Sharantyr drew in a deep breath, strode forward until she held a gem on either side of that shadowy head and shoulders, and said carefully, "Varouth."
A whirlwind of tiny spitting lightning bolts erupted from the gem in her left hand and streaked to the gem in her right, racing through the shadow-wraith. Lightning whirled around that second gem and snarled back, brighter and stronger.
The shadow-wraith sat bolt upright and trembled, growing darker and more solid with alarming speed as the lightnings raced through it again, back and forth, so swiftly now that they formed a continuous, crackling line of gnawing, spitting energies.
"Yes!" a faint, echoing voice seemed to whisper from all around her. "Yesssss!"
The figure rose slowly in height, and Sharantyr rose with it, until she was standing upright with her arms raised, behind a dark, cloaked figure that trembled in time to her lightnings, shuddering and growing steadily more solid.
It started to groan, in a deep, seemingly male voice, then shuddered and convulsed, hunching its arms in. It seemed held upright by her lightning when it would rather have shrunk down and nursed pain. The groans rose into sobbing cries, babbled words that might have been curses or frantic incantations. They became screams, wild high shrieks that echoed back from the stars.
Sharantyr held her two gems firmly, sudden sweat drenching her, and the wraith rose in a crackling cloud of racing lightnings before her, shouting, "No! Too much! Too much!"
Heat beat at her face. The wraith howled and turned its ghost of a face toward her, wild-eyed, but its shape was collapsing back into a thing of rushing, swirling darkness. Sprays of lightning raced within it, whirling inside the shadow-bulk that flung out frantic arms or branches in all directions, stabbing at the night in agony as it started to whirl and tumble and spin, brightness glowing inside its gloom. A fireball with dark, ragged edges tore free of her resonating field of magic and raced blindly away across the sky, howling in mad pain.
Sharantyr held out her two gems for a long time as their lightning died to a faint, crackling blue thread, and let her gasps return to calmness. The shadow-thing did not come back, but the night-chill returned.
"Well," she told the stars at last, quelling the magic of the gems before they were entirely exhausted, "live another night in Faerun, see another mystery. Build a shining collection. Now, I wonder if the gods answer them for us, when we die?"
The stars overhead ventured no opinion. Sharantyr smiled, unsurprised, as she stowed the gems, reclaimed her pack-the blades were crumbling already, and she tossed their hilts into the ditch-and resumed her walk.
Narm sprang up from his stool and sniffed. There it was again.
Smoke, very close by… woodsmoke. There was a hiss and crackle, like the sound he'd made dousing their embers. Someone had sloshed water on flames, to put them out-but quietly, with no shouts nor running feet… and very nearby.
The smell was strong now, and his view of the stars out the front of the wagon increasingly hazy. Water to quench flame, or to make more smoke!
Narm shook Shandril awake, muting her sleepy question with a firm hand. "Fire," he murmured in her ear. "Our wagon, I think, and set by someone waiting outside."
Shan took his hand away and murmured back, "We're being smoked out?"
Narm nodded, and she purred, "Crouch low by the entrance. Do nothing until I shout your name or someone comes inside."
Narm nodded again and did as he was bid. In his wake, Shandril went flat to the floor, hoping no one outside was planning to crawl around and thrust a blade up through the floorboards.
The wood was hot. No blades would come from beneath. There must be a fire there. Very soon, the floor would burst into open flame with a roar, and consume them and the wagon together, unless…
Shandril felt around for the drain-the finger-sized hole in all of Voldovan's wagons, covered by a swivel-plate of metal, that was there to let water and spilled cargo out. There! She eased the plate open a trifle, ignoring the pain-and a tiny tongue of flame rose up into her face. Shandril called up her spellfire, opened her mouth, and sucked it in.
It was hot, scratchy going down her throat, and inclined to tickle her nose… but it went in without setting her to choking, or searing her as it should have done.
Shandril spread herself out flat and willed the fire into her. So long as she bled spellfire into it, to enfold and absorb the flames, she could drink it in.
Her scalp prickled. Sweat was all over her in a sheen… she was getting hot, all over. Her fingertips ached… "Shan!" Narm whispered. "Are you all right?" She nodded vigorously and waved at him to keep quiet, but he held up his own hand in a "heed me here" signal, fumbled in her things, and came up with her hand mirror, which he held up so that she could see herself.
Flames were licking out of her mouth and eyes! No wonder he was concerned.
She nodded, smiled, and waved to let him know she was fine and went back to sucking fire.
In the brief time she'd lifted her head to look at Narm, a tiny ring of dancing flames had risen beneath her throat and breast. If this worked as before, only her bared flesh could take in flame-at least until roaring fire had engulfed her, and she hoped whoever was waiting outside to capture or slay them would have grown impatient by then.
Rather than spend time disrobing, Shandril wriggled backward along the floor a trifle to take in these new flames. Smoke curled up thickly around her, and for the first time she coughed.
Hastily she crawled forward again to suck flames, hoping that the floor wouldn't give way before the firesetter's patience did. There was always the chance that someone had just set fire to the wagon and gone away in hopes that they'd be asleep and dead of smoke before waking, but somehow that didn't sit with how she saw these spellfire-seekers. Kill, and so destroy what you prized? No, he'd be out there waiting-if, of course, it was a "he." Were there any other women along on the caravan? Oh, yes, one of the merchants had a wife, as fat and ugly as himself… of course, it could be neither he nor she, but "it." Shandril quelled such thoughts, resisting an impulse to laugh at a sudden vision of a gigantic dragon curled up like a cat before a hearth, breathing flame at her in a long, slow, steady stream.
She was starting to feel bloated now, like the day so long ago when she'd bet Gorstag she could consume an entire great blandreth of soup and had, then had wished she hadn't. There was pain now, too, in her joints and fingertips and toes, an ache that grew steadily greater.
"Shan," Narm said quietly, "you're starting to glow."
"Why thank you, kind sir," she replied tartly, making light of his words. "Every lady should glow when at her best." She would have said more, but a sudden shudder set her to coughing, and this time, as she'd feared, she couldn't stop.
Every hacking explosion gouted forth flame, and she had to turn her head hastily to avoid scorching gear. There was too much cargo for sudden rushes anywhere, or she'd have run out the door regardless of arrows or waiting spells and spewed fire into the night, but…
Outside, someone snarled, "At last! I thought they'd never-"
A man's voice she'd heard before on the run. Well, no great surprise there.
Shandril threw back her head, teeth clenched. Her knees, elbows, and breasts were starting to ache now. If she didn't rid herself of the fire she'd swallowed soon, someone was going to get a great surprise. She hoped it wouldn't be Narm, deafened by a mighty blast and suddenly wearing a wetness that had been his Shandril a moment earlier.
No, she dare not stay in here a moment longer. Trusting to spellfire to keep her safe, she crawled unsteadily to the front of the wagon, flames crackling from her hands as she went. She hoped Narm would have sense enough to get out fast, whatever happened next. This wagon would probably go up with a roar, very soon.