Silverfall: Stories of the Seven Sisters (forgotten realms)

by Ed Greenwood

  Storm bucked and twisted in turn, but the room was shaking with the force of the magic now roaring up out of the altar to augment Blackcloak's spell. Her shoulders were pinned to the warm, throbbing stone as if all of Mount Waterdeep were gripping her and holding her there.

  Halaster clambered down off her slowly amid the streaming purple flames, his eyes bright. Storm saw that he was looking at the places on her body that he'd bitten, and where his spell-claws and stinging tail had drawn blood. Thin threads of silver fire were rising up into the roiling purple radiance from them, as if milked forth.

  "The silver fire," Halaster whispered, thrusting his face close to Storm. "Shar wants it even more than I, and took to riding my mind not so long ago, stealing in when I was … away."

  He stretched forth a trembling hand to a tiny wound his teeth had made high on her shoulder, and gasped, "Give it to me. Give it to me!"

  "Halaster," Storm told him, "you have but to serve Mystra to gain it, obeying her as we Seven have chosen to do, but Our Lady shall never surrender it to such as Shar."

  The purple radiance flared up and seared away dark shy;ening, fading shieldings then, smiting her all over as if with many smiths' hammers. Storm was shaken like a leaf in its pounding, bone-shattering fury.

  Halaster stared down at her as if in amazement, as the silver fire his finger had touched was snatched away from him by the rushing purple flames. He looked for a moment as if he wanted to cry, then to chortle in glee. As Storm watched him, through the roaring and her pain, his face twisted and trembled. He barked, suddenly, like an angry, excited dog, then threw back his head and bayed before hurling himself on the woman struggling on the altar, twisting and panting and clawing at her. Sharp pains faded as his hungry hands clutched her broken bones, and they shrank away, healing at his touch.

  The archwizard's furious assault dragged her off the stone into a helpless tumble, and instantly Storm could breathe-and scream out her pain-again. Purple fire stabbed forth in angry fingers to claw at the whimpering bard and the puzzled-looking wizard as they stared into each other's eyes, locked in a frozen embrace, and Halaster asked in a very quiet, precise voice, "Excuse me, but are you one of my apprentices? I don't believe I've had the pleasure-"

  "No, and I'm thinking you won't be having it any time soon, Blackcloak," Storm hissed into his startled face, "if you don't get us both back out of here-now!"

  It was a gambit that almost worked. The mad archwizard frowned thoughtfully, as if trying to remember some shy;thing, lifted one hand to trace something in the air, then shook his head and said in quite a different voice, "Oh, no, Idon't think I could do that."

  "Halaster!" Storm roared at him, slapping his face as the purple fire rose into a shrieking howl, tugging at them enough to drag them a few inches across the stone floor. "Listen to me!"

  "Thy voice is tarble upon the ears, jibby, yet thou'rt strange to me. Yield thy name, I pray," he quavered in reply, his voice different again. Storm growled, wrapped her arms and legs around him as if he were a pole she was trying to slide down, and rolled their locked bodies over and over, away from the altar.

  The last of Elminster's shieldings slid away from around Storm as they went, passing into her in a healing that banished pain and brought back vigor from end to end of her body. She almost laughed aloud at the sheer pleasure it brought.

  Halaster burst into angry tears, like a child who's had a toy snatched from him, and was clawing at her again. "Give it!" he sobbed. "Give it back!"

  The threads of silver fire were gone, vanished with her healing. Snarling and barking, the wizard became a great black wolf, then a thing of talons and scales, panting, "Shrivel! Shred! Shatter!"

  "Sylune," Storm told the room grimly, as fresh fires in her breast announced that the claws had torn open her flesh once more, "you've a lot to answer for. Next time, call on someone else."

  Silver smoke billowed up from her in a bright glow, and Storm fought to slap away Halaster's head as it became snouted and many-fanged once more, and promptly snapped at her. She never saw the deeper darkness gather above the altar, and slowly open two cold, glitter shy;ing eyes of dark purple.

  Halaster's head was now a thing of questing tentacles, darting at her eyes and up her nostrils, sliding in a surge of cold slime into her ears.

  In the gloom of the temple under Waterdeep, there came a shining forth of the Weave. The air filled with the bright sweep of a glittering net of glowing stars, stars that threw back the darkness and the purple orbs as two blue-white eyes, each as large as a coach, opened briefly to regard the struggling humans.

  When the blue-white radiance faded, the bard and the wizard twisted and strained in darkness, their only light the sparks and tongues of silver fire leaking from between them.

  The purple glow returned briefly, flaring up like a flame on the altar, but the blue-white flash that came out of nowhere to slash at that flame was so bright and sudden that the stone of the altar groaned aloud, and smaller stones fell from the ceiling here and there, clattering down around the two humans.

  Storm and Halaster panted and struggled against each other for a long time before silver radiance flared. The Mad Mage hissed at the pain it brought him as he tried to lap at it, his wolf head sporting an impossibly long tongue. His other limbs had become snakelike coils, each wrapped thickly around one of Storm's broken limbs. She lay helpless under him, spread-eagled on the stones with her front laid open down past her navel. Silver fire flared up around her heaving, glistening inter shy;nal organs in an endless, pumping sequence of dancing flames. More flames licked out between her parted, whimpering lips, and the hungry wizard bent his head to feed.

  Unheeded, the stones between them and the altar were heaving upward, as if something long and snakelike were reaching out from under the freshly cracked block of stone, burrowing along at a speed no mole had ever reached. The line of heaving stones was heading straight for the spot where the helpless Chosen of Mystra lay.

  "What's happening?" Thone asked, as Sylune swayed juid threw up her hands. "Can I help?"

  Blue-white fire spiraled around her, rising up with a muted scream, and Thone found himself trembling from the sheer force of magic rushing through the room-Art that howled and roared up, then was gone.

  In the sudden stillness, Sylune let her arms fall back to her sides and sighed. Thone found he could move again, and that he felt very sad. As the Witch of Shadowdale walked to the window end of the kitchen, all the light in the room seemed to move with her, leaving him in deep shadow.

  The Zhentarim slyblade stared down at his hands, and found that they were shaking, and that he was struggling on the edge of bursting into tears.

  In a lamp-lit chamber in southern Thay a man stiff shy;ened, lifted his head sharply, then sketched two swift ges shy;tures in the air.

  "As you wish, holy Shar," he whispered to the empty air around him, an instant before the lights in his eyes went out forever. He toppled onto his side with no more sound than a whisper, as if he were made of paper.

  An apprentice looked up sharply, in time to see the body of his master settle onto the rugs like a dry, hollow husk. Empty eye sockets stared up into the lamplight forever.

  In two places not so far apart, sudden blue-white fire swirled, and two men found they hadn't even time to open their mouths and exclaim before the fire was gone again, and they were somewhere else.

  They were somewhere underground-a chamber of dark stone where Dauntless and Mirt stood gaping at each other, then at the sole source of light in the room, a few paces away. Fitful silver fire rose from a silver-haired figure who lay sprawled on her back, gasping feeble plumes of flame as a monster crouched atop her, licking at the fire that rose from her.

  "Ye gods!" Mirt snarled, as he bounded forward, past a racing upheaval of stones. He thrust his trusty dagger into the beast's nearest eye.

  Dauntless said less and ran faster. His sword took the squalling creature in the throat, thrusting twice as it col shy;laps
ed forward onto the woman. The stones of the floor rose up like a clutching hand around them both, creaking and rumbling.

  With startled oaths the two Harpers kicked aside stones and stabbed down into what flared up from beneath. It seemed no more than glowing purple smoke, but it ate away their blades as if it were acid, spewing sparks at their every thrust. Wordlessly they dropped useless hilts into it and snatched out dagger after dagger, thrusting like madmen into the empty, glowing air they stood on, until at last the purple radiance flickered and faded.

  It seemed to retreat back into crevices beneath the floor stones, and Dauntless eyed it narrowly as Mirt plucked aside the beast's shoulder, which seemed to dwindle under his fat and hairy hand.

  At another time, the wheezing moneylender might have stopped to peer curiously at the vanishing monster. Now, however, as snakelike tentacles melted away, he had eyes for nothing but the white, drawn face coming into view from beneath it.

  "Storm Silverhand!" Mirt swore, and scrabbled among secret places in his worn and flapping breeches for one of the potion vials he always carried. "Help me, lad!" he panted, crashing down to his knees beside the sprawled, ravaged body of the Bard of Shadowdale. "She's-"

  Dauntless had already kicked aside the monster's body, staring curiously at what it had become-a gaunt old man whose face he did not know-and was now staring past Mirt at something else. He threw the dagger in his hand hard into the darkness.

  The moneylender's shaggy head whirled around to see what the younger Harper had attacked. He was in time to see a man he knew catch the dagger and close his hand over it with a mocking smile. Purple light-the same hue as the radiance they'd just been hacking at-flared up between those closed fingers and the dagger faded away into nothingness.

  "Labraster!" Mirt roared.

  Auvrarn Labraster struck a pose, raising one hand in a lazy salute. Those handsome, crookedly smiling features were unmistakable, even with Labraster's eyes glowing eerily purple. The merchant put out his other hand, point shy;ing fingers at both men, and purple lightning snarled forth.

  Dauntless dodged and rolled. Snarling purple fire leaped after him, clawing and spitting at his heels. Mirt, on his knees and no longer a slender and agile man even to the most flattering observer, was struck instantly, and could be heard roaring weakly amid the raging lightning. As Mirt sagged, curling up in pain, Labraster flung both hands around to point squarely at Dauntless. The Harper cried out as he went down, writhing and convulsing help shy;lessly in a splashing sea of purple fire.

  Auvrarn Labraster threw back his head and laughed exultantly. His eyes were blazing almost red as he lowered his gaze slowly to the still figure of Storm Silverhand, sprawled on the floor with her exposed lungs fluttering only faintly.

  "Any last comments, bard?" he jeered, striding forward with his hands trailing twin streams of purple fire onto the stones as he went.

  Storm turned her head with an effort, lifted clouded eyes to his, and murmured, "I'm not enjoying this."

  Labraster threw back his head and laughed uproari shy;ously.

  He was still guffawing helplessly when the glistening point of a slender sword burst out of his throat from behind. Purple fire howled around the toppling merchant, then was gone, shrinking back beneath the stones with a suddenness that was almost deafening.

  Storm, Mirt, and Dauntless alike peered through mists of pain to watch him fall. Standing in the shadows behind him was a slender figure they all knew, who lifted his eye shy;brows to them in sardonic salute as he deftly cut a slice from the back of Auvrarn Labraster's shirt, speared it on his bloodied blade, and tossed it aloft to wipe his blade clean with.

  "If I desired my little empire of sewers to be full of god shy;desses, archwizards, and Chosen of Mystra," Elaith Craulnober murmured, "I'd have invited them."

  As if in reply, there came a sudden roaring from the altar, as purple flame leaped up through its cracks to gather above it.

  "Back!" Mirt cried feebly. "Help me get Storm back!"

  Dauntless rose unsteadily and staggered across the riven floor of the temple. He was still a good way from where the fat merchant was trying to shield the Bard of Shadowdale with his own body when another figure rose up, its movements stiff and yet trembling with pain.

  Halaster Blackcloak was as white as a corpse. He paid no attention to anything in the room except the altar as he lifted unsteady hands and said a single harsh word. A wave of something unseen rolled away from him, and the altar burst apart into rubble and dust. Purple flame shot up to the ceiling, emitting a howl of fury, and from its height turned and shot out like a bolt of lightning.

  The Serpent and the Harpers watched doom come for Halaster Blackcloak. When the purple fires struck and raged, the archwizard reeled but kept his feet. They saw him throw back his head and gasp in pain, but they also saw a lacing of blue-white fire dancing around his brow that had not been there a moment before. It persisted until the purple flame had spat and flickered back into Darkness. When it faded, Halaster Blackcloak went with it.

  He looked last down at Storm Silverhand, and they quite clearly heard him say, "I am done with cabals and dark goddesses. Sorry, Lady of Shadowdale," before he dis shy;appeared.

  Silence fell once more in the ruined temple, and with it came the gloom. Once again the only light came from the feeble tongues of silver flame rising from Storm.

  Bright radiance burst forth a little way behind Daunt shy;less. The Lady Mage of Waterdeep stood at its heart with a wand flickering in her hand. "Sister," she said, "I am come!"

  There was another flash beside Elaith, who drew back smoothly and lifted his blade for a battle, frowning.

  Taerach Thone stood blinking at them all. He held a piece of flickering stone in one of his open hands, and a ghostly lady was perched prettily in the cradle his arms formed. "Sister," Sylune said to Storm, "I am here too."

  "You don't suppose," Mirt grunted, "one of you oh-so-mighty lasses could lend a hand, here? She's dying faster'n my potions can keep her alive!"

  The Zhentarim slyblade tossed something across the room to the Old Wolf. "Here," Thone called, "have my potion. It can be trusted."

  More than one pair of eyebrows rose at that, in the moments before the air began to shimmer in earnest, and tall, silver-haired women began to appear on all sides.

  Elaith Craulnober stiffened at the sight of a white-bearded, hawk-nosed mage in worn robes and a crooked, broad-brimmed hat… and stiffened still more at the sight of a drow priestess whose brief black garment bore the shining silver sword and moon of Eilistraee. Her eyes caught and held his as she stepped forward out of the swirling magic that had brought her, and strode grace shy;fully toward him.

  His blade was raised against her, but Qilue Veladorn walked unconcernedly onto it and came on. It passed through her as if she was smoke, but her hand, when it touched his cheek, was solid enough.

  "It seems you are one of those who deserves a kiss of thanks, on behalf of a goddess. . and a sister," she said, making the words a soft challenge.

  There was no time for him to call on any magic or to break away. The elf whom men called the Serpent swal shy;lowed once, then turned his head slightly to meet the lips descending to his. They were cool, but her mouth and tongue were warm. Deliciously warm.

  It was a long time before they broke apart-time enough for Storm to rise to her feet and join an interested, chuckling audience. It was an audience Elaith had no trouble ignoring as he drew back, and found Qilue's brow arched in another challenge.

  There was a time when he'd have spat in the face of a drow. There was a time when he'd have offered swift death to anyone who seized on his person in such a way, leaving him so open to danger. There'd been a time when his pride …

  But here in this damp, ruined room, this day, Elaith Craulnober sighed, smiled, and told the drow priestess, "I hope you realize that, after this, tomorrow is going to be truly boring."

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