She smiled, a tight grimace that held not the slightest trace of amusement. "All of them, and often. Neither the servants nor our warcaptains can be certain where any of them are just now, but last reports-"
He nodded wearily. His wife's spies were nothing if not energetic.
"— have Ghorsyn and Ellark still off hunting, some days away; Kalathgar still in that Stormar port busily buying and selling dockside hovels with our coins to make a fortune he can hide before he comes back to tell us how poorly coins fare in Stormar these days; Delmark and Feldrar stealing everything from our loyal citizens that isn't nailed down, including the virtue of their daughters-and wives, too-and Maera still spurning every suitor but seeing how much they'll gift her with, before she turns away."
"Delmark and Feldrar a-wenching? I thought it was Belard the women all swooned after!"
"That, husband mine, is the real news. It seems much magic was hurled in the forest last night. In the little dell nigh the Imrush headwaters-or rather, what used to be a little dell. Trees in plenty blazed like a brace of feast-torches, I'm told, and the deer are all fled three hills away or more. The result of a little disagreement between our Belard, and our Nareyera, and our little Talyss, too."
"What? They have that much magic?"
"Irrance, you'd be surprised at what our children have up their sleeves, in their back pouches-and under their codpieces, too. The fire's down to just smoke, now. That's not what matters."
Lady Tesmer took another step forward. "What matters, Ranee, is that Bel and Talyss now trust each other enough to rut together."
Lord Tesmer's jaw dropped. "What? As husband and wife? Coupling?"
His wife sighed. "Yes, coupling, but you persist in missing the point. A night of sheathing the flesh-dagger is neither here nor there, even if they are brother and sister. Ranee, they're working together. Scheming. When all of us thought their seething hatred for each other would keep them from ever even imagining such a thing."
Shaking his head rather dazedly, Irrance Tesmer stumbled out of bed and started to pace. "Bel and Talyss… Talyss and Bel…"
"Oh, dolt of a lord, will you stop trying to picture them together and leering over it! Try not to think with your night-horn for once, and use your brains!"
Lord Tesmer stopped his striding, gave his wife a glare, and barked, "So they're scheming together. What of it? That's all our offspring ever seem to do, aye? You've said it yourself, many a time! Why's this pairing so much a cause for alarm? Hey?"
"Irrance," his wife said gently, "you've heard all the talk-I know you have-that the Master may have sired some of our children, rather than you."
Lord Tesmer stiffened. "You've always told me those rumors were utter lies."
"So I have, though you've never quite believed me. Well, now it's time for you to hear the truth. Two of our children were sired by the wizard Narmarkoun, and may very well have his power to hurl magic. He may even have secretly trained them to become wizards."
Lord Tesmer went white. His voice, when he found it, was almost a whisper. "Their names?"
"Belard. And Talyss."
Rod Everlar found sleep again at last, or thought he did. Were these not dreams, these scenes of him trotting down from a crumbling rampart in an afternoon mist, into a keep full of snarling, snapping dragons? Or no, narrow-snouted and baleful-eyed dragon heads, all at the end of impossibly-long scaled necks, that writhed and undulated and curved through archway after archway, across a vast and empty-echoing, many-shadowed castle interior, all to meet in some one unseen lower chamber…
Abruptly, Rod was somewhere else. Somewhere he'd seen only once, a sneeringly bold black marble and glass brick of a building, set amid the rolling green hillocks and neat sandtraps of a private golf course. The headquarters of Holdoncorp, gleaming and massive.
He was flying toward it, gliding low over the greens and fairways, and something was flying ahead of him. A lorn, alone and flapping along purposefully, as if on a mission.
Rod sheered quickly away, before it could turn its head and see him. He felt suddenly afraid, a deepening terror he could not explain that left him gasping, and thinking of that black building behind him become a huge abyss, a black maw that was sliding through the parting green hills and fairways to follow him… seeking to devour him, jaws widening into a gulf he could never escape if he foolishly looked back…
He dodged, around he knew not what, finding himself in thickening mists again. Then ducked, hearing the clash of swords and seeing a brief glimpse of grinning skeletons rushing down gloomy castle corridors with unsheathed swords in their bony grips. Then dodged again, in a place of thunderous crashes and tall stone castle towers falling ponderously down to earth, deep groaning rumble after deep groaning rumble, each of them ending in a thunderous, bone-shaking crash…
He was lying on a heap of clothes in a dark room in Malragard, and it was falling, too, leaning toward its gardens and the grass-girt slope outside the garden wall… leaning… leaning…
The bone-shaking crash rattled his teeth this time, and flung him up off the clothes an instant before huge stone blocks crashed down on them.
Rod joined the spreading, blinding dust, falling through it almost gently to slam bruisingly down onto the flood of fallen stone blocks.
He was awake now, and coughing hard, fingers of bright morning reaching out around and past him, and Harlhoh spread out below him, its far-off folk shouting in alarm and fleeing through the streets.
The crashing and shuddering went on, long-unseen spells flaring into sudden visibility in the air as the foundations they'd girded so long cracked, and walls and pillars fell. Rod saw gigantic spider legs writhing and curling in agony, and a falling wall flatten a purple-black hulk in a great spray of purple gore and quivering, convulsing tentacles.
Stone blocks tumbled, a wolf-head shook back and forth and bit at the air in helpless pain ere it sagged from view, and then there was nothing moving but the dust.
"So my plan worked," Rod croaked aloud, standing on the still-shuddering stones and clutching at his bruises, "but almost too well. I dreamed of Malragard falling, and…"
Behind him, another wall fell, hurling him into the air just far enough for his legs to go out from under him, and the landing-on his side and behind-to be wincingly bruising.
He groaned aloud, then rolled over, sat up, and tried to peer around through the dust. There wasn't much to see; there wasn't much left of Malraun's tower.
Thoroughly awake now, Rod Everlar wondered how long it would take the wizard to show up.
After all, that was probably just how long a certain fantasy writer had left to live.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Your Majaesty, I am no Doom of Falconfar," the black-bearded man in the robe protested, spreading his hands like a merchant proclaiming his innocence in a market-stall. "I can work small magics, honest magics, spells no velduke nor knight nor drover need fear save some hidden power, some dark secondary effect. When I am hired to blast down a hanging rock or enlarge a storage cavern, I do so with all the care I can, and-"
He shrieked, threw up his spread hands as all the color fled from his face in an instant-and toppled forward to fall flat on his face on the floor.
"Falcon-cursed hedge-wizards," one of the king's bodyguard growled, striding forward from beside King Melander Brorsavar's throne to nudge the sprawled and silent man with one gleaming-booted toe. "Get up, man. Your dramatics impress His Majesty not. Get up."
"Thalden," the King of Galath murmured gently, "stand clear from yon mage. Touching him may be neither safe nor prudent."