Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [106]
The shard was narrow, but tall-a spindly fang of jagged rock that stretched up to where the battlements had been. It shivered, broke apart-and fell straight down on the shapeshifter, burying him.
Storm raced toward the spot, hardly daring to hops. Was he-?
Then, of course, Faerun truly blew up around her.
*****
Broglan was suddenly himself again, sobbing for breath, as a huge, roaring shaft of blazing power burst into being not far away. It smashed through all the floors of the keep, stabbed into the darkening sky, and hurled stones to the stars.
"Gods, what a stormlight," Broglan gasped, wincing at the sheer brightness of the blast.
The Bard of Shadowdale was flung end over end like a rag doll through the ruins. Her body flared with silver and white flames, then went dim, then blazed forth again, for all the world like a lantern flashed by sailors in a storm.
"I must go to her," Broglan muttered to the air.
He stumbled along the wall that had sheltered him… and then the bound body of Shayna Summerstar smashed down on him in a bruising tangle of bone. The world whirled its way into darkness and silence.
*****
There came a flash of light, a scream of tortured crystal, and then the almost musical sound of shards whistling apart and tinkling off the table and the ceiling.
Aundable Inthre matched the scrying-crystal's scream and reeled in his chair. He struck its high back, bounced, and then slumped back again, his head lolling to stare at the ceiling.
"Aundable!" Laspeera shrieked, hurling down her glass and leaping toward him. The royal magician was close behind.
As they clambered past the furniture, smoke curled up from where the scrying-crystal had been. It was matched by two smaller plumes rising from Aundable's eyes.
"Gods above," Vangerdahast gasped.
*****
Brightness gathered in the night sky above the darkened ruins of Firefall Keep. Motes of light danced like excited fireflies, spun, and flickered, drawing together into a cloud almost as fierce in its radiance as the shaft of energy that roared up in its midst.
As a few awed farmers gaped at it from afar, the cloud suddenly coalesced into the form of a dragon-a winged dragon with a mane, two backswept horns on its head, and scaly jaw winglets. It looked cruel and wise and utterly confident in its power. It lazily flapped its wings, watched its long tail uncurl smoothly behind it as it turned, and then gathered speed, beating its wings in earnest.
The gigantic, glowing phantom of the wyrm flew down Firefall Vale, swooping and darting like a gleeful dragonet at play. With a triumphant roar, it circled near the mountains, and then soared up high into the sky and raced southwest.
Cowering farmers watched it go, a bright and surging line among the winking stars, and wondered where it was headed. If he'd been conscious to Bee its eager flight, Broglan could have told them. It was bound for distant Suzail, to bring down doom on the woman who'd imprisoned it. She'd been dead for centuries, so the war wizard worried about just what it would do when it arrived. Lord Vangerdahast was not likely to enjoy a peaceful evening.
*****
At that moment, Lord Vangerdahast had hold of the bodice of his second-in-command and was shaking the hysterically screaming woman until her teeth rattled.
Laspeera bit the tip of her tongue, stared at him in shock, and then fell to sobbing silently as the lord high wizard snarled at her, "Stop that! I need your help, not your tears!"
He thrust a decanter at her. "Pour that down his throat, and work his chest to see that he swallows at least some of it!"
Laspeera snatched the healing potion from him, clawed the stopper out, and let it fly across the room. Vangey thrust back his sleeves, went to a certain carved panel near the door of the Hall, and did something to it. The square of wood swung open, and he took a squat jar from the space behind the panel and tossed it across the room.
"Catch, lass!" His snap of command seemed to steady her; Laspeera snatched the hand-jar out of the air without