A folly, some said, but then, what folly is there in striving to bring a measure of security and happiness to even a tiny corner of Faerun? Even if it all ended in bloody failure, leaving behind only legends to echo down the years to come, the attempt would have been worth something in itself. Would be worth something, always, for a striving, however flawed, outstrips empty dreams and the sloth of not having tried to shape or create anything worthy at all. Yet would not the same argument be championed by a tyrant invading a realm he deems decadent, or any woodcutter carving asunder an elven grove?
"Alustriel," she told herself calmly, "you think too much."
She sometimes thought it was the endless leaping and weaving of her rushing thoughts that made her weary, and drove her to seek moments of silence, alone, like this. By the grace of Mystra she no longer needed to sleep, but the wits of every Chosen grew weary of grappling with problem after problem, and memorizing spell after spell; their power a constant roiling in the mind.
"Oh, dear me," she told herself aloud, stretching like a dancer to show full contempt for her own weariness. "Is the High Lady to be pitied, then? Does she want something purring and affectionate to cuddle, and a world without cares to do so in? Well, she'd better join the stampede-"
The air off to the left shimmered and became a float shy;ing, star shaped mirror-sweet Mystra, she'd set it off again!
" 'Cuddle,' " she told it severely, "was perhaps not the wisest trigger word to use."
Obediently, the mirror winked back to nothingness again, but not before it had captured and flung her own image back at her. She beheld a slender beauty of a woman whose emerald eyes were winking with amuse shy;ment as she wrinkled her lips wryly, and guided the tresses of her long silver hair-moving seemingly by themselves-to smooth back the shoulders of her fine dark gown. Gracefully, of course; a certain sensuous grace, some termed it. She was not called "Our Lady of Dalliances" behind her back for nothing.
"Oh, have done!" Alustriel moaned to herself in amused despair. "Enough of teasing and preening and hot and avid eyes. You came here to be alone, idiot, not pose and imagine yourself slinking along in something that will be the height of fashion from now until per shy;haps. . dusk. Think of what you have wrought, not whom you've touched."
The High Lady rolled her eyes, then let them wander again. They followed that plunging vault rib once more, pausing at the arch of the still thankfully closed door. She'd not yet had any arms put up over that arch, despite the eagerness of the palace heralds. Realms were more than names and banners. They were folk thinking themselves part of a place, and she hadn't managed that, yet. This was still, first and foremost, Silverymoon, a haven in the wild and savage North.
There came a single knock upon the door-light, almost apologetic-then it swung open. She knew that knock, and permitted herself a mirthless smile, for just a moment before the man entering the room could see her face. Late for its cue but not unexpected, fresh trouble had come at last.
Taern Hornblade was Master Mage of the Spellguard of Silverymoon and Seneschal of the High Palace, but even the heralds had to think to recall those precise titles. To one and all in Silverymoon he was simply Thunderspell (or, less respectfully and at a safe distance, "Old Thunderspells"), Alustriel's faithful right hand and counselor. He was an astute if stodgy diplomat who ran with calm efficiency what passed for the Shadow Watch-what some southerly realms called "secret police"-of Silverymoon. The problems he brought to his beloved High Lady were never minor, and in recent years Alustriel, accustomed to conducting friendships and intimacies with many folk, had been surprised to realize just how much she'd come to love him.
And to know that it wasn't nearly as deeply and hopelessly as he loved her.
"My lady," Taern began, and turned away to clear his throat. Alustriel's one glance at his face, as it spun away, told her that this matter, whatever it was, was something bad.
"My lady, I bring grave news that requires, I fear, your immediate attention." Taern was too upset to reach for subtleties or delay his blunt message. "The envoy from Neverwinter, Tradelord Garthin Muirtree, lies dead within our walls-murdered. He was, of course, our guest. His remains lie where they were found, in the Red Griffon Room."
"In the magic-dead area?" Alustriel asked calmly.
Taern nodded heavily. "I've seen them-him, My lady. He looks like a man I saw once on a hunt, torn apart by some great fanged and clawed beast. His head is entirely gone."
A wizards' duel in the wake of a MageFair created a "spell shadow" at a certain spot in the palace. This was a place where no magic worked. After a long consulta shy;tion on her knees with the divine lady she served, Alus shy;triel had deliberately maintained the shadow so as to give the folk of Silverymoon a way to readily strip away magical disguises, "hanging" spells, and other spell-traps or undesirable enchantments. To keep its use under control, she'd caused a chamber to be built around it, with secure walls pierced by no secret pas shy;sage, message chute, or air vent.
When the work was done, the palace had two new, smaller rooms where a larger one had been. The one that held the shadow was a quiet, stately room of pol shy;ished duskwood paneling. Its sole ornaments were a small company of carved, scarlet painted griffons crowning the posts of the chairs surrounding its pol shy;ished meeting table. The griffons soon gave the cham shy;ber its name-and so it was to the Red Griffon Room that the High Lady of Silverymoon now hastened, with Taern striding anxiously at her side.
Their route seemed deserted-Taern's doing, no doubt. There was a stiffening in the air, and a rising, eerie sound as of many voices shouting wordless alarm. The sudden swirling up from nothingness of a cloud of sparks told Alustriel that her Seneschal had laid a powerful ward before the closed door of the Red Griffon Room.
She broke it, deliberately, before he could lift it, ignoring his reproachful look. She had to be sure-absolutely certain-that no hand besides his had been casting or altering wards while he was away fetching a silence-loving High Lady.
Alustriel strode to the door despite Taern's wordless protest. He could not, for all his years, have seen nearly as many horribly mutilated bodies as she had, in hers, and this was her city, and her castle. She fixed her mind on the most powerful slaying spell she had ready, and firmly swung the door inward.
The stuffiness-no vents, the only flow of air coming from a copper heat-turned fan suspended from a rod curving over the candle lamp that stood by the table-was familiar. The slaughterhouse smell, and the riven thing that had once been a man, now so thoroughly butchered that only one raised, clawlike hand and a hairy knee could still be recognized as human, was horribly, indecently unfamiliar.
Alustriel looked down at it expressionlessly. Nothing that dwelt in the palace could have torn apart flesh like this. It reeked of a challenge, a signal of defiance and warning from someone or something that wished to say: "See what I can do at will, High Lady? What is your power to me? If I can do this, so easily, how can you hope to defend the peace and safe haven your people look to you for?"
The seneschal made another anxious, motherly sound in his throat, and tried to step between her and the corpse. "Now, my lady," he protested, "there's no need for you to have to look upon this. I can whelm the Spellguard a-"