The bard looked down at the blue flickering that was shaping a point just below her right breast. "A spellblade. Murndal Claeron-it is Murndal, is it not? — do you know the price of wielding the weapon you have so boldly used?"
The war wizards had all turned to face her by then, their hands up to hurl spells. The boldshield had his blade half out. Following his lead, the armsmen reached around to put daggers to the throats of the mages. Everyone watched in frozen, wary silence as Storm turned to face the mage who'd struck her from behind.
Murndal made a frightened sound and tried to slash the spellblade sideways, to reach her heart. Storm stepped easily away from it, so that it sliced its way right out through her ribs instead. Spinning gracefully around, she touched it once, and the wizard was suddenly holding nothing but a few blue sparks that flickered and drifted from his hand.
"Let us have peace," she told her attacker then, towering over him.
Murndal of the war wizards cowered away from her, his mouth dry and his fingers cold with fear.
Silver fire was swirling around the wound in her side, and curling out from between her lips as she spoke. Her eyes were suddenly two pools of soaring silver flames, and Murndal could not help screaming as she took him by the arms. He felt the crackle and surge of powers he could only guess at.
Storm said gently, "I've worked no spell, ambitious one … and I can see that the crafting of that weapon was beyond you, too."
She let go of the trembling mage and turned around again. "Broglan! Mind your manners!" she snapped. "Spellblades? The backlash could have killed this young mageling of yours-and a dozen more folk, if he'd dragged it out at the wrong moment! What were you thinking of?"
Broglan stared at her, naked fear on his face. He licked his lips. The haunting that had startled him and scared Murndal into attack was gone, scattered by his hasty spell. Now Storm Silverhand, every inch a Chosen of Mystra, with the divine silver fire of legend curling out of her very eyeballs, was staring angrily at him.
"Y-Your power, and how we might stop it," he whispered, unable to think of anything to say but the truth.
She sighed, and tossed her head. Already the wound in her side was smaller, and the terrible silver radiance was blazing and flowing along it, fading away from her face. "Well, at least I'm hearing some honest words from you," she said calmly. "Do you think you could open the crypt now, and forget such nonsense as this for a while?"
Broglan stared openmouthed at her, and then turned to the crypt doors. The shaken war wizard took a deep breath and bowed his head for a moment. He raised his hand, murmured something, and touched the line of wax marked by the three runes that the Harvestmaster of Chauntea had impressed on it. A small fire blazed up around his fingers. At first a green-white, it became a deep and restless red and raced along the wax.
When it had traced around both of the doors, it died away. Broglan drew in another deep breath, stepped back, and indicated the unsealed doors.
"Open them, and lead the way in," the boldshield ordered him.
The war wizard shook his head. "The haunting-there could be-"
Ergluth gave him a look of cold disgust. "Wizard," he growled, "go in, and take that lantern from yon arms-man with you-or I'll soon be telling Vangerdahast that the leader of his Sevensash investigative team had the great misfortune to fall onto my sword while we were exploring the haunted Summerstar family crypt."
Broglan gulped. "Y-Yes, Sir Boldshield," he said, and did as he'd been ordered.
The lantern bobbed away reluctantly into a large and eerie chamber, its walls broken by many niches containing stone coffins. Several larger coffins, their lids carved into semblances of sleeping Summerstar lords and ladies, stood in a fan-shaped array radiating out from a large central table.
"Hundarr," Broglan asked in commanding tones, pointing, "is that table clear?"
The war wizard nodded gravely, took a stance, and cast a spell of detection with as much showmanship and grand oratory as he could muster. Storm, Ergluth, and several veteran armsmen hid their smiles; several of the more junior Purple Dragons didn't bother.
Lost in his moment of glory, Hundarr missed the displays of mirth. He strode around the crypt, looking this way and that, and finally announced, "Faint magics-possibly preservative enchantments-around those three coffins, this one, and that one over there. The rest of the chamber, including the table, is clear, Sir Broglan."
The senior war wizard gave him a tight smile. "Good." He turned to Storm and Ergluth. "Well?"
"Which of those coffins contains Athlan's handful?" Storm asked. The wizard laid his hand on the newest, and she said, "Bring it forth, and pour it out on the table. Lanterns well clear, good sirs."
Broglan raised his eyebrows, but did as he was bid. Storm looked down at the small heap of cinders, turned her head away to sigh, and said quietly, "I'm told you carry a spell you're very proud of, Sir Broglan. . one of your own devising, that returns things to their last shape. Will you cast it on these ashes, please?"
The war wizard looked at her in surprise, more for her knowledge of his prize enchantment than for what he'd been asked to do. He said, "The body my spell will fashion can be no more than an empty shell, feather-light and very short-lived. Whatever you want to do, do it quickly."
Storm merely gestured for him to continue. Broglan met her eyes doubtfully for a moment. He took several small items from the sleeves and lapels of his robe and, with slow and exacting care, cast his spell.
The ashes on the stone table gradually drew together and shaped themselves into a sprawled body. Storm regarded it critically as it changed from a thing of black flakes tinged with white or brown to an almost corpselike shape of dull gray.
"How long can you hold it thus?" she asked.
"Not long," Broglan said flatly. Tiny beads of sweat sprung into being on his forehead. Ah. That short a time, then. She went straight to work.
The shape of Athlan Summerstar lay on his back, naked, a smooth nothing where his face should be. Storm indicated this. "Is that your spell, or had he no face when he died?"
"That's what it looked like when he breathed his last," Broglan said tersely. "I've never seen one of these reconstructions with no eyes before-but my spell could not have been miscast, or you'd have no image at all to look at."
"Could the face have been burnt away?" Storm asked sharply, bending by the ash-image's ear.
Broglan looked surprised, and then said, "Yes. Yes, certainly. That would almost have to be the reason for no trace of eyes. They must have been gone before he died."
Storm nodded somberly. "That's what I thought," she said quietly, and bent over the shape again.
"I see a dead man, lying on his back," Ergluth Rowanmantle said, standing at the crypt doors. "Can you see more?"
Storm nodded and pointed. "See the mark, and the darker area? A sword came out of his breast there. So our mysterious murderer drove a blade through a young and energetic man from behind, and did the burning after."
"But why?" the boldshield said. "Concealing who the victim was is the only reason I know besides disease banishment to set fire to a man's face…And we knew immediately who the victim was."
"What if someone-Athlan himself? — has taken the shape of another Summerstar, say, and tried to leave the body of someone else behind, burnt to conceal the fact that it wasn't really Athlan, as we're all assuming?" the war wizard Corathar asked excitedly.
"You've been reading too many dead-knight chap-books, lad," Insprin Turnstone said wearily from beside him. "Now belt up, and listen to the lady."
Storm was bent over the ash-shape, frowning as she thoughtfully bit her lip. "His knees and elbows are both scraped," she said. "He fell on stone, in some haste or with some force. . and this bruise on his cheek, here, means …"