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After a moment of tense peering, he could breathe again.
A few breaths later, he relaxed. There were no signs of guardian creatures, enchanted or otherwise-no spiders spell-slept to awaken when intruders disturbed their niche, nor crawling bone-things held together and given horrible unlife by spells. Nothing awaited above to slam down, or behind to fire or thrust out. Just a small statuette of an armored prince with a sword-as tall as his own head, and seemingly carved of a single, massive ruby.
There was lettering around its base, script of an archaic, elaborate flowing style little used in these more hasty days, but words he could read: Blood of Silvertree Know Better.
Hmmph. Well, they hadn't had they? They'd come to this their palace and Died, in their dozens, all struck down by the Doom of the Silvertrees! Perhaps this hidden statuette bore the anchor-spell of that ancient Silvertree curse.
He whirled around and snapped, "One of those cloths, and be quick about it!"
The priests wavered, and then one of them turned to call a warrior. Thraunt was quick to roar, "No! One of you: the Holy of the Serpent!"
The priests all looked at him with fear or perhaps respect in their eyes, and then stooped and scurried and elbowed each other in a way that brought fleeting, swiftly suppressed grins onto the faces of the watching warriors. Thraunt resolved to deal with those insolent idiots later, after…
The cloth was laid into his waiting hand. He gave the priest who'd proffered it a brittle smile that warned that no praise would be forthcoming for something that should have been foreseen and done with no need for order, offering no delay to a superior-then turned and gingerly lifted the statuette, holding it only through the cloth.
It was hard, and smooth, and heavy, and did not feel as if it held hidden secrets in its i
There was a murmur from the priests as they got their first proper look at it, and as the warriors started to lean for their own look, without quite daring to step forward from the edges of the room, Masterpriest Thraunt looked up at the holy men of the Serpent and said softly, "Let this not out of your sight for even a moment. Two of you must watch it at all times, for if it goes missing"-he flicked his gaze meaningfully in the direction of the warriors-"all of you shall make a very firm, perhaps final, answer for it."
They nodded, slowly, reluctantly, and silently. He kept on staring until he had seen each priest's nod-and only then did Masterpriest Thraunt flip the ends of the cloth over the ruby carving, straighten up with a satisfied sigh, and turn to see… dark wisps of vapor curling out of the niche in the wall!
He almost kicked the coffer flying in his haste to get back and away from that ancient trap-for what else could it be? -and stumbled, falling into the waiting hands of only two of the warriors, for the rest had fled in a wordless rush, and were now somewhere down the long passage they'd arrived by.
The pair of warriors roughly but skillfully thrust Thraunt upright, and he turned in time to see that fool of a novice, Ornaugh, choke, clutch his throat, and make a peculiar, desperate whimpering sound-before he fell over on his face, clawing at his neck.
He'd been unable to swallow, Thraunt realized-in his few moments of thought left before the other priests burst into and over him and out the doorway. The last two warriors sprinted in their wake, leaving the Masterpriest battered and winded on the floor, with a peculiar prickling sensation in his nose and throat…
No! By the Serpent, no! Masterpriest Thraunt was up and on his feet and through that door as fast as he could run, coughing around a tongue grown strangely thick, and trying to keep up with the bobbing lanterns of his craven fellow priests before they left him in utter darkness, here-
There was a bright burst of light from ahead, around the corner of the passage they'd just taken, and an echoing roar that sounded oddly like…
There was a second blast, and the tattered remnants of what had been Ilmark of Sirlptar, or Elmargh, or whatever his name was, came bouncing and whirling into view, all of the limbs rolling to a stop separately.
Spell-blasts! That was it! Just like those he'd seen in a courtyard in Sirlptar, when first observing a casting of the fireburst spell that the Brotherhood called "Fire of the Serpent." Someone-a traitor? a rival priest?-had blasted everyone under his command as they'd run along the narrow passage.
"Great Serpent!" Thraunt gasped, the words half a prayer and half a curse, and trotted forward warily, readying the best spell he knew: a "Wrath of the Serpent," the stinging cloud of flying, biting snakes that even anointed priests of the Serpent feared…
There was another blast, a short, choked-off scream, and more remains bounced and rolled to a dusty, grisly halt ahead. Thraunt slowed, wondering how long he should wait in silent hiding before venturing around that corner.
This was no trap, for traps do not howl and scream wild laughter, then sob and snarl and hoot and howl again. This sounded like someone gone plague-mad. Perhaps a mage, come here to loot, who'd been caught by the fangs of one of the guardian snakes he'd dropped to guard their way out of the ruins…
Well, if so, all he need do was wait, and this foe would the raving, and leave the way clear. Thraunt knew he was not a patient man, but when the clear alternative is being blown apart…
Around the corner came hissing shouts, and then snapped orders and the clang of blades-far more blades than his warriors bore, even if none of them had fallen. Wild roars followed, mixed with loudly declaimed gibberish this time.
Other priests had pla
Yet why then all the hooting and howling? And why the sudden, fear-filled shouts? Surely they'd lurk silent, and creep forward hoping to take him or others in these haunted ruins unawares…
More blasts, rocking the ceiling and the floor beneath his feet this time, and the spell-chants suddenly ceased. Thraunt crept forward, not daring to stay where he was any longer for fear of the throat-prickling gas behind him-but he was still three long strides shy of the bend in the passage when a tall man wearing only a nightrobe stalked around the corner, leering and lurching. Tall and handsome and somehow familiar, he carried a glowing rock in his hands and was crooning to it wordlessly, as if it was a baby he was comforting.
He barked with laughter when he saw Thraunt, and the stone flashed-and Masterpriest Thraunt, in the last few seconds of life as a Dwaer-blast raced toward him, understood that what the man held was not merely an enchanted lump of stone but one of the Stones.
And then he experienced his first Dwaer-blast, and his last-and all Darsar went away, just like that.
Blackgult laughed loud and long, holding the Stone high in triumph and letting it spew little stinging lightnings down his arm, cascading snarling sparks across the floor. With these fires he'd slain at least four dozen Serpent-spawn-three different bands of them, by the Horned Lady!
Well, they'd come seeking treasure… and unfortunately for them, they'd found it!
Ezendor Blackgult chuckled gleefully as he strode into a dusty, long-ruined chamber of lofty size, somewhere in the westerly wings and turrets of the Silent House. Ah, but at least he'd not be dying alone. He'd butchered a respectable host of Snake-lovers this day! Why, ther-