Dave Gross: Lord of Stormweather

Cale wasn't certain, but he thought he might have glimpsed the object among the astrological oddities his master had recently acquired. Still, there was something interesting about the sphere. Whatever it was, it probably wasn't urgent or relevant to the immediate problem. He dropped it into the side pocket of his coat.

He lifted Lady Shamur's shawl from beneath the painting. Oil had stained its edge, but Cale was relieved to see no further mark of violence upon it. Cale set it on the desk and carefully lifted the painting. There was nothing else beneath it, and it seemed undamaged. He propped it against the side of the desk and crouched for a closer look.

While Cale hadn't enjoyed the privileged upbringing of the Uskevren, he considered himself educated and not entirely untouched by culture. Still, he couldn't imagine anyone who could appreciate this unsettling landscape. The artist had skill and energy, but he must have been the very caricature of the tortured artist to produce a vision of such striking ugliness.

Still, the work was oddly compelling. Cale found himself examining its vague details for some clue… about what, he couldn't say. It was foolish to think the painting would reveal where his lord and lady had gone.

Too late, Cale sensed the danger. It was the painting that had taken Shamur and Thamalon, and it was planting some obsession in his own mind. He tried to look away, but all he could manage was to turn his chin while his eyes remained locked to the image, which began to sway.

He should have armed himself immediately upon hearing the first thunderbolt, he realized. Without his dagger in hand, he struck out at the painting with the continual flame lamp. The glass broke upon the picture frame, and Cale slashed at the canvas with the broken shards. A black line appeared on the painting, and for an instant Cale thought he'd broken its spell.

Then lightning flashed for the third time that night in Stormweather Towers, and Cale fell helplessly out of the world.

Tamlin moaned as he awoke.

"Bleeding dark blasted damned bloody, bloody, bloody!" he croaked. He was still in the disgusting cell, and he'd been much happier about his predicament while asleep.

He'd been dreaming again, this time more pleasantly. He remembered squinting into the morning light reflected off a thousand burnished shields. He admired the deep red glow of his soldier's armor from a high palanquin, where he reclined with three fragrant maidens veiled in gossamer-thin silks. A cool breeze thrilled his skin, lifting the fine hairs on his naked legs.

In the waking world, his throat was rough and dry, and the memory of sipping cool nectar from an ivory cup did nothing to assuage his thirst.

"You wouldn't happen to have a wee little flask stashed somewhere, would you, Ratty?"

The rat had crept outside the cage. Tamlin watched as the animal sniffed cautiously at the chalk circle before recoiling. Tamlin's eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, or else the ring's faint luminescence had increased. Either way, he could make out the edges of a few barrels on one side of the chamber, as well as the outlines of what might have been a garbage chute before it was boarded shut.

The rat rose up on its hind legs, crouched, and leaped nimbly over the chalk line. Safely on the other side, the rodent scurried away.

"Clever lad," said Tamlin.

He mused for a while on the rat's powers of perception. Was the creature the familiar of his kidnapper? Was it a polymorphed incarnation of the mage himself?

Or herself, Tamlin amended.

Apart from the recently deceased Stormweather house mage, Brom Selwyn, the first three wizards Tamlin could name were all women: Helara, and the albino sisters, Ophelia and Magdon, of the Wizards' Guild. Any of them might devise a spell-or in Magdon's case, a magical gadget-that could free him from his prison for a price.

Hiring a wizard was no small expense. On the other hand, kidnapping was cheap enough and often quite profitable.

Tamlin had been kidnapped twice before. The first kidnappers lost their nerve while debating who would deliver the ransom demand to Stormweather Towers, leaving the teenaged Tamlin to be rescued a few hours later. The second group held out until the ransom arrived, then they released their captive. The villains enjoyed two nights and a day spending their coin before the Uskevren House Guard and a furious Vox caught up to them. Those who survived arrest were still rotting in the dungeons of Selgaunt's prison.

Neither of those groups had enjoyed the advantage of magic, and Tamlin imagined the expense would compound their ransom demand many times over. Despite his father's great wealth, he feared the Old Owl would think twice before paying for Tamlin's return, especially considering the terms on which they'd parted.

"Mother will make him pay," Tamlin reassured himself.

Shamur Uskevren had always doted on her children, and where Thamalon deplored his indolence, his mother adored her firstborn's easy charm and social grace. While she didn't play favorites-not obviously, anyway-Tamlin was certain she'd always loved him best of her three children.

Tamlin rose and immediately planted his elbow in a bowl of something lukewarm and wet. He tasted it on his fingers-a bland gruel bolstered with chunks of salt pork-and realized why the rodent had fled upon his waking.

Tamlin hesitated only briefly to weigh hunger against his disdain for peasant fare. Worse still, Tamlin hated to eat anything Escevar hadn't tasted for him. It was a habit born as much from superstition as from fear of poison. He'd read somewhere that wizards often cast spells on the food of their enemies.

"To the hells with it."

Tamlin spooned up the glob with two fingers. The stuff didn't taste as bad as he'd feared, but Tamlin cringed to imagine how he must look in his miserable cell with his fine clothes soiled, slurping from a bowl like some beggar. If the six dozen young women vying for his attentions in the spring socials could see him in such a state, they might prefer to marry a Baerent, a Foxmantle, or-gods help them-even a Toemalar.

Tamlin thought of the rat's whiskered snout rooting around in the food before him. While that wasn't enough to quell his famished stomach, it did give him an idea.

"Psst, Ratty," he hissed, scraping the bottom of the bowl against the stone floor.

He clicked his tongue as he used to do to summon his gyrfalcon, Honeylass. The beautiful creature had perished almost a year earlier in yet another attack on the Uskevren family.

Like Honeylass, the rat seemed more perceptive than the rest of his kind. Unlike the loyal bird, though, the rat had not been trained to trust a human master. It remained warily outside the magic circle.

Tamlin set the remains of his meal aside. If he could lure the rat back to the cage, he thought he might be able to tie a note to the creature. Assuming he emerged to scavenge on the streets at night, perhaps a passerby might spot the message and take it to Stormweather-

"What am I thinking?"

The absurdity of his plan struck Tamlin like a splash of cold water. Even if he could manage to capture the suspicious rodent, somehow manufacture writing materials, and tie a message to the squirming beast, the thought that someone would actually find it was-

"Preposterous," he muttered.

He shook his head in despair. Moments later, he brightened under a variation of his wretched plan. If he could attach a bit of the meat from his gruel to a string, then toss it across the magic circle, maybe he could erase a span and break the spell.

He tried tearing a strip of fabric from his blouse, but it was tougher than it appeared.

"I shall have to thank my tailor," he sneered. "If I ever get out of here."