sound as bones pulverized and crushed, and then the entire mangled lump exploded in lurid green fire that roared up into the night, like a meteor homesick for the heavens. It lasted less than a heartbeat, and when he opened that fist again, a few stinking flakes of ash drifted to the dais on the night wind.
“I have drunk the blood of more champions than you could count, Wizard. Champions of Isvaria, of Lillinara and Semkirk…and of your precious, terrifying Tomanak, as well. I personally slew the last champion of Tomanak in all my universe! His head is mounted on the wall above my throne and his precious sword is in my treasure chamber! You think I should fear this Bahzell?”
“How you respond to my information is your own affair,” Varnaythus replied, although it was evident to him that both Zurak and Kimazh were less than delighted by the prospect of confronting Bahzell Bahnakson and Walsharno. “It was my responsibility to see you had it. I’ve done that. And, as is also my responsibility, may I ask before I leave if there happens to be any other information you wish me to seek out for you?”
Anshakar glared at him, but he also sat back in his crude throne, thinking.
“Can you tell me when this terrifying champion of Tomanak will come to end my miserable existence?” he asked after a handful of seconds.
“Not at this moment,” Varnaythus acknowledged. Fresh contempt guttered in Anshakar’s eyes, and the wizard cocked his head. “I know where he is and what his general plans are, but not even the best scrying spell can reveal things which have yet to be decided. If you wish, I can continue to monitor him and send you word when he actually leaves Hurgrum to join their army here in the Ghoul Moor. Should I do so?”
Anshakar waved one clawed hand in a brusque gesture of agreement, and Varnaythus inclined his head ever so slightly again.
“Very well, my art and my agents are at your disposal in that much. I would, however, remind you of the importance of timing in this matter. They’ve made it clear They wish your presence here to remain unsuspected until all the other parts of Their plan are prepared and ready.”
“My Master made that plain enough, Wizard. Just as He made it plain”-Anshakar glared at him-“that He would have little patience with any delays on your part. We are here, these miserable ghouls are prepared, and I thirst for the blood of yet another champion. It’s been too long since the last one. I advise you not to waste my time or my Master’s, or when this is done, you will answer to me.” He bared his fangs. “No matter where you may hide, in any universe, I can find you, Wizard, and if I do, you’ll take little joy from our meeting.”
“I never waste Their time, Anshakar,” Varnaythus said coldly, “and you might find me somewhat more formidable than you think, here in my own world. Nor do I think Milady would look kindly upon any attempt on your part to damage one of Her servants without Her permission.” He smiled thinly. “I readily acknowledge that you could destroy me whenever you chose, but I doubt even you would wish to face Her afterward.”
A deep, rumbling growl grated up out of Anshakar’s chest, and Varnaythus allowed his smile to grow a bit broader.
“And with that, Anshakar, I bid you farewell,” he said. “I have other errands to run if I’m to have all of those other parts of Their plan in readiness soon enough to make you happy.”
“Go. Go! ” Anshakar snarled, and Varnaythus spoke the word of command and vanished once more.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Are you sure you don’t want me to sound out the Great Council and the Manthalyr about this, Father?” Sir Seralk Axehammer asked. “If the rumors we’re hearing are even remotely accurate, don’t we need to be taking a strong position against approval of Tellian’s madness?”
Cassan of Frahmahn looked up from his plate and frowned thoughtfully as he contemplated his only son and heir across the breakfast table. Physically, Seralk was very similar to his father, with the same tall, powerful build and gray eyes, although he had his mother’s dark hair. The resemblance was even closer where their attitudes were concerned, and despite his youth-he was not yet twenty-three years old-Seralk fully shared his father’s loathing for the entire Bowmaster clan. He was, however, younger and more impetuous than Cassan. Indeed, he was impetuous enough that he and Sir Trianal Bowmaster had come within less than one hour of meeting one another in a highly unlawful personal combat which would almost certainly have been fatal for one of them. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending upon what the outcome might have been), they’d been in Sothofalas at the time, and Sir Jerhas Macebearer had gotten word of the impending combat in time to have both young men arrested for conspiring to violate the King’s Peace during the Great Council’s session. Before releasing them, he’d extracted a binding oath from both of them-before witnesses-to stay clear of one another for at least two full years. That had prevented a repetition of the challenge Seralk had issued, but it had also poured fresh oil on the fire of his hatred for Trianal and his uncle, which was one reason Cassan had taken such pains to keep him completely separated from his own…deeper plans.
There were other reasons, as well, of course.
“And who on the Council would you be sounding out?” Cassan asked after a moment. “In addition to my own sources, I mean.”
Seralk snorted.
“Father, I don’t begin to have your sources on the Council itself,” he conceded. “But, you know, even the hoariest Councilor tends to have an heir or two floating around. For that matter, even members of the Manthalyr do, although I’ll admit few of them are going to run in the same circles I do. And while you may not have noticed, some fathers have a tendency to share their thoughts with those heirs of theirs.”
“Actually, I have noticed that, now that you mention it. Sloppy of them, but understandable, I suppose,” Cassan said, and heard something like a chuckle from his right, where his daughter Shairnayith had finished her meal and sat lingering with a fresh cup of hot chocolate. “Not that the Manthalyr matters all that much.”
He grimaced in distaste. The Manthalyr, the ancient and traditional assembly of the Kingdom’s commoners, had no real authority where the formulation of the Crown’s policy was concerned, although he supposed a wise monarch at least listened to them. The Manthalyr did have the authority to vote to withhold any Crown tax on any free city or town-or free yeomen, for that matter-if the Crown didn’t listen to its members, after all. And, he conceded sourly, it was far more likely to weigh in in favor of Tellian’s insanity than against it, given the heavy representation of merchants and bankers in the Manthalyr’s membership. The more far-sighted artisans and craftsmen might be wise enough to see what a flood of Axeman-made goods was likely to do to their own livelihoods, but the moneycounters wouldn’t care about that.
If this works out the way Yeraghor and I hope, perhaps it’s time we look into reducing the Manthalyr’s authority still further, he thought. We’d have to be careful how we went about it, but if Tellian succeeds, there’ll be no stopping it from gaining still more power when Markhos hands the entire Kingdom over to the bankers and loansharks! And it’s not like Tellian would mind. He probably thinks that abortion of a “Parliament” they have sitting in Axe Hallow or that “Dwarfmeet” in Dwarvenhame are good ideas!
He brushed the thought aside and made himself smile dryly at his own heir.
“So what you actually have in mind is to take yourself off to Sothofalas to wallow in dissipation with at least a dozen other equally dissipated young blades while peering at them through a drink-induced haze in an effort to pick their brains between goblets of wine in hopes their fathers may have been foolish enough to tell any of them what they were truly thinking. Do I have that approximately correct?”
“Actually, no, Father,” Seralk replied. “I was thinking more of doing that between tankards of ale.”
“Ah! Thank you for the clarification. That’s a much better idea!”
Shairnayith laughed out loud. Seralk grinned and raised his own chocolate cup to his father in a gesture of surrender, and Cassan smiled more broadly back at him. There was nothing at all wrong with his son’s brain when it wasn’t being hampered by his ingrained hostility for all things Bowmaster. It was, perhaps, unfortunate that he was also young enough to make keeping a rein on that hostility such a chancy proposition. Yet that certainly didn’t mean Seralk’s proposal didn’t have much to recommend it, and behind his smile, the baron’s brain was busy.
Actually, he reflected, Seralk’s idea was shrewder than it might have appeared at first glance. The gods knew young men’s tongues wagged freely and fathers-or some fathers, at any rate-sometimes did forget that unfortunate fact when it came to sharing information with their heirs, so it was likely a certain amount of discreet pumping would extract valuable information. Of course, Cassan’s sources were so much better than Seralk could possibly
