"Greenwood, Ed - Band of Four 4 - The Dragon's Doom e-txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cale Trilogy)

For the first time, the old priest who'd taught so many of them allowed a smile onto his face. "The first spell infects drinkables with something akin to the venom of some rare sorts of snakes, but stronger. Most who imbibe succumb to 'the Malady of Madness' told of in ancient times, the Beast Plague that makes victims lash out at others ere they die. Spread among Aglirtans with the words of 'divine punishment for misrule' you shall whisper, this will serve to weaken the rule of Flowfoam. When the time is right, all of you shall be properly placed, up and down the Vale, to supplant the local authority of the boy king."
Raunthur spoke up. "So much is the plan-so let your various spyings cease. You shall all hear the unfolding details anyway. Salaundius?"
An old priest with a scarred face rose from the benches, nodded respectfully to Raunthur and Caronthom, cleared his throat, and said stiffly, "My tests have been a success. The spells I've worked with can now break the effects of the venom-spell, repeatedly and reliably. I-ah-there is no more to say." He sat down again.
The Fangmaster nodded. "Arthroon?"
A darkly handsome priest rose, smiled coldly, and announced, "Belgur Arthroon, from Fallingtree. The village is small, and accordingly I've been careful to enspell only a select few wine decanters and buckets of water. The results thus far are: success in every attempt. I'll soon be able to report fully on dosages and amounts of various sorts of drink to achieve specific results. As with all such castings, one must follow specific instructions or practice much to acquire a feel for the task."
The Fangmaster nodded, and Arthroon sat down again. "We've been absent from our holds and posts around the Vale long enough," Caronthom said firmly, "so let this council now entertain any other questions, concerns, or desires of the Brethren. Speak, Brothers, ere we break this assembly and confer upon each of you a scroll that holds the venom-spell."
No one rose, but an eager restlessness fell upon the benches. More than one priest leaned forward as if the promised scrolls could be snatched from empty air as a hawk takes a field rat. Caronthom watched, and smiled again. "Then let this council be at an end. Raunthur?"
The elder priest who was called the Wise strode to a door that glowed briefly as he placed his hand on it and then groaned slowly open by itself. "Scrolls, one to each," he said curtly. "No pushing."
Had any priest there dared to demonstrate so fatal a failing as a curious eye, he might have seen a younger priest clutching his precious scroll stride swiftly down a dark and little-used passage, duck through a lightless door and up a stair, and then pass through another door that glowed with guardian-spells every bit as powerful as those Raunthur had used to safeguard the scrolls. Once through it, the young priest extended an arm that reached a full three feet farther than his other arm-or the arm of any human-should have been able to, and pushed at one end of a particular block in the stone wall. It pivoted, swinging open to reveal a cavity behind, and into this he thrust the scroll-and after it, his Serpent-robes.
Once the block was closed again, the naked priest turned away, his face and body sliding into something quite different than it had been. Again he reached out an arm that became much longer than any human arm had any right to be, and opened another pivoting block. A smock, trews, and boots were plucked into view and donned, deft fingers sketched guardian spells over both blocks and the inside of the door that had allowed admittance to this passage, and a farm laborer took six steps, made a particular gesture, and caused a whirlwind of coiling light to spiral into being in the empty air. Through it he stepped-and vanished, the spiral eating itself in his wake.
Only then did a dark, unseen watching eye floating high in one corner of the passage end blink twice, and perform its own vanishing act.
Its far end winked out in another chamber not far away, where another priest stood holding the scroll he'd just been given. "Well, well," he murmured. "A dangerous shapeshifter amongst us. Dear me. Something will have to be done about that."
His face melted and slid into quite a different visage. "Competition can be so harmful."
"Remind me," Hawkril rumbled, "why we must go riding blindly through the Vale again, offering ourselves as targets to all, to search out Dwaerindim. Can't you just use your Stone to seek them from afar?"
Embra sighed. "I can, yes, but unless the bearer of a Dwaer uses it for a very great magic, or is in the act of calling forth its power, or knows no better and is carrying it awake and aflame-for a light in a dark place, say-I cannot see it. If I touch not the powers of my Stone, and keep it hidden, someone using another Dwaer to seek it could stand beside me and not know I carried it. Some tricks offer themselves to anyone who can use two Dwaer in a search, but even then, must be very close to a sought Stone."
Tshamarra nodded. "More than that: One can only see raw Dwaer-power from afar-if its wielder uses it only to power spells of their own casting, one sees nothing."
"What if we sat you in a tower somewhere, guarding and feeding you, and you spent days using your Dwaer to search?" Craer asked.
Embra gave him a smile that held little mirth. "My Stone would be awake all that time. Someone-or something-would almost certainly see me, and come to snatch a Dwaer and slay."
"Thereby coming within our reach," the procurer responded triumphantly, "and allowing us to choose the battlefield!"
The Lady Talasorn sighed. "I doubt they'd herald their arrival, my lord. They'd watch and see just where we all were, and how best to slay us. The first you'd know of any battle would be a Dwaer-blast separating you from your bones."
Craer looked at her-and suddenly beamed from ear to ear, saying brightly, "My, but the Vale's lovely this time of year! I feel a sudden longing to take horse and ride."
Blackgult had said nothing, and continued to do so, but he did- almost-smile.


2

Stones Hunted, Trouble Found



The blacksmith shook his tongs to make sure of his grip, lifted the cooling, darkening bar, and thrust it into the bucket of oil. There was a roar of hissing smoke-into which he spat thoughtfully-and he set his hammer down, straightening with a grunt. "Be ye ready?"
Two men looked up from their last tightenings of the straps and buckles that held the great draft horse. "Aye, Ruld. He's in the harness."
The smith nodded. "Well, then, let's be about it. 'Riverflow stops for no man,' as they say."
"Aye," both farmers replied, completing the saying more or less in unison: " 'Not even if the Risen King commands.' "
Ruld snorted as he strode across his cluttered smithy. "Some 'Risen King'! Risen and gone, like that, an' some fool lad sitting the throne in his place. If they were going to choose any green youngling standing by, they'd've done better to pick a farmer-an' at least have someone who knows crops 'n' harvest and such."
"Aye! Better a Sirl peddler than this boy king," Ammert Branjack agreed, patting the vast flank of his horse in a manner that was meant to be reassuring. "They might as well have chosen a farfaring merchant from half the world away! What were they thinking"
"Ah, that's just it," his friend Drunter said, spitting thoughtfully into a corner heaped with rusty scraps of old metal. "They don't think, up at Flowfoam. If they did, we'd not have half the realm dead, every third brute calling himself baron, and the hissing snake-heads still lurking behind every tree."
"Hoy, now!" the smith growled. "Untrustworthy as the rest an' beloved of talking menace they may be-but the Serpents pay good coin an' do no worse than any baron, an' I've never had a baron fetch me water before, just to be helpful an' not expecting anything in return!" He wiped his brow with a brawny forearm, blinked at the nails splayed out in his hand, and shook his head.
"B'y'Three, but I'm hot today," he growled. "Don't know why... shouldn't be wet as this, after so short at the forge . . ." He took a swig from the longpipe of water on the post two paces from his anvil, gasped, and shook his head again.
"You be looking pale, Ruld," Dunhuld Drunter said helpfully. " Tis all that wenching, I'll be bound!" He tried a grin, but put it away again swiftly when the blacksmith only grunted.
"Ah, but at least the weather's holding up," Branjack offered. "If this keeps on as it looks to, we'll have a good harvest, sure."
The smith spat and shook his head grimly. "An' who'll bring it in, with so many dead? Grain's nothing but a free meal for the gorcraws if it rots in the fields. Sirl merchants won't pay to reap an' husk-an' won't pay fair coin at all, if they can claim there's a glut. Some of them are claiming that already, an' not a plant in the Vale properly showing its own yet!"
"Ah, but Ruld, we've seen war and plundering outlanders and misrule before this-aye, and bad weather too-and there's still enough to fill every belly in Fallingtree, and Aglirta yet stands around us. Oh, barons rise and barons fall, and no doubt there's lives wasted and coins gone that could have been saved if the Kingless Land never saw strife, and a good strong king ruled well from Flowfoam .. . but what man alive has seen that, as the years and years pass? Yet we still have a kingdom that Sirl folk, for all their coins, covet dearly."
"Aye," the smith shot back, a strange green and purplish hue washing momentarily across his face, "yet I doubt me not if Aglirta had seen less foolishness of barons and blood spilled needlessly, the Vale would rule Sirlptar outright, long since, an' we'd all have coins to toss an' roll about in."
"And then ye'd only charge a dozen times what you do now, Ruld," Drunter responded, "as would we all, hey? And where would this golden Aglirta come from, where the gods make barons behave differently than barons have ever done, anywhere? And kept the weather grand, folk friends to all, and the reavers of all Darsar-aye, and the swindlers Sirl city breeds, too-far away?"
The smith shook his head like a horse seeking to drive off persistent flies, and growled again wordlessly as he snatched up hammer and shoe, and approached the horse strapped into the shoeing harness. "Tempt me not into clever answers, friend Drunter," he grunted, as he hung the shoe over the usual hook and caught up the massive hoof to be shod, "an' I'll spin thee no airy tales, hey?"
"Wise words, Ruld," Branjack said quickly, wary of the smith's tone of voice. "Wise words! We'd all do well to-"
The blacksmith straightened, shuddered all over-and then whirled around with frightening speed and laid open Branjack's startled face with one strike of the horseshoe.
With a bubbling scream, the farmer stumbled hastily back-and fell hard on his backside. He landed whimpering in fear and scrabbling to get up and out of the way, but the wild-eyed, sweating blacksmith bounded past him, hammer in hand, and smashed Drunter to the ground with a single blow.
Dunhuld landed hard, his skull crushed like an eggshell. Jaw dangling and eyes gushing blood and brains, he for once-and forever after-had nothing to say.