Just now, the two maiden aunts were taking turns sharpening their tongues on the outlander guest.
"Have your. . kind. . lived in Shadowdale long, dear?" Margort asked with kindly condescension.
"Humans?" Storm asked brightly. "Oh-for centuries, now."
"Oh, surely not as long as there have been Summerstars in Firefall Vale, dear," Nalanna put in. "We're a very old family, you know."
Not far from them, Thalance rolled his eyes, favored Storm with a sympathetic look, raised his glass to her, and drained it, all in one smooth motion. He got up from the table. Both of the dowager ladies favored him with frowns, but neither said anything as he loped down the feast hall and departed.
"A Summerstar was at King Galaghard's side when he went in to see the Last Elf, on the eve of the battle where he broke the power of the Witch-Lords," Margort said haughtily.
Storm nodded. "I remember that," she said, tapping her goblet. "I wanted to see Othorian myself. He was very rude to Thanderahast, as I recall."
"You don't expect us to believe that you were there, dear? I mean, really!" Margort said in pitying tones.
Pheirauze said coldly, "I'm sure this could go on all evening, but in defense of our. . distinguished lady guest, it must be said that all she has done is answer your questions, Margort and Nalanna. Is there some point to this. . inquisition? The lineage of our house is a matter of record, you know."
Margort darted a glance down the table, and hissed, "Not in front of her, Pheirauze!"
"Yes, in front of her," the elder dowager lady said with a sigh. "I'm tired of this. Next you'll be telling me that old tale about her sleeping with Pyramus again!"
"Yes!" Nalanna squeaked.
Margort nodded, and said fiercely, double chin quivering, "That's it exactly! She's here to try to steal the vale and the keep and all away from us!"
"What?" Pheirauze shot an incredulous look down the table at Storm, who shrugged and spread her hands in a baffled gesture.
"There she goes!" Margort cried, bouncing up and down in agitation and pointing with a wrinkled hand whose wrist dripped long ropes and hoops of gems. "Acting all innocent! Why, I caught her sitting up in the Twilight Turret with Pyramus-late one fall, it was, when the sunsets were long. And they didn't even act ashamed!"
Heads turned all along the table to look at Storm, who smiled faintly, and waved a polite reply to all the curious stares.
"I confronted him, later, with Nalanna, and-"
"Yes!" Nalanna said, bobbing her head up and down in violent assent. "With me!"
"— he said they were lovers, and that he was going to marry her!"
"So you fear we have a Lady Storm Summerstar in our midst," Pheirauze mused aloud. "I'm sure the aunts have only the interests of our family at heart," she said to her guest. "To save a lot of time and sidelong comments, could you satisfy them-and, I confess, the rest of us-by telling us straight out if any such wedding ever did take place?"
Storm looked down the table, from the fascinated faces of the war wizards to Shayna's fearful gaze, and saw the young heiress clasp her mother's hand. She smiled inwardly at the two aunts, who were practically falling into their platters as they leaned out impatiently to hear what she'd say. Then she shrugged. In cases like this, the whole truth, however brutal, was best.
"Pyramus was very kind, and both a good man and a good lover," she announced clearly, "but we did not marry. How could we, after he'd secretly wedded Princess Sulesta, Rhigaerd's daughter?"
In the uproar that followed, the Dowager Lady Zarova quietly fainted and fell on her face into her soup. The Dowager Lady Pheirauze looked as if she wanted to, as well. Across the table, Storm could see at least three war wizards struggling not to laugh.
"S-Storm, help me!"
The scream cut through her reveries. Storm leapt out of bed, thrust both feet into her boots, and sprinted for the door, snatching up blade and gown from the table as she went.
She was well along the passage, with startled Purple Dragon armsmen pounding along in her wake, when she looked down at herself and realized that she wasn't yet wearing anything to belt the scabbard to.
Not that she was going to be in time. Her spell had shown her a dark and dusty room somewhere in the keep, and a beautiful woman's face-for just an instant, before flames leapt from both its eyes. The magic was shattered.
Shattered with a backlash that made her head nearly split. Hundarr Wolfwinter's brain was now ashes.
She sprinted on into the darkness anyway, snatching her blade out of its scabbard just to be safe. A moment later, she tripped over the wizard's sprawled body.
Parchments flew from Hundarr's dead hand-some of Athlan's notes, by the look of them-and as she rolled over and came up running again, Storm twisted and snatched one out of the air.
"The dragon of the keep, watching over me," she read-and then flung it away as something large slashed at her with talons. She dodged and ducked and drove her sword through glowing nothing. It was an illusion.
Cold laughter welled up ahead of her. She sprinted toward it. A moment later, the floor gave way beneath her boots. She was falling. A deep, grating rumble overhead told her that the stones tumbling down on top of her were no illusions at all.
There were six-no, seven. All of them were as big as she was. Storm hit rough stone, and bounced bruisingly. She struck once more and felt ribs splinter like kindling. Then the first of the huge blocks crashed down on top of her.
As bones shattered and the breath was smashed out of her, the last thing she knew was the sword shattering in front of her face.
Then the other blocks came down.
EIGHT
The pain drove her back to wakefulness-raw, shattering pain. Tears glimmered in Storm's lashes as she tried to see past the rock that had crushed her chest. Every breath was a searing, tearing agony of bubbling froth and grating ends of bone. Her back was broken, and her right leg seemed to be either missing or shattered to rubbery nothing just above her knee.
Into every life, a little pain must fall…By the gods, fall was right. She'd had a bad one.
Patiently, Storm called on the fire within her-rising, cool, cleansing, divine fire of Mystra. She sent it flowing into places where pain throbbed, or stabbed … or where she felt nothing at all.
The fire went where she bid, rushing into crushed and mangled places. The sudden, sharp jabs of agony made her hiss bloody huffs of breath, shouts such as an angry, wounded badger might make.
She smiled at the thought, her eyes dark with pain. From just beyond the crushing rock, Maxer-or something that wore Maxer's face-grinned back at her. Seeing that face hurt most of all. Tears blinded her.
"Not quite dead yet?" It-no, he; the manner as well as the voice were male-laughed, and said, "An oversight easily corrected. Give me a kiss for old times' sake, Beloved."
With those mocking words, the face of her dead lover leaned down over hers … giving her the revulsion and anger she needed.
Storm blinked back tears and glared up at it. "You're not my Maxer. Your charade disgusts me, whoever you are. Such tricks won't make me lower my guard."
That brought on a real laugh. "Lower your guard? Why bother when you're smashed like a hurled egg? Oh, that's rare!"
The false face of the man she'd loved so much, and missed so terribly, mastered its mirth and leaned close again to whisper, "Your back is broken, isn't it? Who'd have thought kicking a wedge away from a few blocks of stone would destroy one of the legends of Faerun? You're going to die, my pretty one. . and I'll feed on all you have been, and all you would have been. Just as soon as you're weak enough…."