Silverfall: Stories of the Seven Sisters

'H-haunt me?' Labraster stammered, raising the stool up out of the water like a shield.

'Haunt you, man, freezing your heart and your loins, so that you always feel cold. Appearing at your shoulder for others to see, whenever you try to court, or make deals, or speak to priests. More than those, you shall never sleep again unless I desire to let you sleep, and never share a bed again unless it be with someone who is blind, and deaf, and feels not the cold. Yes, I shall haunt you, man.'

Auvrarn Labraster sank down in the now icy water, shivering uncontrollably. The breeze rose and blew sea mist into the room, but the ghostly woman leaning over him never wavered or took her dark and terrible eyes from his.

'A-and if I tell you what you want to know?'

The ghost seemed to recede a little from him, and her strangled voice came more faintly. 'Then Alaithe whom you slew shall sink back into the garden, and you shall see her no more.'

'I… you won't hurt me?'

'Not if you tell all,' the ghost said in tones of doom, 'and avoid using any of the lies that fall so easily from your lips.'

Auvrarn Labraster licked those lips, heard his teeth chatter, and asked, 'C-could I, perhaps, get out of this bath?'

'Of course … if you'd like to try to bed a ghost, or answer my questions out in the street, just as you are.' The ghostly face was very close to his, and so were its fin shy;gers, outstretched on either side of him and curving inward toward his throat.

Auvrarn Labraster gave a little yelp, ducked down until the cold water splashed his chin, and managed to say, 'H-here is just fine-uh, just fine! A-ask your questions.'

'Why did you slay me?'

'B-because you tried to kill me!' Labraster said quickly. Ghostly hands reached for him, and he shouted desperately, 'Because you knew I wasn't Blandras!'

'And what happened to my good master?'

'I don't know,' Labraster babbled. 'I-an evil priestess forced me to come here. She changed me into his shape.'

'What did I say earlier about lies?' A cold finger slid forward, and the quivering, whimpering merchant felt a needle of ice stab through his left eye. Though his trem shy;bling fingers found no blood or wound, he could not see out of that eye.

'Don't make me touch you again, man,' the face so ter shy;ribly close to his added, in its droning whisper. 'Tell me the truth about Meira and the altar Blandras Nuin died on.'

'Y-you know? Well, why make me tell you if-'

'I want you to tell all. I need you to tell all. If I cannot rest, neither shall you.'

'Aha, aye, yes yes,' Labraster said hastily, terror making his tongue swift. 'I–I was visiting the priestess Meira for my own purposes, and sh-'

'Which purposes?'

'I needed to hide from a foe. Her spells could do it.'

'And who are you, really?'

Auvrarn Labraster drew in a deep breath. 'A merchant of Waterdeep. Uh, no one important. I'm a dealer in furs and trinkets. My name is n-'

'Auvrarn Labraster, have a care for your remaining eye,' the ghost said mildly.

'— ot so well known as I'd like. Auvrarn Labraster, as you know, and-and-'

'And you are hiding from what foe?'

Labraster licked his lips. 'Ah, Alustriel, the High Lady of Silverymoon. I-we fought.'

'Why?'

'There was a murder-a tradelord of Neverwinter. She thought I did it, but it was an umber hulk, really, and-'

'And you can tell me the truth, Auvrarn Labraster, about your connection to that umber hulk, can't you?'

'I-' Auvrarn Labraster's good eye narrowed, and he asked, 'What does this have to do with Blandras Nuin?'

'I need to know it all, false man and murderer, all. The cycle, the wizards of Thay … I need to hear it all from your lips. You will feel much better once you tell me. Much warmer, to be sure, for the furs that cloak your bed await but steps away.'

'I could just get up and run through you and get those furs now!' Labraster shouted through chattering teeth, the bathwater swirling wildly about him.

'Men whose joints are frozen can't bend them. They can fall-once, but thereafter they cannot even crawl.'

Auvrarn Labraster moaned and slid back in the bath until the waters lapped at his mouth. 'I could just let myself slide under,' he murmured.

'I think you know that I would not let you die until I'd heard it all,' that horrible, patient voice came back at him.

'How would I know that?' the shivering merchant shouted. 'You tried to kill me, remember?'

The husky voice of the wraith glowing above him was, somehow, dripping with contempt. 'Kaurdyl is a spice, ignorant man. Only huge doses of it can kill-then only when it is mixed with certain oils.'

'A-and how is it that you know that?' Labraster asked quickly, as if each accusation was a weapon that could fend off a vengeful ghost.

'All cooks have to know such things. If they can't be bothered, they become merchants instead. If they're too lazy to make coin as a merchant, why then, they can always murder a merchant and take what is his, can't they?'

The man in the bath shrank down so suddenly that cold water lapped over its edge and slapped across the bath chamber floor. 'I never killed Nuin,' he stammered. 'Y-you know that.'

'I was speaking of other merchants, back in Waterdeep,' the ghost said flatly, 'but I'll speak no more of them. You will speak. You will answer my every question, or-'

Ghostly hands stretched out, and the merchant's teeth set up an uncontrollable chatter from the sudden chill. He waved a desperate hand, fending the wraith away, and cried, 'I'll tell! I'll tell!'

The ghost nodded. 'You will indeed,' she said, and it sounded like a king's command.

Labraster stared at it-her-and ran one desperate hand through his wet, ruined hair. When he found his voice again, it sounded on the quavering edge of tears, 'Will you tell me something first? I need to know why you rose. I mean, folk die all the time, and they don't come whispering to their sons and daughters wanting to know things.'

“You'd be surprised,' the ghost of Alaithe said in a voice that echoed with doom.

Labraster stared at her, swallowed with an effort, then pleaded, 'Just tell me, please? Did Blandras mean all that much to you?'

'Yes.' The whisper was so fierce, and the ghostly face so close to his, that Auvrarn Labraster almost threw himself under the water without thinking.

He cowered for a long time, staring into the dead gaze in those dark pits of eyes, before he managed to ask, 'L-love?'

In answer, the wraith hovering over him drew away to the foot of the bath, and rose upright then, slowly, turned from the fat, motherly, homely figure of Alaithe into a younger, buxom, strikingly beautiful woman. 'I was once like this,' the ghostly voice came to him, 'and Blandras knew me then. He loved me, and I spurned him. Our ways parted. Years later, I was as you knew me-' The vision of beauty became the familiar bulk of Alaithe once more. '-and was thrown out of my job in favor of a younger, more beautiful woman. I came to Neverwinter, and by chance, begging for work in the streets, met Blandras. He took me in.'

'As your master, or man?' Labraster asked roughly.

The ghost drifted a little nearer. 'There is hope for you yet, murderer. As my husband, Blandras was. Now it is time for you to answer me again.'