Эд Гринвуд - Stormlight

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 eyeballs, 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.

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 Faerûn 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.”