by Ed Greenwood
“I was going to die,” the sorceress stormed at him. “If you hadn’t run away, I—”
“Run away is the very least of the things I’ll do if you ever dare to enslave me with spells again, Lady! Be glad I don’t break your jaw and hands for you right now, to stop you from such excesses in the near future!”
“And if you did, how long do you think you’d last against my father’s mages? Horns, but swordsmen are so stupid! About all they’re good for, it seems to me, is to be ridden and bidden by those with wits enough to guide them!”
The hand that slapped her jaw then snapped her head back, stung forth a flood of tears, and hurled her bodily back against a wall with a grunt of pain.
Embra found herself on the floor, with the taste of blood in her mouth and her head singing a new tune. She looked up through watery tears at the armaragor standing over her, his jaw set and his face dark with anger. He seemed to be waiting for her to rise so that he could knock her down again. A man she’d kept alive half a dozen times this night, thus far, and—ah, to horns with it!
The Lady Silvertree struggled to her knees, discovering fresh aches—one elbow seemed to be on fire, or touched with ice—and looked up again at Hawkril, eyes blazing, to discover one of his hands waiting to take her by the throat and the other hovering above the hilt of his sword.
She brought her gaze back up from his weapon to the fear in his eyes that underlay the revulsion written all over his face, and fresh anger rose in her. Ah, so goading men with magic is such a great evil, but sticking sharpened steel through their guts is just fine and noble, hey?
Embra tore open the bodice of her sodden nightgown to lay bare her breast, and snarled up into the midst of his astonishment, “Right, then—plunge your blade in! I know you want to!”
Hawkril’s face grew almost black with anger, and his blade grated out in an instant, scraping its way to freedom because his hand was trembling so with fury. Embra felt cold fear awaken deep in her throat as the hulking armaragor raised his steel to strike, but she met his eyes boldly, eyes still spitting fire of her own, and straightened herself to thrust her chest out toward him.
The sword drew back an inch or two—and then halted. Hawkril stared at her bared, curving flesh, and then up into the blazing eyes of the lady sorceress once more. Setting his jaw, he drew his sword back again…
And Craer darted between them hissing, “By the Three! You’ll doom us all! Come on!”
He plucked and jostled as he swept past, bearing Hawkril’s blade up over Embra’s head and snatching the candle lamp from the armaragor’s unsuspecting fingers.
The warrior turned to look at his old friend, and the procurer said, his voice high with warring fear and anger, “Pair of idiots! As if we’ve got time for quarrels! Put your blade away, Hawk! And—and put those away, too, Lady, and get up and get on! Or do your father’s mages all stop work to catch up on their snoring at the same time? Hey? Or have I interrupted some solemn Silvertree ritual or other, wherein a warrior carves his initials on a lady? … Well?”
By sheer force of personality, ridiculing and tugging and cajoling, the procurer got his two companions moving again, though neither answered a word of his torrent of nonsense. As he jabbered and danced around them, they traded dark looks and fell into step shoulder to shoulder, Embra not bothering to refasten her bodice—and Hawkril not bothering to resheathe his sword.
The three had scarce traversed three rooms, all dust and the rubble of fallen ceiling facings, when an eerie howl echoed around the unseen passages ahead. The longfangs. Embra sighed.
Craer seemed not to have heard the beast’s cry. He was calmly peering at small markings scratched on the rock wall where their passage split into two identicalseeming halls. After a moment, he nodded and chose one of them.
Impulsively, Embra plucked a hand-size stone from the rubble on the passage floor. Hawkril whirled to face her, his blade up and eyes narrowed in suspicion, but she gave him a glance of contempt and hurled the rock down the passage Craer had rejected.
It landed with a clack and clatter that was promptly lost in a roar of falling stone. The trap Embra had triggered dropped two rusty but still massive portculli from the ceiling with a booming crash, then filled the space between them shoulder high with loose stones.
“By the Three!” Delvin said suddenly, crouching down. “What’s that?”
A twinkling, spinning mote of light about the size of Helgrym’s fist flashed past the two staring bards, through the riven arch of the Silent House gates, and flew through the tombs beyond like a small, racing star.
“Quiet,” Helgrym said in a low voice, far too late and knowing it. “That was a seeking spell; it can see and hear you.”
They watched it vanish into the skull-like front of the Silent House, whence all the Silvertree soldiers had gone, and shivered in unison. It’s never comfortable to be too close to suddenly risen magic.
Embra stiffened in midstride and spun around. Hawkril almost jostled her in his haste to see what she was doing and turn his blade around, too—and was in time to see her tear a bauble from the girdle cords of her nightgown, clench her fist around it, and murmur a word as she stared at something small and winking that was drifting in the air behind them like a tiny star.
Radiance flared between her fingers, then died—and the little floating star exploded in a burst of light that made Hawkril roar in pain and clutch his eyes.
“If you’ll see to your own tasks, armaragor,” the Lady of Jewels told him coldly, as he struggled vainly to see, “I’ll try to deal with the magic. Craer, I’ll be needing those clothes now.”
The procurer was firmly guiding Hawkril to a sitting position on the floor by holding onto the swordmaster’s elbow and murmuring, “Down!” He looked up at the sound of his name and saw that the bright silk nightgown on Embra’s shoulders was speedily shriveling and darkening. In moments it looked more like a shawl or a giant fold of spiderweb gray with dust than a garment, and it began to fall away in tatters from long legs and soft curves that were—were sagging against the wall. The sorceress seemed to be reeling, or slumping in pain.
“Lady!” Craer hissed. “Are you hurt?”
“My last magic,” Embra muttered, as he helped her down to the floor, “is gone. Which is good, since castings seem to be … killing me.”
Fresh flashes made them both look up. Craer was still gaping at the words the Lady of Jewels had spoken. On her knees beside him, she moaned in despair, tore free of his hand, and gasped, “Keep away! I’ve no magic left to fight these, whatever they are!”
As they approached, the radiances slowed and unfolded into coils of silvery thread, tendrils of magic that both veered to rush down on Embra Silvertree.
She threw back her head with a sigh of despair, eyes bright with tears—and then choked back a sob.
On the ceiling above the sorceress, as silent as any shadow, hung the longfangs, its fur glistening with dew. Its barbed, hairy legs were spread wide, and its wolflike head was staring straight at her. As their eyes met, it snarled and sprang down on her, claws and jaws extended to slay!
4
Four Long Fangs
Silvery tendrils were everywhere, falling on her inexorably from all directions in a tangled net she could not escape. Embra Silvertree barely noticed them; she was frantically kicking off from the wall and rolling across hard and uneven flagstones to avoid being crushed. Somewhere nearby, an awed Craer Delnbone was softly and swiftly giving the world an impressive stream of curses.
The longfangs brushed her boots as it landed, and she could smell damp, slightly moldy fur. She rolled over, wondering how she’d reach her dagger in time—and then there was no more time.
Long, hairy limbs that felt like iron bars fell on her, slapping across her mouth and entwining around her arms. Dirty brown fur prickled and stung. Cruel barbs rose like teeth before her eyes, and she heard the clapping of the little rending jaws on its longest forelimbs, but no mandibles tore at her
. Yet.
The furry, wolf-headed spider rolled Embra onto her stomach and shifted its weight onto her, pinning her until her breath whistled through her nose. Its scent, like soured apples or wine gone to vinegar, was strong about her. Its limbs never left her mouth, enfolding her throat and jaws so tightly that she could not have spoken no matter how dire the need. The other limbs of the longfangs forced her arms slowly together; she could see that they sported thornlike barbs at the joints and ended in gripping pads, like the feet of snails she’d seen along the river shore. Pads that were now wrapped around her hands so tightly that she could not move a finger, as her arms came together and the limbs of the longfangs spiraled around them like ropes, in eerie silence.
It’s as if it knows I can cast spells, she thought, and is determined to prevent me. Then she stiffened as the first spell threads settled upon her, and a tingling began. It went on, lessening slightly, as the longfangs shifted its grip on her and freed two of its long, spidery limbs. They reared back like daggers waiting to stab down, and by peering as far to her right as possible, Embra could see why: the still-blind armaragor Hawkril had smelled or heard the longfangs and was now hacking wildly but heartily at the air with his sword.
With the last wisps of her gown melting away from her as she lay helplessly pinned to the cold stone floor, Embra for the first time found the warm, furry weight of the longfangs reassuring: there was a lot of monster between her and that wicked blade—unless, of course, he was stupid enough to thrust at it right along the floor.
Nothing more than the ever-present tingling seemed to happen within her, and Embra dared to hope the tendrils had been some sort of spying or even shielding magics. Then she reminded herself wryly that she was in the grip of a beast that habitually tore men limb from limb and feasted on them. With no one to rescue her but a pair of incompetent thieves and her father’s tender wizards …
Hawkril’s blade cut at the air rather nearer. He seemed to be listening for sounds of a foe now, rather than snarling in wordless rage. Embra tried to buck upward suddenly and shift the longfangs off her; the armaragor heard the futile scraping of her knees and elbows on the stone floor and turned directly toward her, his blade sweeping out.
The longfangs shrank back, dragging Embra with it, as that long sword reached out again and again in great arcs. Hawkril advanced behind his sweeping steel, step by cautious step—until something sprang past the wolf-spider to roll under the swordmaster’s feet, sending him crashing to the floor with his blade clanging out of his hand.
Hawkril came to his feet slowly, shaking his head to clear it and cursing weakly. His vision was coming back, it seemed, as he peered this way and that.
The cause of Hawkril’s fall was crouching warily not an arm’s-reach distant from the helpless Embra, facing the longfangs. Staring into its golden eyes, Craer asked hesitantly, “Sarasper? Is that you?”
The tension in the ornate chamber suddenly eased. Three wizards sighed their relief in unison, traded glances, and sat down.
At the gleaming table in the center of the room, the darkly handsome baron of Silvertree calmly poured himself more wine and raised an eyebrow. “Well?”
Ingryl Ambelter managed a smile. “The protective magics have reached the Lady Embra, Lord, and settled on her.”
His employer nodded. “I was unfamiliar with your embellishments, Spellmaster, whereas I recognized all of Beirldoun’s casting. Pray unfold for me all the details of your combined enchantments.”
Ingryl bowed his head and replied, “Lord Baron, the shieldings now active upon your daughter will keep her safe against almost all spells except personal curses and will staunch any bleeding from wounds, though the magic can neither prevent nor mitigate the actual puncture or cut made by, say, a blade.”
Faerod Silvertree raised his other eyebrow. “If wounded, will she suffer?”
“Lord,” Ingryl said carefully, “an unavoidable property of such magic is that any wounds keep the shielded one in constant pain.”
“Good,” the baron replied gently. “I don’t want her getting too comfortable.”
“One last property,” Ambelter added. “Any mage of accomplishment who knows she is thus shielded can employ spells to trace her—or rather, trace the shield upon her—henceforth.”
The baron grew a slow and evil smile, his dark eyes flashing almost green. Lifting his glass in salute to the three mages, he told it almost playfully, “’Tis well done. These three will be my swords where hitherto I’ve not been able to reach; rebels who unwittingly serve me. Grow strong in magic, my daughter—to be my dagger in the backs of those barons who stand against me.”
Craer looked at the longfangs, and the longfangs looked back at Craer.
Silence hung heavy in the Silent House until there came a faint, wordless sound of pain from the Lady Embra as she twisted under the wolf-spider’s furry bulk. Hawkril rubbed still-smarting eyes and beheld the monster clearly at last.
A longfangs, it seemed, looked like a spider cloaked in the pelt and lean, rippling muscles of a wolf. It had the jawed head of a giant wolf, and two of its spiderlike forelimbs also sported little rending jaws; the others were barbed at the joints.
As Hawkril watched, those barbs were the first things to melt away. Gradually the limbs followed, receding in slow and ghostly silence like mist stealing away before bright sunlight, until a sad-eyed and thin elderly man was kneeling, naked, on Embra’s back.
Hawkril caught sight of his sword and retrieved it. Then he looked at Craer. “You called him ‘Sarasper.’ Who is Sarasper?”
The old man shuffled back from Embra on bony knees, leaving her gasping on the floor. She found breath enough to turn her head and say, “Yes, Craer, introduce us. And when you’ve done that, I’d like my clothes!”
The procurer smiled and turned to where his sack lay fallen. “Friends,” he said over his shoulder, “meet Sarasper Codelmer, one of my elder friends. I lost track of him years back and only learned he was here not long ago, from another old friend.”
“So it was Thalver who betrayed me, hey?” Sarasper growled almost wearily, running a mottled, dark-veined hand over his stubbled, jutting chin. “Old Thundersword … no better than all the others.” His voice was thick and grating from long disuse, but he managed to make bitterness ring clear in its tones.
“He was dying on a Brightscar beach with three arrows through him,” Craer said gently. “In the arms of a friend. Someone to spill his secrets to, and so find a little ease ere he died. Remember him not harshly.”
“Hmmph,” Sarasper replied gruffly, hunching his head down between his shoulders and shuffling away from them along the wall, eyes darting around the room ceaselessly. “How much did he tell you?”
“That you slew the real longfangs years ago and have dwelt in the catacombs here ever since, hiding from men … as a bat, a ground snake, or as the man-eating longfangs of the Silent House.”
“Hiding from all men or just my father?” Embra asked, through tangled hair.
“From all barons, lass,” the old man said shortly, darting a glance at her that strayed along her body for a longing instant before he looked away. “And who would your father be?” he asked the wall beside him.
“Faerod Silvertree,” she said simply.
The old man looked at her sharply, and for an instant fur seemed to grow along his forearms. “He sent you to find me, sorceress?” he asked coldly.
Hawkril hefted the sword in his hand, but the old man never looked at it. His eyes glittered as he stared at Embra, hunching himself as if to pounce on her.
She shook her head, chin scraping the flagstones. “We three are fleeing his wrath and reach—or rather, that of his three mages.”
The old man seemed to shrink a trifle and shuffled a little farther away. “So what of your spells, Lady of Jewels?” he asked, fetching up against a more distant stretch of wall. His words were sharp, almost a challenge.
“Gone in getting us here,” Embra told hi
m, and turned her head to glare at Craer. “My clothes?” she reminded him.
The procurer held out boots and a bundle to her and then held up the sack they’d come from in front of her, as a screen. It hid almost nothing, and she gave him a sour look as she sat up and started to draw on the wet breeches. They watched her shiver, and Hawkril suddenly rose and strode to the candle lamp. Setting it down close beside her, he stepped away to sit down against the wall with his sword across his knees, keeping his eyes always on the man who’d been a monster not so long ago … not long enough ago.
“So we’ve an old man with magic enough to take the shapes of three beasts, perhaps more,” the armaragor rumbled. “He hides in his most fearsome form and eats folk raw when they come calling … why?”
“He’s a healer,” Embra said suddenly, the tunic in her hands momentarily forgotten as she whirled around to look at the old man hunched against the wall.
Sarasper stiffened but did not look at the half-naked sorceress. His nod was so brief that they almost missed it. “Secrets, it seems,” he told the ceiling above him with a sigh, “never last quite long enough.”
“He can heal wounds?” Hawkril asked. “With magic? That drives a man to eat human flesh for years?”
“Traditionally,” Embra told her tunic flatly, as she shrugged it into place and tugged at its wet sleeves, “barons have kept healers as chained slaves, to heal on command. As the healing flows through such a one’s body, it ages and wears out the flesh. A healer without the freedom to limit the use of his powers will probably die young, bent and broken like an old man.”
Silence fell. The three companions stared at the figure hunched against the wall.
“You were afraid of being captured by Baron Silvertree,” Hawkril said to him, but received no reply.
“And rightly so,” Embra added into the silence, pulling on her boots. She kicked at the flagstones to settle her feet inside them, then got up.
Sarasper lifted his head to watch her walk toward him, but they could read no thoughts on his tired face.