– the Serpent was choking his slow way to the ground, with the hilt of Craer's dagger under his chin and a look of hurt disbelief in his eyes. Craer used his second blade to slash at the man's fingers, spoiling any desperate last spell the priest might have been trying to cast-and then saw a shimmering in the air beyond the tree the priest had been crouching behind.
There was a face in that roiling of the air, but Craer saw only the coldly furious regard of one eye ere the shimmering turned and shrank in on itself, collapsing into-
Nothing but a spark or two, as Craer savagely plunged his blade through the air where it had been, snarling and hacking, hacking, hacking…
"Craer?" The voice behind him was Tshamarra's, and it was low but laced with alarm.
The procurer whirled around, dancing to one side out of long habit in case someone was planning to put a shaft or lance through him as he turned. His lady stood alone, the Dwaer spinning above her left shoulder, shaking her head with a wry smile on her face. "Did you see who it was?"
Overduke Delnbone shook his head. "A man, not someone I know. He saw me. Another Serpent-priest, of course, probably this one's superior. That was a talking magic, wasn't it?"
Tshamarra nodded, and then embraced him. As their lips met, his hands tightened on her hips, and she murmured something wordless and held him tighter, lips working against his, until-
"I can't think any of this is calming the horses," Blackgult observed calmly from just behind the Lady Talasorn.
She stiffened, and Craer lifted his mouth from hers to give his onetime lord master a rather cold look. Blackgult crooked an eyebrow-and then grinned like a pranksome lad and turned away.
A startled Craer saw Hawkril smiling at him from the road, and Embra sighing and crooking a beckoning finger. The Dwaer floated to her, and Tshamarra turned swiftly in the procurer's arms, feeling it move-and then relaxed. "Lord Blackgult," she said after a moment, her voice holding a clear warning, "I shall devote some time, as we ride on, to considering what's most suitable to say to you."
"But of course," the Golden Griffon replied with a courteous bow, as he took the reins of his horse and prepared to mount. "I'd expect nothing less-and my as-yet-unspoken reply awaits you."
"Oh, thank the Three," Embra observed sarcastically to the cloud-studded sky. " 'Tis wonderful to discover my father, under his armor, fame, and years of swaggering wooing, is just another Craer."
'Just?" Craer demanded indignantly. "Just? Lady Embra, I begin to regret deeply that I ever broke into your bedchamber to steal your gowns I do!"
"No," Hawkril rumbled, "you just regret that we got caught. I don't, though." He grinned at his lady, and added unnecessarily, "I can hear again."
Embra looked at Tshamarra, and the two sorceresses rolled her eyes together.
"Bowdragons have always been masters of magic," Maelra answered the Spellmaster, a trifle stiffly. "We were archmages in Arlund before there was an Aglirta, kingless or otherwise."
That earned her his soft smile. "How nice," he purred, in a tone that was anything but. "Yet you'd do well to remember that a tradition of sorcery and mage-lore, while vital to all who work magic, means nothing to the accomplishments of any one practitioner. Do the Wise rule realms, or advise kings daily at court, or dictate policies by their very presence and feared powers?"
He strode across the room, and then turned and snapped, "No. 'Tis archmages who can truthfully claim such accomplishments. Twas an arch-mage that made this" he added, lifting the Dwaer, "and now an archmage wields it-alongside a baron."
Those last three words sounded like a hasty addition to Maelra, and no doubt they did to both of her hosts, given the way Ambelter flushed and the Baron Phelinndar strode swiftly to his side, to lay a firm hand on the Dwaer.
"In short, young Bowdragon, many may prance and take airs in their attempts to gather importance and to cow warriors and petty rulers. But those who work magic know better: beyond our ability to guide and harness the forces we call 'magic,' we're none of us special. We're simply masters of greater or lesser amounts of technique, experience-and power."
The Spellmaster made the Dwaer flame, causing Phelinndar to flinch and shrink back, favoring Ambelter with a dark look. " This is power, little one," Ambelter continued, ignoring the baron. "With it, we're mighty; but even without it, as men of Aglirta, we've more experience and expertise in the hurling of spells and of their precise consequences and effects than all of your uncles put together. Your sire and his brothers practice magic at leisure, exploring as they will-but the good baron and I confront magic in battle almost daily, and constantly work with it, straining spells to their utmost and reshaping them for new uses. Bowdragons may master magic out of pride, and take the time to hone castings and details we cannot… But if we make a single mistake, 'twill mean our deaths-and yet here we are, very much alive."
He took a step toward her. "If our paths are to run together for the nonce, 'tis best that you respect our power properly, so obedience to us will become your watchword, and pride in your heritage be set in its rightful place: a comfort to you, but not a throne you can relax upon, or a mirror you can sneer at yourself in. You should rightly take pride only in what you alone have done-and the way to win such pride is to follow our orders, and in that doing come to be someone your uncles will regard with awe."
The Spellmaster glanced at the baron, a silent signal that brought Phelinndar forward until they stood side by side once more, each with a hand on the Dwaer-Stone. "Watch, and taste just a little of the power we wield," Ambelter added, as the Stone flared into brilliance that should have blinded Maelra, but instead somehow surrounded her with white, gleaming light-as if she was enveloped in clear, interlocking gemstones large enough to meet above her head.
She gasped in wonder, narrowing her eyes in case this glory might become a flash to blind her-for she'd truly be an obedient slave to these two men then, if they desired her so-but instead each facet around her kindled an inner flame that built until it became a different scene of somewhere in Asmarand. Countrysides seen from castle ramparts, seacoasts where boats wallowed past on rolling waves, mossy and overgrown ruins in deep forests, dark fastnesses lit by flickering torches, busy markets with cobbled streets… all of them windows onto living vistas where birds flew, winds blew, and folk strode and waved and pointed.
She cried out in pleasure, seeking to peer at several scenes at once. But even as she did everything shimmered, the scenes flowing into their constituent hues, and she heard Ingryl Ambelter cry out-with anger and surprise, not pleasure.
"What is it?" Baron Phelinndar snapped, his voice somehow distant and echoing.
Ambelter was closer. Maelra could feel as well as hear his reply as he said, "Another Dwaer, very close by! We must-"
Then their converse shifted, plunging into a bright but private thread of thoughts, not voices, that Maelra could not follow. She could still feel, though, through the rushing of shifting radiances and flowing, swirling power-and she beheld, across a dimness that could only be a place where the power of the Dwaer was not present, a rising, rushing arc of power akin to what she was caught up in, but somehow subtly different…
That must be the other Dwaer, or rather its power unleashed-and this, here beside her, rising in urgency and brightness, must be whatever Ambelter and Phelinndar felt they "must" do with their Dwaer to… to…
Lash out, in a burst of ruby-red and defiant power that shook Maelra with its might even as it thrilled her… clawlike bolts that slashed at that other flood, stabbing across the darkness between like fingers of lightning, seeking to disrupt!