His blade was ringingly torn apart in twisted, tumbling shards-as a numb-armed, cursing Hulgor Delcamper was flung across the room.
His landing smashed flat a stool he'd never much liked, and sent his carefully laid out clothes for the morrow tumbling to the floor. He struggled up out of the tangled wreckage with a snarl and stalked back across the room, bare-handed.
The Stone still hung above his bed, glowing softly and tinkling gently right where it had been when he'd awakened. Like a prowling cat Hulgor slunk up onto the bed, stepped all around the floating rock in a slow, padding circle… and then, very slowly as he swallowed with a very dry throat, reached out for it…
Silence fell in the shattered house of Morauntauvar of Sirlptar, with its ceiling gone to starshot night sky overhead. Then the Spellmaster of All Aglirta heard the tiny, fitful crackle of flames rising from his slain foe's body.
This had all gone wrong. Sirlptar's self-styled mightiest wizard was dead, but magic Ambelter should have won here was mostly destroyed. Seething, the Spellmaster started to search, pulling his shielding-spell tightly around him.
He'd found an unscorched book of spells and some sort of enchanted orb ere the air flashed behind him, and he whirled around to find-four Serpent-priests, their hands raised in gestures of parley. Standing with them were the seven sleepy, hastily roused mages of Sirlptar that Ingryl had expected to see-for it was Sirl custom to make revenge pacts with other mages. One of them was rather angrily specifying quite a large sum of money to a priest-so these wizards must be hasty, last-moment hires.
"Spellmaster of Silvertree," one of the priests called. "Hear us in peace, we ask thee!"
"Spellmaster of All Aglirta," Ingryl Ambelter corrected coldly. "Swiftly give me good cause why to listen, if you would live."
"We've unfinished business with Morauntauvar of Sirlptar," the priest replied, "but after farscrying his demise at your hands, 'tis our judgment that you are the more powerful and capable mage, and have the perfect temperament we seek. Are you interested in undertaking the task Morauntauvar had agreed to?"
The Spellmaster of All Aglirta regarded the Serpent-priests coldly, his Dwaer glowing ready in his hands. "That would depend very much," he replied politely, "on what that task was."
The priest turned and murmured something to the priest beside him, who in turn uttered a brief incantation-and vanished, along with the Sirl wizards, leaving just a trio of Serpent-priests.
The Spellmaster frowned, and used the Dwaer to visibly strengthen his shielding. If they reappeared on all sides of him… or on the floor below, and blasted in unison upward…
"Certain ambitious Brethren of the Serpent," the priest said quickly, "had just hired Morauntauvar to aid them with his spells in their coming bid for the throne of Aglirta."
Ingryl Ambelter lifted an eyebrow. "Well, now… say more. Please."
22
The Many Uses of Dwaerindim
By the Three," Craer said thankfully, stumbling sleepily into the waiting bath, "but I could get used to being an overduke!"
Tshamarra smiled up at him from the scented waters. "Servants have their uses." She offered him a goblet from a tray beside her, shielding it with a hand against his splashings. "Warm mulled Arl-wine?"
Craer made a face, and then changed his mind and snared the goblet. "I'd better accept. The way our lives have been unfolding this last while, safe food and drink is best snatched whenever offered by opportunity-or pretty sorceresses who aren't wearing any clothes." He paused, just before reaching the dregs. "This wine is safe, isn't it?"
Tshamarra shrugged. "I'm still alive." She sat up and rolled over, dripping-a delightful sight that Craer stopped to appreciate-and cast a rather sly look back over her shoulder at him. "Seeing as you're up and you've been watered, how about washing my back?"
"Was that an artful way of asking something else, Lady?" Craer asked the ceiling, as he set his goblet down carefully.
"Lord Delnbone, surely you've learned by now that when I want something of you I ask for it-directly. My back?"
With a sigh, Craer reached for the bowl of scented lave-oil and the scraper, and set to work.
Tshamarra almost purred. "There's an itch there, just a little high-ahhh, yes. That's it. Just keep-"
"Morning," Hawkril Anharu rumbled, from above. Something in his tone made them both jerk their heads up to stare at him.
"I need you now," the armaragor told Tshamarra. "Hurry!"
Wordlessly she extended her hand, bare as she was, for him to haul her up out of the bath. Craer swiped oil from her as she went and followed hastily in her wake, snatching the warmed robes the servants had left ready to dry himself with, and stamping his feet back into his boots as he came.
"Could Aglirta just possibly arrange to need rescuing next time after we're dressed?" he asked Hawkril, as they hurried to the door and out, scattering servants and guards. The armaragor had already caught up Craer's leathers and dagger-belts and Tshamarra's boots and breeches, but the procurer hastily snatched a few more items-including something to adorn his lady's upper half besides the sharp edge of her own tongue.
" 'Tisn't Aglirta," Hawkril growled, " 'tis Embra. Em and her father."
Craer winced. "This isn't going to be one of those bad jokes, is it?"
"I don't know what it's going to be," the armaragor snarled, as they hurried down passages together. "That's why I came for you."
Craer put a robe over his lady's shoulders, and they both rubbed themselves as dry as they could as they hastened around corners, past grim-looking guards, and through archways where more guards waited.
"This is not filling me with carefree joy," Craer observed, as the crowd of courtiers and palace armsmen following them grew. They passed a room where the smells of fresh food wafted forth, and Tshamarra threw her lord a look that at once bade him firmly to behave himself, and at the same time told him that she knew what he was feeling, and felt much the same.
Flaeros Delcamper and six guards stood in front of the closed doors of Blackgult's chamber. They stepped aside wordlessly as the three overdukes strode up-and Tshamarra swept off her wet robe and unconcernedly laid it in the bard's hands.
Flaeros barely had time to stare at her bared flesh, drop his jaw, and flush furiously ere Craer took off his robe, too-and cast it over the bard's head.
"Keep these closed behind us," Hawkril told the guards, as he shouldered his way through the doors. Craer and Tshamarra followed-and halted with identical anxious gasps.
Blackgult's chamber was burn-scarred, riven, and strewn with heaped, broken furniture. The dead chambermaid's blood had dried, but she still lay sprawled and skull-headed in the wreckage. The center of the room was filled with a humming, glowing, slowly turning cage of magic, greatly grown from what Embra had Stone-spun to imprison her crazed father the night before.
Blackgult hung awake at its heart of the force-cage, the Dwaer glowing like a sleepless star to his right, and Embra-disheveled and fast asleep, her hair dangling around her-hung in a lesser cage beside her Stone. Both Blackgult and his daughter were wrapped in nightrobes that looked to have been thrown over them rather than donned. Blackgult gave them a brief, intent look as they entered, and then cast his eyes down at the floor below.
"She's been here all night," Hawkril growled, as Craer and Tshamarra hastily dressed. "Trying to heal him-'mind mend,' she called it. Yon cage has been growing all the while. At first it was thrusting out new bars at her bidding, but she fell asleep sometime in the night-after I did, for I didn't see slumber take her-and then I think he was commanding it, at least sometimes."