Эд Гринвуд - Stormlight

The bedchamber, which had maintained a dignified silence during this soliloquy, continued to do so. Storm stripped off her war harness, rubbed at the places where the leather straps had chafed, stared at them critically in an oval wall mirror as tall as she, waved cheerfully to the wizard she suspected was scrying her through the mirror, and went back to the boots she’d stuffed full of discarded daggers.

Driving one into the door frame and another into the foot of the bed, she murmured some words over each. Then she did the same to a pair driven into either side of the frame of the mirror.

Two spells well spent. If any living thing but herself passed between a pair of daggers, it would receive both blades, flying full tilt, and the spell would jolt Storm awake.

She shook her head at having to take such precautions, sniffed at one armpit, and murmured, “I am getting a little musky.”

Whatever Pheirauze Summerstar might think of her, it seemed the keep servants considered her a guest to be honored. Under its padded metal cover, the bath proved to be deliciously warm. Storm propped her long sword within reach, shed her scanties, and sank thankfully up to her chin in the waiting waters. Warm ripples almost went up her nose; she chuckled and resisted the momentary impulse to play at being a sea-serpent and rise from the waters to bite and drag down a hapless floating wooden back-scrubber. She was just too tired.

“Syluné,” she said aloud, “ ’tis I—the bold bad Bard of Shadowdale. How goes it?”

As she’d hoped, her distant sister heard her own name spoken, recognized Storm’s voice, and used a spell to let them farspeak mind to mind.

Dozing in the water, lazily running handfuls of scented soap shavings over her limbs, Storm chatted silently about the current sad state of mastery and maturity among Cormyrean war wizards, and the grim, unfolding run of murders. “It looks bad, I fear.”

In return, Syluné told her how things were growing on the farm, and of the latest happenings in Shadowdale. She did not bid her be careful, offer assistance, or remind her of half a dozen things to be wary of. Storm was thankful for that, as always, but was startled to hear her sister observe quietly, “Something has upset you more than usual. Give, lady.”

Storm sighed, but did not bother to hesitate or deny. “I used the ‘last thing the eyeballs saw’ spell on a decent old warrior slain in my bedchamber,” she told her sister aloud, “and it seems our killer is, or at least wears the likeness of my man, Maxer.”

“Oh, Storm, ” was all Syluné said, but there was a long lifetime of compassion in her voice.

Hearing that, Storm felt fresh tears well up, and added firmly, “Oh—one thing more. Our Happy Dancing Mages are so sure that evil lady Harpers are dismantling Cormyr stone by stone that one of them used a spellblade on me, and spilled some of Mystra’s fire.”

“Not something you can afford to dispense endlessly,” Syluné observed, understanding at last why Storm was so weary. Her exhaustion was obvious; speaking aloud during farspeech was something the bard did only when she was very tired. “You’d best sleep. Fare thee well.”

Storm found herself climbing out of the now-cool bath. Her sister’s mental equivalent of a kiss tingled on her cheek. She padded to where towels awaited, and then to bed.

Chosen of Mystra don’t need to sleep, but someone seemed to have forgotten to tell Storm’s body that. She’d been wounded before, and swung a sword for hours in battle with her own blood raining down around her in tongues of silver flame … but she’d been younger then.

Now it felt good to lay her unsheathed long sword ready on one side of the broad empty bed, and curl up against the pillows to stare into the night. She lost herself in the silent songs that lived in her memory, ballad after ballad, as the wee hours trailed quietly by.

It wasn’t long, of course, before Maxan’s face swam up to her again. He was laughing across a campfire somewhere deep in the High Forest as he tossed a bowl to her. She reached out to catch it, and found herself cradling nothing and staring at the empty bed around her.

“Oh, Maxan,” she whispered, “why did you have to leave me so alone?” With sudden speed, she snatched a pillow onto her raised knees and hugged it to herself before the tears came.

Even a woman who carries centuries of sorrows can run out of tears and drift into dry-eyed melancholy. Tossing aside her sodden pillow, Storm decided not to get off the bed and get a decanter of something fiery. Instead, she began to sing softly again, keeping to ballads she and Maxer had not enjoyed together. Perhaps knowing everyone else had troubles, too, would make her feel better.…

Some time later, she was silently singing the final, mournful verse of “The Old Wandering Knight” when there was a sudden burst of blue-green light, a rush of displaced air—and something limp and heavy crashed down atop her!

Even as she thrust it away and rolled to her feet, calmly commanding her discarded underthings to blaze with the radiance they’d been enspelled to emit, Storm had a good idea of what she’d see.

She just didn’t know whom. So she stood with a boot in one hand and her other hand thrust into it, on the hilts of a quartet of daggers, and peered narrowly at her bed in the growing light.

On the pillows where she’d lain was someone else—someone who’d never move again. Someone who could never have teleported himself to where he now sprawled, facing her.

It was one of the young, clever war wizards … Murndal Claeron, that was the name … in his robes and the tattered remnants of a cloak. His boots bore the dust of little-used passages—in the Haunted Tower, no doubt—and his skull seemed to have been burned out from within. The eye-sockets that stared at her were black, empty pits, and the gaping mouth lacked a tongue. As she watched, a trickle of ash fell from it to the linens where she’d been lying moments before.

Storm sighed to mask her involuntary shudder. Someone obviously believed in less-than-subtle warnings. “Scream,” she snarled aloud, in case the someone was listening for that very reaction right now, and drew in a deep, tremulous breath. So much for relaxing; she had a long night of work ahead of her.

She started for the bed, automatically reaching to roll her sleeves back out of the way. She chuckled a trifle harshly: dressed like this, she didn’t have any sleeves.…

Dark and savage rage was rising in Broglan Sarmyn as he stalked up to the closed door of Storm’s bedchamber.

Murndal had never returned to the study.

It was early indeed for insistent servants to be rousing Broglan from the chair where he’d finally fallen asleep, waiting for the young wizard’s report. They rushed him down chilly corridors, heedless of his stiff, aching limbs and urgent need to relieve himself. All of it was at the behest of a shameless outlander Harper who hid her insolence behind the title of Chosen of Mystra! Hah! He could style himself First Prophet of Azuth if he’d happened to have so brazen an ego, and take on the same airs.…

He was a dozen angry paces from Storm’s door and the expressionless Purple Dragons flanking it when a shadow stepped away from the wall in front of him. With a start, he recognized Ergluth Rowanmantle, the boldshield of Northtrees March.

“What is this—a court meeting?” Broglan snapped. “This had better be worth rousing me at this hour.” Close on the heels of his words came the faint cry of a rooster from the vale beyond the keep walls. “Bloody Harpers,” the wizard added—and of course, the bedchamber door in front of both men swung open at that moment.