Swords of Eveningstar

Chapter 11

To see a steadfast star in your dreams is to behold a sign of favor from the gods. The trick, as usual in life, is to determine just which god, and what the sign means. Before, of course, ’tis too late.

Aundrammas Hulzondurr

Collected Sages’ Sayings published in the Year of the Fist

S omething moved in the moonlit cottage. Something dark and serpentine. Malevolent, Jhessail knew a moment later, as it reared up, faceless and flowing, and somehow looked at her.

Somehow the wall was gone, between her room and her parents’ bedchamber, and she was seeing their moonlit bed, holding the two of them asleep together, peacefully entangled.

Jhessail screamed, but nothing came out of her mouth. Nothing at all.

Faceless yet somehow sneering at her, the thing, wraithlike and dark, turned to rear over her parents.

Jhessail screamed again, screamed and tried to leap from her bed to wake her mother and father before it… before it…

Fell on them like a great endless wave, as black as deepest night and as cold as all winter, to slide into their sleeping mouths and noses, in at their ears, escaping into them like smoke as Jhessail burst free of whatever was holding her, sprang down from her bed atop the wardrobe, and raced to snatch up lantern and fire-poker and run to-stand above her parents, terrified and shivering, not knowing what to do.

Craegh and Lhanna Silvertree lay in the moonlight, murmuring in their slumber as they finished flinging aside the quilt and covers, their faces troubled and pale as the moonlight itself…

Then, as Jhessail stood over them helplessly, their faces went calm again, and they froze into peaceful stillness.

Leaving her with nothing to do, after long and fearful gazing, but trudge back to her wardrobe, feeling a dark and mocking gaze between her bare shoulderblades, and soundless laughter rolling uproariously around her…

She started to shiver and couldn’t stop, ending up doubled over with her teeth chattering violently, trying to keep clawing her way up the wardrobe to her bed in her shudderings, deathly afraid whatever it was would reach out its flowing darkness for her…

Abruptly Jhessail became aware that the room around her was not her own, and held no moonlight nor parents. Instead there was someone in bed beside her whose shiverings were every bit as violent as her own, and whose breathing was sharp with fear. Jhessail rolled away, against the wall, and stared up into the darkness. Ah, yes: this was a room at The Old Man inn in Waymoot, and the woman wrapped in a close-bundled sheet beside her was Martess. Martess Ilmra, who called herself “Lowspell.” Who was whimpering now, and Thrusting bolt upright in bed, gasping. “Where-”

“Martess?” Jhessail asked, trying to sound calm and gentle. “It’s me, Jhessail. One of the Swords of Eveningstar you joined, earlier this even. I’m right here beside you. Rough dreams?”

“Y-yes,” Martess whispered. “Gods, I was so frightened! Something dark and shapeless, that I could never quite see clearly. It moved by flowing, Jhess-oh, I’m sure I sound like a silly little lass! — and I watched it pounce on-on some sleeping folk, and flow into them, somehow, leaving them asleep as before. It was so… vivid; I–I can’t quite believe ’twasn’t really happening!”

Jhessail reached out her hand in the darkness, and Martess started and gave a gasp that was almost a cry at that touch. Jhessail stroked her side soothingly, through the sheet, and whispered, “You don’t sound silly to me. I had the very same dream. I was sleeping at home and woke up, and saw the wraith-thing go into my parents. It laughed at me.”

“Yes!” The answering whisper was fierce. “Exactly!”

There was a little silence, then Martess whispered, “The same dream-and if meddling mortal magic played no part in this, then shared dreams are sent by the gods. Who sent ours, and why?” She drew in a deep, shuddering breath and asked, “And what does it mean?”

“We’re both dedicated to Mystra, above all others,” Jhessail whispered back. “Even if this was not her sending, it is to her we should look for guidance.”

“Yes,” Martess agreed, and rose from the bed. The room was small, but she shrugged the sheet from around her and knelt on it, to give Jhessail room to slide out of the bed with the quilt, and do the same thing.

Side by side, able to hear more than see each other, they knelt together in the dark and prayed to Mystra, the simple Plea for Guidance that is taught to anyone who cares to learn it, and is muttered by many to the nearest candle flame or visible star when confronted with magic.

Their whisperings ended in perfect unison, and they were both drawing breath to speak to each other about what to do next when a sudden sound made them both freeze.

Just outside their door, in this upper-floor passage of The Old Man inn, whose aging timbers creaked betimes but was in the main quiet (the noises of persons striding briskly would have been clearly heard), they had both heard the ever-so-faint scrape of a boot on the floorboards.

Jhessail put her hand out to Martess and felt her way to the woman’s ear. Putting her mouth against it, she whispered as quietly as possible, “I’ve a magic missile. What shall we do?”

She turned her head aside, to let Martess find her ear, and say into it: “Oh. A battlestrike, you mean?”

Jhessail patted her fellow mage’s hand to signify “yes.”

“Then get you to the wall by the door, ready to hurl it, and I’ll use my ‘servant unseen’ to open the door and unhood our night-lantern. Forget not to shield your eyes.”

Jhessail put up her hand, found and shaped the chin of her fellow mage, and murmured, “I’ll go pour water from ewer to bowl and back, to cloak your incanting. Tap me with your spell, to let me know when to cease.”

Martess whispered agreement, and they did those things.

Jhessail set down bowl and ewer the moment she felt the spell-touch, and scampered for the wall by the door, bruising the fingertips of the hand she flung out before her to keep from crashing into its boards.

There was a faint squeal from the floor beside her as the servant-spell tugged out the door-wedge. Then it snatched the door open.

As the battered old planking swung into the dark room, Jhessail clapped her hand over her eyes-and Martess magically lofted the lantern across the room at the passage, unhooding it as it went. Its swift flight made it flare up into roaring brightness.

The man outside blinked then squinted, raising a hand to shield his eyes that held a holy symbol of Tymora. The blank coin of a novice, on a chain that Jhessail recognized.

The lantern halted right in front of the novice’s nose, close enough to keep him from seeing anything beyond it-and to be thrust full-searing into his face if he tried anything sudden or menacing.

What they could see of that face was grim, and belonged to Doust Sulwood.

“Jhess? Martess? Are you both well?” His voice was the quietest of murmurs, and was grave. “I’ve had a most disturbing dream…”

Maglor checked the two slow-coal braziers. Overnight heating was essential for these concoctions, but he didn’t want to find them charred waste come morning-or half his workshop gone to ashes, either. Even if he hadn’t served the Zhentarim, every village apothecary had ingredients and concoctions difficult to replace, and secrets his fellow villagers had best never see, even as smoking remnants.

His windows were already firmly shuttered against hopefully sleeping Eveningstar, for it would go ill indeed for him if anyone witnessed the moot he was here to attend.

Under orders, of course.

Why Old Ghost felt the need to meet every seventh night… Unless, of course, it really was just to enjoy terrifying him.

Maglor’s thin, cruel mouth tightened, and he shook his head. Some day he’d be mighty enough to destroy Old Ghost… somehow…

He felt a sudden tingling, as if every hair of his body was standing up on end. Well, they probably were, because the faint, dead-white glow that followed, tinged just for an instant with green, meant only one thing: out of empty air, by fell magic, the eerie, flowing wraithlike thing known as “Old Ghost” was joining him in his workshop.

From where, he knew not, nor could he do more than speculate as to how; the word “magic” was an explanation so broad as to be meaningless. He wasn’t even certain what Old Ghost was. A fell intelligence that could speak, yes, and probably once a solid, mortal human wizard.

Probably.

Now, Old Ghost was Maglor’s all-too-familiar Zhentarim superior, and Maglor wasn’t sure if he hated it more than he was terrified of it-or whether his terror outstripped his hatred. The latter, he supposed, as he’d never dared try to “Maglor,” Old Ghost said, in that hoarse whisper of a voice that never began with any greeting, “I have a task for you.”

Maglor bowed his head. “I willingly serve.”

The glowing, drifting presence made a sound that might have been a snort. “You remain a poor liar. Save your breath, and heed well. You are to deal with the upstart Swords of Eveningstar before they endanger our profits.”

“Who or what are the Swords of-”

“Adventurers, who just personally received a charter from King Azoun-along with his order to undertake an exploration of the Haunted Halls. They will be here soon, and are bidden to report to Winter. Their very presence may disrupt our caravan traffic, for even if they haven’t been ordered to report anyone they see in the Stonelands, some war wizards will have been ordered to spy on them, and so will be where we don’t want them to be.”

“ ‘Deal with’?”

“Eliminate them. Without attracting Purple Dragon attention to our smuggling activities in Eveningstar.”

“I’ll see to it at once.”

“You will indeed. Or else.”

And Old Ghost faded away, making this the shortest moot Maglor had ever “enjoyed” with it. The Zhentarim upper ranks must be busy.

Nonetheless, as he snuffed the last of the candle-lamps and headed for the stairs up to his cold and lonely bed, Maglor was trembling.

The sickening chill of Old Ghost’s nearness-a bone-deep cold that stole his strength and left him retching on the weak brink of unconsciousness, on the rare occasions when Old Ghost swept through Maglor-always left him trembling.

Agannor snored like handfuls of gravel sliding down a shield.

Bey was slower and deeper, like the call of a distant and melancholy war horn.

Florin, however, lay silent, because he was awake. Again.

Too full of that strange tingling to get back to sleep. It was with him always now, a faint singing by day but a louder whispering by night. He couldn’t make out the words, no matter how hard he strained, but somehow felt no evil, nor threat to him. “The favor of Holy Mielikki,” Hawkstone had murmured, just for him to hear. “Given to you, lad, to blaze within you until Our Lady of the Forest comes to touch you herself.”

And that was all the great ranger had said. He’d gone in with them to the table, but a bare two breaths later, when Florin-who very much wanted to talk to his former tutor, about the tingling and so many other things-had looked for him in all the scrapings of chairs and the king’s jovial words and servants scurrying to set out dishes, Hawkstone was simply gone.

Vanished, as if the very air had swallowed him, without anyone else seeming to notice his absence or even remark on his being there in the first place. They’d said nothing, any of them, about Florin receiving the favor of Mielikki. Whatever it was.

The tingling was growing inside him now, as if responding to his attention. What was it?

Oh, he’d talked to Doust and Semoor about it, and even Jhessail for a moment or two. When he mentioned it, they remembered it-vaguely, speaking words without interest or emotion, as if discussing something overheard about someone they knew not-but had nothing useful to say. Or even to suggest, beyond going to see a cleric of Mielikki. Which obvious deed he was already eager to do-if he ever found one. Those who’d come to Espar had been wanderers, as was the way of rangers and druids, and he’d never met a “treecloak,” as the druids called the clerics of all the woodgods in Cormyr. Yet it sounded very much as if the goddess herself was going to visit him. And “touch” him, whatever that meant. It must mean some sort of change or awakening in him, though, or why would Hawkstone have brought this power that now tingled within him to wait for it?

Unless he was entirely wrong, and it was something unknown.

Florin’s long sigh of bewilderment roused Agannor to snorting confusion, but the son of Hethcanter Falconhand and Imsra Skydusk slid down it a long, long way, deep and dark, until morning.

“Get in here,” Jhessail hissed, hauling Doust into the room. “We’ll have half the inn up if you stand out there-and they’re sure to want to know why you’ve come visiting and we’re so upset. One word spills out about wraith-nightmares and half Cormyr will be telling the other half that we’re cursed, and should be turned away from their doors, shunned, and all the rest of it.”

“Wraith-nightmares! S-so you dreamed the same thing!” Doust stammered, as they bundled him inside.

Martess set the unhooded lantern down on the wide shelf that crossed the back of the room, plucked up the sheet to cover herself again, and gave the priestling of Tymora a level look. “We did. Now just why did your dream bring you here, to the two of us? Or rather, to come as silent as a thief, then just stand there? Were you planning to hold up yon passage wall until morning?”

Doust blinked at Jhessail, suddenly aware that aside from her boot socks, she wore very little. Jhessail spread her hands unconcernedly, then pointed at Martess. “There’s only the one sheet, and I have my socks, so she has it.”

Doust sat down hastily on the floor and turned his back on them. The two women exchanged glances then got back into bed; the air was cold.

“I’m waiting,” Martess said. “How long does it take you to invent answers?”

“I’m not… forgive me. I dreamed that a wraith-thing-shapeless but it could see me, and rear up, and it was evil — was slithering like a snake, and, well, flowing some of the time, too. It came into my room, slithered around Stoop, then reared up and looked at me. It gave me a sneer, then went out under the door again. I put on my boots-our room is so cold that we both slept in our clothes-and went after it, but in my head I could see where it was going. It came here, and I reached to take down the passage-lamp and burned my hand on it. That’s when I realized I was awake. I left the lamp and hurried down to your door as swift as I could, and was standing there wondering what to do when you… opened up.”

Jhessail looked at Martess, who said slowly and distinctly, “Tluin. Gods-hrasting, stlarning-tluin. Tluin. ”

Jhessail sighed. “I feel the same way, but cursing’s going to help us not at all. What was it? And did it do anything, to any of us? I don’t want to ride into danger thinking one of my friends, riding beside me, is really an evil monster inside, just waiting for the best chance to slay the rest of us.”

“Is that what it really was, d’you think?” Doust asked. “What if it was, say, a sign from the gods?”

“Surely the gods, being so greater than mortals, could craft a sign we could understand,” Martess said sharply. “Otherwise, what good is it? Do they think we’re going to go running to a random priest and ask what it meant? We know we’d only get his guess, and might not follow it, so what good would that do the god? If a dream isn’t a means of shoving us into doing or not doing certain things, why go to the trouble of crafting it?”

Doust nodded. “And which god sent it?”

Jhessail sighed. “None of this talk of ours matters. We’ve no way of knowing it’s to do with the gods or not. What if it’s a ghost that haunts this inn? Or a prowling monster? Or spell-sent by a wizard to hunt for something? It could be none of these things; we just don’t know. Now, if the gods want us to do something, they can tell us. Plainly. Otherwise, all this guessing is just that: our guessing. Or a priest’s guessing-and hear me well: I’m not spending the rest of my life wondering if I should do thus and so in accordance with someone else’s guesses. Guesses that could very well be wrong. And they will be someone else’s guesses, because I’m not wasting any time trying to guess anything.”

She ran out of breath and fury at the same time, and stopped abruptly. In the silence that followed, Doust and Martess said the same thing, in untidy unison: “Well said.”

It was a far later time than Tessaril Winter, the Lady Lord of Eveningstar, was accustomed to dining. Or to receiving smiling young Wizards of War alone in her bedchamber, for that matter.

Nevertheless, her room at the top of her tower was the most private and secure place she knew of in Eveningstar, and Vangerdahast’s spy was obviously starving. She filled his tallglass again-glowfire, and a particularly fine vintage-and earned a bright smile of thanks.

The cheese, nutbread, and spicy pickles were delicious. Peasant fare, but she liked them, and kept them to hand in jars and stone coffers in her closet. Her cooks had taken to sleeping in the kitchen and pantry, and she’d rather they not know of young Malbrand’s visit. The food gave their little chat something of a blanketfeast air, as if they were gallivanting together in a forest. Like a certain young noble lady and a handsome local forester, it seemed.

“These Swords must be something, if the Zhentarim are this worried about them,” Tessaril commented, helping herself to cheese and shaking her head ruefully. She’d known she’d be unable to resist, once the viands were out and she could see and smell them.

The war wizard nodded. “They won their charter by saving the king’s life, and ride now with the young Lady Narantha Crownsilver, much against the wishes of her parents.”

“Hmm. Am I to detain the lady?”

“Neither the Crown nor the royal magician have sent instructions. Lord and Lady Crownsilver will send instructions, likely howled loudly-but they don’t know she’s still with them. Yet.”

Tessaril smiled. “I like adventurers. Matchless entertainment.”

Malbrand rolled his eyes.

Tessaril snorted. “Stop that. And tell me of this saving of Az-of His Majesty’s life.”

The young mage was beginning to get over his awe of her and embarrassment at being served a meal by a lady lord of the realm clad only in a nightrobe, not two strides from her bed. He leaned forward eagerly. “Of course.”

Sipping glowfire and lifting his brows to her in appreciative salute-which she returned, silently raising her own glass-he asked, “Now, where to begin? Ah, I suppose with…”

The next morning dawned slow and chill, a reluctant sun slowly brightening an Eveningstar beset with the drifting smoke of thick ground mists. The dew had been heavy, and most folk busied themselves indoors, awaiting the warmer full sun.

Apothecaries, however, are desired in haste or not welcomed at all. The wooden box of his satchel rode heavily on Maglor’s hip, its shoulder strap creaking, as he strode along the village roads. Old Mother Naura wanted clearthroat syrup for her ailing youngest, Beldrak’s old wounds were stiffening and needed deepfire liniment, and Two rose-robed figures came striding out of the mists toward him, talking together in low tones. Ah, yes. The other brave farers forth in any sort of weather: priests of the House of the Morning, on holy business bent.

“Fair morning,” Maglor greeted them heartily. He was not loved at the temple, he knew. Though the priests of Lathander weren’t known for selling little bottles that soothed and healed, he was probably seen as a major reason for their lack of that particular source of easy coins.

“Fair morning, Master Maglor,” one replied briskly, deep-voiced. Hamdorn the Hand-Wringer, that would be, the large, florid, balding man who comforted grieving folk of Eveningstar with empty platitudes and soothing nothings.

Which meant the other priest would be Hamdorn’s nigh-constant companion, Claerend. The two conducted much of the temple’s daily dealings with the village, and so would be a good way to begin darkening the reputations of these Swords. Right now, before they’d even been seen in Eveningstar.

A few fell falsehoods, hints of “involvements” and “they say that,” would be a solid beginning. When he was done delivering bottled comfort, a visit to the Lady Lord of Eveningstar to impart similar tidings-as a frowningly troubled apothecary, passing on what he thought she should know, overheard from gossipy passing merchants-would be a second step of even greater solidity. Solid coin, solid progress; Maglor liked solid things.

He rubbed his hands as the priests drew nearer and a plume of wet mist slid away to confirm their identities, and asked, “Have you heard the latest? Seems the king’s decided to rid himself of some troublesome sorts and have another go at the Haunted Halls, at one stroke. He’s granted a charter to a band of younglings who call themselves ‘the Swords of Eveningstar’-not that they’ve ever set boot in our fair village yet, mind-and ordered them up here, to play at being adventurers! I’m thinking we’d all best be alert, lest more than a few chickens start to go missing, if you catch my drift…”

Hamdorn and Claerend stopped dead and leaned forward, interest clear on their faces.

Maglor hid a grin. Solid progress.

Jhessail was starting to get used to the constant creak of saddle-leather and jingling of bits and bridle-rings, but she suspected the ache in her thighs was only going to get worse. By the furrows on her roommate’s brow, Martess was feeling the same pain.

“Not used to riding, hey?” Agannor had asked with a friendly grin, spurring past her on his way to the front, back when they’d been leaving the inn yard. In his wake, Bey had looked away and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “Strengthens the thighs!” Well, at least he hadn’t delivered those words with the delighted leer Semoor would have wrapped them in. Dhedluk was a full day’s ride ahead, halfway to Eveningstar, but the road ran through deep forest and the sun seemed in no hurry, so the mists would cling and roll along it for most of their way.

“ ’Ware outlaws,” the grizzled leader of a patrol of king’s foresters had said, coming into Waymoot as they were riding out. The mist had beaded the ranger’s beard with water, droplets that hung along his jaw like jewels. “This-and full night-are when they’re at their worst. Show those swords of yours, and wear the shields.”

Agannor and Bey, looking seasoned and formidable in the best armor and weaponry among the Swords, had gone to the fore. With a silent jerk of her head and firm hand on the bridle of his horse, Islif had taken Semoor with her to the rear-largely to keep him away from all the lasses and so curb his tongue a trifle, Jhessail suspected.

The rest of the Swords were strung out between, riding in pairs… though, as she’d expected, Doust was falling back now, to join Semoor. Those two were as thick as Hmm. Now, was or was not Pennae a professional thief? And if she was, what sort of trouble would that land them all in, and how soon? Islif had firmly chosen to room with Pennae last night, and hadn’t said anything much this morn, but perhaps a word or two…

Alongside, Martess was riding quietly. Jhessail liked her, thus far at least. She kept to herself, but watched the world alertly from under those arresting black brows. Just as eye-catchingly ivory skin-she seemed to own only high-collared gowns and tunics of black, dark blue, and purple, that made her look bone-pale. Black eyes, that ink-black long hair; if she’d been aggressive or insolent or acted sinister, she’d be the sort folk would be quick to call a “witch.” Slender, petite, child-sized-and still largely a mystery.

Not that many of the Swords would give much thought to who and what Martess Ilmra really was, when they had Pennae purring and jesting all over the place in skin-tight black leathers, with a coiled whip riding one of her hips. Just now she was riding with Florin, and when she wasn’t leaning close to say something tart or chuckle, she was running nimble fingers along his thigh, or striking poses in her saddle that best displayed her to his polite glances-small but nicely curved bells of which much could be readily seen, as she seemed to have forgotten to lace up most of the front of her leathers this morn. Oh, yes, that one was going to be trouble.

Jhessail sighed. Then she shrugged, smiling a little. A few days ago her troubles had been rooted in trying to think of a way out of Espar, and a waiting life of marriage into drudgery; at least she now had a fresh new set to ponder.

Greenwood, Ed

Swords of Eveningstar