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Embra thanked him with a tight smile, not slowing. Looking back at them as she made for the doors, she snapped, "Let there be no dispute: Follow the Lord Anharu's orders, and fall back to the Hall of Shields! Mind you bring the King and the Lady Orele as you go!" She held up the Dwaer, and added, "One thing this bauble tells me: The palace is still full of the plague-mad, and they're slaying everyone they meet!"
"Well, that's nothing new," one of the oldest guards growled. "The whole Vale's always been full of mad folk who kill everyone they mislike the look of. They've just brought their ways here to the palace, that's all."
"Nay," another guard muttered, "that's where ye're wrong. Such folk have never left the palace-begging your pardon, Lords-down all the years I've been alive in Aglirta."
Some of the guards glanced swiftly at Hawkril, expecting an explosion at these near-treasonous words, but the huge armaragor merely gri
"Not much chance of that, I'm thinking," the youngest guard whispered, leaning on his sword and watching drops of other people's blood drip from his drenched hair down into the puddle at his feet-but his words were very faint, and only he heard them, in all the gasping for air of that weary fellowship of mad slayers.
"Who comes?" snapped the voice from inside, as a blade thrust warningly forth through the gap between the double doors.
"The Lady Silvertree, Lady Overduke of Aglirta," Embra snapped. "Now open up, or I'll blast these doors down!"
"How do I know-" the guard within started to say, but a deeper, older voice beside him snarled, "Idiot! Help me with the bar!"
"But-" the guard offered, as the bar raided. Embra shook her head in weary exasperation as the courtier beside her cried, "Open up! It's dangerous out here!"
The door swung wide, and the older of the two guards within gri
He led them through forechamber and feasting room, into the bedchamber proper-
where a white-faced Craer met them at the door, daggers in both hands. "The Lady Embra only," he snapped. "The rest of you, close the door on us and eat and drink whatever you like here, until we call for you."
Embra sighed. "You're missing the battle, Craer."
"Oh no I'm not," the procurer retorted, thrusting aside tapestries to reveal the bed itself.
It lay bared, down to scorched straw, with the smoldering remnants of its furs and linens kicked to the floor around it-and the reason why hovering above it.
Tshamarra Talasorn lay on her back in midair, arching and writhing, stark naked and as glistening with sweat as if she'd been oiled by servants. She was staring at nothing, in obvious pain, and at her every gasping breath, wisps of fire gouted from her lips.
"Do something," Craer hissed fearfully. "I think she's dying! Could it be Serpent-magic, do you think?"
Embra frowned. "Fire isn't the way of the Serpents," she murmured. "But… Ambelter, perhaps? Or another wizard working mischief while we're beset with the plague-ridden?" She stepped forward and held up her Dwaer. "It can't be a spell-trap… not with active magic at work."
She glanced at Craer, smiling without mirth. "Breathing fire isn't something Tash usually does when you're alone together, is it?"
Craer gave her a dark look.
"Right," Embra replied brightly. "I'll try a general purging of any magic that's at work on her. There're enough of the mattress ropes left to keep her from harm if she falls, I think…"
The Dwaer flashed in her hand. The lone lamp in the bedchamber went dark, the flames spewing from Tshamarra's mouth dimmed… and then something raced out of the floating sorceress.
Something that smashed into Craer and Embra so fast that they barely had time to gasp as they were plucked off their feet and flung violently backwards. They burst through the tapestries together, their shoulders slamming into the door in thunderous, numbing unison, and did not even have time to look at each other ere something else surged after the unleashed magic that had hurled them away.
That surge broke over them, Embra's Dwaer ringing like a bell and ramming itself between her breasts, pi
She moaned as if in love-pleasure, writhing and clawing the air, and even Craer, whose mastery of magic was nonexistent, could feel the thrilling power that was making her tremble so, as they hung together in its thrall well clear of the floor.
The center of that welling force was Tshamarra, who was moaning even louder than Embra-almost singing. Her bared body was glowing, becoming as bright as fire. The whole room shook around her, the tapestries and bed falling into scraps that were whirled away to its corners.
Outside in the feasting room, guards shouted in alarm, calling Craer's name, but their voices were almost lost in the gathering, thrumming roar of whatever was rushing out of Tshamarra.
"Gods," Craer cried desperately, "let it not consume her, whatever it is. Let her live! Let her live!
Embra barely heard him. She found it hard and slow work to even understand his words, so enthralled was she with the surging power. This was far greater even than the flow of two Dwaer-Stones, which she'd never forget the feel of, and still 'twas increasing, rising, rising…
Such power is true glory to those who work sorcery. Embra moaned and drooled and shuddered, never wanting it to end. She was singing, high and heart-full and wordlessly, lost in the ecstasy…
And the woman in the center of the room burst into raging flames, whirling and clawing the air and becoming too bright to see.
Craer screamed her name and hacked at the air with his dagger, seeking somehow to cut the force holding him against the wall, and struggle to where he could reach his beloved… in vain.
Tshamarra was flying sinuously now; amid the flames he thought he could see something like a tail, and perhaps wings… she whirled, as if she was looking at him, and then whirled away again, to the window, and-out!
Blazing shutters fell away in embers to the floor, and the room was suddenly darker. Outside, something huge and awesome roared exultation at the stars.
"O, Lady, protect her," Craer prayed, and burst into tears. As if in answer to his words, the room flared into sudden brightness again-as beside him, Embra burst into flames, too.
Craer stared at the Lady of Jewels in bewildered horror as she sped toward the window, flying in a halo of fire, her clothes darkening and crumbling to ashes as she went. She was singing, still lost in pleasure, and Craer saw shimmering scales grow all over her magnificent body as she soared across the chamber. Just before she reached the window, her radiance and her flight faltered together, and she sank down to cling to the charred and smoking windowsill, gazing up into the night outside, and gasped, "Yes. Oh, yes. Oh, Tash…"
"What?" Craer sobbed, feeling the force that was holding him weakening, but still unable to move away from the wall. "What's happened to-?"
Embra sighed-and fell, her flames winking out. The Dwaer flashed, and she twisted in midair in its glow and came gliding desperately back toward Craer. At the same time, the unseen force holding him abruptly faded, and he hit the ground ru
Embra was coming at him like an arrow, arms spread wide, and Craer hastily flung his knife away and moved to meet her, just… so!
The procurer could move like a cat when he had to. His grasp was deft and precise, catching her shoulders, slowing her as he bent over backwards, and then kicking up from the ground just enough to bring them crashing to the floor together, Craer underneath. They skidded along on his leather-clad shoulders and back until they came to a gentle stop together.