Silverfall: Stories of the Seven Sisters (forgotten realms)

by Ed Greenwood

  She sent a smile in the direction of the mageling's fearful face and carefully shaped one of her newer spells. "This," she announced to the gaping Marlus, "is a spell-snaring sphere. Pay attention, now."

  Ignoring the battle cries and pounding of booted feet now storming up the passageway, the Simbul stepped back to the wall and spun the sphere around the priest's blade barrier. She strode forward again, into the heart of the whirling steel, to face the onrushing charge.

  What she saw down the passageway made her laugh in bitter derision. The priest of Shar had come to a halt to watch the warriors he'd urged forward die. How valiant. How typically brave of clergy the world over.

  Her eyes narrowed as the second priest came hurry shy;ing up to stand beside the first. His hands moved speed shy;ily through the motions of a spell she did not know. This could be interesting. Well, it wasn't a battle if she didn't feel pain before it ended.

  The armsmen were thundering at her with weapons raised, their armor glowing and sparking with feeble pro shy;tective magics that just might carry them once through the raging knives of the blade barrier… or might not.

  She danced from side to side, to keep her secret from that sharp-eyed mageling against the wall for as long as possible, as the warriors rushed at her and began to thrust and hack. Overhead, amid the whirling blades but seemingly unaffected, a dark cloud spun into being. She glanced up, and quickly back at the second priest. Yes, it was his doing. His eyes were intent upon it.

  Armsmen grunted and shouted and swung swords. She ducked and danced and snarled at them, as if truly trying to dodge their steel, and looked back up at the low-hanging cloud-oho! This must be the Spider of Shar spell she'd heard of… yes, here came the "legs." It was a small forest of black tendrils. This would last for a while, whipping the mageling, herself, and the armsmen indis shy;criminately. They brought stinging pain, she'd heard, but she knew not how-precisely-they dealt damage.

  One of the warriors grew impatient in his frustra shy;tion. Why wouldn't this woman he was hacking fall? He put his head down and charged right through her, passing through her nothingness to crash and clang hard against the chamber wall. The Simbul saw the mageling's eyes narrow.

  "Y-yyes!" he cried, pointing at her. "Yon's not the sorcer shy;ess at all, but a-"

  The black tendrils closed over his head and twisted it off.

  The Witch-Queen of Aglarond whistled and swal shy;lowed, despite herself, as the headless, blood-pumping body staggered forward into the blades and began to slump into bloody nothingness under their butchery. So that was a Spider of Shar.

  Tendrils were lashing through her phantom self in angry futility now, and she thought it prudent to stagger, look injured, and to flee-down the passageway, toward the priests-as swiftly as possible.

  As she began her falsely unsteady journey, the war shy;riors were making small whimpering sounds, wetter noises, and one or two short, desperate screams as the whirling blades penetrated their flickering, failing defensive magics. Even if one of the clergy tried to bring down the blade barrier now with quelling magic, her spellsnaring sphere would maintain it. She tugged on the sphere in her mind, sawing it from one side of the room-daggers snarled and rang sparks off the stone walls-to the other, where the song of tortured metal was repeated. Along the way, the moving blades brought final doom to the four armsmen dying in the heart of that whirlwind of steel.

  Horrible things, blade barriers. Bloodletting waste, she thought, far more grisly than a good, clean fireball.

  With that old and sarcastic wizards' dark joke twist shy;ing her lips, the Simbul brought the blade barrier through her phantom self. She gasped and flung up her arms in a fairly impressive feigning of fresh-wounded pain, and thrust it down the passage toward the two priests. Another pair of men had emerged into the far end of the passageway, far behind the priests, and at the sight of them, the Simbul acquired a smile that was even less pretty than the one she'd just been wearing.

  Red Wizards, these two, or she'd eat all their fingers, with or without salt. One of them even wore the purple robes and red sash that puppeteers the world over used to let their audiences know "Red Wizard" in a glance.

  Ah, now, perhaps this trip was going to be worth leav shy;ing a comfortable throne for, after all.

  The whirling blades shrieked and snarled their way along the narrow passage, spitting shards and sparks in all directions. Had her real body not now been tucked prudently into a corner of the chamber where appren shy;tices had recently been acting the roles of the rulers of Nimpeth, the Queen of Aglarond might have suffered some real damage. As it was, she limped and lurched for shy;ward, her face a mask of pain as she clutched at nonex shy;istent wounds in her phantom side, and tried to keep a grin from creeping onto her face as she watched the priests struggle with their obviously meager courage.

  It didn't take long for one of them-the one who'd cast the spider spell-to whirl around and flee. The other one acquired a rather sick and wavering smile of confidence as he raised his hands into some rather frantic spell-casting and stood his ground, backing only a single step to strike a more dramatic pose.

  The two Red Wizards had stopped to cast ironguard magics on themselves. They glanced down the passage calmly when they were done, then began to stroll unhur shy;riedly toward the fray. Ah, Thayan arrogance…

  "The priest wasn't exaggerating after all," Largrond of the Lash remarked. "I must admit I am surprised."

  "Not exaggerating?" Ylondan the Tall replied, lifting a hand to make sure his rings were gleaming in their accustomed places. "You think that staggering wreck is the Simbul?" He nodded his head in the direction of the wounded, staggering woman in the distance.

  The priest Staenyn came panting past them, his eyes wild. He looked away hastily from the hard glares they gave him-and Ylondan thrust out a boot and tripped him. Staenyn fell hard, but they did not bother to look and see what he did after that.

  "Well, whoever she may be," Largrond said with a cold smile, "our duty is clear."

  "Yes," Ylondan agreed, glee making his voice rise into oily triumph. "Blast the bitch!"

  As if in reply to this, Temple Master Maeldur emitted a brief, brutally cut off bubbling scream as the blades reached him and did their bloody work.

  "In case she should be an accomplished mage, and have some spells left," Largrond said, as the two Red Wizards strolled untouched through the shrieking, clanging blades, "I propose we take no chances. I shall cloak her in an anti-magic shell-and you can blast the ceiling above her. The old saying applies, you know."

  "'Falling stones humble even the mightiest zulkir'- that one?" Ylondan replied, stepping around the diced carrion that had recently been a temple master of Shar without bothering to really look down, "Or do you mean the one about not hurling meteor swarms when a bolt of lightning will do?"

  "The former," Largrond replied, not bothering to turn and look as the blade barrier met a Staenyn who was still groggily struggling to rise, and cut him to shrieking ribbons. "The other one presumes you know precisely what you're facing."

  Ylondan swallowed. "I think I do," he said in a far qui shy;eter voice than before, as the blade barrier echoed its furious way on down the passage. His eyes were fixed on the woman they were now rapidly approaching, and his face had lost some of its usual color. "I saw the Simbul once, in battle against… oh, never mind."

  He lifted his hands in sudden haste, and began to work a spell with hissing precision, moving his hands just as fast as the casting would allow. Largrond glanced at him, lifted one eyebrow, and matched his colleague's pace.

  They were halfway through when the woman they were facing straightened up, crossed her arms over her breast in lazy condescension, and smilingly awaited their spells. Largrond almost faltered when the waiting woman began to laugh at them.

  The Red Wizards finished their castings with identical sighs of relief, and Largrond's anti-magic shell promptly flickered into life. As it did so, the laughing sorceress winked out of exi
stence, her mirth cut off abruptly-an instant before the stony rubble crashed down.

  "A projected image," Largrond groaned. His words heralded another instant, one in which the falling rubble was translocated onto the heads of the two Red Wizards. Sixty-odd stones that were each half the size of men slammed down to the passage floor amid a lot of lesser rubble, shaking the fortress, causing a partial collapse into the rooms on the floor below, and driving the dust of centuries into the air.

  The real Simbul coughed delicately, stepped around the corner, and stood amid the carnage, dusting off her hands. "Stand together in a passageway discussing your tactics against a foe close enough to hear? Idiots," she muttered. "The likes of these want to rule Faerun? Better we give it to the orcs."

  It had been a long and howling nightmare of pain, with much lying shivering on cold stone in utter dark shy;ness while half-cooked flesh that glistened and quivered like feast-day jelly shed the dark, dry ashes that had once been skin, and Auvrarn Labraster found new ways to scream.

  Now the one who'd brought him here was back. Cool, soothing fingers had touched his eyeballs and banished the swimming haze that had cloaked them since the fire. A flood of sheer, shivering-cold pleasure had washed over Labraster from head to toe, banishing the worst of the pain and restoring to him skin that didn't crumble into ash or stick to anything it touched, and muscles that could move his limbs.

  Those chilling but gentle fingers touched his throat. Auvrarn Labraster had a brief glimpse of a ring that looked like the iridescent husk of a long, green beetle, that covered the uppermost joint of a slender male human right hand, and glowed with a green light tinged around the edges with white. The glow extended only a little way, but it was enough to show him a rough, curv shy;ing wall of stone around and above his head. He was, it seemed, lying in a cavern.

  Labraster then discovered that he could swallow again, could taste something besides fire for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, and could, in fact, speak. He swallowed several times, trying to shape words through a mouth and throat that seemed horribly dry.

  "I owe you my life, good sir," he husked, hearing a voice that at some moments seemed little more than a whistle, and little more than a raw, ragged rattle at others, "and wish to extend to you my thanks."

  The response that came from almost directly above him-where the ring-wearer stood, his head beyond Labraster's field of view-was startling. The man with the cool fingers abruptly burst into a loud, canine bark shy;ing.

  That barking gave way to liquid laughter, too high and shrill to be comfortably sane, then an almost childlike giggle. It was followed by the calm, matter-of-fact words, "The plume the flagon, but there is in fact no palimpsest at twice the thalers," which in turn gave way to a howl, a rising run of ragged, frantic, and ever-faster panting, then, in a quite different, almost feminine voice: "Come to the stone, and feed."

  Those cold hands touched him again, and again as the babbling and barking went on, Auvrarn Labraster lay on his back not daring to move or speak for fear of what those hands, so powerful in magic, might do.

  Cold fear rose and danced in his breast and throat, making him sob almost frantically. The man who wore the green beetle ring seemed to grow angry, his yips and shouts rising to a crescendo, then, eerily, he fell utterly silent again.

  The hands left him, the green-white glow fading, and time stretched. Labraster had just begun to hope the madman who'd restored him to health had departed when the same cold hands, without warning, touched his knee and the ankle below it.

  It was all he could do to keep from jumping and let shy;ting out a shriek as the mysterious mage burst into inco shy;herent babbling above him again. Half words, or a fluid tongue that the trembling merchant did not know, gave way to speech startling in its calm clarity.

  "There is no dark sun," said the man who wore the beetle ring, "but First-Speaker was even more wrong. Under the sea of sands they wait, beyond all vanquish shy;ing. The dragon stirs, but no sleepers wake. I see that throne emptied. It will all come again. I will be there. The whips of my faithful shall strike. The eyes of my devoted shall see. There is no doom to touch the dark shy;ness I can send. Rend the sacrifices. Rend them now."

  The cold hands tightened. Somehow Labraster man shy;aged to keep silent, but he was shaking uncontrollably as the hands clutched him cruelly here, there, and all over. Silence fell again.

  Auvrarn Labraster would have prayed fervently-though silently-then, if he'd had any idea which god he should be praying to. Whichever one, if any, who'd have him.

  His healer paid him no heed, but threw back that unseen head and howled, the roar deafening in the small, echoing space. Labraster glanced down at himself in the din to make sure he hadn't been given wings, or a tail, or-no. The Waterdhavian who'd spent far too much time as Blandras Nuin closed his eyes firmly and lay back on the stone. If a god-whoever might hear-would just take all of this pain and confusion away. …

  A thought struck him that left him cold and cowering indeed. The hands were trailing up and down him again, seeming to caress rather than claw. What if they were the hands of a god?

  "And what is your view, Thaltar?"

  "Insofar as I'll admit to having formed one, Dlamaerztus, I think it important that all of you know that it's but an immediate reaction-a feeling in the gut, if you will-and not a reasoned and sustainable position."

  "Wisdom of Mystra, man, this isn't a debating club," said a third mage at the table disgustedly, as he shook out his sleeves. Despite several hot glares, his next action was to unconcernedly take up his thin, foot-long cigar again from a holder on the shining wood before him that looked like what it was, a petrified human hand cupped eternally in a pose that allowed it to receive stray and weary cigars, pipes, and even writing quills. The mage blew a smoke ring as he sat back in his chair, with the air of a man exhausted from delivering a long and modestly brilliant speech.

  "Norlarram," Dlamaerztus said testily, "I don't know why you attend these meetings, given the preparations and defenses we must all make, if you're not prepared to seriously discuss our unfolding plans. I know I don't attend for the pleasure of having you blow cigar smoke into my face all evening."

  "No?" Norlarram of the Five Hungry Lightnings returned coolly, another smoke ring leaving his lips. "Why exactly do you attend these gatherings, then, Dlammur? Is it just to keep an eye on the rest of us with shy;out having to spend long afternoons casting eleven sep shy;arate spying spells? I've awaited-nay, anticipated-the bright light of worthy verbal contributions on your part these past four meetings, as you've striven to chide and curb us as if we were children and you our teacher. I find myself, now, still waiting for that brilliance to shine upon us all."

  The largest and fattest of the twelve robed men seated around the table rumbled into angry life. "This again! Look, everyone, as we are all Red Wizards, we must all know how to write, and read, and think. We all have ambition, or we'd not be here. We all have far too little time to spare for anything we look upon with pleasure. So I ask the table in general: must we listen, at our every gathering, to idle, cutting witticisms by men who think themselves clever?"

  "Or complaints from men who think themselves wiz shy;ards?" Norlarram asked his cigar in arch tones. Someone snorted in mirth, a sound overridden by someone else's growl of anger.

  "I can't see, try as I might, how this wrangling and stirring of ill feelings is going to ease-or even permit-our working together," Thaltar observed calmly. "Why don't we simply leave off speaking words clever or oth shy;erwise until Iyrtaryld describes his latest plan? I suspect it is more than just my own view that will be formed, or reshaped, in light of what he has to say."

  "Finally something I can agree with," the fat wizard put in quickly. "Belt up, all of you, and give Iyrtaryld our silence to fill."

  "With this, I find myself in agreement," a thin, pale wizard whose hair and brows were wintry white said then, turning eyes whose pupils were the yellow of but shy;tercups to look
up and down the table. "Give Taryld the floor."

  A little silence fell, and into it a soft voice not heard before at this meeting said, "Ahem.. well, now."

  Its owner rose and looked coldly around the table. His beard thrust forth into Faerun like an up-curling spike from the point of his otherwise shaven chin, beneath eyes that glittered with malice and restless ambition. "I've worked out the last details of the enchantment that will enable one of us to pass on the burden to the next without letting the magic fall, and so keep the mouth extant as days pass. My trials suggest that the addition of this spell also mitigates any backlashes that may occur when the spell does fail."

  "'May occur'? Were there not always backlashes at the end of the spell?" Norlarram asked quickly.

  Iyrtaryld shrugged. "More than half the time, but not always."

  "And when not, how so?"

  "We could find no tactic in the use or handling of the spell to cause, steer, or prevent a backlash. The form, intensity, and even presence of this discharge seem truly random."

  "So, behold then. ." the always brisk-some would have said "impatient"-Dlamaerztus prompted.

  Iyrtaryld smiled, but no humor reached up to touch his eyes. "Behold, then," he said in coldly satisfied tones, "the Hungry Mouth."

  Those last two words triggered an illusion spell the soft-voiced mage had prepared beforehand, showing them a whirling, moving oval construct in the air, a maw hovering above a field. Its compulsion was strong enough to suck up streams of sand and rock dust into itself, though, at a glance they seemed to be flowing the other way, drooling down out of the hungry mouth as it roved almost restlessly up and over a little rise. It drew several startled sheep into itself, whirling them away in a swift, blurred snatching.

  "Vast herds of creatures, both wild and shepherded, roam the lands east of Raurin, and beyond that are realms both ancient and rich, whose folk are many. Shrewdly placed, our roving mouth can graze on these at will, delivering to us an endless supply of slaves. We can eat what can't be compelled to labor for us."