More souls resided within the house, he knew. Many more. He could sense them through the walls even at this distance. He sensed their essence on the winter wind. Araniskeel did not know why his master had chosen this house as a target and did not care. There was food within. That was enough.
Come, he said to the corrupted humans. There is more food within.
Their long, purple tongues lolled over gray lips and needle-sharp fangs. He took pleasure in their anticipatory slavering. "Food," they hissed. "Food."
CHAPTER FOUR
I with himself for not harming the would-be thief, Gale walked back through the receiving room hall and into the parlor. The thick Thayan floor rugs-each depicting red dragons in flight-felt wonderful beneath his sore feet The cozy feeling of the parlor tempted him to kick off his boots and collapse into one of the richly upholstered chairs and retire for the night, but he resisted the urge. Instead, he strolled around the room and admired the thematic oil paintings that adorned the walls. The first painting depicted a roiling sky, against which elf knights mounted on hippogrifls warred with orogs mounted on wyverns. Each subsequent work represented a different point in the aerial battle, with the elves finally defeating the orogs in the last painting. Gale smiled as he moved from one to another, captured by the artist's skillfull rendition of the combat. Thamalon had commissioned the half-elf artist Celista Perim to paint the works two years ago. Ever since, Cale had found himself drawn to them. J:Apart from his own sparsely furnished bedroom, $lthe parlor had become his favorite room in Storm-weather. Rarely used by anyone else in the family, at night it seemed his own private refuge-just he and oUie elves. When his troubled conscience kept him awake and he did not feel like reading, he often came down here to think, to lose himself in the unblemished 'heroics of a war that had occurred only on canvas.
Bathed in the dim light of a single candle and the soft glow of embers in the fireplace, he collapsed into his favorite overstuffed chair, put his feet up on the hassock, and allowed himself a moment to enjoy the solitude.
This would be a good time for a smoke, he thought wistfully. If only I smoked. He thought fondly of his pipe-toting friend, Jak Fleet, and smiled.
The distant bustle of the ball carried through the hall and nearby double doors, but the parlor itself was quiet, removed from the celebratory tumult. The candlelight flickered off the four suits of ceremonial armor that stood silent guard in each of the room's corners-each suit was engraved with a crossed hammer and sword on the breastplate, the arms of some long forgotten Selgaunt noble's house. The parlor's decor reflected his lord's love for the history of other peoples, places, and times.
Maybe that's why I like it so much, he thought. Because I'm from somewhere else.
Unlike most of Selgaunt's Old Chauncel, Thamalon did not consider the city such a beacon of cultural superiority that other cultures were not worth studying.
;.
Though most obvious in the parlor, the whole of Storm-weather fairly brimmed with unique antiquities drawn from the four corners of Faerun. The library alone was stocked with treatises from all over the continent, some written in languages even Cale did not understand. Though he despised Selgaunt generally, he loved Stormweather.
He allowed himself a few more moments of peace before forcing himself to rise. He adjusted the cast bronze dragon figurines atop the walnut mantle, walked the short hallway to the adjacent main kitchen, and pushed open the doors.
As he had suspected, the kitchen staff sat eating and chatting around the cleaver-scarred butcher's block. The moment he entered, the eight young women on staff-Brilla tolerated only women on her staff-gave a start and the talking fell abruptly silent. Cale smiled knowingly. Because he allowed Brilla a free hand in running the kitchen, he usually only made an appearance when something had gone wrong with the meal.
Eight pairs of exhausted, apprehensive eyes stared at him and nervously awaited his next words. None of them said a word.
"Everything is all right," he assured them, but the apprehension written in their expressions did not change. He looked from one pretty face to the other and realized thathe did not know most of their names. Have to remedy that, he thought. He had always made it a point to know everyone in the household, even kitchen help.
When at last he found a familiar face among the girls, he grabbed her with his gaze.
"Aileen, where is Brilla?" Aileen gave a slight start when he spoke her name.
"In the pantries, Mister Cale," she responded immediately. A slight, very attractive girl with wispy blonde hair and bright green eyes, Aileen had been on staff since the summer. "Shall I go and get her?"
"Thank you, Aileen."
She jumped down from her stool and hurried out the other side of the main kitchen, toward the pantries. Gale winced when she began to shout.
"Brilla! Brilla! Mister Cale wants you! Brilla!"
While he waited, the rest of the young women halfheartedly picked at their plates and studiously avoided eye contact. They^ must have heard that he was an ogre.
After a few minutes, Brilla waddled defiantly into the main kitchen, a dead chicken clutched in one thick-fingered hand, an apprehensive Aileen clutched in the other.
"Mister Cale," she acknowledged with a nod. She scooted Aileen back to her stool. "Go, girl, finish your meal. I told you he doesn't bite."
Blushing, Aileen took to her stool. Brilla turned her sour gaze back to Cale.
"I hope this is important, Mister Cale. I was just preparing to pluck the chickens for tomorrow." She held up the dead chicken for emphasis.
In a good humor, Cale barely suppressed a smile.. Brilla stood almost as wide as she did tall, her thick legs as sturdy as tree stumps. With her long black hair pulled back and tied into a sloppy bun, she reminded him of the archetypal dwarven oenoen, the esteemed house matron, but without a beard.
Careful, man, he reminded himself jovially. You'd be as dead as that chicken if she knew you were comparing her to a dwarf.
Unlike most of the household staff, big Brilla was not and never would be intimidated by him. He respected her for that. That's why he left her alone to run the kitchens.
"Mister Gale?"
He swallowed the last of his smile and put on his expressionless, head butler's face. "I wanted to congratulate you." He crossed his hands behind his back and nodded to include the kitchen staff, "To congratulate all of you, for work well done. Lord Uskevren has informed me that the meal received numerous compliments." He paused dramatically before adding, "Particularly the dessert torte."
At that, Brilla beamed. She had created the recipe for the torte herself and had personally selected the Calishite barkberries. She turned her broad smile on her staff, the eight of whom were sharing tired smiles of their own.
"Did you hear that, gir-" A high-pitched scream cut short her praise. Brilla cocked an eyebrow. "Now what was-" Another wail rose and fell.
At first, Cale thought the screams merely the giddy squeals of an empty-headed noblewoman, but another terror-filled shout, this one from a man, changed his mind. Something was wrong.
Instinctively, he fell into a fighting crouch, though he had no weapon. The kitchen girls jumped down from their stools.
Loud thumps suddenly sounded through the walls and startled the girls. They began to chatter fearfully. The heavy stomp of boots and angry shouts joined the frightened screams and carried down the forehall from t?e feasthall.
With his keen ears, Cale thought he caught the sound of the savage snarls of an animal intermixed with the shouts. What in the Hells? With the girls clamoring beside him, he could not make out any other details.