Эд Гринвуд - Stormlight

Tentacles came down like clubs upon his wrists, and ankles—and throat. Broglan bucked and wriggled, clawed frantically at the stones beneath him, and cried out for help.

All that came out was a hoarse rattle—but his fingers found something long, and cold, and hard. A poker? A mace-haft? He swept it up and thrust it desperately at a dark face above him—a dim face that was two red eyes and a gleaming, grinning mouth.

His improvised weapon seemed to have an eye of its own: a huge orb that winked at him knowingly as he thrust it out. Then its red eyes became two flames, and the flames lashed out.

As the real pain began, Broglan used the last breath in him to call on Mystra to claim his soul. He hoped she would hear him in time.

Flames seared Broglan Sarmyn like two needles driven into his eyes. All he could do was stare, unable even to blink. A whirling chaos of lights and sounds and flashing images rushed toward him. The cold, cruel laughter of the foe laced every contorted image in the confused cacophony of shouts and cries and gasped words of agony and passion. The wizard could do nothing, nothing at all, as his thoughts, dreams, and memories were dragged away. In a another roiling moment, he would be gone, swept back into the stream of chaos and out of his own skull.…

“Storm,” he struggled to say, with his last breath, “I have come to love and respect you—Mystra, please tell her thissss.…”

The stream sucked him down, past the place where he could speak and think and cling to anything he knew and loved.

Suddenly, though, its quickening rush stopped, eddying in confusion—broken by the calm, lazily blinking scrutiny of a dark eye as large as all the world. An eye that slid across to block the stream.…

The stream struck that eye and rebounded, something that could not happen, a raging voice within Broglan shouted. From somewhere nearby, the foe screamed.

The scream was long and raw and wild. It trailed off into howls of forlorn loss and agony, that in turn became wild giggling and sudden yips and barks and cries. This insane gibbering burst into screams once more when amber light flared into a sudden halo of flames around the dark eye, and a voice that echoed and re-echoed through the wizard’s mind spoke.

AT LAST I AM AWAKE AGAIN. YOU HAVE MY THANKS, MAGE, FOR FREEING ME—EVEN IF YOU DO SERVE THE ACCURSED ONE.

“The Accursed One?” Broglan asked before fear told him silence might have been safer. Might.

SHE WHO IMPRISONED ME!

Mystra? Broglan gulped, and asked the question he had to: “Who are you?”

The eye seemed to twinkle as a laughter so deep that it hurt the ears boomed and rolled. DO YOU NOT KNOW ME?

Broglan had no defense but the truth. “N-No,” he whispered.

THEN KNOW ME YOU SHALL!

The amber flames around the great eye suddenly flared to a blinding white radiance, and stabbed into Broglan far more keenly than the stream of chaos had done. This time, there would be no escape.

Storm turned toward the flash of white light. “What’s that? ” she murmured aloud. Elder magic, to be sure. Something of great power had just been awakened, back in the shattered heart of the Haunted Tower.

She broke into a run. She had to be there.

The stone hurled from above struck her so hard that she saw only dazzling golden sparks. Storm knew she fell sideways, but thought that she kept running—or at least her legs kept moving.…

When the sparks faded, she found she was lying on her side, and Shayna Summerstar was leaping down from a ledge above her, tossing aside an unnecessary second stone as she came. The Summerstar heiress was grinning maniacally, a tattered gown trailing behind her and the coronet askew on her tangled hair. A drawn dagger was gleaming in her hand.

On light feet, she danced toward the bard. A low chuckle of delighted anticipation rose from her throat as she came. Storm tensed, gathering herself for a desperate kick and roll. Shayna looked down at her and shook her head; she knew full well what the bard planned, and was enjoying the momentary taunt.

White light suddenly flared so brightly that it lit up the heart of the keep, and men cried out all over the fortress.

Shayna Summerstar threw back her head, the cords in her throat standing out like flesh-cloaked spines. She screamed in raw, rising agony. Her eyes rolled up in her head, her hands became claws that raked vainly at the air, and she shuddered so hard that the flesh along her ribs rippled in visible waves.

Then Shayna’s head fell forward, and her body went limp. She whimpered, drew in a slow, tremulous breath, and seemed to see the blade in her hand for the first time.

She hurled it down in disgust, looked around wildly, a wordless quaver of fear rising in her throat. Her eyes fell upon Storm, and she cried, “Lady Storm! Lady Storm! Lady Storm!” over and over again and went to her knees, arms outstretched.

Storm rolled up to a sitting position and embraced the terrified girl—who clung to her and burst into wild, racking sobs. Her coronet fell off and rolled. Storm stopped it with one outstretched foot, and stroked Shayna’s hair as the young heiress wept in grief, remorse, and shame.

“There, there, little one,” Storm said softly, hugging the shuddering, heaving body. “You impressed us all.” Well, that was certainly true.

She went on murmuring reassurances as her eyes went slowly from the coronet to the discarded knife and back again. The white light at her back pulsed, faded, and then brightened. Storm tried not think of what it might herald.

Like an ungainly spider, the shapeshifter writhed on his back. His many tentacles did an endless dance around him. As he screamed and gibbered, the tendrils whipped wildly against nearby stones, coiling and shooting out to lash pillars and crumbling walls.

Their owner shrieked and babbled wordlessly as the powers he’d subsumed were torn away. His linkage with Shayna Summerstar was gone in an instant, and spell after spell followed. His darkening mind became a pitching place of spilling images. He clung grimly to two things: awareness of who he had been—and would become again—and the power to subsume. All he was losing could be replaced some day, if he survived still able to drink the knowledge, memories, and powers of those he slew.…

Those Bane slew. Yes, Bane! The Black Hand would rise again to smash all who stood against him! “Bane!” he roared in a voice flung back at him by that the riven innards of the Haunted Tower. “Fear Bane once more!” The gigantic spectral eyeball floating above the scepter turned slowly to look at the howling shapeshifter. The white radiance around it flared to blindingly once more.

The man who had once, perhaps, been a part of Bane roared in fresh pain. Tentacles blazed up into nothingness or were sheared away by ravening fires that hurled him back, back. He tumbled end over end down a dark hall, trailing a helpless scream, until he came to the inevitable closed door.

There was a heavy, splintering crash, and the center of the door was suddenly gone. Shattered panels swung crazily and then fell. Stones clattered down to keep them company. Something tentacled rolled over once in the darkness, shuddered, and lay still.

The huge orb turned slowly to face him once more, trailing motes of magical radiance. Broglan Sarmyn trembled, but somehow could not move from the pose he had been swept into: kneeling as if in homage to a king, holding the dragoneye scepter upright as if it were a holy thing.

SUCH IS MY POWER.

Broglan swallowed. Was he supposed to speak?

IS IT NOT PARAMOUNT, MAN?

Forgive me, Mystra , Broglan prayed, but to serve you, a man must betimes save his own skin . “Y-Yes,” he mumbled.