Stormlight - Ed Greenwood [94]
On light feet, she danced toward the bard. A low chuckle of delighted anticipation rose from her throat as she came. Storm tensed, gathering herself for a desperate kick and roll. Shayna looked down at her and shook her head; she knew full well what the bard planned, and was enjoying the momentary taunt.
White light suddenly flared so brightly that it lit up the heart of the keep, and men cried out all over the fortress.
Shayna Summerstar threw back her head, the cords in her throat standing out like flesh-cloaked spines. She screamed in raw, rising agony. Her eyes rolled up in her head, her hands became claws that raked vainly at the air, and she shuddered so hard that the flesh along her ribs rippled in visible waves.
Then Shayna’s head fell forward, and her body went limp. She whimpered, drew in a slow, tremulous breath, and seemed to see the blade in her hand for the first time.
She hurled it down in disgust, looked around wildly, a wordless quaver of fear rising in her throat. Her eyes fell upon Storm, and she cried, “Lady Storm! Lady Storm! Lady Storm!" over and over again and went to her knees, arms outstretched.
Storm rolled up to a sitting position and embraced the terrified girl-who clung to her and burst into wild, racking sobs. Her coronet fell off and rolled Storm stopped it with one outstretched foot, and stroked Shayna's hair as the young heiress wept in grief, remorse, and shame.
"There, there, little one," Storm said softly, hugging the shuddering, heaving body. "You impressed us all." Well, that was certainly true.
She went on murmuring reassurances as her eyes went slowly from the coronet to the discarded knife and back again. The white light at her back pulsed, faded, and then brightened. Storm tried not think of what it might herald.
* * * * *
Like an ungainly spider, the shapeshifter writhed on his back. His many tentacles did an endless dance around him. As he screamed and gibbered, the tendrils whipped wildly against nearby stones, coiling and shooting out to lash pillars and crumbling walls.
Their owner shrieked and babbled wordlessly as the powers he'd subsumed were torn away. His linkage with Shayna Summerstar was gone in an instant, and spell after spell followed. His darkening mind became a pitching place of spilling images. He clung grimly to two things: awareness of who he had been-and would become again-and the power to subsume. All he was losing could be replaced some day, if he survived still able to drink the knowledge, memories, and powers of those he slew…
Those Bane slew. Yes, Bane! The Black Hand would rise again to smash all who stood against him! "Bane!" he roared in a voice flung back at him by that the riven innards of the Haunted Tower. "Fear Bane once more!"
The gigantic spectral eyeball floating above the scepter turned slowly to look at the howling shapeshifter. The white radiance around it flared to blindingly once more.
The man who had once, perhaps, been a part of Bane roared in fresh pain. Tentacles blazed up into nothingness or were sheared away by ravening fires that hurled him back, back. He tumbled end over end down a dark hall, trailing a helpless scream, until he came to the inevitable closed door.
There was a heavy, splintering crash, and the center of the door was suddenly gone. Shattered panels swung crazily and then fell. Stones clattered down to keep them company. Something tentacled rolled over once in the darkness, shuddered, and lay still.
*****
The huge orb turned slowly to face him once more, trailing motes of magical radiance. Broglan Sarmyn trembled, but somehow could not move from the pose he had been swept into: kneeling as if in homage to a king, holding the dragoneye scepter upright as if it were a holy thing.
SUCH IS MY POWER.
Broglan swallowed. Was he supposed to speak?
IS IT NOT PARAMOUNT, MAN?
Forgive