Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [52]
He chuckled from nearby. "The Sharn battle the Phaerimm, and the Phaerimm fight everyone. Others mightier than these walk the worlds, you know… or should know, daughter of Mystra. You've not heard of such? Die ignorant, then." He was gone again.
Storm whirled. The air around her shimmered and grew a cold fang. The bard twisted away, smashing the blade frantically aside with her sword. The dagger that had hurt her spun away from the bloodied hand of her foe-before the air shimmered and hid him again. Storm cursed heartily and whirled her blade around; it struck something. She heard a grunt of pain. An instant later, her sword struck stone with numbing force. She reeled, fighting for balance on the shifting scree underfoot.
A face loomed above hers as his body struck aside her sword arm. Lips that burned kissed her cheek with obscene delicacy.
With her free hand, Storm clawed at those eyes. Amid shimmering, the face was gone again. Her fingers felt the place where his kiss had burned flesh, exposing her jawbone. Angrily she ran in a swift circle, hacking at air-until she saw him appear across the pit. He leaned against the wall with almost casual hauteur.
"Who are you?" Storm spat, raising her blade.
The man who was not Maxer laughed. "I am the wolf in your dreams," he said. His limbs grew fur. "I am the child you pass in the street." His smile melted into a woman's face more beautiful than her own had ever been, with moon-pale eyes and long, sweeping black hair. Then it dwindled into the leering visage of a dwarf.
"I can be everyone, everywhere. Soon, I'll be much, much more than that." He left that quiet taunt hanging in the air as he became a Purple Dragon armsman, the mage Broglan, and one of the Summerstar maiden aunts.
With narrowed eyes Storm watched him. She murmured and made small gestures as his shapechanging display unfolded. Her spellcasting earned a mirthless grin from him. She finished one spell, and nothing happened. Without delay, she began another. His grin became a frown-and she was suddenly alone in the pit.
An instant later, a view of the keep battlements unfolded in her mind, only to fade almost immediately and be replaced by the lightless interior of an empty bedchamber, lamplight from the courtyard flickering through its windows. The scene changed again twice before Storm's second spell was done. She kept her mind firmly shaping it-and then let it take her to the latest scene.
The servants working the night through in the Kitchens were in their usual bustle, with steam rising from the stew pots here, there, and everywhere. They darted about putting this tray of goose pies into the ovens and taking that tray of stuffed silverfin out. One servant looked down, startled, as a shaggy black dog suddenly appeared in his way, growled warningly-and then vanished again.
He’d have been more startled by far, Storm thought wryly, if he’d seen the true shape of the creature who’d appeared to him as a dog.
The cook looked up, saw her, and dropped his tray of pastries.
Shouting in horror, he fled as the crash echoed around the room. A gravy pan made a deafening whonga-onga-onga clatter. A curse came behind Storm. She turned, blade up, just in case someone was in the mood to hurl cleavers.
She was in time to see a steaming pan of gammon pies flung to the floor by a man who sprinted over them even before they landed. Another man backed away from her, white-faced. The gleaming platter that hung on a cupboard beside him shone back her reflection clearly: a tall, wild-eyed woman with silver hair, garbed only in blood. Teeth and bone glinted in the hole burned in the side of her face, and there was more blood all over the sword in her hand. She smiled ruefully, closed her eyes until her tracer magic showed her the next place clearly, and let the other spell