Shadow's Witness

by Paul S. Kemp

  Krollir planned to command one of the greatest of the dreads to slay the leaders of the Zhentarim—the widespread organization of Cyric-loving priests, warriors, and wizards. The Zhents were Krollir’s and the Night Knives’ most dangerous rivals. But not after tonight. With their leaders slain, the Night Knives could destroy the weakened Zhents and rule Selgaunt’s underworld.

  Mask’s first triumph over Cyric is at hand, Krollir thought, and my status as the Shadowlord’s Champion is assured.

  He spared a glance over his shoulder to check on Riven. The assassin stood near the door. He met Krollir’s gaze.

  Flushed with his soon-to-be success, Krollir smiled indulgently behind his mask. He realized now that Riven and Cale had never been true rivals for Mask’s favor—by the gods, neither of them had ever even set foot in Mask’s shrine. Rather, they had served as whetstones. Whetstones used by Mask to hone Krollir and better prepare him for his ordained role as Champion. Feeling razor sharp, he decided to discard them as unnecessary after tonight.

  “Witness, Riven,” he hissed, alive with the knowledge that Mask had chosen him. Riven smirked but made no response. Krollir turned back to the Shadowtome and began the summoning. Though the words of power had been scribed in a now time-corrupted form of Thorass, he nevertheless pronounced them forcefully. He had rehearsed the phrases in his mind many times before and had dreamed them for a tenday.

  “Ichilai follin vaeve …” His voice resounded in the chamber, magnified fourfold by the limestone. His hands rapidly traced invisible symbols in the air above the tome. Behind him, Riven’s breathing again grew rapid. It sounded in Krollir’s ears as loud as a bellows.

  “… Narven Yrsillar ej …” The power in the room began to grow, and as it did the candles flickered. When the wicks began to die, a feeling of stark terror washed over Krollir, but the flames quickly rallied and stayed lit. He managed to keep his cadence steady despite the moment of terror. His hands gripped the lectern so tightly they dug depressions into the wood.

  “… Velnen dretilylar Yrsillar …” Increasingly confident, his voice grew in volume as he recited. His fingers began to leave sparkling trails of silver in the air where he traced arcane symbol after arcane symbol. The glow from his earlier spell began to dim. Shadows coalesced in the corners and thickened. Inarticulate hissing sounded from everywhere and nowhere.

  “… Belistor om follin ej …” All the hairs on his body rose and stood on end. The air pressed against him so hard he felt as though he was caught in a vise. Sweat poured from his clammy skin. The hissing grew louder. The shadows grew deeper, darker. He raised his hands above his head and shouted the final phrase in a voice gone hoarse.

  “… Yrsillar ej wexeral Belistor!”

  Like thousands of dwarven steam engines venting at once, the hissing reached an unbearable crescendo. The sound of an unliving multitude filled his ears, pawed at his soul. Reality ripped open with the sound of tearing cloth. An expanding globe of emptiness formed in the air above the binding triangle. Krollir stared into the bottomless void and knew the beginnings of madness. Mentally gripping his sanity, he watched transfixed.

  Two pinpoints of yellow light took shape somewhere back in the emptiness, feral eyes so full of hate and malice that their gaze nearly made Krollir vomit. Abruptly, the hissing ceased. All stood quiet but for Krollir’s and Riven’s breathing. The eyes began to draw closer … closer.…

  The candles suddenly flared and in an instant burned down half the length of their shafts. The melted wax flowed along the platinum lines of the triangle inset into the floor and congealed like blood, then hardened like day-old scabs. The emptiness above the triangle writhed, solidified, shaped itself into a towering, black, demonic form that Krollir sensed as much as saw—a muscular biped with great batlike wings and powerful, overlong arms that ended in vicious claws. Above, an oval head formed, featureless but for yellow eyes and a darker line that might have been a mouth. It was a being that somehow seemed to occupy space and create emptiness all at the same time. The malice in its eyes burned holes into Krollir’s brain. When it spoke, its sinister whisper hissed with such hate that it struck him like a physical blow.

  “What creature dares summon Yrsillar, Lord of the Void?”

  Despite his exhaustion, Krollir’s heart leaped in his chest. To have summoned a demon of such power! Indeed he must be the chosen of Mask!

  Dripping with sweat but smiling triumphantly, he unclenched his hands from the lectern and closed the Shadowtome, each motion slow and deliberate. Yrsillar’s angry hissing filled his brain but he pushed it aside. He had succeeded! Succeeded where none before had even dared! Confidence lent strength to his voice.

  “I have summoned you, Yrsillar. I, the servant of Mask called the Righteous Man. Summoned you and bound you.”

  At that, Yrsillar hissed. As though to test Krollir’s claim, the great dread extended an arm and clawed gently at the magical barrier that extended upward from the wax-filled lines of the binding triangle like an invisible pyramid. When Yrsillar tried to reach beyond the borders of that invisible pyramid, green energy flashed. The demon jerked back as though seared. Growling low but undeterred, Yrsillar examined the inside of its cage and probed for weakness, testing in turn each side of the triangle.

  Krollir knew that a single flaw in the platinum strips or the wax coating would corrupt the binding and free the demon. He felt a flash of fear despite himself, though he knew he had made no mistake. Each time the towering demon tried to reach through the air beyond the border established by the wax-coated, platinum lines, flaring green energy elicited a growl and forced it to recoil. Krollir merely watched, fascinated and horrified, gleeful that—

  Yrsillar suddenly whirled on him, crouched, and tried to leap bodily through the binding. Surprised, Krollir staggered a step backward in terror, nearly tripping over his own feet.

  Green fire engulfed the demon and stopped it in midleap, framing its muscular black form in a penumbra of crackling energy. Its mighty figure hung suspended in the air over the binding triangle, writhing and growling as the fire seared its emptiness. Greasy black smoke boiled from its body and filled the room with the acrid stink of ozone.

  Krollir quickly regained his composure and again stepped forward to the lectern. After another moment of growls and green flames, Yrsillar finally managed to pull his body free from the barrier and back into the triangle. Streamers of smoke snaked from its torso to mix about the ceiling with the smoke from the candles. The dread’s baleful eyes bored into Krollir, but this time he refused to give ground.

  He gestured at the binding triangle and the half-consumed candles burning at each corner. “The candles bind you, demon. Virgins’ blood and the fat from newborn babes went into their wax. I have prepared well, and you are bound.” He paused to let that sink in, then asked, “Do you agree to do my bidding in exchange for your freedom?”

  Yrsillar hissed and crouched low, a predator ready to kill. His yellow eyes narrowed to hate-filled sparks. Each claw looked like a dagger blade. “I will drink your soul for this, human. I smell your fear and taste your weakness. You are food, and I will consume you slowly. Your pain will be unending. I will leave your body a dried husk. You will beg for dea—”

  “Do you agree to do my bidding in exchange for your freedom? Or shall I cause you pain?” Meaningfully, Krollir reopened the Shadowtome. “I can reduce the size of the binding pyramid so that you will not be able to avoid its touch. The pain will be ceaseless.”

  Yrsillar screamed, a frustrated howl of rage that shook the limestone. At that moment, Krollir knew that his plan had come to fruition. Tonight, Zhentarim would die by the score, never to be raised from the dead by the foul priests of Cyric the Dark Sun.

  The demon finished its outburst and spoke slowly, growling the while, the words reluctantly spilling forth. “So long as I am bound, I agree to do your bidding.”

  Well enough, Krollir thought, and barely managed not to laugh aloud. He spoke over his shou
lder to Riven, unable to keep the glee out of his voice. “Witness, lieutenant! You see before you the end of our enemies. The end of the Zhentarim! Witn—”

  The shriek of the opening door jerked Krollir around. Riven stood in the open doorway, his squat, athletic silhouette framed by the torchlight in the stairwell. A cold chill raced up Krollir’s spine. Behind him, Yrsillar began to softly hiss.

  “Riven, what are you doing?”

  The assassin reached into his cloak, pulled out a small token, and flung it at him. It tinked on the stone floor and skittered to a stop at Krollir’s feet. His eyes went wide when he saw a black triangle with a yellow circle inset and a Z superimposed over the whole—the device of a Zhentarim agent. The realization crashed over him like a collapsing wall. Riven is a Zhentarim agent! They know! He looked up, goggle-eyed—

  “Riven, no! Don’t! You don’t know what you’re do—”

  The assassin had already pulled a dagger from his belt sheath. “Witness this, fool,” he snapped, and threw the dagger.

  Krollir felt his next heartbeat as though it were an hour, or an eternity. The dagger toppled slowly through the air, with every turn the blade’s edge glinting orange in the candlelight. It flew through space toward the binding triangle, toppling end over end. Krollir’s heart stopped. His eyes threatened to burst from his skull. Point, hilt, point, hilt, toppling, toppling.

  Yrsillar crouched low in anticipation, flexed his muscular, clawed arms. Yellow eyes narrowed to hungry slits.

  Krollir watched in horror as the dagger’s point impaled one of the candles. A few droplets of melted wax jumped into the air. The candle fell to its side and rolled along the floor. The dancing flame snuffed instantly, drowned in the remainder of the candle’s wax, drowned in virgins’ blood and babies’ fat.

  The great iron door to the summoning chamber slammed shut. Riven was gone and Yrsillar was free.

  The demon began to laugh loud and long. The sound, like the opening of a hundred mausoleum doors, hit Krollir like a fist. A wave of supernatural fear flowed from the broken binding and drove him to his knees. His eyes welled with tears and snot streamed down his face as he helplessly watched the demon flow through the open corner of the triangle, laughing. Cold yellow eyes stared out of emptiness and pulled his breath from his lungs. The demon approached. He closed his eyes and prayed to Mask for a quick death. I’m not the Champion, I’m not the Champion, I’m not the—

  Yrsillar stood before him. Fear blanked his mind. Every hair on his body stood on end. A coldness embraced him and set his teeth to chattering. He dared not open his eyes. Terror pulled inarticulate moans from his throat. He felt a disgustingly soft caress on his neck and face, like ice running over his skin. A scream rose in his throat.

  “Food,” Yrsillar hissed in his ear, and began again to laugh.

  Breathing hard, Riven grabbed a torch from a wall sconce and raced up the stairs three at a time. Though blocked by an iron door, the terrified screams of the Righteous Man still filled his ears and chased him like a specter. The hopeless sounds of a helpless animal, those screams. He felt no guilt for the betrayal, of course—Nine Hells, that’s why the Zhentarim had placed him with the Night Knives in the first place. He actually felt a certain satisfaction for a job well done, but even Riven found it mildly distasteful to leave the Righteous Man as food for a demon. No way for a man to die, he thought. He would have preferred to drive a dagger into the old man’s back and have done with it.

  Abruptly, the screaming ceased. He stopped running, steadied his breathing, and listened for a moment. Nothing. Satisfied, he ascended the rest of the long staircase at a walk. By the time he reached the door at the top, he had fully regained his breath. He took a moment to compose himself. Knowing that he had nothing to fear from the dread, he took his time. When he felt ready, he pushed open the door and walked into the lower level of the Night Knives’ guildhouse.

  The long hallway to either side of him stood empty and dim. Torches hung from wall sconces along the uneven plaster walls and cast shadows that looked uncomfortably similar to the black nothingness of the dread.

  It’s long gone already, he assured himself, long gone.

  Still, the screams of the Righteous Man echoed in his brain and sent a cold shudder up his spine. Out of long habit, his hands fell to his saber hilts as he walked.

  The lower level of the guildhouse was used mainly for storage, training, and worship. It also doubled as a final defensive strongpoint in the unlikely event of some kind of frontal assault on the guild. At this hour, the area stood empty. The main hallway Riven walked served as a spine from which branched all of the other rooms, hallways, and stairs of the lower level. At the northern end of the hallway, behind a sturdy door, stood a small storage chamber with a concealed trapdoor that opened onto a secret access route into the city’s old sewer system. At the southern end of the hall is the old man’s shrine, he thought with contempt. He glanced behind him down the hallway to the double doors of the shrine and sneered in derision.

  Over the past three years the Righteous Man had quietly spent guild proceeds to build an elaborate worship hall dedicated to Mask the Shadowlord. Riven had seen smaller temples dedicated to so-called “legitimate” gods.

  What a waste of coin, he thought. Pissing away valuable time and resources, the Righteous Man had led the guild in a service every tenth night of every tenday since. Over time, more and more of the Knives had attended and more and more had come to actively worship Mask. So much so that the worship had come to dominate the activities of the guild.

  Idiots! he sneered. This place was becoming more priesthood than thieves’ guild with every passing day. I did you all a favor tonight. Riven had made a point never to set foot in the shrine. He despised gods, even Cyric, the patron of many of his fellow Zhentarim. Reliance on the gods made men weak, overconfident, and willing to rely on miracles rather than their own abilities. He figured that the fate of the Righteous Man was the ultimate fate of all priests, for priests kept their eyes on a god and not on the world around them. Riven had spied on the Knives for the Zhentarim for years, all the while holding the implicit trust of the Righteous Man. The old fool’s faith had made him stupid and blind.

  Weeks before, when the Righteous Man had told him about the Shadowtome, Riven had sent word of it to Malix, his Zhentarim superior. Then, upon retrieving the book and returning to Selgaunt, he had not taken it directly to the Righteous Man. Instead, he had taken it to Malix for study. Based on the book’s contents, Zhentarim mages had easily determined that the old man planned to summon a dread. Riven was told how to sabotage the delicate binding. At the time, he had thought he would have to create an excuse to be present for the summoning, or that he would have to break in during the casting of the spell, but the old fool had actually required him to be present! Witness this, lieutenant! Riven had almost laughed aloud. The arrogant ass!

  Though Riven knew little of magic—he disdained spellcasters almost as much as priests, trusting his steel over spells any day—even he had seen the potential danger of turning a demon loose from its binding, possibly turning it loose on Selgaunt. Malix had laid that fear to rest, though. The Zhentarim did not fear the dread running amok in the city because, according to the Shadowtome, it could not long endure existence on this plane. Since negative energy made up so much of a dread’s being, existence on this plane—a plane full of positive energy—caused it immense pain.

  Or some such. Riven had ignored most of Malix’s explanation. It was enough for him that the dread would kill the Righteous Man and then leave. He smiled viciously. Kill and then leave. He liked that. He had done the same countless times himself, was doing so again now. Killing and then leaving.

  After he walked out of the guildhouse tonight, his time as a Night Knife was over. The Night Knives were over. When Riven informed Malix of the Righteous Man’s death, the Zhentarim would pounce on the leaderless guild. Without someone to organize a defense, the Night Knives would be easy prey. The
Zhentarim would hunt them down, recruit those who would turn, and kill the rest.

  The rest will be a lot, Riven figured, with a backward look at the shrine. Too many of the Knives had become religious fanatics. Far too many. They would not be open to recruitment. Zealots didn’t change sides, they were martyred.

  This guild is already a cooling corpse, he thought. Other than he and Cale, everyone else in the guild had the mind of a lackey, which was why they had been led to religion in the first place. None of them could lead the guild in a fight against the Zhentarim. They all would be easy fodder. Of course, Riven was prepared to acknowledge—reluctantly—that Cale could lead them, were he so inclined. But he was not so inclined. In fact, Riven suspected that Cale wanted out of the guild, not leadership of it. The leaderless Night Knives would soon be no more, another casualty in Selgaunt’s ongoing gang wars.

  Still, for the next few days Riven would have to lay low and watch his back. At least until after the Zhentarim hit the guildhouse. If anyone with a grudge survived the coming purge, they might notice his absence, put the puzzle together, and come looking for him. He wasn’t afraid for his safety, but he didn’t want the bother of fanatics trying to hunt him down.

  He smiled, appreciating the irony. The rabid fanaticism of the Knives had been the very reason the Zhentarim had decided to move against them so forcefully in the first place. While Selgaunt’s underworld was a viper’s pit of competing organizations, none of them had been fanatical prior to the radicalization of the Night Knives. Thieves’ guilds acted predictably; religious movements did not. Selgaunt’s underworld could not long tolerate an unpredictable actor—unpredictability drew the attention of the city’s otherwise disinterested authorities. The Zhentarim could not allow that.