Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [108]
"The ghost of a dragon, I fear," Vangerdahast replied, and withdrew from contact as he saw fresh tears course down Laspeera's cheeks again. There'd be forgiveness to be begged from her by the cartload when this was over, to be sure.
Right now, he had to see if the kingdom could be saved. Again.
Dragons didn't fly about Faerun as ghosts… they just didn't. Something about their magical nature, he supposed. Wherefore this phantom dragon must be magically compelled, or shaped, or created… Vangerdahasts eyes narrowed.
His hand went to a certain shelf, and found something that he touched to the staff. Hitherto-hidden runes up and down its slim length gleamed. Vangerdahast patiently let the power build as he linked with the crystals again and searched along the line of his first scrying, until he found the phantom dragon again. When he could see it clearly, Vangerdahast unleashed the spell that would make it also able to see him.
Spectral eyes widened in fury and spectral jaws gaped to gout flame.
The floating head and shoulders of the royal magician said firmly, “Be as you were again. Go down.”
His own sending faded and was gone, and the furious dragon craned its neck this way and that, looking for the mage who had appeared to it. The wyrm did not find him, but did not tarry to search.
Through his crystals, Vangerdahast watched it approach Suzail, slowly growing fainter and fainter, until at last it was… gone.
The royal magician of Cormyr let his crystals sink down, and shook his head to clear it of the spell, yawning wearily. There was Aundable to see to, and Laspeera to placate: he did not remain to see the last spark of the dragon's sentience falling to earth, a dragoneye gem once more.
A gem any citizen might prize, and take up, and keep hidden. Amedahast had always done good work.
*****
Moonlight awakened him at last Broglan Sarmyn was almost beginning to wish the gods would just take his miserable life instead of letting him waken into new nightmares-and more pain.
Stiffly, fearing something would be broken but again finding nothing, the war wizard sat up and looked around at the devastation. He was alone; either Shayna Summerstar had freed herself and left, or someone-something?-else had carried her off. The now-familiar rubble was everywhere, in this part of the keep that was more ruin than fortress. Moonlight lanced down in a hundred places, peering through holes to bathe the stone beneath.
Somewhere high in the mountains, a wolf howled mournfully. Broglan was suddenly and uncomfortably aware of the sweet stink of death, wafting faintly to him from the many corpses that lay among the rubble. He found himself staring at a certain pile of broken stone and fervently hoping the shapeshifter lay under there.
Or could the mad villain have somehow taken over Lady Shayna's body, and be walking around the keep seeking more victims even now?
Broglan had to find out-and whatever the fate of the Summerstar heiress, he had to find Storm Silverhand.
Gods, there was a lady! A woman he'd follow to the end of his days and cheerfully serve as a drudge for every waking moment of them! To see her fighting on fearlessly, or laughing at them all unashamed of her nakedness, or joking with the two Summerstar men after all the rudenesses and cruelties the family had offered her… Broglan shook his head, the feeling of admiration ebbing as he stumbled through the rubble to where she must lie. His mind showed him that broken body tumbling end over end through the air. Who could live through that. Favored of Mystra or not?
He saw her at last, the silver swirl of her long hair spread out on the stones as she lay sprawled. One bare shoulder gleamed in the moonlight, mouth open in a last gasp of pain. She was dead… she must be.
Broglan shuffled toward her, grief rising within him-and then he froze in horror.
A shambling shadow moved in the darkness, stepping out to where he could see its slack-jawed, drooling face. No intelligence