Yet, eyeing his superior's smile, he knew he was being given no choice. "I've been considering, Lord," he said humbly, to excuse his slowness, "but I cannot dunk of what those more useful forms might be. This must be the 'greater way' you spoke of, earlier. May I be permitted-?"
The Lord of the Serpent smiled in a way very similar to the direjaws. In the scrying-whorl, Landrun could see it had now torn out the goodwife's throat and turned away, dripping even more blood. "Of course. Why leave some cobbler or herder plague-twisted into a direjaws or a wolf that prowls at your bidding, when he could act at your command, speaking just what you desire him to say-if you know just the right spells-while wearing the shape of this tersept… or that overduke?"
Blackgult and the two sorceresses had left Hawkril and Craer to the grisly work, and now sat in their saddles at a pleasant spot on the trail where they could look far down Silverflow Vale. Below, the broad, placid river glimmered back sunlight.
"So what do you think, Father?" Embra's voice sang with exasperation.
"The Serpents again-but rising in earnest-or a few priests working mischief and vying with each other for command of the faith? Whoever cast the spell is gone, or in hiding watching us… but was it a test of his spells, a strike at overdukes blundering by, or a coldly planned first foray against the crown?"
Blackgult shrugged. "You know sorcery-and those who work it, whether they trust in grimoires or scales and hissing-chants-far better than I do. I know how best to swing a blade or bellow at others to do so, the backtrails of the Vale, and reading and goading my fellow nobles… Must I now be your expert on Snake-worship, too?"
"Griffon," Embra snarled, "help me! I-I learned spells well enough, but precious little else, and Craer and Hawk now look to me to be their war-captain! You roamed Aglirta for years before I was born, and as I grew up imprisoned in Castle Silvertree. Then you were regent, at the heart of the court… whereas I'm still learning blind-basic things about Aglirta as we travel, and know so little of what I should be doing that I often lie awake nights fearing I'll lead us all to our deaths-or doom Aglirta with a single wrong word."
Blackgult gave her a long look. "I'm glad to hear that. Good rulers and warlords spend much slumbertime worrying. Bad ones only fear for their own skins."
"Lord Blackgult," Tshamarra Talasorn put in softly, leaning forward in a creaking of saddle leather, "must your daughter beg more, or will my plea do? Speak, I pray you! Tell us your feelings about the realm as it stands now, and share something of what you know of its doings… Please?"
Blackgult sighed and threw up his hands. "And when I'm dead, who'll you turn to for advice then? The wind, to wait as battle comes down on you? Any smiling foe?"
"Without your counsel," Embra told him grimly, "there's little chance of us outliving you-I'm all too apt to get us all killed together."
The man who'd sired her looked away down the Silverflow for a moment, and then sighed again, leaned forward conspiratorially, and said, "For a long time, I've been in the habit of buying tankards for 'old friends' when stopping at inns, so I can listen to their talk. I learn as much from what they stop saying or lower voices on when they know who I am as I do from what's said to me. Though I doubt this tactic will work for either of you, given your looks and the fear of sorcery most folk have, you might want to try it in spell-disguise, from time to time."
Embra stirred, but Blackgult held up a staying hand and added, "I'm well aware that time is what none of us have to spare, these days-not when any afternoon can hold an attack like the one just visited upon us. So I'll share what's most telling of my learnings, this last while. Not that it should come as great enlightenment, mind. Neither of you lasses are dullards nor dreamwalkers through your days; I'm sure you know as well as I do how unhappy Aglirtans are, right now."
Tshamarra nodded. "The notion of a 'boy king' sits not well with them," she said. "They long for peace and plenty… and feeling safe in their own land."
It was Embra's turn to sigh. "They long for golden days none of us can remember, if they ever existed at all. Long years and many cruel and close-to-home examples have made them hate and fear barons and tersepts-and Serpent-priests, too, for that matter. Wild tales have served wizards the same, and built the Risen King into a shining crown of hope they now know is shattered and gone."
The Golden Griffon nodded in agreement, and waved at her to go on.
Embra took a deep breath and obliged him. "Bloodblade was their new hope, and he, too, went down into darkness-after showing enough of them that he was no better than the barons he overthrew to sour Aglirtans on even new hopes."
She waved toward the river in exasperation. "That'll change… folk need to believe in new hopes, and they will again, as soon as something acceptable comes along. Right now, though, times are hard, brigands are everywhere, and royal law and order scarce or unknown. We are all most Vale folk see of Flowfoam or the hands of the King."
"Three help them all," Tshamarra commented, twisting her lips into a mirthless smile as she gazed down at the beauty of the Vale laid out before her, between the rising ranges of the Windfangs to the north and the Talagladad to the south. She peered at the haze in the distance that hid the lower baronies, Sirlptar, and the sea, and sighed. "Such a beautiful land, and such unhappy folk. There's many a seacoast village where poor men batde storms to put to sea, to eat fish or starve, and would think themselves beloved of the gods were they delivered here."
She swung her darkly beautiful head around to regard Blackgult with sad eyes. "Yet it seems to me that Aglirta always knows strife, and its folk are always unhappy. Is this an affliction, a curse of wizards or gods? Or are the people who dwell along the Silverflow all crazed?"
Ezendor Blackgult shrugged and gave her a crooked smile. "You touch on a question sages and simple men alike-myself, for one-have thought upon in vain. Like all folk, we react with fury when outlanders point such things out to us, debate among ourselves with almost as much anger… and in truth know nothing, whatever our conclusions. Some say the never-ending strife of Serpent and Dragon keeps the land restless, making peace and contentment impossible. Some agree, saying the Three decree this, while others claim 'tis all the work of men. Still others hold that Aglirtans have learned wisdom from the violence of the realm though others across all Darsar deny or cannot see this-but many say we are deficient, or gods-cursed, never to appreciate or be able to hold peace, that we must fight. Yet others say proudly that all folk of Darsar envy and desire Aglirta, and constantly send agents to try and take it or at least win influence in the Vale, either covertly or by open force… and that these grasping men are behind all of our strife. Whatever the truth in all these words, they serve in the end as excuses for why the fighting must go on, no matter what one Aglirtan or the next may do-so we may as well do as we desire, or whatever we can get away with."
He shrugged again, and added bitterly, "When I was young, of course, I knew all truths with fire-graven certainty-when I bothered to think at all beyond my loins, belly, and the point of my sword. Later, I saw I was no more than a hotheaded brawler… and then was caught in a Dwaer-blast that left me with but the shards of my memories and my thinking. Now I'm a simple soldier indeed."
He smiled at the Lady Talasorn. "I think many Aglirtans are like me. They've known so much disappointment and war that all they remember is their anger and their loss-and how to fight."