Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [86]
He moved another stone, and another, with renewed eagerness, tumbling them out of the way, tossing and smashing them aside as sweat broke out on his brow-until a battered bed lay bare. With a flourish, he swept the last of the dust and rubble from its coverlet, and turned to the Lady Summerstar.
Shayna laughed delightedly and scrambled over the stones to reach it, coronet flashing. Corathar dismissed his spell and watched her, mouth suddenly dry. She reached the bed, lay down with slow grace, ran a hand up one hip of her gown, and beckoned to him.
"Come, my wizard," she called softly, opening her arms. Corathar obeyed.
His last memory was of how sweet her lips tasted as her eyes flashed in sudden triumph. The bed grew hands that sank iron-hard fingers into bis throat, and strangled him.
He struggled for breath, but Shayna kept her lips pressed to his. It was from lower down that he felt sudden fire. He twisted, or tried to, and arched… and then a chaos of memories that were not his own flooded into and over him. With a despairing cry that he never voiced, Corathar Abaddarh rolled over into darkness, forever…
*****
"Spells, more spells," the man who was not Maxer muttered, and grew a tentacle to embrace the young woman beside him. WELL DONE.
He was so kind. Master. She sighed as she watched the husk fall back into ash and scatter on the rocks beneath them. The handsome head beside hers snorted and grew a long, long arm that reached up into a shattered room far above, and drew them up toward the moonlight.
"Kindness," the shapeshifter said aloud, scornfully. "Is that what you want me to give you?"
It would be a change, Master.
He stared at the young noblewoman in his arms, and suddenly shook with laughter. Gods, what spirit! He was beginning to feel the glimmering of some respect for the nobility of Cormyr after all. 'Twas a pity, really, he'd have to destroy them all… including this one.
IF I HADN’T TOUCHED YOU WHEN I DID, he asked, suddenly and acutely aware that this young woman had chosen to rescue him from helpless death, and fought down strong urges and emotions to do so, WOULD YOU HAVE JOINED WITH THIS WIZARD?
She turned her head away from him, and he did not bother to grow an eyestalk to force a meeting of gazes… It was a long time before she said simply, Yes.
YOU HAVE MY THANKS, he told her gravely, wondering how soon it would be before he dared to destroy her. No one he might depend on could be permitted to survive. He must never lower his guard-and so, no one must be in a position to betray him… as she had betrayed another for him.
It was an even longer time before she said, in the depths of his mind, You're welcome.
She sounded so humble that he did not become alarmed at how deeply into his defenses she'd penetrated.
They sat together on the broken edge of a riven chamber and looked out over the moonlit rubble. The dust had largely settled, and they could see far into the Haunted Tower-and through it, trudging forward in answer to the master's call, the Hungry Man.
The Dark Master was in a hurry to transfer the puny spells he'd just subsumed to his mindless servant; the shambling husk hastened its tireless walk. It never saw what lay just beside one of its footfalls: a scepter whose metal shaft caught the moonlight and winked back from the watchful eye that surmounted it.
The dragoneye swiveled to watch the Hungry Man pass, and blinked once or twice as the shapeshifter stretched down his head so that two pairs of eyes faced each other from a pace apart-and blue-white beams of magic began to flow.
*****
"Hold hard!" barked one of the guards at the doors, swinging a halberd up from the floor to menace her.