take her up. Then she could circle back toward the foe. Shayna Summerstar, pretty little lure that she was, would have to start following, not lying in wait here, there, and everywhere.
A lance of ruby light split the darkness behind her. Storm threw herself headlong through a door, onto rubble, and smelled burnt leather from her right boot as the ravening radiance sang on down the passage. Calling up a shield spell, she stepped back out into the hallway. Ruby fire stabbed at her again.
She had a brief glimpse of Shayna's smiling face, chestnut hair plastered to an ivory forehead beneath a coronet whose upswept tips were emitting the ray-and then ruby death struck her shield, splashed out a spectacular shower of rosy sparks, and rebounded back down the hall.
There was a startled cry and then darkness and silence. Tasting her own weapon was not something a Summerstar heiress welcomed, it seemed.
'That's a Battlestar circlet,' Storm murmured aloud. 'Did she slay Zarova to get it?' She turned and ran lightly down the passage, heading for the stair she'd intended to use. No skulking. No little miss was going to dictate where she could go in this battle.
She was halfway up it when a rattle of tiny bouncing stones warned her. She threw herself sideways, slipped on stones, and ended up half over the rail. The wind was knocked out of her and she almost plunged over it.
A moment later, a statue as large as she was smashed into the steps above her. The impact showered her with jagged stone shards, The statue bounced past and slid to the bottom of the stair, leaving ruin in its wake. The rail under her shuddered, but the stair held.
'Bitch,' she muttered to herself. 'So it's toss the tower at Storm time again, is it?' She ascended the stairs at a run, lifting her voice merrily in the ballad 'I Walk Carefree In the Moonlight.'
A fist-sized stone whizzed past her nose. She grinned, somersaulted, and listened to another stony missile strike the floor and skitter away into the night. Aiming was not Shayna's strength.
Storm finished her song as she dodged forward in a series of zigzag runs at the place where Shayna must be-and was rewarded by a soft curse and the sounds of frantic fleeing.
Now we're getting somewhere. Run, little rabbit, and don't look back, because I'll be close behind you.
They burst out into an open gallery, running toward where the foe had toppled the pillar. Shayna was a pale, flitting form ahead. Storm put her head down and sprinted.
She was only a few paces behind when Shayna darted aside, into a chamber whose floor now formed a jagged bridge across an open, blasted ruined area.
Startled at how close Storm was, the Summerstar heiress called on her coronet again, splashing the bard-and the pillars on either side of her-with ruby fire.
Storm's shield held, but the pillars burst apart-and the Bard of Shadowdale had to leap for her life as the ceiling came down.
Mocking laughter echoed around Storm as she rolled, came to her feet and ran on. She caught her hand on a doorframe to spin around into that room-and found the space no longer had a floor.
She fell hard, jarring her chin against her knees as she struck loose rubble with both boots. . and then started to slide helplessly backward. Above her, ruby fire flashed again. A larger explosion shook the loftiest levels. Storm saw remnants of walls toppling slowly down at her as she rode shifting rubble down. At last she could roll over and find her feet again. Huge stone blocks were crashing down all around her by then.
It was time to find another stair and do it all over again.
'Shayna, dear!' she called gaily, 'I'm coming for you!'
Storm was rewarded with a hissed curse and ruby death stabbing wildly down through an empty chamber behind her. As sparks danced and flew in the darkness, Storm found steps going up. She took them.
'Mystra, be with me now,' she breathed. She whirled around a landing and pounded up the next flight. 'If you like fun and folk making idiots of themselves with magic, you won't want to miss this!'
'Something moved, I tell you!' the Purple Dragon, snarled. He pointed with his sword. 'Right-there!'
'Easy,' Insprin Turnstone said from behind him, raising his wand. 'There's naught but death to be gained from rushing off into the darkness hacking at things!'
'What do wizards know of real war?' the armsman spat over his shoulder. 'Keep to what you know, mage, and-'
His words broke off in a sudden gurgle.
To the warrior at his other shoulder, Insprin said sharply, 'Your torch! Quickly!'
They'd been cut off from the boldshield's rally by falling stones and spells that sent small, seeking balls of flame. We've not been cut off, but herded, Insprin thought bitterly. Now they were somewhere along the backstairs passage the servants called the Lower Run, well away from the Haunted Tower. The darkness around seemed a waiting, watching, menacing thing.
Now, as Insprin had feared, the darkness was beginning to grow tentacles. Playing with its prey.
The fluttering torchlight showed the black, glistening tentacle he'd expected. Purple Dragons shouted in disgust and rage all around the wizard and rushed at it, hacking and slashing.
And so, of course, they ran headlong into a waiting net of coiling arms, which fell on them from above. Insprin cursed, caught up a fallen torch, and threw it high and hard. It struck stone and spun away in a cloud of sparks, but it had shown him enough. The source of the tentacles was somewhere back there.
He aimed and fired his wand carefully-and was rewarded with a roar of pain. The armsmen suddenly bounced aloft in unison, kicking their boot heels, as the tentacles around their throats convulsed. One man slashed the tip of a tentacle. He fell, but scrambled up to stagger away. All the others came down atop him in a deadly rain of flesh, thudding against stone. The tentacles had made their victims into large, living flails to batter down the escaping man.
The Purple Dragons made wet, wordless sounds as their bodies were broken. Insprin cried out in his own revulsion and rage. He fired his wand-the tentacles quivered-and again. This time the tentacles withdrew, leaving a heap of blood-drenched, unmoving warriors behind. The war wizard backed away slowly, knowing he'd be next.
'Mystra watch over me now,' he prayed aloud, 'and grant that I die well.'
Mystra was hard of hearing, it seemed. The next thing he knew was the smashing strike of a tentacle leaping out of the darkness to send him flying into the nearest pillar. He struck it hard, and staggered away, trying to clear his wits of red pain. The next blow stung his fingers like fire, and snatched his wand away.
He watched a burst of radiance that must have marked the breaking of his weapon, and drew himself up. This must be his time to 'die well.' So be it; he'd not go to the gods weeping or pleading. He strode away from the pillar to take a stance where the floor was free of rubble, corpses, and blood, and asked sternly, as his hands began the gestures of a silent spell, 'Have you no mercy?'
'Hah! Mercy! Kindness! The pursuits of fools!' came a laughing reply out of the darkness. Its source advanced slowly to gloat: a man whose skin was the same dusty blue-gray as the night around him, but whose eyes gleamed like those of a great cat. He smiled as he grew a tentacle that slid forward.
Insprin's eyes narrowed. He was suddenly surrounded by a glowing ring of spheres, the fruit of his spell- spheres of winking, dancing sparks. One sped toward the tentacle and burst, clinging to it with bright motes that burned and melted away the dark flesh.
The tentacle quivered, but slid on through the air, its tip questing for the mage. Insprin backed away and began to hurl the other spheres in a frantic stream-only to see the tentacle wriggle deftly through his dweomer.
'Power is a better goal!' the foe told him in tones of cold triumph.
'Mercy and kindness are power,' Insprin replied firmly, weaving another spell as he backed away from the slowly advancing tentacle. 'The slowest sorts to reward, but among the most mighty.'
'What nonsense d'you speak?' the shapeshifter asked scornfully as Insprin spread his hands. Something that glowed drifted up from between them. 'Tell me-how are they mighty?'
'They separate the truly just and noble from all others,' Insprin replied softly, dodging away from the tentacle and drawing the dagger from his belt.
'And why,' the foe asked, as his tentacle lashed out with the sudden speed of a striking snake and snapped around Insprin's throat, 'would I want to do that?'
'What manner of monster are you?' Insprin gasped, feeling the coils tighten and knowing his dagger would
