Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [40]
"Not something you can afford to dispense endlessly," Sylune observed, understanding at last why Storm was so weary. Her exhaustion was obvious; speaking aloud during farspeech was something the bard did only when she was very tired. "You'd best sleep. Fare thee well."
Storm found herself climbing out of the now-cool bath. Her sister's mental equivalent of a kiss tingled on her cheek. She padded to where towels awaited, and then to bed.
Chosen of Mystra don't need to sleep, but someone seemed to have forgotten to tell Storm's body that. She'd been wounded before, and swung a sword for hours in battle with her own blood raining down around her in tongues of silver flame… but she'd been younger then.
Now it felt good to lay her unsheathed long sword ready on one side of the broad empty bed, and curl up against the pillows to stare into the night. She lost herself in the silent songs that lived in her memory, ballad after ballad, as the wee hours trailed quietly by.
It wasn't long, of course, before Maxan's face swam up to her again. He was laughing across a campfire somewhere deep in the High Forest as he tossed a bowl to her. She reached out to catch it, and found herself cradling nothing and staring at the empty bed around
"Oh, Maxan," she whispered, "why did you have to leave me so alone?" With sudden speed, she snatched a pillow onto her raised knees and hugged it to herself before the tears came.
*****
Even a woman who carries centuries of sorrows can run out of tears and drift into dry-eyed melancholy Tossing aside her sodden pillow, Storm decided not to get off the bed and get a decanter of something fiery. Instead, she began to sing softly again, keeping to ballads she and Master had not enjoyed together. Perhaps knowing everyone else had troubles, too, would make her feel better…
Some time later, she was silently singing the final, mournful verse of "The Old Wandering Knight" when there was a sudden burst of blue-green light, a rush of displaced air-and something limp and heavy crashed down atop her!
Even as she thrust it away and rolled to her feet, calmly commanding her discarded underthings to blaze with the radiance they'd been enspelled to emit, Storm had a good idea of what she'd see.
She just didn't know whom. So she stood with a boot in one hand and her other hand thrust into it, on the hilts of a quartet of daggers, and peered narrowly at her bed in the growing light.
On the pillows where she'd lain was someone else- someone who'd never move again. Someone who could never have teleported himself to where he now sprawled, facing her.
It was one of the young, clever war wizards… Murndal Claeron, that was the name… in his robes and the tattered remnants of a cloak. His boots bore the dust of little-used passages-in the Haunted Tower, no doubt-and his skull seemed to have been burned out from within. The eye-sockets that stared at her were black, empty pits, and the gaping mouth lacked a tongue. As she watched, a trickle of ash fell from it to the linens where she'd been lying moments before.
Storm sighed to mask her involuntary shudder. Someone obviously believed in less-than-subtle warnings. "Scream," she snarled aloud, in case the someone was listening for that very reaction right now, and drew in a deep, tremulous breath. So much for relaxing; she had a long night of work ahead of her.
She started for the bed, automatically reaching to roll her sleeves back out of the way. She chuckled a trifle harshly: dressed like this, she didn't have any sleeves…
Seven
KNOWN BY HIS RING
Dark and savage rage was rising in Broglan Sarmyn as he stalked up to the closed door of Storm's bedchamber.
Murndal had never returned to the study.
It was early indeed for insistent servants to be rousing Broglan from the chair where he'd finally fallen asleep, waiting for the young wizard's report. They rushed him down chilly corridors, heedless of bis stiff, aching limbs and urgent need to relieve himself. All of it was at the behest of a shameless outlander Harper who hid her insolence