The Stone grew warm almost immediately, and glowed, ever so slightly… and then white warmth was all around Phelinndar, and he was falling gently through it, through mists and drifts of cloud, toward some unseen place ahead where the light was brighter…
Brighter and more blue, a light that leaped with arcing, flowing energy, like lightning bolts sprayed from an invisible storm to stab all around him…
If only he knew how to use this lump of rock that wizards so lusted after, to hurl castle-shattering spells as they did!
A sword was a sword-oh, there were skills to learn to use it well, but any fool could pick one up and see which end was sharp and which end one gripped, and could swing and jab and slash empty air or some defenseless tree and in five breaths know how to use it to-clumsily, aye, but surely-slay!
But magic, now… magic was like swinging a snake instead of a sword, and wondering when it would turn and fang the hand that held it.
Baron Phelinndar was suddenly sweating so hard that drops were falling from the end of his nose. He snarled silently at those whirling lightnings. All he wanted was to speak with an old friend and arrange a place to run to, if he ever broke purpose with the Spellmaster snoring yonder-and somehow managed to live.
Hulgor was the man he needed. Good old Hulgor, who'd demand his price but be true to the bargain, once struck. They'd made many a coin together when Baron Orlin Andamus Phelinndar had been only Orlin Breselt, Tersept of Downdaggers. That first chance meeting in Sirl town had won him his only trustworthy trading partner-sharp when making deals, but true to every last coin and letter once they were sealed. That florid face was probably age-blotched by now, the sword-gray hair going white…
The Dwaer-mists grew suddenly darker, rolling to frame a gap or window of empty white light that grew larger, brighter, and then shot through with colors. Green, mosdy… yes, 'twas showing him someone clad in green: a man in a richly embroidered dark green doublet… a man now turning away, a golden flagon as large as a chamberpot in his hand.
Hulgor! Yes, 'twas Hulgor Delcamper to be sure-and by the looks of him, as large, florid, quick-tempered, brawling, and wine-loving as ever! Hulgor's hair was almost entirely white, and his skin was wrinkled, but there were no blotches or staggerings, nor anything about him that told the world "old" or "infirm" or "unsteady." His fierce brown eyes were still hawk-alert.
Hulgor strode through a doorway and was gone. Phelinndar furiously desired to keep Hulgor in sight, glaring down at the mists and blue lightnings and shifting windows of light. There was a brief whirling of Dwaer-mists, and then he was seeing Hulgor in another room, large and richly paneled and lit with many candles.
Those flames flickered in many-spired silver candelabra fashioned like castles with many turrets-castles that looked to be about three feet high, as they rose up from long, mirror-smooth wooden tables. Hulgor looked restless, and stumped down this dining hall glaring at portraits of women who looked just as irritated to be up on the walls as he did to be looking at them. This must be Varandaur, the great Delcamper family castle that faced the stone city of Ragalar across a bay. Wasn't a Delcamper a friend to the boy king? A bard?
Flaeros, that was his name. He must be nephew to Hulgor. Hmm. Perhaps Varandaur would not prove so safe a bolt-hole after all…
Well, 'twasn't as if this particular baron had a great array of folk he could trust, to call on. Phelinndar sighed. In fact, 'twas Hulgor or no one, if one spread blunt truth bare before the gods.
"Hulgor," he hissed, willing the old noble to hear him. "Hulgor!"
The man in green stiffened and then shot a dark, suspicious glance over his shoulder. Then he turned to follow it, and stalked down the room, peering in all directions.
"Hulgar!" Phelinndar whisper-shouted, trying to will himself into the old man's way. The Delcamper man came to an abrupt stop, as if he'd seen something in front of him, and stared at Phelinndar-or through him.
Hear me, the baron willed, and see me. Let me hear you. Hulgor's lips were moving-angrily, by the looks of them-but Phelinndar could hear nothing. Nothing but softly swirling mists, like distant waves lapping on a beach.
Three look down! Bebolt this grauling Stone, anyway, and all such things! Why should mages swagger around hurling doom with them, and all the rest of Asmarand have to bow and cringe or the? Why couldn't a baron-
"Downdaggers!" Hulgor Delcamper growled in astonishment, stealing a quick glance at his flagon as if drinking the wine might have brought him this vision.
"Yes!" Phelinndar shouted. "It works! It works!"
The old man in green winced. "Magic! I forgot you're a baron now, Downdaggers. I suppose some spell-bauble came with your keep and blazon and all. What's afoot?"
"Plenty, Hulgor, and I need your help. I've got something powerful that the Spellmaster of Silvertree-the worst of the Dark Three, remember?- very much wants. I'm living in his lair right now, wondering how much longer he'll put up with me."
"Run," Hulgor suggested, taking a quick swig of wine.
"Not yet, but soon-and I need somewhere to run to."
Old Delcamper eyes narrowed. "So you want me to imperil the ancestral seat of my family for you, hey, and court Spellmasters as foes? You'd be thinking of coins and gems and the like to make such colossal idiocy worth my while, now, wouldn't you?"
The baron winced. "I'm a poor man, Hulgor…"
"The old gambits are the good ones, hey?" The old noble grinned. "Well, so am I. As my teeth fall from my head and my body hunches and my skin sags, young lasses no longer leap lustfully upon me as they once did, and I've heard of a spell that'll fix all that. I'll need a Sirl thou-sandweight in gold to get it, mind you…"
Phelinndar gave a little crow of laughter. "Hulgor, what're you drinking?"
"Something my sisters brought back from their last shopping voyage, south," the noble growled. "The one we're all still paying for. Better make that two thousandweights…"
"Two Sirl thousands? Hulgor, you must be mad!"
They were both grinning, now, and Hulgor almost rubbed his hands as he sampled his flagon again, sighed in pleasure, and said, "Pity you can't taste this, old friend. But of course in decadent Aglirta every last baron must have cellars of stuff almost as good, just lying there to be sold to passing barge traders for, say, three Sirl thousandweights…"
"Four once more," Craer murmured, looking around the room. "Your turn in the Band of Four, my lady."
"I know." Tshamarra's voice was low. "I'll try not to fail you."
Embra shook her head. "Don't let your sly-tongued lord upset you, Tash; you earned your welcome long ago. My father's better placed guarding the King-and running Aglirta for all of us. We need your spells and your… ah, fire."
Tshamarra smiled. "Thanks. I think."
Craer put an arm around her-and for once, she didn't slap it away. Thus emboldened, he asked, ''Em, why exactly are we here? An empty chamber, quite secluded… is this another of your rend-the-sky-with-spells sessions?"
The Lady of Jewels smiled as she guided Hawkril to stand in a particular spot in the large, bare, and dusty hall. "Ah, so perceptive, Lord Longfingers. 'Tis time to try another Dwaer-tracing. We're back to one Stone, yes, but here, with the doors barred to keep out guards and the like, we can also use any spells Tash and I cast-and the Living Castle enchantments."
"Do yon locks and bars keep out Koglaur and bats?" Craer's voice was skeptical.
"Craer Delnbone, will you stop crying gloom for once? I can't think of any other way to avoid rambling around the Vale just waiting for trouble to find us, so…"