by Ed Greenwood
"A Dwaer!" the Lord of the Serpent snapped, eyes afire. "Very near!"
He rose in such haste that most of the table's contents spilled onto the floor, but he spared them not a glance as he pointed at the most capable hireswords the Church of the Serpent had been able to find, hereabouts, and the most dangerous of his underpriests, too-even Fangbrother Khavan, a dog too terrified to be disloyal. "Come!" he ordered them all. "There's something we must seize."
"Uh, Scaled Master?" Khavan stammered. "T-the baron?"
"Stay with him," Arthroon snapped, "and obey him, for his orders will be my own!" He lifted his Dwaer meaningfully and then hurried out, the men he'd beckoned clumping and clattering after him.
As they reached the hall below, he made his first silent urging with the Dwaer, causing the baron to turn to Khavan and say, "I've named Lord Arthroon my successor here in Glarond, should anything happen to me. He's ordered me to tell you to punish me freely, if I disobey you in the smallest way. Of course, if you act against his wishes, I'll order you slain in his name."
The Fangbrother looked surprised, and Arthroon watched him through the baron's eyes long enough to hear him say, "Well, then, Glarond, serve me that roast from the table-and then get down on your belly like a rat and eat up every bit of food that's fallen to the floor. You are forbidden to use your hands when doing so."
"Yes, Lord," the baron gasped, whirling toward the roast.
Arthroon shook his head, smiled, and left them to it. By then, his swift strides had carried him to where men were scrambling to ready a horse.
"Leave it, and come," he ordered. "We'll walk-'twon't be far. Out yon gate. Priests of the Serpent, form a ring around me, warriors to the outside."
When they were walking swiftly together, a storm of robes and armored men that split the gaping Glarondans like a bared blade as it streamed toward the gate, he snapped, "Heed, men of the Serpent! Stint not in use of your spells in the fray to come. We must surround our foe, and hurl all the batde-magic we have, upon my signal! No spell is too deadly, and-if you'd like to live to see it-nothing need be saved for the morrow!"
"Lie easy, Tash," Embra murmured, frowning over the glowing Dwaer. Beneath it, Tshamarra's bared breast rose and fell, the venom rising out of the gashes made by the serpent-arrow's fangs, bubbling forth dark and glistening. "Easy, now…"
"I-" Tshamarra gasped, eyes still clouded and unseeing. "I'm on fire!"
A sudden convulsion made her jerk and thrash her limbs, and from where he was standing bending over them both Craer burst out, "Embra, can't you do something?"
"Yes" Embra told him crisply, "and so can you. Get out of here and stand guard against the Glarondans you know are coming after us, and leave me alone to do what I have to do. This isn't easy, you know: I have to understand how the venom works to learn how to drive it out, and then banish what it's done. If I just attack the poison, I'm using the Dwaer only as searing fire-against Tash's blood, and inside her body!"
"Come," Hawkril rumbled firmly, taking his friend by the shoulder. "You go stand guard that way, along that track, and I'll go yonder, where the lane curves by those trees."
The procurer nodded reluctantly, then bent down quickly and kissed Embra's shoulder. "Thank you, Em," he whispered, and was gone.
Embra shook her head, smiled-and then pounced on Tshamarra as the Lady Talasorn convulsed again, moaning and jerking her limbs violently.
Wrestling with the smaller woman, Embra lost her smile swiftly. The Blood Plague and the venom were at war with each other inside Tash, and Dwaer or no Dwaer, Embra hadn't the barest beginnings of any idea how to stop the damage both were doing.
She plucked up the edge of Tash's undone leather bodice and thrust it between the teeth of the Talasorn sorceress to keep her from biting her own tongue. More venom bubbled forth.
Ever so carefully, with the point of her belt-knife, Embra made a small cut on her own forearm, let her blood drip onto the largest wood chip within reach, and then used another sliver of wood to transfer some of the venom from Tshamarra to her blood. As they swirled together with the faintest puff of vapor, she slapped her hand down on her Dwaer, cast a quick glance around to make sure no woodcutter or lurking Serpent-priest was approaching, and then worked a spell that took her down, down…
… into the hot red pool where the venom was spreading, curling out like smoke into the ruby sea from the first oily ropes of its arrival. Thus the poison changed the blood, and so it spread, changing this, and that…
But how was the plague changing both blood and venom? Surfacing from her magic into the relative brightness of the glade and blinking around again to make sure no peril approached, Embra took Tshamarra's own knife, made a similar cut on Tash's arm, used another wood chip to add this new blood to the mix, and went down into the tiny ruby sea again to watch.
Ruby sea and sky, all one, and this purple, heavy hue must be the plague-or rather, what plague did to blood, for around it the rest of Embra's blood was turning the same hue, crumbling into the spreading darkness with silent, frightening speed…
With the Dwaer she risked trying to twist the blood-mix, thus-and did something that made the wood chip shudder. Hastily she stopped, and instead strove to fight the darkness by changing it to match some of the blood it hadn't reached yet. The darkness thinned and shrank, and triumphantly she repeated the process, eating away at the still-spreading purple gloom again and again until it was reduced to a tiny mote. No matter how she tried to alter that mote, it remained, spreading forth again and again-until at last, in rising anger, she burned it with a tiny burst of Dwaer-fire… and it vanished, leaving only untainted blood behind. Venom and plague were both gone.
She'd done it!
Embra sat back on her heels and snarled wordless triumph at the leaves high overhead. Then she leaned forward to use the Dwaer on her friend-and was startled to see a tiny wisp of flame escaping from Tshamarra's lips, blackening the leather as it hissed past.
Frantically Embra called up the power of the Dwaer and dove "into" Tash, shaking her head. "Sarasper was the healer," she muttered. "I'm more like a chambermaid who only knows where to hurl buckets of water to clean by crude rinsing, and naught else."
There was no one there to hear her but the silent Tshamarra and her father, who'd come awake with the banishing of the plague from the sorceress. He looked sharply up at Embra with eyes that seemed to see nothing, and announced, "Much cleansing is needed before the Vale can be what it was. If the Vale can ever be what it was."
"You," Ingryl Ambelter told Maelra with a smile, "are going to Flowfoam for us." The Spellmaster swayed slightly as Dwaer-magic crackled in the air around him. The melt-faced men leaned forward, as if lured by it.
"I need you to fetch me some bones from there," Ambelter explained sweetly, as if to an idiot child, "and bring them back here. Oh, and kill the King while doing so, and carry his crown back to us, too."
"Some bones?" Baron Phelinndar frowned. "What magic're they for?"
"A traditional weaving," Ambelter replied soothingly. "Part of being Spellmaster. The crown, my dear Baron, is for you.
He turned back to Maelra. "Well, my dear? 'Twill be dangerous, but we'll both be with you, via spells, to guide and warn; you needn't be frightened."
Though she knew his reassurances must be false, Maelra's heart leaped with excitement. "When do I start?" she asked eagerly-and saw Phelinndar's eyes narrow.
Ambelter's excitement, however, matched her own. Nodding in satisfaction, he strode forward, put a hand to the bodice of her gown, and tore it down and away from her in one great wrench.
She looked at him with her great dark eyes, trying to read what lay behind his own fierce gaze. His eyes were on hers, not on her bared body. Hurriedly she slipped her arms out of the rag that remained, to stand before him nude but for her boots.
He was not standing and surveying her-though the baron was-but was already whirling away from her to snatch and tug plates of armor from one of the me
lted-faced men.
Turning back to Maelra with a battered and stained shoulder-archplate in his hands, he regarded her slender hips coolly, nodded, and held it out to her, to put on.
With a rustling of leaves, Craer Delnbone thumped down into the clearing, fresh blood glistening on his sword. He waved at Embra and called cheerfully, "Visitors! See?"
When Embra looked up, he waved his bloody sword and ran back into the trees, heading back to his tree-limb perch to await the arrival of the next hurrying Serpent-band.
"Back to the merry slaughter once more," he murmured, wiping his sword on the moss of the nearest tree trunk.
Embra watched the procurer go, her lips growing thin, and then turned and snapped, "Father!"
Her father was plague-addled; the arrow's venom was working on him differently than on Tash. Thank the Three-that was why he was still alive.
When her call garnered no reaction, she raised her voice and hailed him as Blackgult, and then as the Golden Griffon.
He turned his head. "Yes, my page?"
"Here, Father," she commanded briskly. "Help me carry this lady fair-who's delicate, and in some distress-around behind yon woodpile."
"But of course," he replied swiftly, rising to help. "I hope I had no part in bringing her to her present, ah, state?"
Embra sighed. "No, not really. No more so than the rest of Aglirta."
16
Serving the Serpent Well
T he Dwaer spun faster, singing and soaring almost a foot higher-and as if in answer, Tshamarra Talasorn arched and twisted under Embra's ringers, rising right off the ground.
Embra drew back from the floating, quivering figure, and frowned. "There's something…," she murmured aloud, eyes narrowing as she stared at the younger sorceress.
Suddenly quite another something struck Embra hard on the shoulder, driving her to the ground, chin-first.
It was the boot of a warrior, who'd leaped from atop the woodpile behind her to snatch the Dwaer out of midair. Clutching the Stone, he rolled away and up to his feet, whirling around with a grin of triumph-and as Embra scrambled to her knees, fingers moving to shape a spell that would have to be fast, other armored men came rushing around both sides of the woodpile with drawn swords.
Where were Hawk and Craer?
She let her hands fall again as the warriors formed a blade-bristling wall facing her. In unison they took a slow stride forward, faces bleak.
"Embra Silvertree," the warrior hefting the Dwaer said silkily, "your father once tortured me. I'm going to enjoy this."
Embra crouched protectively over Tshamarra. The eyes of the Talasorn sorceress were still closed, but her arms and legs had started to writhe again, slowly and fitfully, as she settled a little closer to the ground. If she'd still held the Stone, Embra would have been trying to work gentle healing on her.
At that grim thought, the Lady Silvertree turned her head to seek her father. Blackgult sat huddled nearby, rocking slightly in seeming oblivious-ness.
A sudden blaze of Dwaer-light brought her gaze back to-the Stone, glowing brightly in the warrior's hand as he paced menacingly forward, his eyes glittering…
"You gave her enchanted armor?" Phelinndar's roar echoed around the chamber. "Why?"
The Spellmaster of Aglirta quirked an eyebrow. "Enchanted, my dear Baron?"
The nobleman's sword sang out so fast that even Ingryl Ambelter flinched. "Ambelter, I may not be a mage, but I'm not a. fool. Kindly remember that," Phelinndar snarled. "You give the wench armor twice her size and it fits her perfectly, then it glows when you use the Stone to send her-what does that tell any dolt with eyes, twice? 'Tis magical!" The baron rammed his blade back into its scabbard with an angry clank and barked, "So answer my question!"
Ingryl Ambelter drew a deep breath, hefted his Dwaer, and said smugly, "The spells on it prevent anyone from successfully tracing her to us… whereas I can trace it."
He strode across the chamber with his usual air of amused superiority. "Now, my increasingly angry Baron, you're right to be unamused about all of my boldnesses, so let's sit down and discuss what I've done and why, and what we'll do next. I must introduce you to the Sword of Spells."
"A sword? Something I can wield?" Phelinndar asked eagerly, despite himself.
The Spellmaster shook his head. "Not an actual blade, but rather a series of interwoven spells."
The baron did not trouble to hide his disgust, but Ambelter only smiled thinly and said, "You know magic is the key to power these days, Phelinndar-or you should, by now."
"Oh, I know it," the baron snarled, "but nothing's going to make me like it."
"Let her down," the warrior ordered curtly, "or-" Warningly he lifted the Dwaer in one hand and his sword in the other.
Embra looked at him, and then back at Tshamarra. Did he really not know…?
"I-I'll have to undo my spell," she said, trying to sound frightened, and discovering that she really was.
Without a Dwaer-Stone, Embra Silvertree was just one unarmored woman confronting thirty-odd angry warriors. She swallowed, and found herself trembling.
He smirked and took another step forward, tossing and cupping the Dwaer like a child playing catch-stone. "You're nothing without this, are you?"
"True," she whispered, from her knees, and he took another step forward. A bare three strides separated them now, but he'd brought his sword down to point at her. He wasn't going to blunder any closer, in case the touch of a sorceress bore any nasty little perils…
"S-so, should I-?" Embra asked, nodding her head at Tshamarra, who was moaning and writhing, as if about to awaken… writhing on empty air about a handwidth clear of the ground. One of the warriors muttered something to another, and there were grins.
"Keep your hands still!" the warrior snapped, and she froze, eyes fixed on his, clinging to the faint hope that Tshamarra's rousing would alarm him.
It did. "She's waking up, isn't she?"
"Yes," Embra told him anxiously, "and I don't know what she'll do. She went mad, and she's too powerful for me to control, even with the Stone. Her family rules Arlund with sorcery."
"And if you undo your spell?"
"She'll sleep again," Embra lied, keeping her hands very still. The warrior locked eyes with her.
Tshamarra wriDied more strongly.
"Do it," he snarled, and Embra nodded, reached out for Tshamarra, and carefully cast a spell that took but two gestures and a very short murmured incantation. It was one of the few she had magic enough left to power… O, Three aid me, let this one have no feel at all for using a Dwaer!
She felt the faint creeping sensation of the spell starting to take effect, and launched herself up and over Tshamarra in a single bound, landing and springing again before the watching warriors could do more than shout. Her magic snatched at the warrior's sword, plucking it to one side as if tugged by a gale-and for the scant seconds she needed, he did as any warrior would: he held onto it, fighting fiercely to keep possession of his weapon.
That left his arm pulled across his body and his side turned toward her, as she landed right at his boots-and embraced him.
Time slowed to a thunderous heartbeat. Between one clap and the next,
Embra called on the Dwaer. The moment she touched him, an unsorcerous man with no power to use the Stone to resist her, she could feel its power, reach its power, seize its power!
With a shout that echoed in every head around the woodpiles louder than in her own she made the Dwaer fling away metal in all directions, repelling it from herself… or rather, from their locked bodies, she and this warrior who hated her so much for something done to him by a dead man most of Aglirta believed to be her father.
Blackgult was hurled away like some sort of armored ball, bouncing with clangorous crashes toward the line of warriors-who were themselves flung back to crash into trees and crumple, blades whirling from numbed fingers to flash away deep into treegloom.
Embra opened her fingers, and the Dwaer fl
ew into them. Then she stepped back from the warrior, lifting him into the air to float frozen in front of her. Only his eyes could still move, and they darted this way and that in wild terror before staring helplessly at her.
"You," Embra told him softly, sounding far more menacing than she felt, "shall be my shield."
As if her words had been a signal, the air was suddenly full of large, dark arrows, stabbing at her in a hail-snake-arrows!
Gaping fangs first, the enchanted-rigid serpents came hissing at her from three sides, and the sorceress had no choice but to use her living shield to drive aside many of them, running right behind it so the snakes aimed at her unprotected flank would also miss.
Serpent-priests were running out of the trees now, on all sides of her but the woodpile. Embra called on the Dwaer, seeking to fell them all by flinging broken hiresword bodies at their ankles, but something met the force of her Dwaer-thrust, blunted it, and forced it to a halt everywhere on her right.
Behind her, some priests had fallen, and others were fighting for balance or crouching to hurl spells before they dared advance farther. Embra spared them no more attention-not when she had eleven, no, twelve Serpent-priests giving her various cold grins as they strode toward her, defying her Dwaer with… what could only be the power of another Dwaer!
Somewhere nearby, probably in the trees just behind these smiling Brothers of the Serpent, someone was using another Stone…
She must find out who, and get it, and to do that she had to avoid being slain by these oh-so-enthusiastic Serpents. They were lifting their hands to shape spells even now, or brandishing cruel fang-knives, their eyes all fixed on Embra Silver tree.
So she gave them flame, the easiest thing to call forth from a Dwaer: a wall of roaring, streaming fire that hid those laughing men from her and set the branches of trees overhead crackling. Biting her lip, Embra lowered her wall and thrust it hard away from her, hoping to trap men within it.
Screams told her she'd succeeded, but there weren't as many cries as she'd hoped. Either they were swift-footed indeed, or the wielder of the rival Dwaer was-