The Halls of Stormweather

THE PATRIARCH

"Any more business?" the head of House Uskevren asked calmly over the rim of his raised glass.

The lamplight flickered on the last sweetened ices and the wines served with them. The slight ripple of his set jaw behind it was the only hint of the disgust Thamalon Uskevren felt at dining in his own feast hall with his two most hated rivals-and creditors.

"Oh, yes, Uskevren," the man with silver-shot hair and emerald eyes so sharp they glittered said in an idle manner that fooled no one, "there is one thing more." Presker Talendar's smile was silken. "I've brought along someone who very much wants to meet you."

One of the four hitherto silent men who sat between Talendar and Saclath Soargyl-the fat, sneering son of a man who'd tried to kill Thamalon six times and hired someone else to bring down a sharp, cold end to Thamalon's days at least a dozen times more- leaned forward. Something that might have been the ghost of a smile adorned his face. It was the stranger in the doublet of green musterdelvys gilded with leaping lions, who resembled Thamalon's long-lost elder brother Perivel… as he'd been when young and vigorous, so long ago. Had Perivel found time back then to secretly sire a son?

Thamalon knew the other three silent diners at his table by sight. One was Iristar Velvaunt, a coldly professional mage-for-hire whose presence here this night must have cost the Talendars several thousand fivestars, at least. He was the whip to keep raised tempers from exploding into something more… or to blunt the many menaces a host might whelm against guests in his own house.

The man beside Velvaunt was Ansible Loakrin, Lawmaker of Selgaunt. Loakrin was the perfect witness and the owner of a face as carefully expressionless as Thamalon's own.

The third man, by far the shortest and fattest of those gathered at table, was a priest whose raiment marked him as a servant of Lathander, god of creation and renewal. The priest's name had escaped Thamalon, but several platters of nut-roasted goose had failed to escape the Lord Flame of Lathander-and three decanters of good wine were thus far very much failing to escape him as well.

They were witnesses, these three, here to watch the unfolding of whatever stratagem the man in green and Talendar had hatched together, and to keep swords from being drawn.

Thamalon inclined his eyebrows in an expression of casual interest that was very far from what he was really feeling. "And having met me…?" he prompted gently.

"… I found myself disappointed at the distantly formal nature of my reception," the man in green smoothly took over the sentence. "After all, Thamalon, I am your brother."

He paused to give Thamalon time to gasp and launch into loud and eager query, but the head of House Uskevren gave him only calm silence, one lifted eyebrow rising perhaps half an inch higher.

Before the stillness could stretch, the man in green drew himself up and said in ringing tones that could not help but reach the servants standing motionless along the walls, even to the maid busily dusting the farthest corner of the hall, "Let all here know the truth of my heritage. I am Perivel Uskevren, rightful heir of my sire Aldimar, and head of House Uskevren. This House is bound as I bind it, its coins flow as I bid, and as I speak, so shall Uskevren stand."

The words were the old formula, echoing Sembian law. The head of a house controlled its investments and business dealings utterly. If this truly was Perivel, Stormweather Towers-the Uskevren's fine city manor- had a new master. Thamalon would lose in an instant all authority over the wealth he'd so painstakingly rebuilt, and this stranger would rule here henceforth.

There was, however, a slight complication. Perivel Uskevren had been dead for more than forty years.

Thamalon's last memory of his brother came tumbling back into his mind, as bright and as terrible as ever. Stormweather Towers was in flames, and there was Perivel shouting defiance in the red, leaping heart of an inferno of toppling beams and roaring, racing fire, his sword flashing as he hacked and stabbed at three-three! — Talendars.

The horse under Thamalon reared in terror, its scorched mane and flanks stinking. It surged forward with a scream into darker, cooler streets, bearing Thamalon and his tears away from the crackling of the fire and the shouts of the slaughtered.

The house was but a blackened shell when he saw it again. Its ashes held the bones of many but yielded up no living man, nor corpse that anyone could put a name to. The priests questioned a few of the scorched skulls with eerie spells, then turned in weary satisfaction to name Thamalon Uskevren heir of the house and to present him with a bill for their holy labors. They, at least, had been certain that Perivel died in the fire. Of course, with the passing years their gods had gathered in every one of them, and there was none left to echo their testimony now but Thamalon.

So it was; so it had always been: Thamalon Uskevren standing alone against the foes of his family.

Alone again. He was growing very tired of this. Perhaps it was time to set aside politeness and go out like a lion. If he could just be sure of taking all the snakes who hissed and glided around House Uskevren with him, down into darkness.

And there lay the rub. The gods had never made it easy for Sembians to be sure of anything.

"I suppose, brother," Perivel was saying smoothly, "you wonder why I'm here this night in the company of men whose families have, in past years, been at odds with our own?"

He waited for Thamalon to bluster or protest, but the head of House Uskevren gave him no more than a silent, almost leisurely wave of a hand, bidding him continue.

The pretender's eyes flashed-had he deceived himself into seeing surrender in Thamalon's eyes? — and with a flourish he drew forth a sealed document from the breast of his doublet. Perivel held the parchment up to catch the lamplight, so everyone could see that the seal was unbroken. He looked at Presker Talendar, received a solemn nod of assent, and slowly broke the seal.

Iristar Velvaunt moved with the speed of a striking snake, long sleeves billowing as his arm darted out to lay one quelling, long-fingered hand on the false Perivel's arm.

When the pretender obediently halted, the mage murmured something and passed his other hand over the document. That hand left a slightly blue glow in its wake, which clung to and coiled around the parchment. All of the men at the table recognized it. It was a common shielding to protect the parchment from being torn, burned, or affected by other magics.

Velvaunt then gave an extravagant "proceed" gesture of his own, and the pretender triumphantly thrust the document under Thamalon's nose.

Thamalon read it calmly, not moving to touch it. It seemed that Perivel Uskevren owed House Talendar a lot of money, and had named as his collateral if the monies- seventy-nine thousand golden fivestars, no less-were not repaid.

The collateral was Stormweather Towers itself-the house Thamalon had rebuilt, every tinted glass pane and smooth-carved arch of it. The head of House Uskevren did not look at the huge marble-sheathed pillars that rose all around him. Nor did he spare a glance for the exquisite lamps of iridescent blown glass that hung above the table, whose cost outstripped that of even the ornately carved pillars… but his question seemed directed more at them than at anyone seated down the long, decanter-laden table as he gazed across the cavernous hall and asked gently, "And how is it that an Uskevren came to stand in debt to the Talendars, without any in this house knowing of it?"

"I am but recently returned to Selgaunt," the pretender said eagerly, "after years as a captive then a loyal servant of the Talendars, at their holdings in the distant land of Amn. I–I came to owe Presker Talendar the value of a ship that was wrecked on rocks near Westgate, as I was captaining it for the Talendars."

Clever. Thamalon took care that none of the dark anger gathering in him showed in his face. The downfall of the Uskevren in his father Aldimar's day had been trading with pirates-an offense then as now treated no differently under Sembian law than open piracy itself. Any payment Thamalon might make to this man who claimed to be his brother could be trumpeted by the Talendars as paying a pirate, proof that the Uskevren were again up to their old tricks. False claimant or not, the Uskevren would be ruined. For that matter, this claimant-Perivel or not-could be a pirate himself.

Persons convicted of piracy in Selgaunt were always shunned by citizens anxious to avoid sharing their fate: a month of hard and unpleasant labor (usually harbor-diving to plug leaks in ship hulls, or squaring and hefting quarried stones to repair the city wall), followed by the amputation of one of the convict's hands. The guilty were often sentenced to suffer the breaking of another limb as well by officers of the court, a wound that was left to heal by itself so that, as the saying went, "the pain will be their teacher."

At over sixty years of age, Thamalon would be worked hard for a month, while this pretender disowned him and plundered the family vaults-a family none would dare trade with thereafter, for fear of being thought pirates in their turn. The Uskevren would fall, and the Talendars would seize everything and no doubt make special visits to a whipped and groaning Thamalon Uskevren to torment him with the news of what they'd done with it.

He'd end his days mutilated and in pain, probably tormented by Talendar servants and hirelings sent to hunt and harry him in the streets to provide feast-table amusement with their reports. He'd heard of their doing so before with House Feltelent, breaking the fingers of a lone, blinded old man one by one as months passed, purely for cruel sport.

In Sembia, it was all too easy to ruin a man.

It hardly seemed more difficult to shatter an entire family, no matter how rich, proud, and historied it might be.

His father had died fighting against such a fate. Thamalon could do no less, whatever it might cost him, and no matter how sick he'd become of such skulking and strivings. Thamalon owed the ghosts of Stormweather Towers-and his children, their lives still bright with promise before them-no less.

He raised his eyes almost idly, face smoothly expressionless. Seventy-nine thousand golden fivestars was coin he did not have. Nor was it a treasure Thamalon would be willing to let any Talendar steal from Uskevren coffers, even if he'd had it to spare. Yet if he lost this his beloved home, the brightest and best of Selgaunt would shun him and his as paupers whose every coin might already be spoken for… and, again, the Uskevren would be ruined.

Ruin, ruin on all sides, and sinister smiles all down his feast table, from men waiting to see him fall into the doom they had prepared.

The Talendars were the oldest, proudest family in all Selgaunt. One did not lightly refuse the request of a visit from one of them. Foes and longtime rivals they might be-and they might well have earned their cruel badge of the Blood-beaked Raven many times over-but they could boast trading contacts, agents, and factors almost everywhere across the teeming continent of Faerun. Only a fool snubbed the Talendars in Selgaunt.

"I anticipate you'll avoid any unpleasantness, brother," the false Perivel said heartily into the lengthening silence. "After all, you are the man they call the Old Owl… and all Selgaunt knows that Thamalon Uskevren is a man of his word-a man who takes care to keep all of his promises."

Thamalon almost laughed. So it had been said, repeated by Selgauntans over and over again as a business motto, ever since he'd once said such words in a speech. He'd known then, the moment they left his mouth years ago, that they'd someday be turned back at him.

The man who always kept his promises let his eyes wander down the table, allowing a smirk to crawl across his lips and cover the snarl he wanted to let slip. Let them wonder what mirthful secret he held; with a Talendar and a Soargyl at the table, they'd learn it was but a bluff.

They'd not, after all, come unprepared. Invisible daggerspurn fields sang around all of them, to turn aside any weapon an Uskevren might hurl, and hunger glowed in their eyes. They were ready and eager for Uskevren blood. Well, then…

Thamalon looked down at the promissory note again, and let them all wait for another tensely drawn breath before he raised green, glowing eyes from the parchment to regard the man who claimed to be his brother.

"I've never seen you or this document before," he said calmly to the pretender, "and this your signature fails to resemble any I've seen in our vaults. Prove to me that you are Perivel Uskevren."

This last, blunt sentence was dropped into the tense and waiting silence like a gauntlet hurled down in challenge. The men around the table seemed to lean forward slightly in excitement. The eyes of Presker Talendar and Saclath Soargyl gleamed with the anticipation of pleasure.

Thamalon never looked at them. His eyes were bright and very steady as they stared into the unfamiliar eyes of the man who called himself Perivel Uskevren. His gaze never strayed as he carefully handed the document not back to the pretender, but to the hired mage.

Velvaunt accepted the parchment with a smile that was almost a sneer. For all the attention the others at the table paid to him just then, he could well have saved himself the effort.

The little smile that curled the edges of Perivel's mouth never wavered as he stared back at Thamalon. His burly shoulders lifted in a slow shrug as he spread his hands and said mildly, "Bring me the chalice."

The smirk that rose into Perivel's eyes was a flame of pure triumph that told Thamalon two things: that this could not be his brother, whose quite different gloating smile Thamalon could remember very well, and that this impostor, whoever he was, thought he could prove himself to be Perivel Uskevren. Thamalon's older brother, the head of House Uskevren with the sole power to buy, sell, and forfeit its chattels, had been burned to ashes forty-odd summers ago.

Thamalon's hand never faltered as he set down his glass and rang the bell that brought his butler gliding to his side.

"Cale," the patriarch directed calmly, "fetch hence the chalice."

As the butler inclined his bald head and turned in smooth silence to obey, the triumph in Perivel's eyes became a blaze. Thamalon's fingertips found the familiar hilt of the knife strapped to his forearm, inside his sleeve. He stroked that hard, reassuring smoothness ever so slightly, out of long habit. Battle was joined.

That the man who called himself Perivel Uskevren knew about the chalice proved nothing. Half the elder houses of Selgaunt had heard of the Quaff of the Uskevren. It had been enspelled long ago by Phaldinor Uskevren's house mage, Helemgaularn of the Seven Lightnings, to keep revelers from stealing his mead. Its enchantments were later altered so that only one of the blood of the Uskevren could touch it bare-handed and not be instantly burned.

Burning was how Thamalon had first seen the large, plain metal goblet-or, withstanding snarling flames. It had been floating alone, dark and eerie in midair, among the roaring fires devouring Stormweather Towers. He'd stared at it in amazement ere his great-uncle Roel stormed out of the smoke to snatch him away from the fire and death and shattered dreams.

The chalice had been one of the few things to be salvaged from the ashes. It had been found standing serenely atop a charred mound that had once been the servants' quarters-and the servants-before they'd plunged helplessly into the inferno of the pantries beneath.

Stormweather Towers had fallen then. It must not fall again.

Somehow the sunlight streaming in the windows of the rebuilt high gallery never seemed as golden as the light that had fallen through the windows of the first high gallery. Back then the light fell onto maps and records, and Thamalon's own laborious copying as old Nelember had taught a quiet, chastened son of the Uskevren the history of his family.

A history that had begun somewhere else-his old tutor had never been very clear about just where-but sailed on ships to Selgaunt, there to rise in riches under Phaldinor Uskevren.

"Too bold to hide," the family name meant, in some forgotten tongue. Certainly Phaldinor had been by all accounts a gruff bear of a man, always lumbering into fray after fray and never backing down from a fight. He was a man as good as his word, as many folk learned to their delight-and some learned to their cost. Phaldinor the Bear used the coins spun into his hands by a fleet of merchant ships plying the Sea of Fallen Stars to sponsor armed expeditions into the peaks around the High Dale, to dig mines under the very jaws and talons of the beasts that made the Stormfangs-still dangerous today-so perilous then. Those mines brought back gold and silver enough to make the Uskevren the owners of much of Selgaunt, and enable Phaldinor to build himself a veritable palace. A straightforward man, he named it for its appearance: Blackturrets.

Thamalon had been born in that sprawling, indefensible mansion of orchards and gardens and watched Selgaunt gnaw away at field after copse after bower of its grounds, filling family coffers but searing away small corners of his heart with every felling and building. Wherefore his wildness had begun, a madness of youthful rebellion, which he'd fallen out of, shaken and sobered, bare months before the flames had claimed the grand new home of the Uskevren.

Prim, careful old Nelember had stepped into the chaos of Thamalon's heart and thoughts, and built a foundation of pride as carefully as any castle mason.

Pride in a family that was not without its faults. Phaldinor's first son, Thoebellon, was tall and strikingly handsome. In the words of Nelember, "he looked more like a king than kings ever do." He was also a hunter, wencher, and drunkard who squandered vast treasuries of family coins on dragon hunting, a sport at which the flower of the Uskevren was (luckily for him) an utter failure.

He hunted gentler prey with far more success, leaving a trail of outraged fathers and scandalized mothers clear across southern Sembia. That tactical error might well have hastened his doom.

Someone who was never found or even named stabbed Thoebellon in a forest one night whilst he was on a stag hunt, and his young son Aldimar became head of House Uskevren.

Aldimar was Thamalon's prim-lipped, disapproving father. His eyes were as hard and unyielding as two sword-points, and his tongue never spoke to wayward sons save with cold, biting contempt.

Nelember had seen Thamalon's hard face as they talked of his father and had fetched forth the chalice from its locked cabinet at the end of the room.

"Think of your father, and touch it," the old man had commanded.

He'd never been allowed near the family heirloom that the servants called "the Burning Cup" before. More out of curiosity than anything else, Thamalon touched it.

"Uncle," the young man stammered, blinking, "can you count coins at all?"

The great bear of a man belched, waved one blunt-fingered, hairy hand vaguely and rumbled, "By the handful… why?"

"Uncle Roel," Aldimar said in exasperation, "this chest was full a tenday ago! Brim-laden with Chassabra's housekeeping money; the servants' pay for a year. Where is it now?"

Roel belched again, thunderously. "Gone," he admitted sadly.

"Gone where?"

The bearlike man lifted the goblet that was never far from his hand, pointed into its depths, then upended it toward Aldimar. Nothing ran out. It was empty.

Thamalon found himself back in the high gallery, young again and drenched in cold sweat, blinking at the chalice on the table in front of him instead of the empty depths of Roel's unsteadily dangled cup.

Nelember wordlessly handed him a tankard of something warm, wet, and steadying-pheasant broth-and offered the dry words, "Rich fathers always have such easy choices to make, hmm?"

Thamalon stared up at his teacher, then back at the chalice. After a long, silent time, he mumbled, "Just tell me; I'll hear and heed. I'd not touch that again."

The old tutor smiled grimly and said, "Think of it as truth, waiting at your elbow for whenever you disbelieve."

Thamalon listened and learned. Aldimar had been a quiet, studious youth who let his boisterous, hard-riding uncles Roel and Tivamon run the affairs of the Uskevren-until Tivamon was killed in a tavern duel fighting half-a-dozen fellow drunkards, all of different families, and none of them "noble." The day after the crypt had been sealed on his casket, the hitherto-quiet Aldimar firmly set his Uncle Roel aside and assumed control of the family.

Aldimar had by then grown into a man both young and inexperienced but lettered and shrewd enough to run a family. All he dreaded was Roel's revenge, but the old bear snarled once or thrice then took happily to spending all his waking hours (than just half of them or so) at wenching, drinking, and falling drunkenly out of saddles as he rode from one Uskevren hunting lodge to another.

In the fullness of time, Aldimar took a wife, Balantra Toemalar, a stunningly beautiful, soft-spoken lass from a Saerlunan family of old and respected lineage but declining wealth. They had two sons, Perivel and Thamalon, before a third birthing killed her and what would have been a daughter. Thamalon remembered best her crooning songs, dark starshot eyes, and the long tumbling wildness of her hair.

The elder son, Perivel, was his father's favorite. He was a handsome, strapping youth every bit the horseman his Great-uncle Roel was, but with wits as sharp as Aldimar's own. In his brother's shadow, Thamalon became the quiet, studious watcher… and, after Nelember's teaching on the heels of his wild days, the family coin-counter. He had a horror of empty chests.

Under Aldimar, the Uskevren clan soared to new prosperity, outstripping even its former greatness. Aldimar took a second wife, and grew steadily more gaunt and short-tempered even as his influence made him the uncrowned ruler of Selgaunt. Perivel seriously contemplated conquering Battledale. This contentious realm northeast of Sembia proper was to be Perivel's own province, what he hoped would be the "breadbasket to the realm," as well as his own source of endless riches.

Then it all came crashing down. A dying pirate revealed Aldimar's dark secret. Behind all the lawful land deals and loans to shopkeepers and cart-merchants, the Uskevren wealth was based on piracy. Through Aldimar and the family fleet, the Uskevren bought ships for pirates, fenced their stolen goods, and in return prospered from smuggling and from pirate gold.

Like a pack of wolves swarming a falling stag, rival families rushed in for the kill. Old business foes like the Soargyl and Talendars and grasping new-coin climbers such as the families of Baerodreemer and Ithivisk hired wizards to uncover the truth. When Aldimar ignored their visits and failed to appear before the probiters they complained to, they met to plan war, hammered out an agreement, and forthwith attacked Stormweather Towers seeking to seize-or butcher-Aldimar.

Being an Uskevren, of course, he defied them.

With a flash and a roar that split the night, the gate guard and his hut cartwheeled up into the sky amid rolling blue flames.

"What by all the bright gods-?" Perivel shouted, springing up from his game of chethlachance with a violent surge that scattered the pieces across the board and sent old Nelember ducking hastily away from the swing of the heir's scabbarded sword.

"Unless I'm mistaken," Perivel's father said quietly, standing like a dark statue by the windows, "that will be our friends of House Soargyl and House Talendar, come to call on me, and in a mood to demonstrate that they've forgotten how to open gates."

"Why, those beggars!" Perivel was almost speechless in fury, but not quite. A Sembian could give no higher insult than the word he'd chosen.

"Father," Thamalon asked urgently, his book flung down and forgotten, "what shall we do?"

Aldimar Uskevren shrugged, the weariness of the gesture leaving both his sons gaping at him in shock. "What else?" he replied. "Fight, and sell our lives dearly. If two of us fall, mind, the third must win free, to keep the Uskevren name alive for a day when revenge can be taken. I've no more the strength or the inclination for fleeing and dodging. Let it end for me here."

He drew a wand from one sleeve and a long knife from the other and strode forward, never seeing the stunned looks his sons traded with each other behind his back.

A moment ago the brothers had been idling away an evening waiting for their father to confide in them the details of his latest schemes. They waited for him to tell them just how startlingly steep the bribes he was going to have to pay to avoid being jailed over this piracy scandal would be. Now, it seemed, they were standing on their own battlements in a doomed siege, staring into their father's waiting grave… and perhaps their own.

Shouts and crashes rang faintly up the stairs from below, and the sounds of frantically running feet suddenly smote the ears of the three, as the House Guard whelmed in haste. Their sounds seemed to remind Aldimar of something.

"Nelember," the head of House Uskevren commanded curtly, without turning his head or slowing, "get the Lady Ilrilteska and her maids away to safety as swiftly as you can. To Storl Oak by morning, if possible, but out of the city forthwith, regardless of what befalls hereafter. Hear you?"

The old tutor, as pale as the wax of the nearest candles, had to swallow twice before he managed to gasp, "Aye, Lord. Storl Oak it shall be."

Whatever Aldimar said next was lost in the splintering crash of the forehall ceiling coming down amid the shrieks of pantry maids below. Lightning flashed up the stairs, spitting sparks, and stabbed at the three Uskevren.

The Lord of Stormweather Towers sprang back and cast two swift, hawklike glances over his shoulders. His eyes flashed at what he saw and he snapped, "Stand away from me, both of you! What bright future will there be for House Uskevren if one bolt fells us all, eh?"

Perivel was shaking his head in disbelief as Aldimar's sons traded glances again and obediently drifted apart. Thamalon simply stared, open-mouthed and mute, at the horror so swiftly overwhelming his world.

There were heads bobbing amid the rolling clouds of dust below-helmed heads, advancing purposefully up the broad steps.

"Aldimar Uskevren!" a man shouted. "Miscreant and pirate! Yield to us!"

Aldimar flung up one hand in an imperious gesture commanding silence from his sons, and planted himself at the head of the stairs, thrusting his knife back in its sheath and shaking a second wand out of his sleeve.

Like the one ready in his other hand, it was a weapon neither of his sons had ever seen before, or known their father could use.

A lance of black magical fire leaped up the stairs. Where it struck, crackling, Nelember's head vanished from his shoulders. As the spasming body danced and reeled, another shout rolled up the stairs from below. It was a voice all three Uskevren knew.

"Aldimar," Rildinel Soargyl roared, his voice as deep as the snorts of the bull he resembled, "you are a dead man! Too craven to yield or stand forth and fight. I swear, we'll pull this place down until we find you or its falling crushes you. Where by all the coins Waukeen has ever forgotten are you?"

"Here, Rildinel," Aldimar called, in the mocking tones of a young lass teasing someone who searches for her. "Here."

As his old friend Nelember crashed to the floor beside him, both of the wands in Aldimar's hands burst into life, flooding the stairs with a sheet of white flame.

The men-at-arms rushing up the steps shrieked as they died, hurled off their feet and away by the power that seared them and melted their swords and armor alike. Below and behind the soldiers the three Uskevren saw a dark-robed figure reel and stagger amid the fading, darkening wandfire. An instant later, what was left of the forehall erupted upward through the solar, seeking the star-strewn sky. The explosion flung them all backward and smote their ears into ringing cacophony. It seemed that a mage had been unprepared for Aldimar's magic.

A shaggy head, dark and wet with blood, bounced on the steps beside Perivel's boots long moments later. All three men knew its staring face. It seemed Rildinel Soargyl, too, had been taken quite by surprise.

Well, nothing would ever surprise or disturb him again.

"I cannot but fail to observe, my sons, that House Soargyl has a new head," Aldimar murmured wryly. "Let us see if we can give them yet another before morning. Brutish ambition should be aptly rewarded."

As Perivel chuckled at this dark sally, his father's wands spat forth white fire again.

Only a few groans followed the second flood of flames. From beyond the shattered solar came fresh blasts of fury, and the dainty Ladyspire Turret toppled slowly past their view, flames spewing from its tiny arched windows.

Thamalon saw Aldimar's face change, and swallowed hastily. "I–I'm sure she was elsewhere, Father," he managed to say. "The-"

Another explosion rocked the steps beneath their feet, an instant before the turret's landing made the floor heave, flinging them helplessly against the nearest walls. Dust puffed out of the joints between those massive stones as they staggered back and away from walls that were shuddering as if they were alive.

Perivel drew his sword with a snarl. "They're destroying the Towers around us!"

Aldimar nodded sadly as the thunderous grating of stone rose to a momentary scream, echoed around the three Uskevren as they found footing once more, then started to die away.

"The Talendars pay their mages well," the patriarch observed, when speech could be heard again. "They must often be consumed with a frustrated hunger to use all that hired sorcery-and lo! Here we are, villains and traitors whose presence can not be tolerated in Selgaunt a moment longer." The smile that crossed his face then was not a pretty thing.

"Find them, my sons," he commanded, "and slay me some mages. Let them rue the price of our passing."

Perivel strode to the head of the great stair, but the head of House Uskevren put out one hand to his elbow and plucked him back. The son was startled by the strength of his sire's grip.

"Not right down Where they're waiting for you," Aldimar snapped. "Of what use to me is a dead heir?"

For a dark instant Perivel looked as if he was about to return his sire's snarl with interest, but that moment passed and he nodded slowly.

"The passage to the vaults?" Perivel asked, with a fierce grin. "Out to the stables and around to take them from behind?"

"Brother," Thamalon said urgently, pointing out one shattered window, "I think they're around by the stables already. The-"

A blue flare of magical light curled almost lazily up from the spread, upraised hands of a shadowy figure in the courtyard below. The light rolled forward through the dusty chaos of the Ladyspire's fall, to the gaping wound in the mansion walls where the turret had fallen away.

Through that opening eight armsmen of Aldimar's House Guard could be seen, swords and spears in their hands, cautiously probing every corner of the shattered chamber for intruders.

"No," Aldimar growled. "Fools-you'll all be slain! Get back! Get…"

His voice trailed away in futility. He had no spell to send his voice to them, and there was no way to save them. The deadly radiance was already rolling inexorably into the room. As the three Uskevren men watched grimly, the blue glow surged through the chamber like a storm-driven wave crashing through a flooded coastal forest. It swept away furniture and stiffly tumbling bodies, dashed lamps and mirrors into flying shards, and hurled statuettes to the floor.

"Tymora's… angry… talons," Perivel gasped slowly, as they watched the ravening magic roll on through the mansion, devouring stone walls as if they were made of butter, "how can we fight that?"

"Strike down its source," his father said crisply, and pointed one arm through the broken window. "Like this."

A ring on his pointing hand pulsed into sudden life, and the wizard who'd created the blue fire began howling and staggering in agony, his head blazing like a torch. Aldimar's sons looked at their father in fresh amazement. What else had their have-nothing-to-do-with-such-nonsense-as-magic father happened to acquire in secret through the passing years?

"Father," Thamalon asked quietly, "isn't this your last chance to let us know secrets like these battle magics?"

Aldimar gave him a long look. "I expect to die before morning, but gods take me if I'll plan on it."

"We can't have more than a handful of guardsmen left," Thamalon said urgently. "The three of us may stand alone!"

His father shrugged. "What of it? While we stand, we'll fight-until there's but one of you left to flee. House Talendar has so many mages up its sleeves that I don't want one of you trying to get away a-clanking with magic… you'd be spell-traced and hunted down."

He turned back to the window again-just as it erupted inward in a storm of daggerlike glass shards and reaching tongues of purple and white flame.

Aldimar flung himself over onto his back and let the blast tumble him across the room, shouting, "Get down!"

Perivel hesitated for only a moment before following Thamalon in a dive to the floor. He was bare inches from landing when something dazzling surged over the balcony like a huge wave crashing over a beach and racing across the land beyond. The room exploded in light.

The floor rose to meet Perivel's chin, rattling his teeth as he fell, and air so hot that it blistered his cheek howled over him.

When he could see again, the air was full of a sharp scorched smell, and little fires were dancing in many places along the walls and ceiling. Somewhere in front of him his father made a horrible wet groaning sound.

"Father?" he called.

"I am that," came the reply, the voice so strained that Perivel scarcely recognized it.

Perivel found his feet, somehow, the room seeming to tilt and spin crazily around him, and tried to stride forward. It was like stumbling along the deck of a ship pitching in the worst swells of a storm. A red haze seemed to be creeping in around the edges of his vision, and behind him he could see Thamalon clawing his way feebly over the jagged remnants of what had been a gilded chair scant moments before. There was blood all over his brother's face.

"Perivel," the master of Stormweather Towers said calmly from somewhere amid the dust-choked chaos ahead, "stay back." His father's voice was raw with pain and still threaded with a wet bubbling, but at least it sounded like Aldimar Uskevren again.

"Father?" Perivel called, clambering on over shattered furniture, and fumbling vaguely for the sword that didn't seem to be in his hand any more.

"Perivel, keep back."

The snap of command in his father's voice brought Perivel to a halt, blinking and peering. He was in time to see another turret, torn apart by spells, begin its deafening, ground-shaking fall to the earth below. He watched it through a larger opening than before. The row of windows was all gone, and the garden wall that had held them was also missing.

Perivel's thoughts ran on in dull confusion. At some time during his ruminations, as other spells rent the night outside, he fell back to the floor and rolled over to find Thamalon crawling up to him. The youngest Uskevren was blinking at his brother through a mask of blood. Clutched in one of his hands was Perivel's missing sword.

"Brother," he gasped, "I-"

Whatever he might have said next died, forever unspoken, as they heard their father murmur something that began too low to hear, and rose with terrible passion into words they could not understand. It was a surge of rising grief and fury that seemed to pull the floor under them into a matching rise and surge, like a wave racing toward shore.

The two brothers tumbled together in its wake, rolling over and gasping in ragged unison at the fresh pains of being dragged over splintered furniture.

They fetched up against a toppled, now armless statue of a winged woman who'd always displayed more artful drapery than modesty, and found themselves facing the missing wall again-and their father.

Aldimar Uskevren was straddling a rising, rolling knoll of stone like a rider urging a galloping horse forward in a race. Bent low over floor tiles that were flowing as if they were made of sap or syrup and not rigid stone, he was moving away from them, surging forward on a magical wave.

He was heading for the huge opening where the solar windows had been, toward the courtyards below where the Talendar and Soargyl mages were standing. The stones moving with him were making horrible groaning, deep-voiced creaking sounds that almost overwhelmed the strange little voice coming from Aldimar.

The head of House Uskevren was humming contentedly to himself.

"Father?" Perivel called, "what're you doing?"

"Dying, son," Aldimar said deliberately, as the flood of stone took him out of the room and up into the sky. "I'm busy dying. Please don't bother me now."

The sons of the Uskevren found themselves clawing at pillars and the edges of rolling, broken rocks to keep from being carried out of the solar by the ongoing stream of stone. Aldimar was high above them now, the wave of stone blotting out the moonlight as it arched up and on.

There were shouts from the grounds below, and the flashes and crackles of several spells. One of them sent a web of crawling, clawing lightning across the huge tongue of moving stone. His sons saw Aldimar reel and writhe as its blue fingers washed over him.

"Father," Perivel cried, "why are you doing this?"

The head of House Uskevren twisted to look back at his sons. "A man is but memories of deeds done, in the end," he bellowed. "Deeds measured by promises kept! Don't forget, both of you: Uskevren keep their promises!"

He gave them a wave that became a brutal, chopping signal to the magic he rode-and the wave of stone crashed down with sudden, terrible speed.

The shattered solar rocked as that fist of the stones hit the ground. Perivel and Thamalon clawed and sprinted and stumbled forward in desperate haste.

They were in time to see the terrible crash that transformed Marmaeron Talendar, head of the house of that name, and almost thirty armsmen and hired mages around him, into bloody pulp. They were in time to see their father's contorted body, reeling atop it all, consumed by the rushing, glowing energies of the magic he'd raised. They heard Aldimar's last, ringing cry, "Die, Soargyls! Die, Talendars! And know you full well at last: Uskevren keep their promises!"

The words were a roar above the rising dust, a call made loud by magic after the lips that had uttered it were burned to nothingness, and gone. Aldimar Uskevren was no more.

Perivel and Thamalon stared at the rubble-strewn courtyard through glimmering tears. Nothing moved in it now but the lazily curling dust-and one injured bird, who fluttered away from the cracked, crazily leaning fountain and flew drunkenly, in obvious distress, up into the ruined room where the guards had died, and out of view.

"F-father," Thamalon whispered. "You shall be avenged. This I swear."

"This we swear," Perivel echoed, in a voice like a gem-knife cutting glass. He raised his hand, and sketched a salute with the sword he held in it-not his own blade, lost again by Thamalon somewhere in all the tumbling, but the warsword that had hung in its case on the solar wall for as long as either Uskevren son could remember.

Blue fire ran along the blade, gathered in a cloud of spitting sparks at its tip, and spat a bolt of lightning across the courtyard. Perivel and Thamalon exchanged astonished glances.

"What other secrets does this house hold, I wonder?" the younger son breathed, watching the runes glowing along Perivel's sword.

His brother gave him a dark look. "Don't worry," Perivel muttered. "We're unlikely to stay alive long enough to find out."

He leveled the sword at the distant, leaning fountain, set his jaw, and watched the leaning stone topple slowly into complete collapse in the heart of leaping lightning.

On the other side of Stormweather Towers, another young, angry man with a sword in his hand glared at the lightning and snarled, "I thought you said there was no one left alive back there."

The panting, bleeding, bearded man crumpled against the gatepost shuddered as his shattered arm sent fresh agonies through him, bent his head for a moment to struggle against the pain, then sobbed as the man with the sword kicked him impatiently.

"C-crave pardon, Lord Talendar," the injured man gasped, "but I spoke truth. There was none but me and heaped stone there when I flew away."

"Then that must be Uskevren work," another of the men standing nearby growled, hefting his own sword in his hand. "So they do have a tame wizard."

"Aldimar Uskevren always claimed he wanted nothing to do with magic," a third young noble protested, waving a jeweled hand axe.

"Aldimar Uskevren made a lot of false claims, it seems," snapped Lord Rajeldus Talendar. He'd been head of his house for a bare handful of minutes, but already he was sounding more bitter, more serious. Ruling families did things to people, it seemed. They became far swifter at hurling orders about, for one thing. "We'd best be going. I'm not stumbling through a house roused against us, in the dark, if they've got mages awake and ready for us."

"It'll be worse on the morrow," rumbled the Lord Loargon Soargyl. He, too, had been lord of his clan for mere minutes, but it seemed to have sobered him as well. "They'll be ready for us. Just a pair of servants with crossbows could make scouring the house a very unpleasant experience." His brother Blester laid his jeweled axe back against his own shoulder, and nodded mute agreement.

"I've no intention of setting foot in this place," Rajeldus said grimly, staring up at the dark bulk of Stormweather Towers above them. "I intend to bring a ring of our own bowmen and stand well clear, behind it, as we burn it to the ground with all the Uskevren inside. We shoot down any who try to flee, and let the rest cook-at first light tomorrow."

He smiled bleakly at his own brothers, Marklon and Ereldel, received their nods of support, then turned again to face the two surviving Soargyl. "Are you with me?" he asked. "Or do our ways part here?"

Loargon Soargyl cast a longing glance at the mansion, seeming to realize that he'd never get an undisturbed chance to pillage the fabled wealth within. If the Soargyl were elsewhere, however, there'd be nothing to stop the Talendar from entering Stormweather in force, to plunder-and no argument he'd dare to raise later, to this cold-eyed young head of the Talendar, about their having done so.

The hand of a wealthy Sembian never hesitates to help itself to unguarded valuables.

"We'll be here," he grunted. "No fighting between us, and mind your bowmen know we're coming. First light in the morning it is. We burn Stormweather Towers and all the Uskevren together." He glanced again at the mansion. Smoke was still drifting from some of the holes in its shattered walls. "May the gods grant the Uskevren the fates they deserve."

"No need for that," Marklon Talendar growled. "We'll send them to their fates while the gods watch-and make sure of it all. This house must fall, both loudly and dramatically, so that none miss the lesson and dare to challenge our rightful supremacy in Selgaunt again."

Lord Soargyl gave him a long, dark, considering look, but made no reply.

The hard, familiar smoothness of the black, star-adorned hilt was growing warm under Thamalon's fingers. Those fingers that itched to pluck it and throw the dagger hard and straight into a few of those furious remembered faces.

Burn Stormweather and all the Uskevren together. They'd have succeeded, too, if it hadn't been for Roel's philandering. He'd evidently been seeing Aldimar's second wife, Teskra, for some time…

Thamalon found himself shaking his head slightly in disbelief, as he always did when faced with this particular little truth. Ilrilteska, a delicate little beauty from House Baerent, was a subtle, superb actress and a practiced deceiver, though Thamalon had never seen so much as a hint of malice in her ways. He and Perivel had both been awed by her, and he could still scarcely believe that she'd found Roel's boisterous brutishness attractive. But, oh, thank the gods that she had:

"Thamalon-wake up, damn you!"

The voice was female, and as frantic as it was angry. Out of an endless inferno of dying Aldimars and burning Stormweather Towers, in which he ran and ran through rooms of screaming, dying men, and could never find a way out, Thamalon came slowly, blinking, up to the light.

It came from a candle held in the bare and trembling hand of the Lady Teskra Uskevren, wax dripping down over her dainty fingers to spot his own bared shoulder. Someone-Teskra, no doubt-had bandaged the worst of his hurts, and put him to bed in one of the guest rooms, but his sword and armor lay ready on serving tables beside him.

Wordlessly Thamalon sat up and reached for the belt of the breeches he still wore, to have them off ere he donned his war harness.

"There's no time for that,". Teskra snarled, eyes twin flames of fury. "They're here already, and I've used up all of my arrows. I haven't the strength to pull any of the war bows. Get your sword and come on! Perivel can't hold them off alone forever."

Thamalon discovered his boots were still on his feet. He scooped up his sword and a belt of daggers, and ran for the door, Teskra at his elbow. A slender sword bounced at her hip, and there were daggers strapped to her forearms. A House Guard's buckler bounced on the low-cut front of her silk blouse, serving as a crude breastplate, and another buckler was belted crazily to her right side. Thamalon recalled grimly that neither guardsman was likely to be alive enough to ever need either buckler again.

"How many?" he asked, letting his stepmother slip past him to lead the way.

"Sixty or so, at the start," Teskra called back, as she shouldered through a hanging and the usually closed panel beyond, into one of the secret passages. She had to slow down and cup the candle to keep it from going out, as they descended its steep, damp stone steps. "It was dark, then, before dawn, and hard to see. I think we've taken down more than half, though, and all of their bowmen. They're standing in a ring all around us, trying to work up dragon-fire enough in their bellies to charge us. They wanted to burn us out from a long bow shot away, but they'll have to carry their little fires right up to us, now. Blester Soargyl tried a few fire arrows, but he can't use a bow. One of them came down almost in his own boot."

They shared a bark of hollow laughter at that, an instant before Teskra burst out into a ravaged room that had once been a linen cellar. She led the way, vaulting heaps of rubble, through a breach in the walls to where Perivel was crouching behind the spell-scorched remnant of a wall, grimly putting arrows in distant men.

He gave them a wild look, and snapped, " 'Ware either side, you two! They're creeping around along the walls where I can't see."

Thamalon looked obediently to the right, saw nothing, then looked to the left. Teskra was already crouching, slender and beautiful, and leaning out on one knee to peer around a corner.

Thamalon saw the blade flash down at her even before she screamed, and he got his own sword out in time to catch it and take it, ringing, into the wall scant inches from her hip. Teskra sprang up beneath the bound blades with her flickering candle still in her hand and thrust it into the face of the bearded swordsman.

His beard caught light with a vicious crackle. The arms-man screamed hoarsely as he staggered back, waving his sword wildly to keep them at bay. Teskra flung herself around his ankles like a striking snake and heaved.

One of her daggers flashed out as the man fell-ready to stab as she climbed along his body-but the man's head struck the wall with a wet, heavy sound. His lolling neck as he plunged the rest of the way to the flagstones told her there'd be no need to slide steel into this foe.

Thamalon was already striding along the wall, anger rising in him and with it a hunger-a need-to strike out at one of these men who'd slain his father and despoiled his home. He got his wish soon enough, striking aside a spear to take its wielder by the throat, spin him around into another armsman who'd been following him, then thrust his blade in, low and through, to pin him there. He took the man's own sword as the pinioned armsmen screamed and thrashed together. Thamalon used the sword to slash open the throat of the second man, then hurriedly retreated to where Perivel and Teskra were fencing with men who'd come at them from the other direction. Lightning leaped away from the tip of Perivel's blade as Thamalon arrived, and where it cracked, men danced and died.

"I've been trying to get Rajeldus or Loargon, but they keep well back and out of my view," Perivel gasped. "How fares it, brother?"

"Not well," Thamalon told him truthfully. "There's lots of smoke back there-and yonder, too. They must have set fires against the walls to burn down the house while we fought them here."

"I find myself unsurprised," Perivel told him grimly. "Recall you what father said about earning a stiff price for our deaths? Well, that's my work now. You're going to be the one to run-with Teskra-to carry on."

"Run, and leave you to die alone?" Teskra asked, color high in her cheeks. She flung a stone into the face of a Talendar man-at-arms and followed it with her dagger under his chin. His blood drenched her before she could spin away, but she never wavered. She used her knife as a handle to drag his sagging body sideways into the path of the next attacker. "Whose idea was that?"

"Lady, you do us honor," Perivel told her as he grunted and slung steel with all his might, fencing with a huge Soargyl warrior whose mustache and beak of a nose made him look like a walrus, "but we are bound to obey Father's last command to us. One of us is to bear you to safety, and stay alive this day to sire other Uskevren."

"To die in other battles, in years to come," his stepmother replied bitterly. "While I watch, without my Aldimar."

She spat in a warrior's face then drove her sword into the man, leaping high to put her shoulder against the wall and her boots into his chest. He reeled away with a raw cry of pain as her kick drove him off her blade. Teskra growled like any man, and bounded across the littered floor to drive her bloody sword into the neck of the man Perivel was fighting.

The smoke was growing thick around them, and from somewhere above and behind the three struggling Uskevren a roar was growing. It was the hungry roar of flames, sweeping through the rooms of Stormweather Towers… the roar of a family being swept away.

"You'd best be thinking about getting away," Perivel called to Thamalon, coughing as his cry took in some smoke. "I don't think they've got any mages or bowmen left here, but I can't see to shoot any more arrows."

Thamalon turned his head to shout an answer of defiance. Though fighting frankly scared and sickened him, it was not right to leave yet and abandon Perivel to the blades of a score of men on all sides, seeking his blood.

He never got that refusal out of his mouth. With a sudden boom, a beam gave way overhead and fell, trailing sparks. Blazing rubble cascaded down, forcing Teskra into a frantic leap for safety. Her knees took a startled Blester Soargyl in the throat, and he was still choking for breath when they hit the ground together. The Lady Uskevren's dagger busily rose and fell into his face and throat.

Thamalon made his own desperate, lurching run away from the blistering heat, shouldering aside a man who didn't even see him in the smoke, to drive aside the blade of a Soargyl armsman before he could run Teskra through. As it was, his steel laid open her left side, leaving her sobbing and twisting in pain, Thamalon rained blows on the man's face until he fell, giving the youngest Uskevren room enough to stab the man.

Stormweather Towers was blazing away in earnest, heat shimmering everywhere the smoke didn't cloak all vision. Cinders were whirling in the heat, and somewhere nearby a warrior, caught under a fallen beam, was screaming as he burned to death.

"I should be thinking about getting away," Thamalon hissed aloud, as he floundered in smoking rubble, trying to fend off the blows of another Soargyl swordsman.

There was a sudden roar of flame and doubled brightness behind him. The heat suddenly intensified. Thamalon choked and staggered helplessly sideways before he dared to step away from his foe and look whence the fire flared.

Teskra was crawling toward him, gasping. Her long hair had come unbound, and was smoldering. Beyond her he saw a wall of flame, with two beams settling into it, like bright bars, as they burned through and sagged. Something dark was floating in midair in the heart of those flames.

A large, plain metal goblet, black but seemingly otherwise untouched by the fire. Could it be… the Quaff of the Uskevren? His father had talked about it, had mentioned something about it catching fire if someone not of the family blood touched it.

Thamalon set himself to meet a charge from the shouting Soargyl, intercepted both the man's sword and dagger with his own. Almost instantly he was forced to give ground, slipping and stumbling in the rubble underfoot as their bodies crashed together and the Soargyl's size and momentum drove Thamalon back.

A sudden burning to outstrip the pains of his real blisters made the youngest Uskevren grunt in pain and arch his bare biceps away from the swordsman's blade that had sliced it. Grinning fiercely, the Soargyl bore down, forcing the steel closer to Thamalon again… and closer…

Teskra rose behind the man like a vengeful shadow and flung herself into the air to reach high and hard with her dagger. She cut his throat.

The Soargyl turned, gurgling, as his blood sprayed forth, and stared at her in disbelief as his eyes slowly went dark. He sank down and died. Teskra favored him with a mirthless smile, then looked up at Thamalon.

He was stealing another glance at the dark, eerie, floating chalice. She followed his gaze, drew in breath in a whistle of amazement, and said, "I'd forgotten it did that. Aid-your father showed me once, when we'd had too much to drink." Grief washed across her face for a moment. She swallowed, tossing her head as her lips trembled, then snapped, "Enough! It's high time you obeyed the orders of your father and your brother and took yourself away from here."

"With you, Lady," Thamalon reminded her.

Teskra nodded impatiently, peering through the billowing smoke, then her face tightened.

"Beware," she snapped. "You're but half-dressed, and there're a lot of men in armor coming this way. There!"

Thamalon followed her pointing hand, and the smoke obediently eddied away for a moment to reveal half a dozen men in full, gleaming plate armor moving cautiously forward, their faces hard and reflected firelight dancing down the blades of the long swords in their gauntleted hands.

"The three Talendar brothers," Thamalon said grimly, "and seven or so guards. We can't hope to stand against them and live."

Teskra shot him a glance, then unbuckled a leather thong along one forearm with deft, racing fingers.

She slapped one of her scabbarded daggers against his own arm as soon as she had it free, tugged on the straps to lengthen them with cool skill, and met his astonished glance with the crisp words, "You're a dagger short, Tham. You never carry steel enough. Now wear this, and don't hesitate to use it."

Thamalon stared down at the knife long enough to see that it had a white star graven into its smooth black hilt, then lifted his gaze back to their foes.

The advancing warriors had seen and measured them, and cold smiles were beginning to slide onto their faces as they came closer, moving with unhurried care amid the sprawled bodies, falling embers, and rubble.

Teskra stared back at them, eyes narrow, seeing who moved with skill and speed and who seemed careless or slow or with a hint of clumsiness. Then she saw something else, behind them, and her face changed for an instant, before she looked quickly away.

There was a clatter of hooves on cobblestones amid the din of flames, falling beams, and men dying back where Perivel's blade flashed and darted. A horse reared up out of the smoke, its hooves lashing out, and one of the armored warriors fell. There was a rider on the horse, and he urged his mount on to strike down and trample another arms-man, even as he leaned out of the saddle to hew a third Talendar.

"Roel!" Teskra cried joyfully, racing forward.

Thamalon stumbled after her, his own heart lifting. The bearlike man lost his balance, shouting in amusement as well as anger, and toppled out of his saddle to crash down atop a struggling armsman.

Roel Uskevren bounced. The armsman convulsed, then sagged and fell still. Thamalon's great-uncle never lost his one-handed grip on his reins. He was one of the few men in all Sembia with the strength to hold a snorting, frightened stallion from running away whilst wallowing on the ground. Roel found his feet with a bark of laughter, hauled hard on the reins to drag his horse back to him, and at the sounds made by a man charging up behind him, turned and struck the man's spear aside with a deftly timed slap of one great hand.

The bearlike Uskevren was swift enough to turn that slap into a punch-and the armsman ran right into his fist.

The armsman's helmed head snapped back, and his armored body ran on for a few loose-limbed paces, arched over backward, and collapsed. Roel saw one of the men he'd felled earlier scrambling to turn over and get up, so he hauled his horse back a few deliberate paces more until he could land a solid kick to the man's snarling face.

The man lost all interest in rising or battles or creeping fires for that matter, and Roel threw back his head and bellowed with laughter again. Teskra covered the last few running strides to him and bounded up to scissor her legs around his belly and cling to him, covering his face with eager kisses.

Thamalon stared at her open-mouthed for a moment, until Roel caught sight of him and let out a fresh roar of laughter. "Gods above, boy, have you never seen lovers together before? Your face!"

Teskra turned her head, not releasing herself from her perch, and called, "Thamalon, take Roel's reins and get gone!"

"No need, Tessie," Roel drawled. "There's horses for all back that way."

"The Soargyl and the Talendar-" she protested.

"All the ones who were guarding our horses are dead now. They emptied the stables before they attacked, I think, to stop you folks from departing in haste once the festivities began. I broke a sword doing it, but there's a dozen or so back there that won't be cooking any morning feast over this fire."

The bearlike eldest Uskevren jerked his head at Stormweather Towers. The roaring was relentless now, and tongues of flame were leaping higher than some of the turrets.

"Thamalon, get a horse. We'll take Tessie here to visit her kin at Sundolphin House for the day. Don't know how those old leather-nosed Baerent witches'll take to her knives and the blood and all, but I don't much care, either. They'll want to gossip, you can be sure. Be nice to 'em, Tessie, will you? Not even the Talendars will dare to wade into that house with swords drawn. Run, now, lad-run! I see more Soargyl scum headed this way!"

"By all the gods," Thamalon muttered aloud. "He sounds almost happy at the prospect!"

As he trotted past, Teskra gave him a grin that told him she'd heard his words. She'd taken hold of the reins, so Roel could keep a blade ready in one hand, and apply the other to somewhere far more interesting. The Lady Ilrilteska threw back her head and gave the smoking sky a long, shuddering gasp as Thamalon ran on through thinning smoke. It was not a gasp of pain.

He found the horses snorting and stamping in fear at the fire and the human bodies sprawled in blood all around them. They were saddled and bridled, and their reins were all tied to the gate that led to the garden wall. He chose one he'd ridden before, grimly fought down its attempt to break free of him, and rode it back into the smoke. He had to whack its rump with the flat of his blade and saw at the reins to make it go into the smoke. Thamalon hardly blamed the beast for its reluctance, especially when he heard the clang of steel on steel from just ahead.

Smoke eddied once more, sliding away like a snatched cloak to reveal Roel and Teskra fencing with five-no, six Soargyl swordsmen. As Thamalon rode up, one of them screamed, threw up his arms, and fell over, his guts laid open.

That was enough for Thamalon's horse-even before the blazing ember fell out of the smoke and landed on its withers.

The beast bugled and bucked wildly, stumbling to one side and nearly beheading a Soargyl with its hooves. Someone shouted and swung a sword at it, and it shied away so violently that it tripped on bodies and fell heavily. Thamalon kicked his legs clear just in time.

He clung to his saddle's high cantle as the scorched horse rolled, thrashing and shrieking in fear. By sheer strength he hauled himself into the saddle again as the horse found footing for a wild gallop.

From nowhere, a laughing Roel cut in front of Thamalon's horse, waving cheerfully with Teskra clinging to his back.

"Away!" he cried. "For other days, and glory then!"

He clapped his boots to his mount's flanks, and raced away into the smoke. Thamalon's terrified mount followed the stallion it knew, and they tore through smoke and toppling rubble together, plunging through streamers of flame to skirt the worst of the roaring pyre that had begun the day as the proud mansion of Stormweather Towers.

They came to a place where blazing beams were toppling and lightning was flashing forth. A sweat-soaked and bleeding Perivel was dodging and parrying with gasping speed and skill, in a room wreathed in flames. He held a dagger in one hand and a sword in the other, and needed both to hold Marklon, Ereldel, and Lord Rajeldus Talendar at bay.

Roel drew a sword from its scabbard and threw it, hard. End over end it flashed, to take Ereldel Talendar in the side of the head, biting deep.

Ereldel toppled slowly, like a reluctantly felled tree, as Roel bellowed, "I'll be back, Lord Uskevren! Save me some fun!"

Perivel managed a fierce grin in reply-an instant before Marklon Talendar delivered a two-handed cut that had all his strength behind it, and the aged sword in Perivel's hand broke amid a flood of blue lightning that sent all of the combatants staggering back.

"I'll… be here!" Perivel cried, gasping for breath and snatching a sword up from a sprawled body. He waved it in the air and cried, "For Uskevren-forever!"

Rajeldus and Marklon Talendar recovered themselves, traded glances, and advanced in grim unison on the Lord of House Uskevren. Even as Thamalon leaned back dangerously in the saddle of his racing mount to shout a warning, the blazing beams above Perivel Uskevren groaned and began to fall. The subsequent crash, and the roar of bright flame that went up in its wake, was the last of Stormweather that Thamalon saw that day. His terrified mount carried him through a choking billow of smoke, and away.

The star-adorned hilt of the knife in his sleeve was as smooth as ever. Thamalon let them all wait and wonder what was behind the gentle, wry beginnings of a smile that he'd left on his face, and went striding down the shadowed halls of reverie once more.

His mount had thrown him in its frantic gallop across Selgaunt, dashing him senseless until the sun was well up the next day. Roel went back to the fire in a vain attempt to drag forth anyone still living, and emerged from its searing flames so badly burned that he looked more like a monster than a man.

The man the Uskevren servants called the Great Bear never regained his health and seldom left his bed as that terrible year dragged on. On more than one night Thamalon found proud Teskra weeping alone in one of the turret rooms, emptying a decanter without bothering with a goblet, and staring out over the lamplit streets of cruel Selgaunt.

He never spoke a word of reproof to her but instead sat with her. Usually she said nothing, but simply offered him the decanter-and usually he accepted it for a swig or two. He sat with her until morning, cradling her against his chest if sleep claimed her. For such a small, dainty thing-she always seemed more a little sister to him than a second mother-she snored like a horse.

After Roel went to his grave, she did not tarry long before following.

Thamalon tried not to look at the pity in the eyes of the few servants who stayed with him, as he grimly began the long task of picking up the pieces. He left Selgaunt for some years, leaving Stormweather in ashes, to trade in Sembia's humbler ports and even into the neighboring kingdom of Cormyr. Slowly he rebuilt the family fortune, but it was work he might have abandoned in despair had he not met and wed Shamur, and found her fierce temper, wiles, and battle-boldness awakening something warm in him again.

Uskevren shipping fleets meant piracy in the eyes of Selgauntans, so Thamalon avoided the traditional work of his family. Instead, he bought and sold land until he became shrewd at it, anticipating where cities would expand, and which trade routes would rise in favor. What coins he made, he spent sponsoring the crafters most Sembian merchant clans of note preferred to ignore and belittle: the common folk working as finesmiths, wood-carvers, jewelers, and the like.

He rode with them through lean times, dealing fairly, and to them the name Uskevren came to mean not "dark, lawless pirate" but "loyal friend." He sold their wares into the cities, made them wealthy, and in doing so refilled the Uskevren coffers. In Sembia, to rebuild wealth is to rebuild one's name… and so the spring came when the Uskevren began to restore Stormweather Towers, returning to Selgaunt as if they had never been away.

The whispers began, of course, and were fanned by houses-Soargyl and Talendar prominent among them-who were not pleased to see a vanquished rival return, but Thamalon Uskevren dealt fairly in the trading halls of Selgaunt. This was something other proud houses were seldom seen to do.

When troubles erupted, the family guard Shamur had founded, trained, and secretly tested to weed out the disloyal proved their worth. Several of the most troublesome Soargyl and Talendar "disappeared."

Mages were hired. Mornings found more sprawled bodies, and Soargyl and Talendar warehouses and ships burned-just as Stormweather Towers had burned.

When the cost grew too high, the only fires that remained were smoldering in Soargyl and Talendar eyes, but the two families no longer dared to openly attack Uskevren or family retainers in the streets.

Years passed, Stormweather Towers arose from its ashes in opulent glory, and most folk in Selgaunt came to respect Thamalon's honesty, fearless but polite dealings, and quick business wits. The Uskevren family was truly prosperous, highly regarded-and well-supplied with foes-once more.

Far too well supplied with foes, it seemed.

"Butler!" the man who claimed to be Perivel Uskevren boomed suddenly, "I bid you bring hence all my beloved kin. I desire them to be present, to bear proper witness as I reclaim the wealth that is rightfully mine."

The butler, Erevis Cale, seemed to hesitate for the briefest of moments. He'd already passed through an archway into the gloom of a low-lit passage beyond, and it was hard to be sure if he'd properly heard the pretender's order at all.

Damn all the dancing gods, Thamalon thought, this man might be Perivel-or might be anyone who had access to a captive Perivel and a lot of time to question him about family matters.

Thamalon raised his eyes at the sound of faint rustling in the feast hall balconies, caught sight of a sleeve he knew to be his daughter Thazienne's, and dropped his gaze again to the foes at his table. His sons and daughter would have had to be creatures of leaping lightning to have responded so swiftly to any bidding from Erevis Cale. One of the other servants must already have warned them of what was brewing in the hall.

The head of House Uskevren drew in a deep breath and thought, Gods above, let my children keep silent until at least the testing is done.

With this hired mage swollen with deadly spells and the lawmaker in attendance, it'd take little more than hurled words from the balconies-let alone weapons-to give the Talendars and the Soargyl excuse enough for feuding to begin in earnest.

Thamalon did not have to look to know when his wife entered the hall. He could feel the warmth of her regard-and, as always, felt stronger, as if her presence was both cloak and armor raised around him. She must have returned early from the revel she'd expected would last well into morning. Shamur would know the danger here at a glance, and she'd keep their sons and daughter silent.

Of course, one danger always gives way to another. There had never been anyone in Selgaunt, Thamalon included, who could keep Shamur silent.

As if to belie Thamalon's dark thoughts, the hall grew suddenly still, as if everyone in it were holding their breath. With stately solemnity, his footfalls almost inaudible, the butler came into the heart of that heavy, waiting silence bearing the Quaff of the Uskevren on a silver platter.

It stood alone, a large and plain-looking goblet. It looked old, and somehow strong, as unyielding as the old foundation stones of Stormweather Towers. Erevis Cale, evidently well aware of the importance of the occasion, raised the platter high before him and slowed, so that all eyes could look long and well upon the Burning Chalice.

Iristar Velvaunt pointed a peremptory finger at him then at the table, indicating that the butler should set it down in front of him, but Cale stepped smoothly around the mage and brought the platter to his master.

Thamalon gave him a slight smile of approval, and with a gesture of his own indicated that the butler should take the goblet to the man who wore the name of Perivel Uskevren.

The pretender looked at him in surprise. Thamalon gave him a wider smile and gestured at him to take up the goblet.

The pretender stared suspiciously into its depths. It was empty and a little dusty. As if its appearance had suddenly struck the young maid who for some time had been silently gliding around the far reaches of the hall, dusting, she turned and glided forward, a dust rag ready in one slender hand. Thamalon waved her back into the shadows. She inclined her head in a silent nod of acknowledgment, and returned to her work.

Perivel hesitated, and turned his head a trifle, as if looking for some signal from the mage. Presker Talendar stirred, smiling faintly up at the balconies from whence the silent Uskevren stared down-but if the sorcerer Velvaunt gave any sign to the pretender, Thamalon did not see it.

Suddenly the man who claimed to be Perivel Uskevren stretched forth a hand to the platter Cale, as patient and unmoving as any statue, was holding out to him. The pretender stretched out a hand, hesitated, then swooped to snatch up the goblet like a hawk striking at prey.

He caught hold of it, lifted… and held on high, up for all to see: a chalice that was not ablaze, but just an old, empty goblet.

"Well?" Perivel Uskevren asked the hall, in triumph. Unburnned but not waiting for an answer, he set the chalice back on the table.

The lawmaker, carefully staring across the table at no one, asked formally, "Saer Velvaunt, is this indeed the true Uskevren Chalice?"

The mage inclined his head with a smirk of his own, a bare moment before he passed his hand in front of the cup in an intricate flourish. "Indubitably," he replied firmly.

The Lawmaker of Selgaunt lifted his eyes at last to meet Thamalon's gaze. "Well, it seems clear enough," he said, his voice gathering strength with each word. "This is Per-"

The name was chopped off as if by an axe as their host in Stormweather Towers lifted one hand in a signal, and murmured, "Cordrivval?"

The curtains behind him parted, and a gaunt, white-bearded man who moved with the painful shuffle of aging hips appeared through them. "I attend, lord," he announced calmly.

"Mage," Thamalon asked, "before Saer Velvaunt, just a moment ago, has any spell been recently cast on the Burning Chalice?"

"Oh, yes. The Saer cast a spell on it just before he-" Cordial pointed at the man claiming to be Perivel Uskevren "-reached forth his hand to touch it. Velvaunt removed that spell just now, when he pretended to identify the chalice. He-"

A sudden spasm shook the old mage, and a shadow passed over his face. "My-lord!" he gasped, voice suddenly thick, "he-"

Cordrivval Imleth had probably not intended to end his days toppling like a felled tree onto an imported Tashlutan carpet woven with a scene of two dragons locked in mortal combat, but it was a splendid carpet. He'd admired it many times, exhibiting superb judgement. So thick and soft was it that his crashing fall made barely a sound.

"Too many lies can kill anyone," Saer Velvaunt remarked smoothly. "His heart must have been weak. Perhaps he was older than he appeared. I hope he didn't owe you over-many coins, Lord Uskevren?"

Thamalon's eyes were as hard and as sharp as two drawn daggers as he met the hired sorcerer's mocking gaze. "So, too, I've heard it said," Thamalon replied, "can the casting of too many ill-considered spells 'kill anyone.' Has that also been your experience, Saer?"

The wizard moved his shoulders in a careless little shrug. "I've seen both faults result in death, before-but hope not to see such things again." He raised his hand as he spoke, and everyone saw that tiny stars of light were winking and circling about it. "I'll just purge the minds of everyone here of all doubt, by casting a magic on the chal-"

Thamalon's left little finger barely moved, but Cale was very attentive. The butler took two steps forward and bent to heave at one leg of the sorcerer's chair in one lightning-swift movement, spilling a startled Velvaunt onto the floor. Motes of spell-light scattered in all directions as various diners half rose, froze, then sat down again. Half a dozen men in full black armor with the gold Uskevren horse head bright upon their breasts appeared through the curtains, drawn swords dripping with sleep-wine ready in their hands. Velvaunt had, after all, been very well paid to deal with just this sort of unpleasantness.

The well-paid sorcerer came snarling furiously to his knees, lifting one hand to point at the butler-but that hand came to a sudden halt as four house guard swords slid eagerly forward to ring it with their glittering points.

"Casting uninvited spells in a private household?" Cale murmured. "I'm sure you weren't trying to do anything of the sort, Lord. After all, the penalty for that is two years in irons on the docks… and the Lord Lawmaker is sitting right there."

He bowed his head and added smoothly, "I do apologize about the chair. I'll have whatever went wrong with its leg fixed immediately, and in the meantime would be pleased to offer you another seat."

Iristar Velvaunt growled wordlessly at him and regained his feet, face dark with rage.

Anger and fear could also be seen in the faces of the other guests. Saclath Soargyl was growling deep in his throat, his knuckles white and quivering on the hilt of his blade. The lawmaker shot him a quelling glance and asked loudly, his voice glacial but firm, "Is the chalice enspelled?"

"It must be," Thamalon said heavily, "and I will not accept here, this night, the results of any magic worked by this hired sor-"

The Flame of Lathander held up one pudgy hand, a spectrum of rings gleaming in the candlelight. "You need not do so, Lord Uskevren. My skills can determine what the Lord Lawmaker seeks to know. If I may?"

He looked with careful formality to Lawmaker Loakrin and to Thamalon, collecting their nods before turning deliberately to meet the eyes of the butler standing with the swordsmen. Cale gave an almost imperceptible nod of his own before wordlessly turning away to pluck up another chair for Saer Velvaunt, lifting it with silent grace.

Thamalon's eyes narrowed at the unfamiliar and intricate prayer that spilled from the fat priest's lips then. It sounded like no supplication after truth or revelation that he'd ever heard, but a binding of some new magic to old.

Before he could stir or say anything, it came to an end, the priest raising the flat palms of his hands in unison to the vaulted ceiling. Everyone looked at him in eager, expectant silence.

"No," said the priest to them all, carefully not looking at Lord Uskevren, "it bears no recent spells, only ancient enchantments-and those astonishingly strong, after so many years."

"I shall have it tested by High Loremaster Yannathar of the Sanctum," Thamalon said flatly, naming Selgaunt's temple of Oghma, and let him judge." He gave his guests no time for argument as he stretched forth his hand to take up the chalice.

As his fingers closed around the familiar cup, it erupted in leaping flames.

The astonished head of House Uskevren jerked his seared hand back with a gasp of pain, and the man who called himself Perivel Uskevren rose from his seat with a broad smile of triumph.

"Now I think we see who the impostor is," he said almost jovially. "You are not my brother, and you and your brats have no claim here. This house is mine."

The wheezing, whistling thing in the bed looked more like a lizardman than a human. All of its hair was burned away, and burned flesh hung in twisted, wart-studded sheets where there should have been a face. Only the two angry brown eyes told Thamalon that this was his great-uncle Roel.

The rattle in those labored breaths told him one thing more: this might not be Roel for all that much longer.

The eyes caught Thamalon as if they were two sword-points thrusting into his innards and lifting him helplessly, pinioned.

"Promise me," came the horrible, raw snarl that was all Roel could now manage. It broke and wavered on the second word.

"Anything in my power, uncle," Thamalon said quickly, bending near so the dying man would know he was being heard.

An amiable, roaring bear no longer, Roel had gone back to Stormweather Towers and fought through its flames, seeking anyone alive-had fought in vain and come back like this.

Roel struggled to sit up, clawing at the silent, bone-white lady beside the bed for support. His huge hands were bony, gnarled claws. Their fumbling, shaking grasp must have hurt Teskra terribly as they hauled their owner up, but she made no sound and shook her head when Thamalon reached to help Roel. Silent tears were falling like rain on the linens she was standing over.

"Make the Uskevren great again," Roel snarled. "Rich… important… respected!" Coughing seized him for a moment, and he shook his head impatiently, the sweat of his shaking effort glistening across the ruin of his face. "Don't waste your… time… as I did."

"Uncle, I shall rebuild the family to proud prominence once more," Thamalon said fiercely. "This I swear."

"Upon the Burning Chalice?" Roel gasped.

Thamalon nodded vigorously, looked wildly to the servants who stood by the door and said, "Fetch the-"

The clawlike hand that closed on his arm was bruising in its strength. "No… time," Roel snarled. "Let me kiss… Tessie…"

The lady bent swiftly to bring her head down to his, but the light in those blazing eyes went out before she got there.

As Roel's head fell back, Thamalon saw that those ravaged lips wore a last, fierce smile.

"Let me be quite clear about this," the Lawmaker of Selgaunt said carefully, trying not to look at the angry faces of the swordsmen looming over the table. "This chalice tells the watching world who is a true Uskevren and who is not?"

"Indeed!" Perivel boomed triumphantly. "This drinking cup bears magic older than anyone in this hall that cause it to catch fire if the skin of any being not of true Uskevren blood touches it. My ancestor Thoebellon had its enchantments arranged so, as a conceit, after the death of the mage Helemgaularn. Behold!"

All eyes in the room followed the wave of his hand, at the large, plain goblet that stood unmarked on the table, its flames gone.

"No false hand touches it now," Perivel said, with a meaningful look at Thamalon, "so it sits quiescent-waiting. None but those of the blood of House Uskevren can touch the Burning Chalice without awakening it to flame."

"None but those of the true blood of Uskevren can touch the Burning Chalice without it briefly catching fire?" Lawmaker Loakrin echoed slowly, making it a query. He shot a glance at Perivel, received a nod, then turned his head slowly to regard Thamalon.

And the head of House Uskevren nodded his own head, slowly and deliberately.

The lawmaker cleared his throat, and turned his head to regard the chalice.

"Well," he said slowly, "it would then seem…"

His voice died away like a drone-horn that someone has left off blowing. His mouth fell open and gaped. Heads turned to follow his astonished gaze, and other jaws dropped here and there around the cavernous chamber.

The maid who'd been quietly dusting and polishing her way around the feast hall had just stepped forward to pluck up the chalice. She was now applying a well-used rag to it with careful concentration, turning it in her bare hands above the table. No hint of flame was coming from the cup.

The men at the table stared at her for a long, tense time as she polished the chalice, apparently oblivious to their scrutiny, before the lawmaker stirred again.

This time, his look was directed at the men seated around him, and it was not friendly. "We sit at the table of one of the mightiest merchants of our city," Loakrin said coldly, "and strive to repay his hospitality by trying to wrest his home-this house I have seen him enter and leave for decades of prosperous trading-from him, declaring he is not who he has been in the eyes of all Selgaunt for years."

The lawmaker let a instant of chilly silence hang in the air before he added swiftly, "I believe, and hereby declare in words I shall repeat before the Lord Sage Probiter and the Hulorn himself, that before such a serious accusation can proceed more proof than flames that may or may not come from this chalice shall be needed. Sembia is a land ruled by law, and ever shall be. I have spoken."

He let fall a heavy hand upon the table. As if in response, the chalice rose into the air to hang head-high above the decanters and spat forth a brief halo of flames.

As murmurs arose from the watching servants, Thamalon allowed himself a smile of relief. At least the few parlor tricks Teskra had taught him to work on the chalice, with the aid of the ring on the smallest finger of his left hand, still worked.

So Uskevren would dwell in Stormweather Towers a while yet. At least until this pretender, or some other scheme, clawed at them again.

Thamalon Uskevren gave his guests a bland smile, dropped his gaze to the cold and motionless figure of Cordrivval Imleth sprawled on the carpet-oh, he'd send for healers, and pay full well for a resurrection, but he knew it was too late, and would avail naught-and made a silent promise to himself. It was not one that would have let any scion of House Talendar, House Soargyl, or anyone pretending to be Perivel Uskevren sleep easily in the nights ahead.

For all Selgaunt knew that Thamalon Uskevren was a man of his word, a man who took care to keep all of his promises.