“Look at the shorter one!” Rune snapped suddenly.
An odd expression had appeared on Hawkspike’s face. It had gone from anger, in place of its customary surliness, to apprehensive, to queasily uncomfortable. They watched that discomfort grow, and be joined by astonishment.
“What’s happening?” Farland barked. “Is someone using magic on you?”
Hawkspike suddenly tore open his codpiece, snatched out something small and metallic-that was starting to glow-and flung it as hard as he could, high over everyone’s shoulders, through the doorway and out of the room.
They heard it clatter on the flagstones and slide.
“What
From the passage outside there came a sudden roar. A roar that burst back into the room like a hurtling dragon, filling it with force and fire.
Royal Magician Ganrahast suddenly clutched his head, shrieked, and crashed down face-first onto the table, thudding against its polished top senseless and staring, blood streaming from his eyes and nose.
“Here we go again,” Glathra snapped, rushing to his aid. Vangey had already scuttled along the table to the stricken Royal Magician. Vainrence and Storm crowded around Ganrahast, too.
“Don’t touch him!” Glathra warned the silver-haired Harper, but she was ignored. Storm stared at her own finger, used that stare to make blood well up out of it somehow, and thrust that bloodied finger up Ganrahast’s bleeding nose.
After a moment, she reported calmly, “He was working with the mindlink. Something struck at him through it.”
“Well, lady?” Vangerdahast demanded gruffly, dancing impatiently on his spider legs. “Can you heal him?”
“I’m healing him right now,” Storm replied, “but Vainrence, if you can fetch in some
Without a word the lord warder bowed his head and hurried out.
“What are you doing to him, exactly?” Glathra asked, sounding more apprehensive than suspicious.
“Holding his mind. Like something frozen in ice, I’m keeping it as it is right now, so it can’t get any worse. Shielding the rest of it against the damage.”
“I didn’t know you could …” Glathra let her words trail off, not knowing what to say next.
Storm gave her a gentle smile. “We should get to know each other better, Lady Glathra. If you knew more about me, you might just begin to trust me.”
“Might,” Glathra echoed, managing a wan smile.
“Then,” Storm added dryly, “we could even start to work on liking each other.”
Glathra winced. “I deserved that,” she whispered. Vangerdahast walked away down the table, carefully not looking in her direction or saying a word. Storm merely smiled.
Then many priests and war wizards were crowding into the room, Vainrence with them.
“Sanneth,” Storm said as firmly as any king, “cast your spell-you know the one-and link to me. Holy ones, please heal this man, as
She was obeyed without query or hesitation, but it seemed a long, tensely silent time before Ganrahast groaned, his arms jerking around for a few moments. Then he tried to sit up, closing his staring eyes so he could start blinking wildly.
“Ganrahast?” Glathra asked. “Royal Magician?”
One of the priests wiped away the blood. Ganrahast sniffled, shook his head, groaned again, then gasped, “Y-yes, it’s me. I’m … back.”
He looked at Storm, and Sannath beside her, and added fervently, “Thank you.”
Both the Harper and the war wizard merely nodded gravely. Without a word Sannath stood up and quietly ushered the priests out of the room.
“Well?” Vangerdahast rasped the moment Vainrence had closed the door on them. “What by all Nine of the Hells happened?”
Ganrahast smiled wanly. “I, ah, felt the scrutiny or at least the reaching out to me of a team ring. Its wearer was seeking me. I in turn reached out to the mind wearing it-a mind I don’t think I know, which suggests that the ring wasn’t being worn by anyone who’s supposed to have one. Yet I can’t be certain of that; I didn’t have long enough to, to …”
“Taste that mind, and identify it,” Storm murmured helpfully, earning herself a surprised look from Glathra.
“Taste, yes. What I did manage to feel was that the mind of the ring wearer was of tremendous power. It sensed me, sought to block me-and then, everything seemed to … explode.”
“Whereabouts was that mind?” Vangey asked sharply.
“In the northeast of the realm, somewhere remote,” Ganrahast murmured slowly, grimacing as his attempt to remember brought on throbbing mental pain.
“Irlingstar,” Glathra said grimly. “Of
Sraunter’s cellar was again aglow with Manshoon’s scrying spheres. The incipient emperor of Cormyr sat at his ease in their midst, intent on only one sphere. In its depths, he was watching a black dragon he’d spotted flying among the Thunder Peaks while seeking isolated war wizards at work in the eastern borders of the realm. If he could destroy them, he would awaken fears of a Sembian incursion, so as to draw more wizards out for easy slaying.
There was something intriguing about this ancient black wyrm. It wasn’t one he’d ever ridden or conversed with, to be sure-but it seemed
In his sphere, the dragon was swooping closer to the prison keep, Castle Irlingstar-and an explosion promptly erupted from an upper room of the castle, blowing out windows amid gouts of flame and tumbling stone dust.
Manshoon blinked in startlement, and from its hasty back-flapping, followed by angry circling rather than fearful flight, the dragon seemed startled too.
It glided
Something powerful must be in there, to cause explosion after explosion. Something
Manshoon waited to see if more of the castle would blow up, in case the dragon had fled an explosion it could see was imminent.
Yet time passed, and no second blast occurred.
So, now … a fresh problem. How to scry past or through the castle wards, to see inside Irlingstar …
CHAPTER TWENTY
F
Hawkspike was panting too hard to answer.
They pelted down the narrow stone stair, crashed bruisingly off the walls of what was
