Silverfall: Stories of the Seven Sisters

The dark, ghostly figure glided down the hall to the door the two terrified maids had erupted out of, and peered in.

The canopied bed still held the candle lamp her spells had whisked there. Its warm rays fell upon a huge, shiver shy;ing mass that looked like a man rolled up in all of the bed linens and over furs at once, so that only a little of his face could be seen down a sort of tunnel. A muffled moaning was coming from the heart of the untidy bundle, and a trail of water led through the door up to the bed where it lay.

The dark figure made a sighing sound and curled the fingers of one hand together. The candle lamp obediently went out.

A howl of fear arose immediately from the bundle, but the dark figure ignored it, turning away to go back down the hall again. Sylune had waited a very long time for the man in the bed to take off his magic-dead ring, and she did not intend to let this chance slip away. Besides, play shy;ing ghosts was good fun.

Her fading essence couldn't spin spells for much longer, though. 'Twas a good thing this fearful merchant liked to surround himself with enchanted swords and daggers-and an even better thing that he feared the magic- dead ring would break their enchantments, and had hidden them all carefully away in a locked cabinet along the back of his best bedroom wardrobe.

At least a pair of them were shortly to follow into obliv shy;ion the glowstone from the box by his bedside that Auvrarn Labraster didn't yet know he'd lost. Oblivion might well have claimed some targets of the cabal whilst Labraster was in hiding, with a certain powerless Chosen of Mystra accompanying him.

It was high time to hand this evil chain of schemers a setback. To do so swiftly without revealing to all of them that the Seven Sisters knew of them and were on the hunt-something that might cause desperate reactions, and get a lot of folk killed-would involve something the Witch of Shadowdale was usually loath to do. She would have to unleash a fox among the chickens. Three Thayan mages in turn had struck at Alustriel, and the scourge of Red Wizards was the Simbul, a fox apt to run somewhat wild. Sylune recalled rather bitterly reminding her sister from Aglarond that when castles are hurled down, folk one has no quarrel with are apt to get maimed and crushed, not just dueling mages. This once, perhaps, such bold and reckless strife was necessary, just as removing a little stored magic from Faerun forever was now necessary.

'Forgive me, Mystra,' the ghost whispered on its way into the bath chamber. 'Let one magic feed another.'

The dark, ghostly figure swept to the sink and held two daggers over it. There were two flashes, like stars twinkling out from behind dark clouds! Two dark hands trembled and seemed to grow more solid, then sudden darkness returned. Ashes drifted down between slender fingers into the sink, where a single brief pour from the ewer of ready water chased them down the drain and away. Sylune was a tidy person.

She was also one who hated unfinished tasks. With all speed she returned to the hallway and outlined the two sleeping maids with the same ghostly glow she favored when appearing to murderous and waterlogged mer shy;chants as the phantom of Alaithe. The Witch of Shadowdale smiled, waved her hands in a few quick gestures, and caused their hair to stand out stiff and straight in all directions and their eyes to open and stare blankly into the darkness, though they slept on. She arranged their bodies with hands at sides and feet pointed out straight, then turned them in the air so that they floated upright a foot or so above the hallway floor, side by side and facing the bedroom. If Labraster took it into his head to come eavesdropping on her, he'd have to physically force his way past them and somehow, Sylune thought he wouldn't be very eager to do that. For good measure, she left a ghostly image of the worm-eaten Alaithe hanging in the bath chamber doorway, bloated up so as to entirely fill the doorframe.

Sylune floated over to the open window to look out at the Neverwinter night. There were white, staring faces in the windows of several houses nearby, looking her way. The Witch of Shadowdale smiled broadly, gave her translucent, wraithlike self a bright green-white glow, and caused her head to rise up until it was a good three feet above her shoulders.

She waved cheerfully at the house where the loudest scream erupted in response, and strolled forward through the window to stand, nude and magnificent, her hair billowing out around her, in the empty air some sixty feet above the dark and garment-strewn garden below.

She wove a sending to chat with a distant sister and said into the night, 'Hail, Witch-Queen of Aglarond!'

Hello yourself, Witch of Shadowdale, came an answer. Storm and Lustra have been wondering where you've been these past months.

'Trapped in an unwashed patch of hair on the head of a merchant wearing a magic-dead ring for fear of Lustra coming down on him in her full fury. It got so I wasn't just talking to myself-I was arguing with myself.'

Ugh! Those things should be destroyed. I've even caught a pair of Tashlutans- hired by our friends from Thay, of course-sneaking into my court with a pair of them that generate a reciprocating field between them. Pity their greed took their ring-hands into the path of a spill of molten gold being poured in one of the crafter's shops. Oh. . winning those arguments with yourself, I hope. What sparks your plaintive cry this fair evening, sister?

'The usual need to save all fair Faerun and everything in it, Lassra. I'm trapped in some bathwater-treated with a liberal dose of dissolved horse dung, so bring gloves-because our villain finally did a thorough job of washing his hair. He's shivering in his bed right now. Want to come to Neverwinter and warm him up?'

Neverwinter? Does it have Red Wizards I can torment?

'No, but this man is linked in a magical cycle to an umber hulk and three Red Wizards. That should satisfy even someone as greedy as you.'

A-hunting Red Wizards? Leave it to me.

'Touch my stone and I'll give you all I know about our foes in one mindburst.'

You're a gem, Sylune. Constrained against the Art for months? I'd have gone utterly and eternally insane.

'Others of my sisters have vigor, and low contacts across Faerun, and a love of danger. I have something rarer: patience.'

While I have a hunger to kill Red Wizards.

Erovas Vrakenntun rubbed weary eyes and glared again at the window. Like the rest of the near neighbors of Blandras Nuin, he'd been unexpectedly entertained all night long. The hitherto quiet abode of a cloth merchant known for his kindnesses and solitude had provided a free spectacle that Erovas was heartily sick of.

Bloodcurdling, deafening shrieks, shouts and tavern oaths, and things breaking had been a damned near con shy;stant chorus-punctuated by displays of clothes thrown out windows, nude women plunging out of the house and running shrieking across the garden, and now, what looked like ghosts flitting past the windows. By the Untold Trembling Mysteries of Mystra, 'twas enough to make a-

His eyes widened and his jaw dropped open. His favorite monocle fell unheeded from its perch, to swing and dangle at the end of its maroon ribbon. Erovas the decanter merchant swallowed loudly, and reached for shy;ward with the sleeve of his dressing gown to wipe a small smear away from his window.

Not a hundred paces away-if he'd been able to pace upward through the air along a steady ascendant, as if climbing a staircase that had never existed and certainly never would, if he had anything to say about it, to reach a point about fifty feet above the sill of his window-a nude woman was floating. A woman whose long legs, slender, spectacular figure, and truly remarkable, gently swirling hair made his own wife look like a rather squat and badly sculpted garden statue of the jauntily gnomish variety.

The woman was standing on empty air-nay, leaning at ease on empty air, as if against a sideboard-talking in amused tones and in a relaxed, gossipy manner with someone who wasn't there. She was glowing brightly, he could see right through her, and he could see everything-Erovas gulped-including the fact that her head, with that gorgeous hair, was floating a good three feet above those slender, moon-drenched shoulders.

There was a small squeaking sound beside him. Erovas jumped, and it was a few anxious seconds before he realized that the sound had come from his wife, who'd come softly up beside him to see what he was staring at. When, she'd seen it for herself, she'd crammed some knuckles into her mouth, and bitten down hard.

A scream erupted from somewhere nearby, echoing around the dark houses, and the ghostly woman looked down and gave them a cheerful wave. Something inside Erovas the decanter merchant snapped.