Hand of Fire - Ed Greenwood [138]
Explosions rumbled far below, and ravaged stone screamed like a man in anguish. A chasm opened in the rippling floor between the two wizards.
Stone fell away with a rush and a roar. Hesperdan and Eirhaun the Maimed stared at each other across the gulf as rooms fell away beneath them, one after another, crashing down into the dust and screams below.
"Oh, dear," Hesperdan remarked mildly. "I do believe your stronghold is collapsing."
The Maimed gathered the spell around him that would whisk him away and replied menacingly, "We will meet again, Old Man."
Hesperdan smiled again. "Indeed. I'm counting on it."
He vanished an instant after his longtime foe – but just before the shattered floor he'd been standing on cracked and fell away with a roar.
Shandril went to her knees as she wept, spellfire raining down with her tears. More spellflames raced along her arms to roll away into the night. "Oh, Mystra, aid me!" she cried.
"Shan?" a voice as grief-ridden as her own asked her, from very close by. "Is there anything I can do?"
Asper was also on her knees, facing Shan across smoking ash from about an arms length away.
Shandril stared at her in horror.
"Get away!" she snarled. "Go from here before I burn you, too!"
"No," Asper told her, her face white with fear but her voice firm. "My Mirt lies wounded behind me.
I'll not leave him. I'm his only shield against – oh, Shan – against spellfire!"
Shandril burst into fresh tears, shook her head, got up, and fled blindly into the night.
Men cowering amid the smoke watched her go, a stumbling, sobbing figure wreathed in flames, who left blazing footprints behind her.
She stopped atop a bare knob of rock on the edge of camp, and there turned, tears glimmering in her eyes and splashing in flames to the rocks below. On a curl of spellfire like dragons' breath her voice rolled softly back to Asper: "Farewell!"
Asper stood up and reached out to her. "Shan, no!"
"No?" Shandril cried wildly. "I've killed Narm! My man is gone, dead by my hand! Dead by this cursed spellfire that feels so good!" She shook her head, flames swirling in her hair, and sobbed bitterly.
"Beldimarr too, and the Lady Laeral, and dozens more! I slaughtered them all! Everywhere I go, people die – and still wizards keep trying to get their hands on this fire inside me! One day they might succeed in taking it – and what then? Shandril Shessair causes the rest of Faerun be swept away?"
"Shandril, 'tis not your fault!" Asper cried, taking a few reluctant steps closer.
"Nay? I say it is," Shandril howled, her eyes two flames. "And I am done with slaying, done with fear and running and fighting, done with it all!"
She threw back her head and told the stars, "Gorstag, forgive me… Mystra, take me!"
Drawing in a deep breath, she gave Asper a little wave and a half-smile, and went to one knee.
Propping both elbows on her raised knee, she put her fingers in her mouth – and fed herself spellfire.
There was a. moment of silence, then a trembling – a shuddering of earth and air and blood pounding in the ears that began as a sound so low it shook bones rather than being heard, but built swiftly to a din greater than any dragon might make.
No one could stand or wage war or be heard in that trembling tumult. All over that bloody field men fell, tumbling helplessly, and lightning snarled out from the lone lass on the rock, playing like restless blue snakes from blade to shield and back again, until men threw away their swords or tore off their armor, to lie wincing, cowering, and wondering when they would die. Asper fell, tried to get up again, and found herself once more on the ground, one shoulder to the scorched earth. She kept her eyes on Shandril all the while, and it was as she was rolling over onto her stomach again that she saw the maid from Highmoon rise up into the air, trembling in the thrall of the furious white stream of spellfire leaking from her mouth to roil around her as she went on feeding