Эд Гринвуд - Stormlight

Insprin raised a graying eyebrow. “Why not?” he asked. “Being head of a noble house doesn’t mean setting the world aside, lady! Not in Cormyr, anyway!”

Shayna looked up at him. “You don’t see, do you?” She took a step forward, and he raised the wand tensely.

A pained look passed over her face. She snatched at the tip of the wand and thrust it firmly between her breasts, where her gown was cut away to show a fall of lace. “There! If I’m some sort of monster,” she told him fiercely, “blast away!”

He looked into angry green eyes that were very close to his, swallowed, and asked carefully, “Lady, what is it you want?”

“You, Insprin Turnstone!” she hissed furiously. “Do I have to go to my knees and beg you? I need a man to teach me what loving and kindness and comfort are all about … a man who dares not carry tales around the realm, and who has magic to keep unwanted children from me! The only man I’ve ever really loved and admired was my father—and you are so like him! Kind, and thoughtful, and yet quiet, keeping your own counsel until those around you really need it. I think I could love you … and yet I know I can’t wed you, so I’d like to be in your arms for—for whatever times we can steal from the world together!”

She gazed into his eyes and almost whispered, “Of course, if you find me repellant, or my asking ridiculous, I’ll understand, and say nothing … except to beg you to forget I ever spoke these words. Only please, please don’t laugh at me, or call me a child!”

Insprin lowered his wand and put one hand to her magnificent hair, stroking it with infinite gentleness. “Lady,” he said softly, “no lass who thinks such things can be anything but a woman, whether she’s known a man yet or not. I-I do find you young, and I confess I’m more startled than flattered, but if you’ll allow me to walk with you awhile, and talk, perhaps you can persuade me that you really want me , and know what you’re getting yourself into … this keep is not the safest of places right now, you know.”

“Precisely,” Shayna said, “and if I die this night, or on the morrow, or the day after, I’ll never even have known a kiss from any man who was not my kinsman, and just being polite or kind!” She took his arm firmly, set down the dusty bottle, and said, “Right then—walk, you said, and we will. I’ll walk to the end of Firefall Vale and back, wizard, so long as you take me!”

“Ah … I was thinking more of a tower where we could be alone,” Insprin replied, holding his wand down by his side. Abruptly she caught hold of his sleeve and turned him, trying to kiss him—only to feel the point of the swiftly raised wand hard against her breast.

She glared into his eyes, her quickening breath warming his chin. “Fire the damned thing, I said,” she whispered fiercely. “Find out that I am Shayna Summerstar, and then heal me, wizard, and then make love to me!”

He never knew, later, if he bent his lips to hers, or if she thrust her mouth forward, but her kiss was hot, and tremblingly eager, and sweet.

When he drew away at last to breathe, he said very quietly, “You mean it, don’t you?”

“I do,” the young noblewoman in his arms said simply. “Do you still doubt it?”

“No,” he said, just as plainly, and took her arm. “Let us leave this place, and go wherever you want.”

Shayna sighed as if a great weight had been taken from her, and smiled, her eyes bright. “Now we’re getting somewhere, Insprin! I know just the place!”

“Oh?” Veteran war wizard that he was, Insprin still had hold of his wand and his presence of mind—but the lady in his arms giggled and said, “No, it’s not my grandmother’s bedroom or some dungeon cell! Come on!”

They hastened through the wine cellar, avoiding the pantry and its gathered guards, and past the granaries to a back stair. Three halls and a passage later, the way ahead turned dark—and the wizard slowed.

“Isn’t this the Haunted Tower?”

Shayna gasped with exasperation. “Wizard,” she hissed, “this is my home! Mine, now that I am head of House Summerstar—and I can’t help it if folk call this whole central bit haunted! We just have to pass through it here, to reach the far wing!”

Insprin’s eyes narrowed, and he stepped back from her and cast a quick spell. She made as if to interrupt, and then said, “Finished? Satisfied? Come on! ”

The shield was a feeble one, but it would keep off the first slap of a tentacle or stab of a tail-sting … unless it came from her . Insprin sighed—we all have to take some risks in life, after all—and drew Shayna into his arms once more.

She laughed softly in delight and anticipation, and led him into the darkness. “It won’t be long now,” she said, guiding his arms around her slender waist, to where her gown seemed to have come undone. “I want to feel your hands … no, don’t stop, I want to get there … I’ve a cabinet full of sherry, and a fire laid ready to light, and—”

Master? Master, I have him. Where are you?

[CHAOS]

Master?

AH THERE YOU ARE MY PRETTY ONE HEIGH-HO THERE’S A BLADE BRIGHT AND READY BUT THE STORMS ARE SO FIERCE, MILORD, THAT WE DARE NOT TRY TO KISS ME NOW YOU WENCH, YOU BRAZEN DOG! WOE BETHRUST IT ALL! THERE’S AN ANKLE THAT MUST BE HIS, IN ALL THIS BLOOD, AND …

It seemed to Shayna Summerstar then that a bright sword of silver flames cut open a door in the back of her mind, and images tumbled in, rushing and overwhelming her, all shrieking and moving and overlaid and shifting at once.…

With a snarl, she tore away from the wizard, leaving bits of her gown behind, and barked like a dog. Insprin went pale and backed away from her warily, but the face she turned toward him was streaming with tears. Emerald eyes implored him to stay with her even as she snarled and babbled wordlessly and clawed at the empty air.

“Insprinwizard!” she gasped, as if rising from deep water, “don’t leave meeeeee!” She was gone again into a nightmare world of howling and shrieking and staggering. Abruptly she raced off into the darkness of the Haunted Tower, crying out despairingly, “Don’t leave meeeeee!”

Insprin took two running steps after her but stopped. He looked around at the dark walls and the scraps of cloth in his hands, cursed softly, and turned back. He ran for all he was worth, his aging heart pounding in his ears. The jaws of the trap could close on him any instant.

The child was trapped, in torment. Alone, and frightened—and the heir of a noble house he was sworn to protect so long as she lifted no hand in treachery to the Dragon Throne. For Shayna to survive Broglan’s spells and the silver fire and the bard’s sword, he had to find Storm, swiftly, and tell her … tell her everything.

“Storm!” he called, when he could find the breath. “Storm Silverhand! I need you!”

He lost his footing on a stair, stumbled painfully, and with a rueful laugh rebounded off the wall at the bottom. Of course he needed Storm. Don’t we all?

As the sun went down over Firefall Keep, something shook the rooms where the two Summerstar lords stood with a few Purple Dragons, a cook, and the grim war wizard Broglan.

“What in the name of the Old Dragon of Cormyr was that? ” Erlandar snarled as dust drifted down on their heads.

A dull, rolling boom resounded through Firefall Keep.

“Storm blasting the shapeshifter to little shifting bits?” Thalance suggested hopefully—and then winced as a second explosion flung him hard against the nearest wall. The goblet he’d been holding clanged off stone and rolled away into a corner, trailing its contents.