Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [34]
Broglan saw her face too. "What's wrong, lady?"
"None of you recognize him?" Storm asked, almost whispering.
There was a general shaking of heads. "Nay, lady," Ergluth spoke for them all.
Storm let out a long, shuddering breath, closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them to stare one last time at the grinning image as it started to fade. "That's Maxan Maxer, once my consort."
" 'Once'? He left your Ergluth asked, raising an eyebrow.
Storm gave him a wan smile. "In a manner of speaking." The image faded into a ghostly shadow. When it was quite gone, the bard turned away and added, her whisper loud in the silent tomb, "He's been dead for years."
The sound that she made next was very much like a sob.
Six
WHEN EVERY BED HAS ITS WIZARD
A table stood in the center of the finely panelled study shared by the Sevensash war wizards. The table was fashioned of shadowtop wood, its curving legs sculpted into stylized tree roots and its oval top inlaid with plain, smooth-polished duskwood.
Far too plain, Hundarr had judged it with a sniff.
Far too plain, Hundarr had judged it with a sniff. Broglan disagreed. The small globe of winking lights he had placed to rotate lazily in the air above the table wasn't meant to be an ornament. Rather, the globe was there as a warning. It was linked to an invisible web of enchantment that spanned the floor, ceiling, and walls of the room. If any active spell effect moved into the study or was unleashed there, the globe would fall and shatter in a shower of harmless but dramatic sparks, telling everyone that magic was on the loose.
The leader of the war wizards ducked his head out of his bedchamber door and glanced at his spell globe.
It still spun above the table, patient and undisturbed-a scant few feet from an elbow propped on the polished duskwood.
The elbow belonged to Murndal Claeron, who sat at ease in an old, overstuffed chair, his feet up on a footstool. The young wizard was frowning over a spellbook, but Broglan could tell by the way he hummed and absently tapped his fingers that hw was ruminating not intently studying the magic.
Broglan strode across the fur rugs to sit on the adjacent lounge. Murndal raised his eyes and nodded in greeting, but said nothing.
Broglan was not so reticent. “I’ve been thinking about the lady-and the spellblade.”
Murndal sighed and laid aside his book. Broglan raised an eyebrow. The young man’s nonchalance was a mask; his hands were trembling. “She’ll have her revenge on me,” he said, voice low and urgent. “I know she will.”
“Perhaps,” Broglan said. “almost any mage would, true-but she seems… different. She was more angry at me than you. And her ire seemed to come because we’d broken the rules of courtesy, rather than from surprise or outrage. Moreover, if I saw what I thought I did, she’s healed already, long since. Folk released from pain can forget its cause more easily.”
“Who’s to say what she thinks?” Murndal said, almost bitterly. “She doesn’t strike me as particularly sane.”
“If you’ll forgive the intrusion-and further, some blunt speech,” a deeper voice put in from behind them, “you are judging her so because she doesn’t act or speak as you expect her to.” Insprin Turnstone took his own seat beside Broglan, steel-gray eyes glinting. He added, “Ambitious mages are the only folk of power you’ve taken measure of, Murndal. She’s not ambitious… and, I suppose, not much of a mage.”
“Murndal’s point is a fair one, though,” Broglan said. “Being alive for so long and serving our Divine Lady of Mysteries directly all that time-what would that do to one’s mind?”
“Are we in a position to judge her?” Insprin asked midly.
Broglan frowned. “Another good point,” he admitted.
Murndal sighed. “While you debate, the state of her sanity,” he growled, “I could be doomed! Have any spell or item you can protect me with?”
Broglan laughed a short and mirthless laugh.