Silverfall: Stories of the Seven Sisters

Labraster let out a sigh, shivered uncontrollably from cold rather than fear, and hugged himself in the frigid water. 'Yes,' he said faintly. 'Ask.'

'You and the priestess Meira are part of a chain of folk who work together. Who are the others?'

'There are drow, in Scornubel, who speak to me and others through one of their number, the slaver Brella,' Labraster said slowly. 'They, as I, have many who work for them personally, knowing nothing of us or our aims. A woman in Waterdeep, for example, has no idea why I give her orders to invest thus or hire so. It is hard to ans-'

'Meira outranks you, as you outrank Mrilla Malsander. Who is of your standing, or higher?'

'The Red Wizards Azmyrandyr, Roeblen, and Thaltar, at least two other Red Wizards above them, I think, and at least one other mage who leads us all. There are other clergy of Shar whose names have been kept from me.'

'Does your group have a name?'

A bitter smile touched Labraster's lips. 'You begin to sound like a watch officer.. no.'

'Who is that one other mage?'

Labraster looked very nervous. 'I-there may be a spell on me that slays if I speak his name.'

The ghost drifted almost nose to nose with the shiver shy;ing merchant, and said softly, 'Why not risk that chance?' Ghostly fingers slid down to loosely encircle Labraster's throat. They did not touch him, but he could feel the icy chill radiating from them,

'I, ah, the mad mage who dwells under Waterdeep! All know of him. Need I name him?'

There were many dark stories about Halaster Blackcloak, the mad wizard who lurked in fabled Undermountain-stories of an old, thin-lipped sorcerer who could stroke cats and aid children, or blast towers to rubble with revelers inside, or transport horrific monsters onto the feast tables of proud merchants. A wizard mighty enough to spell-tame dragons with a wave of his hand, or blast mountain peaks to rubble if they ruined his view. Labraster had heard grisly stories around many a tavern hearth about the Mad Mage of Undermountain, and some of those tales might even be true. As the years passed, stories he'd scoffed at in his younger days were turning out to be disturbingly accurate, if they were about wizards. He wished he could say the same about some of the other tales.

'Halaster Blackcloak is hardly lucid enough to lead a cabal for long, unless it was of folk working only in Undermountain,' the ghost said, leaning so close that Labraster felt a chill all over his face and throat, and was jolted cruelly back to the here and now. 'Who really leads you, Labraster?'

'I know not-I swear I know not! Even Meira knows only her Sharran superiors, just as I know the Thayans! Please believe me, 'tis truth!'

The ghost withdrew a little from the sobbing man in the bath and asked, 'And your aims? Tell me more about them.'

Auvrarn Labraster sagged against the high, upright masterpiece of scrollwork that was the back of his-well, Blandras Nuin's, but his now-bath and gasped in relief, staring at the ceiling with one wild eye and one blankly staring one. The ghost let him pant for a long time before drifting nearer, but she did not have to threaten again before he started to stammer out a reply.

'Smuggling and s-slaving, of course. Th-the drow are taking over the rulership of Scornubel, taking the places of those we enslave. Things stolen in one city are hidden and sold elsewhere in hard winters or when war threat shy;ens, for high returns. Such schemes are my tasks. Those above me work more ambitious schemes, breeding mal shy;contents here, sponsoring rebels there-and themselves using magic to change their shapes and take the places of important persons.'

'Such as?'

'High officials in Amn, Baldur's Gate, Westgate, all over Sembia, and Mirabar. More soon.'

''Working toward?'

Auvrarn Labraster drew in a deep breath, groaned, and said in a rush, 'Supplanting the rulers of Nimpeth, Cormyr, and Hillsfar.'

'You are joined in a 'cycle' enchantment with an umber hulk and three Red Wizards, wherein each of you can trade places with the next being in the sequence so that you could leave a confrontation, and bring the umber hulk to stand and fight in your place. Whose doing was that?'

'The mad mage's.'

'Are there other cycles within the nameless chain of intriguers to which you belong?'

'I believe so,' Labraster said wearily. 'Gods, let me get warm, I beg of you.'

The ghost slid up to almost touch noses with him once more, and whispered, 'You strangled me, man, and now dare to beg for mercy?'

Auvrarn Labraster looked back at her through one failing eye and mumbled, 'Yes. Yes, I guess I do.'

He tried to shriek, a moment later, as that icy hand touched his blinded eye again, but he found he could do nothing. He was frozen utterly in an icy grip that could crush him at any time. The merchant couldn't even breathe as the hoarse, husky whisper of the woman he'd strangled echoed through his head:

Be glad, Auvrarn Labraster, that Alaithe is merciful. Remember that mercy for the rest of your days-in par shy;ticular, whenever you hold the life of another in your hands. Throats are delicate things.

He could see again, dazedly, blinking in the sudden light as the candle lamp, so long dark, flickered up into flame again by itself. He was blinking with both eyes. He could see again.

The water was still cold, and there was still an icy chill lingering about his throat, but the ghost was gone. With a sudden, wild hope, Auvrarn Labraster stood up, bath shy;water raining down in all directions, and looked around.

There was no eerie glow. He was free of her.

He ran his hands through his dripping hair, shudder shy;ing and shivering uncontrollably now as the breeze coming through the windows quickened. When he turned and leaped out of the bath he didn't care that his wet feet skidded on the floor and he almost fell, didn't care that the fouled water crashed down over the floor in a mighty sheet in his wake, and he certainly didn't hear the tiny tink of a small fragment of stone falling into the nearly emptied bath.

The man who was not Blandras Nuin pounded naked along the upstairs hall, sniveling and shivering, and plunged through the open, dark door of his bedchamber with his teeth so loudly a-chatter that he could hear nothing else.

The candle-glow from within the closed curtains of his canopied bed would have brought Auvrarn Labraster to a wary halt on any other night but this-but as it was, he bounded across the room and tore them wide.

It was a measure of his chilled, near-delirious state that Labraster found nothing unusual in the fact that a lamp that he'd left behind in the bathroom should be hanging above his pillows now, merrily alight. Nor that two maids he'd cursed into fleeing him then heard injur shy;ing themselves in headlong terrified flight from a ghost downstairs earlier this evening should now be curled up nude in his bed, unharmed, with their hair neatly combed over their shoulders, so deeply asleep that his screams and shouts in the bathroom hadn't roused them. No, Auvrarn Labraster took in just one thing-and, as he always had in life, plunged heartily in to seize it.

His leap took him into the little cavity between the curved and muscled backs of Nalambra and Karlae-a space not large enough for anything larger than a stretched out and trusting cat. Both maids awoke in sudden, shrieking terror as they were landed upon and thrust rolling out of bed by something very cold and very wet, that struck both hard and with a vicious disregard for their comfort.

They both landed hard, but were up in a howling instant, running headlong and screaming for the door. Nalambra, by virtue of being hurled to the floor on the door side of the bed, got there first, but slipped on a puddle in the hallway just outside the door. Karlae, upon encountering an obstacle, clawed her way blindly up Nalambra's back. They fell through the door together, sobbing in utter terror and slapping and flailing at each other in a frantic whirlwind, somehow disentangled themselves in the hallway beyond, and ran headlong into the shadowy arms of a wraithlike figure that hung wait shy;ing in the hallway. It was silent, more slender than the ghost of Alaithe, and as dark as the night.

Sleep overcame Nalambra and Karlae as they passed through the dark arms they never noticed. As they tumbled limply toward the floor, something unseen gently caught them and left them floating, sprawled in midair.