gleaming in her hand.
On light feet, she danced toward the bard. A low chuckle of delighted anticipation rose from her throat as she came. Storm tensed, gathering herself for a desperate kick and roll. Shayna looked down at her and shook her head; she knew full well what the bard planned, and was enjoying the momentary taunt.
White light suddenly flared so brightly that it lit up the heart of the keep, and men cried out all over the fortress.
Shayna Summerstar threw back her head, the cords in her throat standing out like flesh-cloaked spines. She screamed in raw, rising agony. Her eyes rolled up in her head, her hands became claws that raked vainly at the air, and she shuddered so hard that the flesh along her ribs rippled in visible waves.
Then Shayna's head fell forward, and her body went limp. She whimpered, drew in a slow, tremulous breath, and seemed to see the blade in her hand for the first time.
She hurled it down in disgust, looked around wildly, a wordless quaver of fear rising in her throat. Her eyes fell upon Storm, and she cried, 'Lady Storm! Lady Storm! Lady Storm!' over and over again and went to her knees, arms outstretched.
Storm rolled up to a sitting position and embraced the terrified girl-who clung to her and burst into wild, racking sobs. Her coronet fell off and rolled. Storm stopped it with one outstretched foot, and stroked Shayna's hair as the young heiress wept in grief, remorse, and shame.
'There, there, little one,' Storm said softly, hugging the shuddering, heaving body. 'You impressed us all.' Well, that was certainly true.
She went on murmuring reassurances as her eyes went slowly from the coronet to the discarded knife and back again. The white light at her back pulsed, faded, and then brightened. Storm tried not think of what it might herald.
Like an ungainly spider, the shapeshifter writhed on his back. His many tentacles did an endless dance around him. As he screamed and gibbered, the tendrils whipped wildly against nearby stones, coiling and shooting out to lash pillars and crumbling walls.
Their owner shrieked and babbled wordlessly as the powers he'd subsumed were torn away. His linkage with Shayna Summerstar was gone in an instant, and spell after spell followed. His darkening mind became a pitching place of spilling images. He clung grimly to two things: awareness of who he had been-and would become again- and the power to subsume. All he was losing could be replaced some day, if he survived still able to drink the knowledge, memories, and powers of those he slew….
Those Bane slew. Yes, Bane! The Black Hand would rise again to smash all who stood against him! 'Bane!' he roared in a voice flung back at him by that the riven innards of the Haunted Tower. 'Fear Bane once more!' The gigantic spectral eyeball floating above the scepter turned slowly to look at the howling shapeshifter. The white radiance around it flared to blindingly once more.
The man who had once, perhaps, been a part of Bane roared in fresh pain. Tentacles blazed up into nothingness or were sheared away by ravening fires that hurled him back, back. He tumbled end over end down a dark hall, trailing a helpless scream, until he came to the inevitable closed door.
There was a heavy, splintering crash, and the center of the door was suddenly gone. Shattered panels swung crazily and then fell. Stones clattered down to keep them company. Something tentacled rolled over once in the darkness, shuddered, and lay still.
The huge orb turned slowly to face him once more, trailing motes of magical radiance. Broglan Sarmyn trembled, but somehow could not move from the pose he had been swept into: kneeling as if in homage to a king, holding the dragoneye scepter upright as if it were a holy thing.
SUCH IS MY POWER.
Broglan swallowed. Was he supposed to speak?
IS IT NOT PARAMOUNT, MAN?
Forgive me, Mystra, Broglan prayed, but to serve you, a man must betimes save his own skin. 'Y-Yes,' he mumbled.
WITHOUT TREACHERY, I COULD NEVER HAVE BEEN MASTERED. The black eye drifted a little nearer. HAVE YOU GUESSED YET WHO I AM?
Helplessly Broglan shook his head. 'No, Most Mighty One.'
The eye drifted nearer still, ominously silent.
Broglan quivered, unable to move but desperately wanting to scream and leap and flee, as fast and as far as he could.
MOST MIGHTY ONE, the thunderous mind-voice said slowly, as it was considering the sound of those three words. MOST MIGHTY ONE! YES …
MOST MIGHTY ONE, INDEED! A FITTING TITLE, MAGE! YOU HAVE OUR FAVOR!
Broglan set his teeth. He was leader of the Sevensash wizards of war, and his duties in a situation such as this were clear: find out all that can be learned about any unknown magically powerful force or being. 'Who are you?' he asked again.
HER SHAME MUST HAVE DRIVEN HER TO KEEP MY ENTRAPMENT A SECRET. . THAT MUST BE WHY YOU KNOW ME NOT. MAN, I AM DENDEIRMERDAMMARAR!'
'Den-Dendeirmerdammarar?' Broglan asked, wondering if he dared smile.
AYE. LORD OF THE THUNDER PEAKS. MOST MIGHTY OF THE OFFSPRING OF ARNFALAMME REDWING.
Something glimmered at the back of Broglan's mind. The wisp of a memory, of reading that latter name long ago in a lore tome in the court in Suzail, on a hot and sunny afternoon….
'You're a red dragon?' he asked.
OF COURSE, DOLT! NEXT YOU'LL BE ASKING ME WHO BOUND ME INTO THIS SCEPTER!
'Well,' Broglan heard himself saying, inner dread growing with every foolish word, 'ahem … yes.'
THE ACCURSED ONE! THE SHE-MAGE! THE WOMAN YOU SERVE!
The mind-shout almost bowled him over-but the power of the radiant field held him where he was. His trembling died away, and the brilliance forced him back to the exact pose he'd been in before. 'Twas time to try again. 'Mystra?'
NAY, FOOL! The mind-voice was scornful. SEEK NOT TO SHIELD HER WITH CLEVER TONGUE-TRICKS! AMEDAHAST, THE ROYAL MAGE OF CORMYR!
Amedahast! Gods above! The dragon had been in the scepter for a long time. Seven hundred years, if Broglan's memory of the royal mages held true. This was probably not a good time to tell the freed sentience that the woman he wanted vengeance on had been dust-or, some among the war wizards whispered, a kindly guardian and sometimes guiding spirit, as well as dust-for five centuries or so.
Beings with power enough to be called Most Mighty One are all too apt to lash out at whoever is handy when something displeases them.
The eyes drifted ominously nearer. YOU ARE LONG SILENT, O MOST BOLD AND CURIOUS OF MAGES! DO YOU, PERHAPS, PLOT SOME FRESH TREACHERY?
'Most Mighty One,' Broglan answered truthfully, 'I lack the wits to successfully plan any treachery, great or small, even if I had the desire to. It is all I can do to serve my realm and my superiors, most times-and as it is, I have failed my friends over and over again these last few days….'
The pupil of the huge floating eye seemed to expand. A MAN WHO IS HUMBLE? AND TRIES TO SPEAK TRUTH? HAVE MEN TRULY COME SO FAR IN THE LONG TIME OF MY IMPRISONMENT?
Silence followed, and the dragon obviously expected him to fill it. 'I–I don't know what to say,' Broglan replied helplessly.
There was a rumble of what sounded like astonished respect, and then the mind-voice said, THEY HAVE. I BEGIN TO FEAR FOR THE FATE OF MY KIN.
Trapped in immobility, holding the scepter and thinking of the tentacled thought-stealer that must be lurking somewhere beyond tins great floating eye, Broglan began heartily to fear for the fate of his kin, too.
Ergluth Rowanmantle leaned wearily against a pillar and said hoarsely, 'It shames me to say this, but I find
