Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [59]
"The fire is well under control, they tell me," she said in a low, husky voice, unfolding herself from the door frame and gliding forward. Her gown fell open.
Involuntarily Ilgreth looked down, and then up, and gulped again. He kept his eyes firmly on her face, but knew his own face was blazing. Try as he might, nothing would come out of bis mouth.
"So it provides me with the distraction I've been waiting for," she continued, drawing the door firmly closed and wedging a chair against it. "Think no more about flames, but about this instead: I have always loved you."
Then she was pressed against him, soft and warm. "For years," she told his throat, "I've looked for a chance for us to… be together."
In mute disbelief Ilgreth stared at her.
Emerald eyes smiled up into his. "Take me to your bed," she whispered. "I've waited so long."
"Ah, uh-a-ho!" Ilgreth burst out intelligently, finding his voice at last. "Lady, are you sure you're-"
"Ilgreth," she said, pushing him back onto the bed and planting a knee on his chest. "I'm very sure. Humor me…"
"Ah, yes, of course, lady," Ilgreth said faintly, wondering when this dream would end, and where he'd find himself when he awakened…
*****
The man with the tentacles and the face that was slowly changing sprawled at ease in Lady Shayna Summerstar's abandoned bed. A goblet of fine wine was in one hand and the decanter he'd filled it from in the other. He was smiling and nodding at something that was unfolding in another bedchamber.
He suddenly stiffened, spilling wine on the coverlet, and sat up. Newly gained memories of similar things had stirred within him-reminding him of a certain someone who knew far too much.
He tossed goblet and decanter carelessly away and snapped his fingers decisively before the items crashed to the floor. He was gone out the open door in a trice, striding hard along the passage outside, toward the source of the smoke
*****
"How are we-?" The guardcaptain was too breathless to say more, but the soot-blackened armsman nodded in understanding.
"Winning, sir-the two chambers beyond are as wet as duck ponds, and the fire's more smoke now than flame. As long as the roof-timbers don't catch…"
The weary, sweat-drenched officer nodded grimly. "Good. Hand me another bucket, and we'll go look at th-"
He reached back for the next bucket in the slopping line, but paused in astonishment. Beside him, old Narlargus slumped against the wall, and the bucket he held gently poured its contents out onto his boots and down the steps.
There was a smoldering, ashen stump where his head should have been.
Armsman and officer looked at each other and then back at the corpse sliding slowly down the wall, trailing a black smear of ash. They gabbled prayers and oaths, and fled in terror.
Storm Silverhand shortly came striding up the stair, cast a grim glance at the slain servant, and broke into a run. She was soon splashing along a passage whose walls were stained with soot, and whose floor stood an inch deep in water. Voices came from a room ahead, and Storm turned into it.
Weary Purple Dragons stood staring at a pile of ashes on the floor. "Is the fire out?" Storm asked.
"Aye, Lady," Ergluth Rowanmantle told her, "that's not what we're worried over, now."
Storm looked a silent question at him, and he raised grim eyes to meet hers. "This was the bedchamber of the Dowager Lady Pheirauze Summerstar," he explained, "and that was her bed."
Storm looked down at the pile of ashes "And she was in it when the fire…"
"The flames started here, so far as we can tell by the marks," he said, "but that's not what-well, look here." He gestured with the tip of his boot at gold puddles on the floor among the ash. "This was an anklet, and, here, a row of rings. These-all of these-are what she called her 'gold glisters'; the jewelry she never removed."
"She died here," Storm agreed, nodding.
"Lady," the boldshield said wearily, "have