by Ed Greenwood
The stone struck a strand of glowing magic, tumbled, struck another strand and bounded sideways, ricocheted over a third-and hit Embra on the shoulder hard enough to make her gasp and shudder, but not hard enough to stop her from wrapping both hands around the rope and clinging to it. Her fellow overdukes waited until she mastered her pain enough to straighten up out of her trembling crouch, wrap the rope around herself several times, and then tuck the stone under her arm and give them a weary nod.
Then they pulled, slowly and steadily, while Embra wriggled and contorted and reached, slipping between strands and under strands and through gaps in the tangle. Once they had to let the line slack so she could climb back up two strands that met in a trench no one could have passed, but she made her wincing, struggling way through the bars of her own cage until at last she touched the floor.
There she drew in a deep breath, looked up, and cried, "Let go, and get you back!"
The three overdukes scrambled hastily to the door-and behind them, the strands of magic writhed and flared into flames, in a humming inferno that became too bright to look at in half a breath.
Heat blistered the three as they huddled against the door, and Craer murmured, "So, Hawk, how does it feel to sleep with enough fury to do that?"
The armaragor gave his old friend a look. "Probably the same as you feel, abed with as much bright magic."
The Lady Talasorn managed a smile. "My, you've the tongue of a courting bard in you, Hawk!"
"Oh? I'll make him take it back out right quickly, when I find it," was the growled reply-and Tash had to look twice before she was sure that he was joking, and dared to laugh.
The fire fied away as swiftly as it had flared. Craer spun around and grabbed Hawkril to stop him charging to Embra-but failed. As the armaragor's determined progress towed him across still-hot, creaking flagstones, he called, "So what was all that, Lady Em?"
All traces of the cage were gone. Embra Silvertree stood tall, all signs of pain fallen away. She held out her arms for Hawkril, but gave Craer a look of distaste. " 'Lady Em'? Procurer, how much longer d'you want to live?"
"Sorry," Craer replied. His voice was contrite without a trace of mockery, startling all of his companions into looking at him. "What did you do just now-the fire, and all?"
Embra smiled at him from the depths of Hawkril's embrace. "When I can touch any stone of the palace, I can call on the Living Castle enchantments. I used them to drink the magic of the cage." Her smile faded. "So now we must rob a few rooms of enchanted things to power the spells Tash and I will need-to fight without a Dwaer, and bring us back home if need be. Oh, and I must get boots and a sash, at least, for this nightrobe. Then the castle enchantments will serve again to source the best seeking spell we can manage-and we must hope by the Three that my father's crazed enough to keep his Dwaer in use, and our magic finds him. We fling ourselves to him, and…"
"Risk our necks again," Craer concluded mockingly. "My, what a change!"
In a dark, deep stone chamber, fingers longer and more sinuous than a human's slid around the edges of a stone block, and tugged.
The stone grated out, and the owner of those wormlike fingers reached into the revealed cavity behind it and drew forth a small sack. The sinuous fingers grasped four objects through the rough canvas, carefully holding them apart from each other, as if they were as fragile as eggs.
The sack was set down with great care, and the fingers lengthened and curved like snakes into its open end.
Four times they slid inside, each time emerging with something spherical and setting it gently on the floor. When the snakelike fingers withdrew for the last time, four rock crystal spheres glowed faintly on the floor. Each had one flat side, graven with a rune. Those symbols were the sources of the glows.
The wormlike fingers touched one rune as a long, convoluted, and harsh word was uttered-and from that sphere sprang a whirling, shimmering cloud of colors. The fingers turned the orb over onto its flat side-and the shimmerings instantly became a sharp, bright, three-dimensional image of a young, imperious-looking man in robes.
The owner of the fingers bent its head to regard the image-though its face was a featureless mask of flesh, without visible eyes. Yet it walked very slowly around the image as if studying it, stopped, and then started to move again, more slowly, almost creeping around the seeming of the robed man.
As the faceless creature moved, its body shifted and flowed, becoming more and more like the robed image. When the likeness was exact, a robed man slowly circled a bright, stationary duplicate of himself, making sure of every last detail. Then he straightened to match the pose of the image, walked a few experimental steps in a stride very unlike the sinuous, padding gait of his earlier, faceless form, and announced: "I Jhavarr Bowdragon."
The dark chamber seemed unimpressed. The Koglaur chuckled, collected the four spheres-the image promptly vanished, restoring complete darkness to the room-and returned them to their hiding place, putting the block of stone back into position.
Then the false Jhavarr Bowdragon went a little way along the wall and drew out another stone block, with appreciably more difficulty this time. Behind it was a little wooden box, from which the transformed Koglaur drew forth a lump of stone that glowed, just for a moment, at his touch.
"Everyone bent on conquering all Darsar should have a Dwaer," the false Jhavarr Bowdragon murmured, cradling the Stone almost lovingly as he carefully restored the box and its concealing wall-block.
Then he held up the Dwaer, made it flash in earnest, and left that secret place.
The man who was not Jhavarr took his next step on the cold stone floor of a different dark cavern. Only one step, ere he stopped, let the Dwaer illuminate his face, and asked the darkness calmly, "Father? Uncle Dolmur?"
His words fell into silence, but it seemed to the Koglaur that it was an intently listening silence rather than a lonely, empty one, so he announced,
"I am Jhavarr Bowdragon, son of Ithim, much changed from what I was… and I seek my kin. Father? Dolmur? Are you there?"
"You do not sound like Jhavarr," said a deep voice from directly behind the Koglaur. Despite himself, he flinched and spun around.
Dolmur Bowdragon stood facing him-or rather, floated upright, dusty-booted feet planted on empty air a few inches clear of the ground.
The false Jhavarr sighed. "I know. Much of my remembrances are gone forever. I was caught in a Dwaer spell-blast while fighting Blackgult, the Regent of Aglirta, and… it took me months to recall my own name, let alone my lineage and that I could work sorcery at all. Uncle, does my father yet live?"
"He does," Dolmur replied gravely, and lifted a hand. As it swept up, weeping could be heard: a storm of helpless sobs coming from a man behind the Bowdragon patriarch, that the darkness was yielding up at the same pace as Dolmur's rising hand.
"My son!" Ithim whispered, when he could manage words.
"Father!" Jhavarr stepped forward eagerly-but came to a swift halt when Dolmur raised his other hand in warning.
"You've sought your kin and found them," the senior Bowdragon said calmly. "What now?"
Jhavarr met Dolmur's eyes, looked away, and swallowed. "I-I need your aid, your sorcery, your wisdom. Both of you." His voice shook with sudden fury. "I crave vengeance for what was done to me, on Blackgult and all Aglirta, whoever kings it there and every last mage of power of that land. Let them all be scoured from Darsar."
"Yes, yes!" Ithim cried. "Of course!" He struggled against Dolmur's restraining magic, seeking to reach and embrace his son, until the patriarch let his hand fall and freed his brother to rush forward.
As Jhavarr rocked in his father's embrace, Dolmur smiled grimly. "I suspect this undertaking will be the death of us all. Yet let us do it. If the Bowdragons are to fall, we should take at least one kingdom with us."
He floated forward. "If our refuge is so easily found, our sorcery may be less puissant than you hope… so let us set to work crafting battle plans, and spells to
go with them. I refuse to rush into my death fray unprepared to deal the worst I am capable of. I suppose one might call this Bowdragon pride."
Jhavarr smiled eagerly. "So Aglirta is doomed?"
The eldest Bowdragon's answering smile was somewhat fainter. "Well, now. Perhaps we should say rather, 'Aglirta as we know it.' "
The mists that always attended teleportation fell away from their eyes. The Band of Four crouched, weapons ready, a smooth, hard floor underfoot- and found themselves staring down the length of a palatial, lofty-ceilinged bedchamber, its walls all white plaster relief carvings and gleaming closed doors. The towering bed was unmade, its linens and overfur slumped onto the floor. A frightened feminine face stared at them for a moment around the edge of a door beside it, and then vanished.
Tshamarra raised a hand to send a spell arrowing after she who'd fled, but let it fall again without making any futile casting. Her fellow overdukes were already spreading out and trotting forward-toward a desk where a man who was neither young nor slender was sitting naked, a large decanter of drink in his hand, staring at… a hand-sized, faintly glowing rock that lay on the polished wood in front of him.
Fear and bewilderment were in that man's stare as he put the decanter to his lips and quaffed deeply. He seemed not to hear the overdukes until Craer was less than a handful of racing strides away.
Then he looked up with a growl, snatched a dagger from the bench beside him with surprising speed, and sprang to meet the intruders, bare as he was.
Gray-white hair covered much of that unlovely, paunchy body, below a face reddening with rage as well as drink. Its owner glared at his four unexpected visitors with no trace of fear as he brandished his blade, dodged aside from Craer's racing attack, and whirled with that same swiftness to slam himself into the speeding procurer and send Craer crashing through the bench rather than letting his outstretched hand snatch the Stone from the table.
The naked man snarled a word-and there was suddenly a dagger poised above Craer's throat, and three more knives floating point-first before the eyes of the rest of the Four.
"Who are you?" the man demanded. "Speak, or I'll start slaying!"
"We're the Overdukes of Aglirta," Hawkril rumbled. "Come here seeking yon Stone. We know you not, nor mean harm to you; please accept our apologies for this intrusion. What is this place?"
The naked man took another swig from his decanter. "This is Varandaur castle, nigh Ragalar, seat of the Delcampers, and this is my bedchamber in it. I am Hulgor Delcamper-one of the many aging wastrel uncles Flaeros has doubtless told you about. He spoke well of you Band of Four." His eyes ranged across them, and then he spun around, went back to his desk, set down the decanter, and laid a hand on the Dwaer sitting there. "You want this. Why?"
" 'Tis one of the most powerful things of magic in all Darsar, and we need it to defend the Vale against the priests of the Serpent," Embra replied. "We lost ours in a battle not long ago, and hoped to recover it. How came you by this one?"
Hulgor shrugged. "It appeared in the air, just here-not long ago, as you say." He picked up the Stone and hefted it. "I'm not one for magic-yon floating knives are a casting laid ready here by a hired mage, not any doing of mine-and have been sitting here wondering how to get rid of it before slaying mages came for me." He grinned. "Fair greeting, slaying mages. I'd like to bargain with you."
"Speak," Tshamarra said softly.
Hulgor leered at her as if she was the one standing naked and not he, and said, "I've a restlessness in me. I've wanted to go and see how young Flaeros is getting on, and visit Flowfoam-I saw it once, years back-but I hate sea voyages and spewing my guts over the rail for days, into storms that hurl it all right back over me. If you offer me no violence, and take me there with you, I'll give you this lump of rock that's so important to mages."
The Four looked at each other. Then Embra, a disbelieving smile tugging at her lips, nodded at the naked noble. "Agreed. By the realm we all serve, I swear this."
Hulgor Delcamper looked at them all, one after another, and received murmured agreements as he went. He gave Craer an extra glare, and received a sheepish smile and spread hands in return.
Hulgor grinned at that. Then he nodded to them all, strode forward as if he was a grandly robed ruler and not an aging, sagging, hairily naked man, and put the Stone carefully into Embra's hand.
Doors burst open with a sound like thunder, and liveried guards burst into the room, glaives and swords glittering, with the chambermaid who'd fled at their arrival at the head of one group. Her scream and pointing arm was ignored in the general roar of competing cries: "Hold! Surrender! Down arms!"
Embra rolled her eyes, Hulgor grinned at her, and the Dwaer flashed in her hand.
Guards sprinting across the polished floor skidded to astonished halts, and Nuelara screamed again. Hulgor Delcamper and the four armed intruders were gone, vanished as if they'd never been.
The guards stared helplessly… at a gently rocking decanter on a table, and four dark daggers floating in midair.
No one was there to stare back.
"The Three must hold this place sacred to them, for some special purpose," Ezendor Blackgult muttered, as he stood on a crumbling balcony of the sprawling ruins of the Silvertree Palace known to all Aglirta as the Silent House. The burial ground below him was an overgrown maze of trees, shrubs, and leaning tombs.
Then red and black rage rose in him again, choking-strong. Blackgult went to his knees and mindlessly clawed at the stones of a nearby stair for a few frantic breaths, ere he remembered his own name and went boiling up those same steps, to come out on the battlements.
Shuddering, he fought down the madness and stared grimly out across the Vale, to where the long green isle of Flowfoam lay in its quiet splendor out in the Silverflow.
Plague-rage, oh yes, burning strongest where he'd been bitten… poor Indalue must have been infected, and never knew it.
"So here I am at last," he told the uncaring wind bitterly. "Back in the Silent House, the haunted graveyard of half the mages and adventurers Aglirta has ever birthed-wrestling with the Blood Plague."
The rage rose again, and he started striding along the battlements, half-shouting, "If I could hold to my wits long enough, and remember a tenth of what I should be able to, I could heal myself with this!"
The rage passed like a spasm, and Blackgult held up the Dwaer he'd seized not long ago, regarded it regretfully, and whispered, "But I can't."
He walked aimlessly along the battlements, ignoring scattered human and beast bones and the black gorcraw vultures that flapped heavily away at his approach-to land again just out of reach, and watch him balefully… patiently.
Anger rose again, sudden and hot. "A weapon, yes-blast this, savage that, burn the other! Destroying's always easy… But crafting, mending, healing-why, gods, why do you make those so hard, hey? Afraid we struggling beasts will achieve something, and rob you of your entertainment?"
The wind snatched those bitter words away, but brought back no reply. Cold-faced, Ezendor Blackgult found a stair and started down. He'd seized this Stone from his own daughter.
To leave her defenseless while he died here, driven mad by the Blood Plague. Gods, to be laid low by the sneering Serpents at last! No! No!
He was roaring that aloud, he realized dimly, hammering the crumbling stonework with the Stone that could not shatter, screaming and raking the old stone blocks as if his bleeding ringers were talons that could rend…
Gasping, he found himself at the bottom of the stairs, in much pain. Evidently he'd fallen, and now had fresh bruises to add to the sickening plague-surging in his guts. He rolled over, sat up with a growl, and glared at the Dwaer.
Well, if die he must, adorned with this bauble half ambitious Darsar sought, he'd die using it, by the Horns of the Lady!
First, let it be revealed who else was in the Silent House beneath him, just now-what creatures were breathing, which ones were moving, who was making noise… and who
was working magic.
Aha! Scuttling things, gliding snakes, lurching skeletons mindlessly guarding this chamber or that… an ancient, sighing awareness that was more of a seeing shadow than anything else… and a large group of frightened men in armor, busily looting an inner chamber under the snapped orders of no less than nine Serpent-priests!
Well, now. The Silent House did have a deadly reputation to maintain…
Ezendor Blackgult smiled like a prowling wolf, clutched the Dwaer to his breast in both hands as if it was a newborn babe, and set off into the darkness at a run, letting the rage build, but using the Dwaer to cling to scene after scene of the House ahead of him, and thereby hold to his wits… the Three willing…
"This, Lord Sir?" the warrior asked timidly, lifting a crumbling shoulder blade and the dangling brown bones of an upper arm. Two slim metal bracelets slid down them, green with verdigris but still displaying either runes or graven script.
"Yes! Take care, mind!" the Brother of the Serpent snapped, pointing an imperious finger into the open coffer the warriors had brought. "Wrap them twice around in those linens, so they'll directly touch nothing else we put in there!"
His glare promised the warrior death or maiming if there was any inadequacy in the wrapping, ere he spun around to shout, "You, there! Elmargh, or whatever your name is! Pry out the block just above yon carving-pry, I said, not smite!"
Ilmark of Sirlptar hid his grimace well. He'd been skilled at tapping out old mortar when this bellowing priest was spewing up mother's milk, and was doing this just as deftly now. Another two gentle taps, and an entire line of mortar fell away, allowing him to slide the flat blade of his mattock in under the wall block. Carefully he rocked it, letting the block break the rest of the mortar-and then, ever so slowly, he slid… it… out.
A large, dark space was revealed behind the block, and the priest of the Serpent fairly crowed in triumph.
"The Great Serpent rises in me!" he cried, throwing his arms wide and nearly knocking teeth from the mouths of the lesser priests on either side of him. "He has made me wise! Stand aside, warrior, and let me see what treasure awaits!"