Эд Гринвуд - Stormlight

“Well, the only thing we found of real interest is a few passages about the subsumption you spoke of—stealing powers from beings one kills. It seems that, long ago, Athlan discovered instructions for gaining this ability—instructions we can’t find. He wrote that he found the process in notes made by a mad recluse, Glondar of Hilp, once a war wizard of Cormyr.”

“And where did Glondar learn of it?” Storm asked softly.

Remembering, Insprin shook his head and shivered. The bard glanced at him, and then back at Broglan.

The leader of the war wizards looked grave. “Ah. Well. Glondar claimed, or so Athlan writes, to have come upon it in notes left by men he came to believe were avatars of two gods: Gargauth and … Bane.”

In a chamber of dank darkness, sudden light flickered and glowed, eddying about a motionless figure slumped on a stone bench. Cold laughter arose as the radiance settled down to a steady glow.

“Soon,” a tentacled thing told the slumped man. “Soon you’ll be ready, my Hungry Man. And then—” His voice rose and danced with glee. “Then it will be time—” He chortled and began to shuffle about the room, the shape of his body flickering and changing wildly. “Time to feed!”

The cold laughter rose again, high and sharp, echoing around the chamber until it rolled out through the empty passages and rooms of the Haunted Tower.

After a moment, another sound joined it. Slobbering, the Hungry Man began laughing, too.

“All of this is edible,” Storm said, looking at the grim-faced men around her. “Take it, just as it is, to some place in the keep you can defend. Go to the pantries and take what raw foodstuffs you can find, too. You’ll need water more than anything. Erlandar, where in Firefall Keep are a few secure rooms—no secret passages and no cracked walls or ill-fitting doors? The rooms must have water, and space enough to improvise a privy.”

Lord Summerstar frowned, looked at Thalance, and then said, “Well, there’s a pump-room by the kitchens.…”

He looked a question, but Thalance shrugged. “The only other pumps I know of are by the stables. There’re wells in the Haunted Tower and in the courtyard, but I don’t suppose we could defend either of those.”

“The kitchens it’ll have to be, then,” Storm said, “but try to choose rooms that you can’t be smoked out of if our foe sets the ovens or pantries alight with everything that’ll burn.”

“So we build ourselves a cage and cower in it,” Thalance said, acquiring a frown of his own. “I can see how that’ll prevent this shapeshifter from catching us alone … but doesn’t that give him free run of the keep, and keep us all in a known space he can hurl magic into whenever he pleases?”

Storm nodded. “All of that, yes. Consider warriors expendable—as most Purple Dragons already believe their commanders do—but necessary to guard the few war wizards we have left.”

Thalance glanced at the two mages, wondered briefly what horrible fate might have already befallen the third. “And what will they be doing?”

“Trying to identify and keep track of our foe by means of wizard eye spells, so that I can shrink down my barrier around him and put him in a trap. This won’t be quick or easy, especially after he guesses or learns what we’re trying to do. The mages will need to sleep in shifts and be watched over constantly … we don’t know how far the foe’s mind powers can reach.”

“Into our midst, you mean,” old Insprin said calmly.

Storm nodded.

Broglan shook his head. “I don’t like it,” he said, looking around at the tureens and platters, “but I can’t see any better way of doing things. We should act like we’re taking this food back to the kitchens to start with, and all go to these rooms together. Then we’ll have to shuttle our spellbooks and all down from our rooms.”

He looked at the two Summerstars, and added, “If I may presume to give orders to you two, my lords, you’re going to have to learn how to use wands that hurl magic missiles, so that you can defend us while we’re packing up, dismantling, and such.”

Thalance and Erlandar both nodded soberly. “We can take orders,” the younger Lord Summerstar said quietly. “I’m just glad to have some sort of plan to follow, at last.”

He looked down at the silver-haired woman at their feet, where she was settling the last lid onto a tureen, and asked, “Lady Storm, will you lead us?”

“No,” she said, rising smoothly. “I have to go and think—and, to cover all of you, hunt shapeshifters while I’m at it.” She smiled at them all, and then said briskly, “I believe that side table over there, if you upend it, can bear all the food at once; if two of you carry it like a litter, the rest can guard. Just remember to set it down at once if you’re attacked.”

“You’re going off by yourself?” Broglan asked. “Lady, is that wise?”

Storm rolled her eyes at him. “Broglan, if I’d stuck to what was ‘wise’ down the years, I’d be long dead. Mystra would have given up on me, and I’d have lived and died a house drudge in some village or other in the North, safe and growing daily more bent and crabbed and frustrated. If I were wise, I’d never have come here—I’d have stayed safely at home working on my farm until word came that Cormyr was awash in blood, and the king and Lord Vangerdahast were able to change their shapes at will, and the realm was whelming for war! Speak to me not of ‘wise,’ all right?”

“Yes,” Thalance told Insprin, “she’s definitely a marchioness.”

“Definitely,” the thin, gray-haired elder wizard agreed.

“Right,” Storm said. “Be about it, then. Broglan, before the lot of you leave this chamber, tell Ergluth or whichever officer is at the doors where you’re going—and ask him to tell Corathar where to find you when he returns.” She started away.

Storm turned, silver hair swirling about her shoulders, and added, “Of course, bear in mind that when you see him again, it might be the foe walking into your midst—but then again, it might just be a scared young mage, of lesser powers than the rest of us.”

“I’ll test him by asking about his noble past,” Erlandar offered.

“If the foe can take the memories of those he slays,” Storm reminded him, “he already has those of Athlan, and Pheirauze, and the gods know who else in this kingdom!”

“Get gone,” Broglan growled, “before you raise our spirits too high, and make us overconfident!”

They chuckled hollowly, and Storm turned away again.

Thalance watched her go and murmured, “There goes a woman I’d go on my knees to wed …”

“After me, boy,” Erlandar told him. “I’m th—”

“No,” Broglan said firmly from beside them, startling them both into silence. “After me. ”

With unhurried confidence, the Bard of Shadowdale strode past the guards—after all, if your enemy can be anywhere, why run? She went up the first flight of stairs she found, and then down the next staircase toward the cellars, only to double back and climb again. There was an unused closet she’d seen on her way to the fire … a gown-room, by the looks of it.

There it was. Storm looked up and down the deserted passage. She cautiously hooked open the door, and found herself looking at the dead, burnt-out husk of a Purple Dragon. She sighed and caught the corpse as it toppled past her, cradling the dead warrior to lay him gently down. The sightless eyes of an empty skull stared up at her.

“Helm or Tempus guard you, soldier,” she murmured, and dragged him into the nearest room along the passage—a dusty, sheet-draped guest bedchamber. It would not do for anyone to find him right outside the closet she’d chosen.