Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [39]
Sudden tears rose raw in her throat, threatening to overwhelm her. "Maxan," she gasped aloud. Memory brought his smiling face in front of her again, and she remembered the warm strength of his arms…
Storm shivered, fought down a sob, and shook her head in denial. She waved at empty air to bid the memories of her dead man begone and leave her in peace.
She was suddenly tired of it all. When such good men were torn away from her and all Faerun, who could care about self-important magelings and sneering Summerstars? Let them all go down, and…
Storm shook her head as she turned back the covers. Nay. Nay, not so harsh. Shayna Summerstar and Ergluth Rowanmantle were swimming in her mind's eye. Behind them, coming up with that weary smile, was Renglar, the seneschal. They mattered. All of Cormyr mattered.
"It matters to me," she told the silent room. She unbuckled the dagger sheath on her left shoulder. "It always matters to me." She tossed the sheathed dagger onto the bed and reached for the matching one on her right shoulder. "That's the problem," she told it with a rueful smile.
The bedchamber, which had maintained a dignified silence during this soliloquy, continued to do so. Storm stripped off her war harness, rubbed at the places where the leather straps had chafed, stared at them critically in an oval wall mirror as tall as she, waved cheerfully to the wizard she suspected was scrying her through the mirror, and went back to the boots she'd stuffed full of discarded daggers.
Driving one into the door frame and another into the foot of the bed, she murmured some words over each. Then she did the same to a pair driven into either side of the frame of the mirror.
Two spells well spent. If any living thing but herself passed between a pair of daggers, it would receive both blades, flying full tilt, and the spell would jolt Storm awake.
She shook her head at having to take such precautions, sniffed at one armpit, and murmured, "I am getting a little musky."
Whatever Pheirauze Summers tar might think of her, it seemed the keep servants considered her a guest to be honored. Under its padded metal cover, the bath proved to be deliriously warm. Storm propped her long sword within reach, shed her scanties, and sank thankfully up to her chin in the waiting waters. Warm ripples almost went up her nose; she chuckled and resisted the momentary impulse to play at being a sea-serpent and rise from the waters to bite and drag down a hapless floating wooden back-scrubber. She was just too tired.
"Sylune," she said aloud," 'tis I-the bold bad Bard of Shadowdale. How goes it?"
As she'd hoped, her distant sister heard her own name spoken, recognized Storm's voice, and used a spell to let them farspeak mind to mind.
Dozing in the water, lazily running handfuls of scented soap shavings over her limbs, Storm chatted silently about the current sad state of mastery and maturity among Cormyrean war wizards, and the grim, unfolding run of murders. "It looks bad, I fear"
In return, Sylune told her how things were growing on the farm, and of the latest happenings in Shadowdale. She did not bid her be careful, offer assistance. or remind her of half a dozen tilings to be wary of. Storm was thankful for that, as always, but was startled to hear her sister observe quietly, "Something has upset you more than usual. Give, lady."
Storm sighed, but did not bother to hesitate or deny "I used the ‘last thing the eyeballs saw' spell on a decent old warrior slain in my bedchamber," she told her sister aloud, "and it seems our killer is, or at least wears the likeness of my man, Maxer."
"Oh, Storm," was all Sylune said, but there was a long lifetime of compassion in her voice.
Hearing that, Storm felt fresh tears well up, and added firmly, "Oh-one thing more. Our Happy Dancing Mages are so sure that evil lady Harpers are dismantling Cormyr stone by stone that one of them used a spellblade on me, and spilled