Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [55]
Trailing fire, the griffon-man fell heavily onto a balcony on the turret next to where Storm clung to her window. He rose, reeled, smashed aside flimsy shutters, and fled into the keep.
The man snarled softly as he ran through dark rooms on unsteady cloven hooves. Throbbing pain danced through his shoulders. Whatever spell the Mvstra-woman had used on him, he dared not taste it again.
When he tried to change shape, it felt as if he were sliding through soft mud. The world grew faint and dim. He could not tell where his limbs were, or how they'd obeyed bis shaping. Yes, he dare not wade into one of those spells again.
With an arm that was partly a tentacle, he shouldered through a doorway, and found himself looking into the startled face of a guard. An old man with a mustache, who was opening his mouth to shout-
The shapechanger closed it for him forever, stabbing savagely with the crab-claw he'd managed to grow on what was left of his right wing. The guard wasn't expecting an extra arm to be there. With his face torn off, he wouldn't be expecting anything ever again.
The shapechanger slammed the body brutally and repeatedly into the wall, listening to bones shatter. He thought about where to go now. Someplace to rest Someplace safe, to mend…
For what seemed a long time, he cowered in the darkness of the Haunted Tower. At last, his body obeyed him again, flesh flowing and shifting with its old ease. The stabbing pains were gone, but his feet and shoulders still ached. Damn that woman! Shed seemed such an overconfident, overland idiot, too…
Not like that cold-as-a-blade dowager, who… well, now: Pheirauze Summerstar! Well, why not?
He grew eyes that gleamed in the dark. He shrugged and became the black, sleek body of a panther. Looking around once, the great cat stretched, sniffed the air, and padded off into the keep, seeking a certain bedchamber.
*****
"That will be all, Narlargus," the Dowager Lady Pheirauze murmured, the crack of command surfacing once more in her voice.
The old servant bent his lips to kiss her hand-a gesture he knew she loved. As he rose from the bed, he kept his eyes downcast. Daring to survey her as she lay at ease among the candles, with their light dancing over her jewelry, would earn him a whipping.
Catching up his robe from the floor, he bowed low and backed away from the bed. Surprisingly, she spoke again when his hand fell upon the door ring.
"My thanks, Narlargus."
He froze, but no more words came. After a moment, he turned. She'd never bothered to thank him before.
Still keeping his head down, the old servant knelt, touched his forehead to the floor, and then rose and withdrew, closing the door carefully-and very softly- behind him.
Pheirauze felt something like regret as she heard the door settle into place for what would undoubtedly be the last time. She would miss those long sessions with her loyal dresser-even if it had been years since they'd loved the night through to watch the sun come up, when she'd used a candle flame to burn her mark on his thigh.
But if there was one thing the cruel gods had taught her in her long life, it was that all things, however precious, must pass away.
She stretched among the candles, and raised her eyes to regard the cat-headed man who stood silently in the shadows. Narlargus had not even noticed him, but Pheirauza had felt the felinge gaze upon her. The cat head turned swiftly to regards the now-closed door, and then back to meet her gaze once more.
“I know who you must be,” she calmly told the silent shapechanger. “And what you’ve came for. If I promise I’ll not scream, or plead, or fight, or raise any alarm, will you tell me what you hope to gain by my death?”
“I hope to learn from you where old gold lied hidden,” the voice out of the shadows came smoothly. “The wealth of the Summerstars. Yet I confess that I am here now, when it seems that