Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [57]
"Too fair to crawl, but too 'fraid to ride…" she continued. Mouth open to sing the next line, she paused sniffed the air-and snatched open the door.
Smoke. She was out and down the hall at a run before she'd even selected a curse. Somewhere in the keep, there was fire.
*****
Running feet pounded past the door, and men shouted. There was a distant crash, more shouts-and then more hurrying, booted feet.
"Move, damn you!" an officer barked right outside the door.
The noise brought Shayna Summerstar awake. She sat up, blinking, in the close darkness of her canopied bed. There was a sharp smell in the air. She sniffed. Smoke.
Smoke?
Gods, was the keep afire? Since the Harper lady had come, men had been dying and there had been tumult and much whispering among armsmen and wizards alike… what else would the days ahead bring?
She rolled out of bed, put a bare foot on the soft rug, and took a step sharply to the side, to bring her other foot down on cold stone and jolt herself fully awake.
More men ran past. "The whole floor's ablaze!" someone shouted.
It was a fire. Shayna swallowed and went to her wardrobe. She'd need boots, and her jewel-coffer, and-
She swung the wardrobe door wide, and stared into the eyes of her grandmother, Pheirauze. But those familiar eyes were looking at her out of a man's face!
"Come," said a voice that was almost her grandmother's. A firm hand took hold of hers.
“Yes,” Shayna said quietly, not even remembering to whimper.
The man with her grandmother’s eyes thrust aside her best gowns as if they were rags, and led her to a dark place at the back of her wardrobe-and through it, into blackness beyond. The young Lady Summerstar scarcely knew when he slid a panel closed behind them, that led straight into the Haunted Tower…
So it was that when frantic chambermaids led two Purple Dragons into the bedchamber to take the flower of the Summerstars to safety, they found her gone from her bed, with no clothes taken and no sigh of where she could have gone. The bad was simply- empty. One of the maids shrieked and ran from the room, and another dissolved in sobs, but the two armsmen poked and peered all around the chamber, swearing horribly.
… The man whose face was slowly changing led the Lady Shayna on into darkness, away from the tumult The sharp smell faded behind them, and the noise with it, as they went. The floor was cold under Shayna's bare feet, and the air chilled her through the thin silk and openwork lace panels of her nightgown. It seemed as if a mist lay on her thoughts. It was a warm, comforting mist, which did not lift even when they came to a chamber of real, luminous fog.
With a hunger she'd seen on other mens' faces before, the man turned to look her up and down. Somehow, this place of eerie, empty darkness was a haven of comfort as long as she stared into those dark eyes… eyes that seemed to hold two dancing red flames.
The fiery gaze held her bound- and a voice cut like a knife through her head:
I AM YOUR DARK MASTER. ADDRESS ME THUS.
"Y-Yes," she said, lips trembling. She was suddenly more afraid than she had ever been in her life. As she stared into those dark, gloating eyes, a word swam unbidden into her mind: thrall. Thrall…
YES?
Yes Dark Master, she said in her mind.
He smiled and nodded.
Shayna found herself smiling and nodding too. Somehow the title fit the figure standing in the darkness before her.
Then a door in her mind opened. Through it tumbled images, phrases, and iron-hard feelings that burned her and flayed her, surging through her and battering down any self-will she'd managed to cling to.
Grandmare Pheirauze?
ALWAYS CHILD. I SHALL BE HERE, WATCHING OVER YOU ALWAYS.
[Fear.]Must you?
OF COURSE. WE HAVE WORK TO DO, YOU AND I.
[Confusion.] Who are you, really-changing man?
YOUR MASTER. PHEIRAUZE LIVES