The king thrust the whispering baron away, and raised a voice that held a quaver of enfeeblement, yet also the snap of command: "Lord Tholone! Attend us here, for the love of Galadorna!"
There was a momentary excited stir…in some corners of the throne room, almost a shout…then breathless silence.
Out of the heart of that waiting, watching stillness Lord Tholone came striding, face a pleasant mask, eyes wary. There was a faint singing in the air around him, his mages had been busy. No doubt daggers would prove futile fangs if thrown his way now or in the near hereafter.
If…given the number of wizards and warriors ready for battle and on edge with excitement…there would be a hereafter for anyone in this room.
The silence was utter as Tholone came to a stop before the Unicorn Throne, separated from the king only by the crimson and gold expanse of the Blood Unicorn banner.
"Kneel," Baerimgrim said hoarsely, "on the Unicorn."
There was a collective gasp of indrawn breath, such a bidding could mean only one thing. The king reached to his own head, and slowly…very slowly…did off the crown.
His hands did not tremble in the least as he raised it over Tholone's bent head…a head that had grown a triumphant, almost maniacal smile…and said, "Let all true Galadornans gathered here bear witness this day, that of my own free will, I name as my rightful heir thi…"
The crack of lightning that burst from the crown at that moment deafened men and hurled them back hard against the paneled walls. Baerimgrim and the Unicorn Throne were split in twain in a blackened, writhing instant, the crown ringing off the riven ceiling. As the blazing limbs of what had been the king slumped down amid the sagging wreckage of the throne, the golden unicorn's head that surmounted it sobbed aloud.
The court mage looked astonished for the first time, and snatched out a wand as he looked sharply at the painted wooden head … but whatever enchantment had made it speak had fled, and the head was cracking and collapsing into falling splinters.
Ilgrist glanced swiftly around the room. Feldrin was lying lifeless on the floor, his arms two scorched stumps and his face burned away, and Tholone was on his back, dawing feebly at gilding from the smoldering banner that had melted onto his face.
The court mage fired over them, calling forth the fury of the wand in his hand, and a veritable cloud of magic missiles sang and snarled their blue-white death around the room. Not a few of Tholone's magelings crumpled or slid down the wall, wisps of smoke issuing from their eyes and gaping mouths…then the air was full of curses and swords flashing in the hands of running men.
Fire leaped up in a circle around Ilgrist then, and the wand in his hand spat forth a last trio of magical bolts…they struck at mages who still stood, and one fell…before it crumbled.
The court mage let its ashes trickle from his hand as he looked calmly around the ring of angry armed men and said, "No, Galadorna is too important for me to allow such a mistake. Baerimgrim was a good king and my friend, but… one mistake is all that fells most kings. I trust the rest of you, gentlesirs, w…"
With a roar that shook the room, Belundrar the Bear launched himself through the flames, heedless of the pain, and leaped at Ilgrist.
The wizard coolly took a single step back, raising one hand. The knife in the baron's grasp, sweeping sidelong at Ilgrist's throat, struck something that broke it, amid sparks, and sent the Bear's arm springing back involuntarily, to hurl the hilt into the balconies. The fire that blossomed in the wizard's hand caught the Bear full in the face, and his roar became a gurgling for the brief instant before his blackened, flaming body crashed face first into the floor.
Ilgrist lifted a fastidious foot to let it slide, blazing, past. "Are there any more heroes here today?" he asked mildly. "I've plenty more death in these hands."
As if that had been a signal, the air filled with hurled daggers and swords, spinning at the court mage from roaring men on all sides…only to ring off an invisible barrier, every last one of them, and fall away.
Ilgrist looked down at the body of Belundrar, which had broken his circle of fire and was busily being burnt in two by its flames, and murmured "Blasted to smoking ruin. A true patriot…and see how much he accomplished, in the end? Come, gentlesirs! Let us have your submission. I shall be the new king of…"
"Never!" Baron Hothal thundered. "I'll die before I'll allow su…"
Ilgrist's mouth crooked. "But of course," he said.
He made a tiny gesture with two of his fingers, and the air was suddenly full of the twang and hum of crossbows firing, from the throne guard up in the balconies, their faces white and blank, their movements mechanical.
Warriors groaned, clutched vainly at quarrels sprouting in their faces or throats, and fell. Hitherto-concealed crossbows spat an answer from many baronial armsmen around the chamber…and the helmless Hothal, his head transfixed by many bolts, staggered, then toppled onto his side.
Baron Maethor would have tasted as many flying deaths had he not possessed an unseen barrier of his own that kept both hurled daggers and crossbow bolts from him. Many of his unarmored men fell, but others surged forward to drive daggers into the faces of Hothal's armored guardsmen or raced up balcony stairs to carve out a bloody revenge on Galadorna's throne guard.
The chamber erupted in a flurry of hacking, stabbing steel, the thunder of armored men running, and screams…all too many screams. There was fresh commotion at two of the throne room doors, as royal soldiers with halberds in their hands elbowed ways into the room…then a bright flash and roar that shook the chamber even more than the lightning had and left dazzled men blinking.
Into the ringing echoes of the blast he'd caused, transforming a score of Baron Hothal's best knights into so many bloody scraps of armor embedded in riven paneling, the court mage shouted, "All of you…hold! Hold, I say!"
Commoners, throne guards, and the men of Maethor who were left, with their master in their midst, all turned to look at the wizard. The ring of fire around Ilgrist was gone, and the mage was pointing across the chamber, at…
The burned and broken body of Lord Tholone, now struggling jerkily to sit upright, its legs still much-twisted ruin. It turned sightless, despairing eyes to the watching men and worked jaws that had already drooled much blood for some time before trembling lips said the horribly flat and rattling words, "Pay homage to King Ilgrist of Galadorna, as I do."
Bonelessly the body slumped…an instant before it burst apart in a blast that spattered many of the surviving warriors. One of them snarled, "Magecraft said those words, not Tholone!"
"Oh?" Ilgrist asked softly, as the twisted, blackened crown of Galadorna flew smoothly out of the wreckage into his hand. "And if so, what will you do?"
He straightened the crown with a sudden show of strength, and unseen spell-hands lifted the mantle of court mage from his shoulders. It fell unheeded to the floor as he stepped forward, settled the battered crown upon his brow, and said loudly, "So let all Galadornans kneel before their new king. I shall rule over Galadorna as Nadrathen, a name I've known rather longer than 'Ilgrist.' Bow down!"
The shocked silence was broken by the rustlings and scrapings of several armsmen going clumsily to their knees. One or two of Maethor's men knelt, one was promptly knifed from behind by one of his fellows and fell on his face with a gurgling cry.
King Nadrathen regarded the knot of richly garbed men with a gentle smile and said to their midst, "Well, Maethor? Shall Galadorna lose all of its barons this day?"
There was a rustling from behind him. Nadrathen turned and stepped back in the same motion, protective magics plucking his feet from the floor, to drift gently down a good pace back…and stare in open-mouthed surprise.