Falconfar 03-Falconfar (43 page)

Zorzaerel nodded. "Aye! What if some noble decides to fling more coin than any of us will ever see in our lives, and hires one of the real wizards, from across the sea? This Taervellar of the Talons, now, or the wizard-king, Ommaunt Barlaskeir?"

Glorn nodded, but raised one wagging finger. "Tales have a way of growing in the telling. I wonder, now, just how powerful those two truly are."

Eskeln shrugged. "Takes cunning and strong spells to stay king for long," he said, eyeing the gems. "Otherwise, those who fear you always move from thinking they'd be safer if they put a blade through you to doing it."

"Takes real power to sink four ships sailing hard up your behind," Tarlund added, "So I'd say this Taervellar is full coin for their fear of him."

"I," Roreld said grimly, "fear someone else rather more: Lord Archwizard Lorontar. Whom I have a strong suspicion is not as dead as we all hope him to be."

TETHTYN ELDURANT SMILED the sort of bright, ruthless smile he'd seen the Lord of Hawksyl use, when politely giving men a choice between obeying him or dying. "Tell us, man! Or—"

He raised his free hand like a claw, fingers jabbing at the man's face as though casting a spell, and tightened his other hand around the man's throat.

Mori Ulaskro gave the man a matching smile, over Tethtyn's shoulder.

Their captive gargled helplessly. Still maintaining his grin. Tethtyn loosened his grip, so the man could speak.

"Tell you what? You're a pair of fucking lunatics, you know that? Wh—"

"If this 'loonatiks' means wizards, yes we are," Tethtyn agreed. "Which means you know quite well what we can do to you. Which in turn means, I trust, that you will give us an answer— the right answer, your best answer, holding nothing back—to our questions. Now, I'll ask again: where is this 'Diznaekartouns,' the fortress that holds Saetannik cultists?"

The man stared at him, then at Mori. "This is a joke, right? Hidden camera, you'll be showing it on the Internet, all of that?"

He looked desperately from Mori to Tethtyn, and then back again. Then he twisted and squirmed in a sudden frenzy, and slammed his leg up into Tethtyn's crotch, in the hardest kick the underscribe's inexpensive codpiece had ever endured, and tore his way free.

Tethtyn flung out one hand to grab the man's shoulder—and found himself clutching a torn scrap of collar as the man sprinted away across the parking lot.

Mori sighed, raised his hand, and firmly declaimed the words Lorontar's cold voice had whispered in his head.

The air around the running man erupted in a sudden burst of flame, as severe as it was sudden. Legs ran crazily beneath a writhing, darkening fireball, then collapsed into a rolling mass that settled to the pavement amid greasy smoke.

Tethtyn and Mori exchanged glances, and then sighs.

"Do they all want to die?" Tethtyn waved his hands in exasperation. "Is answering questions that hard for them?"

Mori shrugged, frowned and dropped into a crouch, peering past Tethtyn. The other mage spun around to see the new peril.

It was one of the warriors in the dark uniforms with the caps, popping up from behind a parked car with a gun aimed at them, held in both hands.

"Freeze! Police! Get down! Face down on the ground, hands above your head and spread apart!"

The yelling continued. "I saw that! You killed him! Dealer gone bad on you, huh? Goddamn druggies, think you can—"

"Put the wand away," Tethtyn ordered crisply.

"The... gonne!" Mori snapped. "Drop it! Now!"

The cop thought he'd been shouting as loudly as he knew how, but disbelieving rage lent him new reserves of volume and authority.

"You don't give orders here!" he bellowed, waving the gun. "I do! Now get down! Down on the ground, with your hands away from your sides, or I'll shoot!"

Neither Mori nor Tethtyn even bothered to point their fingers. Two spellbolts streaked to the same target.

The explosion was louder, brighter, and shorter this time.

Tethtyn just sneered and turned away, but Mori strolled to where he could look down on the smoking corpse, and told it gently, " Wizards give the orders, fool. That's how it works."

"My lord?" His most loyal bodyguard—Hondreth, the only one he trusted enough to have here in the room with him—was offering him a large goblet.

Lordrake Anthan Halamaskar waved away the proffered wine impatiently, shifted in his large and comfortable chair, and went on gazing into the fire blazing lazily in the great hearth. "No, no more. I'll need a clear head for this. One does not treat with mighty wizards casually. Or rather: not twice."

"I'm sorry, Master," Hondreth murmured. "It was just that you seemed, ah, a trifle unsettled—"

"I am a trifle unsettled. He should be here by now, if he's coming at all... and if he's not coming, has he decided to tell someone else of my offer?"

"Never think that, Lord of Maurpath. I do not tell tales." That voice was as cold and sharp as it was unexpected, and made both lordrake and bodyguard flinch, the latter aghast that someone had managed to somehow enter the room without his knowing. He should have at least sensed—

"You can take your hand off your blade," the same voice informed him calmly, "or you can die. Choose wisely."

The bodyguard flung his hand away from his sword as if its hilt had caught fire, looking around the room wildly for the intruder. The fire was casting wild shadows in the lofty lodge chamber, which was crowded with man-high mirrors and life-sized statues, but he'd not seen—

Quite suddenly, a lean, sharp-featured man with the gleaming black eyes of a hawk, peering out from beneath bristling brows, was standing calmly before them, hands hooked through the belt of his black leathers.

"Halavar Dreel, I presume?" Lordrake Halamaskar asked dryly, suddenly wishing he had that goblet in his hand after all. To toy with. Or clench.

It wasn't that he was a complete stranger to treason. Far from it, if truth be known, but wizards were... wizards.

WITH THE CASTING almost done and the last few words coming with careful precision, Belard Tesmer allowed himself a wry smile. The trick hadn't been worming how to cast a mind-swaying magic out of the wizard. A simple bag of gems had taken care of that.

Nor had it been killing Sarchar "Lord of Spells" to get the gems back, afterwards. His dagger was sharp, and throat-slitting was almost routine for him by now.

No, the trick was catching his sister asleep. Well and truly asleep, deep enough in slumber that he could stand over her, murmur things, and even touch her without having her wake before his casting was done. There were times, these last few days, when Belard had begun to think Talyss Tesmer never slept. He'd tried tiring her out by pouncing on her for slap-and-tickle again and again, but beyond making her yawn a little amid her delighted gasps and squeals, that only achieved wearing himself out.

Yet he'd managed it at last, largely by finding a loft in one of the ruined wings of Galathgard and getting a good long sleep while Talyss was scampering around the castle spying on who was arriving, what dangerous knights, mages, and skulkers they'd brought with them, and who most hated whom.

It had hardly been news to discover that very few Galathan nobles loved their fellow highborn enough even to be civil to more than a handful of closest allies, but Belard and Talyss needed to know which hatreds ran deepest, and who would be more pragmatic than vengeful, when it came to regicide and the scramble for the crown that was sure to follow.

They had agreed it was time to draw back into the shadows and just watch and wait, as more and more of the mighty of Galath arrived for the Great Court. It was time to let Dunshar take the blame for their actions. Feuding Falconaar of any realm had a habit of standing together long enough to hurl down strangers, before turning back to savaging each other.

He had to touch her to complete the casting, and did so now, trusting in his lowered breeches and where he was touching her to fool her, should she awaken.

Talyss stirred, moved languidly among the tangled linens, then smiled faintly and fell still again.

Quelling a sigh of relief, Belard caught up his breeches and turned away in silence, to get himself out of the room before Talyss should awake.

Sarchar hadn't played him false. Belard had read over this spell often enough after killing the dusky-skinned Tammarlan to be sure of that.

So when he needed his sister's obedience, in time to come, all he need do is speak the secret phrase—and Talyss would be compelled to obey him utterly.

Well and good. Another step forward.

There'd need to be some careful steps ahead, to be sure. Deciding when and how to tell Talyss about the unfortunate accident that had befallen Sarchar, for one.

She'd been gleefully looking forward to devising new and interesting uses they could put the self-styled Lord of Spells to, in the unfolding years to come.

Slipping like a shadow down one of the dark servants' passages that ran through the darkness of Galathgard's back chambers, Belard decided it was a pity, in a way, that Sarchar was going to miss them.

"HALAVAR DREEL, I presume?" the noble sitting in the great chair before the fire asked, trying to sound dry and confident and fearlessly amused.

"Of course," the lean man in black leathers replied, his voice sharp. "Just as you are one of all too few lordrakes in Galath, and this is your most trusted bodyguard, Palavar Hondreth—trust that is well-placed, by the way. And while we're indulging in pleasantries, know this, too: I don't think much of your taste in hunting lodges, Lord of Maurpath."

He waved at the mirrors and crudely sculpted statues arranged around the room, then overhead to include the dusty menagerie of animal heads hanging from the rafters.

"I inherited it," Lordrake Halamaskar replied shortly. "The lodge, not the taste. After all, I deal with wizards."

"I have not failed to notice that doing so has become fashionable among the highborn of Galath. Yet you at least demonstrate the discernment to look to me—and, if things have not changed, meet my terms?"

"Things have not changed," Halamaskar replied curtly. "Your payment awaits beneath yonder tabletop. Thirty-six stormstones, none of them smaller than my eyeball. One stone for each year of your life, Lord Wizard?"

"Thus far," came the dry rejoinder, accompanied by a casually imperious gesture, directing that the tabletop be lifted.

"Thus far," the lordrake agreed, waving Hondreth forward to see to the table.

Slowly and carefully the impassive bodyguard swung the smooth, polished top of the table upwards. It moved on concealed hinges, rising to reveal a shallow recess half-full of fading maps—upon which had been arranged, each on its own scrap of finest linen, thirty-six gleaming stormstones.

One could have a large keep built for what it cost to buy just one stormstone. Stormstones drank lightning, and magics that hurled lightning, and held a winking, smoky-silver radiance that shamed the finest jewelry. Only a handful of men in Galath—none of them not highborn—could have afforded, even sacrificing most else, to buy more than three or four stormstones outright. Dreel did not ask the lordrake how he'd come by so many; he had long ago learned to quell the curiosity of his youth.

"They're real," Halamaskar said confidently.

"I know," Dreel replied flatly.

"So as I understand your scheme," he added, "I am, in exchange for these stones, to impersonate King Brorsavar as we ride into Galathgard together. At that time, and thereafter so long as we remain in the castle, you will surround us both with your bodyguard. Who will strive to protect me every whit as diligently as they defend you."

"Yes," the lordrake agreed eagerly. "And while wearing the likeness of the king, you'll follow my directions as to which nobles to summon to your side for private parley, one by one."

"When I'll slay them with my spells—privately—and so eliminate those of your fellow Galathan nobles you most want dead. Which may well include those most likely to stand between you and the throne of Galath."

"Quite likely," Halamaskar replied calmly, nodding. He frowned slightly, and added, "Yet I see another query in your eyes, Lord Wizard. As we're speaking plainly..."