by Ed Greenwood
From a safe dozen rocks distant, he was murmuring another spell. Storm flung her dagger at him.
It spun end over end, straight at his face. It clattered off stone. He was suddenly not there.
Storm went into a crouch of her own, bringing the sword up in front of her and trying to watch everywhere at once. The air glimmered. She spun around. He appeared out of it. She dived into a thrust, and was rewarded with a startled gasp and blood on her sword tip before he was gone again.
She rolled to a stop beside one of the crushed Purple Dragons. Storm sprang away from the blood-slick stones. If he was going to be blinking in and out all around her, she needed good footing. She stabbed at empty air, danced a few steps, turned, and stabbed again.
He chuckled from nearby. “The Sharn battle the Phaerimm, and the Phaerimm fight everyone. Others mightier than these walk the worlds, you know … or should know, daughter of Mystra. You’ve not heard of such? Die ignorant, then.” He was gone again.
Storm whirled. The air around her shimmered and grew a cold fang. The bard twisted away, smashing the blade frantically aside with her sword. The dagger that had hurt her spun away from the bloodied hand of her foe—before the air shimmered and hid him again. Storm cursed heartily and whirled her blade around; it struck something. She heard a grunt of pain. An instant later, her sword struck stone with numbing force. She reeled, fighting for balance on the shifting scree underfoot.
A face loomed above hers as his body struck aside her sword arm. Lips that burned kissed her cheek with obscene delicacy.
With her free hand, Storm clawed at those eyes. Amid shimmering, the face was gone again. Her fingers felt the place where his kiss had burned away flesh, exposing her jawbone. Angrily she ran in a swift circle, hacking at air—until she saw him appear across the pit. He leaned against the wall with almost casual hauteur.
“Who are you?” Storm spat, raising her blade.
The man who was not Maxer laughed. “I am the wolf in your dreams,” he said. His limbs grew fur. “I am the child you pass in the street.” His smile melted into a woman’s face more beautiful than her own had ever been, with moon-pale eyes and long, sweeping black hair. Then it dwindled into the leering visage of a dwarf.
“I can be everyone, everywhere. Soon, I’ll be much, much more than that.” He left that quiet taunt hanging in the air as he became a Purple Dragon armsman, the mage Broglan, and one of the Summerstar maiden aunts.
With narrowed eyes Storm watched him. She murmured and made small gestures as his shapechanging display unfolded. Her spellcasting earned a mirthless grin from him. She finished one spell, and nothing happened. Without delay, she began another. His grin became a frown—and she was suddenly alone in the pit.
An instant later, a view of the keep battlements unfolded in her mind, only to fade almost immediately and be replaced by the lightless interior of an empty bedchamber, lamplight from the courtyard flickering through its windows. The scene changed again twice before Storm’s second spell was done. She kept her mind firmly shaping it—and then let it take her to the latest scene.
The servants working the night through in the kitchens were in their usual bustle, with steam rising from the stew pots here, there, and everywhere. They darted about putting this tray of goose pies into the ovens and taking that tray of stuffed silverfin out. One servant looked down, startled, as a shaggy black dog suddenly appeared in his way, growled warningly—and then vanished again.
He’d have been more startled by far, Storm thought wryly, if he’d seen the true shape of the creature who’d appeared to him as a dog.
The cook looked up, saw her, and dropped his tray of pastries.
Shouting in horror, he fled as the crash echoed around the room. A gravy pan made a deafening whonga-onga-onga clatter. A curse came behind Storm. She turned, blade up, just in case someone was in the mood to hurl cleavers.
She was in time to see a steaming pan of gammon pies flung to the floor by a man who sprinted over them even before they landed. Another man backed away from her, white-faced. The gleaming platter that hung on a cupboard beside him shone back her reflection clearly: a tall, wild-eyed woman with silver hair, garbed only in blood. Teeth and bone glinted in the hole burned in the side of her face, and there was more blood all over the sword in her hand. She smiled ruefully, closed her eyes until her tracer magic showed her the next place clearly, and let the other spell take her there.
Mystra’s Kiss, but those pies had smelled good.
She was in another dark chamber now—a lady’s robing room, with a flicker of shimmering air at its far end where a black dog was just disappearing.
The gown hanging to her left was the one Dowager Lady Zarova had worn to the last feast. Storm heard soft weeping from beyond the door at the end of the room. She closed her eyes to find the next place her foe would appear.
Zarova was tossing in the throes of a nightmare, but the shapechanger appeared at the foot of her bed only long enough to murmur something—something magical, no doubt—and was gone again. Storm reached mentally … where was he going? Wh—ah. A turret room. The chamber at the top of the Twilight Turret!
Her magic took her there. As her feet touched the bare stone floor, it became spongy and somehow warm. Black, eel-like tentacles rose around her in a small, hungry forest. Cold laughter came from a stout stone pillar across the room. She struggled for two long strides toward it before the entwining tentacles held her fast.
The pillar became Maxer. He stood and watched her, a broad smile on his face. “Centuries of service to the goddess of magic,” he gloated, “only to be caught in so simple a spell-trap!”
He took a step nearer. His arm grew long, dark, and serpentine, until it resembled one of the many tentacles coiling ever more tightly around her. He reached out almost caressingly.
Storm spat silver fire.
The tentacle darkened and curled involuntarily away, trailing smoke. The smile on the murderer’s face turned brittle. “I’ll be back, Lady Storm,” he said softly, “a little later. About when you’ve used up your fires.”
Storm held his gaze and let the fire suddenly blaze up around her. Blackened tentacles fell away into ashes. The sword in her hand melted into glistening syrup and flowed out of her fingers. Letting it fall, uncaring, she took a slow, deliberate stride toward him, only to be caught fast in another dozen tentacles.
He smiled coldly. “Sooner or later you’ll run out of those blasts. Then I’ll be back, and you’ll know what it really is to burn! In the meantime, I’ve heard there’s a griffon stabled not far away in the vale. I’d dearly love to gain the power to fly!” His words became wild laughter, and then ended as if cut off by a knife. He vanished, leaving her alone with the tentacles.
Storm let herself relax into their choking, tightening grip. She bent her will to seeing where he was now.
Her tracer was fading; she saw only someplace dark before the strangling tentacles broke her spell. Grimly, she let out the divine fire again, consuming the things as if they were smoke. She kept walking until they were all ashes around her … black flecks that eddied and were gone.
She shook her head. The man—if it was a man—was as mad as he was powerful. Somehow he could drain abilities from those he killed and take them for his own. Why taunt her and lead her on wild chases through kitchens and … oh.
He was slaying particular victims to lure her here and subsuming their powers until he grew strong enough to take her.
It would be simple enough to flee his trap, but better by far to stop him here and now … before he dropped out of sight and quietly subsumed most of Cormyr.
Storm shook her head. Well, he’d be back soon enough. She went to a window and thrust its shutters wide. The lamps in the courtyard below flickered in a quickening night breeze; she felt it glide over her skin as she looked south and west over the darkness of Cormyr. The stars twinkled in their endless watches.
“Oh, Mystra,” she whispered. “Guide me. I see a spher
e of fire around this place … do I see your will, and is this needful now?”
She felt the awesome weight of dark eyes in her mind, regarding her unblinkingly. Suddenly she saw herself watering plants back at the farm, and picking out weeds with her fingers. It was a hot day, and she wiped away sweat—but went to the pond for more water despite the beating sun. The plants needed it.…
The vision faded. Well enough; she had a clear answer: it was needful.
Slowly and carefully, Storm let out unseen tendrils of the fire within her, stretching them out in a sheet that flowed around the turret and down the outer wall of the keep. Ever thinner she stretched them, letting the invisible fire flow, feeling the vitality within her ebbing away as the net spread wider.
Along the walls of the keep she went. She seeped down into the earth beside old, mossy blocks of stone, welling into every crack and crevice. She closed her eyes, trembling with the effort, and embraced the stone sill, pressing her lips and body against it, willing the fire to flow. Deep into the earth, to enfold the cellars and deep wells and all with reaching fingers of force. Up again, beyond the stables and the granaries and the far wall, up the outside of the south wall. Racing now, the sheet of fire joined the spreading edges she’d laid on the stone earlier. It widened into a bowl enclosing Firefall Keep in unseen silver fire.
“Mystra,” Storm gasped, dimly aware that she was sinking down the sill, the stone scraping away flesh as she went to her knees on the cold and dusty floor. She shaped the fire up into a tongue, now, an arch of unseen force that reached down to give her bowl a handle, like a basket. The handle thickened as she built up fire along its edges, ready to slam it down and complete the sphere once her quarry returned.
She was shaking, now. Weakness replaced the surging fire. This was a mightier magic than many an archmage could hope to craft, and it was costing her dearly. Once the keep was sealed, the silver fire would bring her no instant energy—she’d need to eat, drink, and sleep again. It would shield her from no more spells, and bring her no more new ones once those in her mind were cast and gone. She’d already lost the means to farspeak the other Chosen, and to hear folk around Faerûn speaking her name or the Rune of the Seven. If she was hurt, healing would come very slowly. So long as the silver fire thrummed and flowed around Firefall Keep, trapping her foe in it with her, she’d be little more than an ordinary mortal.
Just Storm Silverhand, a lady with silver hair, a smart mouth, some skill with a sword, and a not-bad voice—against a shapeshifter. “How,” she asked the night ruefully as she dragged herself back to the window, “do I get myself into these things?”
As if her words had been a cue, a griffon that was half-man swooped like a great bird into the courtyard. It struggled to grow human arms. Storm smiled grimly, let her hair hang down to cover her face as if she’d collapsed over the sill, and sent the fire flowing to seal up the last gaps in the sphere.
Merrily the murderous shapechanger circled the lamps, causing the guards there to cower down behind raised halberds. With a roar, he rose, sweeping up toward her.
He was going to circle the turret. This was it. Storm set her teeth and made the sphere of fire pulse, letting the surge roar painfully through her breast. It flowed freely; the sphere was complete.
The griffon’s head became the laughing face of a man as he raced toward her. Through her hair, Storm watched his eyes widen with delight at her apparent helplessness. Then he veered up and to the left, racing around the turret, out of sight—and into her barrier.
Storm felt him strike the silver fire. The strain made flames sputter from her nose and mouth. She threw her head back and gasped as she felt the fire claw at him, and his clawing, slashing struggles to break through it.
She could hear it roaring, now, and see the glow of its blaze around the tower. Burn, then, murderer! Burn!
The Bard of Shadowdale dug long fingers into the window sill and snarled, her face a mask of sweat. She strove to sear the shapechanger to nothingness. From behind the tower came a tattered cry of pain.
Let there be no mercy.
Nine
DEATH AND A DARK MASTER
Silver fire roared and raged, blinding him. He struggled to grow eyes on stalks before his own were burned away forever. That bitch of a bard was too near for him to be defenseless.…
He thrashed against flame that seared and ate at him, melting flesh like bubbling wax from bones that slumped in their turn. Defeated, the shapechanger flapped the seared, blackened stumps of his wings frantically, hurling himself back over the courtyard.
Trailing fire, the griffon-man fell heavily onto a balcony on the turret next to where Storm clung to her window. He rose, reeled, smashed aside flimsy shutters, and fled into the keep.
The man snarled softly as he ran through dark rooms on unsteady cloven hooves. Throbbing pain danced through his shoulders. Whatever spell the Mystrawoman had used on him, he dared not taste it again.
When he tried to change shape, it felt as if he were sliding through soft mud. The world grew faint and dim. He could not tell where his limbs were, or how they’d obeyed his shaping. Yes, he dare not wade into one of those spells again.
With an arm that was partly a tentacle, he shouldered through a doorway, and found himself looking into the startled face of a guard. An old man with a mustache, who was opening his mouth to shout—
The shapechanger closed it for him forever, stabbing savagely with the crab-claw he’d managed to grow on what was left of his right wing. The guard wasn’t expecting an extra arm to be there. With his face torn off, he wouldn’t be expecting anything ever again.
The shapechanger slammed the body brutally and repeatedly into the wall, listening to bones shatter. He thought about where to go now. Someplace to rest. Someplace safe, to mend.…
For what seemed a long time, he cowered in the darkness of the Haunted Tower. At last, his body obeyed him again, flesh flowing and shifting with its old ease. The stabbing pains were gone, but his feet and shoulders still ached. Damn that woman! She’d seemed such an overconfident, overkind idiot, too.…
Not like that cold-as-a-blade dowager, who … well, now: Pheirauze Summerstar! Well, why not?
He grew eyes that gleamed in the dark. He shrugged and became the black, sleek body of a panther. Looking around once, the great cat stretched, sniffed the air, and padded off into the keep, seeking a certain bedchamber.
* * * * *
“That will be all, Narlargus,” the Dowager Lady Pheirauze murmured, the crack of command surfacing once more in her voice.
The old servant bent his lips to kiss her hand—a gesture he knew she loved. As he rose from the bed, he kept his eyes downcast. Daring to survey her as she lay at ease among the candles, with their light dancing over her jewelry, would earn him a whipping.
Catching up his robe from the floor, he bowed low and backed away from the bed. Surprisingly, she spoke again when his hand fell upon the door ring.
“My thanks, Narlargus.”
He froze, but no more words came. After a moment, he turned. She’d never bothered to thank him before.
Still keeping his head down, the old servant knelt, touched his forehead to the floor, and then rose and withdrew, closing the door carefully—and very softly—behind him.
Pheirauze felt something like regret as she heard the door settle into place for what would undoubtedly be the last time. She would miss those long sessions with her loyal dresser—even if it had been years since they’d loved the night through to watch the sun come up, when she’d used a candle flame to burn her mark on his thigh.
But if there was one thing the cruel gods had taught her in her long life, it was that all things, however precious, must pass away.
She stretched among the candles, and raised her eyes to regard the cat-headed man who stood silently in the shadows. Narlargus had not even noticed him, but Pheirauze had felt the feline gaze upon her. The cat head turned swiftly to regard the now-closed door, and then bac
k to meet her gaze once more.
“I know who you must be,” she calmly told the silent shapechanger. “And what you’ve come for. If I promise I’ll not scream, or plead, or fight, or raise any alarm, will you tell me what you hope to gain by my death?”
“I hope to learn from you where old gold lies hidden,” the voice out of the shadows came smoothly. “The wealth of the Summerstars. Yet I confess that I am here now, when it seems that I face true battles ahead, to gain the wits and drive and cunning I see in Pheirauze Summerstar.”
“It is almost all I have left,” she replied calmly, watching those cat eyes roam up and down her still-beautiful body. “Almost.”
He lifted an eyebrow that no cat would have possessed. “You do not fear me?”
She lifted her smooth shoulders in a shrug and said, “A little. But I fear a slow, lingering death more.” She spread her hands in welcome, gestured up and down at herself, and added, “Come. I’ve been expecting you—and if I can’t run from you, perhaps I can live on in you. My hips and shoulders pain me almost constantly, now, and my hearing on the left side is almost gone. I want to feel youth and vigor once more. So come to me now. Slay me—but let it be slow, so that I can teach you of what I wield before I’m gone. You won’t be sorry you did.”
“Can I trust you?” the cat-headed man asked, rough wonder in his voice.
“The bellpull is there,” Pheirauze told him, her eyes very large and dark. “Loop it up out of my reach if you prefer. Behind yon hanging you’ll find a bar to keep the door closed. There are two concealed ways into this room, and the doors to both are locked.” With one finger, she lifted a swirl-shaped golden pendant from her breast. “Their keys—the only keys—are here.”
Warily, the cat-headed man took a step forward, his eyes darting about the room. Slowly he grew a tentacle and reached for the bellpull, and two more to seek out the door bar; Pheirauze watched in fascination, swallowing once.
“Does any magic await me?” he asked softly, gesturing with one circle of a tentacle at the bed. The bellpull rose up to the ornate canopy above her bed, and the bar settled into its sockets.