She fell down an endless well, tumbling. Bodies with eyes and mouths aflame rose past her. Grinning things changed shape around her, and the dragon's great eye looked endlessly down on her from the top of the shaft. Why a dragon?
Suddenly Storm stood in the Summerstar family crypt, lit by flames that floated without torches to feed them. All around her, the bodies of the long-dead fallen were thrusting aside their coffin lids and rising stiffly out of their shrouds. Ignoring her, they walked to the walls and punched through them, every blow of skeletal fists making the room tremble and boom as if thunder had rumbled.
The space beyond the walls was a room she knew: the great hall of Firefall Keep. Storm stepped out through a hole made by a tall, broken-skulled skeleton. She found herself standing in the open area between the wings of the long table, during a feast. All the places at table were occupied by sneering Summerstars and disapproving war wizards. The staggering corpses disappeared like smoke, leaving her alone with the laughter of the diners, who pointed at her and howled with mirth.
Looking down, she saw that she wore only black tentacles. . tentacles that rose up, twining around her limbs, until they reached her throat and began to squeeze. She choked, fought in vain against the glistening constriction, and then everything she saw was rimmed with green and gold, wavering until the watery world went away, and all she could stare at was the dragon's lone, watching eye.
"Why a dragon?" she snarled in bewilderment and awoke. She sat bolt upright, drenched with sweat.
Ergluth and four Purple Dragons were calling anxiously to her from around the bed, the drawn swords in their hands flashing and spitting back sparks from her wards.
"What-what befalls?" she asked in weary puzzlement.
The eaglelike eyes of the boldshield peered into hers. His face was graven with lines of concern. "This barrier-is it yours?"
"Yes, of course," Storm snapped. "Why did you wake me by thrusting steel into it?"
"We heard you call something about dragons," he replied. "Several times, you cried out-once at full bellow. When we came in, someone was standing by the bed, holding a dagger. He was shrouded in spell-mists, with laughing skulls flying all around him like birds. We couldn't see who it was, but he was trying to get past your wards. When he saw us, he sent mists, skulls, and all at us. Things've only just cleared, now. . there must be a hidden way into and out of this room."
"I've found several," Storm said, yawning, "but I thank you for trying to guard me, just the same." She fell back onto the pillows, waves of weariness rolling over her, and managed to say, "I was too sleepy to think of this before … Ilgreth was the first to die and not be burned. Keep him safe, and the dagger that slew him, too, until both can be examined with spells to tell us who might have killed him."
"I thought of that," Ergluth Rowanmantle said grimly, "and left him in the care of two of my most trusted guards while I sent for Broglan. When he got to the steward's room, one of the guards was dead on the floor-burned to a husk-and Drimmer, dagger and all, was gone. It seems one of my trusted guards was … someone else."
"We've got to stop him," Storm murmured, falling back into welcoming drowsiness, "before he slaughters half your command."
"Lady," Ergluth told her grimly, "I've lost eleven men since sunset, all slain at their posts … to say nothing of the two who'll be months coughing the smoke out of their lungs from fighting the fire. You'll get no argument from me…."
He fell silent then, and shook his head. A gentle snore told him she was no longer hearing his words. Well, let her sleep. Without her, Firefall Keep would be a house of ghosts right now, every last one of them naught but ashes. He looked from armsman to armsman, all four of them veterans. "Protect her," he said gruffly. "Sword anyone who comes into this room and tries to get at her-even if you think it's Broglan, or me-who fails to give you the password. I'll be back before highsun."
The four guards nodded, looked at each other, and went to the door to drop the bar behind him. Then they went slowly and carefully around the room. They checked under the bed and above its canopy, one searching while the others watched. They found nothing. Casting a look at the silver-haired woman on the bed, they leaned on their swords and tried to think how they might walk out of Firefall Keep alive.
Not many scenarios came to mind.
Master, I failed.
Shayna Summerstar let her master feel her bitter disappointment as she put the dagger high up on the ledge above her wardrobe, where no prying eyes would find it.
NAY. YOU DID WELL. YOU STOOD AGAINST THE WARDS AND TESTED THEM-FUTILE, BUT FEARLESS. I LIKE THAT.
Shayna felt a glow of pleasure at the praise, but tried not to show him just how much she needed his approval.
I could have had her! She was asleep-I could have found some way past the wards, if there'd been time! But the guards came …
I SENT THEM.
You sent them?
I MADE THEM THINK THEY'D HEARD SOMETHING ODD IN THE HARPER'S ROOM. THEY DID THE REST. THEN I SENT THE MISTS THAT HID YOU, AND LED YOU TO THE HIDDEN WAY OUT.
But why? I thought you wanted her dead!
OVERCOME, I SAID. STORM SILVERHAND MUST DIE ONLY BY MY HAND, AT A TIME WHEN I'M READY TO TAKE HER POWERS.
Why? Her mind-voice was small and miserable.
SO THAT I CAN BECOME A GOD he replied matter-of-factly.
On her way back to her bed, Shayna stopped in mid-stride and began to shiver uncontrollably.
When the war hound trotted down the hall, paws clicking on the stones, one of the guards knelt and said, "What're you doing here, boy? You should be back at-"
He reached out to scratch its head, but the blade of a drawn sword reached past his hand to hover in front of the dog's nose. "You heard him, Tith," his fellow guard said almost regretfully. Trust no one, he said… and why would a hound be wandering around up here, anyway? Begone, you, or-"
The dog growled and sprang back, away from his blade-but it left two tentacles behind, lashing out at the ankles of both guards.
They cursed, slashed vainly, and fell hard on their behinds. The dog that was not a dog swarmed in over them, taking their frantic thrusts through its shoulders as it stretched out two sets of impossibly long jaws and bit their faces off. The blood of three beings mingled together on the floor for an instant before fires rose from the bodies.
The dog reared up among the blazing bones and became manlike … a dog-headed man with two thin, hooked blades of bone where its hands should have been. It thrust them between the doors, and sharply up, lifting the door bar. Then the blades of bone slowly lengthened, moving the bar away from the door so that it could be swung open.
A third hand grew from the belly of the thing that was not a man, and did just that, revealing the bed beyond. Standing on it, eyes red-rimmed and unshaven jowls set grimly, was the boldshield of Northtrees March, with a loaded crossbow in his hands. It snapped.
The quarrel thrummed across the room, plucked the dog-headed man off his feet, and drove him hard against the far wall of the passage.
"Come on," Ergluth Rowanmantle told it, dropping his bow and unsheathing his sword. "You want me? Come in and get me!"
But the eyes that met his were as dark and knowing as the old Summerstar matriarch's had been. The shapeshifting thing let his flesh melt and flow until the crossbow quarrel fell out. He favored Ergluth with a wide-fanged and mirthless smile, and vanished down the hallway.
The white-faced boldshield hissed a heartfelt curse. Somehow it knew he dared not leave the bed, and the protection of the magic shield he'd raised there. The shieldstone was a Rowanmantle family secret only his oldest, most loyal armsmen had known about, and both of them … had been on guard outside his door.