Lord of Stormweather

CHAPTER 26

"That's the third or fourth spookiest thing I've ever seen," said Chaney.

"Indeed," said Tamlin.

It gave him the chills to watch his own body dissolve at first into a transparent image of itself, then to a smoky shadow that slunk its way down the stairs. Tamlin watched it creep along until it came to a wide pair of doors that reminded him of those that lead to his mother's solar.

"What do you mean, 'third or fourth'?"

"Malveens," said Chaney. "Extra spooky."

"Ah."

"Where do you suppose those doors lead?"

"I have an idea… Someplace hot? With brimstone and pools of lava," ventured Tamlin.

He'd thought he might experience mixed emotions after the death of his grandfather, but his feelings remained refreshingly clear. The old pirate deserved a long draught of the torment he'd visited on others.

"Shall we take a peek?" asked Chaney.

"Why not?"

Tamlin joined the shade at the doors and opened them. Contrary to his guess, this particular hell was cold and dry. Aldimar fell howling into the ice, where his body melted into the shape of a fat, white, sluglike creature before it froze again, stuck to the windswept plane.

Tamlin closed the door behind him.

"Whew," said Chaney. "Sort of makes you want to go out and do good works, doesn't it?"

"Yea, verily," agreed Tamlin, with an inner earnestness that belied his flippant tone.

"Listen," said Chaney, "while you were busy dispatching your evil twin, I was doing some thinking. You found a window that showed your parents, right? What about your brother and sister?"

"Of course!" said Tamlin.

Even before he closed his eyes, he felt the thread of his desire coursing through the jigsaw Stormweather. He followed it to a skylight window. At Tamlin's touch, it showed an image of the solar back at Stormweather Towers.

"There," he whispered.

Talbot and Radu Malveen fought beneath the great blue stones of the waterfall. Their blades flashed faster than the eye could perceive, and Talbot's white shirt was already streaked with blood. Radu seemed untouched, except for a wide swath missing from his cloak.

A dagger whirled down from the top of the waterfall stones, toward the assassin's face. With a twitch of his blade, Radu deflected the missile effortlessly, without even glancing up at Tazi perched upon the rocks. Ignoring her, he pressed the attack on Talbot.

"Kill 'im, Tal!" Chaney shouted at the window. He looked at Tamlin. "We have to go back!"

"But I'm dead there," said Tamlin. "Even if I can open the door, won't I vanish for good if I try to go back?"

"I don't know," said Chaney, "but they need help."

"You're right, of course," said Tamlin.

He thought of home and followed the alluring path to a trapdoor at the base of the weird hall. Tamlin lifted it by its round iron ring, revealing the same strange blue stone that plugged the gate he found under the cellars.

"Uh oh," said Chaney. "I hope you don't need that key to get through."

"Me too," said Tamlin. "Maybe my blood is what activates it."

He cut the heel of his thumb with his sword and pressed the wound to the stone.

Nothing.

"Wait a second," said Chaney. "Aldimar was dead when he was trapped here, but somehow he had a body in that other world. That must have been your body, the one your dreams created. All along, you existed both in Selgaunt and in that other world-at least until he took over that one."

"Sure, but I just killed him… aha!"

"Exactly," said Chaney. "Your body here and your body there-they could be two separate things. When he came in here, he must have left it behind. Or in transit… or something like that."

"To get back home, I have to go to the other world first," concluded Tamlin.

He glanced back at the window to Stormweather Towers. Tal had just shattered Radu's blade, but the assassin caught the following cut between his left palm and his petrified right hand. He wrenched the sword away and shot a hard kick into Talbot's chest. The blow sent the bigger man flying across the wide room, out of range of the window.

Radu looked up at Tazi, who threw another knife at him. He blocked it with his ruined hand and poised to leap up at her.

"Hurry!" urged Chaney.

Tamlin flew to the portal through which Aldimar had appeared.

He blew a kiss to the ceiling as he opened the door and said, "Tymora, smile on me."

White radiance spilled out, blowing back his hair and conjured clothing even as it drew his essence out into another world.

Tamlin fell to the ground. An aching pain burned deep within his chest. He rose to his knees and felt his back. His hand came away bloody.

"My lord!" called a guard in red armor. "Please, now that you have quelled the Vault, won't you allow Lady Malaika to tend that wound?"

Tamlin allowed the man to help him walk out of the dark chamber, past a set of sturdy gates. He looked back to see the now-familiar gate, without the blue seal that blocked passage from Stormweather Towers.

He was wearing Aldimar's clothes, and the men around him were Aldimar's soldiers.

Yet they had no idea that Aldimar was dead.

"Yes," said Tamlin. "Send her to the tower. I return there immediately."

"My lord," said the guard. "Your scepter."

Tamlin nodded as he accepted the heavy wand with its winglike blades. At its touch, he knew its power to drive his own spells and transform them into greater, more varied incarnations. He uttered the words to his flying spell as he touched the feather token on his harness. He knew it would be there, for he remembered all his old dreams. Despite his terrible wound, for the first time in his life he felt complete.

Likewise, he knew the way out of the basement, through the great Stillstone Hall, and up to the highest tower. Seeing the places around him, concrete and real, brought back a flood of assurances that his forgotten dreams had never been dreams at all.

Malaika.

Something about the word was a charm to speed his remembrance. Strangely, he couldn't hold an image of the woman in his mind.

Everywhere he flew, the inhabitants of Castle Stormweather scurried out of his way, falling over themselves to make obeisance to their master as he hastened to the defense of the fortress. At last, he surged up through the central tower and flew up above its roof. Desperately, he searched the battle-churned scene for his parents.

Dead guardsmen lay scattered over the roof, and among their bodies a score more fought on. Their opponents were elves armed with spears and swords. More of them descended from long dark ropes depending from an enormous creature floating overhead.

Skwalos, Tamlin remembered. Those are their tongues.

Beside the dangling tethers hovered more elves hurling magic down at the human defenders.

Another wave of elves joined those on the roof, but they were still outnumbered by the armored humans. Among the elves, Shamur fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Erevis Cale. Between them lay the slumped and bloody figure of Tamlin's father.

"No!" Tamlin screamed. Then, to his soldiers, "Stop! Fall back at once!"

No one heard his cries amid the clashing blades and exploding spells. He calmed himself and thought of the spell to enhance his voice. He spoke the word and blasted his voice to all within sight.

"Cease fighting! Fall back now! I call for truce!"

The warriors were slow to respond, but gradually they backed away from the elves. Tamlin looked all around to see that everyone was staring at him.

He felt highly vulnerable. Before he consciously decided he needed protection, his fingers were already tracing the glyphs and his lips already forming the arcane words.

He finished the spell just in time, as a pair of lightning bolts shot through him from points near the dangling tethers from the flying creature. He felt the hair on his neck rise, and his eyes burned from the flash, but he was little worse for the attack. Apparently the invulnerability he enjoyed in the Stormweather nexus was considerably less potent outside its walls. He followed the lingering afterimage of the bolts back to their origin, where an old elf woman and a younger elf man gestured toward him.

"Wait," he called. "Truce, I say. Let us hold a while and speak of terms."

"Never," shouted the young wizard who had attacked him. He pronounced his words precisely, as if they were the few he knew in the common tongue, and he'd practiced them often. "We will never surrender to you."

"Listen to him!" cried a sweet voice from below.

On the rooftop, amid the smoking carnage, stood a lithe brown elf with hair as dark as a still pool on a moonless night. She must have arrived by magic, for heaps of bodies blocked the path from the stairs.

Malaika, thought Tamlin. That's your name, but who exactly are you?

"I call for truce, not surrender," called Tamlin, wresting his gaze away from the beautiful elf. "Come, let us each tend to our wounded, and let us meet and speak of peace."

The elves hesitated, suspicious of a trick. One of them barked out a laugh so harsh that Tamlin couldn't imagine the sound emanating from an elf. Considering the cruelty Tamlin had witnessed in his dreams-or visions, as he was coming to think of them-he could hardly blame them.

"Here," he said, holding the winged scepter out before him. In it, he knew, lay the greater store of his warlike power. Without it, he could still hurl spells, but not endlessly. "I offer this as a token of good faith."

"Beware," warned the old woman mage.

Despite her warning, the younger wizard flew forward, hesitating only as he drew near his sorcerous adversary. Tamlin met the elf's gaze with his own, trying to show his honest intentions without seeming overeager. The young man snatched away the scepter and flew back to hover near the old woman, holding the weapon as triumphantly as if he'd wrested it from the foe. The old woman gazed curiously at Tamlin.

"We will recover our dead and tend our wounded," she said, "until the hour when we parlay. Name it."

"Dawn, two days hence," he said. "A time of new beginnings."

The Vermilion Guard lowered their weapons and turned to gape up at their master, allowing the elves to place their fallen on the long fronds from their creature-vessels. As the elves retreated, Tamlin flew down to his parents. Malaika met him there.

"My lord," she said. "You are wounded."

"Tend to my father first," he said.

Malaika started at the word "father." Her hopeful eyes lingered on Tamlin as she knelt beside the fallen man. She looked to his several wounds and pressed her hands upon the horrid sword-cut in his breast. She closed her eyes and raised her voice in song.

Tamlin moved to kneel beside her.

Shamur blocked his way, and a glowering Erevis Cale raised his sword to Tamlin's breast.

"Tamlin?" said Shamur. "How do we know it's really you?"

Tamlin struggled for a proof. "I don't know, Mother," he said. "Do you have any suggestions, Mister Pale?"

Cale shrugged and lowered his sword.

"That is good enough for me," he said, then he muttered something with the word "impudent" in it.

Shamur raised a hand to Tamlin's face and said, "When did you-?"

"I will tell you everything later. Now, we must look after Father and get back to Stormweather."

"He is dying," said Malaika.

"No," said Tamlin. "He can't be."

"He was wounded before the fight. His heart is failing."

"You must save him," said Tamlin.

"I cannot," she said. "Not here. He has the blood. You must take him back inside."

"What?"

"Do you remember where we met?"

"I don't… Malaika. It is you, isn't it? That's why I can't remember you."

She nodded sadly as she rose and put her hands to the wound in his back. She sang the ragged edges back together as he cast his own spell, conjuring a levitating, concave disc to convey his father down to the portal between the worlds.

Tamlin gestured to Cale to help him lift the Old Owl gently into the concave disc.

"What are you two talking about?" insisted Shamur.

"Mother, meet Stormweather. Stormweather, this is my mother. Now, let us hurry."

"Where is the elf woman?" asked Shamur. She looked around the Stormweather nexus with a disappointing lack of awe. Everyone except Malaika had arrived through the gateway in the Ineffable Vault and stood within the strange version of the mansion they called home. "I thought she was right behind us."

"She's here," said Thamalon, gazing around the nexus with an expression of curious familiarity. "She's always here."

Since passing through the gate, he appeared completely healed of his wounds. Tamlin had enjoyed a similar anodyne, but both Shamur and Cale still bore the wounds of the battle atop Castle Stormweather

"I feel it, too," agreed Tamlin.

"Not that I feel ungrateful," said Cale, nodding at his injured shoulder, "but perhaps she could lend my lady and I a little aid."

"Sorry, old chap," said Tamlin. He was beginning to enjoy being the one who knew more than everyone else around him. "We've always loved you like an uncle, but you aren't actually blood now, are you?"

"What is that supposed to mean?" said Shamur.

"No, he's right," said Thamalon slowly, as if gradually coming to understand the nature of the place. "Neither of you is an Uskevren."

Shamur began to sound impatient. "Would one of you please explain-Look out!"

She crouched low and whipped her sword from its sheath.

"Don't worry," said Tamlin. "That's just Talbot's old pal Chaney."'

Chaney waved and sketched a poor imitation of a bow.

"Sorry, my lady," the ghost said, "I didn't mean to startle you."

"But he's dead," Shamur protested, refusing to address the spirit directly. "Isn't he?"

"Aye, a ghost," said Tamlin, "but that's nothing. Wait until I tell you about some of Talbot's other friends. But never mind that for now. I have to go pull the children out of a spot of trouble."

"We'll come with you," said Shamur resolutely.

"No," said Tamlin and Thamalon together.

Shamur looked ready to argue with her son, but then she turned to her husband, surprised at his complicity.

"I… I still feel weak from the passage," Thamalon explained. "I would only hinder you. Cale, go with him."

"My lord," nodded Cale.

"Shamur," Thamalon added, almost timidly. "Would you remain with me a while?"

"But…" Shamur hesitated, torn between her desire to return and help her children and the lure of her husband's curious tone. "Of course," she said.

When she reached for his hand, Thamalon withdrew.

A terrible understanding chilled Tamlin's body as his gaze met his father's. Through their green eyes, they forged a wordless bond.

Not yet, they said. This is our secret.

"Father," said Tamlin. "We will return for you."

Thamalon stepped forward as if to embrace his son before thinking better of it.

"Hurry," he said.

Tamlin kissed his mother and led Cale to the base of the strange hall, where he lifted a trapdoor. When he saw the bright radiance surge up from its aperture, he stepped back before its magic could draw him through.

"You were right!" said Chaney, hovering just beside his shoulder. "Now that you're whole, you can return."

"See you on the other side?" asked Tamlin.

"I don't know," said Chaney reluctantly. "Back there I was bound to that miserable beggar. It's boring here, but at least I'm free of him. I don't know whether I should take the chance that I'll be stuck to him again."

"All right, then," said Tamlin. "We'll likely do well enough without your help. I'll tell Talbot you're safe."

"Bastard," muttered Chaney. "All right then. I'm in. What do we do? Just jump in?"

"I think being close is enough," said Tamlin. "Just in case, take my hand."

He did, as well as a ghost could, and so did Cale. Together they stepped toward the portal.

The white rush and thunder took them, and they tumbled out of the world and into the one they knew. They emerged in the deserted, excavated cellars of Stormweather Towers.

"Chaney?" Tamlin called. "You here?"

Tamlin no longer saw the ghost, nor did he hear a reply. He hoped the trip between the planes hadn't dissipated the spirit. He'd been hoping for some supernatural assistance in the fight ahead. He moved toward the stairs.

He flew beside Cale, soon passing him. He rushed out of the cellar steps, into the grand foyer, and up the grand stairway. There he turned west, toward the solar and the sound of battle.

The once fine double doors had been smashed to flinders and shards. Inside, countless paths had been torn through the foliage, and two of the trees had been knocked completely over. One of the towering stones from the waterfall lay upon the ruins of a row of shelves and the crushed flora they once held.

Tamlin heard only the sound of running water and heavy breathing. He followed the latter sound to its source. Before he reached it, he found the slumped bodies of three of the house guards. He frowned at the sight of them and continued to find the source of the panting.

Tazi lay back against the remaining half of a huge, crushed pot. Her left jaw was already blackening, and blood streamed from her nose and mouth. She held her left arm close to her ribs.

When she saw Tamlin, her eyes widened.

"Ruh!" she whispered, slurring her words through puffy lips. The blow that blackened her face must have made her bite her tongue as well. "He things you deh!"

Tamlin heard a small choking sound deep within Cale's chest. The tall man knelt beside Tazi, cradling her head in one arm while holding a blade in the other.

Tamlin felt his bravado dissolve once more into fury. He struggled to contain the wild emotion as he stroked his sister's battered cheek and falsified a smile for her.

"Don't worry, little sister. This time, I'm here to rescue you."

"No," she insisted. "I thing he kill Dal alrea'y. Ruh!"

The practiced smile trembled and fell away from Tamlin's face. He looked to Erevis Cale and said, "Guard her."

"With my life," promised Cale.

Tamlin flew up off the ground and soared across the ruins of the solar. He saw no sign of movement until he heard a low growling in the far corner. There, making a round trail of bloody footprints on the floor beneath the sun window was a black wolf the size of a pony. It bled from a dozen wounds and held its hind leg up protectively. Nearby, a maimed guard cowered from the beast, trapped in the corner by his own fear.

"Malveen!" bellowed Tamlin. "Where is he?"

The guard looked up at him with mingled hope and fear. Still too cowed to speak and draw the wolf's attention, he pointed with his chin toward the pond.

Tamlin flew back to the waterfall, careful not to come too close to the obscuring clumps of foliage. Water sprayed in an arc over the carpet, where a colossal blow to the fountain had uprooted its plumbing. Its cascade left ripples across the water, which remained murky with blood.

Tamlin flew closer, seeing a figure lying beneath the surface of the water, unmoving. Cautiously, he approached.

It was Radu Malveen, his mask shattered during the fight with Tazi, Tal, and the house guard. Fragments of porcelain still clung to his cheeks, attached to posts bonded through his flesh to his skull.

The reflection of another face rippled in the water above Malveen's. It was Chaney, waving frantically and mouthing words. Tamlin had no talent for lip reading, but he peered closer to make them out.

"What are you saying, man?" said Tamlin. " 'He… is… faking…!'"

Tamlin flew up to the ceiling just as Radu Malveen surged out of the water, his sword extended fully and pointed once more at Tamlin's heart. The point pierced Tamlin's leather jacket, pricking his chest just above the nipple as Radu's leap carried him high. Just before Tamlin's back hit the ceiling, the inhuman assassin fell back into the pond with a crimson splash. There he crouched for an instant, preparing for another leap.

"Anabar!" shouted Tamlin, thrusting his hand at his enemy.

The lightning formed a thick column all around and through Malveen, cascading down into the pond and leaping back up into his body, its power spread and magnified by the water. For an instant, Tamlin saw the man's skeleton, black against the white outline of his flesh. Jagged spikes protruded from the face of his skull and the bones of his right arm.

The assassin fell motionless into the water.

Tamlin kept his distance, looking around for a mirror. He hoped Chaney could relay some confirmation of the kill. At last he found a basin and looked into it, searching for the ghost's reflection.

Chaney arrived an instant later, grinning and mouthing the words, Out cold.

"My lord," cried a guard from the solar door. Six other men crowded behind him, anxious for battle. "The reinforcements have come with spears."

"No more need," said Tamlin. He turned to see Cale standing with Tazi in his arms. "Send a runner to the House of Song. We have need of healers, but don't wait for them-see to my sister's injuries immediately."

"Aye, my lord," the guard said. He delegated the orders to one of his men, who immediately ran out of the room, then he turned back to Tamlin. "What of the wolf?"

"Leave him to me," said Tamlin.

One look at the snarling animal told him it would be no easier to subdue his brother than it was to neutralize Radu Malveen. He thought of his vision in the Stormweather nexus. Talbot's death was the one sure remedy to the dire prophecy he'd seen. Tamlin might never have a better chance to remove his dangerous brother from the family.

No, he decided. Should the vision prove true, he would deal with it when the time came. He wouldn't stoop to preemptive fratricide, no matter how dangerous Talbot might someday become.

"On second thought," he said. "Send for Larajin, and let no one else near him until she arrives."

He uttered the words to another spell and reached into the pond with his magic. Radu's body floated up from the water, his head lolling to one side, his lips and eye sockets pink and swollen. The faintest movement of his chest showed that the assassin still lived.

"What shall we do with this one?" asked the guard.

The man did a credible job of retaining his composure in the face of his young master's sudden demonstration of sorcerous powers. Tamlin decided to keep an eye on the fellow for future advancement.

"What's your name, man?"

"Kainan, my lord."

"Well, Kainan, fetch me some shackles," he said. "Heavy ones, and plenty of them. Post a double guard in the big workshop downstairs. Clear out the furniture. I will desire some privacy during our conversation."