"Such as Embra Silvertree?" Baron Phelinndar growled, hands clutching the hilt of his sword, where they always went when he was in need of comfort.
Ambelter nodded. "Or Gadaster Mulkyn, or Dolmur Bowdragon, or even this outlander Talasorn wench who seems to have been made an Overduke of Aglirta when our backs were turned. I have, however, someone other than all of these in mind."
"Oh?" the baron asked, but the Spellmaster had already started to chant a spell, raising his arms out in front of him as if to proffer a chalice or bowl that wasn't there to someone taller than he, who also wasn't present.
The air between his empty hands shimmered restlessly as the incantation rose in volume and urgency, was briefly shot through with sparks, darkened as if a long evening shadow was falling across it… and then thinned to emptiness once more.
Ingryl Ambelter let his hands fall, and then nodded as if satisfied. He seemed to be able to see something Phelinndar could not; all that the casting had achieved, as far as the baron could tell, was to create a certain singing tension in the air that had not been present before.
"Who?" he asked roughly, persisting. "Three take you, Ambelter-have we an agreement, or have we not?"
"We do," the Spellmaster replied curtly. "Patience, please. I'll tell you when I'm done. This series of castings is exacting and precise, and I must keep many things in my mind as I work-or all will be ruined. Rest assured that when I'm done, my intended victim won't have been chosen by the magics; we'll have ample time to debate then."
The two men stared at each other across a cavern that now throbbed and thrummed with magic, an ever-growing din of power that crackled around Ingryl Ambelter as the baron watched-crackled ever more hungrily, though the Spellmaster stood calm and expressionless.
Phelinndar wondered if he was watching a weapon being built before his eyes that could slay him with careless ease-or if Ingryl himself was becoming that weapon. Either way, he stood in peril if he fought the wizard now. Staring into Ambelter's eyes, he nodded slowly.
Ingryl gave him a mirthless smile and then turned to his table and launched into an incantation.
The baron glowered at the mage's back, then sighed, turned away, and found his chair. If he was going to be blasted to ashes before the day ended, there was nothing he could do to prevent it, or to successfully flee and hide… so he might as well wait in comfort.
The Dwaer-Stone was glowing on a little table in a far corner of the cavern, away from Ingryl's spellweavings-but throbbing in time to those building spells. Phelinndar glanced at it, and then walked over and scooped it up. If Ambelter had put some sort of warning spell on it, to alert him if someone other than he touched it, well that was just too bad. Let all his spells be wasted, and let him rage.
If Ingryl was going to have his Sword of Spells, his forgotten and taken-for-granted baronial sidekick was going to have what was his, too: the Dwaer. Phelinndar sat down, swung his booted feet up onto the Melted who'd been made to kneel into a footrest some days ago, drew his sword and laid it ready in his lap-just in case-and hefted the Stone in his hand.
The glows of spell building upon spell rose brightly around the distant Spellmaster. Watching them rise and feeling the matching thrum of rising power in the Stone in his hand, the baron began tossing the Dwaer a handspan into the air and then catching it, tossing it again, and then catching it. A lump of rock that wizards would kill for. Truly, Darsar was strange.
The heart of the cavern was now filled with pulsing, humming lines of glowing magical force that floated immobile in midair, forming a man-sized cage. The baron had seen it built, spell upon spell, watching with increasing alarm, both hands clutching the Dwaer.
If only he knew how to use the thing! Oh, he could hurl blasts of burning or smiting force from it, and use it to spit out mists or light or make him fly… But a wizard could cast any spell he could think of, using the Stone to power it-and Orlin Andamus Phelinndar was beginning to fear two things: that Ambelter could from afar make the Stone blast anyone holding it-including foolish barons-and that this thrumming cage was meant to hold, and somehow torment, no-longer-needed barons. All around him the Melted were swaying forward with each throb of the spell-cage, rocking back between so as to stay in one place without toppling… and the air itself was beginning to feel thick and flowing, building to… what?
Ambelter seemed finished casting spells for the moment. He'd turned back to the table and was removing some small items from his coffer. The baron peered, but couldn't see what they were from such a distance, with the wizard's body half-blocking his view.
He rose, Dwaer in one hand and ready sword in the other, and strode forward, as softly as he could. Halfway across the cavern, as he threaded his way among the motionless Melted, he came to a wary halt as the Spellmaster swung around and displayed what he held. There was a crooked smile on Ingryl Ambelter's face.
"No, good Baron, I'm not thinking of turning on you. Nor should you think to do the same to me-anything you unleash from the Dwaer will be caught by this Sword of Spells and hurled back whence it came, whether I know what you're trying or not. But see!"
He held out his hands. In one was a lock of dark hair-human hair-and in the other was something small and shriveled.
"Skin and hair from the man I hope this Sword of Spells will strike, and possess for us. They'll make certain my pounce pins the right person."
Phelinndar swallowed, and then waved his sword. "Do it," he said shortly.
Ambelter bowed as courtiers do when receiving orders, turned back to the cage, and put the wrinkled, crumbling scrap of skin in a brightness where two lines met, and the hair in another such moot. Both were only empty air, but both held their newfound burdens as if they were ledges or tabletops.
The baron stared at the floating relics and shuddered. This magic could just as easily be used on him-or any man. "And this fortunate dupe is?"
"Ezendor Blackgult," Ambelter said softly. "Baron, sometime regent, and the man I hate most in all Aglirta. I must influence him before the spell I wove on the Dwaer they seized from the snake-lovers wears weak, or they break it. Once he bears a Dwaer, he'll be able to protect himself so I'll not be able to drive this spell-sword of mine home, no matter how stealthy my approach."
Phelinndar shook his head. "I only hope this plot works better than your last."
The Spellmaster gave the baron a cold look above the spell-glows, and then sighed. "As do I," he snapped, turning back to the throbbing cage. "As do I."
The Master of Bats had been laughing-though his mirth had broken off when Craer snatched two bats out of the air with sure hands while drawing level with the open door of the wizard's cell, broke a wing of each before they could bite him, flung them through the doorway, then kicked the door closed with a boom that echoed down the passage.
The rest of the overdukes just kept running, panting past without slowing as that door slammed; they knew Craer would be past them to his usual place at the fore in a few breaths. Up the steps they went, bursting past guards who turned with frowns and lowered glaives in case this clatter of haste meant prisoners loosed, into brightly lit Flowfoam Palace.
"Hold, in the name of the King!" a doorguard bellowed immediately.
"Make way, in the name of the King!" Craer called back, not slowing.
The guard lowered his glaive with a snarl, but the procurer stepped to the left, and then abruptly dodged right and ducked to the floor, under it.