Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [82]
Broglan cursed and fumbled for his wand as blades flashed out of scabbards all around him. Suddenly, he was on the floor again, the wind knocked out of him. A nude woman, silver hair swirling around her, was curled up on his chest.
"Sorry," Storm said shortly, rolling off him, "but you were the only place left in here that didn't have a sword out! I had to materialize somewhere!"
Erlandar barked out a laugh. "Things are back to normal," be announced to the room full of staring men, "she's lost all her clothes again!"
"Highly amusing, my Lord Summerstar," Storm replied, snatching his blade from him. "I'll be needing this-I'm on my way to getting dressed. Gods, but that-that thing must have subsumed a lot of spells! He's blasting the Haunted Tower apart!"
"What?" Erlandar bellowed, laughter sliding into fury. "That's our Haunted Tower!"
Broglan, who'd been twisting on the floor struggling for breath all this time, found it at last-to laugh uncontrollably. "Do you…" he gasped, when he could, "know… how funny… that sounded?"
As a smiling Storm strode barefoot out of the room, and gestured rudely at the grinning guards who saluted her exit, the wizard on the floor finished a last guffaw and looked up. The room exploded with mirth.
It ended abruptly as the place rocked again, and a piece broke off the ceiling and fell. Dust descended in clouds, and the laughter turned to curses and coughing.
“Well,” Thalance Summerstar said, as he snatched up a wineskin to replace his lost goblet, “this monster could dispose of us all by just bringing the keep down on top of us!”
"Did you have to say that?" Erlandar snarled as the room rolled underfoot again, and everyone fell.
*****
Storm Silverhand went to her knees-bare knees, gods blast it-on the stones as the passage rocked around her. "I hope," she told the falling stones, "that he's using up the spells he's stolen!" A last stone fell in front of her and broke apart. "I won't be pleased if I hear otherwise." She got up and ran on.
The fallen rubble made barefoot running painful. As she mounted the stairs, she hurled a handsome load of curses in the direction of the Haunted Tower. Ten minutes ago, these corridors had been full of such wild magic that she'd dared not tarry here nor try to regain solid form. Now, the foe had gone so mad that he was pulling down the Haunted Tower on his very head!
"Goaded by the silver fire," she announced with grim satisfaction. At last reaching the right passage, she sprinted down it. "And not the first to suffer that fate, either."
Improbably, a door was open. Two fearful chambermaids were staring out at her as she sprinted past, hair streaming. They shrieked in chorus and flung their door closed with a boom.
"This whole vale is going crazy," Storm said with a laugh. She caromed sideways off the wall as the keep shook crazily once more. Somewhere ahead of her, something heavy broke and crashed down; amid the near-deafening booming, she heard the sharper sounds of stone cracking and rolling.
The Bard of Shadowdale ran across the passage to the door she knew and snatched it open. Dust rolled out. "Great!" she snarled. "Just great!" Coughing, she felt her way through the dust and dragged out her clothes. Defiantly, she sat down in the middle of the corridor, as the keep shivered and thundered around her, and got dressed. Slowly and carefully, she adjusted this and smoothed that, putting on her pectoral last of all, until she pronounced herself ready to receive company.
Ah yes, company: such as the room full of men she'd left so precipitously not long ago. Well, now: to rally them, or to confront a madman and dance to his spells as he happily