Stormlight h-14 Read online

  When it had traced around both of the doors, it died away. Broglan drew in another deep breath, stepped back, and indicated the unsealed doors.

  "Open them, and lead the way in," the boldshield ordered him.

  The war wizard shook his head. "The haunting-there could be-"

  Ergluth gave him a look of cold disgust. "Wizard," he growled, "go in, and take that lantern from yon arms-man with you-or I'll soon be telling Vangerdahast that the leader of his Sevensash investigative team had the great misfortune to fall onto my sword while we were exploring the haunted Summerstar family crypt."

  Broglan gulped. "Y-Yes, Sir Boldshield," he said, and did as he'd been ordered.

  The lantern bobbed away reluctantly into a large and eerie chamber, its walls broken by many niches containing stone coffins. Several larger coffins, their lids carved into semblances of sleeping Summerstar lords and ladies, stood in a fan-shaped array radiating out from a large central table.

  "Hundarr," Broglan asked in commanding tones, pointing, "is that table clear?"

  The war wizard nodded gravely, took a stance, and cast a spell of detection with as much showmanship and grand oratory as he could muster. Storm, Ergluth, and several veteran armsmen hid their smiles; several of the more junior Purple Dragons didn't bother.

  Lost in his moment of glory, Hundarr missed the displays of mirth. He strode around the crypt, looking this way and that, and finally announced, "Faint magics-possibly preservative enchantments-around those three coffins, this one, and that one over there. The rest of the chamber, including the table, is clear, Sir Broglan."

  The senior war wizard gave him a tight smile. "Good." He turned to Storm and Ergluth. "Well?"

  "Which of those coffins contains Athlan's handful?" Storm asked. The wizard laid his hand on the newest, and she said, "Bring it forth, and pour it out on the table. Lanterns well clear, good sirs."

  Broglan raised his eyebrows, but did as he was bid. Storm looked down at the small heap of cinders, turned her head away to sigh, and said quietly, "I'm told you carry a spell you're very proud of, Sir Broglan. . one of your own devising, that returns things to their last shape. Will you cast it on these ashes, please?"

  The war wizard looked at her in surprise, more for her knowledge of his prize enchantment than for what he'd been asked to do. He said, "The body my spell will fashion can be no more than an empty shell, feather-light and very short-lived. Whatever you want to do, do it quickly."

  Storm merely gestured for him to continue. Broglan met her eyes doubtfully for a moment. He took several small items from the sleeves and lapels of his robe and, with slow and exacting care, cast his spell.

  The ashes on the stone table gradually drew together and shaped themselves into a sprawled body. Storm regarded it critically as it changed from a thing of black flakes tinged with white or brown to an almost corpselike shape of dull gray.

  "How long can you hold it thus?" she asked.

  "Not long," Broglan said flatly. Tiny beads of sweat sprung into being on his forehead. Ah. That short a time, then. She went straight to work.

  The shape of Athlan Summerstar lay on his back, naked, a smooth nothing where his face should be. Storm indicated this. "Is that your spell, or had he no face when he died?"

  "That's what it looked like when he breathed his last," Broglan said tersely. "I've never seen one of these reconstructions with no eyes before-but my spell could not have been miscast, or you'd have no image at all to look at."

  "Could the face have been burnt away?" Storm asked sharply, bending by the ash-image's ear.

  Broglan looked surprised, and then said, "Yes. Yes, certainly. That would almost have to be the reason for no trace of eyes. They must have been gone before he died."

  Storm nodded somberly. "That's what I thought," she said quietly, and bent over the shape again.

  "I see a dead man, lying on his back," Ergluth Rowanmantle said, standing at the crypt doors. "Can you see more?"

  Storm nodded and pointed. "See the mark, and the darker area? A sword came out of his breast there. So our mysterious murderer drove a blade through a young and energetic man from behind, and did the burning after."

  "But why?" the boldshield said. "Concealing who the victim was is the only reason I know besides disease banishment to set fire to a man's face…And we knew immediately who the victim was."

  "What if someone-Athlan himself? — has taken the shape of another Summerstar, say, and tried to leave the body of someone else behind, burnt to conceal the fact that it wasn't really Athlan, as we're all assuming?" the war wizard Corathar asked excitedly.

  "You've been reading too many dead-knight chap-books, lad," Insprin Turnstone said wearily from beside him. "Now belt up, and listen to the lady."

  Storm was bent over the ash-shape, frowning as she thoughtfully bit her lip. "His knees and elbows are both scraped," she said. "He fell on stone, in some haste or with some force. . and this bruise on his cheek, here, means …"

  "Yes?" Broglan and Ergluth prompted, in unison.

  "He fell on his face, onto something shaped and metal. The less likely cause is that his cheek was struck by the quillons of his own sword or the blade of another, as Athlan's uplifted weapon was driven into it by a hard parry or by the force of a meeting with a wall or attack."

  She looked up. "Broglan? What did your spells tell you when you tried to touch the mind of your slain mageling?"

  "Nothing," the war wizard told her bleakly. "To magic-all the magics we could think of, that any of us can cast-he was 'not there.' Unreachable, absent. . blindbarred."

  Storm nodded, and whispered something over the silent shape. A pulse of light raced away from her lips, passing swiftly through the thing of ash. When it was gone, though, the ash-corpse looked just as it had before.

  Her eyes flickered. The boldshield took a cautious step forward. "Can you bring the dead back to walk among us, Lady of Mystra? Then Athlan could lead the House of Summerstar once more, and we could banish all this strife and upset."

  Storm laughed shortly as she circled the shape, looking at the soles of its feet. "For all the tales of the dead rising at a wave of a priest's hand," she said slowly, not looking up, "death is still the final and inescapable fate of all-or at least, one very few find a reprieve from. Not this one, I'm afraid-something bars my every spell."

  As the last words left her lips, the ashes gave forth a queer little sigh and collapsed.

  She looked up. The wizard Broglan was shaking with weariness. Feeling her scrutiny, he looked up and managed a smile.

  "That's-not an easy spell to hold," he said.

  There was a stir outside the crypt, and they all looked up as the Purple Dragons standing wary guard stepped back to allow the entry of more of their fellows. They bore something in a covered strong chest, and were preceded by the grim and white-lipped old steward of the feast hall.

  "My thanks for guiding my men hence," Ergluth Rowanmantle told the old man gravely.

  Ilgreth Drimmer nodded wearily and leaned back against the wall, silently waving away the thanks.

  Broglan had already swept Athlan's ashes carefully back into their coffin, leaving the stone table clear. He joined the steward against the wall, too tired to do more than watch.

  Storm pointed. The armsmen lifted the sheet out of the strong chest and swung the shrouded bundle onto the funerary table.

  "Renglar?" Ergluth asked quietly.

  Storm nodded. "I hope he'll do Athlan one last service," she said.

  "But none of the spells you tried back in your bedchamber could reach him," the Purple Dragon commander said.

  Storm gestured to the armsmen to draw back the edges of the sheet. "There is one spell left."

  "A wizard's wish?" Ergluth ventured. "Can your will overcome the burning he suffered?"

  Storm shook her head and took the seneschal's blackened skull into her hand. "No," she whispered. "Hush, now."

  Then, looking into the two shrunken and dusty eyeba
lls, she breathed some phrases, put her finger to her own eyes, and touched the fingertips to Renglar's sorry, staring orbs. She turned, still holding the skull, and waved at the war wizards and armsmen to stand clear. The skull stared endlessly across the crypt. Something in the air where it was looking stirred, danced into life, and flickered.

  A dozen men held their breaths as one and stared intently.

  "Storm-?" Ergluth asked quietly, his hand on his sword.

  "Nothing to do us harm," she replied, eyes never leaving the stirring air. "We'll be seeing the last thing the seneschal saw before he died."

  As if obeying her, the flickering disturbance suddenly coalesced into a sharp, stationary image: a darkly handsome man with a crooked-bladed dagger in one hand. He reached it forward with a cruel, maniacal grin.

  There was a murmur. "So that's our slayer," Ergluth said sharply. "Take a good look, men."

  Storm moved and made a slight sound beside him. He glanced at her. The Bard of Shadowdale had started back. One of her hands had gone to her lips-lips that were suddenly chalk-white, and trembling.

  Broglan saw her face too. "What's wrong, lady?"

  "None of you recognize him?" Storm asked, almost whispering.

  There was a general shaking of heads. "Nay, lady" Ergluth spoke for them all.

  Storm let out a long, shuddering breath, closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them to stare one last time at the grinning image as it started to fade. "That's Maxan Maxer, once my consort."

  " 'Once'? He left you?" Ergluth asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Storm gave him a wan smile. "In a manner of speaking." The image faded into a ghostly shadow. When it was quite gone, the bard turned away and added, her whisper loud in the silent tomb, "He's been dead for years."

  The sound that she made next was very much like a sob.

  SIX

  When Every Bed Has Its Wizard

  A table stood in the center of the finely panelled study shared by the Sevensash war wizards. The table was fashioned of shadowtop wood, its curving legs sculpted into stylized tree roots and its oval top inlaid with plain, smooth-polished duskwood.

  Far too plain, Hundarr had judged it with a sniff. Broglan disagreed. The small globe of winking lights he had placed to rotate lazily in the air above the table wasn't meant to be an ornament. Rather, the globe was there as a warning. It was linked to an invisible web of enchantment that spanned the floor, ceiling, and walls of the room. If any active spell effect moved into the study or was unleashed there, the globe would fall and shatter in a shower of harmless but dramatic sparks, telling everyone that magic was on the loose.

  The leader of the war wizards ducked his head out of his bedchamber door and glanced at his spell globe.

  It still spun above the table, patient and undisturbed-a scant few feet from an elbow propped on the polished duskwood.

  The elbow belonged to Murndal Claeron, who sat at ease in an old, overstuffed chair, his feet up on a footstool. The young wizard was frowning over a spellbook, but Broglan could tell by the way he hummed and absently tapped his fingers that he was ruminating, not intently studying the magic.

  Broglan strode across the fur rugs to sit on the adjacent lounge. Murndal raised his eyes and nodded in greeting, but said nothing.

  Broglan was not so reticent. "I've been thinking about the lady-and the spellblade."

  Murndal sighed and laid aside his book. Broglan raised an eyebrow. The young man's nonchalance was a mask; his hands were trembling. "She'll have her revenge on me," he said, voice low and urgent. "I know she will."

  "Perhaps," Broglan said. "Almost any mage would, true-but she seems … different. She was more angry at me than you. And her ire seemed to come because we'd broken the rules of courtesy, rather than from surprise or outrage. Moreover, if I saw what I thought I did, she's healed already, long since. Folk released from pain can forget its cause more easily."

  "Who's to say what she thinks?" Murndal said, almost bitterly. "She doesn't strike me as particularly sane."

  "If you'll forgive the intrusion-and further, some blunt speech," a deeper voice put in from behind them, "you are judging her so because she doesn't act or speak as you expect her to." Insprin Turnstone took his own seat beside Broglan, steel-gray eyes glinting. He added, "Ambitious mages are the only folk of power you've taken measure of, Murndal. She's not ambitious … and, I suppose, not much of a mage."

  "Murndal's point is a fair one, though," Broglan said. "Being alive for so long and serving our Divine Lady of Mysteries directly all that time-what would that do to one's mind?"

  "Are we in a position to judge her?" Insprin asked mildly.

  Broglan frowned. "Another good point," he admitted.

  Murndal sighed. "While you debate the state of her sanity," he growled, "I could be doomed! Have you any spell or item you can protect me with?"

  Broglan laughed a short and mirthless laugh. "Against Mystra's silver fire? Nothing can withstand that save the goddess herself. There's not a mighty staff or earth-rending spell I know of that can protect you if she really desires your death. But consider this: she can rend anyone thus, and has walked Faerun for centuries, with six of her sisters similarly armed. . and there are still folk left alive to people Cormyr, and Sembia, and far Waterdeep, and a dozen other lands besides. So rest a little easier, Murndal."

  "All the happily resting citizens of those lands haven't plunged a sword into one of Mystra's Chosen-the one who also happens to be a leader of the Harpers," Murndal said bitterly. "Folk she hasn't noticed yet are perfectly safe, but I stand in rather more danger!"

  "Our plan was still a good one," Broglan said, "and I noticed no such fear when you volunteered-volunteered, mind you-to be the one to strike with our spellblade. Weeping now is wasted wind. . and it undercuts your bravery in everyone's eyes."

  Murndal sighed gustily and fell back into his chair, spreading his hands. "All right, I'm a dead man," he growled. "So while she plots a suitable manner for my execution, what'll the rest of you be doing?"

  "Doing?"

  "There's a murderer, or more than one, at work in Firefall Keep," Murndal reminded his superior with some asperity, "or have you forgotten Lhansig and his codpiece? I know you spoke of the killings being Storm's work-but she can't have slain the seneschal … unless you think her capable of enchanting the wits of both the steward and the boldshield!"

  "I do think her capable of just that," Broglan said, "but I'll admit that Baerest's demise doesn't feel like her work. But did you not see Thalance Summerstar leave the table in plenty of time to have done the deed?"

  "That fop? Take the seneschal? With luck, perhaps, b-"

  "Not luck," Broglan said tartly. "Magic. The man's skull was burnt bare … not the work of a lucky sword thrust."

  "But Thalance hasn't the brains to-"

  "Oh?" Insprin put in. "And just how do we know that? We've seen him twice, mayhap thrice. By all accounts he's seen every chambermaid and unattached lady in the vale. That may be the work of a fool, but it requires no small amount of cunning."

  "None of the Summerstars need to be cunning," Broglan reminded them, "when they've got the Lady Pheirauze to do it for them."

  "Yes," Murndal said thoughtfully. "I could just picture them all running to and fro at her bidding…."

  "So what are you saying Pheirauze gains by slaying her own grandson?" Hundarr Wolfwinter broke in. His sharp tone made it clear that he'd heard enough commoners criticizing the ethics of a noble house.

  "A lot more power around here, for one thing," Insprin said gravely. "Where Athlan would be expected to rule his house his own way, youthful mistakes and all, Shayna will be expected to take advice from her elders … particularly in matters of marriage."

  "And what would you know of the expectations at court?" Hundarr asked coldly.

  "All too much, I fear," the thin, gray-haired old mage calmly replied, ignoring the bait.

  Broglan turned. "Enough, Hundarr! Even we lowborn men
have eyes and ears and brains! I've seen no sign that either Lord Vangerdahast or the king are stupid enough to divide the citizens of Cormyr into but two groups: cultured, clear-thinking, loyal nobles and howling-dog, brutish, dangerous commoners. I hope you won't make that mistake either. Too many proud families of Cormyr are extinct today because of it."

  Hundarr Wolfwinter stared back at him silently, a clear challenge in his eyes. Neither man moved or spoke for a long minute. Then Broglan shrugged, turned away, and said, "The fact remains that Murndal has asked a good question-what is our course, in the hours and days ahead?"

  "Watch and wait," Insprin said flatly, "with eyes open and battle spells ready, to see what Storm Silverhand stirs up as she roams through the keep."

  Broglan nodded. "That's exactly the road I've been following," he admitted. "If we spend our days interviewing servants and scrying at their thoughts to ferret out murderers who I doubt are lurking in their ranks, our distinguished lady bard will be scouring the Haunted Tower and poking about in the private wardrobes of Lady Pheirauze before long."

  Broglan leaned forward and said to Murndal, "I've got a little task for you."

  "Me?" Murndal asked, more surprised than suspicious.

  "I gave you the only cloak of concealment I brought, to keep the spellblade hidden until you were ready to use it," the leader of the war wizards explained. "It's bonded to you now."

  "And so?" Murndal asked warily.

  "You saw how upset the vision of the seneschal's slayer-if that's who it was-made the lady bard? She left the crypt in such haste that no priest was called to reseal the doors."

  Murndal nodded slowly. "You want me to go there and cast an unsleeping guardian to see if anyone enters or leaves."

  Broglan inclined his head in a nod so slight that it seemed for a moment to be no nod at all. His hand dipped into the breast of his robe. "I also want you to leave this there."