Realms of the Arcane - Brian M. Thomsen [68]
She could. It hurt-gods, it hurt!-but as the fires of agony clawed at her limbs and she whimpered and writhed on the cold stones of Mount Glimmerdown, she seemed to be flying through the night, seeking the dark sword of Tarangar Tower stabbing at the stars. There would be lights in its high window, she knew, and a darkly handsome lord working furiously to gird himself for her doombringing…
There! Like a Thentan eagle she swooped out of the night, racing up to those lighted windows, seeking the hated face of her foe. She saw him at last, striding across a room whose tables were littered with maps. He seemed to sense her, stiffening and peering at the window. She was past, by then, winging her way around Tarangar Tower and climbing, seeing the steep roofs of Thentor-town spread out below her down narrow, lamplit cobbled streets. She soared toward the moon, willing the crown to blast apart the tower behind her.
She saw it shattering into tiny rocks, bursting into a cloud of stones that would rain down on all of Grand Thentor, leaving behind a pit so deep that all Thentarnagard would totter and then fall into it, sliding into oblivion shrouded in rock-dust… just as the Thentan army in Glimmerdown Pass had met its end.
"This thing can come to pass," the voice of the crown seemed to whisper in the ear, "but it is a very great thing. Doing it will consume a life."
"Many lives, I should think," Aerindel murmured aloud, her forehead resting on the hard stones of the mountain top.
"The life of a being who can wield magic," the crown whispered. "A being you have touched while wearing me."
"A deliberate sacrifice, then," the Lady of Dusklake said wearily. "Or a murder."
"If I can get no other essence," the crown told her, "I will claim the life-force of the one who wears me."
"So if I force you to bring down the tower," Aerindel said, 'Tarangar Tower will fall-but I'll wither and die here, on this mountaintop."
"The tower may survive if it bears strong enough protective magics," the crown replied. "I must feed soon in any case, or shatter."
Aerindel lay silent, cold fear slowly creeping through her. She had willingly chained herself to some evil thing that would be her doom. Picturing herself tumbling down the mountainside as a desiccated bag of skin with loose bones bouncing and rolling inside it, she forced her trembling limbs to move.
Snarling with the effort, the Lady of Dusklake moved her arms along the uneven stone, very slowly and very painfully. She was gasping and drenched with cold sweat when at last her fingertips touched the crown.
It tingled, but did not budge. No matter how hard she clawed and tugged at it, it seemed attached to her head. The Whispering Crown would not come off.
She rolled over, finally, to stare despairingly at the stars. She had slain men who did not matter, and crippled herself in doing so-leaving herself and her realm helpless against their real foe. All too soon, Rammast would return. Rested, and strong, and ready to slay- and she'd be lying here, too weak to do anything… and with the crown and here to sacrifice in doing the first mighty thing he wanted of it, he would endanger all the Esmeltaran.
She felt like crying, but Aerindel Summertyn had no tears left. Bleeding, bitten, half-shorn, and dressed only in tatters, she lacked the strength even to stand. She lay on Mount Glimmerdown and looked up at the bleakly twinkling stars, waiting for Rammast's sneering smile to come into view above her.
Instead, the face that finally loomed up to blot out the stars was an unfamiliar one: a sharp-nosed face adorned with a long beard and blue eyes that held the wisdom of ages. It belonged to a man who wore simple, worn robes. His hands were empty, and he looked down at her with something-admiration? sympathy? cynical amusement?-flickering in his eyes.
"Take the crown off now, Lady of Dusklake," this stranger said curtly, "before it's too late."
Aerindel looked up at him, too weak and weary to care how she looked,