Part 26 (2/2)
Then, at last, Storm reached the source of the glows and the reek.
Her sister Ala.s.sra, once queen of Aglarond and forever infamous in legend as the mad Witch-Queen and slaughterer of Red Wizards, the Simbul, was sitting alone, naked and filthy, with her feet in a pool. The water that fed it dripped down the cave walls in a dozen ceaseless flows.
Still shapely under the filth, still silver-haired, Ala.s.sra looked perhaps a lush and well-preserved forty-odd winters-but also, by the same scrutiny, seemed an utterly mad, keening wreck.
Gibbering and drooling wordlessly, she rocked and swayed back and forth, eyes staring wildly but seeing nothing.
A long, heavy chain that Storm knew ended in a shackle around her sister's ankle rose out of the water past her, to end at a ma.s.sive metal ring set deep into the rock. It had been forged by dwarves but enspelled by Elminster and all of Ala.s.sra's sisters who could work magic powerful enough, its links bearing Ala.s.sra's blood slaked in her silver fire, let out in wounds they'd gently made. It called to her across the world, a ceaseless whisper she could ignore when lucid, but that lured her slowly but irresistibly whenever her mind collapsed. A binding she could easily remove but would not want to; the only comfort and companion she would crave. When her mind was in ruins, it could make her feel wanted and not alone, as long as she embraced it.
It was doing that right now.
So Ala.s.sra wasn't dying or under attack. She was just...more mindless than ever before.
Storm set down the magics and her discarded clothing, laid the manacles on the garments and unwrapped them with infinite care to avoid telltale rattlings, then left those shackles lying, draped the magical cloak around her neck, and went to her sister, embracing her wordlessly.
The Simbul stiffened in alarm and wonder then gasped in pleasure as she felt the cloak against her skin where it was pressed between them.
The cloak began to glow-the same eerie blue as the blue fire from the skies had been-as her body started to absorb its enchantments. Ala.s.sra clawed and clutched at it like a desperate, starving thing.
Her gasps became moans of pleasure then groans of release as her arms tightened around Storm, and she kissed her sister with dreadful hunger.
”El!” she cried, in a raw, rough-from-disuse voice. ”El?”
”Sister,” Storm said gently between kisses, ”'tis me: Astorma. Ethena.”
”Esheena,” the Simbul hissed in mingled disappointment and gratefulness, relaxing as awareness returned. The wild fire faded from her eyes, and she stared into Storm's gaze as they lay on the wet rock nose to nose. the Simbul hissed in mingled disappointment and gratefulness, relaxing as awareness returned. The wild fire faded from her eyes, and she stared into Storm's gaze as they lay on the wet rock nose to nose.
Then she wrinkled her nose.
”Faugh!” she spat. ”I she spat. ”I stink!” stink!”
And she flung herself into the water, dragging Storm with her.
The pool was every whit as cold as Storm had expected, numbing her instantly. She'd be chilled for a day or more, thanks to her soaked breeches and boots, but that was a worry for later.
At the moment, Ala.s.sra was laughing with delight amid water aglow as the last of the cloak's magic pa.s.sed into her and it crumbled to nothingness. ”Did you bring some soap? Or one of those new Sembian scents?”
Storm made a face. ”Do I look as if I want to stink like a cartload of jungle flowers crushed into the blended lees of an extensive wine cellar?”
”You,” her sister said happily, ”look like you can and do shrug off everything and serenely take from life what you seek, letting all else drift away without getting bothered over it.”
She spread her limbs and floated, submerged except for her face. ”Thank ”Thank you, Storm. Thank you for myself back...for a little while. So, what's afoot in the wider world outside this hidehold? What are you up to? And El-where's he right now, and what foolishness is driving his deeds?” you, Storm. Thank you for myself back...for a little while. So, what's afoot in the wider world outside this hidehold? What are you up to? And El-where's he right now, and what foolishness is driving his deeds?”
”Meddling in Cormyr, as usual,” Storm replied. ”He sent me because he wants all the fun for himself.”
”Hah, as usual,” as usual,” her sister told the cavern ceiling. ”He always tries to keep me away from the best moments, too. I'd have slain thrice the Red Wizards, down the years, if he wasn't always-” her sister told the cavern ceiling. ”He always tries to keep me away from the best moments, too. I'd have slain thrice the Red Wizards, down the years, if he wasn't always-”
”Ala.s.sra,” Storm told her with mock severity, hauling herself out of the water and hissing at the chill she felt as streams of it ran from her to rejoin the pool, ”you haven't left two-thirds of the Red Wizards alive, so far as any of us can tell, at any time since you started defending Aglarond. You couldn't couldn't have claimed three times the Thayan lives you did. Trust me.” have claimed three times the Thayan lives you did. Trust me.”
”Oh?” Ala.s.sra grinned archly. ”Why start now, after all these years? Tell me more news. Not about El-you're helping him, of course-but of the wider Realms. Any kings toppled? Dragons tearing cities apart? Realms obliberated by angry dueling archwizards?”
”Oh, all of those,” Storm chuckled, running both hands through her hair to shed fresh streams of water as she cast a swift glance back at the manacles and the rest of the magic she'd brought. ”Where to begin?”
”Thay, of course,” her sister said promptly. ”I always want to hear what calamities have befallen the Thayans lately. Why, alathant so partresper I...what's kaladash, ah-”
Their eyes met, and the wildness was back in the Simbul's. And a moment of desperation, too, almost of pleading, before they rolled up in her head. Then they sank half-closed, making her look sleepy.
”S-sister-,” she managed, in one last struggling entreaty.
Storm plunged grimly back into the pool and reached for her sister as Ala.s.sra started to slip under, babbling in earnest.
That hadn't lasted long.
Mystra d.a.m.n it all.
Storm tugged her feebly thras.h.i.+ng sister-who was starting to bark like a dog-up out of the water, rolling her far enough away from it that only a determined crawl-and Ala.s.sra was beyond doing anything anything in a manner that might be termed ”determined”-could get her back to a swift drowning before Storm returned. in a manner that might be termed ”determined”-could get her back to a swift drowning before Storm returned.
Then she crawled back to her cloak and the manacles, water running from her soaked breeches and boots in floods that thoroughly drenched the sloping stone beneath her knees.
Storm shackled her sister to the wall ring, wrists crossed and hands behind head. That put most of her back in the water again-but unless something tore Ala.s.sra's arms from their sockets, the short length of the manacles would keep her face clear of the surface.
Giving Storm time enough to gather plenty of wood for a large fire and rocks to warm around it, to get herself and her sister dry.
Drenched and dripping, jerkin in hand to bundle twigs in, she lowered her head and trudged grimly back out through the ward again.
She hadn't expected the cloak to win Ala.s.sra's sanity back for long-its enchantments were relatively feeble, after all-but it had lasted a much shorter time than she'd expected.
Which was, as they said, bad. Storm hadn't brought all that many enchanted gewgaws with her.
Huh. El had better liberate a lot lot of magic from the royal palace or the n.o.bles of Cormyr coming to council, if he ever wanted to see his beloved sane again. of magic from the royal palace or the n.o.bles of Cormyr coming to council, if he ever wanted to see his beloved sane again.
Once La.s.s was over the initial frenzy, the rage that always accompanied her slide back into idiocy-and who wouldn't scream and fight, knowing they were sinking back into that? that?-she'd be fine. A survivor who'd fight like a tiger to cling to life. The ankle-chain didn't keep her from the water; it kept her from walking out of the cave, absorbing the ward as she went.
Even chained a long way from it, she was unwittingly reaching out and leeching its power, draining it ever-so-slowly to keep herself alive. Water, she had, and food she needed not, as long as she had magic to drink from afar...
Yet if ever La.s.s got out to wander the vast forest that surrounded the Dales and cloaked most of the land between Sembia and the Moonsea, she'd be just one more clever prowling beast awaiting fearful foresters' arrows. And the jaws and claws of larger, stronger prowling beasts.
Those were watchmens' manacles, recent Cormyrean forgework stolen from down in the Dale. They neither had nor needed keys, and locked or opened by sliding complex catches on both shackles at once, something that could be done easily except by anyone wearing them, the cuffs being rigid. Unless they were put on a shapes.h.i.+fter, or someone who had tentacles, that is...
Well, La.s.s had always hated malaugrym and doppelgangers and anything with tentacles; she was hardly likely to work any magic that could give her such features, even if she did somehow regain sanity enough to work any magic at all.
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