by Dave Gross
"They're like the dreams I had as a child," he said. "The land there is unutterably beautiful, fantastic. Unlike anything you've ever seen, Vox, and when I'm there…"
Tamlin hesitated, realizing he was embarrassed to confess his childhood fantasy, especially since he was reliving it as an adult. He glanced at Vox, who looked back with an expression of honest interest, totally devoid of the snide skepticism of Tamlin's witty peers.
"In the dreams, I have powers," he said. "Magic powers. I can soar above the clouds, I can catch lightning and throw it where I will, and I can blow away the storm clouds before they burst into rain. At least, that's the way it was when I dreamed as a child. Since the dreams returned, they… well…"
Tamlin frowned, and Vox signed, They changed?
"Sometimes I do things I… I do despicable things, Vox. Really hideous stuff, like out of the worst ghost stories the meanest boys told around the campfires out at Storl Oak."
He shuddered at the memory of the executions on the high, revolving racks atop castle, the sycophantic clapping of his guests at the gory spectacle. Such grotesqueries drained him of the joy he felt at the return of his frying dreams.
Things you imagine doing for real?
"No! Absolutely not. In no way are these reflections of my own dark thoughts, my good fellow. And don't think I haven't given that possibility a great deal of consideration."
Vox nodded an affirmation. The gesture heartened Tamlin, because he knew his loyal bodyguard would never lie to him, even to spare his feelings. He needed that support, because, truthfully, he'd been wondering whether the dreams were some sort of window onto the darker regions of his subconscious.
Your dreaming eye is opening, said Vox.
"What?" Tamlin asked as he fastened the gold button at his collar.
The bearded man pressed a finger to his own narrow forehead then signed, The door to dreams. Yours has been closed a long time.
"Just because I drank a trifle too much?"
Vox shrugged.
"Nonsense," said Tamlin, but then he thought of the sudden lightning as he and Tazi fought the darkenbeast. At the time he imagined it had been some side effect of the magic circle around his cell.
Tamlin's heartbeat quickened at the thought that he might actually have some talent for the Art, but how was that possible? Even his childhood tutors had pronounced him hopeless, and they stood only to gain by tutoring the son of a wealthy merchant lord.
"That gives me an idea, Vox. Fetch me that poker."
Vox went to the fireplace and retrieved the iron rod. He handed it to his master.
Tamlin brandished it like a sword, though the weight was all wrong. He concentrated on the poker, willing energy to pass from his own body into the black metal. He couldn't be sure, but he thought he felt a faint warmth gathering in his palm.
"All right," he said, approaching the fireplace, "stand back."
He touched the poker to the metal.
Nothing.
"Drat it all," said Tamlin, turning back to look at Vox. The genuine surprise he saw on the big man's face made him laugh aloud. Even if Tamlin had his doubts, loyal Vox had nothing but faith in him.
"What a fool I am!" he said, tossing the poker back into its rack. He clapped Vox on one thick arm. "Letting you get me all worked up with childish fancies."
Tamlin returned to his dressing chair and pulled on his boots. Despite his self-effacing laughter, he couldn't shake the question from his mind.
"Just what do you know about this dreaming eye business, anyway?"
Not much, Vox admitted. What the witches told me. An open eye can bring a man strength, power, or…
"Or what?"
Sometimes impotence.
"Very funny."
Vox couldn't laugh, but Tamlin glanced at him to make sure there was a spark of mischief in his eyes. It was there.
Tamlin turned toward the full-length mirror and regarded his reflection.
His jacket was ivory white brocade with gold embroidery. Clusters of gold braid highlighted the Eastern cut of the collar, and a double-slashed pattern in the sleeves let the deep blue blouse peek through, completing the Uskevren colors. He wore the horse-at-anchor on a cloisonne medallion. The bejeweled hilt of a dagger protruded from one of his thigh-high boots.
On each hand he wore a pair of rings. Two of them were enchanted, one as a proof against poison, the other as a ward against mental assault. For physical threats, Tamlin would have to rely on Vox and his own sword arm.
But first…
"Would you check on my cape?"
Vox eyed Tamlin suspiciously.
"Come now, what harm can visit me in my own bedchamber?"
Vox reluctantly left the room. He had been loath to leave Tamlin's side since the kidnapping, for which the big man undoubtedly blamed himself.
Tamlin winced a silent apology for his deception, stepped behind the mirror, and pressed the floret that opened the secret door to his room. Quietly, he closed the door behind him.
In the darkness, he felt for the glass torch and whispered, "Illumine."
After its mellow light filled the narrow space, he wound his way through labyrinthine passages to his first destination.
Hidden within the walls of Stormweather Towers, Tamlin felt secure for the first time since his kidnapping nine days earlier. In the absence of his parents, he was the only one who knew the full extent of the network of secret doors and concealed passages throughout the mansion.
Oh, he suspected Tazi had found more than a few of them, or how else could she slip so easily in and out of the manor? Talbot was surely too dim to find them on his own, and lately he'd grown too big to fit through some of the narrower crannies.
Certainly none of the servants was aware of the hidden passages, except possibly for Erevis Cale-but the butler had vanished along with Thamalon and Shamur. Could the mysterious servant be responsible for the disappearance of Lord and Lady Uskevren?
Tamlin had mulled the thought like sour wine to make it palatable. No matter how long he stirred it, the idea remained unappealing. Despite the secret side to Cale's life, Tamlin didn't want to believe the man was capable of betraying his father. If a man couldn't depend on his closest servants, the world was a much darker place than Tamlin liked to think.
Before leaving the east wing, Tamlin paused. He pressed his hands against one of the many decorative bosses until he felt a slight shift, and he turned the concealed disc twice widdershins. There the wall opened to reveal another secret passage within the first.
The short hallway ended in yet another concealed door, this one to Thamalon's bedchamber. The servants had already searched the room, but what they sought was hidden more deeply than they knew. As Tamlin reached above the lintel for the keys he knew were there, he felt a sudden chill upon his neck.
Someone else was standing nearby.
"Father?" he said, heeding an intuition.
Tamlin listened for the scuff of a boot or the creak of a doorway-any indication of an intruder.
Nothing.
Tamlin shrugged off the eerie feeling and grabbed the keys.
He heard a tiny snap. In the gloom of the hidden passage, he could actually see the spark that leaped to his fingers. In the brief white flash, he saw a double shadow out of the corner of his eye, as if someone was standing immediately behind him.
He turned quickly, but there was no one else there.
"Hello?"
No one answered. He was alone in the passage.
He shuddered, and to dispel his lingering chill he said aloud, "I must have Escevar arrange for an exorcism."
He looked at the master keys. There were only seven on an undecorated electrum ring. Four of them, Tamlin knew, would together open all of the mundane doors to Stormweather Towers. Another unlocked the treasury, while the sixth granted access to Thamalon's desk in the library.
The seventh was the mystery key. Almost as long as Tamlin's hand, it was made of a purplish brown metal f
lecked with silver. Its three teeth seemed far too simple for a secure lock, and its size suggested a keyhole far too large to thwart a determined lockpick. As a boy, Tamlin had pestered his father about it, but the Old Owl had only shrugged. It had been dug up from the ruins of the previous Stormweather Towers, he'd explained, so whatever it had once opened must have perished in the flames. He kept it as a remembrance of his own father, Aldimar.
Far from answering his question, his father's explanation had only inspired his youthful imagination to a hundred doors and coffers the key might open. Did it lead to treasure? Monsters? An armory of enchanted dwarven blades? The bedchamber of a foreign princess?
Tamlin held the strange key and felt its peculiar warmth. Perhaps it was a charm to prevent keys from falling behind dressing tables, he mused. Or maybe the unique key was merely a token to facilitate a finding spell should the owner drop them while riding.
Alas, thought Tamlin, the truth to any mystery is always far less exciting than the speculation it inspires.
He left the passage to his father's room and secured the secret door before proceeding to his destination. Six turns, two more secret doors, and a short flight of stairs later, he arrived.
Tamlin checked the peephole to make sure the library was empty before he emerged from the secret passage. The entire household was awaiting him downstairs, but they could wait.
The secret door closed silently behind him as he went to the big desk. The burned rug had been replaced with a thick Calishite carpet, but the smell of lamp oil still lingered in the air.
Tamlin settled into his father's leather chair and surveyed the scene, trying to imagine how it had looked when the servants first entered the room on the night of the disappearance. Escevar had recounted their reports, but Tamlin still could make no sense of them. It was too great a coincidence that he would be kidnapped the same day his parents were abducted.
Or killed, he reminded himself.
The action he was preparing to take assumed that Thamalon the elder, at least, was dead. The clerics had been no help confirming the old man's death. Larajin claimed to have consulted her goddesses-Tamlin had blinked at the plural but he decided not to inquire further-but unfortunately, neither Sune Firehair nor Hanali Celanil would answer, or else Larajin exaggerated her powers.
Tamlin still doubted her other claims as well, despite Tazi and Talbot's corroboration. He had no illusions about his father's perfect fidelity, but yet another issue that put Tamlin at odds with his brother and sister seemed suspicious. Could Larajin be trying to drive a wedge between the siblings?
He wouldn't trust her until he knew more.
Tamlin had more confidence in the communion of High Songmaster Ansril Ammhaddan, at least if it was true that one received the value for which one paid. The services of the clerics of Milil didn't come cheap, but their services were praised as much for their efficacy as for their artistry. Ceremonies of Milil always included music, and the answers from their god came in the form of song.
"Look not for the owl in the forest night," sang Ammhaddan. "For far from this land has he taken flight."
There had been more, but most of it consisted of praise to Milil and his master Oghma, the Lord of Knowledge.
"What about Mother and Mister Cale?" Tamlin had asked.
The cleric's acolytes shushed him. The High Songmaster was not to be interrupted during a performance. Tamlin understood the unspoken meaning also. More questions would require more offerings. Under ordinary circumstances, Tamlin wouldn't have hesitated to pay. Until he had full legal control of the Uskevren House treasury, though, his resources were limited in the extreme.
In the meantime, the question of his father's disappearance continued to gnaw at him. He hoped to find some clue among Thamalon's letters.
There were none upon the table, nor anything extraordinary within the nooks and cubbyholes of the library desk. Tamlin checked the lower drawers but found they were locked. He also noticed a few fresh scratches near the keyhole.
Someone had been trying to pick the lock.
Tamlin immediately thought of his sister, but just as quickly dispelled the notion. If she had tried to pick the lock, he decided, there would be no such obvious signs.
He unlocked the drawer and opened it. Inside he found a sheaf of virgin vellum, a stoppered inkpot, a box of sealing wax, and a tiny jar of sand.
He removed all of these, sorted through the leaves of vellum, and found nothing unusual among them.
"Well, dark," he cursed.
If there had been any clue to his father's disappearance inside, then the anonymous lock picker had already stolen it.
Unless…
Tamlin felt around the bottom of the drawer, and ran his fingers along the seams.
Nothing.
Just as he was about to withdraw his hand, he noticed the distance between the drawer and the desktop was much greater than necessary. He felt around the top of the drawer cavity until his fingers found a niche.
"Aha!"
He pried open the false top and felt a bundle of pages slide out into his hand. They were letters, perhaps eighteen of them, each sealed with the crest of a noble family. Beneath them was a single sheet of folded vellum.
Tamlin opened it and saw familiar characters forming unintelligible words in a column, like a guest list or a shipping manifest.
"Some sort of code," muttered Tamlin.
He brightened at the intrigue, for he loved puzzles-at least, he once did. As a child he could spend happy hours pondering a clever problem posed by one of his tutors. As he grew older, he'd become less patient with such things, though he continued to find the idea charming.
He folded the list and slipped it into his boot before opening the first of the letters.
"Well, well, my darling," he said, "what tale will you tell me?"
"I've come to warn you I'm about to strangle your henchman," replied a deep voice, "and don't call me darling."
Tamlin dropped all of the letters except the one he was holding into the open drawer.
If there was one thing Tamlin disliked about his brother-and there were in fact dozens of things-it was that Talbot had been absurdly taller than his older siblings ever since puberty. Back then it had been fun to call him "the bastard child of a rampaging ogre," at least until Mister Cale had Escevar thrashed for the young master's offense. While that hadn't stopped Tamlin from taunting his "big little brother," as Tazi liked to call him, he abandoned that particular jibe after report of his offense reached his mother, and he saw displeasure crease her elegant brows.
For Tamlin, Shamur's disappointment had always been the worst possible punishment.
Tamlin smiled indulgently at his brother's jest, then he slipped the letter casually into his boot, snug against his thigh beside the vellum sheet.
"I suppose you're here to talk me out of the ceremony?"
"In fact, no," said Talbot.
He leaned forward to see what Tamlin was hiding behind the desk, but Tamlin shut the drawer with his knee to conceal the letters.
Tamlin had expected his brother to oppose his inheritance, especially since it required the legal declaration of their parent's demise. Surprisingly, Talbot had endorsed the decision on the grounds that it would make the search for their missing parents far easier once Tamlin could officially deploy the family resources. Once Thamalon returned, he could resume his former authority.
"I've come to discuss another matter."
"Oh?"
"Two things were missing from this room when I returned that night," he said. "One of them was a large sum of coin that belonged-"
"Yes, Escevar told me," said Tamlin, trying to keep suspicion out of his voice. "Are you quite sure the gold was here? It seems inconceivable that Father would fail to give you-"
"Don't you dare cheat me," growled Talbot. "We aren't children anymore, and this is a serious-"
"Then stop behaving like a child," said Tamlin. "What's important now is that we find out wh
at happened to Mother and Father."
"You…" Talbot leaned across the desk, and for a moment Tamlin deeply regretted slipping away from Vox. Instead of grabbing him by the throat, however, Talbot struck the desk. "You're right," he said, "for once."
"It has been known to happen."
Tamlin smiled. On any of his friends, on any noble of Selgaunt, his smile was a balm to any quarrel. Talbot, unfortunately, was somehow immune to his charm.
"We will take this up again."
"Assuredly."
"And not through Escevar. Your whipping boy acts as if he runs this place," said Talbot. "He thinks he's Mister Cale."
"An hour from now, for all intents and purposes, he will be."
"That does not give him the right to talk to me as if-"
"Never mind him," said Tamlin. He tried to sound genuinely conciliatory. While he didn't particularly like or trust his brother, he knew he would need Talbot's support in the days to come. "Listen, no one wants Father back more than I do. You don't seriously believe I want all this… bother, do you?"
Talbot looked unconvinced, and he'd not forgotten about the other missing object.
"What do you suppose became of that painting of yours?"
Tamlin sighed. No matter how hard he tried to mend bridges, Talbot always found a way to tear them down again.
"I told you before," said Tamlin, "that painting was nothing more than a gift."
"One of those obscenities from Pietro Malveen? Hardly the way to impress the Old Owl."
"What do you have against the Malveens? They aren't the only House with a tainted past. In fact, Grandfather was the one who financed their earliest excursions."
Talbot glared at him and said, "How can you be so foolish?"
His gray eyes, which normally looked cool and bland, smoldered with hatred. Tamlin hoped it was all reserved for the Malveens.
"Pietro's a bit eccentric," Tamlin granted. "I'll be the first to admit that, but where's the harm in it?"