The Dragon's Doom - Ed Greenwood [113]
She gasped in wonder, narrowing her eyes in case this glory might become a flash to blind her-for she'd truly be an obedient slave to these two men then, if they desired her so-but instead each facet around her kindled an inner flame that built until it became a different scene of somewhere in Asmarand. Countrysides seen from castle ramparts, seacoasts where boats wallowed past on rolling waves, mossy and overgrown ruins in deep forests, dark fastnesses lit by flickering torches, busy markets with cobbled streets… all of them windows onto living vistas where birds flew, winds blew, and folk strode and waved and pointed.
She cried out in pleasure, seeking to peer at several scenes at once. But even as she did everything shimmered, the scenes flowing into their constituent hues, and she heard Ingryl Ambelter cry out-with anger and surprise, not pleasure.
"What is it?" Baron Phelinndar snapped, his voice somehow distant and echoing.
Ambelter was closer. Maelra could feel as well as hear his reply as he said, "Another Dwaer, very close by! We must-"
Then their converse shifted, plunging into a bright but private thread of thoughts, not voices, that Maelra could not follow. She could still feel, though, through the rushing of shifting radiances and flowing, swirling power-and she beheld, across a dimness that could only be a place where the power of the Dwaer was not present, a rising, rushing arc of power akin to what she was caught up in, but somehow subtly different…
That must be the other Dwaer, or rather its power unleashed-and this, here beside her, rising in urgency and brightness, must be whatever Ambelter and Phelinndar felt they "must" do with their Dwaer to… to…
Lash out, in a burst of ruby-red and defiant power that shook Maelra with its might even as it thrilled her… clawlike bolts that slashed at that other flood, stabbing across the darkness between like fingers of lightning, seeking to disrupt!
Seeking, and succeeding. With a thrill that left her gasping, Maelra Bowdragon watched that great arc of power split apart, riven asunder to thrust streamers and sprays of energy in all directions. A backlash slammed into the flow around her, thrusting her up above the chaos of wrestling energies. Such power\ Such… By the Three, to be able to ride this, across all Darsar like a roving dragon, slaying wherever it glanced…
That other Dwaer-flow was shattered entirely now, curling in all directions with a mighty grandeur, turning, turning…
A scrying-whorl burst apart, shedding spinning arms with a fury that rocked the cavern where a lone figure with a surprised and melting face crouched over it. Even as the whorl-blast plucked him from his feet and hurled him back, the Dwaer in his hand spat forth a flood of sparks that became stabbing spears of lightning-bright bolts that raced all over the grotto, glancing back amid showers of shattered stone, to stab through him.
With a scream that was more rage than pain, the ever-shifting figure sprang into the air, using the Dwaer that was searing his hands as a flying steed to take him up above the lancing death. Smokes trailed from his blackened body as he flew, snarling as he fought down his agonies to heal himself and master the roiling energies of his disrupted Stone once more. Whirling across the cavern he came, fighting, fighting… and prevailing.
Whoever had struck at him-and 'twas not the Silvertree lass, but some other-would taste the fire of a Dwaer wielded by someone who knew how to use it! The Koglaur threw back a head that sported only a mouth to gasp away pain and draw in deep gulps of the lightning-reeking air, and came to a halt, floating in the air high above the cavern. Smoke curled in the light of the last few lightning bolts, as he sucked them back into the Dwaer in his hands until it quivered, as red as blood and as angry as he was.
He turned his eyeless