Ed Greenwood - The Halls of Stormweather

"Any more business?" the head of House Uskevren asked calmly over the rim of his raised glass.

The lamplight flickered on the last sweetened ices and the wines served with them. The slight ripple of his set jaw behind it was the only hint of the disgust Thamalon Uskevren felt at dining in his own feast hall with his two most hated rivals-and creditors.

"Oh, yes, Uskevren," the man with silver-shot hair and emerald eyes so sharp they glittered said in an idle manner that fooled no one, "there is one thing more." Presker Talendar's smile was silken. "I've brought along someone who very much wants to meet you."

One of the four hitherto silent men who sat between Talendar and Saclath Soargyl-the fat, sneering son of a man who'd tried to kill Thamalon six times and hired someone else to bring down a sharp, cold end to Thamalon's days at least a dozen times more- leaned forward. Something that might have been the ghost of a smile adorned his face. It was the stranger in the doublet of green musterdelvys gilded with leaping lions, who resembled Thamalon's long-lost elder brother Perivel as he'd been when young and vigorous, so long ago. Had Perivel found time back then to secretly sire a son?

Thamalon knew the other three silent diners at his table by sight. One was Iristar Velvaunt, a coldly professional mage-for-hire whose presence here this night must have cost the Talendars several thousand fivestars, at least. He was the whip to keep raised tempers from exploding into something more or to blunt the many menaces a host might whelm against guests in his own house.

The man beside Velvaunt was Ansible Loakrin, Lawmaker of Selgaunt. Loakrin was the perfect witness and the owner of a face as carefully expressionless as Thamalon's own.

The third man, by far the shortest and fattest of those gathered at table, was a priest whose raiment marked him as a servant of Lathander, god of creation and renewal. The priest's name had escaped Thamalon, but several platters of nut-roasted goose had failed to escape the Lord Flame of Lathander-and three decanters of good wine were thus far very much failing to escape him as well.

They were witnesses, these three, here to watch the unfolding of whatever stratagem the man in green and Talendar had hatched together, and to keep swords from being drawn.

Thamalon inclined his eyebrows in an expression of casual interest that was very far from what he was really feeling. "And having met me?" he prompted gently.

" I found myself disappointed at the distantly formal nature of my reception," the man in green smoothly took over the sentence. "After all, Thamalon, I am your brother."

He paused to give Thamalon time to gasp and launch into loud and eager query, but the head of House Uskevren gave him only calm silence, one lifted eyebrow rising perhaps half an inch higher.

Before the stillness could stretch, the man in green drew himself up and said in ringing tones that could not help but reach the servants standing motionless along the walls, even to the maid busily dusting the farthest corner of the hall, "Let all here know the truth of my heritage. I am Perivel Uskevren, rightful heir of my sire Aldimar, and head of House Uskevren. This House is bound as I bind it, its coins flow as I bid, and as I speak, so shall Uskevren stand."

The words were the old formula, echoing Sembian law. The head of a house controlled its investments and business dealings utterly. If this truly was Perivel, Stormweather Towers-the Uskevren's fine city manor- had a new master. Thamalon would lose in an instant all authority over the wealth he'd so painstakingly rebuilt, and this stranger would rule here henceforth.

There was, however, a slight complication. Perivel Uskevren had been dead for more than forty years.

Thamalon's last memory of his brother came tumbling back into his mind, as bright and as terrible as ever. Stormweather Towers was in flames, and there was Perivel shouting defiance in the red, leaping heart of an inferno of toppling beams and roaring, racing fire, his sword flashing as he hacked and stabbed at three-three! Talendars.

The horse under Thamalon reared in terror, its scorched mane and flanks stinking. It surged forward with a scream into darker, cooler streets, bearing Thamalon and his tears away from the crackling of the fire and the shouts of the slaughtered.

The house was but a blackened shell when he saw it again. Its ashes held the bones of many but yielded up no living man, nor corpse that anyone could put a name to. The priests questioned a few of the scorched skulls with eerie spells, then turned in weary satisfaction to name Thamalon Uskevren heir of the house and to present him with a bill for their holy labors. They, at least, had been certain that Perivel died in the fire. Of course, with the passing years their gods had gathered in every one of them, and there was none left to echo their testimony now but Thamalon.

So it was; so it had always been: Thamalon Uskevren standing alone against the foes of his family.

Alone again. He was growing very tired of this. Perhaps it was time to set aside politeness and go out like a lion. If he could just be sure of taking all the snakes who hissed and glided around House Uskevren with him, down into darkness.

And there lay the rub. The gods had never made it easy for Sembians to be sure of anything.

"I suppose, brother," Perivel was saying smoothly, "you wonder why I'm here this night in the company of men whose families have, in past years, been at odds with our own?"

He waited for Thamalon to bluster or protest, but the head of House Uskevren gave him no more than a silent, almost leisurely wave of a hand, bidding him continue.

The pretender's eyes flashed-had he deceived himself into seeing surrender in Thamalon's eyes? and with a flourish he drew forth a sealed document from the breast of his doublet. Perivel held the parchment up to catch the lamplight, so everyone could see that the seal was unbroken. He looked at Presker Talendar, received a solemn nod of assent, and slowly broke the seal.

Iristar Velvaunt moved with the speed of a striking snake, long sleeves billowing as his arm darted out to lay one quelling, long-fingered hand on the false Perivel's arm.

When the pretender obediently halted, the mage murmured something and passed his other hand over the document. That hand left a slightly blue glow in its wake, which clung to and coiled around the parchment. All of the men at the table recognized it. It was a common shielding to protect the parchment from being torn, burned, or affected by other magics.

Velvaunt then gave an extravagant "proceed" gesture of his own, and the pretender triumphantly thrust the document under Thamalon's nose.

Thamalon read it calmly, not moving to touch it. It seemed that Perivel Uskevren owed House Talendar a lot of money, and had named as his collateral if the monies- seventy-nine thousand golden fivestars, no less-were not repaid.

The collateral was Stormweather Towers itself-the house Thamalon had rebuilt, every tinted glass pane and smooth-carved arch of it. The head of House Uskevren did not look at the huge marble-sheathed pillars that rose all around him. Nor did he spare a glance for the exquisite lamps of iridescent blown glass that hung above the table, whose cost outstripped that of even the ornately carved pillars but his question seemed directed more at them than at anyone seated down the long, decanter-laden table as he gazed across the cavernous hall and asked gently, "And how is it that an Uskevren came to stand in debt to the Talendars, without any in this house knowing of it?"