Stormlight

TWENTY

Bolts of black flame leapt from the outstretched palms of Bane and lanced about the bedchamber. Where they struck walls and furniture, they licked greedily but burned nothing, only coursed along surfaces. Where they struck mortals, they streamed into flickering fields around the bodies. Enshrouded in flames that did not burn, Storm and Broglan found themselves unable to move-except to tremble in time to the thrumming flow of unleashed power.

The revealed god stepped leisurely down from the bed, his face now almost unearthly in its beauty, his body jet-black, and his eyes two red flames. With lilting grace, he crossed the room to where Storm knelt, frozen with one open hand outstretched as if beseeching.

"I have waited so long for this moment," Bane said gently, reaching out to caress her hair. "Ever since I learned of your true power. Through you, my little Stormling, and the other minions of Mystra I'll reach through you, I shall ascend once more!"

"Perhaps," Storm whispered as her eyes met his fearlessly. Silver fire shot out from them to strike the red blaze of Bane's gaze. All over the room, black flames fell away into curling, vanishing smoke as the air filled with surging silvery light.

Broglan cried out in awe and wonder. Bane cried out in pain and sudden despair. With a smile of relief, Storm reached up and touched the obsidian chest above her. At long last she was bringing down the full force of Mystra's divine fire on the foe, collapsing her barrier into his body.

Bane screamed, convulsed, and tried to turn away, to flee. As he struggled, writhing in the grip of silver flames that boiled up around him in racing, spiraling coils, he was lifted off the ground. Silver flames plunged through him to burst forth in ragged gouts from his every orifice.

The mad godling hung in the air above them, shuddering in the flames, his limbs flowing into scales and tentacles and feathers and soft suckers, but always being forced back into jet-black, human form. His screaming became raw and continuous as the black hue of the godly pretender fell away, and the naked body of a man began to take shape.

"You are no true god," Storm said, knowing she spoke truth, "but the twisted remnant of some unfortunate Bane took as an avatar-and abandoned later, leaving behind in a mortal body some dark shadow of himself as he went on to possess another. Shapeshifter. . sorcerer … all powers stolen from victims, under the goad of Bane's madness. Who were you, at first? Who will you be, again?"

The flesh of the floating body flowed and swirled, becoming slowly clearer. It was hairy, muscular, and kind-faced. It was …

Tears welled up in Storm's eyes as she looked up at her beloved Maxer. Her cheeks were wet as she whispered, "I feared this, and it is so. Mystra … oh, lady fair, if you have ever loved me, do this one thing: grant me my Maxer back!"

She felt kindly, unseen eyes upon her-a regard that carried great but friendly weight. She cried out in wordless thanks … and an instant later, by Mystra's grace, Storm knew exactly what she had to do, and how to do it.

She smiled through the tears that streamed from her trembling jaw, and waved Broglan well back. She smiled because there was a way-and because it would not be easy, and Mystra was leaving it for her to take.

"Our choices strengthen us," she murmured aloud, "and we are changed by the accomplishments you leave to us. Thank you, Great Lady."

She bowed her head and bent her will to join with the silver fire surging through her-and rode it into the mind of the floating man, seeking the small, mad part of him that had once been Bane.

It was a long plunge into hot black-and-purple chaos. Her descent slowed as the silver fire encountered deeper and deeper gloom. Wild images of cruelty flashed before her, memories dragged from the dissolving mind of the foe. As she plunged through one after another, panting and gagging at what she saw, the revolting evil of Bane's deeds and schemes nearly overwhelmed her.

Shuddering with nausea, Storm almost lost her will to continue. As she floundered, retching and weeping, she felt a smile of sly triumph growing around her…. The foe was trying to shatter her mind with his images of torture and pain and mutilation!

Her anger almost doomed her again. Bane fed on rage, and could twist it in others to become a subtle slavery to his will. With icy determination, Storm tore free of his strengthening control and called the silver fire up protectively around her. She wrestled her way on into the dark caverns of the foe's mind, forcing it by sheer grim mental demand to yield up certain memories.

She tasted her own blood, and knew she was being hurt by this, lessened and changed forever. It was with her own flare of triumph, though, that a new welter of horrid visions began. The visions of her own choosing erupted around her.

Broglan saw the kneeling, silver-haired woman begin to pant and tremble… and then to whimper and claw at herself with nails that left ribbons of blood behind. He almost broke his determination to keep back from her. Storm's eyes grew wide, and the blood drained from her lips until they became as white as those of any fish. She gasped in tiny whispers, "Ohohohnonononono …"

Her fingers clenched so hard that her nails drew blood from her palms. Suddenly her hands flew up, growing into talons as if she were a shapeshifter. She raked her own body frantically as she sprang up, drawing blood from deep slashes. She began to dance. Blood rained down around her.

Broglan had no magic strong enough to restrain her if she started to slay and blast in Firefall Keep. White-faced, he went to his knees and shouted a prayer to Mystra.

In that prayer, images of a kinder Storm-images that had once shamed him, even as they lit his night-dreams and made him long hopelessly for her caresses-blazed with sudden clarity in his memory. He remembered more. Too overwhelmed in wonder to give thanks to his goddess, Broglan received new visions, memories that were not his own: Storm Silverhand fighting at Maxer's shoulder, laughing in battle as their swords sang in unison; Storm dancing with her sisters on air, their bare feet well above the waters of a moonlit pool; Storm comforting a stricken Harper and giving of her own life-force to keep him alive; Storm playing with a child orphaned in battle, comforting the young girl as she deftly purged the worst horror from the infant mind and replaced it with the faces of kindly Harpers to be her new parents; Storm leaping in front of a young Harper in battle to take the sword-thrust that was meant to slay him; Storm …

Then the scenes became familiar-his own memories again, yet clearer, more vivid, and longer than he'd recalled them. Slowly, very slowly, Broglan Sarmyn of the Sevensash rose again to his feet as the memories faded, leaving him to watch the swaying, keening woman.

Storm's healing mind would later let her remember only a few of the memories of Bane she'd gone seeking. The first was the spicy taste of his satisfaction as he entered the body of the marilith and possessed her mind, crushing her will forever. He feasted on her memories, and found among them that one of her greatest triumphs was her recent rebuilding of the ravaged body of the mortal Maxer, to be her pleasure-slave.

Bane passed into Maxer, and saw what sustained and drove the risen man: his vivid memories of his beloved Storm Silverhand and her powers. Storm, a Chosen of Mystra!

Bane exulted, slaughtering hapless creatures at random in a wild orgy of death as he celebrated his glee. Storm would be for him a road to wounding Mystra and prying away some of her great power!

The Dark God decided that Maxer must be his new mortal form, to protect it fully. He used subsumption to drain the powers of the marilith into this new body.

He became Maxer-or rather, Maxer became Bane, mortal awareness dwindling as the god seized his form. A triumphant Bane set about scheming how to get at Mystra through Storm. . and how to corrupt the Harpers to his will, whatever else befell.

Then came the disaster of the Fall of the Gods, and madness. Only the burning goal of regaining godhood kept this abandoned remnant of Bane from utter and irreversible insanity. Still, he was trapped in a mortal shell, with little more than the power of subsumption and the ability to see magic and living things in darkness and slumber.

Though firmly in thrall to the wandering mind of Bane, Maxer remembered Storm and yearned to be with her again. The twisted intellect that had once been a part of Bane, perceiving her powers, wanted to possess her. . and so began the long journey and clumsy scheming that had led to Athlan Summerstar's murder in Firefall Keep.

Storm shuddered and surfaced, silver flames blazing briefly from her eyes and then curling away to nothingness. Did anything of Maxan Maxer survive? And how sane would the man she had loved-would always love-be after torment under a tanar'ri and then enthrallment under the awful weight of a god's mind?

No matter; what she must do was clear. Faerun itself demanded it.

"Broglan!" Storm cried, turning to him. "Anchor me!"

The war wizard blinked. "How?" he asked, bewildered.

"Think of me-remember my looks, my voice, the way I move, what I've said-only keep remembering!"

Broglan nodded, a frown of concentration settling on his face. He reached out and took hold of her chin gently, holding her face so that he could look into it. Solemnly, he looked her bare body up and down, before nodding, clearing his throat, and saying roughly, "Do what you have to do, and may Mystra be with us both!"

Storm gave him a smile of thanks, and descended again into the darkness that had once been a part of Bane.

This time, madness was waiting for her-and it was desperate.

A sword of hatred stabbed into her, and fear lashed deep its blazing brands. She snarled and drove deeper, battered but determined, hurling silver fire wherever the darkness was deepest.

The pain of his attacks came again and again, always vicious thrusts that struck at what would disgust her-eyeballs and fingernails and worse. The silver fire surged and restored, but her mind grew steadily darker and angrier … and it was in her mind that the struggle would be won or lost.

The foe lurked, almost gloating, and slid away when she tried to smite, only to slash and goad from behind. Storm snarled and spun the silver fire about her like a cloak, so that to injure her, he must himself be harmed. Against every dark vision of cruelty, she set one of love, or sacrifice, or honor, calling on the long strivings for peace and justice, and friendship that she and her fellow sisters and Harpers had undertaken.

Those memories made her weep anew for friends gone and their noble deeds done. In answer to her raw heart, the silver fire began to burn here and there in the dark caverns that she traversed, brightening the mad mind.

Yet as Storm fought on through the abyss that had once been a part of Bane, silver hair swirling, she felt herself becoming slowly and inevitably as dark and serpentine and cruel as her foe, using her mind as viciously as he was using his-to slash and hack.

It seemed she was striking nearer and nearer to the oldest memories, and to the roiling rot of true madness. Madness had mastered him again and again in raging bouts of gibbering uncontrol. If not for madness, he would have won an easy victory over her in Firefall Keep. She fought closer to the shame and the trembling fear he so hated, that made him seek tyranny over others. This fear tasted like the tang of iron in blood, but came from a place weirdly different than Faerun. The mortal who had become Bane, so long ago, had come from. . somewhere else, and still had secrets that he was fighting wildly to keep from her, secrets that he would keep hidden at all costs.

At all costs … there was a sudden red roiling of disgusting, elongated internal human organs, bloated and wriggling, as the foe mentally turned himself inside out-and burned. He was slaying himself, to keep from yielding to her. He was dying utterly at last. He was… gone, a drifting wisp of smoke in the heart of the leaping silver fire.

The silver fire reached to a brightness above, a brightness that was calling Storm. She reached for it and rose to it. . and slowly, very slowly, the light above her drew nearer.

Through her weary daze, Storm became increasingly ashamed of how twisted and besmeared the battle had left her. Yet she had prevailed, and was rising toward the light. New visions were coming.

Visions that had the warm, somehow brown feeling of Broglan's mind-visions of her beauty, impish outrageousness, and courage, laced about with awe and growing love. Faithfully, doggedly, and continuously replaying the vivid scenes that awoke in him both lust and love, Broglan was thinking of her.

The fouled, rising shadow seized on that anchor, and was suddenly Storm once more.

She saw the Realms around her again, and felt breezes moving over her body and something hard under her feet. She turned to look at Broglan, silver flames darting from her eyes.

Startled, the war wizard stepped back and raised his hands to cast a spell if need be. His brow was dark with worry.

"Are you Storm?" Broglan asked gravely, almost formally, "or-someone else?"

She gave him a weak smile, and her eyes became the silver-laced blue he remembered. "I am Storm Silverhand," she said slowly, "thanks in large part to you, Broglan."

She looked over her shoulder. The body of Maxer was lying on a bed of silver flames. His face was peaceful, his hands at his sides, and his eyes closed. Storm bit her lip, turned back to the watching wizard, and took two quick strides forward.

"Thank you," she said fervently, as their lips met. Her next impassioned words were silent echoes in his mind. Oh, Broglan, thank you. All the time you wrestled against loving me and then surrendered to it, and loved me, and aided me, and never forced yourself on me or demanded anything in return. The Lady needs more men like you. I needed you, though we were not for each other. I still need you. I revere you. Then from her mind a gentle touch of silver fire reached out, and Broglan felt pleasure greater than he ever had before. It raised him up, gasping, to trembling heights of bliss. He was suddenly intensely aware of the beautiful woman he held in his arms, her bare skin against him in a hundred places, her sweet lips touching his own eagerly.

It was suddenly too much, and he murmured and broke free, feeling wild elation-and rising fear.

Broglan shook his head slightly as he gazed at her, tears in his eyes. When she reached for him again, he shuddered involuntarily and backed away, raising his hands to ward off danger.

She halted, and he looked at her in horror-horror at himself. White-faced, he looked slowly down at his treacherous hands and then back up at her, ashamed.

Storm reached out in a wave of forgiveness, and gave him a sad little smile. "Farewell, love who might have been," she said softly. "Know that you shall always be in my heart, and welcome. Come to see me in Shadowdale, as a friend. . when you're ready. However long it takes, we'll"-she nodded toward Maxer's sleeping body-"be there. I hope."

"You hope?" Broglan asked, hesitantly.

"What was once a part of Bane is gone-destroyed, not driven out," Storm told him firmly, "but what is left behind could be a mindless thing, or something halfwitted … or a Maxer who hates me for what I've done to him."