Realms of the Arcane - Brian M. Thomsen [66]
A woman screamed in that far place, and Aerindel found herself trembling with rage.
"Take me there!" she snarled. There was an exhilarating surge within her, a moment of terror when the world rushed and flowed, all around… and then she was standing in the night, in the muddy road through Dusking, with that banner bearing down on her, and a host of men with drawn swords tramping around it.
A Thentan soldier hooted at the sight of the fine-gowned lady standing alone in the way before him, and waved the torch he held. "Look, lads! Mine, I tell you, this one's-"
Aerindel bent her grim gaze upon him, her eyes dark with hatred, and willed forth fire. The bobbing torch blossomed into sparks as the crown spat out flame at the one who held it.
The soldier was suddenly headless, and then half a staggering man-and then two quivering legs with nothing above them.
The fire roared like a dragon through the rest of the invaders, tumbling those it did not turn to ashes. Swords melted away in crumbling hands, men shouted and then fell silent, and the reek of burnt flesh rose thick around the Lady of Dusklake as she strode forward.
The last soldier fell with a despairing, bubbling scream; she watched his flesh melt from his bones amid greasy smoke, and looked down the empty, ashen street to be sure she had destroyed every last Thentan.
In the distance, along the road, something suddenly glowed in the night. She willed the crown to take her to it-and found herself looking into the angry eyes of Rammast Tarangar. The glow of the magic that had brought him was still fading around his limbs; he snarled at her in astonishment, and a ring flashed on one of his hands as he raised it and made a punching motion at her.
A magic that would have twisted her into a toad-thing plucked at her limbs; the crown told her what it was, shattered it, and sent a withering ray at the Lord of Grand Thentor.
Rammast staggered back, alarm clear on his suddenly pale face, as a ward around him was overwhelmed and cast down in an instant, and the ray bored in at him, clawing his arm and side and shoulder.
Gasping, suddenly enfeebled, Rammast cast a dispel of his own, banishing the blight the crown had sent him; Aerindel smiled grimly and smashed him to the ground with a stabbing thrust of force. Watching him writhe as ribs snapped and he grunted and sobbed in pain, she mustered all she knew of what the crown could do, and bored in at him again, seeking to see into his mind.
Rammast's frightened eyes filled her vision; he gibbered like a mindless thing in sudden fear of her as the crown carried her through his pain and hatred and awareness of the hard ground beneath him, here and now… and on into what he had been thinking about, and where he had been.
A vision unfolded suddenly in her mind; his vision. She saw a great company of armed warriors, harnesses creaking as they filed through a narrow way in the mountains. Gods above! She was seeing the main army of Grand Thentor invading the other end of Dusklake, hard by her castle-through the narrow, perilous Glimmerdown Pass!
The vision was suddenly shattered. The crumpled turf before her was bare; Rammast managed to work a magic that tore him free from Dusking and her scrutiny, and whirled him away to safety.
Aerindel shrugged. She had to be gone from here herself-to the windswept top of Mount Glimmerdown, forthwith!
'To will it is to do the deed," the crown whispered, as seductively as any lover… and she found herself standing elsewhere, on bare stone with a cool breeze sliding past. She was on the mountaintop where her father had triumphed, so long ago. There were faint creakings, and the snortings of restive horses, from the dark cleft below her.
The Lady of Dusklake looked down, hard-eyed, at the invaders she could not see, and felt rage building within her.
Across empty air was the sister peak to the one she stood on, High Glimmerdown; the moonlight showed her its ragged edge.