by Ed Greenwood
The procurer and the old man with the sack slowed as they came to the gates of the Wavefyre Inn horseyard. Hard against its posts stood a small knot of men—three bards, including the well-known Rhaerandul of the Lute, standing listening to a youngish, handsome man in black robes adorned with runes that meant the man was either a powerful mage … or wanted all who looked upon him to think he was.
“Who—?” one of the cloaked warriors asked a merchant who’d tarried to listen, too.
“A mage of Elmerna, staying yon,” the merchant muttered, inclining his head at the inn. “Jaerinsturn, he’s called.” A second jerk of his head indicated that his own words were done, and the words of the mage should now be heeded.
“ … it must have been a mage sitting in the front chamber of the House of the Raised Hand, or someone he commanded,” Jaerinsturn was saying grimly. “I was there; perhaps thirty of us heard, perhaps more. Yezund set forth his entire deduction—I don’t think I can recall the entire spread of his argument, but we all heard the conclusion clearly enough: Candalath, the Stone of Life, lies now in the ruined city of Indraevyn. For speaking thus, Yezund died; none of us knew that he entertained any foes nor feuds—nor anything much at all. He wielded no power, his manner was not unpleasant, he owed no monies, either here or back in Elmerna … someone wanted him dead so their rush to seize the Stone of Life would not meet failure because Yezund, armed with whatever secrets he hadn’t yet babbled, got to the Worldstone first.”
“The Dwaerindim, power to set the world afire, power to raise it up,” one of the bards breathed a few lyrics of a ballad, and the others nodded.
“I’ve just heard something more,” another of the bards said then, in a deep, mellifluous voice. “Ghonkul at the House of Tomes over on Claremmon Street is a friend of mine. He tells me only three of their books even mention Indraevyn, only one of those was ever rented—and that, somehow, all three tomes have been stolen during these last two days!”
Craer tugged at Sarasper’s arm, and they ducked around the group and went into the yard.
Several other listeners, moving at more idle paces, followed.
“Food?” Hawkril grunted, as he set the bar against the wall and held the door wide.
“Of course,” Craer said excitedly, as he and Sarasper bustled into the room. “Warriors think of nothing else.”
“That’s because someone has to think of the practical,” the burly armaragor growled, “while all of you oh-so-clever sorts are thinking all manner of useless witticisms and pranks and suchlike. I’m not blind, Craer—you’re bursting with more of it right now.”
“With news, Hawk,” the procurer corrected, almost happily. “Listen: there’s a mage from Elmerna down at the gates, telling everyone who stops—and three bards at least have—that the wizard Yezund declared that Candalath, the Stone of Life, is in the ruined city of Indraevyn! Yezund was murdered for saying so! Ther—”
Hawkril firmly closed and barred the door again, and so the three conscious members of the Four never saw the door across the landing abruptly swing open. Had they been standing watching, they’d have seen a pleasant-looking man in trail-leathers, who sported a short, neat beard, stride out onto the landing while a pair of very odd objects descended to the floor inside his room.
Those objects were floating, obviously magical silvery spheres, their surfaces shimmering rainbows of iridescence wherever they reflected back the dim stair lanterns. They were fading in both size and brightness as they sank floorward, but scenes sparkling in their depths were still clearly visible. One held a view of the inside of the Band of Four’s room (complete with faint echoes of Craer’s taletelling), and the innards of the other showed the bottom of the flight of stairs their owner was now standing at the head of. In the darkening scene in the sphere, several fighting-men were mounting the lowest steps, blades half drawn and held ready. The bearded man descended to the topmost step and stopped with his hands on both stair rails, blocking the way.
Moments later, he heard the expected thud of boots whose owners had opted for haste over stealth, and the stair was suddenly boiling with warriors.
The foremost saw the man in leathers, squinted menacingly up the stairs, and brandished two long and gleaming feet of sharp steel before snarling, “Get out of the way!”
The figure at the head of the stairs gave him a wintry smile and replied calmly, “No, I think not. Your better course would be to turn around and depart this house—for good.”
The squinting man looked both astonished and delighted, and there were wolfish smiles on other faces down the stairs, too, as blades in plenty promptly sang out of scabbards. There was some shuffling among the leading warriors, so that three could stand abreast on the stairs and menace this lone, unarmed man who barred their way.
The man gave them a patient smile. Eyes narrowed as some of the warriors wondered if they faced a wizard—or a half-wit—but they extended their swords in glittering array and advanced a step up the stair … and then another. Swords drew back a little for the thrusts that would come with their next step, and some warriors in the second rank extended their blades over the shoulders of the foremost warriors, all of them bent on carving up the lone man who opposed them.
That lone man bent over to meet their advance, smiled broadly, and spat something into their midst—something that burst into a cloud of spreading greenish vapor. There were startled shouts, and then coughing, and steel rang against the steps and railings as warriors scrambled to move—and then reeled, or stumbled, and fell where they stood. A breath later, and they were all sliding back down the steps in a limp flood marked by echoing crashings of armor upon steps and stairposts and other armor.
The man in leathers calmly picked his way among the fallen, plucking up daggers here and swords there. Wherever he found buckles he could wrest away from their belts, he took them too—men whose breeches won’t stay up are seldom eager to swagger into a fight. When his steely armfuls grew too heavy, the man in leathers tossed them, in their own series of small clangs and crashings, down the laundry chute, whose door opened onto a landing. When every weapon he could see was stripped from the senseless warriors, he applied the toes of his boots to their limp bodies, rolling them into boneless journeys down the next flight of stairs. Then he sprang back up the steps in a few uncannily quiet bounds and slipped back into his room.
In the brief instant before his door closed again, anyone who’d stood on the empty landing would have seen the two silver spheres brighten and begin to rise from the floor again.
On the other side of the closed and barred door across that landing, a sleepy-eyed Embra was pulling herself up to a sitting position against her pillows as Craer enthusiastically finished his tale: “ … so it seems the Three have practically handed us one of the Dwaerindim—on the heels of meeting Sarasper, look you! Can there be any doubt what we must do next?”
There had been a time—as recently as four days ago—when Hawkril would unhesitatingly have followed Craer wherever the procurer’s quick wits and slick tongue led them. Now, however, his eyes flickered in the midst of enthusiastically agreeing, with one bite gone from the gravy-dripping roast kleggard in his hand … and he looked to the wan-eyed, tangle-haired woman on the bed.
Embra licked dry lips, and the room fell suddenly silent. She looked around at the three men awaiting her words, and a smile flickered for a moment about her lips. “I had forty servants,” she said in a voice raw from disuse, “but now I have three friends. Much better.”
She sat up and seemed to gain both strength and excitement together. “I can spelljump us all to about a mile distant from Indraevyn.”
Sarasper lifted one busy eyebrow. “You can? How is it that you know any locale deep in the Loaurimm Forest?”
The Lady of Jewels gave him a weak smile. “You’re a nasty, suspicious old man, Sarasper. One of my tutors liked to go swimming in waters more warm and placid than the Coiling, and in years gone by we often practiced spelljumping to Lake
Lassabra, called by some—”
“‘The Sheet of Mists,’” Hawkril interrupted, causing three heads to turn his way in surprise. The armaragor looked back at them and shrugged. “There’s a ballad,” he explained rather apologetically.
“Lady Embra,” Sarasper said then, “are you sure you should try such a thing? Every spell you work seems to bring you a stride closer to death.”
“Aye,” Craer agreed. “Shouldn’t y—”
Embra held up one hand in an imperious “heed me” gesture and followed it with a long look and the words, “Think, friends, how many spells I might have to cast if we trudge and fight all the long and winding way upriver, through Silvertree—only to find that one of the countless other mages who’s heard Yezund’s tale by now jumped to the ruin long since, found the Stone of Life, and is off raising an army of loyal walking dead or suchlike with it.”
“Sargh, yes!” Craer burst out, at about the same time as Hawkril muttered, “Graul,” under his breath. The three men looked at each other, and with the next moment, the room erupted into a whirlwind of repacking and slinging packs and crowding together, punctuated by Hawkril’s loud complaint that he’d had just one swallow of what looked to be a gods’blessed good hot meal, and he’ll never—
A raw, feminine scream of pain echoed through the middle floor of the Wavefyre Inn—a scream that abruptly cut off, leaving empty silence behind. There came a soft footfall outside the room whence that cry had erupted, a discreet knock, an attempt to quietly open its barred door, and then a small, silvery twinkle of light at the keyhole. A miniature eyeball floated out of that light, drifted briefly about the room peering hither and yon, and then withdrew with a satisfied air.
Hard on the heels of its disappearance came a sudden uproar from below, as the common room erupted in tumult. Out of the din came shouts, the ring of drawn steel, and the thunder of hurrying, running boots with heavy men in them.
Men who had awakened bewildered and shamefaced on the stairs not long ago were back, fresh weapons in their hands and new allies at their sides—hard-faced ruffians who shouldered aside angry inn patrons and staff alike to begin a breakneck, crashing race up the stairs. Most waved drawn swords, but a few carried large cutters’ axes, to deal with any barred doors that might stand ahead.
Where their way had been barred before, the stairs and landing beyond were empty. One door opening off it stood open, the room beyond empty and dark. The other was closed and barred.
Men snarled, other men shouldered to the front, and a rain of heavy ax-blows fell upon the door, biting deeply. Again the axes fell, and again, before the first splinters fell away and impatient hands were thrust through the rents in the door to snatch up the bar inside, and let it topple away harmlessly.
Armed men burst into the room in a snarling, menacing flood and darted to every corner, closet, and chamber beyond. Of the four people they were seeking, not one was to be found—Lharondar’s curses rang off the walls—but the air was heavy with the rich smells of hot roast and dripping, and in their raging midst stood a bed still warm and hollowed from the body that was no longer lying in it … a body whose spicy perfume at least one of the furious swordsmen had smelled before: the mystic scent of the sorceress Lady Embra Silvertree, as he was helping her down from a horse after a ride through the forest on Silvertree Isle.
11
Crowded Shores and Ruins
In Castle Silvertree, three mages stiffened in unison. “That was her!” Markoun gasped.
“Your daughter, Lord Baron,” Spellmaster Ambelter said gravely, “is in Sirlptar, at a place I don’t recognize—an inn … which stands on the seaward flank of Southsnout Ridge.”
“Get there,” the baron snapped as he sat bolt upright in the chair he’d been lounging in, his eyes lighting like two flames of fury. “Get there now, and slay her companions. Bring her back here at once.” He rose like a black whirlwind, snatched a whip down off the wall, and stalked out of the room, cracking it savagely in the air.
The three mages exchanged looks. Then Klamantle and Markoun darted to the tray on the table in front of the baron’s vacant chair. Snatching aside its glass dome, they plucked strands of the Lady Embra’s hair from the small and untidy pile it guarded and hurried to the balcony.
Ingryl hastened along in their wake but found no room left on the balcony to stand and work magic. He watched the younger mages conjure giant-size nightwyrms, leap astride them, and flap away. In their wake, he strode out onto the balcony and waved his hands in frantic spellcasting gestures—until the racing nightwyrms had dwindled out of sight in the bright sky downriver.
Then the Spellmaster let his hands fall, went to the small glass forest of decanters on the sideboard, and unhurriedly poured himself a drink.
“Fools,” he told the room with a smile, and sipped at his glass.
“Hmmph; clumsily poisoned,” he said consideringly a moment later, rolling the liquid around in his mouth. “Makes it burn a bit.”
Ingryl shrugged, swallowed, and poured himself more.
On the shore of Lake Lassabra, in the early hours after noon, Embra Silvertree was on her knees, gasping and shuddering in pain. The bright sun had driven the mists that normally cloaked its placid waters away, leaving it a sheet of still blue amid the encircling trees. Trees that might hide any number of sorcerous foes.
Sarasper was kneeling beside the Lady of Jewels, awkwardly cradling her shaking shoulders. “Has working magic always hurt—drained—you like this?”
Tears flew as she shook her head … and convulsions wracked her again.
A blue-and-white glow occurred about Sarasper’s fingers as he called up magic that would drain some of his own life energy into the woman in his arms. It passed out of him silently, leaving him feeling weak and sick. Hands trembling, he almost lost his hold on Embra’s suddenly heavier body—as she collapsed with a gasp, head lolling in senselessness.
Sarasper let her down onto the ground as gently as his weak arms allowed, sighed, and looked up grimly at the procurer and the armaragor. Craer and Hawkril were licking their fingers after devouring the meal from the Window—the entire meal, the shares that should have been Sarasper’s and Embra’s included—in gobbling haste.
Just now, Sarasper was too weary to care. “If this goes on,” he told them quietly, “we may need this Stone of Life just to provide her magic enough, every day, to keep her alive.”
“So she stops using magic,” Hawkril rumbled flatly. “Completely. Right now, while we go looking for this Stone—that is, if it’s anything more than a wizard’s wild tale.”
“Someone believed that wizard well enough to kill him for it,” Craer said quietly, “and burn down his house, no doubt to cover the signs of their ransacking it.”
“She needs shelter,” Sarasper said sharply, looking around at the unbroken line of trees. “Where, exactly, is this ruined library from here?”
“In an abandoned city, Indraevyn by name, about a mile away, Embra said,” Craer replied. “In which direction, I know not, but—”
“I’ll wager it’s where yon war band is heading,” Hawkril said calmly, pointing. A little way around the curving lakeshore—not all that far away—a line of men in armor, interspersed with a few in robes with shields strapped to their backs and breasts, were coming into view through the reeds and bushes, walking cautiously. The armaragor saw their heads turn to regard the Four and slowly drew his sword.
“If we tarry here overlong, they’ll get to this city first,” Craer snapped. “Come on!”
“I suspect the ruins are crawling with eagerly searching wizards already,” Sarasper said, watching the procurer almost dance with mounting impatience, “and we have a burden to care for, no?”
“Wake her,” Craer replied, not unkindly. “We haven’t time to wait. All it takes is one mage who knows what he’s doing to get his hands on this Stone before we do, and we’ll be just a few more twisted corpses in the huge pile of victims who dared stand in his wa
y.”
“Oh, there’s no need to wait that long to become twisted corpses,” Hawkril rumbled casually—and suddenly turned with the speed of a striking snake and lunged, thrusting his blade deep into the thick green wall of a crow’s-apple bush. There was a shriek of startled pain, and the shrubs around erupted with the thud of rushing feet, a volley of curses, and charging hide-cloaked figures.
Hawkril fell back hastily, his sword dark and wet with blood, and Sarasper snapped out a few strange words and tossed a token he’d plucked from somewhere in the breast of his tunic into the air. Craer saw that it was a triangle made of three interwoven, miniature swords in the instant before it vanished in a flare of magical radiance—but he barely saw that brief shower of light give birth to a trio of floating, spectral longswords as he sprang to meet their attackers, with sword and dagger drawn.
There were eight in all, he judged, and none of them had been in the band they’d seen walking along the shore. These men wore the worn hides and mottled, drab-hued cloaks, tunics, and ragged breeches of foresters—but they stumbled and swayed off balance as they ran, like armsmen used to weapons practice in courtyards, not men at ease among stumps and soft mosses underfoot. Moreover, as Sarasper’s conjured swords flashed through the air to hack and parry, slashed jerkins revealed the dark gleam of armor beneath.
Hawkril tripped one foe, put his blade into the throat of another, danced back to chop at the neck of the man he’d tripped, and then rushed forward to lock blades with, and hurl aside, a third false forester.
He’d fought as frantically before. On the Isles, yes, but when he was younger, too … in that hollow full of treacherous priestesses, for one. …
