Realms of the Arcane - Brian M. Thomsen [63]
And as the serpent sprang from his hand, Aerindel found that she had no spells left. Clapping her hands protectively over eyes that streamed tears of rage and despair, she snarled a certain word.
On the wall beside the shattered window, the Storm-staff flashed into life-and lightning lashed forth like great tentacles to encircle the Thentan intruder, and drag him up into the air.
Even as he struggled in the grip of its awesome energies and the white fire of its fury burst forth from his skin, Rammast smiled down at her. "So that is how paltry your spells are-and those are the words that awaken your father's staff. My thanks, Aerindel. You've been most helpful-if far more feeble a foe than I thought. Don't bother taking your own life; I shall merely bring you back from death to serve me."
The lightning was beginning to tear him apart now, but the lord of Grand Thentor showed no pain as he added, "You could fix your hair and change your gown, though. I will come for you."
And then, with a last sneering smile, his false body faded away, leaving her lightning nothing to ravage.
The Lady of Dusklake sent the lightning racing out over the lake before it could do any harm to the hall or any of her folk, and then went to her knees and wept for a long time in the shattered chamber.
When she could weep no more, Aerindel fell silent and threw herself full-length onto the floor. Lying with the smooth stone cold and hard against one cheek, she murmured the words that would bring the comforting length of the Stormstaff into her hands.
It flew to her, and she clutched it like a drowning sailor clings to a spar as she went down into haunted darkness…
* * * * *
"L-Lady? Lady Aerindel?" one of the chambermaids called tentatively.
The lady who lay curled up like a child moved her head and murmured something.
"Lady Aerindel? Great Lady… are you well?"
Abruptly the wild-haired figure in the tattered black gown sat upright and stared into the moonlight. The staff in her hands thrummed once, and tugged at her grasp.
Aerindel screamed in anguish. Rammast must be calling it from afar!
It was her last weapon… her last hope. The staff moaned and wrenched at her numbed fingers again, and Aerindel came to her feet with another raw scream, wrapping herself around it.
She stood panting in the pitiless moonlight, staring around the ruined hall and wondering just what she could do against the ruthless Lord of Grand Thentor. The staff snarled against her bosom again, and Aerindel snarled back at it in frustration.
In the brief silence that followed, she heard the frightened sobs of the fleeing chambermaid echoing back to her down one of the kitchen passages, and drew in a long, shuddering breath.
She had fought, and been overmastered with contemptuous ease. There were no hidden tricks or lurking spells left to her; she was doomed, and Dusklake with her.
As her father had once said to an excited Dabras, looking down from the wind-lashed top of Mount Glimmerdown at a battle in the pass below, "It's all over now, but the praying."
But the praying…
Well, what else could she do?
Aerindel tucked the Stormstaff under her chin and rushed from the hall, padding through the darkened passages of the castle toward a certain dusty and neglected back stair. Many of the torches were unlit, and there were neither guards nor servants to be seen. Had they all fled? Or had some dark magic sent by Rammast slain them all?
Their fates were worries for later. Right now, she had to find, in the deepening darkness beyond the pantries, the way down to the family crypt.
In the end, though she feared to awaken it, Aerindel was forced to use the Stormstaff to conjure a faint radiance-or break her neck falling down unseen steps to the gate adorned with the split oak Summertyn badge.
Her father's staff made a strange, muted sound, like many voices chanting a wordless, endless chorus. It obeyed her even so, with none of the tugging it had displayed in the feast hall. Perhaps Rammast's spells couldn't reach it down here.
Aerindel lacked the