All Shadows Fled - Ed Greenwood [116]
Luthtor sat very still, his eyes suddenly older and sadder than they had been. When he spoke, his voice was deeper and rougher than before. "Well played, li-"
Suddenly the scene before them melted away into swirling mists of gold and gray, and left the two Malaugrym staring at the fetid insides of a dungeon.
"By the blood of Malaug!" Argast snarled, "is every spell you cast going to twist wild?"
Amdramnar shrugged. "I've another." He strode across the cavern and muttered an incantation, raising his hands to trace intricate gestures. The golden mists returned. They swirled around him for a moment-and then turned into bunches of grapes and fell.
Argast watched the fruit splatter on the stone floor and cast a quick look behind him. The torch in its sconce blazed as before, and there was no watching helmed head nor shout of alarm. They were alone in the dungeons of the tower, on the worst guard duty one could draw… unless one were really a Malaugrym, and wanted a little privacy for some spell-casting.
That is, if any spell would work. Amdramnar looked up from the grapes and muttered, "We don't have time to study that spell again-half their talkingll be done before we're ready."
Argast growled in slow anger, and said, "Then it's time for you to take the shape of two guards for a while."
Amdramnar lifted a questioning eyebrow. His fellow Malaugrym was already blurring and dwindling… until a rat blinked at him, winked once, and then turned to dash away into the darkness.
Amdramnar sighed, sat down, and stretched into the semblance of two bored guards sitting together on a crate, down here in the storage cavern. He arranged weapons and armor to conceal the place at the thighs where the two bodies were joined, and settled down to wait, hoping Argast wasn't making a fatal mistake.
A Gathering in Shadowdale
From the dungeons, old and dusty rat holes led up to the pantry. In the confusion of all the cooks and scullery maids working in frantic haste and doors everywhere propped open to keep the heat down, the rat was able to streak through the kitchens and outside. The yard behind the tower was crowded with youngsters peeling potatoes and carting away greens, but no one noticed a rodent scuttling around the corner, into the tall grass.
In a trice, the rat became a pigeon, and ascended hi a flutter of wings to an open tower window.
The casement gave in to the end of a hall lined with tapestries, paintings, and closed doors. At the far end of the corridor, where it opened out into a meeting with other passages, daylight gleamed on the armor of a tower guard. The guard turned his head as the pigeon's wings blocked the sunlight, but Argast hastily landed on the windowsill. The guard gave the pigeon a glance, then looked away again.
It was sheer mischance that he yawned and looked back down the hall as the pigeon was rising up into a man.
"Hold!" the guard bellowed, leveling his spear as he broke into a charge.
Argast snarled in disgust and ducked behind the nearest tapestry, shifting shape as fast as he could.
All too soon a spear point thrust through the hanging, its point skittering along the stone wall-but the Malaugrym had shrunk down into a wadded mass by the floor to watch the spear strike sparks overhead. He surged upright as it withdrew. As he'd expected, it reappeared more cautiously, drawing the hanging aside. By then he was ready.
The guard found himself blinking at a buxom, very bare female… the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. He swallowed as she smiled at him, and blinked again as she held out her arms, beckoning…
An inconspicuous taloned tentacle that had snaked across the floor rose up behind his head, reached around, and tore his face off.
Argast stared down at the twisted, blood-spattered body, satisfied the death had made little noise. But what now? If he posed as the guard, he'd be attacked if he left his post and was seen listening at doors… and this body would be found soon enough. He positioned it against the wall behind