The Fading Dream_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [74]
Something’s very wrong, Steel said. Their weapons are out, but they aren’t in fighting postures. The wounds … dozens of small wounds.
“What’s that?” Thorn whispered. Something glittered in the neck of the elf: a shard of glass.
A memory rose in her mind. Far Passage. A man falling into a wall of whirling dragonshards. The shards of glass scattered across the hallway suggested an explosion. She studied the area, searching for any signs of danger, any hint of magic or a mundane trap. There was nothing, just blood, glass, and the bodies of the hapless explorers.
She prodded one of the shards of glass on the floor with Steel. There was blood on its edge.
If you’re searching for magical resonance, I don’t sense anything new.
Thorn examined the closest body, the elf woman. From a distance, she’d noticed the glass in her neck; upon closer inspection, she could see that there were other bits of glass buried in her skin, even fragments caught in the links of her chain mail.
Drix stuck his head around the corner. “Can I come in yet?”
Thorn sighed. “Stay there for now, Drix. I think that’s the chamber at the end of the hall. You can follow once I’m there.”
He nodded. “Where’d all the glass come from?”
I suppose if you spend months in the Mournland, an inexplicable pile of broken glass is more unusual than four dead bodies, Steel said.
“I don’t know,” Thorn said. “Just be careful.”
Thorn took a step back, whispering a word of power. Mystical energy surged through her, and she ran forward and leaped up and over the carnage, the power of the spell carrying her farther than muscle alone could manage. It was an easy jump, and she landed on her feet. She paused to examine the hall ahead, searching for any hints of mystical or mundane security, and found nothing.
Then there was a tinkling sound behind her, almost musical. Thorn’s sharp senses warned her of what lay behind her, even as she turned to see with her eyes.
The shards of glass were rising up from the corpses. Fragments of glass floated in the air, spinning and whirling. It was a storm, focused around a central core, and she could see that there were pieces of a fifth body within it—a hand, a head, the rest hidden by the glass. The Orien guard. The man missing from the front gate.
I hate the undead, she thought.
The storm of glass filled the hall, the shards slashing into the corpses scattered across the floor. It flowed slowly toward Thorn. She threw Steel at the heart of the storm, and he flew straight and true, and if the glass wraith even noticed the attack, it gave no sign of it. An instant later Steel was back in her hand. “Any ideas?” she said.
Certainly … send for an exorcist. There’s nothing solid in there to attack. Smashing every shard to powder might render it harmless, but that would be a challenging task.
“You think so?” The storm moved slowly, and Thorn inched back, keeping space between herself and the razor wind. “Could we push through it?” Thorn said, raising Steel.
Not if you want to stay alive, Steel said. You couldn’t possibly survive the passage. The circle chamber is just ahead, and if it follows the typical Orien model, it will have a strong door. Get inside. Seal the portal.
“I think you’re forgetting someone,” Thorn said.
You’re not going to get Drix through.
“We can’t leave without him,” Thorn pointed out, backing slowly away from the whirling glass. “Unless you know how to activate an Orien circle.”
I know that it can’t be done while you’re dead.
Sovereigns and Six, Thorn thought. The glass storm had pressed her almost all the way to the teleportation chamber. There was no more time to think, and none of her tools or spells would affect the spirit.
Even as the thought passed