Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [100]
Slowly she sank back to earth again, shuddering amid the last crackling, spitting eruptions of flame.
"Believe it or not," she gasped, turning to face him with eyes that blazed with spellfire, "I'd noticed you crashing along, down below. Oh, gods, Narm, I love you!"
Narm reached up his hands for her. "And I love you, Shan!"
"Do you?" She shuddered, hunching over in midair and spitting forth flames as if vomiting up a sickening meal. "Still?"
"Yes, my lady," Narm cried, catching hold of one of her feet despite a surge of power that burned, then numbed him. "Oh, yes!"
"Then end this," she whispered. "Please."
Narm dragged her down to the ground and embraced her, bending forward to kiss her, then recoiling helplessly before her skin-searing breath.
"W-what d'you mean?" he cried, as he staggered back, wreathed in flame, and saw his lady fall to her hands and knees, arching and convulsing. "Shan, I'll not harm you!"
The look she gave him up through her tangled hair was that of an angry, hungry beast, but her voice was all weariness when she said, "Then knock me cold.
Give me sleep – swiftly, with your fist – before I lose this battle raging inside me."
He ran to her. "Shan? What… what's happening to you?"
"I'm dying," she whispered. "Or will" – her voice rose into an angry snarl – "if I give in to this fire. It feels so warm, so soothing… and gives me such power. I want it. I want it so much!"
She quivered, head down, and he flinched back from her, inches away from putting soothing fingers to her shoulders.
"If I give in," she growled, "if I stop fighting, I'll become a flying flame, scouring everything I see like some sort of mad, leaping star come down to the ground… until I'm burnt out and gone." She sobbed harshly, then added in a hoarse, hissing whisper,
"Gone to ashes, like all the folk I've slain!"
Her head jerked up, then, and her face was aflame and twisted. She looked like a fiend out of the Nine Hells as she stared at him and growled, "Do it, Narm! Do it, my love!"
Narm stared at her, clenched his hand slowly into a fist, and held it out to her questioningly. She nodded, lowering her face again, and snarled, "Damn you, do it!"
A roar built in her throat, and her body shook again.
In sudden fear Narm drew back his arm and drove it forward, punching his lady's jaw as hard as he'd ever struck anyone in his life..
The force of his blow brought sharp pain to his fingers, then numbness. He shook them, absently, as he watched his lady's head snap back, the fires go out in her eyes, and her body start to crumple.
He grabbed for her too late, as her senseless body fell forward into a boneless roll that brought her to a stop against him, limp and heavy.
"Gods above," he cursed – or prayed – and started to cry. "Oh, Shan, Shan… what am I going to do?"
Only the first few peeping insects of nightfall gave him answer, and Narm cradled his wife's body in his arms, stroking her matted and sweat-soaked hair, wondering what was going to become of them both.
If only he had the spells of an archmage or spellfire to match her own – or neither of them had ever heard of Mystra's terrible gift, and no one was chasing them across half Faerun seeking to enslave Shan or somehow wrest her power out of her. No doubt the Zhentarim and a score of other fell, cruel wizards had spells that would slay her in slow torment as crawling magic tore spellfire out of her and into their hands. Even if they didn't, they'd lock her up until they could find or craft such spells – or slay her, just to keep spellfire from falling into the hands of their foes.
And there was nothing – nothing – he could do about it. Perhaps, given years of unbroken study under a kind and capable master, he could become a mage of serviceable power – no meteor of mighty magic, but a careful caster of spells in some upcountry village where