"You sat guard against the doors, sword in your lap, didn't you?" Tshamarra asked softly, tugging her last garment-a silk jerkin-into place.
"Of course, Lady. 'Twas needful."
There was a gentle chiming as the slowly, silently rolling cage changed again, some of its bars shifting to join other bars in brief flashes of magic, opening up some of the barriers around Blackgult and drawing him in closer… closer to the glowing Stone.
Craer's eyes narrowed. "Who's causing that?"
Hawkril shrugged. "She's asleep, and I dare not try to wake her-so I'd say 'tis the Griffon. It's been proceeding like this since I awakened and fetched you. He was right over yonder, up nigh the wall."
Tshamarra frowned. "So unless Embra's dream-guiding this, or the Stone itself is doing it, or someone unknown is influencing the Dwaer from afar, Blackgult is bringing himself somehow closer to the Stone."
She chewed on her lip for a moment, and then added reluctandy, "There's a spell that might…"
Hawkril shot her a glance. "Do it."
Craer held up a hand in a "stay all for a moment" gesture. "What befell the Griffon? Do we know?"
The armaragor shook his head. "Plague come again to bring rage upon him, or some doing of the Dwaer or the skull-sorceress… Em knows not. She did this to hold him until she could go into his wits and find out, so as to heal."
"I heard him tell Embra about being mind-blasted in a Dwaer-battle," Tshamarra said quietly. "His memory and reason have been coming and going, all this time since. Yet just yestereve I heard an old servant here say the Lord Blackgult now seemed like his old, old self, years younger and smiling again." She shrugged and waved at the chiming, shifting cage. "So if he's doing that, what do we do?"
Craer glanced at her and then called: "Blackgult! Lord Blackgult!" The caged man did not look up, or give any other indication that he'd heard. The procurer frowned, and then shouted: "Old Slyhips!"
Hawkril gave Craer a swift, sidelong look. That had been a name none of Blackgult's troops had dared to use to his face, for fear of being personally beaten before dismissal-a beating that usually involved jaw-breaking, or the removal of teeth, or both.
Again, the Golden Griffon seemed not to have heard.
Craer, Tshamarra, and Hawkril looked at each other grimly as the cage chimed and changed again. Blackgult was definitely being brought closer to the center… where the Dwaer was.
Hawkril gazed up at his longtime lord. The Golden Griffon, for years considered the most desirable, dashing-and dangerous-man in the kingdom. For much of that time Hawkril Anharu had been his most trusted armaragor.
And now, trust was… Hawk sighed, absently tapped the pommel of his sword for a breath or two as he thought hard, and then turned to Tshamarra. "You had a spell?"
The Lady Talasorn nodded. "A way to touch your lady's mind. 'Twill make sure she's unharmed, see if Blackgult or anyone has her in spell-thrall, and wake her if we deem awakening best. It should also tell us if she's still in control of this cage. Whatever we find, the touch of my magic should do her no harm."
Hawkril waved at Embra. "Do it."
"Wake her, too?"
Hawkril eyed the cage as it contracted yet again, set his jaw, and nodded. "Aye. Do that too."
The Lady Talasorn drew the bell-cut sleeves of her jerkin back to her elbows, struck a dramatic pose designed to keep them there, and carefully cast a spell. The cage nickered, the Dwaer flashed with momentary bright fire, and something almost visible sped from it to Tshamarra's fingertips. There it winked silently in a brief, half-seen explosion of phantom sparks, and was gone.
And Tshamarra reeled, winced in pain, and sank to her knees, holding her head.
"Tash?" Craer's hands were cradling her shoulders with falcon-swift speed. She shuddered, groaned, and then sagged into his arms. The procurer shot a look of alarm up at Hawkril, who shrugged helplessly and bent over the stricken sorceress.
"Lady?" he rumbled.
Tshamarra clenched her teeth in a spasm of agony, and then direw back her head, opened her eyes again, and gasped, "Full Dwaer-thrust… my own magic, back at me… Woa-ho, that hurt!"
And then the cage sang. A high, splendid chord of bell-like tones echoed back from the cracked and scorched walls, making all three overdukes look up.
Ezendor Blackgult grinned down at them in savage triumph, dark fire in his eyes-and the Dwaer in his hands. He hung now at the heart of the cage, its glowing bars falling away from him like so many severed strands of spiderweb.
"Griffon?"
"Blackgult?"
He answered their anxious hails with a wordless snarl of triumph and waved the Dwaer as if it was a ball he intended to hurl. Echoing its movements, the cage swirled around him. Then its glowing bars of magic streamed at the slumbrous form of the Lady Silvertree like the boldly reaching tentacles of the great glistening sea-beasts who were wont to snatch and drag sailors and their ships down beneath the waves.
The bright strands fell around Embra in a tangle, a net of entwined and fused force that shocked her awake. She was still gasping and shaking her head to clear it when the Dwaer flashed again-and was gone, Blackgult with it!
Embra screamed, and reached vainly for the empty air where it had been, shaking her head now in denial.
Tshamarra peered up at her, face still twisted in pain. "Em? How can I free you from that? I… I don't know if I can work magic, just now…"
The Lady of Jewels bent her head, drew in a deep, shuddering breath, and then said slowly, "No. Save yourself the pain. I can… Hawk, are you there?"
"Lady," the armaragor growled, shoving forward against the collapsed cage of glowing magic until its power brought him to a halt, flaring warningly, "I am. How can I help?"
"Use a rope or something, and drag me down through all this, until I can touch the floor-or a wall. Then keep back. Whatever you do, don't try to charge through what's left of my cage to reach me."
The armaragor frowned for a moment, and then spun around and charged across the room, slipping and sliding over rubble, to snatch up fallen tapestries. Some of them still sported great gilded and tasseled pullcords, and he sliced these from them with grunts of satisfaction, tossing them back over his shoulder to where Craer could scurry and catch each one up, knotting them together with swift skill.
The two men returned in a surprisingly short time with the heavy rope in their hands, and tossed it up into the cage… where, despite Craer's shrewd throw, it tangled in dozens of glowing strands of force-strands that hung motionless, no matter how hard the two men tugged. Tshamarra staggered to her feet as she watched them struggle, bewilderment on her face.
"A stone," Embra called. "Knot it around a stone, and throw it over me, so it falls onto me."
"But Em-"
"After what I've been through this night, and the burning these strands are dealing me now," the Lady Silvertree said patiently, "getting hit in the face with a rock will seem like a child's caress. Truly. Now tie the grauling thing around a stone!
In sudden haste the procurer and the armaragor complied, and then Craer swallowed, swung the rope a few times-and threw, hard and high.
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.