Stormlight

EIGHT

The pain drove her back to wakefulness-raw, shattering pain. Tears glimmered in Storm's lashes as she tried to see past the rock that had crushed her chest. Every breath was a searing, tearing agony of bubbling froth and grating ends of bone. Her back was broken, and her right leg seemed to be either missing or shattered to rubbery nothing just above her knee.

Into every life, a little pain must fall…By the gods, fall was right. She'd had a bad one.

Patiently, Storm called on the fire within her-rising, cool, cleansing, divine fire of Mystra. She sent it flowing into places where pain throbbed, or stabbed … or where she felt nothing at all.

The fire went where she bid, rushing into crushed and mangled places. The sudden, sharp jabs of agony made her hiss bloody huffs of breath, shouts such as an angry, wounded badger might make.

She smiled at the thought, her eyes dark with pain. From just beyond the crushing rock, Maxer-or something that wore Maxer's face-grinned back at her. Seeing that face hurt most of all. Tears blinded her.

"Not quite dead yet?" It-no, he; the manner as well as the voice were male-laughed, and said, "An oversight easily corrected. Give me a kiss for old times' sake, Beloved."

With those mocking words, the face of her dead lover leaned down over hers … giving her the revulsion and anger she needed.

Storm blinked back tears and glared up at it. "You're not my Maxer. Your charade disgusts me, whoever you are. Such tricks won't make me lower my guard."

That brought on a real laugh. "Lower your guard? Why bother when you're smashed like a hurled egg? Oh, that's rare!"

The false face of the man she'd loved so much, and missed so terribly, mastered its mirth and leaned close again to whisper, "Your back is broken, isn't it? Who'd have thought kicking a wedge away from a few blocks of stone would destroy one of the legends of Faerun? You're going to die, my pretty one. . and I'll feed on all you have been, and all you would have been. Just as soon as you're weak enough…."

Storm closed her eyes, shuddering as fresh agonies blazed out within her. Boast and taunt just a little longer, shapeshifter. Give me the time I need to grow whole again … and then strong once more. …

"Ah, but you still hope for a rescue, I see," the murderer said. "You Chosen have always been so arrogant, so secure in your power-and so unused to hiding that triumph in your eyes. I saw that look!"

Brutal hands rocked the stone atop her chest, forcing half-knit bones to grind and turn in their sockets. Storm shrieked in torment, tears bursting from her eyes and blood from her nose and mouth.

Cold laughter rolled around her again as the stone rocked back and forth, back and forth. The false face leaned close over her again.

"Dying yet? Not quite? No? Time for a little more fun, then!"

As the stone jostled more violently, Storm gasped, opened her eyes, and flexed the fingers she'd need. They moved slowly, still numb, but-well, they'd have to do.

She waited, gathering her will. As that face bent over her again-and actually opened its jaws to bite her! — she whispered the phrase that unleashed her Galkyn's bolt spell. Silver fire leapt within her as the magic surged forth.

At this range, she could not miss. The shapeshifter was lifted off his feet, squalling. Magic thundered into him, tore open his front, and rushed down his body and out his nether end.

Storm watched him crash against the far wall of the rock-filled pit. With more satisfaction than she'd felt in the fall of a foe for quite some time, she called again on the silver fire.

It roiled and cascaded within her. She set her teeth and pushed with all the strength she had. Tears came, but the stone block atop her stayed where it was.

She sank back with a groan, lips trembling. Perhaps the stubborn immobility of the stone was a good thing. Sudden shouts came from overhead, and a rock whistled down into the pit, cracking off the wall just beside the shapeshifter's head.

The murderer ducked away-straight into the path of another slung stone. He reeled, gasped out a curse, and crawled toward the rocks that lay atop Storm, seeking their shelter.

Storm heard a barked command, and almost smiled. The pursuing Purple Dragons must have found the pit and decided this stranger was the murderer. They were busily employing their slings right now-and buying her the time she needed.

The murderer must have thought so too. He snarled another curse, cast a spell, and soared up out of sight.

Storm bent all her will to healing herself, gasping and shuddering in agony as limb after limb jittered and ballooned back to its proper shape, shifting the massive blocks of stone. She'd not have much more time….

The first armsman made a short, despairing cry as he pitched down. Close above Storm, he struck the wall with a wet, pulpy sound, and said no more; his limbs convulsed once or twice after his body landed on the rocks and slithered down their far side.

Storm drew in her breath, thankful for the small mercy of the corpse's location, and found the strength at last to shift the stone atop her. She expanded her lungs and begin to heal them and the splintered mess that was her rib cage. The expected second Purple Dragon corpse fell limp and silent, his neck already broken, and crashed down hard on the upraised edge of her stone.

The impact made her gasp in fresh agony-but the stone rolled slowly away from her, crushing the armsman with sounds both brittle and wet. Storm shuddered, but dared spare no time for sorrow or revulsion … her foe would be back for her soon enough.

A third guardsman fell into the pit, roaring out his despair. Storm was still too weak and pain-racked to do anything to save him. He fell at her feet, smashed on the rocks, and stared at her beseechingly before his eyes grew dull and distant. In an ear that could no longer hear, Storm whispered, "You shall be avenged." She bent over the man to draw forth his sword. By the smiling mercy of the gods, it was unbroken.

Not so the dagger-but the man had a second one in his boot. Storm was fumbling it forth when another armsman crashed down beside her, limbs jerking in agonized spasms.

A familiar form jumped up from a crouched landing on the soldier's gut.

"On our feet so soon? My, but Mystra must love you!" the man who was not Maxer said merrily.

Storm pounced, her borrowed blade flashing. "I'd love the world around me just a trifle more if it held just a few less meddling Malaugrym!" she snarled, thrusting. Her steel caught in cloth that tore as her foe twisted away. He was as fast as she, maybe faster.

A dodge, a duck, and they were both sure of that. He was fast enough not only to leap clear of her seeking steel-but to mutter out a spell.

Luckily for Storm, the pit was full of loose stones. There was a sliding and clicking of rubble behind her as the big stone that had crushed her once-a boulder as tall as a troll-lifted into the air under the bidding of her foe's magic. She spun around as it rose. The shattered body of a Purple Dragon peeled limply away from it.

"There are far greater powers in the worlds than that clan of proud, self-important feuding fools," he said mockingly from behind her. The stone thundered down.

Without looking, Storm thrust viciously behind her at that voice. She spat out silver fire at the stony death above her. The blood-smeared boulder shattered into a thousand shards.

"Such as?" she snarled, and spun around. Her blade touched nothing but air.

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 sphere 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 Faerun 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.