by Ed Greenwood
Storm looked up at her. "It doesn't say that," she! protested mildly, her own lips trembling on the edge of laughter. "It says 'along the way,' I'm sure." She did not bother to flip the book over to check.
Sylune descended into a fresh fit of giggles, buried her face in her hands, and waved at Storm to read on.
Storm gave her a dubious look, adjusted the ornate and rimless spectacles lower along her nose they went within the post of Reader Aloud, for reasons both of them had forgotten some centuries ago, and cleared her throat loudly. '
Sylune obediently sat up, eyes streaming, and stared at the ceiling to avoid meeting Storm's eyes.
Storm gave her an amused look, and then raised the;, book once more and resumed the tale. " 'The gallant, I rippling-muscled blue-black steed neighed as loudly as a temple bell as the knight in shining armor hurtled bravely down out of the balcony, tumbling through the crossbeams with sounds like unto an entire armory crashing into the same midden-pit, and slammed into his place in the high-cantled saddle-but facing backward. The clangor of tortured metal and the scream of the tortured knight that quite outsang it, startled the faithful war charger even more than the sudden heavy weight on its back, and it reared-almost spilling Sir Taen from his seat once more-and then galloped wildly down the length of the bedchamber. The startled princess sat up in bed just in time to see-' "
"Oh, stop!" Sylune sobbed, howling. Her rocking-chairl creaked as its pace quickened into a near-canter; Storml watched with amusement as it commenced to walk across! the floor, bringing the ribs of Sylune’s new body hard against the edge of the table.
Her laughter never faltered-even when the chair tipped forward and Sylune's chin came down on the spoon with a clatter. It soared toward the rafters, and Storm waited for it to come down again, fielded it with deft hand, and asked, "Could you kindly refrain from hurling the cutlery? We're not dining at a royal table, you know!"
Sylune's laughter redoubled. She threw herself backward, chair and all. Not surprisingly, the rocker took this as a signal to rock. Violently.
Storm rolled her eyes, sighed, and told her farmhouse ceiling, "It's not much to ask, but it might just be too much to ask… if you take my meaning."
The ceiling evidently did. Something small and light fluttered down from somewhere amid its loftier, dustier beams, dislodged in all the hubbub. Storm caught it and raised her palm to stare at it: a folded paper jumping frog that one of her Harper trainees had made three summers ago. He'd obviously flicked it aloft before leaving.
As Storm regarded the clever little thing, her mirth gave way to sadness. She'd buried that Harper's gnawed bones in the Teshen backlands last winter; this little frog was all that was left of him now.
"Sister," Sylune murmured, bereft of all humor, "I must go-Alustriel can tell you why!"
Storm lifted her head from the frog to stare at her older sister. Sylune's head lolled, drooling and empty-eyed- before she pitched face-forward into the soup.
Storm stretched out a long arm to grab a good handful of hair, muttering too late, "Not in my soup, you don't!"
She hauled the body back into a sitting position and set down the frog as if it was the most precious thing in the world. Then she sighed and took up her discarded apron to wipe the soup from Sylune’s vacant face. Lifting her sister's discarded body up in her arms as if it weighed nothing, she gently carried it upstairs to a bed.
The Bard of Shadowdale looked down, sighed, and! arranged the lifeless hands to clasp the Heartsteel novel to the still breast, in case she wasn't around when..' Sylune returned.
Then she went downstairs and outside, to look across the dale she loved. She plucked up her tankard of cider along the way and wondering how long it would be, this time, before she too was called to war….
No! No! Moke time wasting! Beautiful humans, but what interest have i in such? Magic i want, curse you, human! How can you still defy me? How?
[growling, firmly quelled]
No, i'll not tear and snarl i'll dive into your mind one more, and this time seek beings you respect but do not consort with so closely. What else would earn you respect but real power? Magic to tame kingdoms with! magic i can use!
[red eyes burning, striding into dark rooms and tearing down what images are found there, clawing aside and seeking more…]
"L-lady Queen?" The young lass quavered, her face solving into terror. She trembled violently, too frightened to move. She desperately wanted to be anywhere but here, anywhere but kneeling and proffering flowers to the queen of Aglarond in the royal gardens.
Her mother looked on with a face as white as chalk.
The Simbul, the witch whose spells tore Red Wizards to blood and bones and smashed down towers and made mountains shatter, had suddenly scowled. She scowled even now, her hair rising and twisting along her shoulders as if with a life of its own-no, many lives, all of them eager to blast and destroy and lay waste to little girls who dare to offer flowers.
A small sob dragged the Witch-Queen of Aglarond back to awareness. Her gaze met the wild, trapped eyes of the little girl who'd made the sound.
A chill went through the Simbul. Nothing should ever happen to make little girls look like that. She mustered the warmest smile she could, knelt to say, "My thanks," and bestowed a royal kiss on the trembling forehead. "Be welcome always in our gardens," she added, raising the still-fearful girl to her feet and turning her head to give the anxious mother a smile.
The courtiers standing around visibly relaxed. The girl darted away like a rabbit from under the royal hand, heading for the safety of her mother's skirts.
At the Simbul's elbow, the oldest of her guards dared to murmur, "You scowled, Majesty?"
The Simbul nodded. "I did. At a memory."
"All," the guard said, stepping back. No doubt a woman who'd slain hundreds of Red Wizards in frantic spell battle over years upon years had more than a few grim memories that might come to mind unbidden.
So she did, but what made the queen of Aglarond frown again as she turned away to walk a garden path was the fact that the memory was not her own. She could still hear her sisters' helpless laughter over a romantic book, a fancy-novel… a moment new to her, but tattered and elusive in someone's store of remembrances. But whose?
Whose mind could have touched hers so feebly? Whose?
Chapter Twelve
THE HARPER WITHOUT
The easy thing to do would have been to hurl herself over the cold stone sill, into the night and the rain. Out and clown, down to the courtyard below. Alustriel gripped the stony edge with fingers that trembled, pale white. Why then did she not do it?
Pride. Just that-a small thing to stand between her and a quick doom. It would be swift, yes, but dishonorable, a shame as sure as that Irlar sought to bring on her, with his mocking smile and honeyed words. She looked down again. The night hid the stones she'd stared at for hours. It would be an easy thing now, in the dark, alone. In the morning they'd find her lying on those stones. "Aye, she jumped," her uncle would say. He'd spit out of the side of his mouth, shake his head, and turn away, waving at the servants to bundle her body to be burned.
I will not have him think that of me, Alustriel thought.
She turned away from the night to face her waiting chambers. Irlar would come to her soon. Irlar the laughing lordling, a sneer bright in his eyes. Irlar, who'd take her to wife not for love-though no doubt he'd force the attentions of love on her, this very night-but for the lands and wealth held in her name. Hers to surrender but not hers to enjoy; her uncle saw to that.
Uncle Thamator. The Wolf, men called him, and dared not meet his eyes when he was in a fury. All knew him for a fearless warrior, matchless in the field, and a bitter man-and all knew him to be a Harper. Alustriel shrank even from the memory of their last meeting. Together in his chambers after a feast, sharing wine-her first taste of such things, amber fire that warmed her throat like spiced sauce-she'd asked him eagerly, innocently, when she would be made a Harper.
Thamat
or fixed her with eyes like colorless glass. "I gave my lady for the Harpers, girl. My lady, and my son not yet born, who died with her. Too many comrades to count have followed them. I've given the Harpers this strong right arm, these thirty winters since. I have given them friends with my sword, too, when it was necessary. What have ye to give them?"
He spoke the last words with biting anger, almost spitting his contempt. She stood silent, shocked, face white-and then red. He saw her mounting color, stared at her deliberately, and went on. "Ye are not a warrior. Ye are pretty, but beauty is not something so rare that it will aid the Harpers. Ye do not believe that one god is the right and true one above others, and cannot then serve as a priest; a good one, at least. Ye have the silence to steal but no strength or speed'-and ye lack the craft to lie glibly."
The lord of Bluetower strode angrily across the room, and turned to confront her again. "So I paid good coin to see ye made something of a mage. The wizard Thurduil said ye had a way with the power. Eight years! Eight years of coins out of this purse, one handful after another, too
many of them gold-and to show for it? Ye can make a servant sneeze. A prank I can match with a pinch of pepper! No doubt Gaerd has managed to get ye to do some other tricks of the like by now. He's a master; the fault's not with him."
Thamator's eyes were like the points of two sword-blades. "And ye want to know when ye'll be made a Harper," he minced with boiling sarcasm. She couldn't turn from his eyes as he lowered himself into his chair and added with terrible softness, "Get out of my sight for a time. Ye look too much like your mother did to be.saying such idiocy to me." His face twisted briefly in a spasm of pain or regret. A passing shadow left his features as smooth and blank and unyielding as stone.
Alustriel turned and stumbled out, wiping vainly at the tears that streamed down her cheeks….
Two days ago, Irlar had come riding at the head of a company of laughing young men in finery, swords bouncing at their hips. When he offered for her hand in marriage, her uncle had not even botiiered to see her. He'd sent a servant to give her the simple message: "Heed." No more-and that before all the house. Her cheeks still burned at the memory.
Irlar! The same lordling who'd once spat on her at a Shieldmeet feast and hissed, "Get away from me, unclean one! Witch blood! Harper!" Alustriel had never forgotten. It was clear from his barbed sidelong questions these last two evenfeasts, neither had he.
If she could have worn the silver moon and harp badge of the Harpers, the badge her uncle said she did not deserve, Alustriel was sure Lord Irlar would have shied away like one who has seen a ghost. Or if she could have worked magic strong enough simply to push him away when he approached, his fear would poison his greed. But she was a weak, defenseless prize, and he knew it.
Not so easily mastered as all that! Irlar had taunted her tonight, saying over wine and minstrel music that he would come for her when the house was asleep, to taste what he would own when they were wed. He added that if she was at all reluctant, her magic would protect her. She could have screamed out her rage and frustration at him then. As surely as an animal in a forester's cage, she was trapped-trapped! Only tiny victories were within her grasp. She had said nothing to his taunts, only smiled as serenely as she could manage, hoping to discomfit him. After a moment he had laughed-a short, ruthless bark-and turned away contemptuously.
All her magic, aye. Alustriel looked down at her slender, empty fingers, bone-white in the dimness. Only faint torchlight came in the window from rooms adjacent to her own. She could make people sneeze. Irlar had made a little joke of that; she had refused to demonstrate. She; could also make sounds out of empty air, but only in a very limited way: she could mimic a single harp string, plucked note by note, choosing the tune and whether it played softly or loudly by how she imagined it in her head. She could also make the source of the noise shift from very near to something from afar, perhaps a hundred paces. Gaerd had told her she wasn't a Harper yet and suggested she keep this ability a secret from all until she'd mastered something more to go with it. She had done so.
Barely ten days ago, under the master wizard's kin tutelage, Alustriel had managed to make a great blue spark snap from one of her fingers to a metal coin set on a table several paces distant. She'd felt only a tingling, no pain… but she could make a spark appear only when she was excited or frightened or upset. Its creation] always left her shaking and drenched with sweat. Great magic, aye.
Yet it was all she had. Alustriel turned in the darkness and strode into the little room where she kept her spell components-harmless ingredients for this or that. A sudden instinct made her hand close on a certain vial of iron filings and slip it into the hidden pockets in her skirts. Perhaps she could blind Irlar with it. She could not make herself pick up the tiny, bejeweled dagger that she knew lay on the table near the vials. He would only slash her face with it-or toss it laughingly aside.
There was a sudden scraping sound at the door of the other chamber. Irlar had come for her.
Irlar was a servant of Bane. He had a tiny brand under a ring that he turned around and around on his finger. Irlar meant to take her to a temple tonight, to forswear Mystra for Bane and quench any magic she might have forever. No doubt, he would also force his love on her at the dark altar, to claim any child she might bear for the dark god….
A sudden shiver shook her so much that' her teeth chattered. Alustriel bit her lip, stilled her quaking limbs, and forced herself to move calmly and silently into the main chamber… to meet her doom. Her uncle might never be proud of her, but she would not see him dismiss her as a light-headed wench, a nothing. She heard a gentle sighing sound, and knew it for an unseen blade cutting the bell rope so she couldn't summon aid or rouse the house.
She made her face as dignified as she could and looked to the door. She deliberately unhooded the tiny oil lamp before her on the stone window-table. The sudden light caught him sliding home the flimsy door bolt of brass filigree. His look of alert surprise rose into a smile as he saw that she was alone.
"Well met," he said with gentle sarcasm, "my Alustriel." He stared at her eagerly, hungry for a reaction. Waiting to feel her fear.
Panic and nausea rose together within her. Alustriel looked back at him, keeping her face calm. She dared not speak; she trusted neither tongue nor voice to be steady and loyal. Irlar grinned at her indecision and advanced, I
"Come, now," he asked, "is my offer of marriage such a hated thing? Or a matter so trifling that it wakes no' spirit in you at all?" At that, Alustriel smiled, though inside she felt more like weeping. It was meant to be an unsettling, catlike smile, but it wavered. He grinned, not wary at all. Why should he be?
She was helpless, and they both knew it. Slowly she hooded the lamp, plunging the room into darkness as she gathered control of herself. Again.
"Welcome, my lord," Alustriel managed, finding her voice at last in the polite phrases of her childhood training.
"I hoped I would be," he answered triumphantly. With a sudden stride he reached her, putting his arms around her. He kissed her fiercely. His lips were those of a proud conqueror.
Alustriel fell back a step. He advanced, keeping their bodies tightly pressed together. Her rising anger made Alustriel's heart and breath quicken. Irlar took this for excitement, and his hands began to move. Boldly, to her hip and breast, pushing her back.
She retreated toward her high-canopied bed. Furious resolve made her breath shudder and misled him into renewed boldness. Onto the sleeping furs he bore her. Eyes closed, lips glued to his, Alustriel concentrated with infinite care on her harp spell. It had to sound just right.
There. He stiffened atop her as he heard it. Far away it sounded, and muffled, as if in another room. Slowly it grew louder. Alustriel held Irlar to her with feigned caresses and bent her will with achingly careful precision. The unseen harpist was coming nearer.
Irlar pulled his lips from hers and gripped her arms with bruising force.
"What-who's that?' he h
issed, shaking her.
"My uncle," she whispered with false urgency. "In the secret passage! On his way here; he only plays so when he comes to speak with me!"
With an oath Irlar rolled off her, drawing his dagger. Alustriel seized her chance, heart pounding. In her skirts, her fingers found the vial and uncorked it.
Irlar turned his head and hissed, "Where?" at her commandingly, to learn where the nonexistent passage was.
She flung the contents of the vial into his face. She stabbed a finger at his eyes, gathering her will with that peculiar surge she always felt-and there was a snap. A blue spark leaped into Mar's eyes, crackling for an instant among the filings there.
Irlar roared, clutching at his eyes.
She felt his dagger swing around, missing her in the darkness as she Hung herself back and away, rolling along the edge of her bed. As always, casting the cantrip left her weak and trembling. She found her feet and fled unsteadily across her dark bedchamber, hampered by her skirts, trying to keep ahead of his reaching blade.
Cursing, Irlar came after her. He slashed wildly with the dagger, still blind but heading straight for the passage door. She'd have no time to throw the bolt and escape from her rooms. She whirled around her unseen guest table, bending her will again to the harping, bringing it louder and nearer.
Irlar followed. His cursing sounded scared now, more than angry.
Alustriel breathed a prayer to Tyche as she bumped her shins into her little side table, stumbled, and caught herself on it with both hands. She swept it up desperately, spilling a mint-water decanter and two drinking horns to the floor. She held it like a shield.
Irlar charged toward the noise, slashing wildly. He slipped on one of the horns and flung his arms up to hold his balance.
Alustriel stepped forward to bring all her weight to bear, as she'd seen her uncle's axe men do, and brought the little table down as hard as she could on the hand that held the dagger.