what he knows-where to get you more family magics to drain for your spells, if nothing else," Craer said fiercely, almost forcing her to her knees. "He's got one of those gewgaws left-just one-and I need you to heal him with it, to get him awake and alert again!"
"Craer, I can’t," Embra told him. "I don't know how. Undoing burns or sword-wounds that I've just seen caused, yes, but…"
"Lady, he's lost the will to be here with us," the procurer told her, gripping her shoulders so hard that the Lady of Jewels gasped and looked at him with eyes wide in pain and alarm. "I need you to give him that back, and make him heal himself. Can you take the magic from that gewgaw in his pouch and feed it to him, for him to heal? And can he help Hawk, graul it?"
Embra nodded. "Sargh, Craer, let go," she said, wincing. "Give him back his will to live?"
"Kiss him, Lady," Craer said, his face still fierce. "Hold him, and stroke him, and murmur his name like a lover. Make him feel needed, remind him what it feels like to be held-by the Three, lick the end of his Serpent-damned nose!"
"And while I'm swarming all over Sarasper, just what will you be doing?"
The procurer bent to his ankle and then straightened again in one smooth motion. Something bright flashed up into the air-only to be plucked into stillness in midspin by nimble fingers. Craer waved the knife he held with a little flourish, using it to point at the balcony. "I," he announced grandly, indicating the rise and fall of questing legs that marked the monster's attempts to drag itself out to freedom once more, "will be holding off a longfangs. Alone."
Embra shook her head and gave him a rueful smile. "Procurers," she said. "Centuries it's taken them before one of them found something useful to do. And I was here to witness it."
"Lady," Craer growled, "you may not be familiar with all of the rude gestures used by us lower ranks in the Vale, but-"
He performed one for her, with enthusiasm, and then bowed with a solemn flourish, before turning and racing off across the chamber again, dagger drawn.
Embra shook her head and leaned forward, fingers probing in Sarasper's pouch for that last figurine. "This is not," she told the still form of the healer beneath her, "how lady sorceresses of this or any other realm are supposed to behave. I hope you feel honored."
From the lips of the old man came a muted noise that was probably a groan, but might have been agreement.
It was echoed, an instant later, by a roar from the longfangs, embroidered by Craer's ringing shout. Somewhere far across the chamber, there was a scrape of metal on stone as the din roused Hawkril Anharu. He moaned in pain.
"Gods above," Embra asked the vaulted ceiling above her, "can't a girl get a little privacy? Well?"
The Lord of Glarond turned from his window. "Well?"
His Court Wizard did not bother to smile. "You were right, Lord Baron. They did return to the ruins, and read something from the books there before they were attacked."
"Attacked?"
"By a bone-wizard, and later a longfangs. They vanished-whirled away by a Silvertree spell, no doubt-and I've thus far been unable to trace them."
"A task you will return to, forthwith," the baron observed in the dry, flat voice that meant he was giving an order.
Rustal Faulkron inclined his head. "Of course," he replied, and turned to leave an instant before adding, "My report concludes, Lord. Is there anything else?"
The Lord of Glarond smiled. "No, Faulkron." The Court Wizard was already beginning to stride away when he added, "Well, one thing, perhaps. Why is it that the Lady of Jewels-sheltered lass that she is, the spell-slave of her father-can read these floating books while all the rest of you wizards of the Vale cannot? Have the gods marked her for favor?"
Faulkron's face tightened. "To your first: I know not. To your second: Lord Baron, those whom the gods mark seldom know more than brief favor. More often their