Ed Greenwood - Stormlight

No matter; what she must do was clear. Faerun itself demanded it.

"Broglan!" Storm cried, turning to him. "Anchor me!"

The war wizard blinked. "How?" he asked, bewildered.

"Think of me-remember my looks, my voice, the way I move, what I've said-only keep remembering!"

Broglan nodded, a frown of concentration settling on his face. He reached out and took hold of her chin gently, holding her face so that he could look into it. Solemnly, he looked her bare body up and down, before nodding, clearing his throat, and saying roughly, "Do what you have to do, and may Mystra be with us both!"

Storm gave him a smile of thanks, and descended again into the darkness that had once been a part of Bane.

This time, madness was waiting for her-and it was desperate.

A sword of hatred stabbed into her, and fear lashed deep its blazing brands. She snarled and drove deeper, battered but determined, hurling silver fire wherever the darkness was deepest.

The pain of his attacks came again and again, always vicious thrusts that struck at what would disgust her-eyeballs and fingernails and worse. The silver fire surged and restored, but her mind grew steadily darker and angrier … and it was in her mind that the struggle would be won or lost.

The foe lurked, almost gloating, and slid away when she tried to smite, only to slash and goad from behind. Storm snarled and spun the silver fire about her like a cloak, so that to injure her, he must himself be harmed. Against every dark vision of cruelty, she set one of love, or sacrifice, or honor, calling on the long strivings for peace and justice, and friendship that she and her fellow sisters and Harpers had undertaken.

Those memories made her weep anew for friends gone and their noble deeds done. In answer to her raw heart, the silver fire began to burn here and there in the dark caverns that she traversed, brightening the mad mind.

Yet as Storm fought on through the abyss that had once been a part of Bane, silver hair swirling, she felt herself becoming slowly and inevitably as dark and serpentine and cruel as her foe, using her mind as viciously as he was using his-to slash and hack.

It seemed she was striking nearer and nearer to the oldest memories, and to the roiling rot of true madness. Madness had mastered him again and again in raging bouts of gibbering uncontrol. If not for madness, he would have won an easy victory over her in Firefall Keep. She fought closer to the shame and the trembling fear he so hated, that made him seek tyranny over others. This fear tasted like the tang of iron in blood, but came from a place weirdly different than Faerun. The mortal who had become Bane, so long ago, had come from. . somewhere else, and still had secrets that he was fighting wildly to keep from her, secrets that he would keep hidden at all costs.

At all costs … there was a sudden red roiling of disgusting, elongated internal human organs, bloated and wriggling, as the foe mentally turned himself inside out-and burned. He was slaying himself, to keep from yielding to her. He was dying utterly at last. He was… gone, a drifting wisp of smoke in the heart of the leaping silver fire.

The silver fire reached to a brightness above, a brightness that was calling Storm. She reached for it and rose to it. . and slowly, very slowly, the light above her drew nearer.

Through her weary daze, Storm became increasingly ashamed of how twisted and besmeared the battle had left her. Yet she had prevailed, and was rising toward the light. New visions were coming.

Visions that had the warm, somehow brown feeling of Broglan's mind-visions of her beauty, impish outrageousness, and courage, laced about with awe and growing love. Faithfully, doggedly, and continuously replaying the vivid scenes that awoke in him both lust and love, Broglan was thinking of her.

The fouled, rising shadow seized on that anchor, and was suddenly Storm once more.

She saw the Realms around her again, and felt breezes moving over her body and something hard under her feet. She turned to look at Broglan, silver flames darting from her eyes.

Startled, the war wizard stepped back and raised his hands to cast a spell if need be. His brow was dark with worry.

"Are you Storm?" Broglan asked gravely, almost formally, "or-someone else?"

She gave him a weak smile, and her eyes became the silver-laced blue he remembered. "I am Storm Silverhand," she said slowly, "thanks in large part to you, Broglan."

She looked over her shoulder. The body of Maxer was lying on a bed of silver flames. His face was peaceful, his hands at his sides, and his eyes closed. Storm bit her lip, turned back to the watching wizard, and took two quick strides forward.

"Thank you," she said fervently, as their lips met. Her next impassioned words were silent echoes in his mind. Oh, Broglan, thank you. All the time you wrestled against loving me and then surrendered to it, and loved me, and aided me, and never forced yourself on me or demanded anything in return. The Lady needs more men like you. I needed you, though we were not for each other. I still need you. I revere you. Then from her mind a gentle touch of silver fire reached out, and Broglan felt pleasure greater than he ever had before. It raised him up, gasping, to trembling heights of bliss. He was suddenly intensely aware of the beautiful woman he held in his arms, her bare skin against him in a hundred places, her sweet lips touching his own eagerly.

It was suddenly too much, and he murmured and broke free, feeling wild elation-and rising fear.

Broglan shook his head slightly as he gazed at her, tears in his eyes. When she reached for him again, he shuddered involuntarily and backed away, raising his hands to ward off danger.

She halted, and he looked at her in horror-horror at himself. White-faced, he looked slowly down at his treacherous hands and then back up at her, ashamed.

Storm reached out in a wave of forgiveness, and gave him a sad little smile. "Farewell, love who might have been," she said softly. "Know that you shall always be in my heart, and welcome. Come to see me in Shadowdale, as a friend. . when you're ready. However long it takes, we'll"-she nodded toward Maxer's sleeping body-"be there. I hope."

"You hope?" Broglan asked, hesitantly.

"What was once a part of Bane is gone-destroyed, not driven out," Storm told him firmly, "but what is left behind could be a mindless thing, or something halfwitted … or a Maxer who hates me for what I've done to him."

The hour was late, and the torches were guttering low. Storm watched them flicker toward smoky deaths. She glanced at the bedchamber door for perhaps the thousandth time. Its closed surface told her nothing. She sighed, struck a chord on her harp, and let her fingers wander gently over the strings in an old, old song of wistful hope. She'd long since played all of her favorite ballads, several times, and then all the others she could remember or half-remember, and was on to the tunes-or snatches of them-that her fingers remembered when her mind could not. This one had lyrics of the half-remembered sort; she sang the few words that came to her.

"In the morning when the mists steal away, I'll still sit and softly play. I sing for you, every night, every day, the long years through.."

She was groping for the refrain when the door opened. Her fingers froze on the thrumming strings.

He stood there in a pair of her old breeches, barefoot and barechested, with one of her night cloaks thrown around his shoulders. He was smiling the way she remembered. His blue eyes were merry and bright.

Storm stared at him, unable to utter another sound.

"All these years you waited for me," Maxan Maxer said with a smile, his eyes shining. "I knew that, somehow, if I was ever set free, 'twould be my Storm that'd do it. Yes, my lady-'tis truly me, and not some last trick of the Dark One wearing my smile. Shall we carry on where we left off?"