In the moment of silence that followed in its tankard-clinking, ale-swilling wake, before the chatter could resume, Doust Sulwood burst into the room, and hurried toward his fellow Swords.
“Did I miss anything?”
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.
