Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [0]
The Harpers 14 - Stormlight
Storm Silverhand
Bard of Shadowdale
Whenever I think I can relax at last, someone hastens to brutally point out to me that I've fresh work to do: it's time to save the world again.
PROLOGUE
The sunset on the rugged flanks of the Thunder Peaks was glorious, but young Lord Summerstar did not give it a second glance. There'd be other sunsets to gaze at when he wasn't in such a hurry. He turned away from the window, not knowing he was turning his back on the last sunset he'd ever see.
But then, all too few folk know which sunset will be their last. And who's to say it isn't worse for those who do?
Once the sun was gone, the cold would draw down swiftly from the mountains, and folk all over Firefall Vale would go in to where it was warm, by a fire, and declare the fourth day of Flamerule in the Year of the Sword done.
Athlan Summerstar loved the vale-tucked away in the angle where the marching trees of the Hullack Forest met the western slopes of the Thunder Peaks-and why not? It was all his! Even so, richer, prouder nobles and knights in Suzail dismissed it as a back water, if they knew of it at all. Soon that would all change. Soon men would speak with awe of the Summerstars of Firefall Keep.
Soon, he would master the book that floated in the glowfield in the hidden room at the heart of the Haunted Tower. The book was almost as tall as he, open to two fascinating pages of runes that crawled and writhed under his scrutiny. The tome fairly crack-led with magic. It must have been floating there in its hiding place at the heart of the oldest tower of Firefall Keep since the death of his eldest uncle, Orm Hlannan Summerstar-or perhaps it had been a treasure brought back from dragon hoards in far lands by Athlan's father, Lord Pyramus. Athlan wished he could ask his father about it-he wanted to ask his father a lot of things, but that warm, strong voice was silenced forever now.
The seneschal of Firefall Keep had ridden with his father for years. Shoulder to shoulder, they wet their blades in battles for king and country. Better than anyone else alive, the seneschal probably remembered the laughing, stern-eyed, neatly bearded Pyramus…
Somehow, though, Athlan didn't want old Renglar to know about the book just yet. The scarred old seneschal had been a Purple Dragon for years before agreeing to serve the House of Summerstar. Whenever warriors of Cormyr came across any magical thing that had even a whiff of secrecy about it, they had a disconcerting habit of running to the same war wizards they grumbled so much about. This book might be no more than a patiently floating wizard's plaything; hidden away in Firefall Vale for years-but no doubt Renglar would judge that the "security of the realm" hinged on it… Then the place would fill up with grandly robed old wizards who'd eat and drink like warhorses, pinch maids' bottoms, deliver stern lecture to the unwashed bumpkins around them, and look down their noses at everything in sight.
As he approached the book chamber, Athlan snorted at the thought. The great Storm Silverhand had shown him a lot of things when she trained him-things that would make those pompous wizards mint dead away and fall over backward like toppled dolls. Why, if even his fellow knights of the realm knew half the things the Harpers hereabouts worried about every night, they'd ride hard and fast back to Suzail and never again dwell so close to mountains where ancient dragons slumbered, and towers where ghosts walked, and-
He came to a sudden, shocked halt, and raised his lantern to peer about the long-hidden room behind the statue, just to make sure. It took only a few glances to confirm what he already knew: the book was gone.
There was the smallest of sounds, off to his left. Athlan whirled to face it, hand going to the dagger at his belt He d seen a thing or two to make the servants' whisperings about the Haunted Tower seem a little more than empty fancies, but… there was nothing there.
Athlan took a wary step back, and looked to his right. Nothing.