The Temptation of Elminster - Ed Greenwood [114]
"Aye, one thing more," Bresmer murmured. "Be careful where you do your hunting, lord."
A chill, chiming mist dived between two curving, moss-covered phandars, and slid snakelike through a rent in a crumbling wall. It made of itself a brief whirlwind in the chamber beyond, and became the shifting, semisolid outline of a woman once more.
She glanced around the ruined chamber, sighed, and threw herself down on the shabby lounge to think, tugging at hair that was little more than smoke as she reclined on one elbow and considered future victories.
"He must not see me," she mused aloud, "until he comes here and finds the runes himself. I must seem… linked to them, an attractive captive he must free, and solve some mystery about, not just how I came to be here, but who I am."
A slow smile grew across her face.
"Yes. Yes, I like that."
She whirled around and up into the air in a blurred whirlwind, to float gently down and stand facing the full-length, peeling mirror. Tall enough, yes… She turned this way and that, subtly altering her appearance to look more exotic and attractive…waist in, hips out, a little tilt to the nose, eyes larger…
"Yes," she told the glass at last, satisfaction in her voice. "A little better than Saeraede Lyonora was in life… and yet…no less deadly."
She drifted toward one of the row of wardrobes, made long, slender legs solid enough to walk, it had been a long time since she'd strutted across a dance floor, to say nothing of flouncing or mincing.
The wardrobe squealed as it opened, a damp door dropping away from the frame. Saeraede frowned and went to the next wardrobe where she'd put garments seized recently from wagons…and victims…on the road… when there had still been wagons.
Her smile became catlike at that thought, as she made her hands just solid enough to hold cloth, wincing at the empty feeling it caused within her. To become solid drained her so much.
As swiftly as she dared, she raked through the gowns, selecting three that most caught her eye, and draped them over the lounge. Rising up through the first, she became momentarily solid all over…and gasped at the cold emptiness that coiled within her. "Mustn't do this… for long," she gasped aloud, her breath hissing out to cloud the mirror. "Dare not use… too much, but these must fit…"
The blue ruffles of the first gown were flattened and wrinkled from their visit to the wardrobe, the black one, with its daring slits all over, looked better but would tear and fall apart most easily. The last gown was red, and far more modest, but she liked the quality it shouted, with the gem-highlighted crawling dragons on its hips.
Her strength was failing fast. Gods, she needed to drain lives soon, or… With almost feverish speed she shifted her shape to fill out the three gowns most attractively, fixed their varying requirements in her mind, and thankfully collapsed into a whirlwind again, dumping the red gown to the ground in a puddle.
As mist she drifted over it, solidifying just her fingertips to carry it back to the wardrobe and hang it carefully away.
As she returned for the other two garments, an observer would have noticed that her twinkling lights had grown dim, and her mist was tattered and smaller than it had been.
By the time the wardrobe door closed behind the last gown, Saeraede had noticed that she was a little dimmer now. She sighed but couldn't resist coalescing back to womanly form for one last, critical look at herself in the mirror.
"You'll have to do, I suppose… and another thing, Saeraede," she chided herself. "Stop talking to yourself. You're lonely, yes, but not completely melt-witted."
"Try over there," a hoarse male voice said then, in what was probably intended to be a whisper. It was coming from the forest beyond the ruin, through one of the gaps in the walls. "I'm sure I saw a woman yonder, in a red gown…"
The ghostly woman froze, head held high, then smiled wolfishly and collapsed into winking lights