Stormlight h-14

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Stormlight h-14 Page 15

by Ed Greenwood


  OVERCOME, I SAID. STORM SILVERHAND MUST DIE ONLY BY MY HAND, AT A TIME WHEN I'M READY TO TAKE HER POWERS.

  Why? Her mind-voice was small and miserable.

  SO THAT I CAN BECOME A GOD he replied matter-of-factly.

  On her way back to her bed, Shayna stopped in mid-stride and began to shiver uncontrollably.

  When the war hound trotted down the hall, paws clicking on the stones, one of the guards knelt and said, "What're you doing here, boy? You should be back at-"

  He reached out to scratch its head, but the blade of a drawn sword reached past his hand to hover in front of the dog's nose. "You heard him, Tith," his fellow guard said almost regretfully. Trust no one, he said… and why would a hound be wandering around up here, anyway? Begone, you, or-"

  The dog growled and sprang back, away from his blade-but it left two tentacles behind, lashing out at the ankles of both guards.

  They cursed, slashed vainly, and fell hard on their behinds. The dog that was not a dog swarmed in over them, taking their frantic thrusts through its shoulders as it stretched out two sets of impossibly long jaws and bit their faces off. The blood of three beings mingled together on the floor for an instant before fires rose from the bodies.

  The dog reared up among the blazing bones and became manlike … a dog-headed man with two thin, hooked blades of bone where its hands should have been. It thrust them between the doors, and sharply up, lifting the door bar. Then the blades of bone slowly lengthened, moving the bar away from the door so that it could be swung open.

  A third hand grew from the belly of the thing that was not a man, and did just that, revealing the bed beyond. Standing on it, eyes red-rimmed and unshaven jowls set grimly, was the boldshield of Northtrees March, with a loaded crossbow in his hands. It snapped.

  The quarrel thrummed across the room, plucked the dog-headed man off his feet, and drove him hard against the far wall of the passage.

  "Come on," Ergluth Rowanmantle told it, dropping his bow and unsheathing his sword. "You want me? Come in and get me!"

  But the eyes that met his were as dark and knowing as the old Summerstar matriarch's had been. The shapeshifting thing let his flesh melt and flow until the crossbow quarrel fell out. He favored Ergluth with a wide-fanged and mirthless smile, and vanished down the hallway.

  The white-faced boldshield hissed a heartfelt curse. Somehow it knew he dared not leave the bed, and the protection of the magic shield he'd raised there. The shieldstone was a Rowanmantle family secret only his oldest, most loyal armsmen had known about, and both of them … had been on guard outside his door.

  Ergluth Rowanmantle looked out at blackened bones and cursed again, not caring if he raised echoes this time. How was he ever going to get to sleep after this?

  Highsun came and went, and the four guards grew restive.

  "Gods, but I'm hungry," one of them growled. His stomach added a wordless roar of agreement. His companions smiled ruefully.

  "It won't be empty bellies we'll have to worry about," one of them said, "if he comes back and finds us gone from our posts. It'll be our throats-after our backsides do a dance or two with the lash."

  There were weary murmurs of agreement.

  A quietly amused voice from behind them asked, "What if I go with you to the kitchens? Will he lash my behind, too?"

  The armsmen whirled around. Storm Silverhand was sitting up in bed, her wards dissolving around her in twinkling, drifting motes of light.

  "Beg pardon, lady," one of the Purple Dragons began hastily, "but-"

  She raised a hand. "None necessary. I've had sleep, and now food is my need. Stand clear now; I'm going to do something with magic that I don't want you to get caught in."

  She watched them back warily away, closed her eyes, and felt for the rushing stream of silver fire. Yes! As she'd thought, it couldn't restore spells she'd cast. . but if she diverted just a touch of it, for just a moment, it could duplicate a spell she was still carrying, if her mind could hold the extra load. She might be no great realms-shaker as a mage, but one thing all Chosen of Mystra had were minds that could carry heavy loads. They learned to, or soon went insane. Hmmph; perhaps the less thought along that line, the better….

  "Done! Thank you, Mystra," she murmured aloud, watching silver fire that only she could see swirling around her. Now to do it again….

  She'd already decided she'd need one for Ergluth Rowanmantle's room, another for the wizards' study, and a third for Shayna Summerstar's bedchamber. The heir of House Summerstar was the most important being to protect in this place, after all-even if the boldshield was the most useful. She called on the fire to make herself a third watchful eye, leapt off the bed, and snatched up her boots.

  "Food!" she bellowed, "and then your commander, to release you from your orders while you still have strength to yawn."

  Good-natured chuckles answered her. The guards drew in protectively around her as she hauled on tunic, sword belt, boots, and gloves once more, and set forth.

  In the passage outside, they stumbled across signs of fresh carnage. Stumbled across, literally; the smoking, headless bodies of two sprawled Purple Dragons, limbs twisted in agony, lay underfoot as Storm stepped out of the bedchamber. No one chuckled after that.

  "This keep has become a battlefield!" Corathar snarled, eyes large with fright. "We dare not step outside without an armed escort and all our spells ready, for fear this shapeshifter could be anywhere!"

  Insprin Turnstone shrugged. "Our duty to the Crown is clear; we must do whatever we can to destroy this murderer. See to your spells, and let us all be glad there's but one monster, and not an invading army of them!"

  "Are your veins full of ice?" Corathar snarled, voice rising in horror. "Don't you know what I'm saying? Death waits for us in the jakes, in our beds, at any step we take in the passages-everywhere! — and all you can do is-"

  "Enough, Corathar," Broglan Sarmyn said severely, coming out of his sleeping-chamber with an old, brass-bound grimoire in his hand. "Fear is as deadly a weapon as a foe's spell or blade, Resist it, as Insprin does, by keeping your mind on what must be done." He sat down, reached for the decanter and a glass, and added, "Speaking of which-"

  He broke off as there came a rap upon the door. All three mages caught up their wands, and Broglan called, "Yes?"

  The door opened a cautious handspan, and a Purple Dragon they knew said, "The Lady Storm Silverhand to see you, gentlesirs."

  "Oh?" Broglan exchanged wary glances with the others, and gestured at them to stand on either side of the door, well back. "Show her in."

  The door opened wide. He could see six Purple Dragons outside. Out of their midst stepped the silver-haired Harper, clad as if to go hunting in the forest. She gave him a calm nod as she stepped into the room, hands spread wide and empty.

  "Well met, Broglan," Storm said. Without pause, she turned to look at the two mages on either side of her, and repeated her grave greeting, naming them both.

  Three sets of eyes narrowed. "How do we know," Broglan asked slowly, setting down his glass untasted, "that you are truly the Bard of Shadowdale-and not some deadly shapeshifter?"

  Storm shrugged. "You don't. On the other hand, I doubt our deadly shapeshifter would know just where I promised to scratch old Vangey when next we met-do you recall?"

  "Yes," Broglan said with a sigh. "Forgive my ill manners, Lady; pray sit down. The doors, Insprin?"

  "I'll gladly sit and chat in a moment, Sir Broglan," the lady bard told him, "but there is a casting I must do first." And without further ado, she raised her hands and made a complex series of passes in the air, murmuring words the wizards could not quite hear.

  Broglan flushed in anger, and opened his mouth to protest-but she was done, and smiling sweetly at him. He shrugged, reached for his glass, and said in acid tones, "I suppose you'll get around to telling me just what you've done when you have, say, some idle hours?"

  Storm chuckled. "You war wizards certainly lack for fun," she told
him merrily. "All this grim silence and snapped orders, and keeping your laundry lists deathly secret! Aren't you even going to offer a lady a drink?"

  The worried-looking senior war wizard sighed. "On one condition, Lady Storm: that you drop this giggling maiden act. I'd appreciate the teasing more if I wasn't scared witless, and facing the first truly important threat to the realm that I've seen in years. Treat us as equals."

  "Will you in turn accept the authority Lord Vangerdahast gave me over you?" Storm asked quietly, meeting his eyes.

  Broglan sighed again, and then said quietly, "Lady, I will. Corathar? Insprin?"

  "We will," they said in rough chorus.

  "Then let us drink to seal it," Storm said, extending her hand.

  "There's only the one glass," Broglan protested.

  "So fill it, and we'll share," Storm told him crisply. "The spell I just cast here is called a 'watchful eye.' Like a magic mouth spell, it is triggered by certain conditions-in this case, by any attack in this room that unleashes fire or draws blood, or by entry into this room through any way but the doors I know of. I'll write down the word of activation for you; don't speak it aloud until you really need to."

  "What does uttering the word bring?" Insprin asked from close behind her.

  "The spell creates sound and moving images of what befell in its area of effect when it was triggered-hopefully showing us just what was said and done after an attack occurred."

  "So the survivor can see who killed the rest of us," Corathar said sarcastically.

  "Corathar!" Broglan snapped angrily, but Storm held up her hand.

  "A fair reaction," the lady bard said quietly, "being as you've given this mage under you no comfort." She sipped from the glass Broglan was holding and then offered it to Corathar.

  "Drink, sir," she said quietly, "and know this: giving in to fear doesn't help. Let it keep you awake, and wary, and thinking, yes … but don't let it master you. Watch old Insprin, instead of envying and hating him; he knows this."

  Corathar's eyes blazed, but he sipped from the cup carefully, and then passed it to Insprin, who murmured in mock-quavering tones, "Eh, Storm! Not so much of the 'old,' hear ye?"

  It was just the right thing to say; they all burst into sputtering laughter, and rocked together in shared mirth for a moment.

  Broglan took back his glass before the last of the wine got spilled. "We know we face a shapeshifter-something called a Malaugrym, Lord Vangerdahast ventured-so what will seeing a shape assumed by this killer tell us? Why set the spell?"

  It was Storm's turn to sigh. "My magic is little better than yours, gentlesirs; not all who serve Mystra can rend mountaintops. I can't bring this foe to stand and fight, so I'm trying to learn all I can of him." She shrugged. "He seems able to shapeshift at will… so I'd like to catch a few more of his shapes."

  "Are you sure it's a 'he'?" Broglan asked quietly.

  Storm frowned, and then sprang up, almost bowling Corathar over. "Mystra aid my wits!"

  She was across the room in two strides, snatching the door open, and snarling, "Shayna!"

  Behind her, as the three war wizards stared in astonishment at the racing bard, the air shimmered slightly as the watchful eye spell activated.

  A secret panel slid aside in the ceiling above the table where Broglan sat, and three glossy black tentacles reached down for the wizards. Each eely intrusion ended in a bony joint from which three human forearms sprouted. Behind each tentacle came a many-fanged mouth, surrounded by a nimbus of purple light. The hands reached for the necks of the mages, but the mouths opened in silent eagerness as they drew near the tops of the wizards' heads.

  Corathar saw the monster first, and screamed.

  "A Sharn!" Insprin said in awe, as he looked up and triggered his wand. Magical bolts burst from it in blue-white pulses, curving to follow those reaching arms.

  Corathar screamed again and triggered his own wand.

  Broglan dived for the floor as fast and as frantically as he'd ever done anything in his life….

  ELEVEN

  The Tapestry Torn

  Magical radiances flashed and spat as Broglan rolled over and over in frantic haste, terrified the beast would fall on him. Blue-white magic missiles streaked overhead and tore into the glossy black monster. Corathar was shouting at the thing in wordless, furious fear, and there were answering, startled shouts from the corridor outside as Purple Dragons came running. The armsmen couldn't get to the monster protruding from the ceiling without hacking through the finest war wizards ever to come to Firefall Vale. Grimly, Broglan found his feet and his own wand. They were going to have to do this themselves.

  Insprin was backed against a wall, calmly emptying his wand into the beast. The black hands reaching for him recoiled and convulsed in an endless dance of pain.

  Corathar was producing more noise than damage, firing his wand wildly as he dodged and fled from relentless clutching hands. Only frantic struggles had kept him alive this long; his robes were already torn away at both shoulders.

  Broglan sighed inwardly and abandoned the young mage to whatever fate the gods had in store for him. Blasting down this beast was more important. His own wand pulsed in his grasp as he made it roar forth deadly fire.

  Glossy black arms shrank away. Drooling jaws snapped and snarled in retreat. All three wands were firing now, and the purple radiance around the sharn was gone, seared away by the raw fury of the magic hurled against it.

  Then the hole in the ceiling was suddenly empty. The thing had fled. Broglan shouted for a halt, and let his hands fall to his sides. He quickly discovered how violently his hands were trembling.

  The blazing pain was behind him, and he could think again. The glossy black blob hissed out agony from mouths that drooped and flowed back into it as it grew thinner … and taller … and became a man again.

  The shapeshifter panted slightly in remembered pain as he stood in the cool, dark places of the Haunted Tower, idly watching a spectral gowned form glide past. An eerie chord of wild, high harp music echoed briefly through the empty room behind him, but he did not flinch or turn; he feared no phantom-nor armed mortal, for that matter. Prudence sometimes forced retreat upon every mortal.

  The folk of Firefall knew about him now and walked the halls ready for battle. Firefall Keep was becoming a fortress armed against him. It was time to find some magic and gain the upper hand again.

  From Pheirauze, he'd learned how pitifully few enchanted items of consequence the Summerstars owned. A few light globes, a healing hand that Athlan had hidden away somewhere, a brazier that needed no fuel. . little that could readily serve in a battle. He needed more-something that could blast hands and feet off an arrogant Chosen of Mystra and leave her helpless to his subsumption.

  The Summerstars might have all too little magic, but the place to find items of power in Cormyr-away from the palace, with its alert guards and war wizards-was in the hands of nobles. And the greatest concentration of nobility. . moreover, the place of most danger to them, and where they might most need to impress or coerce others … was the grand city of Suzail.

  He'd best give this persistent servant of Mystra the slip and go hunting nobles. She'd dare not raise a general alarm in the kingdom, or the panic might bring on war between neighbors all over the realm. He'd have a little time while war wizards scurried here and there, trying to keep secrets. Yes..

  He laughed aloud in the empty, echoing darkness and became a war hound again, padding across the cold stone with paws that still trembled from the ravages of those searing wands. Well, that would pass soon enough.

  By now, they'd suspect any beast flying over the battlements or slipping past gate-guards. The sluice gate below the kitchens, where refuse and garderobe washouts went down a long pipe to the midden by the barns, was the wisest route.

  Unseen, he found the dumping room, became a water-snake, and slid into the unpleasant liquid. It would be the work of only a few moments to-

  Gods! There was a
sudden flare of silver fire in the sludge around him; he thrashed in helpless pain as it raged, burning away scales and flesh beneath.

  He struggled on, but the flames rose up with an earnest roar, and flesh melted before them. Gasping, he turned quickly, before it was too late. Pain rode him and clawed at him as he wriggled frantically back up the pipe, out of reach of the flames.

  Had the Harper bitch seen him? Or had she merely cast a spell on the pipe to wait for anyone trying to travel it?

  He waited a long time, mastering the pain and rebuilding his body where it was torn and melted. He was lessened, but he could do nothing about that. Nothing save go back into the keep … and feed.

  First a test had to be made. Slowly and cautiously he descended the pipe again, growing a long, slender tentacle to probe ahead. All too soon it met with the familiar flare of silver flame.

  He drew back hastily and departed, becoming a hound again … a wet hound with a tentacle coiled under the dripping fur of its belly. He found the nearest window and stretched the tentacle west toward the heart of Cormyr-a tentacle that soon felt the searing kiss of flame once more. He was walled into the keep by a barrier of goddess-fire!

  The shapeshifter growled. He heard a nearby scullery-maid call out to another about hearing a dog, and left hastily, seeking a chamber with rugs to dry his paws on.

  When he had done so, his half-hidden tentacle sported a human hand that could open doors. He went on, seeking a room where he could be alone.

  Halfway up a curving stone stair, Storm Silverhand sagged against the wall, gasping, her face a sheet of running sweat.

  "Mystra preserve me!" she panted, wiping at her brow with the back of a glove.

  If she was going to be battered so each time the foe tested the barrier, he might kill her just by going around the keep trying to force his way out! She mustn't let him know how thrusts against the sphere hurt her….

  Clenching her teeth, Storm pushed herself away from the wall and went on, climbing the steps like an old woman. Her legs were weak and unsteady. She tried to act as if she were merely idling her way up the stair, deep in thought, but she could not hide her pale face or the sweat that still coursed down it, dripping from her nose and chin.

 

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