Dave Gross - Lord of Stormweather

Thamalon couldn't think of an affirmative that wasn't a lie, and he didn't care to wager against the chance that the Sorcerer could detect a falsehood.

"It is a name by which I travel," he said.

"Nelember… Nelember…" The Sorcerer said the name as if he was tasting it, as he had "Sembia." At last, he said, "A wise man leaves old names behind."

Thamalon bowed. Was there some hint of mockery in the Sorcerer's voice? He wasn't sure, but he sensed the man was toying with him.

The Sorcerer removed his helm and passed it to his chamberlain before descending the steps. Once again, Thamalon struggled to conceal his emotion. The man's face couldn't have amazed him more.

The Sorcerer's dark beard jagged across his cheeks in a savage pattern, so neatly trimmed that it looked at first like a dark tattoo. Prominent brows and a straight nose lent nobility to the natural beauty of his features. His was a face to make ladies swoon and men burn with envy. Most arresting were the man's emerald green eyes, which Thamalon had seen only a few hours earlier-in the mirror.

Apart from his exotic grooming, the Sorcerer looked identical in every respect to Thamalon's eldest son.

Tamlin.

Still, the man's face betrayed no sign that he recognized Thamalon as his father. He clasped Thamalon's arm and smiled easily, exactly as Tamlin greeted visitors to the Uskevren family home.

"Welcome," the Sorcerer said, "to Stormweather."

Radu granted as he pulled himself onto the roof of the tallhouse. The action had been effortless the night before. The night before that, he might have leaped from the ground to the second-story eaves.

Chaney noticed Radu's strength wane steadily in the days since murdering Thuribal Baerodreemer. He hadn't been certain before, but it seemed obvious that the power killing gave Radu was fading faster with each murder. Perhaps there would come a day when Radu himself faded into a ghostly existence.

Chaney smiled at the thought.

While he hadn't been the most devout of men, Chaney prayed for his soul's release from the shackle of his killer. Even were the gods to grant him that wish, he feared his prospects for the hereafter. His mortal life wasn't without blemish, so he shuddered to imagine just where his soul might be interred for all eternity.

Even more than the reckoning for his own relatively petty sins, Chaney feared that the unholy power binding him to his killer might also drag him into Radu's certain torment. Sometimes he bravely told himself that it would be worthwhile just to witness his murderer's damnation. At other times, he thought of perdition and shuddered.

To dispel the awful thought, Chaney focused on the object of his hatred.

Radu crept lightly across the roof, holding his scabbard up off the shingles with his hardened right hand. The assassin knelt beside the garret window. Despite the chill air, the shutters were open, and a long white curtain waved out like a flag. Inside, a pair of voices rose above a noisy fire.

Chaney looked past Radu's shoulder, into the tall-house garret.

The unfinished room was filled with paintings. There were paintings on easels, paintings on the walls, paintings in stacks ten deep on the floor. Most of them were horrid, abstract landscapes. A few were barely recognizable as human nudes with black blots for eyes and raw scratches where mouths should be.

In one dark corner lurked a quartet of unfinished sculptures, abandoned on their pedestals. Crusty jars of dried clay rested beneath them, along with boxes of sculpting tools.

Frazzled brushes sprung like dead flowers from paint-stained vases in shelves to one side of a low fireplace. Palettes and paint pots, jars of gray water, trowels, knives, rags, bottles of linseed oil, charcoal sticks, and ragged sheaves of sketch paper littered the room. A sheet-draped stool and a low fainting couch crowded a small canvas stage.

On the other side of the fireplace was a messy nest of a bed smothered in dirty laundry, books, lithographs, and drawings. Next to the bed, a huge water pipe squatted on a low table. Upon its cap was a lascivious depiction of divine Sune, her nude body entwined with that of a constrictor snake. Around the brass sheath of the pipe cavorted naked princes and virgins, while within its glass chamber steamed orange chunks of enchanted ice.

Chaney focused on the two men inside the room. With their high cheekbones, fair skin, and striking black hair and eyes, they were unmistakably Malveens.

Chaney barely knew Laskar. The man was almost as old as Chaney's father, and he'd been lord and master of House Malveen for as long as Chaney remembered. Twenty years past, that title meant power and influence. In the Year of Rogue Dragons, it meant nothing, and the sadness of that knowledge showed in Laskar's heavy eyes as he sat on the edge of the model's stage.

Pietro stood between a wet canvas and a pair of tall iron candelabra. He was the youngest, and as far as Selgaunt knew, the only other surviving Malveen male. Barely older than Chaney, he had already cultivated a reputation for degeneracy usually reserved for syphilis-ridden septuagenarians. Pietro stood a hand's width shorter than Laskar and Radu. His skin had an unhealthy sheen in the candlelight, and his teeth were stained from pipe smoke.

"At least consider the girls," said Laskar. He ran his ink-stained fingers through his thinning black hair, leaving a smudge on his temple. "Their prospects depend solely on the family reputation."

Pietro smiled at the blot on his brother's forehead but didn't point it out. Instead, he dabbed a richer shade of yolk on a jaundiced landscape.

"Your fat wife's the only one who complains that darling Gellie's unmarried. I doubt the girl minds much. She has no shortage of callers, even if none of the boys' fathers will consent to marriage. If you took your own sow to bed more often, she might squeal a little less about-"

In two long strides, Laskar crossed the distance between them and slapped Pietro's face. The shock of the blow sent the paintbrush tumbling through the air. It landed with a fat yellow skid mark on the bare floor.

Chaney heard the faint creak of leather as Radu tensed beside him. He wondered what emotions stirred beneath the killer's porcelain mask as he observed the confrontation between his brothers. Considering what happened the last time Radu quarreled with a sibling, Chaney fancied that he might just witness the end of the Malveen line then and there.

Two cheerful thoughts in one night, Chaney thought. How can I complain about this ghostly existence?

"I-I am sorry," said Laskar. He stared at his hand, still flush from the blow.

"You would never dare strike me when our brother was alive," Pietro said as he tenderly probed his mouth.

"I wish you were the one-!" Laskar choked off his retort.

"What? That I was the one who was dead?" Pietro laughed, showing his bloodstained teeth. "What a coward! You can't even say it aloud."

"That's not what I meant," said Laskar. He turned away from Pietro to stare at the fire. "I simply cannot bear your vulgar mouth. You may be my brother, but sometimes I could just…"

"We both know you will never cast me out," said Pietro. He retrieved his brush and swirled it in a dingy jar.

"I do not like these obscene… things. I like your selling them to Mad Andy even less."

"But you do not mind the commission they bring, yes?" Pietro said. He filled his brush with crimson pigment and slashed at the canvas. "Without Radu to help you squeeze the books, you need me-and my art."

"Andeth Ilchammar is dangerous, Pietro."

"You simply do not understand him. Your simple coin-counter's mind is incapable of real imagination. You know nothing."