Эд Гринвуд - Stormlight

“My thanks for your swift-witted kindness,” Storm told the old man, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder, “but I prefer garments a trifle less drafty. Perhaps you’ll conduct me to my room?”

Drimmer nodded almost beseechingly. He waved at her to accompany him, and then turned and scurried away. Storm followed, staring thoughtfully at his back. He’d flinched at her touch … but then, that was understandable when he’d just seen flames roaring up around her. Who knew what might have burst from her fingers?

A few paces away from the table she turned, favored all of the guests with a broad, easy smile, and said, “Save me some wine—I’ll be back!”

Then she turned her back on them all, tore off the tablecloth and swung it over her shoulder like a shawl, and strode away in Ilgreth Drimmer’s wake.

He hastened to one dais, turned at its doors, and gulped at her fashion rearrangement. “If you’ll follow me, gracious lady,” he said faintly, whirling back to face the door, “your chambers are this way.…”

The route he led her along was a long one, but Storm trailed him for only three passages and two rooms before she caught up with him, laid a firm hand on his shoulder, and said, “Catch your breath, good steward, and talk to me.”

Ilgreth slid frightened eyes around to meet hers. With a puff of ash, a strip of blackened gown fell away from her shoulders. He quickly looked away again. “Talk? What about?”

“Lord Athlan’s death—and anything untoward that’s befallen since,” Storm said crisply, ignoring the ongoing ruin of her gown. Another scrap drifted away from the still-sturdy cuff about her left wrist.

“I—I don’t know where I stand, Lady,” the steward replied frankly “How far will what I tell you travel?”

“Do you mean, will I reveal that you told me things?” Storm asked, eye to eye. He nodded, and she said firmly, “Not at all. I heard nothing from you except: ‘This room is yours, lady.’ ”

His face split in a sudden grin, and his eyes dipped involuntarily to survey her smooth curves—which made him blush and the smile hastily vanish again.

Storm laughed merrily and said, “Look all you want! I’m not ashamed of this body—but it still amazes me how many men are!”

That make him look quickly away again and sputter through his mustache, “Have done, please , lady. We’re almost at a guard post.”

Storm sighed, wove the tablecloth around herself, and assumed a stately stride at his heels. He slowed, matching her mood. They swept past the startled guards in silence. They were two rooms beyond, at the midpoint of a long hall lined with statues, when he spoke again.

“There have always been deaths in the keep,” he muttered abruptly, so that Storm had to bend forward over his shoulder to hear. “Mainly among us—the servants, I mean—and always in the Haunted Tower. Warnings to us, to keep out. Once it was a chambermaid and a hostler who’d gone there together, if you take my meaning. They were found by the daily guard patrol, lying in each other’s arms—headless.”

He walked on a few more paces for emphasis before adding, “We never found the heads.”

They passed through another door and turned left down the hall beyond. Drimmer looked cautiously up and down it before continuing. “Lord Summerstar was different—as was this last one. They were both found burned out inside, like something had sucked their innards away. Well, no; burned them out from within, more like. I saw ashes trail from the body when they laid my Lord Athlan on the table to be shrouded.”

“ ‘This last one’—the Harper, you mean?”

The steward came to an abrupt halt. “Ah—no, lady … haven’t they told you?”

Storm sighed. “Obviously not. Why don’t you tell me, then?”

Ilgreth Drimmer nodded. “There’s been a third gone, just before your arrival, lady. The war wizards think you struck him down.”

“Why?” Storm asked calmly.

The old steward’s eyes flicked sideways to assure himself that she was as level-hearted as she sounded. She was. He replied, “A Harper pin was found on the body—and it was not the pin belonging to the dead Harper. I fear Sarmyn thought it was a boast from you.”

“Whose body was this?”

“One of the war wizards who came here to learn who slew Lord Summerstar … Lhansig Dlaerlin.”

“I’ve never heard that name,” Storm said with a wrinkle of her brow. “What can you tell me about him?”

The steward shrugged. “I saw him only a handful of times, and briefly. A wizard who was always smiling … a sly one. ’Twouldn’t surprise me if he knew more secrets than many folk wanted known.”

Storm nodded, managing not to sigh. Everyone’s favored foe. “And how was he found?”

“The man was struck down in a garderobe, after a feast,” Drimmer said, “burned out, like the others.”

“Nowhere near the Haunted Tower?”

“Nay, lady. Just outside the hall where you’ve been dining,” the old steward said. He fumbled with his keys. “These chambers are yours, and I should tell you that the wizards’ve ordered a doorguard to stand right here as soon as you retire.”

“To keep me from creeping around Firefall Keep in the dark hours,” Storm murmured, “in case I should fall and hurt myself.”

Ilgreth Drimmer’s mouth twisted into a wry grin. “In a manner of speaking, lady, yes. I’ll just light another lamp in here, and—”

He broke off with a queer, sobbing sort of gulp, and stood very still. Storm had to thrust him aside to see what he was staring at.

The center of the room held a fine, gray-cloaked bed whose backboard soared up into an overhead bunting. It faced the door through the open doors of a small antechamber. Her luggage, most of it opened, lay at the foot of the bed. In its midst sat the seneschal of Firefall Keep, waiting for them.

He would wait forever, now. Renglar Baerest sat atop the duffels in Storm’s open strongchest, his booted legs spread. Between them his chest and gut had been torn open, clothes and all, to reveal a slumped chaos of entrails and gore in which a lone, delighted fly was buzzing. Over this carnage the seneschal grinned at them, two staring eyes fixed forever on the doorway where they stood.

Those eyes were the only scraps of familiarity left on a head that had been otherwise burnt away to a bare, charred skull. A fall of ash lay thick upon the shoulders of the corpse, and it wasn’t hard to see where it had come from.

Drimmer made a few broken, whistling sounds, and Storm saw that his mouth was moving. He was trying to say something, but finding no words.

“A fourth death,” she murmured to herself. “Cormyr used to be quieter than this.”

The old steward started to tremble. Storm’s arms went protectively around his shoulders. “He went in battle, Ilgreth,” she told him gently, “as he would have wished.”

The old man sobbed, trying to nod. Tears ran down his face as he turned to her, blindly took hold of two locks of her hair, and snarled, “He was my last friend, lady! The last man left who swung a sword with me for the realm! Oh, gods look down! May they give you the power to do what I beseech you to!”

“And what’s that, friend?” Storm asked, cradling him to her breast as if he was a small child.

The old man raised blazing eyes to her, and hissed through his tears, “Find the one who did this to Renglar! Find him—or it—and tear them apart! And if it takes my hand in aid, even if it costs my life, too—call for it!”

“Sir, I will do so,” Storm told him, looking deeply into his eyes. “This I swear.”

A flame of hope kindled in Drimmer’s old eyes. “Gods bless you, lady,” he whispered. “Gods bring you victory.”