"Whose body was this?"
"One of the war wizards who came here to learn who slew Lord Summerstar … Lhansig Dlaerlin."
"I've never heard that name," Storm said with a wrinkle of her brow. "What can you tell me about him?"
The steward shrugged. "I saw him only a handful of times, and briefly. A wizard who was always smiling … a sly one. 'Twouldn't surprise me if he knew more secrets than many folk wanted known."
Storm nodded, managing not to sigh. Everyone's favored foe. "And how was he found?"
"The man was struck down in a garderobe, after a feast," Drimmer said, "burned out, like the others."
"Nowhere near the Haunted Tower?"
"Nay, lady. Just outside the hall where you've been dining," the old steward said. He fumbled with his keys. "These chambers are yours, and I should tell you that the wizards've ordered a doorguard to stand right here as soon as you retire."
"To keep me from creeping around Firefall Keep in the dark hours," Storm murmured, "in case I should fall and hurt myself."
Ilgreth Drimmer's mouth twisted into a wry grin. "In a manner of speaking, lady, yes. I'll just light another lamp in here, and-"
He broke off with a queer, sobbing sort of gulp, and stood very still. Storm had to thrust him aside to see what he was staring at.
The center of the room held a fine, gray-cloaked bed whose backboard soared up into an overhead bunting. It faced the door through the open doors of a small antechamber. Her luggage, most of it opened, lay at the foot of the bed. In its midst sat the seneschal of Firefall Keep, waiting for them.
He would wait forever, now. Renglar Baerest sat atop the duffels in Storm's open strongchest, his booted legs spread. Between them his chest and gut had been torn open, clothes and all, to reveal a slumped chaos of entrails and gore in which a lone, delighted fly was buzzing. Over this carnage the seneschal grinned at them, two staring eyes fixed forever on the doorway where they stood.
Those eyes were the only scraps of familiarity left on a head that had been otherwise burnt away to a bare, charred skull. A fall of ash lay thick upon the shoulders of the corpse, and it wasn't hard to see where it had come from.
Drimmer made a few broken, whistling sounds, and Storm saw that his mouth was moving. He was trying to say something, but finding no words.
"A fourth death," she murmured to herself. "Cormyr used to be quieter than this."
The old steward started to tremble. Storm's arms went protectively around his shoulders. "He went in battle, Ilgreth," she told him gently, "as he would have wished."
The old man sobbed, trying to nod. Tears ran down his face as he turned to her, blindly took hold of two locks of her hair, and snarled, "He was my last friend, lady! The last man left who swung a sword with me for the realm! Oh, gods look down! May they give you the power to do what I beseech you to!"
"And what's that, friend?" Storm asked, cradling him to her breast as if he was a small child.
The old man raised blazing eyes to her, and hissed through his tears, "Find the one who did this to Renglar! Find him-or it-and tear them apart! And if it takes my hand in aid, even if it costs my life, too-call for it!"
"Sir, I will do so," Storm told him, looking deeply into his eyes. "This I swear."
A flame of hope kindled in Drimmer's old eyes. "Gods bless you, lady," he whispered. "Gods bring you victory."
Storm looked at the seneschal's skull-smile and his fear-filled, staring eyes. She swung her gaze back to meet the steward's own. She managed a wan smile, and said, "They don't owe me a victory, Ilgreth. But they do owe one to four men no longer with us-and perhaps many more if the cause of all this isn't soon found and stopped."
As the words left her mouth, the seneschal's skull suddenly toppled from his shoulders, bounced once on his thigh, fell to the floor, and rolled to her feet.
As its dead eyes gazed up at them, Drimmer burst into fresh tears. Storm held him, and then, softly, lifted her voice in the first mournful cry of the "Soldier's Farewell."
At her feet, Renglar Baerest went on grinning.
FIVE
"Legendary godservant, my left elbow!" Erlandar Summerstar snorted. Elbow was not the word he'd first thought of. "She's a saucy wench who wraps herself in a few protective spells and knows a few tricks."
"Good uncle," the Dowager Lady Zarova Summerstar said firmly, "can we speak of other things? Unwelcome a guest as she may be to some of us, my son's written wishes did bring her here. I am more shocked at what befell her than I am at the discovery that if her clothes burn away, she's naked. I trust none of these mages here would deal in such deadly magic-and yet who else could have done it?"
All of the diners stared at her; the younger dowager spoke so seldom that some of the servants in the hall had never before heard her voice.
Her daughter Shayna, heiress of the Summerstars, nodded. "I, too, would like to hear what the gentlemen of the Sevensash have to say for themselves," she said firmly. "Lady bard or no lady bard, flames nearly brought down the roof of this hall, and I would know why."
She turned her head, emerald eyes flashing, and caught the frowning gaze of Broglan Sarmyn. Pheirauze and Erlandar added the weight of their regard, and Broglan suddenly found himself dancing on the ends of six hard gazes, and finding them all too much like daggers.
"I–It's no doing of any of us," the worried-looking senior wizard said hastily, looking from one hostile Summerstar to another. "We're just as … mystified as any of you."
"Why?" Pheirauze said cuttingly. "We're not the experts in magic here-you are. We've dined in this hall for more nights than I can count, year after year, never seeing flames roar up out of nowhere-until now, when you are here: a row of war wizards, skilled in battle magic. What else but your guilt am I-are any of us-to conclude? I've half a mind to summon that Purple Dragon commander here to send a complaint about you to the court, forthwith."
"Lady," came the deep voice of Ergluth Rowanmantle from behind her, "I am here."
The diners turned in their chairs, startled.
"I don't recall summoning you," Pheirauze snapped at him, nettled. "Why-?"
"Nevertheless," the eagle-eyed officer said flatly as he strode forward, "I am here. My duty to the king requires it of me. I bring a question: where is Thalance, and when did he leave you?"
"Why?" the elder dowager lady almost snarled. "What are you accusing him of?"
"Nothing, lady," the boldshield told her, towering over her chair. "I need to know where he is, so that I can protect him."
"Against what?" Erlandar asked, eyes narrowing.
"Against whomever-or whatever-murdered your seneschal in my bedchamber," Storm Silverhand replied, stepping out from behind the Purple Dragon. Instead of a gown, she wore a well-used leather war harness-armor that bristled with swords and daggers in plenty.
The steward of the feast hall quavered behind her for a moment, a neatly folded tablecloth shaking in his hands. He then scurried to the sideboard to serve sherries and wines to the assembled company.
Most of them looked like they needed such bracing refreshments. They stared at Storm's warrior garb, even more astonished than they had been after the flames.
"What?" Erlandar repeated, glaring at Storm in open-mouthed disbelief. "What're you playing at?"
"I'm not the one who's been playing at things around here, Lord Summerstar," Storm told him crisply. "Renglar Baerest is sitting on my luggage with his guts torn out of him-and his skull burned bare and empty. After what befell Athlan, is the word 'murdered' still unfamiliar to you?"
Shayna gave a little scream, and her face twisted. Her hands flew to her mouth. Down the line of pale war wizards, someone's face-Hundarr's, was it? — creased in revulsion. He gagged over his empty plate.