Lord of Stormweather

by David Gross

  The wall of fire ignited the hall’s tapestries, and flames crawled up toward the ceiling. Tamlin had a sudden vision of Stormweather Towers falling to cinders all around him, just as the original structure had done years before at the hands of Uskevren foes.

  “No!” he cried to everyone and no one in particular.

  Nowhere in his restored memory was there a spell for extinguishing fire. All he could do was wreak more destruction, so he turned his attention back to his foes.

  “Anabar!” he cried, hurling a stream of lightning toward Andeth.

  The white energy dissipated as it struck the Hulorn’s magical shield. Andeth laughed all the more.

  “You rank amateur!”

  “Mistress Thazienne!” cried Brimmer Soargyl. He stumbled away from the gibbering mouther, barely escaping its snapping teeth. “Let me convey you to safety. None of this madness need interfere with my proposal.”

  Tazi spared the man only a brief, incredulous look before pushing him back into the sprawling monstrosity on the floor. There he howled and screamed as dozens of jaws nipped at his ample flesh.

  “Your suit,” she said, “is refused.”

  Tamlin hurled fire, lightning, and pure energy at the monsters Andeth and Drakkar summoned, but the wizards conjured the creatures far faster than he could destroy them. Soon, the Uskevren guard was outnumbered by a small horde of rats, a trio of blubbery demons, and some hideous, floating, spidery sack of flesh that dipped its long claws down into the fray to suck at the combatants.

  Cale maneuvered his way behind Drakkar, grabbed the man’s chin, and cut his throat. The knife’s edge barely scratched the wizard’s skin, leaving a mark like a chisel’s scratch on granite.

  “Drakkar!” cried Larajin. Her arms were raised in an evocation of divine favor, and the smell of rose petals filled the room even over the acrid stench of burning wood and fabric. She held out her hands toward the mage, and golden light radiated from her palms. “The goddess can no longer abide your wickedness.”

  The wizard jerked as he felt the effects of Larajin’s spell strip away his magical protection. Cale’s fingers dug into his face, and his knife cut Drakkar a new, wider grimace.

  “Dark and empty!” cursed Andeth, seeing his most powerful ally slain.

  He backed into the dark recess of the draped alcove. With a wave of his conjuring wand, he summoned a cloud of tiny bats to swarm above him, blocking Tamlin’s line of fire. He began shaking yet another wand.

  “Cover me, men!” he ordered. “This is not over, Uskevren. Not by any means!”

  “Tamlin!” cried Larajin. “He’s getting away!”

  Tamlin shook his head and smiled back at his half-sister.

  “Can you put out that fire?” he asked.

  “Yes, but the Hulorn!”

  From the obscuring darkness of the alcove, Andeth screamed, “You! But why—?”

  Whatever words he might have spoken next exploded in white radiance that scattered the bats and set the gibbering mouther to screaming even louder than before.

  “Not to worry,” said Tamlin. “He just met our new associate. Now, let’s clean house.”

  EPILOGUE

  Shamur’s face was composed as she embraced Tazi and Talbot, but Tamlin knew she’d been weeping. He stood with her as his siblings went to their father, knowing they were saying their farewells. Tamlin had prepared them before they left home. He’d feared they would blame him for failing to save Thamalon. Instead, Talbot had turned cold and silent, Tazi turned to Steorf for comfort, and Larajin took Tamlin’s hand to comfort him.

  When they were ready, he led them through the gate.

  “When did you know?” asked Shamur.

  For a moment, Tamlin feared she was asking how long he’d kept the secret of Larajin from her, then he realized that she and Thamalon had spent almost a day together, and they’d already put that issue to rest. Shamur wanted to know when Tamlin realized when his father had died.

  “As soon as we came through the gate, I had a feeling,” he said. “When he wouldn’t touch us, I realized why.”

  “He is a ghost.”

  “No,” said a soothing voice. Malaika appeared beside them, her sad eyes somehow less tormented than Tamlin had seen them before. “Not a ghost.”

  “What have you done with my husband?” demanded Shamur.

  “Only what he wished of me,” said Malaika. “I have kept him awake here long enough for him to bid farewell to you and his family.”

  “I am his family,” insisted Shamur.

  “But not his blood,” said Malaika. “To Aldimar was I secretly wed, and upon his death betrothed to his progeny. For years I waited, buried under the ashes of his home, until at last Tamlin came to me in dreams.”

  “I remember,” said Tamlin, smiling wistfully, “but then the dreams stopped.”

  Malaika nodded and said, “Aldimar lingered within me, unwilling to travel on to his fate.”

  “I saw his fate,” said Tamlin. “I wouldn’t want it, either.”

  “It was far worse for him after the years he spent usurping your place. He was hard before, and greedy, but then he turned wicked and cruel.”

  “But my father,” said Tamlin. “He won’t face the same sort of …”

  “See for yourself,” said Malaika, gesturing toward Thamalon.

  The others had left him and returned to Shamur. Talbot had one big arm over each of his sister’s shoulders, and Tazi wiped at one eye with her wrist. Larajin looked cautiously toward Shamur, reluctant to approach.

  Shamur regarded her husband’s bastard through eyes so hard and gray they might have been river stones. For a moment, Tamlin feared she might slap the girl. Instead, Shamur opened her arms and welcomed Larajin into her embrace. The gesture set Talbot and Tazi both to weeping, and Tamlin made his escape before he lost the last fragments of his composure.

  Thamalon smiled warmly at him as he approached.

  “Well met, Lord Uskevren.”

  “Don’t call me that,” said Tamlin. “Not you.”

  “It makes me proud to know you are the one who carries on my name,” said Thamalon. “You did well with the Hulorn. Perhaps you could have spared the house another scorching, but.…”

  “You always find something to criticize.”

  “I’m joking, Tamlin.”

  “I know,” he said. “I know. I just wish you could …”

  “I know. So did I, at first, but now that I’ve spent some time here, now that I’ve seen you and your brother and sisters fighting side by side instead of toe-to-toe, I know it is time.”

  “But there’s so much you could teach me.”

  “I’ve taught you everything you need to know.”

  “But I wasn’t listening!”

  Thamalon laughed and said, “No, you weren’t. Still, you heard enough of it. I’m tired, ever since coming to this place, wearier than you can possibly imagine. I need you to open a door for me.”

  “Which one?”

  Thamalon looked up, toward a half-gallery upon one wall.

  “That one feels right,” he said. “I’ve said my good-byes, and I cannot bear to say them again without being able to hold your mother in my arms.”

  Together they flew toward the door. Its oak surface gleamed as they approached. When Tamlin opened it, he smelled summer grass and grape leaves. Sunlight poured down upon arbors and vineyards nestling between hills of deep green forest.

  Thamalon sighed and drifted toward the fields, his sorrowful smile turning ever more content as he slowly twirled down into eternity.

  The cold wind whipped the Uskevren banners as the moon gleamed on the gold thread on the horse-at-anchor. Tamlin closed his eyes as he faced the wind. After a moment’s reverie, he turned back to his lone companion on the rooftop.

  “Where will you go?”

  Radu shrugged and said, “East. Perhaps across the Moonsea.” His uncovered face looked like a hideous mask, with sharp fragments of the bone blade that had c
rippled him jutting from his cheek and brow. “I will abide by our compact,” he said.

  “Stay well away from Selgaunt,” said Tamlin, “and for the gods’ sake, never let Talbot learn of our arrangement.”

  “So long as you continue to foster Laskar and Pietro.”

  “They shall be as cousins to the Uskevren, living here, within the halls of Stormweather.”

  “Then I shall never need to return.”

  Tamlin nodded to acknowledge the unspoken threat. He’d known his bargain with Radu Malveen would require that he allow the assassin to live and thus ensure that Tamlin would uphold his promises. In return, Radu had agreed to invoke his peculiar powers one last time. With the escape of his ghosts at the moment of Tamlin’s death, he might have escaped his inevitable disintegration, but he’d willingly accepted it once more.

  Tamlin felt a surprising admiration for the man who had killed him. He didn’t like Radu Malveen, but he couldn’t deny that the assassin had been faultlessly loyal to his family.

  Together they looked out over the moonlit roofs of Selgaunt, Radu for the last time. From the vantage of Stormweather’s highest tower, Tamlin could see the entire city from Mountarr Gate in the west to the farthest tower south of Selgaunt Bay. To the northwest, the Hulorn’s weird palace looked unusually serene in its mantle of snow.

  Who would reside there next was an issue the Old Chauncel had still not resolved. After their ordeal in the recent spell duel, they were even more fractious than usual. It could take months before a new candidate emerged for approval—assuming that Thamalon’s proposal to eliminate the office entirely was dismissed. Without his personal efforts, Tamlin feared, it soon would be, then it was only a matter of time before a new Hulorn was chosen.

  “Can he communicate with you?” asked Tamlin.

  “He never stops,” Radu said.

  Tamlin suppressed a smile. It was hardly a humorous subject, but the thought of Chaney Foxmantle choosing to remain with his killer even after the Stormweather portal freed him from his leash amused Tamlin to no end. It also made him sad to think that Chaney could not bear to reveal himself to Talbot for fear that he would lure his friend to vengeance against a foe who might well kill him.

  Tamlin said, “Actually, I meant Andeth.”

  “He is even worse.”

  “Serves you right,” said Tamlin, who could only imagine the bitter ravings of the man called Mad Andy. Even if Tamlin couldn’t punish Radu personally, it pleased him to think that someone would. “Now, get out of my city.”

  They watched as the last of the wounded skwalos slowly rose above the bloody cobbles of the flensing grounds. It was a mere child, no larger than a trading cog. Its immature body was still as translucent as a wine bottle, and its membranous skin caught and refracted the sunlight to cast rippling patterns over the crowd, making the elves and humans alike appear to be standing fathoms beneath the waves.

  “Don’t look so sad,” said Larajin. “Everyone is looking to you for strength.”

  She held onto Tamlin’s arm, weary from exhausting her magic to heal the surviving skwalos. Even all of her divine powers had been barely enough to allow the crippled animals to return to the sky.

  “You are the one they should thank,” said Tamlin. “All I’ve done is repeal a few of my grandfather’s most egregious dictates. It will take much more than a few merciful gestures to repair all the harm he has done.”

  Tamlin was surprised by both his strange sense of responsibility for the evil committed in his guise and his acute sympathy for the skwalos. The slaughter of a stag or boar hunt had never given him qualms, but these creatures were mined for their flesh and vapors while still alive. It was all he could do to keep his expression stately and assured before the Vermilion Guard. The elite soldiers were already suspicious of the sudden changes in their master. Tamlin knew there were whispers that the elves had somehow managed to possess his body during the brief, aborted war. He hoped he would not have to electrocute a few would-be assassins to retain his authority.

  Across from his honor guard stood the elves, who watched Tamlin every bit as carefully for any sign that his promised concessions were a ruse to buy time. Among the emissaries dispatched to ensure that he fulfilled his promises of the tentative truce were three ancient wizards, two women and a man. Beside them stood Malaika, her dark eyes full of mingled hope and caution. Tamlin had wanted to stand with her, to ask her a thousand more questions, but he knew that standing among the elves would only undermine the already crumbling loyalty among his men.

  “I just wish everyone knew I wasn’t the Sorcerer,” he said quietly.

  “Some know already,” said Larajin, nodding toward Malaika. “Until the rest are ready for the truth, they need to believe their leader is still with them.”

  “For now, perhaps, but I can’t keep trying to lead both our household and this … this dreamland.”

  “It isn’t a dream, you know.”

  “I know,” agreed Tamlin. “It just doesn’t seem as real. It doesn’t seem as important as …”

  “Home?” offered Larajin.

  “Home,” he agreed. “Speaking of which, it is almost time to return. I promised Tal that I would write him a receipt for the gold we found hidden in Escevar’s chamber.”

  “I think your word might be good enough,” she suggested. “It’s time you and he learned to trust each other.”

  “Perhaps,” said Tamlin, “but Father would have wanted me to write a receipt anyway.”

  Larajin smiled wistfully and said, “No doubt he would. While you’re at it, don’t forget to talk with Thazienne about that Soargyl business. She still seems angry with you.”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” sighed Tamlin. “I just hope she doesn’t punch me in the nose before I can finish explaining.”

  “Well, if she does, I won’t be able to heal it until tomorrow.”

  “In that case, perhaps it is time I began to practice that stoneskin spell.”

  Tamlin was overseeing the repair of Shamur’s solar when he received the news of Tazi’s departure.

  “She didn’t even say good-bye?”

  “No,” said Cale. His normally sanguine tone was replaced by a curtness that verged on the offensive. Tamlin was almost afraid to broach the subject of Cale’s continued service, and something told him that the man had already made a decision to leave Stormweather Towers. “Not even a note.”

  Tamlin had known his sister was upset at their father’s death, but he hadn’t expected her to leave home again so soon after such a long absence.

  “Perhaps we should go after her,” said Tamlin.

  “No,” said Talbot. He stood knee-deep in the dirty water of the solar’s pond. After the workmen had failed to set the tumbled fountain stones upright, he had shed his shirt and waded in to help them. After a few mighty heaves, they’d restored the great blue stones to a semblance of their former positions. “She wants some time alone.”

  “She told you she was leaving?” asked Tamlin.

  “Not exactly,” said Talbot, “but I had a feeling.”

  “Leave her,” said Shamur.

  She stepped carefully over a puddle while holding up the edges of her black skirts. Even in mourning clothes, she remained one of the most elegantly attired ladies of Selgaunt. She held her head regally high, her eyes barely dimmed by the grief she kept inside. Tamlin barely recognized her as the wild warrior who’d fought beside Thamalon and Cale on the tower of Castle Stormweather.

  “But now is when I need her help the most,” said Tamlin.

  “She needs her freedom, little big brother,” said Talbot. “Besides, it’s better she’s out of sight while Brimmer Soargyl is convalescing from those bites.”

  “I told him Larajin would heal those for him,” said Tamlin. “After all, we are funding that shrine of hers. That’s got to be worth laying hands on a Soargyl for a few moments.”

  “He won’t go anywhere near an Uskevren woman these days,” said Talbot. “He
’s still scared.”

  “As well he should be,” added Shamur.

  Tamlin flinched when he realized how casually they’d been discussing Larajin in front of Shamur. Despite their fears that their mother would resent the constant reminder of her husband’s infidelity, she’d treated the girl with surprising warmth since Thamalon’s death. Even before Tamlin could broach the subject of acknowledging Larajin publicly, Shamur had made the suggestion herself, explaining that it would do much to soothe the injured feelings of the clerics of Sune, who could attribute to nepotism the Uskevren’s impolitic support of Larajin’s heretical philosophies.

  “Now,” Shamur said, “leave this mess to the servants and come to dinner.”

  Tamlin offered Shamur his arm. As they departed the solar, Vox silently followed. When Tamlin glanced back at him, the mute barbarian touched his forehead and unfolded one fist in a gesture like a blossoming flower.

  Yes, Tamlin signed back. My dreaming eye is open.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Sincere gratitude to my fellow Sembians: Phil Athans, Lizz Baldwin, Richard Lee Byers, Clayton Emery, Ed Greenwood, Kij Johnson, Paul S. Kemp, Lisa Smedman, and Voronica Whitney-Robinson. Without the loan of your wonderful characters and keen advice, this would have been a short story. Especial thanks go to Phil, Ed, and Paul for inspiration and support above and beyond the call.

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