Free Dark Vengeance by Ed Greenwood Page A

having an audience room was grand enough. Back then, everyone knew the Lord of the Doomhouse was the true lord of all Talonnorn, anyway; there was no need to loudly proclaim it and waste a lot of slaves on too-large and tasteless rooms to prove to everyone what they already knew.
    Someone she knew was standing in the vast, gleaming expanse of tiles inside the throne room, waiting for her.
    Someone not nearly as old and bent and huddled into her robes as she was: Baerone, a crone of House Raskshaula who was barely older than Jalandral.
    Which probably meant that Lord Morluar Raskshaula was in attendance at the High Lord’s first Court.
    â€œHo
ho,
” Opaelra said, a little too loudly. “
This
ought to be good.”
    How would these glossy new tiles look, she wondered, with blood all over them?
    Â 
    â€œI thought I had more sense than to let you talk me into coming here,” Naersarra of House Dounlar murmured. “This is no safe place for Consecrated of Olone.”
    â€œTrue,” Auree agreed, “but if Jalandral dares make a move against us, we have a surprise ready for him. One that’s apt to be fatal.”
    â€œFor us, or for him?”
    â€œFor us all,” Quaera murmured. “Which at least will mean he perishes, spectacularly, and so Talonnorn is delivered from the sin—the utter folly—that he has offered it. No High Lord should ever rule the City of Spires; it is the very tension between temple and House crones, and between House and House, that keeps the city strong and alert and ever-striving.”
    â€œI wish—” Naersarra hissed, unshed tears gleaming in her eyes. “I just
wish
you were right. For my part, I fear that particular sin is not so easily eluded. Now that he has built the door and shown it to us all—and we Consecrated remain in disarray—stone-headed rampant after stone-headed rampant will set himself up as High Lord, no matter how swiftly and surely we fell or humble all previous High Lords. All will see themselves as stronger, or more cunning, or at least less foolish and more worthy than their failed predecessors.
All
of them. They have seen their chance, now, and will not be denied it.”
    Huddled in their dark robes, shrouded in their cloaks up to their chins, the four priestesses stared back at her grimly. None welcomed her words, but not one denied them.
    Auree, Quaera, Zarele, and Drayele had rarely been parted from each other in all the time since Ouvahlor bloodshed had come to the temple, and they all openly wore scars from that battle; none of them had prayed to Olone to be made unblemished again.
    Naersarra knew it was because they did not want to forget how violently life in Talonnorn had changed, and how wrong or mistaken Talonar worship of Olone must have become. Yet she also knew how blindly many Talonar saw matters; many of the surviving older crones of all Houses regarded the four as “gone-oriad,” and as blasphemous to the Goddess in their madness as any priestess-butchering House warblade.
    Most Talonar saw not Olone, but only the rules and customs of Olone, to be clung to blindly no matter what befell.
    Even if dangerously mad young House heirs reached higher, and styled themselves High Lord of all the city, and slaughtered every true and loyal Talonar who stood in their way.
    She sighed, then lifted her chin and said, “We should go in. He won’t wait to begin the butchering if we’re not standing there to witness it; he wants to show everyone he’s
not
beholden to Consecrated of Olone, remember? He’ll start without us.”
    â€œHe started some time ago,” Drayele murmured bitterly as they started forward in smooth unison, Zarele working the spell that silently moved the doors wide at their approach, when the gleaming battle-armored Evendoom warblades rigidly flanking it made no move to open them.
    Quaera felt a glare from one of the guards, and returned it as coldly