Well, yes, Mystra, this wasn't the first time in her life that she'd made this very complaint. Sorry. Storm sighed and ran on.
"I am-I am-Yes!" And with that final, exultant shout, the man with three heads and eight arms flung his limbs up in triumph and hurled all the crowding chaos back where it belonged, clearing his mind at last. Balk of fire streaked up from two of those limbs, striking through the shattered stone and moonlight. Where they struck, a leaning turret broke away from the shattered stone around it and hurtled down into the open space that had not been there an hour earlier.
Down, down like a tumbling mountain, down to a crash that shook the entire vale and threw back echoes from the mountaintops …
Down to bury the place where the exultant many-limbed man had been standing, and on its way, scrape open an entire wall, and lay bare rooms and passages that had been walled away and hidden for many long years…
The ravaged wall creaked and buckled and bulged, threatening a great collapse. Leaning pillars held, and the slowly shifting stone ground ponderously to a halt, sending down only a little rubble. Out of one long-hidden cavity, something gleamed in the moonlight as it fell.
Something metallic and sticklike, with a single great eye as its head. The dragoneye scepter hit the rubble, bounced once, and slid to a stop, blinking up at the moon. Somehow, it looked angry.
Corathar Abaddarh clutched Dowager Lady Zarova's coronet and wished it would stop emitting little magical flashes. Was it going to explode, or burn him with lightning, or transport him somewhere unknown and perilous? Worse, would it attract the attention of the shapeshifter who was so busily blasting apart the keep on all sides?
The gods-cursed coronet was definitely flashing a little brighter and faster than it had when he'd found its hiding place and snatched it into the light. Pearls and emeralds and gods-knew what else had spilled out with it in a glittering flood. He'd swept them all back behind the hidden panel and slammed it shut again. At least, he hoped he'd found them all. With the room shaking all around him, some of them had taken long and interesting journeys. And, of course, the tumult had shattered his lantern!
He wouldn't have dared keep it lit on the journey back, anyway. Not with a howling-crazed shapeshifter laughing like a loon and blasting everything that moved!
Corathar sighed. He felt his way cautiously forward in the darkness. The dowager lady, the boldshield, and the safety of the heavily guarded kitchen rooms were a long way off… and he was growing weary.
He'd been a little suspicious of this errand at first. The whole thing could have been just an excuse to send him out across Firefall Keep right into the clutches of this murderous shapeshifter. The boldshield, however, had assured him that ranking nobles did have such enspelled items. Some of them were best handled only by their rightful wearers or by war wizards, because of enchantments laid on them by Lord Vangerdahast or his predecessors. Well, all right, but what about those enchantments? The cursed thing was flashing ever faster. He didn't see why he should die or be maimed just because some lazy noblewoman got all concerned over the fate of her coronet. After all, she'd left it behind. It was still in her castle, not out rolling around the countryside. Why couldn't it just have sat safe behind its stone panel until all this was over? Of course, there might not be a stone panel when this was all over, if-
Ahead, he heard a distant shout, and peered into the darkness. A many-armed figure was exulting in the moonlight, shouting and waving its arms in defiance at the night sky. Corathar swallowed and came to a hasty halt. This must be the foe!
Gods, if he looked over this way-! Corathar hastily cowered down, flipping up the tail of his robes to cover the winking coronet. There was a flash of fire from the distant figure-balls of fire, streaming up from those waving arms at some unseen enemy above. The bursts heralded a deep groaning that gave way to sharp cracking sounds. . and then a growing, rumbling, thunderous roar.
The figure and the moonlight and all were gone as the world leapt and rocked all around Corathar. It flung him about like a child's ball. He gulped, grunted, cursed, and tried in the bruising darkness to keep the coronet and himself both unbroken.
At last his tumbling in the gloom came to an end, and he staggered to his feet and peered up and down the passage. The damned coronet was still blinking and winking. Where the moonlight had been he could see nothing-that way must be blocked.
"Mystra spit on it all!" he snarled, fear stoking fury.
He was trapped, and would have to go back into the cracked and lightless keep to dare one of the unsteady stairs and somehow find a way around all this. And was the mad foe dead? Or was the shapeshifter still lurking close by, in the dark-?
Something stumbled at him, and he shrieked and flung up the coronet in his hand. It flashed, obligingly. He briefly glimpsed a dust-smudged, wild-haired face, above a gown torn half off to reveal one gleaming white shoulder-and emerald eyes that were large and afraid and beseeching.
"Gods!" he swore hoarsely. It was the Lady Shayna Summerstar.
Or was it?
"Stay back," he shouted, in sudden, frantic fear, holding up the coronet in front of him as if it was some sort of weapon.
"Who … who's that?" her quavering voice came out of the darkness-a weak and frightened voice that ended in a cough. It was followed by another, and another. Judging by the racking sounds, her coughing fit had taken her to her knees. Corathar stepped back and pulled a sleeve over the flashing coronet, unsure of what to do.
"Thalance?" she asked weakly, out of the darkness. It certainly sounded like the noble lady he'd watched down the feast table….
Impulsively he stepped forward, wanting to see again the beauty he'd looked at so longingly that first feast night. He held out the coronet.
It blinked, and so did a pair of eyes very close to it-bewildered green eyes, that had trailed tears across the dust on her cheeks. That settled it. If this was the shapeshifter, it was an actor worthy of an easy meal.
"Lady?" he asked, reaching out into the darkness. "Will you tell me your name?"
The coronet flashed again, and he had another glimpse of her frightened, dirt-smudged face, eyes brighter now with hope.
"Shayna," she said. "Shayna Summerstar." The coronet winked. By its radiance he saw her lower lip tremble. She wiped dust and tears away from her eyes with one hand. "Who are you?" she asked as darkness descended again.
"Corathar, lady. Corathar Abaddarh; one of the war wizards."
"Wizards," she said slowly, as if it was a word she'd never heard before. "Not… Insprin?"
"Insprin is one of my companions, yes," he said eagerly.
He froze as a gentle hand tentatively touched him. It probed, ran up his arm-and the coronet flashed again, showing him fresh tears of hope. She looked up at his face, seeing him clearly for the first time, and opened her mouth to cry. He smiled at her reassuringly, and reached out.
"Thank the gods," she sobbed, clutching him, and dissolved into helpless weeping that shook them both. Corathar cradled her awkwardly, suddenly very aware of the gently spicy smell of her hair and of the softness of the body she was pressing against him.
She was a long time crying. She sobbed her way into silence and started trembling against him. He wasn't expecting the lips that found his, or the raw hunger with which she embraced him. He made a brief, wordless protest as he lost his balance and fell backward, but she clambered atop him, and the next flash of the coronet showed him her face as she bit her lip and tugged at his robes, panting.
"Corathar," she almost snarled. "Yes. Yes. Give me…"
Corathar reached out and gently set the coronet on her head. She responded by kissing him wildly and running her hands all over him, searching for buckles and lacings and openings, and …