Ed Greenwood: The Dragon's Doom

That light promptly faded and Died-only to be replaced by a brighter, more golden radiance flooding from Tshamarra's fingers.

"Spare your trouble," the chained man said, more wearily than bitterly. "I'm not going to try anything-not with a Dwaer-Stone that can blast me to spatters, or cook my mind like spittle sizzling into a fire, close enough to almost brush my nose. I'm guilty of occasional ambition, not utter foolishness."

"Indeed. Wizards rise and fall in the Vale as the years pass," Baron Blackgult said, "and the Serpent returns, and the Faceless and outlander mages alike clash and scheme-and yet the Master of Bats lives on. Powerful enough to hurl back those who'd seize your power by force, and wise enough not to step into anyone's trap."

"Save yours, Band of Four-and Blackgult. Or are you a member, good Baron, and this wench whose magic now constrains me the fifth, the outsider? I'd not heard that the boy king was proclaiming new overdukes… but then, I've not had the leisure to hear or see much of anything in the Vale this last while, with you hunting me. And if, as you say, I'm so wise as not to put a foot wrong, why this chasing and capturing? I was unaware that I'd slighted the Young Majesty. What quarrel has he with me?"

"None to speak of, Huldaerus," the Baron Blackgult replied grimly. "Yet your power is a danger to Aglirta of the sort we can no longer ignore. With shapeshifters busy and dozens of threats still menacing the River Throne like drawn blades, it's time-and past time-to scour the realm, collecting foes of the crown… or wizards who refuse to kneel to King Raulin and pledge loyalty. Your refusal was, you must admit, rather spectacular." He examined one of the chains critically, and told it, "At last, we're gathering enemies before they show up in the Throne Chamber with swords or flaring spells in their hands."

The Master of Bats made a face, his hands trembling from the force of a surreptitious attempt to tear free of his manacles. "So if I go upstairs right now and kiss the royal slipper and say the right words, I can go free? Surely 'twould have been easier to try that first, ere-"

"No, Arkle Huldaerus," the Lady Silvertree said softly but firmly. "Things might be different if you meant your pledge, and so swore loyalty in all heartfelt honesty, but this Dwaer can power spells I'd not dare to weave-or trust-by myself, and it has told me one thing very clearly, more than once since your capture: You feel no shred of loyalty or fair feeling to the King, or to Aglirta."

"So that's why you were forever asking me to swear fealty, or if I would-or could," the chained wizard murmured, his face now flushed deep red from his inverted position. "I thought you meant it as some sort of taunt."

"No," Embra told him calmly, "you thought nothing of the kind. You thought we were trying a new spell on you, to urge you to loyalty. You also thought that we were a lot of fools who'd be tyrants if we weren't so addle-witted, that this Dwaer was wasted in our hands, and that you'd been very clever thus far to hold back when Serpent and Dragon were contesting on Flowfoam, and in the troubles before that. You then went on to think that you were quite clever enough to weather this latest storm of foolishness on our part, and break free with the aid of the three bats that, even now, you're concealing upon yourself."

"My, my, that unlovely lump of rock shows you everything, doesn't it?" the Master of Bats replied, more wearily than mockingly.

"Three bats?" Craer snapped. "Where? I felt him all over, good and proper, and graul if I think he could have hidden even one of the little chitterers from me. Where did he hide them?"

"Right now," Embra replied, "they're under his manacles, where the metal will best hide them from us. Before, when you were searching, they were in a dark place we all have, that's fashioned for expelling what our bodies are ready to be rid of."

"Why," Tshamarra murmured, "am I unsurprised?" She watched Craer slip a long dagger under one manacle and slide it around the trapped wrist swiftly. A dark wing twitched momentarily into view, and then its owner exploded out of the other side of the manacle-and burst into blood that became threads of smoke in an instant, as Embra frowned, waved a hand, and her Dwaer flashed.

Anger darkened the face of the chained man, but he launched no futile struggle this time. Craer drove forth the other two bats, and they met similar ends. "He can fashion more of them from this, can't he?" he murmured, plucking at the wizard's dark and much-crumpled robes, and holding up his knife meaningfully, but Embra shook her head.

"No, Craer," she said. "I'm not going to be so cruel as to leave a man bared down here, to shiver in the dark and be dead in two hand-counts of days."

"No," the wizard told her flatly, "you're only going to be cruel enough to let me starve here, forgotten, until my bones fall out of these chains one by one onto yon floor-unless, of course, this dungeon has crawling gnaw-worms or other little welcoming beasts who'll come out to feed as soon as you take the torch away."

"I've almost as little liking for this as you do," Ezendor Blackgult told him heavily, "believe me. Or not, as is your right. You'll be fed regularly, rotated upright, and we will visit you from time to time, to ask questions-and perhaps, if your manner permits it, share news with you of events in the Vale."

"You realize," the wizard asked calmly, eyes moving from face to face, "how dangerous a foe you're making, don't you?"

"Huldaerus," the Lady Silvertree replied coolly, "we know how dangerous a foe you already are. You may have forgotten your casual cruelties at Indraevyn and since-as they seem to matter so little to you-but I haven't."

Eyes that held coiling flames of fury fixed on hers, but their owner's voice was as icily calm as Embra's as he responded, "And so 'tis time for you to practice casual cruelties upon me now, is that it?"

"I can cast a spell upon you that will keep you in dreams, if you desire," the Lady of jewels replied gently. "It will seem as if no time is passing, in the times when you're not being actively roused by someone."

"No," the Master of Bats said firmly, "I would rather hang here and brood. Perhaps I can come to see my folly and even to embrace King Raulin Castlecloaks in my heart, if you leave me here long enough. Perhaps."

"You're refusing a spell of dream-sleep," Tshamarra Talasorn asked carefully. "Are you sure you want to do that, Master Wizard?"

"Quite sure, Lady," the upside-down man chained to the wheel replied politely. "I am the King's captive, arrested and brought here to my imprisonment by his loyal overdukes, my freedom taken from me to make Aglirta the safer. I want time to think on that."

"Very well. We shall depart, and leave you to it," the Baron Blackgult said, and turned away.

Craer watched the chained man carefully, and saw what he'd expected: Huldaerus open his mouth to say something-anything-to keep their company longer. Thereafter followed the next thing he'd expected to see: the wizard close his mouth again without saying a word, and smooth his face over into careful inscrutability once more.

Oh, yes, the Master of Bats was good at what he did. Conferring with a few swift, wordless glances, the Band of Four and Tshamarra reached agreement and paced to the cell door together. Hawkril and Craer drifted to the rear, hands on hilts, to watch their prisoner narrowly.

He stared right back at them, his expressionless gaze almost a challenge. As Craer started to swing the cell door closed, the torch already behind him and the darkness coming down, the procurer saw the captive wizard's mouth tighten in angry anticipation of whatever taunt Craer might leave in his wake.

Craer shook his head, and said as gently as a nursemaid, "I wish you well, Arkle Huldaerus."