Ed Greenwood: Silverfall: Stories of the Seven Sisters

Startlement showed in his eyes-in the instant before the left hook that had started near her knees took him under the chin, snapping his head back as if it belonged to a wooden doll and not a living man.

The Bard of Shadowdale caught the slyblade as he slumped, and heaved him up into the air with another rip shy;pling of muscles. She slung Thone's limp body over one shoulder and strode to the door, where a grim-faced cook was wiping his hands on his apron amid a wall of somber servants.

Storm glanced down at her hands-still grotesque, but no longer burned to the bone-then up at the cook. "Rendal," she said gently, "You can take them all down now."

The cook saluted her, as one Harper to another, and nodded his head at the slyblade's dangling form. "Him, too?"

Storm smiled. "No. He lives." Rendal Ironguard nodded, turned, and made two swift signals with his hands. The servants surged into life, charging across the room at the remaining Zhents.

"Harpers all," Storm murmured, watching the tumult.

Screams came to her ears from below as the pitched battle spread. There'd be fleeing guests all over Northend in a few minutes, but her folk knew their Zhents. Such open violence was a crude lapse of style, but necessary-the more so if she was going to be busy chasing down a truly mighty wizard.

"This pity, truly," she told the senseless man on her shoulder, "that so few servants are to be had for hire in the dales. One ends up having to accept almost anyone."

She gave Thone an experimental shake to be sure he was securely seated-and truly deep in his temporary retreat from the world-and started down the stairs. That cloakroom would do to strip him of strangling cords and hidden knives and suchlike, then Sylune could keep him hard at work on Heartsteel epics, back at the farm, while Storm went hunting Halasters.

"I hear they're bad at this time of year," she remarked brightly to a terrified Zhentarim who came pounding up the stairs at that moment-before she put her boot in his face and sent him plunging back down onto the blades of the Harpers pursuing him.

"Boys, boys-no fires, now!" Storm warned the Harpers grinning at her. They saluted her and clattered back down the stairs. Someone screamed in the room behind her, and someone else struck a wall with a crash that made her wince.

One of these days the Zhentarim might just learn patience enough not to get in each other's way all the time, and plunge into carrying out plans they hadn't fin shy;ished considering the consequences of. If they ever did that, the dales might truly have something to fear.

Of course, to reach that level of competence, the Zhents were going to have to ferret out the Red Wizards and other traitors hiding in their midst, who customarily used them as dupes and clumsy weapons against folk in the Dragonreach lands. That and the tensions between Manshoon and Fzoul should keep them busy for a while yet…

"Sleeper, awake," Storm growled at the slyblade. "I've got to go hunting mad mages."

Hubris is the shared chink in all our armor.

Elminster's voice was a grudging growl in her mind. She could feel the warmth of his affection, and knew she'd started smiling.

Taerach Thone looked up fearfully from the far end of the kitchen table for perhaps the hundredth time. Almost unconsciously his hand dropped down to caress the hilt of the belt dagger they'd returned to him, then jerked back as if he'd committed a shameful crime. Storm sighed. Did he think she was going to tear him limb from limb, after carrying him all the way here, bathing him, and putting him to bed?

In her mind, she replied to Elminster, And so?

Through the link, she could see the Old Mage floating in the warm, dark room where the Weave surged and roiled like silent surf. Back to back, held pressed together in a human star, he and the Simbul were floating together, as he fed her from his own life-force. Let Mystra smile upon them both.

Halaster likes to weave a little trap into his enchant shy;ments, to give his apprentices - or anyone else - who breaks one of them a little slap of reproval, a jolt that tells the recipient whose lash they're feeling. Thus, a distinctive signature is woven into almost his every casting. In Undermountain, of course, they stand clustered and piled atop each other like pebbles on a beach. Outside of its passages, those who use Weavesight can easily find the work of Halaster.

Does it seem so sensible to you, El, Storm replied, that I, among the weakest of us Chosen in the Art, should be the one to go hunting Halaster Blackcloak? If defeating this cabal matters, shouldn't one of us who might have a real hope of victory against him be the one to -?

Halaster is waiting for just such a battle, ready with spells hung to trigger other spells in a nasty little inferno. If I pile protections upon ye - protections that need not be set aside to allow ye to hurl spells out at him - I can keep ye alive long enough to reach him.

And do what? she asked. Slay him? Mystra above, man, he controls more gates to other planes and places than either of us know. The stability of some cellars in Waterdeep, and the buildings and streets above them, depend on his enchantments. To say nothing of the fact that he polices Undermountain better than any of us ever could, and could ravage any place we fought with the spells he carries - and the contingencies that will be triggered if he dies!

Gently, lass, gently there. He's not acted like this before. I think someone has a hold over him, and I need ye to find out whom, and to deal with it.

I'm not sure I'm looking forward to dealing with anyone - or anything- that can maintain a hold over Halaster Blackcloak.

Grim and rueful that sounded, even to her. Storm took two strides over to a pot that needed stirring before it overflowed, felt the anxious eyes of Taerach Thone on her again, and added, Wouldn't I be better employed tracking down the rest of this little group? They won't all retire instantly the moment we remove the mages from their midst, you know. I sometimes think we live in a Faerun far removed from the real one. We always have spells and mages and potential castings and abuses on our minds, when most folk worry about being too cold or not having enough to eat, or about cruel laws and crueler armsmen coming to back them up.

So we do. It's another failing we share. Elminster's voice in her mind was calm, almost weary. Are ye getting too tired for this, Storm? Shall I leave off pestering ye?

Nay, nay, Old Mage. Never leave off pestering me. It's all I have left of my childhood.

He chuckled, then, and Storm staggered as he thrust a whirlwind of flashing lines and knots of force into her mind. Thone tensed, as if to rise, but sat back when she gave him a glare and shook her head.

Blood of Mystra, El, what in the name of all tankard-tapping trolls was that?

Halaster's signature. Got it?

My mind feels as if it's swollen with child - a kicking child, she replied. Yes, I have it, Lady smite thee.

Good. Now, get out thy trivet.

My trivet? Old Mage …?

I took the liberty, lass, upon my last biscuit-snatching sweep through thy kitchen, of doing a casting.

On my trivet. Well, it's nice to know archmages have enough to do, to fill up their gray-whiskered, dragging days. Once they get tired of taking on attractive young apprentices.

Don't claw, lass, 'tisn't pretty. Got it out yet?

Of course.

Storm let all the sarcasm she could muster drip through those two words, but Elminster's voice rolled on as gently as if he'd never heard her. Put thy hand upon it and tell Sylune not to be alarmed if a few sparks come out of ye. Eyes, nose, mouth - that sort of thing. You'll be need shy;ing a fair cloak of spells upon ye to go up against Halaster. This may take some time. If ye've something on the stove, move it off.