At the back of the closet that led off the bedchamber, where he crouched under a heap of Storm's discarded gowns and hosiery, Broglan's fingertips tingled. Someone was hurling lightning bolts. Had it begun? He waited tensely in the darkness, straining to hear.
The canopy fell away in tatters as lightning crackled and smoked along the ceiling. There was no one there.
The noblewoman lowered her wand and looked down at the bard. Storm did not awaken. Shayna was close enough now to see the shallow rise and fall of the Harper's breast. The master must be coming to feed, and take the bard's life at last.
'Well done, Shayna,' his compelling voice came from just behind her. 'Go now and guard the door. Blast anyone who tries to enter or strike at us from outside.'
Shayna gave the shapeshifter a weak smile. She moved mutely out of the way. On her way to the door, she looked back and saw him wrap two tentacles around the posts of the bed and haul himself up onto it almost impatiently. A delicate tentacle probed down, stroking the woman from knee to chin in what was almost a caress, drawing the shroud aside. There was no reaction.
'She's in a trance at last,' he murmured aloud, and lowered himself to straddle her. Shayna took up her stance by the doors, crossed her arms, and then risked another glance back at the bed. What would it look like when the master subsumed the powers of someone who was almost a god?
The master's eyes gleamed with sudden fire. Shayna almost looked away-but suddenly Storm's own eyes were open. The Hungry Man's hands whipped up from her throat in a blur, reaching for the master!
The shapeshifter reared back with a choked, startled sound. The meaty smack of a fist striking flesh snapped across the room as the Hungry Man, tortured fury blazing in his own eyes now, punched his master with all his force.
The shapeshifter reeled. Storm's long legs rose up to hold him in a scissors lock. Tentacles flailed and grew bony spurs to stab with, but the Hungry Man surged forward, punching and throttling….
SHAYNA! The thought was furious, clawing at her will almost frantically. Shayna brought the wand up without thinking, in fascination watching the unfolding battle on the bed.
Something washed over her like cool, perfumed water. She found herself blinking, a hazy picture of the war wizard Broglan's face floating before her eyes. The Dark Master's mind touch was gone! She was-free!
The shapeshifter grew tentacles in a frantic forest of eel-like wrigglings. The doors of the robing-room burst open, and Broglan emerged, his head adorned with a tangle of lacy lingerie and gauzy stockings. He ran grimly at the bed.
A tentacle shot out in a blur. Shayna found herself reeling back, head ringing from a slap that had almost broken her neck. Her fingers were burning where friction had stripped the flesh from them-from the blow that had shattered her wand. As she stared at them, its fragments spilled from her nerveless fingers. The tentacle reached for her again. Broglan laid on it a hand that blazed with sudden fire.
Smoke curled up from the eel-like member. The master roared out his pain, but dared not spare more attention to whatever was melting away his flesh. He had more pressing problems.
Through a bucking forest of tentacles, Shayna saw the shapeshifter and the Hungry Man staring at each other, nose to nose, muscles rippling and trembling as they strained to throttle each other.
Then flames raced out from the Master's eyes in a fiery plume.
Storm was twisting out from under them both as the flames roared, blinding-bright. When they died away, the Hungry Man was headless.
The body of the servant toppled, truly mindless now. Shayna screamed and ran, brushing past a startled Broglan, to get her own slim fingers around the shapeshifter's neck. She struck him from behind, digging in her nails to draw blood, howling, shaking him back and forth in a sudden frenzy of pain and rage and loss. . but he was flowing out from between her hands, changing shape, his head melting away!
The master oozed across the bed, growing tentacles that reached back to tear her apart-only to stiffen and let Shayna fall away, sobbing in fear and anger.
The shapeshifter had locked eyes with a different foe, and his eyes were blazing again. So were hers.
Silver fire smoldered in Storm Silverhand's eyes as she faced him, and she coolly mind-spoke, Time to feel the lash you've been using so cruelly on others. It was followed by a knife-edged probe that slashed and tore at his mind even more viciously than the awakened dragon had.
Wild, insane laughter burst from the shapeshifter's mouth-but instead of hurling spells and babbling raggedly, the shapeshifter drew himself up to tower above them all. The flames curling out of his burning eyes deepened to a rich red hue.
'I AM THE LORD OF LORDS AND THE PRINCE OF DARK PRINCES. MY BLACK HAND SMITES FROM ONE END OF FAERUN TO THE OTHER, AND BEYOND. BEHOLD ME, MORTALS, AND FEAR ME! FOR FEAR AND TYRANNY ARE MINE TO BESTOW, AND THE RUIN THEY DO IS MY EXULTATION. I AM BANE THE UNDYING, AND NONE SHALL ESCAPE ME!'
As he shouted, red fire burst from the dark-skinned, many-tentacled figure that stood on the bed. The blaze seared draperies and clothing to hurl Shayna against the bedchamber wall. She struck it heavily, slid down it, and did not move again.
Storm and Broglan were thrown to their knees, and as they struggled to rise, thunderous laughter rolled around them, and that terrible mind-voice spoke again. STAY DOWN IN HOMAGE, WHERE YOU BELONG. . FOR THE LAST FEW MISERABLE MOMENTS OF YOUR LIVES.
TWENTY
Bolts of black flame leapt from the outstretched palms of Bane and lanced about the bedchamber. Where they struck walls and furniture, they licked greedily but burned nothing, only coursed along surfaces. Where they struck mortals, they streamed into flickering fields around the bodies. Enshrouded in flames that did not burn, Storm and Broglan found themselves unable to move-except to tremble in time to the thrumming flow of unleashed power.
The revealed god stepped leisurely down from the bed, his face now almost unearthly in its beauty, his body jet-black, and his eyes two red flames. With lilting grace, he crossed the room to where Storm knelt, frozen with one open hand outstretched as if beseeching.
'I have waited so long for this moment,' Bane said gently, reaching out to caress her hair. 'Ever since I learned of your true power. Through you, my little Stormling, and the other minions of Mystra I'll reach through you, I shall ascend once more!'
'Perhaps,' Storm whispered as her eyes met his fearlessly. Silver fire shot out from them to strike the red blaze of Bane's gaze. All over the room, black flames fell away into curling, vanishing smoke as the air filled with surging silvery light.
Broglan cried out in awe and wonder. Bane cried out in pain and sudden despair. With a smile of relief, Storm reached up and touched the obsidian chest above her. At long last she was bringing down the full force of Mystra's divine fire on the foe, collapsing her barrier into his body.
Bane screamed, convulsed, and tried to turn away, to flee. As he struggled, writhing in the grip of silver flames that boiled up around him in racing, spiraling coils, he was lifted off the ground. Silver flames plunged through him to burst forth in ragged gouts from his every orifice.
The mad godling hung in the air above them, shuddering in the flames, his limbs flowing into scales and tentacles and feathers and soft suckers, but always being forced back into jet-black, human form. His screaming became raw and continuous as the black hue of the godly pretender fell away, and the naked body of a man began to take shape.
'You are no true god,' Storm said, knowing she spoke truth, 'but the twisted remnant of some unfortunate Bane took as an avatar-and abandoned later, leaving behind in a mortal body some dark shadow of himself as he
