'Anyone seen such a person hereabouts before?' Ergluth demanded. There was a general shaking of heads and negative mutterings. 'Our shapechanger,' he concluded.
Storm nodded. 'Wearing the shape of a Zhent or Cult wizard, it seems.'
Ergluth looked down at what she held. 'So he was a Harper.'
The Bard of Shadowdale shook her head. 'I doubt it. Sympathetic to the Way of the Harp, perhaps, but I'd have known if he was in our ranks. And this was laid at his throat with no chain or pin to hold it there. No, this is another taunt to me-a double thrust.'
Ergluth raised a brow. 'A death and Harper blame for it?'
Storm shook her head again. 'Two deaths; this one, and whatever Harper he slew to get this.' She handed him the pin. 'Put this in a place of stone, far from things that can burn or folk who can be affected by magic-a dungeon cell will do. I'm going hunting.'
'How does one hunt a shapeshifter?' Ergluth asked grimly. 'He could be anyone in the kingdom!'
Storm turned to look at him. 'Not quite. I've raised a barrier he cannot pass-at least, not without my knowing it. He can be anyone only in Firefall Keep.'
'You've shut him in here with us ' one of the Purple Dragons gasped.
Storm's eyes met his. 'That's right,' she said softly. 'I'm very much afraid some of us will soon learn what the phrase 'died for the good of the realm' really means.'
Not far away, Shayna Summerstar trembled in the darkness against a wall, staring again and again at the blood on her fingertips.
WELL DONE. WASH IT AWAY AND BE AT PEACE. SEE HOW EASY IT IS TO SLAY?
I hate it. I hated tricking that old man.
IT WAS NECESSARY.
Why?
I WANTED YOU TO-THAT'S WHY.
Shayna shivered again, but said nothing.
NOW COME TO ME. YOU'LL FIND ME MUCH BETTER COMPANY THAN AN OLD, OVERWEIGHT STEWARD.
Shayna bit her lip, felt a protest well up within her-and then found herself pushing away from the wall and walking toward him. There was a deliberate strut to her stride as she went, swaying her hips like a tavern- dancer.
She could not even scream in protest. When she came around a corner two hallways later and looked into the eyes of a startled guard, she winked, smiled, and then strutted provocatively past him. He did not see the blood on her hand. She took the stairs beyond two steps at a time, hurrying to be with her waiting, smiling master.
Her Dark Master.
TEN
Storm yawned once more and stumbled, bruising her shoulder against the passage wall. 'Careful, lady,' the guard just behind her said, reaching out a hand.
'Aye. You should get some sleep,' said Ergluth, at her elbow. Storm shook her head. 'I don't need … can't need …'
Then it struck her. Of course she'd need sleep, now, like any other mortal, with Mystra's silver fire flowing out of her endlessly to fuel the barrier. That was why she was so exhausted, her legs rubbery and blundering. For the first time in centuries, she desperately needed sleep. 'You're right,' she said abruptly, and handed her torch to the nearest guard. 'It's. .' She lifted her head, trying to remember where her bed was.
'We're heading there now,' the boldshield told her. When she gave him a hard look, he shrugged and added, 'It's along our way.'
Wearily, Storm nodded. It seemed only a moment later that she was dropping the bar into place across the inside of her closed door, yawning once more, and turning to make sure the room was empty of lurking shapeshifters.
It was, or seemed to be. Storm shucked her gloves, unlaced and kicked off her boots, undid her sword belt and let it fall, and hauled the tunic off over her head. The rest could wait.
The bed felt so soft…With an effort, Storm sat up, blinked sleep from her eyes for just a few moments longer, and carefully cast two of the precious spells she had left. Wards flickered into glowing life around the bed, shimmering where the silver fire streamed out through them. No spell, and no body-however it changed its shape- should be able to reach her now.
Storm sighed, shook her head at the thought that she couldn't cower in a bed for very long.. and then she was swimming in warm white mists.
Dark things loomed out of them as she moved forward, flying now. The black fingers of giants, frozen into vainly reaching stone things. . then a fire-darkened skull so large that she passed through one of its eye sockets … and a red, scaled head rising up through the mists to fix her with an old and very wise eye … a dragon? What was a dragon doing in her dreams?
She fell down an endless well, tumbling. Bodies with eyes and mouths aflame rose past her. Grinning things changed shape around her, and the dragon's great eye looked endlessly down on her from the top of the shaft. Why a dragon?
Suddenly Storm stood in the Summerstar family crypt, lit by flames that floated without torches to feed them. All around her, the bodies of the long-dead fallen were thrusting aside their coffin lids and rising stiffly out of their shrouds. Ignoring her, they walked to the walls and punched through them, every blow of skeletal fists making the room tremble and boom as if thunder had rumbled.
The space beyond the walls was a room she knew: the great hall of Firefall Keep. Storm stepped out through a hole made by a tall, broken-skulled skeleton. She found herself standing in the open area between the wings of the long table, during a feast. All the places at table were occupied by sneering Summerstars and disapproving war wizards. The staggering corpses disappeared like smoke, leaving her alone with the laughter of the diners, who pointed at her and howled with mirth.
Looking down, she saw that she wore only black tentacles. . tentacles that rose up, twining around her limbs, until they reached her throat and began to squeeze. She choked, fought in vain against the glistening constriction, and then everything she saw was rimmed with green and gold, wavering until the watery world went away, and all she could stare at was the dragon's lone, watching eye.
'Why a dragon?' she snarled in bewilderment and awoke. She sat bolt upright, drenched with sweat.
Ergluth and four Purple Dragons were calling anxiously to her from around the bed, the drawn swords in their hands flashing and spitting back sparks from her wards.
'What-what befalls?' she asked in weary puzzlement.
The eaglelike eyes of the boldshield peered into hers. His face was graven with lines of concern. 'This barrier-is it yours?'
'Yes, of course,' Storm snapped. 'Why did you wake me by thrusting steel into it?'
'We heard you call something about dragons,' he replied. 'Several times, you cried out-once at full bellow. When we came in, someone was standing by the bed, holding a dagger. He was shrouded in spell-mists, with laughing skulls flying all around him like birds. We couldn't see who it was, but he was trying to get past your wards. When he saw us, he sent mists, skulls, and all at us. Things've only just cleared, now. . there must be a hidden way into and out of this room.'
'I've found several,' Storm said, yawning, 'but I thank you for trying to guard me, just the same.' She fell back onto the pillows, waves of weariness rolling over her, and managed to say, 'I was too sleepy to think of this before … Ilgreth was the first to die and not be burned. Keep him safe, and the dagger that slew him, too, until both can be examined with spells to tell us who might have killed him.'
