by Ed Greenwood
The smile her mirror gave back to her then was truly frightening.
"Is there really much chance of Aglirta seeing the rise of another Bloodblade?" Lord Stornbridge asked, over the clatter of cutlery and the sounds of eager chewing. The boar was good, if he said so himself. It had a special something… yes, Maelree had outdone herself. Klaedra left all the roasts to Maelree for good reason. Very good reason.
The Tersept of Stornbridge sat back, smothering a contented belch, to hear what reply these overdukes might give. They were as strange as Vale talk claimed, to be sure.
Thank the Three for that. If he'd ever dared to treat old Faerod Silvertree-or even this Blackgult, in the old days-as he'd done these folk this day, he'd be dead now, or screaming his slow, agonized way toward a death he'd be longing for. Stornbridge shuddered and put such thoughts from his mind as the Lady Silvertree told him quietly, "So long as Serpent-priests walk Darsar, and cast ambitious eyes on the Vale, they could set another Bloodblade on the bloody road of swords that ends at Flowfoam. 'Tis the task of us all to stop that from befalling."
All of the Storn men listened to her in better humor than they had just a few breaths ago. Good food does that to men-and so does soothing magic of the sort Embra had cast upon Pheldane. No one would have called the Champion or the lornsar friendly toward their visitors, but they'd now found it in themselves to be civil.
Hawkril visibly brightened as a lithe, familiar figure strolled back into the room via the archway he'd recently raced out through. Craer Delnbone held a decanter in his hands, and wore a jaunty smile on his face. "Sorry I've been absent this long," he told the table. "The best vintages take some time to find, in cellars so extensive." He inclined his head politely to Stornbridge. "My compliments, my lord. Refinement of palate I of course expected of you, but I'd no idea your tastes ran so deep."
The tersept, who knew very well that his wine cellar consisted of a disused pantry stacked untidily with a dozen or so kegs of whatever wine was cheapest, nodded with a somewhat bewildered smile. The little thief had obviously plucked the decanter off the serving cart just inside that archway, but… what was he getting at?
"You should try some," Craer urged his friends, setting the decanter down on the table before them. "Bites like a serpent, it does."
Blackgult regarded the ceiling for the briefest of moments, as both Embra and Tshamarra rolled their eyes. "Subtle, Craer, very subt;e," the Lady Silvertree murmured.
Craer shrugged merrily, gave the lornsar a cheery smile as he took his seat, and asked, "What did I miss? Barbed threats? Little gems of glowering menace? Or just a little tongue-fencing?"
Lornsar Ryethrel regarded his newly returned table companion sourly. "A little peace and quiet. My lord."
Hawkril snorted with laughter, and Tshamarra smirked at her platter and said, "He's got you there, Longfingers!"
Craer regarded her haughtily. "That'll be 'Lord Longfingers,' if you don't mind."
"Would it be impolite of me to inquire, as seneschal of this castle, if the Lord Stombridge is, ah, short one chamber knave at this time?" Urbrindur asked.
Craer gave him a bright smile. "No, and no. He has a bit of a headache, and is sleeping it off-comfortably, I trust. There's another man lying beside him who is-or rather was-a. priest of the Serpent. A man who arrived here but two days ago, I understand. He's dead now, and whoever pulls his own knife out of him had best beware poison on its blade. Oh, yes, two of your cortahars need some weapons practice, and someone named Thalas is being far too mercenary in his rental of certain rooms."
"I beg your pardon?" Seneschal Urbrindur asked, in the heavy tones affected by those so scandalized that they're really doing nothing of the kind.
However, on the other side of the uncertainly smiling tersept, Coinmaster Eirevaur smiled, nodded, made a note, and murmured, "Thalas again. Thank you, Lord Delnbone."
Craer gave him a wink, and then addressed the seneschal directly. "No, I'm afraid not."
Urbrindur gave him a baffled but nonetheless disapproving look. "You're afraid, my lord?"
The procurer took a healthy mouthful of boar and sluiced it down his gullet with a swig from the decanter. "I'm afraid I can't grant the pardon you've so energetically begged for, at this time. Still, the Three work in wondrous ways, Seneschal. Perhaps I shall, sometime soon-if you can overcome this regrettable tendency to judge everyone around you. Take folk as you find them-"
"Aye," Hawkril rumbled, "take them for all they've got, is the usual Longfingers manner."
Craer shot his old friend a look that mingled mock pain and shared mirth, and continued, "-and enjoy life all the more. Some wine, perhaps? A timely flagon comes never amiss." He waved the decanter, but Urbrindur shook his head curtly.
"To continue, my Lord Stornbridge," Embra said patiently, "we consider that what's most important for every noble of Aglirta is to take great care to not follow the dark road of ambition favored by some of their more foolish fellows in the past." She sipped daintily at her wine, and added, "There's no need for anyone to go whelming armies beyond what's needed to patrol his own territory, or to conspire with others up and down the Vale in petty little alliances that in the end will only be manipulated by the Serpent-worshippers or another Bloodblade desiring to snatch the throne."
Blackgult nodded. "If every noble of the Vale kept loyal to the throne, and bought peace with wise decisions, ready swords, fair justice, and vigilant patrols, Aglirta would soon know greatness again, and the peace would bring prosperity to all."
"Your diligence on the road this day may have been misplaced, but it speaks well for your regard for your own people, and for all Aglirta," Embra added. "Though this may surprise you, we are thus far well pleased with you, Tersept of Stornbridge."
The Lord of Stornbridge visibly sat straighter and taller, looking delighted. Craer saluted him with the decanter, and then bounded to his feet and skipped around the table. Chamber knaves started forward uncertainly to intercept him, but the procurer was already refilling the tersept's goblet with the bubbling words, "That's right! Celebrate! A most excellent wine, this. You must tell us more of life here in Stornbridge-the fishing, say, and how the crops are doing, and who stops by to trade in the market, and what trade goods your people never see enough of. Let's stop all this snarling at each other, put our boots up, and talkl"
"I-I hardly know where to begin," the tersept told him, a genuine smile on his face. He raised his goblet, and then said in a rush, "I know: with a good long drink!"
"Exactly!" Craer agreed, sloshing wine into the seneschal's goblet despite Urbrindur's irritated expression.
"Tongue-loosening time, eh?" the lornsar growled. "Well, why not?"
He held out his own goblet to the prancing procurer. " 'Tis not every night we entertain overdukes!"
"Well, thank the Scaled One for that? Undercook Maelree snarled, peering down from the window. "Ryethrel has it right-that's exactly what that little foulness is up to! Get the tersept drunk and listen while he spills all. We've got to do something!"
The Mistress of the Pantry smiled serenely. "Already taken care of, Ree. Josmer got my signal."
The cook peered at her, brightening. "You mean-?"
"I mean there's nothing our proud tersept likes more than baked sugar tart smothered in rubywine sauce, a generous helping of which will very swiftly be set in front of him and the rest. The tersept's only-that bitch is using her magic to check everything put in front of any overduke-will have Josmer's little addition. I give Lord Stornbridge about six yawns before he's facedown in his tart and snoring."
"Klaedra, you're a wonder!"
The Mistress of the Pantry smiled again, smugly this time. "I know. The Serpent-priest said the same thing." She drew open her bodice-and the cook gasped.
Klaedra always wore a black silk ribbon about her throat; from it a number of keys hung on fine cords, riding within her bodice. Maelree knew those keys-but she'd never before seen so many gleaming golden coins as
the row of punched and laced-together Carraglan zostarrs that hung down from one cord between Klaedra's full, tanned breasts, disappearing from view beneath her belt. Maelree blinked. She'd heard no telltale clinking, nor seen the rope of riches moving beneath the tight, dark gown the mistress wore… which meant the linked coins must be long enough to pass under that broad black cummerbund, and descend still further. The priest had paid Klaedra a fortune.
She shivered suddenly, wondering how long he'd leave Klaedra alive to spend it.
7
Fangs in the Dark
Embra raised anxious eyes across the table to her father, but said nothing. She'd been vigilant with her magic-in fact, she was clutching her Dwaer under the table now, and setting her veins afire with yet another scouring-spell. Yet something was not right, inside her. Something that clenched and then wriDied, moving deep in her gut, climbing… into her chest, leaving a trail of twinges, as if something with sharp claws was moving within her…
Blackgult grimly gave her the slightest of nods. Embra drew in a deep breath-yes, she did feel odd-and tossed her head to take her hair back out of her eyes. Air. She needed air.
She felt… warm. Warm and numb. She reached for her goblet and turned her head with apparent casualness to look at Tshamarra, whose eyes-just for a moment-flashed back alarm.
A warning that meant her fellow sorceress was feeling the same discomfort. So they might not have much time left, if she didn't-
"Your arrival at our gates somewhat surprised us," Seneschal Urbrindur was saying in the lightly jovial manner with which veteran courtiers make politely meaningless conversation, "given that you were seen in Gilth not two days ago, heading west on the road to Sirlptar. Or do you use magic to leap about the Vale, traversing entire baronies at a single step?"
"Someone's using magic," the Lady Silvertree told him said shortly, "or perhaps just overly vivid imagination. We haven't been through Gilth this season."
"Oh, now!" the seneschal protested with a smile. "Your secrets are safe with us! I hardly think a herald of Flowfoam is apt to invent a meeting with all the Overdukes of Aglirta, however passing, or mistake your faces."
"Which herald was this?" Blackgult asked quietly.
"Thorntrumpet. He passes through Stornbridge often-so often, in fact, that we've often suspected him of keeping a very close watch on us for some reason. To report to the King, of course, but our loyalty-"
"Is above question," Embra said firmly. "At Flowfoam, Lord Stornbridge's regarded as one of the most diligent and loyal of tersepts."
The Tersept of Stornbridge blinked at her in delighted surprise, and grew a broad smile. "Well, my lady," he said grandly from the head of the table, "it gladdens my heart to hear you speak so highly of my conduct. I assure you that Stornbridge stands ready, and ever shall, to… toooooo…"
Embra turned her head in time to see the Lord of Stornbridge Castle, already nodding over his sinking goblet, topple in earnest-and land nose-first, splashing gravy in all directions, in his roast boar.
"My lord?" she asked politely, as if minor nobles of Aglirta fell into their food and started snoring at table every evening in her presence. Embra took some small satisfaction in seeing the startlement of the four Storn officers, even the hitherto imperturbed Coinmaster. Seneschal Urbrindur even looked scandalized again-and for real this time.
For a moment she thought Stornbridge was dead, or at least in the process of suffocating in his food, but he promptly gave the assembled diners proof that he wasn't, in the form of a soft and fluttery snore.
It was followed by another, succeeded by many more. They didn't stay gentle or muted, by any means.
"Sounds like a boar in rut," Craer commented amusedly, saluting the snoring tersept with a raised goblet. Hawkril and Lornsar Ryethrel chuckled politely, but the seneschal looked enraged again, and the Tersept's Champion seemed scarcely less hostile.
Seneschal Urbrindur lifted one hand in an obvious sign to the chamber knaves, who advanced in silent unison.
Blackgult and Hawkril clapped hands to sword-hilts, and Embra made her visible hand glow with sudden warning fire-cold flames that scorched nothing, but proclaimed ready power.
The seneschal shook his head sourly. "Such won't be necessary, revered Overdukes. We mean you no harm, but we do desire that you retire to your chambers now, as shall we. Our Lord Tersept has been taken ill, and ‘twould be the height of rudeness to continue our feasting and chatter with him lying stricken in our midst."
He nodded gravely to the lornsar and then the Coinmaster, both of whom rose, nodded farewells, and strode out.
Eirevaur spoke to someone unseen as he entered an archway, and four cortahars hastened forth from it to lift Champion Pheldane, chair and all, and convey him from the chamber. By his startled movements and furious expression, this assistance took the Tersept's Champion entirely by surprise.
"Until the morrow, then?" Seneschal Urbrindur asked Stornbridge's guests, in tones that were not-quite-a firm dismissal, as the overdukes rose and glanced at the chamber knaves they each seemed to have suddenly acquired. Those servants carefully looked over overduchal shoulders, never meeting the eyes of Tshamarra or the Four.
"Until the morrow," Blackgult agreed, showing no outward sign of the faint nausea that was now clear upon the faces of his daughter and Lady Talasorn. Craer and Hawkril both wore unreadable expressions, but their unaccustomed silence bespoke their own troubled innards.
As the overdukes and their silent escorts set off together, the Golden Griffon asked the seneschal, "We're bedded in adjacent rooms, I trust?"
"Ah, I fear not," Urbrindur replied, his voice archness laid soothingly over quiet triumph. "The architecture of Stornbridge Castle unfortunately makes such a courtesy impossible."
"I'll bet," Craer commented in clearly audible tones, and noticed a fleeting smirk come and go on the face of the nearest chamber knave.
"No strangers to impossible courtesies, we," was Blackgult's formal reply. Uneasy silence fell, and in its throes they were led up a spiral flight of worn stone steps, in an echoing shaft that reached from an undercellar past six or seven floors to unseen battlements above.
Ascending two levels, the overdukes were conducted down a long, dimly lit passage. Its walls were studded with arched, magnificently carved doors, some of which were flanked by pairs of lit lamps hung from ceiling-rings, each with a cortahar standing guard beneath. "Behold me clearly, for I'm a target," Craer murmured to Hawkril, who smiled almost as tightly as the chamber knaves who bent close to hear.
Embra was ushered through the first such guarded door, and had just time to give Hawkril a silent look of alarm and appeal as she left them. Tshamarra was taken through the next, some sixty paces on and around a slight jog in the passage from Embra's chamber.
The servants took their three male guests up a back stair to another level; Blackgult's door awaited them across the passage at the top of it.
"Sleep well, my lords," he told Craer and Hawkril dryly, as he left them.
The procurer and the armaragor traded glances and shifted their gaits, Hawkril striding ahead so that his chamber knave had to hasten to stay with him, and Craer slowing so that the servant accompanying him unhappily fell behind his fellow.
"This door is yours, my lord," the Storn servant told Overduke Delnbone with clear relief in his voice, as they reached another lamplit and cortahar-guarded door. He swung the door wide.
An oil lamp glimmered softly on a stone-topped table flanked by a tall, narrow chair carved into the likeness of an arch of leafy vines. A canopied bed of similar style stood to the right, and a matching wardrobe to the left. Screens in distant corners discreetly concealed a tall mirror and a "thunder-chair," respectively.
On a large table to Craer's left stood a ewer in a bath-bowl, and another ewer with a pair of goblets. Before them on the gleaming tabletop Craer's battered saddlebags and their contents had been arranged in a neat row. Nothing seemed to be missing.
The chamber had neither connecting doors nor windows. Unbroken walls of elegant dark wood paneling rose to a lofty ceiling on all sides.
Craer smiled at those panels. They were relief-carved in splendid scenes that offered a hundred hiding places for spyholes-and had no doubt been liberally endowed with such features. Some might fire dart-traps to dissuade prying eyes or fingers, or even permit access to small storage drawers. A room like this was great entertainment to a procurer.
"May I be of assistance, Lord?" the chamber knave asked the ceiling carefully. Craer followed the servant's gaze upward, seeking traps, entrances, and additional evidence of spyholes. None were evident.
So Overduke Delnbone gave his most charming smile and said, "But of course. Tell me where the various secret passages, traps, spyholes, firing ports, and the like are hidden, around this room."
"I… uh… I…" The servant gaped at Craer as if he'd made an indecent personal suggestion involving horses and gamefowl and possibly the Tersept of Stornbridge himself, reddened, and shook. Craer watched with a quizzical smile, awaiting an answer.
The chamber knave regained his composure, gave the procurer a look of anger, and in utter silence wheeled around and marched out of the room.
"Have a pleasant evening," Craer called merrily after him, and then sighed and began his examination of the room for those features he'd just mentioned, muttering, "Which is more than I'll do, if my gut gets worse. Embra's magic can't catch everything, it seems. Something in the food." He shook his head, and then his fist. "If I die spewing and filling yon thunder-bowl, I'll haunt my slayer and send him the same fate-only worse. This I
swear"
He cocked his head and listened, gazing at the ceiling, but if the Three had heard his declaration, they gave no sign of it. As usual.
So here Craer Delnbone stood, in a den of foes who'd happily murder him and his four fellow overdukes-whilst some false overdukes were evidently traipsing around the Vale, working mischief… mischief they'd be free to go right on doing if the real overdukes quietly disappeared here in Stornbridge Castle. The Faceless might impersonate a person here or there, for a short time, but not five nobles riding around openly. The false overdukes were magically disguised Serpents, of course… and the road ahead was what it had always been, in all of these dark little dances for the throne of Aglirta: stay alive, and slay the Serpent-priests responsible.