Raulin Castlecloaks stared at her, his eyes large and dark, and shivered suddenly.
"Secrets, secrets," the Delcamper chambermaid Faerla whispered, her fingers laid carefully across the keyhole of the door that connected their room with Lady Orele's.
Lameira nodded, so close in the darkness that their foreheads almost touched. She was close enough to see Faerla's disapproving expression as her irrepressible friend added mournfully, "Life used to be so simple."
25
A Dragon Over Flowfoam
I trust," Ingryl Ambelter said mildly in the nickering firelight, "you all understand my orders? And the fate awaiting anyone who disobeys them?"
There was a moment of silence, and then the answer came as a thunderous, ragged murmur: "Yes, Great Serpent."
The snake-headed man looked down at them from his newly shaped, emerald-scaled height (Ingryl Ambelter had discovered he rather liked being head-and-shoulders taller than everyone around him) and hissed, "Good. Very good. Now, my Lords of the Serpent, heed me further. Rather than try to whelm armies and march them on Flowfoam, you are to round up all Aglirtans you've managed to infect with Blood Plague, but who you've thus far kept from beast-shape or falling into madness, and give them weapons. I shall do the rest. You shall know my question as to your readiness, when it comes, and I shall expect only one answer."
He let silence hang in the still-shattered chamber for a tightly-smiling moment, and then snapped, "Now go and do this! Hasten!"
Men in robes far more elaborate than his own streamed past the flickering braziers to the door-all but a dozen senior priests, who stepped back from the throng to stand along one wall together. When the doors had been closed behind their departing Brethren, they stepped forward in a small group to face the Great Serpent. Each had mind-heard his personal orders to remain, and so knew without a doubt that this wizard commanded the Thrael, and thereby was the rightful Serpent.
Ingryl’s eyes seemed to meet all of theirs at once. "Is everyone armed sufficiently? The doorpriests can bring you blades if you wish."
There was a general silence. Priests cast glances at each other, but no one stepped forward or spoke.
The Great Serpent nodded. "Good. You deem yourselves ready, then?"
There were nods and murmurs of "Yes, Highest."
"You know what to do, and that the Brotherhood depends on you this day. Fail us all not."
Ingryl Ambelter threw up his hands, arms spread wide dramatically, and sent them all elsewhere. The Thrael allowed him to command the Dwaer without even touching it directly. Such power…
As the glow where the dozen had stood faded, Ingryl Ambelter turned away to stroll and smile.
Well, now. Spellmaster of All Aglirta and Great Serpent of all Darsar. Not too shabby… not shabby at all. The Thrael showed him that his meal was almost ready, and that none of the priests preparing it had dared to introduce taints or poisons. He'd best get to the eating; there was a busy day ahead.
With the Dwaer he'd soon be jumping up and down the Vale, from beacon fire to beacon fire. At each blaze one of the hastening priests-teleporting each other right now to their towns and villages, in a glow of bustling magic so strong that it was almost painful, through the Thrael-would be waiting, with a whelming of armed Aglirtans.
The Dwaer would transport those groups to Flowfoam. When they appeared on the isle, the dozen priests he'd just sent ahead-into hiding in the palace gardens-would quell the magic that stopped plague-madness. The arriving Aglirtans, warriors or ploughmen, would go berserk.
"And so let king and overdukes and all be overwhelmed in loyal subjects, and hewn down," Ingryl Ambelter told the star-scattered sky above him, visible through the riven ceiling. Then he burst into laughter.
The sound brought one of the doorpriests to peer timidly in through the doors. He saw the lone, laughing man grow the beginnings of a tail and rise taller, towering to twice the height of tall armaragors and even more… But as the Great Serpent mastered his mirth, his stature diminished again, and the stump of a tail faded away.
"Cease your useless spying," he told the doorpriest without turning, "and bring me some wine. I shall be in the Hall of Coils."
There was a wink of Dwaer-flash, and the room was empty even before the frightened doorpriest could begin to stammer acknowledgment of the order.
The center of the Hall of Coils was a great pit whose sides were concentric rings of shallow steps, and its walls were adorned with huge snakes, the carved stone heads and coils standing out in some places almost ten feet from the wall. Huge gems enspelled to glow served as the gleaming eyes of those forever frozen serpents, and the tiles underfoot were painted in scenes of triumphs of the faith. Decades of dedicated work, in this room alone. No wonder this place was hidden high in the mountains, where an Aglirtan army would have to fly to come against it in strength.
Ingryl Ambelter smiled again. The Great Serpent. As empty as all titles-but the Thrael, now… worth the dark weight of a fell god's attention, to taste such power. With its web, even now, he could…
"Most Holy Lord?"
He could sip wine knowing it was safe, that's what he could do. Ambelter turned with a smile, took the decanter from the trembling priest, and waved away the goblet and platter with the words, "My thanks. Begone, and keep all others from this chamber."
He did not have to turn around to know when the door opened and closed-or to know that he was alone, without anyone lurking to peer through the scores of spyholes in the walls, floor, and ceiling of the vast room. My, but he'd have slain his way to the top of the Church of the Serpent long ago if he'd known what the Thrael was truly like.
The wine was good-and Ambelter used the Thrael to snatch ready morsels from the platters in the kitchens as he strolled, not waiting for scurrying priests to let things get cold as they raced down long passages and up the many stairs. Yes, this was a life much preferable to the lurking loneliness of an archmage in hiding in a cave, surrounded by the unlovely bodies of stolen dead men held in shuffling servitude by spells.
Soon he'd be lording it in Flowfoam, at the very heart of the great garden that was Aglirta-and using his priests like poisoned daggers to seek out and slay mages in Sirlptar. When he ruled that city, it would be time to take down everyone else in Darsar whose sorcery was strong, his own most capable priests included. Oh, yes, he'd make the Dark One proud of him, and taste the flesh of every woman he fancied in all the world, along the way…
Sated and gloating, Ingryl Ambelter licked sauce from his fingers, drained the last of the decanter, and strolled onto the balcony that opened off the end of the hall.
Under the stars the Vale lay below, long and lushly green and sinuous- and Ingryl smiled down upon it as a flame flared up on a hill not far off. The first beacon fire.
He tossed the decanter over the wide stone balcony rail, and used the Thrael to enjoy every shriek of its splintering destruction on the rocks far, far below. Hefting the Dwaer in his hand, he sprang up onto the rail.
Teetering on the edge of a killing fall, Ingryl Ambelter laughed at all Darsar-and jumped. The Dwaer flashed, and he was gone.
Darkness shimmered in the Hall of Coils, just inside the archway that led onto the balcony, and parted like a veil to let a slender, darkly beautiful maid in a gown step out. Bare bone gleamed in the spell-glows as the head turned, long black hair melting away to nothingness to expose a skull floating above those black-clad shoulders.
The skull-headed sorceress moved in silence, clutching a lump of stone to her breast as she glided forward on bare feet. The splendors of the hall seemed to hold little interest for her; she went straight out onto the balcony.