The Halls of Stormweather s-1 Page 6

  A lackey thumped the butt of his staff on the floor and announced Shamur and Tazi, whereupon Dolera Milna Foxmantle bustled over to greet them. Still in a glum humor, Shamur had to exert a bit of willpower to stretch her lips into a welcoming smile.

  Dolera was a beautiful woman in her forties whose heart-shaped face was, as always, a mask of pigment.

  She used alabaster powder to whiten her skin, fucus to redden her lips, kohl to emphasize her eyes, and tincture of belladonna to enlarge her pupils. Tonight she wore a low-cut orange mocado gown that reeked of rose water.

  "Shamur," she cooed, "how wonderful to see you. And little Thazienne as well. You've extracted her from the taverns and barracks at last, and made her look so pretty, too! Of course, some people don't care for that… disheveled look. They say it makes a girl look cheap, or like some clodhopping slattern from a barbarian clime. But I find it refreshing."

  Shamur didn't even have to glance at Tazi to sense her gathering herself for a furious outburst. She surreptitiously elbowed her daughter in the ribs.

  "How kind of you to say so," she replied to Dolera. "How are you, dear? I assume you're still taking instruction in the dance from Maestro Rolando. I'm so looking forward to your first recital."

  Dolera's malicious smirk wilted a bit. "Actually, I've taken a sabbatical from dancing to focus on my watercolors. Excuse me, won't you?" She moved away.

  "As I understand it, Rolando terminated her lessons in disgust," Shamur murmured to Tazi. "He told her she had the grace of a three-legged sow."

  "So you asked about the humiliation to vex her," Tazi said. "But why wouldn't you let me retort with what I wanted to say?"

  "Because it would likely have been some crude insult, delivered at the top of your lungs, and that isn't how the game is played. If Dolera shakes your composure, she wins."

  "It sounds like a stupid game to me," Tazi began. Then the chamber music stumbled to a halt. The glaur player blew a fanfare.

  A lanky figure strode onto the landing at the top of a flight of stairs and swept up his arms in a histrionic gesture of welcome. He was veiled from head to foot in a voluminous hood and robe of green velvet and cloth of gold, but from the flamboyance of his entrance, he could only be Andeth Ilchammar, the Hulorn, a ruler considered eccentric even by his friends and entirely insane by his detractors.

  Shamur wondered why he'd chosen to appear in such a bizarre costume. For tendays, the gossips had been whispering that the merchant mayor, who was also a magician of sorts, aspired to transform himself into a titan or some other sort of superhuman creature. Perhaps his garments hid the stigmata of a failed or ongoing metamorphosis. Knowing Andeth, it was just as likely he'd simply succumbed to a childish urge to play dress-up.

  "Good evening, my lords and ladies!" the Hulorn cried in his breathless tenor voice. "I hope you're ready to be astonished and exalted, because I have a wonderful surprise for you. As many of you know, I employ agents to seek out the lost artistic treasures of antiquity, and over the years, they've made any number of glorious discoveries." He waved his arm at an example, a carved ebony centaur rearing in an alcove. "But recently, they uncovered the most important find of all. Visions of Chaos, a lost opera penned by Guerren Bloodquill!"

  Andeth's guests exclaimed and murmured to one another in surprise and genuine interest. Those with a sincere passion for serious music-and over the years, Shamur had affected this passion so doggedly that in the end, it had, to a modest degree, become sincere-were naturally intrigued to learn of a new work by the genius who, three centuries after his disappearance, was still regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time. Those who merely feigned an interest in the arts to be fashionable recalled the sinister side of Guerren's reputation. According to legend, he'd also been a mystic much given to communing with the infernal powers. Some tales even held that he'd bartered his soul in exchange for his musical talent.

  The Hulorn paused for a moment, basking in the sensation he'd created, then pressed on. "I have, of course, decided to stage Guerren's work for our delectation. The finest singers and musicians in Selgaunt have been rehearsing in secret for tendays-"

  "No!" someone cried. "You mustn't do it!"

  Like everyone else, Shamur turned in surprise, to see that a little man with a huge beak of a nose and a shaggy mane of graying hair had somehow slipped into the chamber. Bright scarlet puffing protruded from the slashes in his shabby fustian doublet, and gaudy paste jewelry adorned his chest. Shamur didn't know him, but she knew his type. He appeared to be a member of Selgaunt's sizable artistic community.

  Two guards stationed in unobtrusive positions about the foyer sprang forward and grabbed the little man by the arms. "Sorry, Your Grace," one of the pair called to the Hulorn. "I don't know how he got in."

  "Please," the small man said, squirming impotently in their grasp. "You have to listen-"

  "Master Quyance," Andeth sighed, "we've already had this conversation." He waved to the soldiers. "Remove him." They did, and, when Quyance continued to rave, they silenced him with a blow to the head. Shamur winced in sympathy, and Tazi muttered an obscenity.

  "Please excuse the interruption," Andeth said. "The wretch is unbalanced and has been following me about for days. I thought the guards had finally managed to discourage him, but evidently not. Well, enough about him. Come with me. Guerren's masterpiece awaits us."

  The merchant mayor descended the stairs and led his guests deeper into the Palace of Beauty. As Shamur moved to follow, she realized she knew what was going to happen next. For the first time that night, her gaze would fall on Gundar, son of Dorin. Her old nemesis, for all that he didn't know it. The wealthy dwarf merchant would be wearing a russet taffeta doublet and a wide, opal-studded belt. He'd have golden chains dangling in his long, white beard.

  She finished turning, and her premonition came true. Gundar was there, looking exactly as she'd imagined him. How could that be?

  "I hate to admit it," said Tazi, "but this might be tolerable after all."

  "What?" Shamur asked distractedly. She struggled to dismiss that disquieting sense of foreknowledge. No doubt it was simply her mind playing tricks on her.

  "If a demon-worshiper wrote the opera, perhaps the story will have slaughter, torture, and monsters raping virgins."

  "The important thing," Shamur said coldly, "will be to savor the beauty of the music, not to wallow in any moments of vulgar sensation the 'story' may happen to offer. There's Dolera. We'll go in and sit with her."

  "Why?"

  "Because she's my friend, of course."

  "How can you say that? The way you snipe at each other…"

  "What of it? It's simply the way gentlewomen of our circle behave. Someday you'll understand."

  "I hope not."

  To Shamur's surprise, Andeth led the company beyond the magnificent theater and into the backstage area with its cramped maze of corridors, rehearsal halls, storerooms, and dressing rooms. Ultimately they passed through a door into the cool night air.

  Andeth had ordered that the Palace of Beauty be built into the wall surrounding the Hunting Garden, his private park. Glancing about, Shamur saw that she and her companions had emerged within the enclosure. Before them, ringed by oaks and elms in a natural bowl in the earth, was an ancient amphitheater that predated the city itself. Most people believed that elves had built it, though no one truly knew. Magical lights glowed inside hanging shells of colored paper, and an orchestra sat tuning up in front of the platform at the bottom.

  "I wish I could have used Guerren's opus to inaugurate the new theater," the Hulorn remarked to one of the cronies walking beside him. "But the master left explicit instructions that the work was to be performed in a setting like this, and if we wish to appreciate it fully, we had best abide by his intent."

  "Thanks be to the Frostmaiden that so far, we're having a mild winter," Tazi murmured. "You know how Mad Andy is when a scheme grabs hold of him. He would have dragged us out here to sit through th
is claptrap even in the middle of a blizzard."

  "Do not refer to him as 'Mad Andy,' " Shamur gritted, "particularly when he's walking only a few feet ahead of us." Then she gasped as another premonition seized her.

  This time, it had nothing vague or dubious about it. She was absolutely certain she'd lived through these minutes before and thus knew what would happen next. She started forward, intent on warning the Hulorn, and*****

  Someone was shaking her by the shoulder. Startled, she pivoted, and saw that it was Tazi. "Mother?" the younger woman asked, a hint of worry in her voice.

  "I'm all right," said Shamur, and that seemed to be essentially true despite her disorientation. She looked about and saw that she and Tazi were standing back in the foyer at the base of the Raven's statue. Dolera and her equally pretty but younger and more vapid sister Pelenza were present as well, though all the sentries and servants had wandered off. Both Foxmantles looked even more shaken and bewildered than Shamur felt.

  "Good," Tazi said. "I was afraid you'd fallen into a trance, too. Do you remember, a second ago we were in the amphitheater. Something snatched us up and dumped us here."

  "Yes," Shamur said. She suspected that the force had actually targeted her because she'd been about to shout, but since Tazi and the others had been sitting next to her, they'd gotten caught up in it too. "But… were we somewhere, or somewhen, else first? Didn't we relive a bit of the past hour?"

  Tazi eyed her curiously. "I didn't."

  "What are you babbling about?" Pelenza exploded. "What's going on?"

  Forget it, Shamur told herself. Evidently her displacement in time had only been a sort of dream, and even if not, she had more pressing concerns-keeping the Foxmantle ladies from panicking, for a start. "I'm not altogether sure," she replied to Pelenza, "but good fortune has placed us in proximity to an exit, and our best option is to use it and send help back for the others."

  Tazi snorted. "I'm not going anywhere. This is interesting!"

  Shamur glared at her. "For once in your young life, don't be an idiot. This is not a game. The people in the amphitheater are in peril, and we have a responsibility to succor them." She had more to say, but at that moment, a deep voice bellowed.

  As she pivoted toward the sound, a lackey in the Hulorn's livery plunged through a nearby doorway. A rack of gleaming black antlers had sprouted from raw, oozing sockets in his forehead, and his blue eyes burned with lunatic rage. He clutched a bloody long sword in an awkward, untutored two-handed grip. Shamur*****

  Shamur crouched among Gundar's coffers, her signature red-striped mask on her face and a silver amulet set with a large, lustrous pearl-the first piece of loot she'd selected to carry away-dangling around her neck. She was smiling in triumph, but the expression felt wrong and unnatural. This time, for the moment at least, she fully understood she was reliving the past, and accordingly she knew what was about to happen.

  Sure enough, the door to the treasure vault crashed open. On the other side stood Gundar-clad in a nightshirt and nightcap, his beard still black with only a sprinkling of white-a pair of his dwarven guards, and a human, his household mage.

  There was no way out except through that same doorway. Shamur sprang to her feet and drew Albruin, her enchanted broadsword, from its scabbard. The weapon shone with an eerie blue light.

  Swords in one hand, target shields in the other, the soldiers in their mail shirts spread out to flank her. Gundar, who had a reputation as a warrior himself, came straight at her. His battle-axe, whispering and crooning with some magic of its own, shifted deceptively to and fro.

  Shamur was so intent on the men-at-arms that she missed seeing the sorcerer-a stunted wisp of a man scarcely taller and nowhere near as solidly built as his employer-point his ivory-tipped wand at her. Suddenly her left shoulder was burning, cooking, as if from the kiss of a white-hot iron, and her loose black silk shirt burst into flame. She dropped and rolled among the scattered coins and gems, knowing she had only seconds to extinguish the fire before the warriors would be on top of her.

  Frantically she scrambled back to her feet. Her shoulder still throbbed, and the part of her that had lived these moments before knew she'd carry a peculiar star-shaped scar for the rest of her days. That didn't matter. What did was that as she'd thrashed about putting out the blaze, her mask had come untied.

  Gundar stared at her naked face in amazement. No hope that he would fail to recognize Shamur Karn! She and her family had attended a banquet here in his mansion only a tenday before. That was when she'd determined the location of his hoard.

  Taking advantage of his surprise, she bolted past him, slammed the wizard out of her way, and raced toward the window which had granted her entry. For once she took no delight in the thrill of a narrow escape. How could she? Now that someone knew that Javis Karn's adolescent daughter and Selgaunt's most notorious robber were one and the same, she'd have to flee the city forev*****

  She was back in the foyer, back where a demented servant was about to attack her. She forced herself to think of that and that alone.

  Her body reflexively began to assume a fighting stance, but she stopped herself. Her companions had no idea that she knew how to conduct herself in a melee, and it was imperative that it remain so. Fortunately, she shouldn't have to give herself away, not to handle this oaf.

  The man with the antlers lifted his sword and charged her. She pretended to freeze, then, at the last possible instant, shifted aside. Trying to make it look as if she were stumbling over her own feet, she dropped, caught herself with her hands, and stretched out her leg. Her assailant tripped headlong over her ankle. The long sword clanged against the floor.

  Tazi snatched up a near-priceless porcelain bust of Sune from its pedestal and smashed it over the lunatic's head. He sprawled motionless, scraps of the shattered sculpture caught in his antlers.

  The Foxmantle sisters were clutching each other.

  "Blessed Ilmater, blessed Ilmater, blessed Ilmater," Pelenza whimpered. Given their sheltered existences, it was unreasonable to expect any better of them, but Shamur felt a surge of contempt. Under the circumstances, their case of the vapors contrasted poorly with Tazi's composure as she appropriated the long sword, then brandished it to test its heft and balance.

  Not, of course, that Shamur intended to say anything that would encourage her daughter's hoydenish ways or give her a chance to use her new toy.

  "Stop blubbering," Shamur rapped at Dolera and Pelenza. "None of us was harmed, and now we're leaving. Follow me." The foursome proceeded to the exit, though Tazi trudged along sullenly, casting longing glances backward at the arena of enticing danger and mystery.

  She was so intent on peering behind her that she missed seeing the venomous-looking saffron-yellow spider, its bulbous abdomen as big as a walnut, lurking in a detail of the ornate carving surrounding the door. Nor had the quivering, tearful Foxmantles spotted the creature. The arachnid crouched to spring.

  Shamur slapped the spider before it could pounce at any of them and felt its body squish against her palm. Dolera and Pelenza jumped and yelped. Tazi whirled around. "What is it?" she demanded.

  "Nothing," Shamur said. "I lost my balance and had to catch myself. I apologize for startling everyone." Wondering where the spider could have come from-she'd certainly never seen such a specimen before, and she'd wandered from Sembia to the southern shores of the Moonsea in her time-she surreptitiously wiped her hand on her dark blue skirt.

  Tazi pulled open the door, and lesser puzzles such as the origin of the spider-or a servant who grew antlers and went insane, for that matter-flew straight out of Shamur's mind.

  The door, of course, should have opened on the benighted, cobbled, torch-lit turnaround where the carriage had let them off. Beyond that they should have seen the lights and towers of Selgaunt, not tangles of underbrush, and towering trees festooned with lianas. Not shafts of sunlight piercing the canopy to fall through the muggy air.

  Speechless for once, Tazi squatted, r
eached across the threshold, picked up the fallen, withered petal of an orchid, and examined it closely. Shamur supposed it was her way of convincing herself that the jungle was actually there.

  "Everything's all… scrambled," the younger woman said at last. "Changing. People take on new shapes, or go crazy. You get whisked from one location to another in the blink of an eye. Places that used to be next to one another… aren't any more."

  "Yes," said Shamur. To herself she silently added, it isn't just space that's out of joint. Time is a little disordered too, if only in my head. Perhaps, she thought, she was reliving moments from the past because she was no longer quite as firmly anchored in the present as most people.

  "How can this be happening?" Dolera wailed.

  "I don't know," Shamur replied, "but if we remain calm-"

  "Hush, and listen!" Tazi said.

  When Shamur did, she heard sobs, bestial roaring, and demented laughter echoing softly from elsewhere in the building. But the most ominous sound of all was the dissonant chords and staggering rhythms of Guerren Bloodquill's opera.

  "Should we still be able to hear the music?" Tazi asked. "With so many walls between us and the amphitheater?"

  "I wouldn't think so," Shamur replied. "That lends credence to the notion that it's the opera itself that is magical and producing the phenomena we're experiencing. That in turn suggests a solution. Since we can't leave the building, at least not through this particular exit, you three will take refuge in a suitable room. One with a door you can lock or barricade. Meanwhile, I'll return to the amphitheater and prevail on Andeth, or the singers and instrumentalists themselves, to halt the performance. One can only hope that when that occurs, our surroundings will revert to normal."

  Tazi clicked her tongue in derision. "Have you gone crazy, too?"

  "I trust not," Shamur said.

  "I can see why you want to rid yourself of these two," Tazi continued, indicating the Foxmantle sisters with a casual jab of the long sword. "They're useless." Her tone was so scornful that, despite her terror, Dolera bridled. "But when it comes to you and me, I'm the one who knows how to fight. You need me for protection."