Storm nodded. There was clear sadness in her eyes, now. “Do you know how to use it to do that?”
Tace stared at her. “Why do you want to know? ” she asked softly, trying to judge which tree she could best leap behind, if it came to that.
Something that was not quite a smile touched Storm’s lips.
“Easy, Tace, I’m not hungry to snatch your bauble from you. As to the why, I knew Maelarkh Throon rather well, once. He will be missed. Now stop looking for escape-runs and tell me which you’d rather have first. Warm soup? Cool wine? A soak here in the pool with me? Or somewhere soft to sleep on, and a door you can close against the world until you’ve rested?”
Tace knew her mouth had fallen open, but… but…
She sat down in a sudden heap on the moss at the edge of the pool and peered into the water. “Is it—deep?”
Storm looked her up and down. “About up to your chin, I’d say, unless you go in yonder, where it’ll come to about the bridge of your nose.”
Tace looked longingly at the pool, and in a sudden whirlwind dipped fingertips into it then snatched them right back.
“No, ‘tis not full of beasts waiting to drag you down, and I’m not one such either,” Storm told her.
“You know magic,” Tace said, almost accusingly.
“Some,” Storm replied, with what might have been the faintest of sighs. “You joining me?”
Tace hugged her knees and murmured, “No.”
“Have you decided what you want to do?”
Tace looked away into the trees. “No.”
Storm nodded. Her tresses curled briefly around her ears, as if with a life of their own, and without reaching a hand to anything she rose straight up out of the water, dripping.
Tace stared at her as Storm turned slowly. Not a gesture nor so much as a whisper of an incant… and now the water on that sleek and shapely skin was simply—gone. The dripping had stopped. Unconcernedly bare, Storm trod air over to the path, looked back, and asked, “Coming? Soup’s ready, and fairly decent tea, too.”
Tace swallowed, met those strange eyes—at times they seemed very blue and at other moments blue-white, or even as silver as a sword blade—then nodded and hastened around the pool to follow.
She hadn’t gone more than six strides along the path when the air around her suddenly sang with half-seen silver and sizzling white threads. The Vaedren tugged violently at her arm then shot away from her, shrieking sparks. Storm whirled around, hands on hips, to stare narrowly at her.
Tace froze as the threads faded away, heart pounding.
Storm glanced at the Vaedren, spinning in midair, and as if obeying her, it floated back to Tace’s wrist.
“I’m sorry,” the silver-haired woman said softly, “but I had to be sure no tracing magics had been cast on you.”
Trembling, Tace managed to make her voice calm. “And?”
“None any longer.”
Drawing in a deep, shuddering breath and reminding herself that speaking in anger would probably get her swiftly killed, she asked, “What spell did you just use on me?”
“None. I called up a tangle of the Weave. Interesting wristlet you have there.”
Tace clapped her hand to it, mouth going dry. “So what are you going to do to me now?”
Storm’s smile was sad. “You’re not in Thay now, lass, and here you’re no one’s slave. I’m going to feed you and get a bed ready for you then ask you foolish questions until you fall asleep from boredom. On the morrow you can do pretty much whatever you want to do, and the day after that, too, and so on, until you’re ready to choose a new life. I believe I can keep coming up with impertinent questions that long. Will that be all right?”
Tace looked at the bare, silver haired woman, bit her lip—then, helplessly, started to laugh.
Storm smiled, glided forward to slip an arm around the Little Imp of Ironwind, and asked, “Are you very attached to this Vaedren?”
Tace stopped laughing. “Oh. You want it, then, in payment for—”
“No, nothing of the kind. I want it out of here. Your M—Maelarkh left it unfinished, and it’s been twisted into something quite dangerous since. If I promise to help you avenge him—and I can be very dangerous, I promise you— will you let me examine it thoroughly then get rid of it?”
Tace blinked and clapped her hand over it again. “I—”
“Is it really that reassuring? Or just the only thing of his you have to cling to, and something of power that has served you in getting here?”
Tace nodded slowly, not knowing what to think of this warm, quick-witted, powerful woman. “I don’t want to let it go,” she admitted, “but I… yes, I’m scared of it.”
Storm swung an idle hand and the air was suddenly full of Weave-threads again, bright and racing. “Just toss the Vaedren gently up into the air,” she murmured, and without really knowing why, Tace found herself doing so.
White threads lanced in at it from all sides, in a whirlwind that flashed silver and blue and silver again, then— froze.
Black lines like glistening leeches appeared in the air around the wristlet, lines that flowed into intricate shapes, like characters in some unknown but flamboyant language, then froze, too, to hang all around the Vaedren.
Storm stepped slowly around the floating wristlet, peering at one dark squiggle after another. Then her eyes narrowed and she asked the air above them, “High One, is this sigil yours?”
IT IS.
Tace had barely heard of the god Azuth, but every whispering echo of that calm but great mind-voice chanted his name, over and over.
Without thinking she sank to her knees, quivering in awe and wonder.
Storm, amazingly, seemed as calm as ever. “Have I your permission to twist this and change this, so as to…?”
MAKE THIS BRACELET A WINDOW INTO THE MIND OF THE ONE WEARING IT?
“Yes,” Storm replied, sounding as impish as a certain Tace knew how to be.
Not that Tace realized that until much later. Azuth’s mind-chuckle had thrust her to the brink of gasping ecstasy, in which she was only dimly aware that she was lying on her face on the path, drooling on some very soft moss.
She never saw that Azuth’s divine mirth left even Storm Silverhand shuddering, with mouth open and eyes half-closed.
WHY NOT?
Collecting her wits with an effort, Storm caught a handful of silver threads and did some weaving all around the Vaedren that never quite touched the wristlet but made it flicker, flow, and change just the same.
WELL DONE. WHERE SHALL I SEND IT?
Tace had recovered enough by then to see Storm’s impish smile as the silver-haired lady tossed her head and shared a mind-image of an intended recipient Tace did not recognize with the thrilling Presence Tace didn’t quite dare to look toward.
And the Weave flashed, spun, and whirled the Vaedren away.
* * * * *
It was the habit of Fzoul Chembryl, on pleasant summer evenings when the distasteful work of the day had been wearying but was done, to stroll for a few stolen moments of solitude in his private garden.
It was more a time to collect his wits than to take pleasure in the deserted loveliness around him. The servants had carefully gone hours before, and several spells were hard at work keeping all lesser life at bay until the master of the Zhentarim took his leave.
He unstoppered the tiny vial of rubythroat he intended to drain as he stood on the little bridge over the lilypond, in his usual toast to himself, then stopped, peered, and frowned.
There was a metal ring lying in the shallow water beside the bridge—a very large ring, made for a wrist rather than a finger, that definitely hadn’t been there a few breaths back, when he’d first crossed the bridge.