In the passage outside, they stumbled across signs of fresh carnage. Stumbled across, literally; the smoking, headless bodies of two sprawled Purple Dragons, limbs twisted in agony, lay underfoot as Storm stepped out of the bedchamber. No one chuckled after that.
'This keep has become a battlefield!' Corathar snarled, eyes large with fright. 'We dare not step outside without an armed escort and all our spells ready, for fear this shapeshifter could be anywhere!'
Insprin Turnstone shrugged. 'Our duty to the Crown is clear; we must do whatever we can to destroy this murderer. See to your spells, and let us all be glad there's but one monster, and not an invading army of them!'
'Are your veins full of ice?' Corathar snarled, voice rising in horror. 'Don't you know what I'm saying? Death waits for us in the jakes, in our beds, at any step we take in the passages-everywhere! — and all you can do is-'
'Enough, Corathar,' Broglan Sarmyn said severely, coming out of his sleeping-chamber with an old, brass- bound grimoire in his hand. 'Fear is as deadly a weapon as a foe's spell or blade, Resist it, as Insprin does, by keeping your mind on what must be done.' He sat down, reached for the decanter and a glass, and added, 'Speaking of which-'
He broke off as there came a rap upon the door. All three mages caught up their wands, and Broglan called, 'Yes?'
The door opened a cautious handspan, and a Purple Dragon they knew said, 'The Lady Storm Silverhand to see you, gentlesirs.'
'Oh?' Broglan exchanged wary glances with the others, and gestured at them to stand on either side of the door, well back. 'Show her in.'
The door opened wide. He could see six Purple Dragons outside. Out of their midst stepped the silver-haired Harper, clad as if to go hunting in the forest. She gave him a calm nod as she stepped into the room, hands spread wide and empty.
'Well met, Broglan,' Storm said. Without pause, she turned to look at the two mages on either side of her, and repeated her grave greeting, naming them both.
Three sets of eyes narrowed. 'How do we know,' Broglan asked slowly, setting down his glass untasted, 'that you are truly the Bard of Shadowdale-and not some deadly shapeshifter?'
Storm shrugged. 'You don't. On the other hand, I doubt our deadly shapeshifter would know just where I promised to scratch old Vangey when next we met-do you recall?'
'Yes,' Broglan said with a sigh. 'Forgive my ill manners, Lady; pray sit down. The doors, Insprin?'
'I'll gladly sit and chat in a moment, Sir Broglan,' the lady bard told him, 'but there is a casting I must do first.' And without further ado, she raised her hands and made a complex series of passes in the air, murmuring words the wizards could not quite hear.
Broglan flushed in anger, and opened his mouth to protest-but she was done, and smiling sweetly at him. He shrugged, reached for his glass, and said in acid tones, 'I suppose you'll get around to telling me just what you've done when you have, say, some idle hours?'
Storm chuckled. 'You war wizards certainly lack for fun,' she told him merrily. 'All this grim silence and snapped orders, and keeping your laundry lists deathly secret! Aren't you even going to offer a lady a drink?'
The worried-looking senior war wizard sighed. 'On one condition, Lady Storm: that you drop this giggling maiden act. I'd appreciate the teasing more if I wasn't scared witless, and facing the first truly important threat to the realm that I've seen in years. Treat us as equals.'
'Will you in turn accept the authority Lord Vangerdahast gave me over you?' Storm asked quietly, meeting his eyes.
Broglan sighed again, and then said quietly, 'Lady, I will. Corathar? Insprin?'
'We will,' they said in rough chorus.
'Then let us drink to seal it,' Storm said, extending her hand.
'There's only the one glass,' Broglan protested.
'So fill it, and we'll share,' Storm told him crisply. 'The spell I just cast here is called a 'watchful eye.' Like a magic mouth spell, it is triggered by certain conditions-in this case, by any attack in this room that unleashes fire or draws blood, or by entry into this room through any way but the doors I know of. I'll write down the word of activation for you; don't speak it aloud until you really need to.'
'What does uttering the word bring?' Insprin asked from close behind her.
'The spell creates sound and moving images of what befell in its area of effect when it was triggered- hopefully showing us just what was said and done after an attack occurred.'
'So the survivor can see who killed the rest of us,' Corathar said sarcastically.
'Corathar!' Broglan snapped angrily, but Storm held up her hand.
'A fair reaction,' the lady bard said quietly, 'being as you've given this mage under you no comfort.' She sipped from the glass Broglan was holding and then offered it to Corathar.
'Drink, sir,' she said quietly, 'and know this: giving in to fear doesn't help. Let it keep you awake, and wary, and thinking, yes … but don't let it master you. Watch old Insprin, instead of envying and hating him; he knows this.'
Corathar's eyes blazed, but he sipped from the cup carefully, and then passed it to Insprin, who murmured in mock-quavering tones, 'Eh, Storm! Not so much of the 'old,' hear ye?'
It was just the right thing to say; they all burst into sputtering laughter, and rocked together in shared mirth for a moment.
Broglan took back his glass before the last of the wine got spilled. 'We know we face a shapeshifter- something called a Malaugrym, Lord Vangerdahast ventured-so what will seeing a shape assumed by this killer tell us? Why set the spell?'
It was Storm's turn to sigh. 'My magic is little better than yours, gentlesirs; not all who serve Mystra can rend mountaintops. I can't bring this foe to stand and fight, so I'm trying to learn all I can of him.' She shrugged. 'He seems able to shapeshift at will… so I'd like to catch a few more of his shapes.'
'Are you sure it's a 'he'?' Broglan asked quietly.
Storm frowned, and then sprang up, almost bowling Corathar over. 'Mystra aid my wits!'
She was across the room in two strides, snatching the door open, and snarling, 'Shayna!'
Behind her, as the three war wizards stared in astonishment at the racing bard, the air shimmered slightly as the watchful eye spell activated.
A secret panel slid aside in the ceiling above the table where Broglan sat, and three glossy black tentacles reached down for the wizards. Each eely intrusion ended in a bony joint from which three human forearms sprouted. Behind each tentacle came a many-fanged mouth, surrounded by a nimbus of purple light. The hands reached for the necks of the mages, but the mouths opened in silent eagerness as they drew near the tops of the wizards' heads.
Corathar saw the monster first, and screamed.
'A Sharn!' Insprin said in awe, as he looked up and triggered his wand. Magical bolts burst from it in blue- white pulses, curving to follow those reaching arms.
Corathar screamed again and triggered his own wand.
Broglan dived for the floor as fast and as frantically as he'd ever done anything in his life….
ELEVEN
Magical radiances flashed and spat as Broglan rolled over and over in frantic haste, terrified the beast would fall on him. Blue-white magic missiles streaked overhead and tore into the glossy black monster. Corathar was shouting at the thing in wordless, furious fear, and there were answering, startled shouts from the corridor outside as Purple Dragons came running. The armsmen couldn't get to the monster protruding from the ceiling without
