flaring into silver lightning that shocked through him. His arms flew apart convulsively, and then tightened again around the lightning as if it were something solid he could crush. Not that Elminster was thinking of crushing anything.
Or thinking at all.
He was too busy screaming in pain.
The high, throat-stripping shriek of a young female dancer lost in agony and horror spat out of him into the night, as lightning slammed through him, his every hair standing on end like a straining dagger, snapped back out of him, then roared back into him again. It was as if a thousand spears thrust through him, tore back out, and then thrust right back in repeatedly through the same gaping wounds.
Elminster was dimly aware of falling to his knees and shuddering helplessly. He was caught on the bright spears of lightning, unable to collapse onto his face… unable to do anything.
Every time the lightnings snarled out of him, they took life with them, vitality that was not returned when they stormed in again.
Amarune was sobbing, or trying to, but her body could not breathe, could no longer make a sound. Her brain was awash in roaring silver fire, flames of power that thundered through her mind and might well have destroyed it had Elminster not been grimly fighting to stay himself, to cling to what was Elminster of Shadowdale amid the hungry fires of a goddess.
Around him, blue fire was being beaten back by silver flames, flames that circled him-and then darted into him.
Elminster tried to scream, but all that came out was a strangled squeak.
Mystra-if it was Mystra-had drained much energy from his borrowed body but was now at work on steadying his mind, forcing back the roiling blue fires that had lurked there for nigh a hundred years.
“There, my champion,” Mystra whispered as tenderly as any mother. “Go forth renewed. Greater and more magic you can now work without madness coming upon you, but not an unlimited amount. I cannot do more. Go now, until next we meet.”
Silver fire left him then, leaving only chill darkness.
Elminster stood forlorn, blind in the darkness.
Something soft and tender stroked his face and arm, turning him and leading him back. Out and up, stumbling over unseen things underfoot, once more into the moonlight.
Weak and dazed, reeling, with Amarune cowering in mute terror in a corner of their shared mind, Elminster shivered in the night.
Bare and chilled, feeling sick and empty-kiss of Mystra, half of Rune’s energy must be gone-he staggered up rises and down slopes, through countless trees. The way was not long, but he would have been lost had a tiny silver star not guided him until the dark bulk of the little lodge loomed out of the night.
He leaned against its front wall beside the door, shuddering, until he could master his breathing enough to stand upright and square his-her-shoulders.
Amarune was still drawn into herself, but El could put the pain and horror of the lightning firmly behind him and take satisfaction in the healing that had been done to him.
By his goddess.
His Mystra.
Aye, Mystra was alive and in the realms still.
A part of him wanted to shout that to the stars above, to bellow it until folk came awake in their beds in Suzail to sit up listening.
And a part of him wanted to keep it so secret that not even the young nobleman inside the hut would begin to suspect it.
Let alone Manshoon or any other wizard of power.
Elminster threw back his head, drew in a deep breath-and smiled at the tiny silver flash of farewell that winked out in the darkness above his nose. Then he eased open the door with a fingertip and stepped inside as quietly as he could.
The hearth was dim, almost out, but someone had lit the brazier tray fixed in its spark-shield frame behind the door. Its dancing glow fell upon blankets frozen in the usual twisted chaos left behind when sleepers arise And it fell upon Storm Silverhand, her shirt-clad body bent back in a graceful bow on the floor. Someone had hogtied her to a leg of the table and her hair was over her face. She lay unmoving. Dead or senseless.
She’d been bound with Arclath’s belt.
The door slammed behind Elminster. He spun around, managing to quell Rune’s instinctive urge to leap back and away. He might need to be close.
As he’d expected, he faced a half-dressed Lord Arclath Delcastle, who waved his sword threateningly. Behind its bright edge-and above the burning brazier-the young nobleman held the coffer in which Storm had been carrying Elminster’s ashes.
Arclath’s eyes, as he glared at El, were like two dagger points.
“Luckily for my Amarune’s sake,” he snapped, “you seem unaware that even fine, upstanding nobles of Cormyr learn a few tawdry secrets of the realm-and lack scruples in exploiting them. The uses of darfly-sting essence, for instance. It brings on instant, topple-on-your-face sleep at the slightest scratch and can be found on the heads of the takedown arrows that Highknights of Cormyr hide in the same spot in every royal hunting lodge across the realm. Sleep that takes even legendary silver-haired bards blessed by the gods, it seems.”
Elminster sighed and shook his head, and then he lunged back as the bright tip of Arclath’s sword hissed past his throat.
Inside the mind they shared, El threw all his exasperation at Amarune, who spasmed like a speared fish, sent fury back at him, and stared at Arclath.
“Your ashes!” the nobleman hissed, shaking the coffer. “I’ll destroy them if you don’t surrender Amarune to me.”
He bent into a lunge that kept his sword up and menacing Elminster as he lowered the box into the flames of the brazier. They flared up and crackled, right on cue.
“Wizard, get out of her right now! Or you die!”
He flicked his blade so its tip pointed at Storm’s throat, where she lay with her head on the floor, silver hair fallen across her face.
“And so does she!”
CHAPTER TWO
A marune found to her astonishment that Elminster sat silently idle in her mind, all of his control over her body gone. She was free to speak and act just as she pleased.
After a moment of startlement, she burst out, “Arclath, what’re you doing? You idiot!”
“Elminster,” the young noble snapped, glaring at her, “don’t try to trick me! I know it’s you speaking, not my Rune! Let her go! Get out of her, and stay out! Or I’ll destroy all that’s left of you!” He waved the coffer menacingly.
Elminster took control again, so swiftly that all Rune could do was blink.
“Oh,” he made her body reply, this time in the unmistakable drawl of the Sage of Shadowdale when he was being curious. “How?”
“I’ll burn these ashes in the… fire.”
Arclath’s voice fell as his anger faltered into confusion.
“And? They’re ashes, dolt! What do they teach nobles of Cormyr these days, I wonder?” El replied, now sounding for all the world like an arch and mincing marchioness of elder years.
“I-” Arclath’s blade wavered back and forth and then thrust toward Storm. “Well, I can still…”
Amarune strode forward to plant herself right in front of the nobleman’s face, her hands on her hips. He
