Эд Гринвуд - Stormlight

WITHOUT TREACHERY, I COULD NEVER HAVE BEEN MASTERED. The black eye drifted a little nearer. HAVE YOU GUESSED YET WHO I AM?

Helplessly Broglan shook his head. “No, Most Mighty One.”

The eye drifted nearer still, ominously silent. Broglan quivered, unable to move but desperately wanting to scream and leap and flee, as fast and as far as he could.

MOST MIGHTY ONE, the thunderous mind-voice said slowly, as it was considering the sound of those three words. MOST MIGHTY ONE! YES …

MOST MIGHTY ONE, INDEED! A FITTING TITLE, MAGE! YOU HAVE OUR FAVOR!

Broglan set his teeth. He was leader of the Sevensash wizards of war, and his duties in a situation such as this were clear: find out all that can be learned about any unknown magically powerful force or being. “Who are you?” he asked again.

HER SHAME MUST HAVE DRIVEN HER TO KEEP MY ENTRAPMENT A SECRET.… THAT MUST BE WHY YOU KNOW ME NOT. MAN, I AM DENDEIRMERDAMMARAR!”

“Den-Dendeirmerdammarar?” Broglan asked, wondering if he dared smile.

AYE. LORD OF THE THUNDER PEAKS. MOST MIGHTY OF THE OFFSPRING OF ARNFALAMME REDWING.

Something glimmered at the back of Broglan’s mind. The wisp of a memory, of reading that latter name long ago in a lore tome in the court in Suzail, on a hot and sunny afternoon.…

“You’re a red dragon?” he asked.

OF COURSE, DOLT! NEXT YOU’LL BE ASKING ME WHO BOUND ME INTO THIS SCEPTER!

“Well,” Broglan heard himself saying, inner dread growing with every foolish word, “ahem … yes.”

THE ACCURSED ONE! THE SHE-MAGE! THE WOMAN YOU SERVE!

The mind-shout almost bowled him over—but the power of the radiant field held him where he was. His trembling died away, and the brilliance forced him back to the exact pose he’d been in before. ’Twas time to try again. “Mystra?”

NAY, FOOL! The mind-voice was scornful. SEEK NOT TO SHIELD HER WITH CLEVER TONGUE-TRICKS! AMEDAHAST, THE ROYAL MAGE OF CORMYR!

Amedahast! Gods above! The dragon had been in the scepter for a long time. Seven hundred years, if Broglan’s memory of the royal mages held true. This was probably not a good time to tell the freed sentience that the woman he wanted vengeance on had been dust—or, some among the war wizards whispered, a kindly guardian and sometimes guiding spirit, as well as dust—for five centuries or so.

Beings with power enough to be called Most Mighty One are all too apt to lash out at whoever is handy when something displeases them.

The eyes drifted ominously nearer. YOU ARE LONG SILENT, O MOST BOLD AND CURIOUS OF MAGES! DO YOU, PERHAPS, PLOT SOME FRESH TREACHERY?

“Most Mighty One,” Broglan answered truthfully, “I lack the wits to successfully plan any treachery, great or small, even if I had the desire to. It is all I can do to serve my realm and my superiors, most times—and as it is, I have failed my friends over and over again these last few days.…”

The pupil of the huge floating eye seemed to expand. A MAN WHO IS HUMBLE? AND TRIES TO SPEAK TRUTH? HAVE MEN TRULY COME SO FAR IN THE LONG TIME OF MY IMPRISONMENT?

Silence followed, and the dragon obviously expected him to fill it. “I—I don’t know what to say,” Broglan replied helplessly.

There was a rumble of what sounded like astonished respect, and then the mind-voice said, THEY HAVE. I BEGIN TO FEAR FOR THE FATE OF MY KIN.

Trapped in immobility, holding the scepter and thinking of the tentacled thought-stealer that must be lurking somewhere beyond this great floating eye, Broglan began heartily to fear for the fate of his kin, too.

Ergluth Rowanmantle leaned wearily against a pillar and said hoarsely, “It shames me to say this, but I find my eyes closing, again and again. I’ve been too long without sleep.”

Erlandar Summerstar shrugged. “Do not reproach yourself. We’ve all treated you like the ever-vigilant mountains above the vale—always there, never changing. ’Tis time, perhaps, we took charge of ourselves instead of leaving the vigilance to others.”

“I would not see it as cowardice in any man to withdraw back to the kitchens now,” Thalance said. One of his eyes was almost closed from the swelling of a great jagged gash on his brow—a gash that split his hair asunder, and spoke to all of how close the stone that made it had come to killing him. “We were all … overbold. Shapeshifters can be better hunted by daylight.”

“Prudence would walk with you if you went back,” the boldshield told him, “not reproach. Yet I will stay. The Lady Storm should not be alone here.”

“She has the wizards to look after her,” one of the armsmen said in the darkness.

“The wizards,” another said in tones of disgust. “The Happy Dancing Mages—what use have they been so far? And just when will we see the tiniest flame of courage in any of their eyes?”

“Warrior, I saw who stood closest back there when that light burst forth, and the great eye appeared,” Ergluth snapped. “It was the worried-looking one you lot have laughed so much about—the leader of the war wizards. We fled back to greater safety, and even the shapeshifter ran, screaming; Broglan stood like a statue. I saw him. Sneer no more at wizards in my hearing.”

“So because this willful half-goddess has to prove herself as much a man as any of us,” a Purple Dragon veteran growled, “we must stay here, and get slaughtered.”

“Aye,” another agreed from beside him. “What odds that if she falls, Mystra reclaims her, and sets her back alive again to wiggle her hips at poor fools in some other realm? Mystra won’t come down to succor the likes of us!”

The faintly glowing head of a phantom—the shade of a smiling court lady—rose out of the stones at the armsman’s feet just then, and he jumped back with an oath. She went on smiling as she rose up, up into the ceiling above, and was gone.

“Still so sure you know every last detail of the doings of gods?” Ergluth Rowanmantle growled. “I say again: we are no men if we leave a lady in distress, nor Cormyreans if we let Harpers do our duty for us. I will stay, in case the Lady Storm needs me.”

“Then I’ll stay with you, to keep you awake,” Erlandar Summerstar muttered.

“I’ll stay, too,” Thalance added quickly. “I’d rather die trying to rid our vale of this evil one than be struck down afraid, and hiding, and alone.”

“Tarry it is, then,” a young Purple Dragon said briskly. “Leave to snore, sir?”

There were snorts of amusement at this sally, and a few chuckles when their boldshield replied, “Only to windward, warrior.”

The mirth stopped quickly when Thalance Summerstar asked the commander, “That eye—what do you think it is?”

Ergluth raised and lowered his shoulders in a slow, heavy shrug. “In truth, I know not. Some being of great wisdom and power … and yet not a godling or divine sending, I think. I’ve no proof, mind—just a feeling.”

“And I think we’re all going to die here,” one of the older armsmen said sourly. “I can’t prove that yet, mind … it’s just a feeling.”

Something moved in the lonely darkness. Slowly and stiffly, it rolled over. A single hoarse gasp of pain sounded in the chamber beyond the shattered door. A tentacle rose and flexed with a weary air, and then another uncurled slowly and tentatively. A face that had flowed like syrup rose up in dripping tatters, red eyes gleaming in the gloom. A jaw of wet fangs rose at the end of a fleshy tendril and retreated back into the face; a talon as long as a rack of swords wavered, shrank, and became a humanlike hand.

It was joined by another, and together the two hands traced a gesture in the air. And then another.

“Yes,” a voice above them said in sudden, fierce determination. “So, let me …” The voice sank into mutterings and a short, rising chant.