The Kingless Land

by Ed Greenwood

  An instant later, she saw—too late. There was another scepter lying on that table. The wizard made no move to try to snatch it up; he simply tapped it with the scepter he held, despite the whirling storm of tiles and tapestries she was hurling at him, and triggered the magic he already wielded.

  The Stone of War flashed as it kept the Spellmaster from harm—and an instant later, the castle all around them exploded.

  The sound smote their ears like a hammer, deafening the Four so that what happened next seemed to befall in something of a peaceful hush. All was blinding brightness, and hurtling through the air, striking unseen things very hard—and then being half buried in rubble.

  The death of two scepters, one in his hand, should have torn Ingryl Ambelter apart. Instead it reduced most of the Lady Silvertree’s riverside apartments to rubble, hurled the Band of Four back the length of a room, and then flung them in all directions.

  Desperately Embra caused what was left of the walls and sconces and tapestry rails to rain down on the last of her father’s mages, but through their battering Ingryl cast a spell as fast as a striking snake.

  Out of his hands roared the purple fire that turns flesh and bone to jelly—straight at the only one of the Four still standing: the staggering Hawkril, doggedly launching himself into a charge.

  Embra frantically called on her Stone to work a spelljump on the armaragor—and managed to snatch a startled Hawkril out of the room onto its adjoining balcony, an instant before Ingryl’s deadly fire would have swept him out of Darsar forever.

  Something else flashed across the room then, bounding and somersaulting amid the dust and rubble: Craer Delnbone, with a dagger in his mouth and death in his eyes. He’d seen his oldest friend charge the wizard and disappear; Hawkril Anharu had to be avenged.

  Ingryl was clambering free of the wrack Embra had pelted him with—the only things her control of the castle could reach in that room, a control lost once they’d been torn free of the walls and hurled. He barely had time to snap out a flamefist spell.

  The procurer ducked away, rolled, kicked a shattered chair up into the path of the pursuing spell-flames, bounded into the air, and when he came down somersaulted again and launched himself into a dropkick that caught Ingryl low in the belly, hurling the Spellmaster back through the Lady Silvertree’s largest oval standing mirror.

  Amid its singing shards Ingryl lost a lot of blood, bouncing hard as the frame spun around and collapsed on top of him, and as one elbow struck the floor, he lost his grip on the Stone of War.

  Craer bounded after it, but Ingryl didn’t have to rise to aim one hand along the floor and gasp the word that smashed the procurer across the room in a web of flames.

  Craer screamed and fell. The Spellmaster laughed and flung aside the mirror frame to get up and finish off the procurer with the last flamefist.

  Embra called on her Stone and her failing control of the castle once more. The scorched carpet underneath both Spellmaster and procurer reared up wildly, spilling both men into the air. Flames caught one of Craer’s hands but spent the rest of their fury on walls and carpet as Ingryl was dashed face-first into the floor, spitting curses—and as she’d served the armaragor, Embra also aided Craer, plucking the sorely wounded procurer out onto the river balcony.

  There was a grunt of triumph, then, that made both mages turn their heads. Sarasper Codelmer was rising to his feet with the Stone of War clutched firmly in his hands. Anger twisted his face as he turned and glared at the Spellmaster.

  Then he came to a swaying halt, his eyes blazing.

  Sarasper, I am Old Oak. I command thee. Blast this woman and the two men out on the balcony, with all the fires the Stone can hurl. Blast them all. I command thee! I am Old Oak. STRIKE NOW!

  Lying on his side on the crumpled carpet, Ingryl Ambelter let his “god” voice fall silent as he willed Sarasper to turn—and raised both of his own hands and hurled a dozen firelances at Embra Silvertree.

  Only her Stone could shield her against so many seeking deaths. As Embra called on it, Sarasper turned again, and the Stone in the healer’s hands spat red and black ravening fire at her.

  Desperately Embra dropped the shield she was raising, and out of its chaos whirled herself and Sarasper out onto the balcony, spinning the healer around once more to send the war fire of the Stone out over the river, away from them all.

  It melted the very stones of the floor as it went, cutting cleanly through floorboards, pillars, furniture and all in a dark slash of disintegration that took her breath away. What in all Darsar could stand against that?

  The war fire swept out into the empty sky, and Ingryl snarled another spell: a simple enchantment bonfire wizards use, a noose of force that lasted for only the instants needed to trip the legs of a warrior … or an aging healer with the most potent weapon in all Darsar in his hands.

  As Sarasper toppled, the war fire lashed upward—and a turret of the castle directly above him exploded into huge shards of stone and started to fall. Ingryl kept the noose to the very end, rolling the old man over and over. War fire sheared through the balcony beneath the healer, cutting it away from Castle Silvertree.

  As it started to fall, and the shattered turret thundered down the fortress wall after it, the Living Castle poured its pain into Embra—pain such as she’d never known before.

  She screamed out her agony, clinging to just enough wits in its red roaring to bend all the power she and the Stone in her bleeding hands had left into thrusting the falling turret sideways to veer in through her shattered rooms, right at the Spellmaster now rolling across the carpet toward the safety of an open doorway.

  The turret crashed into her chambers in a scouring flood of tumbling stone, rushing across the carpet as a grinding, shrieking chaos of shattered rock.

  Ingryl’s dying scream didn’t last long. Two stones ground him to liquid between them in an instant, in their thundering haste to roll the width of the castle and see the gardens for themselves. They made it, too.

  No one stood watching. Embra Silvertree was shuddering and arching uncontrollably, her raw, throat-stripping scream echoing from end to end of Silvertree Isle, as the broken balcony, the Band of Four, and both Dwaerindim crashed down into the river below.

  The Silverflow swallowed them, and but for a brief glimmer of radiance under its fast-rushing waters as awed armsmen rushed along the battlements from the other end of Castle Silvertree, no more was seen in the Coiling but tortured waves tossed up by the slow rain of falling stones.

  He’d heard the voice coming out of the darkness before.

  “Flaeros Delcamper,” it greeted him warmly. “Come and sit over tankards and talk to an old lion.”

  Flaeros of Ragalar flushed with pleasure as the three arrogant bards he’d been trying to impress all night gasped, and one of them murmured, “You know Inderos Stormharp?”

  He nodded pleasantly to them as he swirled away to where Stormharp was sitting. “Of course,” he replied gently. “Don’t you?”

  The darkness gave him a chuckle. “Your blades are as keen as they are gentle, youngling. So, now: tell me what Sirlptar knows of the battle at Castle Silvertree.”

  Flaeros sat down. “My thanks, sir, for your interest and for this tankard.” He interpreted the dismissive wave of a hand correctly, and without further ado added, “Sir, they speak of nothing else. The Lady’s Tower, if I’m calling it right, lies open to the stars this night, that whole end of the castle riven. They say the baron is dead or missing, and all the Dark Three—his mages, that is, but of course you know that, my pardon—too.”

  The old, lion-maned bard chuckled. “Slowly, slowly, lad … unless of course a lady or a challenge waits for you, and I’m keeping you from it!”

  “No, no,” Flaeros replied, with an embarrassed laugh. “Nothing so grand, I’m afraid. Just … nerves. It’s all so exciting. Some bargemen saw the Lady of Jewels, you see—”

  “Yes?” Stormharp asked sharply.

  “Uh, ah,
yes, Lady Embra Silvertree herself. She was seen to destroy a turret of the castle, and a balcony that she and others were standing on, sending it crashing down into the river. Neither she, nor her mysterious companions, nor the baron and his mages have been seen in the days since.”

  “She still lives,” the old bard told the table softly, seeming for a moment to have forgotten Flaeros was there. “I’d be able to tell if she died.”

  Sometimes it seemed to Flaeros Delcamper that he stood like a fencepost while important folk galloped by, rushing past before he could even learn their names, let alone understand their hastes. Hesitantly he clutched the reassuring, heavy coldness of his tankard and asked, “Ah—why?”

  “Hmm”

  Flaeros never knew, later, how he dared to ask that question, with one old eye staring at him across the table like a hawk who’s just realized that helpless prey is sitting right under one of its talons. “You’d know if she died—how so?”

  The hawklike gaze dropped, and Stormharp said, “I was one of the four commoners used in a spell cast on Embra Silvertree when she was but an infant. ‘Anchors,’ her father’s wizard called us, then; I heard later that the magic, which had to do with stone, as I recall, and calling to us through it, was part of something mages call a ‘Living Castle.’ I’ve never been able to get any of them to explain that or even to admit those words mean anything. But perhaps it’s just that I never had cartloads of coins enough to go with my questions, if you catch my meaning.”

  Flaeros nodded, and they sipped from their tankards in companionable silence. The young bard glanced around, but could see only a few figures, sitting at other tables—none close, though the three bards were looking longingly in their direction—in the gloom of this shadowy back leg of the taproom.

  “Ah, Flaeros,” the old bard said then, as much hesitation in his voice as Flaeros had felt earlier, “have you ever heard the tale of why Blackgult and Silvertree, rivals down long years, became in latter days such, ah, deadly foes?”

  “No,” the young bard said eagerly. “Please, tell me! This is one of those things that everyone seems to think all folk know—and shouldn’t speak of. Please!”

  “Well,” the old bard said from behind his tankard, “I just haven’t the stomach for all the grand phrases and trappings, right now—so to say it simply: the man they called the Golden Griffon was well favored and caught the eye of many a lady. Ah—in short, he fathered Embra Silvertree. When Faerod Silvertree guessed this, he slew his wife, enspelled his daughter into virtual slavery, and raised war on Baron Blackgult.”

  “By the Three,” Flaeros said in awe. “All that bloodshed and strife because two nobles couldn’t control their loins.”

  A silence followed his words, and as it grew longer and deeper the young bard swallowed, a sudden fear rising in him that perhaps he’d angered the great Inderos Stormharp.

  The old man’s tankard was set solidly down on the table between them, ringing empty, and the cold feeling in Flaeros grew.

  He sat frozen, watching an old hand cupped over the tankard as a long, silent time passed. Then the hand went away, and he heard the bard sigh and murmur, “Ah, but she was beautiful.”

  An old lion rose then, stalking as if he’d once been a fighting man and a graceful, handsome dancer to boot, waved to him in silent farewell, and strode away across the darkened room.

  Flaeros let his own hand fall from the wave he’d given in return, then half rose from his seat with a gasp as the old bard ducked out a door, turning his head a trifle.

  “Inderos Stormharp” was really—Baron Blackgult!

  By the Three! When he tol—

  His eyes fell on a face visible by a curtain not far away—a face that was watching him intently, studying Flaeros Delcamper as if a bard’s each breath, pimple, and every stray glance betrayed many secrets.

  He’d never seen this watcher before, but something about the man made Flaeros swallow and sit down again quickly. It was hard to say what seemed so dangerous; the man had nondescript looks, wore the trail leathers of a forester, and offered the world a close-cropped beard and a pleasant expression.

  Nevertheless, Flaeros almost dropped his tankard in his haste to pick it up, as he tried very hard to look young and uncomprehending, reminding himself that he was still both of those things, though perhaps not as much now as he had been just an hour ago. His life might well depend on his apparent innocence.

  Wherefore he hoped he was succeeding in looking foolish. As a bard, he should be able to. After all, it was something most courtiers managed every day.

  The murmuring that had soothed her for so long became the fluid gurgle of rushing waters, sweeping her back to sudden dark terror and remembered pain.

  “No,” she cried, into the endless darkness. “I can’t save them! I love them all, and I can’t save them!”

  With a shriek she sat upright, staring at nothing, still asleep. A man frowned at that. Her first moans had awakened him from his doze on blankets where he’d been lying beside her for days, waiting for her to rouse.

  “Is she awake?” a voice called gently and excitedly across the riverside cavern, but the hulking man on his knees beside her made a sharp gesture for silence, and the voice did not come again.

  “Lady,” he said, his deep voice so low it was almost a whisper. “Lass, come back to us. We’re all here … you saved us all.”

  The staring, unseeing lady trembled all over, suddenly. For the first time in days her white-clenched grip on the Stone loosened, and it rolled out of her grasp.

  Hawkril calmly caught it before it rolled into the water, and hefted it in his hand.

  Embra seemed to sigh, and he almost tossed the Stone away in his haste to catch her as she sagged, and lower her gently—ever so gently—back down onto the blankets. He cast a look back across the cavern to where the other two men were talking in low tones and then shrugged. Let them see, and tease.

  The armaragor bent forward with infinite care, and kissed the pale-skinned, sleeping lady full on the lips. For a moment she lay slackjawed, and then, slowly, responded, molding her lips to his and lifting herself against him, as if offering herself.

  A slender hand rose to trace his stubbled jaw and then patted his cheek and pushed him gently away. A smile crossed parted lips, Embra Silvertree’s head fell to one side, and she slept. In peace, now, still smiling, her hands no longer claws around a stone that could reshape the world.

  Suddenly reminded of the power he held in his lap, Hawkril Anharu juggled it gingerly, quelled a wild urge to just hurl it into the waters rushing past, and then cradled it to him. Something seemed to thrum and awaken in it, whispering to him, showing him endless, rousing power.…

  “No!” he hissed, speaking to it as if it were a disobedient child. He held it in both hands and shook it. “I’ve a sword and my strength, and that’s enough. Let clever folk play with you—and get burned for their troubles.”

  The Stone seemed to murmur in his ear, at first soothingly and reassuringly, and then inexorably and repeatedly, like a war drum driving armies on, until Hawkril was bent over it, straining to hear.

  “Hawk? Hawk, what’re you up to?” Craer asked sharply. He found his feet with easy grace and started across the cavern. Sarasper, too, was watching Hawkril in sudden apprehension.

  The armaragor looked around at them like a guilty child caught stealing sweets and growled, “Nothing. Ah—nothing.”

  And then, with Craer Delnbone still six strides away and unable to do more than watch, Hawkril reached out with the Stone in his hand, like a small child experimenting, and touched it to a second Dwaer: the Stone of War, sitting on the blankets Sarasper had left some hours ago.

  The Dwaerindim sang, and a sudden radiance appeared around them.

  “Hawk!” Craer snarled in alarm. The armaragor hastily pulled the Stone Embra had carried for so long back to his breast, away from the other Dwaer.

  The radiance stretched to follow it, brightening into an arc
between them that arched and rose…

  “Sarasper?” the procurer called urgently over his shoulder. “We may need a spell!”

  The glow became man-high, and acquired colors … hues that shifted like threads in a rich fabric around the edges of its bland brightness. In her slumber, Embra made a small, disturbed sound.

  Abruptly the radiance became a scene hanging in the air, like the scrying-scenes Embra had called out of the Stone. It was a view of someone none of them had ever seen before.

  A man in gleaming black armor, all smooth and supple curves trimmed with silver, sitting in a vaulted room upon a throne made of flames, his head bent on his breast in slumber.

  “The Sleeping King!” Sarasper gasped.

  “Gods, yes!” Craer echoed, his voice hoarse with excitement. “The king!”

  “He’s real!” Hawkril added, in a trembling voice. His heart lifted in hope—as if all the rosy things he’d been told as a child about the Three providing for Darsar were true.

  “Shaerith melbratha immuae krontor,” Embra Silvertree snapped from where she lay, her words seeming to echo across the cavern. “Arise, Kelgrael! Awaken, Snowsar! Return to your throne, for Aglirta has need of thee! Shaerith melbratha immuae krontor!”

  Her words echoed and rolled around them like thunder … and the eyes of the enthroned figure opened. His pupils kindled into twin flames, just as in all the tales.

  “The king! The king!” they shouted together. The figure seemed to see them and smile—and then, quickly, started to fade.

  “He’s going!” Hawkril hissed desperately. “What shall we do?”

  “Kneel to him,” a sleepy Embra muttered from behind them, “and then go and find him.”

  “But where?” Craer snapped, as radiance and king faded entirely away together.