Silverfall: Stories of the Seven Sisters (forgotten realms)

by Ed Greenwood

  "Sleeper, awake," Storm growled at the slyblade. "I've got to go hunting mad mages."

  Hubris is the shared chink in all our armor.

  Elminster's voice was a grudging growl in her mind. She could feel the warmth of his affection, and knew she'd started smiling.

  Taerach Thone looked up fearfully from the far end of the kitchen table for perhaps the hundredth time. Almost unconsciously his hand dropped down to caress the hilt of the belt dagger they'd returned to him, then jerked back as if he'd committed a shameful crime. Storm sighed. Did he think she was going to tear him limb from limb, after carrying him all the way here, bathing him, and putting him to bed?

  In her mind, she replied to Elminster, And so?

  Through the link, she could see the Old Mage floating in the warm, dark room where the Weave surged and roiled like silent surf. Back to back, held pressed together in a human star, he and the Simbul were floating together, as he fed her from his own life-force. Let Mystra smile upon them both.

  Halaster likes to weave a little trap into his enchant shy;ments, to give his apprentices-or anyone else-who breaks one of them a little slap of reproval, a jolt that tells the recipient whose lash they're feeling. Thus, a distinctive signature is woven into almost his every casting. In Undermountain, of course, they stand clustered and piled atop each other like pebbles on a beach. Outside of its passages, those who use Weavesight can easily find the work of Halaster.

  Does it seem so sensible to you, El, Storm replied, that I, among the weakest of us Chosen in the Art, should be the one to go hunting Halaster Blackcloak? If defeating this cabal matters, shouldn't one of us who might have a real hope of victory against him be the one to-?

  Halaster is waiting for just such a battle, ready with spells hung to trigger other spells in a nasty little inferno. If I pile protections upon ye-protections that need not be set aside to allow ye to hurl spells out at him-I can keep ye alive long enough to reach him.

  And do what? she asked. Slay him? Mystra above, man, he controls more gates to other planes and places than either of us know. The stability of some cellars in Waterdeep, and the buildings and streets above them, depend on his enchantments. To say nothing of the fact that he polices Undermountain better than any of us ever could, and could ravage any place we fought with the spells he carries-and the contingencies that will be triggered if he dies!

  Gently, lass, gently there. He's not acted like this before. I think someone has a hold over him, and I need ye to find out whom, and to deal with it.

  I'm not sure I'm looking forward to dealing with anyone-or anything-that can maintain a hold over Halaster Blackcloak.

  Grim and rueful that sounded, even to her. Storm took two strides over to a pot that needed stirring before it overflowed, felt the anxious eyes of Taerach Thone on her again, and added, Wouldn't I be better employed tracking down the rest of this little group? They won't all retire instantly the moment we remove the mages from their midst, you know. I sometimes think we live in a Faerun far removed from the real one. We always have spells and mages and potential castings and abuses on our minds, when most folk worry about being too cold or not having enough to eat, or about cruel laws and crueler armsmen coming to back them up.

  So we do. It's another failing we share. Elminster's voice in her mind was calm, almost weary. Are ye getting too tired for this, Storm? Shall I leave off pestering ye?

  Nay, nay, Old Mage. Never leave off pestering me. It's all I have left of my childhood.

  He chuckled, then, and Storm staggered as he thrust a whirlwind of flashing lines and knots of force into her mind. Thone tensed, as if to rise, but sat back when she gave him a glare and shook her head.

  Blood of Mystra, El, what in the name of all tankard-tapping trolls was that?

  Halaster's signature. Got it?

  My mind feels as if it's swollen with child-a kicking child, she replied. Yes, I have it, Lady smite thee.

  Good. Now, get out thy trivet.

  My trivet? Old Mage …?

  I took the liberty, lass, upon my last biscuit-snatching sweep through thy kitchen, of doing a casting.

  On my trivet. Well, it's nice to know archmages have enough to do, to fill up their gray-whiskered, dragging days. Once they get tired of taking on attractive young apprentices.

  Don't claw, lass, 'tisn't pretty. Got it out yet?

  Of course.

  Storm let all the sarcasm she could muster drip through those two words, but Elminster's voice rolled on as gently as if he'd never heard her. Put thy hand upon it and tell Sylune not to be alarmed if a few sparks come out of ye. Eyes, nose, mouth-that sort of thing. You'll be need shy;ing a fair cloak of spells upon ye to go up against Halaster. This may take some time. If ye've something on the stove, move it off.

  Storm sighed and did as she was told. Thone's eyes grew large and round at what she said then, but he said nothing-even when the fingertips of a hand rose out of the ironwork to clasp Storm's hand, and the Bard of Shadowdale stiffened, every hair on her body shot out straight, and her bare feet rose gently to hover a few feet off the kitchen floor. Sylune had to give him a warning murmur to keep him in his seat, however, when lightning began to play around Storm's toes.

  Sylune let her head loll onto her shoulder as she slumped down in the old high-backed armchair, and after a short time let gentle snoring sounds come out of her. She needed no spell to feel the frowning gaze of Taerach Thone on her, nor to hear the faint rattle of his quill going into the drip bottle. Slyblades learn to move with infinite care and stealth. Sylune barely heard him pass by her and out the door. She waited until he was three catlike steps down the passage before drifting up from her body to follow him, invisible and curious.

  Beyond the grain sacks piled ceiling-high at one end, waiting for the harvest a season away, the room was empty except for the floating woman.

  A faint, flickering glow outlined Storm Silverhand, and stole out to fade just shy of the corners of the room. She was floating in midair, flat on her back and about chest high off the floor.

  Thone took a cautious step away from the door he'd just slipped through, and peered to see if her eyes were open or shut. He felt somehow more comfortable when he saw that her eyes were closed. She seemed more alert than truly asleep; in a trance, perhaps. There was a very faint humming-almost a singing-coming from her body. It was coming from all over her, not her mouth alone. This must be the hunt for Halaster she'd mentioned to her sister. The hunt that would doom someone, if it succeeded.

  Thone took a step closer to the floating woman, and watched her silver hair warily. It rippled in a rhythmic pulse, unchanged by his presence. He licked dry lips and cast a swift glance back at the door behind him.

  All was silence and emptiness. He'd slipped away from the sleeping witch, and was now free to slay a woman Manshoon himself was said to fear. Whenever a scheme to seize the dale was advanced, it was said, and the inevitable plot to draw the mage Elminster elsewhere was outlined, Manshoon always murmured, "But there are harps … all too many serve Storm in that dale. What of her?"

  It would take only a few moments. Immortal or not, no woman could live on with her head cut from her body. Thone stroked the handle of his dagger as he stood over her, looking down.

  Aye, they'd given him back his belt blade. Why? Were these women so stupid, or so proud in their power? How many hundred years did the bards insist they'd been alive in Faerun?

  There must be a trap. Some spell or other to smash him away into the nearest wall if he drew steel here. Yet, what magic could possibly flare up swiftly enough to stop him ripping open her throat?

  With a sudden swift, darting movement he drew his dagger and hefted it in his hand, seeing the reflected glow gleam back at him from it. He held his breath, but, as the seconds passed, nothing happened. He sighed out air, and started to breathe again. So, steel was drawn and he yet lived.

  There were mages back in the citadel who grew pale at the mere mention of the Bard of Shadowdal
e. There were men in Teshwave who spat curses and fingered old scars when the Harpers of Shadowdale were mentioned, and men around the fires spoke of "the undying Storm" who led them.

  And there was Ridranus to avenge.

  Taerach Thone's lips tightened, and he raised his weapon. He never saw Sylune drifting with him, because there was nothing to see. She glided in to encircle his wrist as mist too soft to feel-yet-and called up the magics she'd need to blast him in an instant, Heartsteel sequels or no Heartsteel sequels.

  Taerach Thone held his glittering dagger ready and looked down at the floating woman. A kind of wonder grew in his face, as the long, silent seconds passed. Then, in a sudden, almost furious movement, he thrust his dagger back into its sheath and stepped back.

  He raised his hand in a sort of salute before he slipped back out of the room, as softly and as silently as he'd come.

  "Off you go," Sylune said gently, as she drew back from the kiss and turned away. Behind her, without sound or fuss, Storm Silverhand abruptly vanished. The Witch of Shadowdale let the spell-glow fade from around her wrists and gave the watching slyblade a wry smile. "Seen enough for a few good scenes yet?" Thone shook his head, disbelief in his eyes. "Lady," he said hesitantly, "what I’d heard about you silver-haired sisters was far indeed from what I've seen here. I … you even have all of my books in the kitchen. I'm still a little stunned that you trust me here."

  Sylune smiled. "You've earned it."

  "I have?"

  "In this room, not so long ago, when you drew your dagger and didn't use it," the Witch of Shadowdale said crisply, as she swept out the door.

  Thone gaped at her departing back, went as pale as old snow, then, moving in sudden haste, followed her back to the kitchen. When he got there, the room was empty of witches, but a warm mug of soup was waiting by his chair. It smelled wonderful.

  The tall, gaunt man hummed to himself as he drew forth small folded scraps of parchment from the crevices of a carved face on the door of a certain vault, unfolded and read them, and either slid them back into their rest shy;ing places or replaced them with other folded messages. A ring like a great green beetle shone on his finger in the faint glow of the tomblight enchantments as he worked, rapidly filling a small, hovering tray.

  Such a scene could be observed nightly, by those able to win past the forbidding guards of many a priest, in most of the crypts in the City of the Dead. However, these parchments were not prayers, and the white-haired man in the tattered brown robes was no priest.

  Moreover, he had no guards. A dark shimmering in the air around him kept wandering mourners at bay even more effectively. He was always alone, no matter how fre shy;netic bustling Waterdeep might become, close around him.

  Reading the little missives always amused him. The writers went to such great lengths to make them cryptic to all who weren't part of the group, in case they fell into other hands. Neither Labraster nor the growling woman-Malsander, that was her name-had picked up their mes shy;sages for a long while, now. Perhaps he should. . but no. What these fools did to make themselves feel important mattered not a whit to him.

  Only the dark bidding that drove him mattered, and the fascination he shared with it. That silv-

  A small sound came to his ears from just behind him, and Halaster Blackcloak whirled around. Something soft brushed his cheek, something that made his skin tingle, and he found himself staring into the dark, merry eyes of a woman with silver hair, whose nose was almost touching his own. She was as tall as he, and clad in foresters' leathers that had seen much use. She spread empty hands to show him that she held no weapon, though he could see a long sword scabbarded at one hip, and daggers riding in at least three places. His face grew hard nonetheless. She should not have been there.

  She should not have been able to step through his spellsmoke. No one not mighty in Art should be able to pass through it. She should not be unfamiliar to him and yet, of course, she must be one of the Seven Sisters, one not often seen in Waterdeep.

  Therefore-he sighed-he must essay the inevitable: "Who are you?"

  He made his voice as cold and unwelcoming as he felt. Perhaps he could bargain for a taste of what he sought, before things came to battle. To do that, this intruder must be made to feel beholden.

  "One who wonders why the great Halaster consorts with reckless Thayan fools, drow, and sneak thieves," Storm replied in level tones. Her eyes flicked to the float shy;ing tray. "And reads their mail," she added, her voice firm and yet cool.

  Halaster frowned at her, lifting a hand to his tingling cheek. She must have … kissed him?

  "I'm not accustomed to bandying words with overbold lasses, whate'er their obvious charms," he said coldly, "or the greatness they may think long years grants them. Render unto me your name, and the truth as to why you are here and what you've just done to me, or I'll blast you down into lasting torment as a crippled serpent under my boots."

  "Now that's a charming maiden-catching manner," Storm replied.

  The Mad Mage said not a word in reply, nor made any gesture that she could see, but from his fingertips light shy;ning leaped, crackling at her in angry chorus. Its snarling and spitting rose loud in her ears, and the force of its fury made her body shake, yet she strode through it unafraid to push his out thrust hand aside.

  "You'll have to do better than that," she murmured into his face.

  Was she reaching her lips up to his? Gods, yes-

  Halaster's eyes narrowed, and he made a quick, flicking gesture with one finger. The tomblight failed, the tray plummeted to ring on the flagstones underfoot, and the world exploded into white roaring flame.

  When its fury died, Storm could tell from the surging and eddying around her that the outermost of Elminster's shieldings had been shredded, and now clung to her limbs on the verge of flickering collapse. Yet she smiled easily, knowing she had to goad him.

  "Is that all? Be not timid, Blackcloak!" she said heartily, her innocent enthusiasm as much a taunt as if she'd spat curses at him.

  The world exploded into purple fire this time.

  Its fury was such that Storm found herself on one knee when it faded, her ears ringing, her eyes blurred with tears, and another two shieldings gone. Halaster was glar shy;ing at her with a sort of angry triumph, but she made her shy;self rise, give him a pitying smile, and say, "Ah, but archmages certainly aren't what they were when I was but a little lass."

  She fought her way through the swirling claws that he conjured next, ignoring the places where they stabbed through her last few shieldings to draw cold and bloody slices across her arms, shoulders, and thighs. When she brushed blindly against Halaster, Storm put her arms around him in a lover's embrace, entwining her legs around his.

  He growled in fear and distaste, and she found herself grasping a sphere of bony plates surmounted by many staring eyestalks. She hissed in distaste, pulling her head back from the thrusting eyes even as she clung hard to the spicy-smelling beholder.

  It shifted and wriggled under her, and became a barbed, conelike bulk whose tail stabbed at her repeatedly. The jaws that split the top of the cone snarled and tried to bite her, as the four arms that fringed it strained to pull her into its mouth. Storm clung close to the sharp body, winc shy;ing at the gashes it dealt, and found herself clawing to keep her hold on the smooth scales of a twisting serpent whose wings crashed against her in a furious flailing. Jaws snapped in vain and smoking green spittle flew.

  The serpent became a white-haired man again, snarling, ''Why did you kiss me, wench? What do you want?"

  "I kissed you to set a hook in you, Halaster," Storm told him, "to stay with you no matter what transformations you work, or where you hurl us. If your spells hurt me, the same hurts shall also make you suffer."

  "But why?"

  "I want to know why Halaster Blackcloak became part of this cabal whose folk are so clumsy, and whose work is so far from what has concerned you for so long. Why are you meddling in backstreet taverns in Scornubel and ai
ding slavers in the cellars of Waterdeep? How does a mighty wizard gain anything by such work?"

  Their surroundings suddenly changed. The tomb was gone, whirled away in a smoky chaos that revealed a dark, echoing, water-dripping place somewhere underground, with a purple glow in its distant reaches.

  "Behold and learn then, Chosen of Mystra," Halaster hissed. "Come."

  They moved together, bodies entwined as they drifted along on a spell breeze, up to the source of the glow. It was a simple, massive black block of stone, lying like a lone, gigantic clay brick on the floor, the purple glow swirling restlessly in the air just above it. There were no graven runes, and no braziers or anything else that Storm could see, yet she knew she was looking upon an altar-an altar to Shar.

  "You've taken to worship in your declining days?" she asked, making her voice sharp with incredulity. Goad, then goad some more.

  "The Goddess … of the Night. ?" Halaster gasped, seeming to suddenly have to struggle to speak, "desires-" He gurgled and choked for some time, but as Storm clung to him, she did not think he was descending into one of his bouts of madness. No, some entity was trying to master him, to prevent the trembling wizard from saying something he very much wanted to say.

  She dared to stroke him with a soothing hand, and whisper the release of a small purgative spell she carried for banishing diseases and infections. Halaster shuddered under her, as if he were a frightened horse, and Storm realized they'd somehow ended up lying on the altar together-or rather, the archmage was lying on it, and she was clinging to him.

  "— desires… what I do!" Halaster snarled, then twisted under her like a frenzied thing, biting and bucking and kicking.

  His magic lifted them and whirled them over and over in the air. One of Storm's elbows struck the stone altar as they spun, and blazed up into numb fire. Her hold slipped, and like a striking snake Halaster was out and over her and slamming her down onto the altar with all the magi shy;cal force he could muster. Purple fires flowed hungrily over them both.