The Kingless Land

by Ed Greenwood

  “Oh, really?” Craer replied, reaching down with a stick he’d found somewhere to keep her from bumping the sides of the shaft. “I thought he was too busy flogging us.”

  “Is this what passes for wit between you two?” she asked, over the rattle of chain.

  “No,” Hawkril growled. “Generally we do things like drop clever-tongued sorceresses back down shafts on their heads and then dance around chortling.”

  “I hope you’re jesting,” Embra told him, hearing a quaver in her voice that she’d hoped would not be there. An instant later, a strong hand took her by the waist and bodily turned her right side up in midair.

  “I’m not sure,” the armaragor told her levelly, staring into eyes that the sorceress had firmly closed. Shaking his head in mingled relief and contempt, he set her down gently on her feet.

  There was a clink and then a clatter beside her, and Embra blinked her eyes open and looked down to see the chain on the floor, in several separate lengths, broken links still rocking gently around it amid the red dust of their dying. Hawkril kicked one aside. “Well,” he growled with some satisfaction in his voice, “it held as long as we needed it to.”

  Embra shivered and looked away. “Is Sarasper all right?”

  “My wits took another bruise or two,” the healer grunted, from somewhere behind her. “But I don’t suppose you’ll notice the damage.”

  The other two men chuckled, and Embra shook her head. “The Band of Four Idiots, that’s what we are,” she told the nearest wall—and, for just a moment, it seemed to hold a half-skeletal face that grinned back at her.

  Oh, yes. The ghosts. Settling the precious bowl she’d thrust into her bodice earlier so that it rode more comfortably over one of her breasts, Embra looked back at the channel of ruin through the house, and thought she could just see a glimmer of the day outside. “Are we agreed to move on now, before more spells come?” she asked.

  Sarasper nodded. “I’ll take us down into the catacombs.”

  “And then?”

  “We head for Sirlptar, to talk to some bards—while cloaked in whatever magical disguises you can spin for us, Lady—about where legend places the Dwaerindim. The quest, remember?”

  “Sirlptar?” Hawkril asked sharply. “Just how far do these catacombs go?”

  The healer plucked up the glowing stone from the floor and held it aloft like a lantern. “A long way,” he said softly. “You’ll see.”

  Their eyes met in silence. It was a long moment before three pairs of shoulders lifted in shrugs, and their owners moved to follow the healer.

  Sarasper turned with the stone held aloft like a priest bearing a relic toward an altar, and led them through the door he’d opened, along a passage that turned twice and ended in a blank wall.

  After he did something to the stones in a certain spot beside that wall, it slid aside with a deep rumbling, revealing a large, dark space beyond.

  Hawkril regarded it with deep suspicion before he shouldered through the opening. There were no signs of handles or pull-rings to move the wall again, and he glanced back along their trail twice as he followed Sarasper into the echoing gloom of a large, grand chamber.

  In the center of the room beyond the sliding wall stood a massive but much-hacked stone chair. It had a high, ornate back, and—through thick dust and cobwebs—fist-size gems gleamed along its arms.

  “And so the Band of Four set forth,” Craer murmured, “unheralded—and into darkness.”

  * * *

  Hawkril cast a swift glance around—at stairs going up, a table in a far corner, a stout support pillar, a rotting row of tapestries, closed doors here and there, and at the monster-bereft ceiling—and then peered at the chair. “That looks like a throne,” he said slowly.

  “It is,” Embra said simply, walking around it with her arms folded.

  Craer looked at the set of her jaw and told Hawkril in low tones, “Behold the Throne of Silvertree—which served the family until Baron Brungelth Silvertree died sitting in it, hacked to raw meat until his blood ran out all over the floor.”

  “Craer,” Embra said plaintively, “please. I can see ghosts here that are hidden from the rest of you.”

  “You can?” Hawkril asked hesitantly.

  “Yes,” she snapped, and stalked past him without another word.

  A man was sitting in the chair, his arms bloody stumps, his lap filled with a blood-drenched, glistening mass of organs, one leg a twisted ruin of protruding bone and the other a stump that ended at one dripping ankle. Only his noble face was unmarked by the blades of the helmed, plate-armored men who surrounded him in a grim ring of ready steel, and it was drawn with pain. Amulets flashed and dwindled at his throat and on the circlet that he wore about his brows, and as they faded, so did the life they struggled to preserve.

  “I have no magic left to strike you down,” he said almost wearily, “and it won’t be long, now. You can put your swords away. The rings that could have slain you went with my arms.”

  One of the men facing him moved restlessly, but the ring of warriors said nothing.

  “Well?” Brungelth Silvertree asked faintly. ‘No taunts? No cries of ‘Blackgult triumphs’?”

  “We’re not of Blackgult,” the man who’d moved almost spat. “Father.” He tore off his helm to reveal tangled black hair and eyes that were two dark coals of anger. Brungelth Silvertree tilted his head back and regarded that angry face with a faint air of puzzlement. “ ‘Father’? An ambitious armaragor of mine, surely?” he asked. “Or—are you adventurers from outside the Vale, seeking to take a land of your own?”

  Men were doffing helms all around the circle, now, their swords still in their hands. Their faces were different, but they all shared the same smoldering eyes.

  “We’re all your sons, Baron Silvertree,” the first of his slayers snarled. “Your bastards, that is, the ones whose mothers you didn’t strangle or hunt down with your dogs, when you discovered they carried your seed. The ones who’ve lived all their lives in hiding up and down the Vale, or farther—with mothers who cowered in fear at the very sight of the badge of Silvertree.”

  “We’re the ones you missed,” another man said bitterly. “O most brilliant butcher of the Vale.”

  He strode to a sideboard, caught up a decanter, flicked its stopper forth with the thumb of his gauntlet, and took a long swig, swallowing with a loud sigh of satisfaction. “Ah, but that’s good!” he said with a smile. “Like sweet fire! All ours, now.”

  “Until you start to fight over it,” the man in the chair said quietly, his head drooping forward.

  “Hah!” the first man snarled. “I think not! And even if we do, at least we’ve lived long enough to taste some of your fine vintages!” He strode to the sideboard himself, snatching another decanter, and that started a general rush to take up slender silver and crystal.

  “That you have,” Brungelth Silvertree said softly. “That you have.” His head settled lower, and the patter of blood on the floor around the throne slowed to a gentle rhythm of drippings.

  “Your best amberfire, I believe, Father Baron?” another of his slayers asked tauntingly, waving a decanter in front of the dying man.

  “And I have a fine stagblood, by the taste of it,” another jeered, holding it up to catch the flickering firelight. “Most splendid.”

  The man on the throne asked wearily, “Have you all drunk, then?”

  There was a general, rough roar to the affirmative, and the baron said faintly, his words slurred now, “Consider it a toast, then. If you’ve sipped, you’re fit to hear the secrets of my hold before I die. Swift, now … I can feel the fading … bend close …”

  One or two laggards hastily swigged and joined the wary, tightening ring around the bloody throne.

  “Not too close,” one of them warned. “He may have some last blasting magic.”

  “No,” another said. “I wear a magequell ring—magic or no, there’s nothing he can use in this room.”

  �
��I need no magic,” Brungelth Silvertree said calmly, “to take you dogs down with me into darkness. All of the wines in this chamber are poisoned.”

  Decanters fell as faces paled, and amid the shatterings and oaths there was a general rush to the throne. “The antidotes, old man!” one son snarled, swordpoint raised to strike. “I know you’ll have some! Speak, or lose an eye!”

  “Take it,” the Baron replied. “I’ll not be needing it, soon. The antidotes are all in my bedchamber—not that you’ll live to reach it. I had to take them for years to reach the dosages in those decanters you so heartily sampled. Farewell, idiots. Unworthy, all of you, of the name of Silvertree. Have my curses.”

  And with those words his eyes closed, and his head fell to one side. There was scarce time for the shouting and cursing to rise up again before men started to fall, all around the throne, crashing to the floor in a limp, helpless fellowship of death.

  Embra Silvertree shuddered and drew her arms around herself, her face bone white. Tears glistened on her cheeks, and she threw back her head and drew in deep, shuddering breaths as she glared at the ceiling. Her whisper was so soft that they had to strain to hear it. “It never changes, does it, House Silvertree? And you’re proud of it, all of you!”

  The three men exchanged glances. Craer, who’d reached forth his arm to touch Embra in reassurance, let it fall back to his side, and kept silent. The sorceress glared quickly around at their faces, her expression almost a challenge, and seemed to crumple into weary sorrow when she saw that they’d heard and seen nothing at all of poisoned decanters and butchery and men falling in heaps around a bloody throne. Her sigh, as she turned away, was almost a sob.

  “We’ll move on very soon, Lady,” Sarasper called to her. The healer seemed almost a human whirlwind of tapping on stones, pushing here, opening there, and darting about.

  As they watched, the wall yielded up hiding place after hiding place, and out of each the old man plucked certain things, while leaving others behind. The table swiftly grew a small mound of bracelets, candlesticks, a candle snuffer, small metal serving bowls that stood on taloned mock-dragon feet, belt buckles, and about a dozen odd-sized wine and spirit bottles.

  “For the thirsty traveler?” the Lady of Jewels asked, picking up one bottle incredulously and peering at its faded, crumbling label. Neither her voice nor her hand was quite steady, and her face was still white to the lips.

  “I wouldn’t advise drinking any of that, after all this time,” Sarasper said, “but it still bears a few flickering preservative magics. Enough to power a spell, I hope.”

  Embra looked around at the pile and pursed her lips. Wearing a lopsided smile, she sighed again, went to the tapestries, seized hold, closed her eyes firmly, and pulled.

  The expected roar followed, and she let it take her to the floor.

  When she could find her breath again, the Lady of Jewels crawled out from under the small mountain of dust and cloth that had fallen on her, triumphantly tore off a large piece to the audible amusement of Craer and Hawkril, and brought it back to the table. “Any chance of someone helping me rig this bundle to hang on my back?” she asked, stuffing knickknacks gingerly into disintegrating cloth.

  “Just add them to the sack,” Hawkril rumbled, swinging it off his shoulder. “If I can carry a dozen or so wet wizard’s books, I can haul a few candlesticks, too.”

  Embra had forgotten the books. She could smell the mildew from here. She looked at the sack, sighed, and then held out a candlestick and a handful of bracelets.

  Instead of taking them from her, the armaragor turned white and dropped the sack, hauling out his sword. “Claws of the Dark One!” he gasped.

  “What—?” she asked in puzzlement, and then saw Craer crouching with dagger drawn, too. She spun around, snatching up another handful of bracelets.

  The chamber seemed to be full of half-rotting, half-skeletal figures, floating in eerie silence in a tightening ring around the Band of Four. Three dozen pairs of glittering ghost eyes were fixed on her as she turned, slowly, hand on hip, and slid the bracelets onto her forearm. “We’ve disturbed something, healer,” she said quietly, “but I see nothing here that can harm us.”

  “Some ghosts can harm, though, can’t they?” Craer asked, his voice not quite steady.

  “Yes,” Embra replied in a soft voice, holding her bracelet-adorned arm up almost defiantly. The carrionapparitions seemed to fall back as she touched a finger to the bowl in her bodice and made lights flicker up and down the bracelets. “I met one, once. My father’s idea of strengthening my courage.”

  “Need we stay?” Hawkril asked abruptly, as, again, the ghosts drifted nearer.

  “I think we’d best move,” Craer agreed. “What if the baron’s wizards slip some sort of menace against us—a spell, a monster, or even one of them, in person—into this room amid all of … these?”

  Sarasper nodded. “That’s why we must make haste to leave.” He looked at Embra and added darkly, “For the first time in years of lurking in this house with ghosts swirling all around me until they seem old friends, I’ve begun to feel as if someone—or something—is always watching us.”

  As the healer spoke those words, an eye silently withdrew, unnoticed, from a tiny hole in the ceiling above, hard by the place where pillar and ceiling met.

  The sun came in through the highest arched window in Castle Adeln and fell across the table at Baron Adeln’s elbow. He sipped thoughtfully at his wine and set it down at the edge of the brightness to watch the play of reflections while his mind roved elsewhere. He was considering the implications of warriors returned from Ieirembor wandering over the Dozen Baronies at will, restless, hungry … and unpaid.

  The servant standing silent and motionless in the corner saw the Baron’s handsome face grow pale and acquire a tiny frown. Esculph Adeln reached up with a finger to stroke his chin—a sign of decisions being made and thoughts flying like striking falcons behind that placid face—and then said to the servant, “Bring the seneschal to us, and then withdraw until his departure.”

  Adeln rose and went to the window to look out over the roofs of Adelnwater, and the river sparkling past, until he heard the familiar voice behind him say, “Lord, I am here.”

  He spun about and said crisply, “Send messengers to our eyes up and down the Silverflow, in haste. I want to know who’s hiring swordsmen, how many, and what coin they’re offering.” He made the little flick of his thumb that signaled an end to things, with leave to depart granted.

  The seneschal nodded and strode for the door, but Baron Adeln brought him to an attentive halt with a few more words. “Oh, Presgur—start hiring any warriors you find within our borders, forthwith. Rogues, cripples, unbiddable malcontents, thickheads—I want them all.”

  The seneschal stood still with his back to his lord for two long, eloquent breaths, but said nothing. Then he nodded and resumed walking.

  Adeln listened to the receding thunder of his boots and gave the ceiling a smile that had no mirth in it.

  The woman rose from the bed, her bare body beautiful in the soft candlelight, and drew in a breath that was tremulous with excitement and fear. “I could learn to call you master. Scales don’t sicken me … as you now know.”

  “Then kneel,” the serpent-headed man replied, settling his robe about his shoulders and pointing at the bed before him, “and know the power I promisssed you.”

  A serpent crawled out of his sleeve and along his arm as she hastened to obey. “If you ssscream, you ssshall also perish,” he told her, tracing a symbol on her breast with cold, glistening slime that began to glow. He promptly thrust the serpent forward. It reared back, swayed—and struck.

  The woman whimpered and trembled as the serpent reared back again, its eyes glittering, and numbing fire washed through her.

  “Sssuch venom slays all who serve not the Ssserpent,” the snake-man told her. “Rise, sssister, and join in the most sacred service in all Darsar.”

  As she
stood, the glowing symbol she wore flared into white brilliance, exciting the serpent. It arched over her again.

  “Kisss the Initiator,” the priest commanded. She bent forward to kiss the dry, scaled head, and it nuzzled against her lips. Boldly she licked it—and it left the snake-man’s arm to crawl onto her breast and shoulders, and thence down her body.

  “You are favored indeed,” the priest told her, sounding almost irritated. He watched the serpent slither over trembling skin and added, “Move not—and you may yet live.”

  “Are these the catacombs?” Craer asked, looking around at walls glistening with damp. The passage they stood in was cold and smelled of earth, and the only light came from the small stone in the healer’s hand. When he closed his fingers over it, as he did now, the effect was eerie.

  “No,” Sarasper said. “We’ll need money in Sirlptar.”

  “The Silvertrees have vaults down here?” Craer asked, brightening. “No wonder they didn’t want others exploring the place!”

  “We passed the vaults some time ago, when those ghosts stopped following us,” the Lady Silvertree murmured. “They stand empty.”

  “We’re in the tombs,” Hawkril said suddenly. “You want us to rob the dead.”

  As if his words had been a greeting, an eyeless, skeletal figure in armor suddenly glowed in the darkness not far ahead. It raised a spectral sword, but Embra waved at it disgustedly. It seemed to rush at her, then fade away to nothingness as it did so.

  “Hawkril,” Embra said calmly, “I don’t mind, and the riches here belong to me. My father—as a cruel joke, I think—gifted me with Silvertree House when I came of age … the day they laid the first bindings on me, and shut me away on the isle for good. Think of it this way: you’ll be helping a Silvertree carry some coins she needs, taken from ancestors who left them here for her.”