Shayna held it, scarcely daring to breathe. Another tentacle did something, and the wall ahead rolled open. Flickering torchlight flooded into the dark passage. The Dark Master stepped into the light and was gone.
COME TO THE DOOR. His command rolled through her.
Shayna did so, gliding forward on bare feet. The blade trembled in her hands and excitement rose in her breast. The Dark Master faced her, but between them was the back of a guard in chain mail. His sword was raised, and he was in a wary stance. His attention was fixed on the man who had something that looked like glistening eels hanging from his shoulders. The master did not look at Shayna.
STRIKE AT MY COMMAND. STRIKE NOW.
A sudden image in her mind showed her just how.
YesyesNOW!
The knife flashed. Shayna struck swiftly. She drew the blade firmly across the unseen throat. A sudden splash of hot blood over her hands.
The man turned and gurgled. His elbow crashed into her ribs. Trying to ignore the pain, she stepped back, let the guard fall, and watched him die.
His eyes stared up at hers in horrified recognition. The light in them faded, and they rolled up to stare forever.
Her master smiled at her. To her horror, Shayna found herself smiling back. He gestured for her to let the dagger fall. She did so, standing stock-still as his tentacles became long, glistening tongues that lapped and licked every spot of blood from her hands and arms.
The smile broadened. The eyes became those of Pheirauze Summerstar once more.
AN EASY THING, WHEN I BID IT. BUT YOU MUST HAVE MORE PRACTICE. GO NOW TO THE STEWARD, ILGRETH DRIMMER.
Shayna stiffened. That fussy old fart?
YOU WILL DO AS I BID. HEARKEN…
The lady who was now head of House Summerstar grew pale as the voice only she could hear continued. This was a test. She'd do it willingly or as an automaton under iron control, but carry it out one way or the other. Slowly, uncertainly, she gave him a smile.
The guardcaptain had curtly ordered him to keep to his room until released to do otherwise, and Ilgreth Drimmer was a man who followed orders. The smoke grew thicker, and he could hear distant coughing and cursing. He dared not do more than stick his head out into the hallway to see what might be happening.
There was, of course, nothing to be seen. The same nothing he'd looked at a score or more times already. He paced back and forth before the open door of his room, worrying about what might be lost if the fire spread-things he could be, nay, should be snatching up and carrying out to safety even now! He was going to have to…
For perhaps the twentieth time, he strode determinedly to the doorway to begin the vital work only he knew how to do. He might not be able to fight fires, but no Purple Dragon was going to tell…
"Ilgreth?"
He came to an abrupt, staring halt. He opened and closed his mouth several times, finding it did not work no matter what position he put it in.
Shayna Summerstar was leaning against the door frame, a thin silk nightgown clinging to her in several places. She was smiling at him in a way that Ilgreth had never dreamed he'd see from her-or any other beautiful lass of her age.
"The fire is well under control, they tell me," she said in a low, husky voice, unfolding herself from the door frame and gliding forward. Her gown fell open.
Involuntarily Ilgreth looked down, and then up, and gulped again. He kept his eyes firmly on her face, but knew his own face was blazing. Try as he might, nothing would come out of his mouth.
"So it provides me with the distraction I've been waiting for," she continued, drawing the door firmly closed and wedging a chair against it. "Think no more about flames, but about this instead: I have always loved you."
Then she was pressed against him, soft and warm. "For years," she told his throat, "I've looked for a chance for us to … be together."
In mute disbelief, Ilgreth stared at her.
Emerald eyes smiled up into his. "Take me to your bed," she whispered. "I've waited so long."
"Ah, uh-a-ho!" Ilgreth burst out intelligently, finding his voice at last. "Lady, are you sure you're-"
"Ilgreth," she said, pushing him back onto the bed and planting a knee on his chest. "I'm very sure. Humor me…."
"Ah, yes, of course, lady," Ilgreth said faintly, wondering when this dream would end, and where he'd find himself when he awakened….
The man with the tentacles and the face that was slowly changing sprawled at ease in Lady Shayna Summerstar's abandoned bed. A goblet of fine wine was in one hand and the decanter he'd filled it from in the other. He was smiling and nodding at something that was unfolding in another bedchamber.
He suddenly stiffened, spilling wine on the coverlet, and sat up. Newly gained memories of similar things had stirred within him-reminding him of a certain someone who knew far too much.
He tossed goblet and decanter carelessly away and snapped his fingers decisively before the items crashed to the floor. He was gone out the open door in a trice, striding hard along the passage outside, toward the source of the smoke.
"How are we-?" The guardcaptain was too breathless to say more, but the soot-blackened armsman nodded in understanding.
"Winning, sir-the two chambers beyond are as wet as duck ponds, and the fire's more smoke now than flame. As long as the roof-timbers don't catch …"
The weary, sweat-drenched officer nodded grimly. "Good. Hand me another bucket, and we'll go look at th-"
He reached back for the next bucket in the slopping line, but paused in astonishment. Beside him, old Narlargus slumped against the wall, and the bucket he held gently poured its contents out onto his boots and down the steps.
There was a smoldering, ashen stump where his head should have been.
Armsman and officer looked at each other and then back at the corpse sliding slowly down the wall, trailing a black smear of ash. They gabbled prayers and oaths, and fled in terror.
Storm Silverhand shortly came striding up the stair, cast a grim glance at the slain servant, and broke into a run. She was soon splashing along a passage whose walls were stained with soot, and whose floor stood an inch deep in water. Voices came from a room ahead, and Storm turned into it.
Weary Purple Dragons stood staring at a pile of ashes on the floor. "Is the fire out?" Storm asked.
"Aye, Lady," Ergluth Rowanmantle told her, "that's not what we're worried over, now."
Storm looked a silent question at him, and he raised grim eyes to meet hers. "This was the bedchamber of the Dowager Lady Pheirauze Summerstar," he explained, "and that was her bed."
Storm looked down at the pile of ashes. "And she was in it when the fire…"
"The flames started here, so far as we can tell by the marks," he said, "but that's not what-well, look here." He gestured with the tip of his boot at gold puddles on the floor among the ash. "This was an anklet, and, here, a row of rings. These-all of these-are what she called her 'gold glisters'; the jewelry she never removed."
"She died here," Storm agreed, nodding.
"Lady," the boldshield said wearily, "have you ever seen a fire that left puddled gold behind, but not a single bone? She's gone, completely-and yet she must have been in this; I've been told she couldn't get some of those rings off over her knuckles."
"There's a man on the stairs back there," Storm told him, "a servant, by his livery, who has his head-just his head-burnt away. He was carrying water buckets when it happened."
Their eyes met. Two mouths tightened into identical thin lines.
"Our murderer, it seems," Ergluth said softly, "has s-"
"My lords!" The breathless shout came down the passage from a servant who coughed out smoke. "Lord Boldshield?"
"In here," Ergluth said sharply, turning to the door.