Curse of the Shadowmage

by Monte Cook

  Cold dread trickled down Morhion’s throat. In the minutes since he had last looked, the shadowking had grown. Its midnight wings had spread wider, and it had raised itself slightly off the platform, leaning on a long, muscular arm that looked as if it had been carved from polished onyx. He could not see the shadowking’s visage, but curving obsidian horns sprang from its brow. In time with the creature’s throbbing wings, the Shadowstar pulsated against the creature’s torso, glowing brightly one moment, fading to dark the next. Soon the shadowking would be whole.

  High above, the shadowsteeds cried out as they caught sight of their enemy again. They folded their wings and dove once more. Morhion had no more offensive spells left.

  Slowly, the shadowking rose to its feet. It was horrifying in its darkness, yet majestic as well, a vast creature of sculpted onyx muscle, with horns and talons like black ice. The outlines of the creature’s face flowed, taking shape. It was nearly complete.

  “Behold the King of Shadows,” Morhion whispered in awe.

  THE HARPERS

  A semi-secret organization for Good, the Harpers fight for freedom and justice in a world populated by tyrants, evil mages, and dread concerns beyond imagination.

  Each novel in the Harpers Series is a complete story in itself, detailing some of the most unusual and compelling tales in the magical world known as the Forgotten Realms.

  THE HARPERS

  THE PARCHED SEA

  Troy Denning

  ELFSHADOW

  Elaine Cunningham

  RED MAGIC

  Jean Rabe

  THE NIGHT PARADE

  Scott Ciencin

  THE RING OF WINTER

  James Lowder

  CRYPT OF THE SHADOWKING

  Mark Anthony

  SOLDIERS OF ICE

  David Cook

  ELFSONG

  Elaine Cunningham

  CROWN OF FIRE

  Ed Greenwood

  MASQUERADES

  Kate Novak & Jeff Grubb

  CURSE OF THE SHADOWMAGE

  The Harpers

  ©1995 TSR, Inc.

  All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC. Hasbro SA, represented by Hasbro Europe, Stockley Park, UB11 1AZ. UK.

  FORGOTTEN REALMS, Wizards of the Coast, D&D, their respective logos, RAVENLOFT, and TSR, Inc. are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries.

  All Wizards of the Coast characters and their distinctive likenesses are property of Wizards of the Coast LLC.

  Cover art by: Fred Fields

  First Printing: November 1995

  eISBN: 978-0-7869-6426-0

  640A2938000001 EN

  For customer service, contact:

  U.S., Canada, Asia Pacific, & Latin America: Wizards of the Coast LLC, P.O. Box 707, Renton, WA 98057-0707, +1-800-324-6496, www.wizards.com/customerservice

  U.K., Eire, & South Africa: Wizards of the Coast LLC, c/o Hasbro UK Ltd., P.O. Box 43, Newport, NP19 4YD, UK, Tel: +08457 12 55 99, Email: wizards@hasbro.co.uk

  Europe: Wizards of the Coast p/a Hasbro Belgium NV/SA, Industrialaan 1, 1702 Groot-Bijgaarden, Belgium, Tel: +32.70.233.277, Email: wizards@hasbro.be

  Visit our websites at www.wizards.com

  www.DungeonsandDragons.com

  v3.1

  As always, there are many people whose help and inspiration made this book possible. There are some of them I even want to mention. Allow me to thank:

  Carla Montgomery, friend and fellow wordsmith, for once again reading a work in progress; and for letting me know when things needed changing and, perhaps more importantly, when things were just fine.

  Brian Thomsen, Executive Editor of TSR Books, for giving me the chance to continue a tale unfinished.

  Pat McGilligan, my inexhaustible editor of four novels, for reading yet another one.

  And Loreena McKennitt, recording artist, for the haunting and evocative music of The Mask and Mirror.

  For my mother—

  Esther Elizabeth Anthony

  —with love.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books in the Series

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgment

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter: One

  Chapter: Two

  Chapter: Three

  Chapter: Four

  Chapter: Five

  Chapter: Six

  Chapter: Seven

  Chapter: Eight

  Chapter: Nine

  Chapter: Ten

  Chapter: Eleven

  Chapter: Twelve

  Chapter: Thirteen

  Chapter: Fourteen

  Chapter: Fifteen

  Chapter: Sixteen

  Chapter: Seventeen

  Chapter: Eighteen

  Chapter: Nineteen

  Chapter: Twenty

  Chapter: Twenty-one

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Night.

  It mantled the city of Iriaebor, veiling all with the soft stuff of darkness. A thousand spires loomed silent and mysterious as sentinels above the shadowed labyrinth of the Old City. Selune had long since fled beneath the western horizon with the luminous orb she bore nightly in her silver chariot, and false light—the first pale omen of dawn—had not yet touched the eastern sky. It was the darkest hour of the night, the hour caught in the rift between one day and the next, when the world is the most still and magic the most strong. The Darkling Hour, some called it. The hour for thieves and wizards.

  Kadian was no wizard. Not that he lacked brains enough to study the arcane arts, or was deficient in the nimbleness required for the intricate rituals that shaped magical energies into spells; he possessed both characteristics in no small quantity. Once, when Kadian was a boy, a white-haired mage on the Street of Runes had noticed these qualities and, gazing at the barefoot street urchin in pity, had taken Kadian into his tower as an apprentice. An hour later, the kindly mage had gaped in round-mouthed surprise as Kadian deftly pinned the old fellow’s moon-and-star robe to the wall with a knife and made off with three enchanted rings, a sack of gold dust, and the mage’s best magic wand. These days, the only sort of magic Kadian worked involved moving without sound, scaling impossibly smooth walls, and opening unopenable locks. If these required no mystical incantations to perform, they were no less remarkable for that fact.

  Guttering torches cast wavering shadows across the intersection of the Street of Jewels and the Street of Lanterns. Kadian used these pools of darkness to good advantage as he moved to an alcove in a stone wall. He was a big man. His broad shoulders and pale hair came from his father, but he had his mother’s grace. More than once, he had heard it whispered that there had been an elvish tinge to her blood, so she had been graceful indeed.

  Kadian hunkered down to wait. The alcove provided good vantage of the squat building across the street. Its windows were heavily curtained, but from time to time a corner of the fabric stirred, as if someone were peering outward, and a thin ray of crimson light spilled into the street along with the dissonant music of wicked laughter. For a while the only comings and goings were those of the rats searching for food in the filth-strewn gutters. Finally the building’s door opened, a thin figure stumbled out, and the door quickly closed again.

  The figure p
aused, wobbled precariously, found some small reserve of balance, and lurched across the cobbled square. Passing through the flickering circle of light beneath a smoking torch, the figure was revealed for a moment. He was thin, so emaciated that the possibility of some wasting disease could not be discounted. Gaudy finery draped his bony frame: ruffled shirt, ridiculously puffy breeches, and a doublet of yellow silk that clashed hideously with his sallow complexion. A thick coating of powder failed to disguise the deep pockmarks that savaged his pinched face. The ugly, foppish man continued to weave his way down the Street of Lanterns.

  Kadian’s bared teeth glowed in the dimness. “Slumming tonight, milord?” he murmured wryly. A dagger glinted sharply in his hand as he slipped soundlessly from the alcove. The waiting was over.

  The drunken petty lord was so easy to follow that it was almost unfair—almost, for Kadian had never been of the opinion that life was meant to be in any way fair. Justice weaves as Justice sees, or so his mother had told him. Kadian pursued his quarry through the tortuous streets of the Old City. Overhead, countless spires wove themselves together in a tangle of spindly bridges and midair causeways that blotted out the starlit sky. Beneath the towers, the narrow streets were no less tangled, forming a maze in which the unfamiliar or the unwary could all too easily find himself lost.

  A short distance ahead, the nobleman hesitated at a crossroads. He looked first right, then left, then—and now a bit dizzily—right again. At last, apparently at random, the foppish lord plunged through the left-hand archway.

  Kadian’s smile broadened. “Wrong choice,” he whispered with a feral smile. That way was a dead end. Gripping his knife, he hastened through the archway.

  Kadian came upon the petty lord moments later, in a small cul-de-sac lit by a single greasy torch. Realizing he could go no farther, the nobleman turned around and found himself facing Kadian. His expression of astonishment sent fine cracks through the thick layer of powder that coated his face. Swiftly, surprise gave way to dread. The man licked his rouged lips. “What … what do you want of me?”

  Kadian spun the dagger casually on a fingertip before returning it firmly to his grip. “Come now, milord,” he said chidingly. “There’s no use in stating the obvious, is there? You know exactly what I want.”

  The petty lord’s reply was limited to a small, strangled squeak as he sidled clumsily backward. Kadian moved smoothly toward him. As he did, he felt a peculiar prickling on the back of his neck. It was a sensation all good thieves experienced when being watched. But Kadian could see no one who might be doing the watching, nor even any windows through which watching eyes might peer unseen. There were only the shadows of the two men cast by the guttering torch—tall, distorted silhouettes that played like malformed giants across the stone walls of the circular dead end. Kadian shrugged the odd feeling aside. Wasn’t he a bit too old to be unnerved by shadows? He affected a cheerful tone and gestured with the knife.

  “Hand it over, milord. That’s right. Your purse. Don’t feign surprise. What else would a cutthroat be interested in? Now don’t let that disturb you, milord. ‘Cutthroat’ is simply a name, my title if you will. I don’t actually cut throats—usually.” Kadian dropped his voice to a low growl with that last word.

  “Here! Take it!” the foppish man squealed in a choked voice. “Take all of it. I don’t care. I won it only tonight playing at Dragon’s Eyes.”

  The petty lord clumsily fumbled with the plump leather purse and heaved it at Kadian’s feet. Kadian casually stooped to retrieve the heavy purse and stood, tucking it under his belt. The nobleman eyed the curved dagger in Kadian’s hand fearfully. “You aren’t … you aren’t going to use that, are you?”

  “As a matter of fact, I think I am,” Kadian replied jovially. The petty lord let out a small whimper as Kadian slowly lifted the dagger. Then, with a deft motion, Kadian turned the blade and began using it to clean his fingernails. He chuckled to himself and looked up to see what the lord had thought of his little joke.

  The nobleman was gaping, his beady eyes wide with terror.

  Kadian sighed in annoyance. “Oh, stop it,” he growled. “I told you, I’m not going to kill you, so—” He realized then that the petty lord’s eyes were not fixed on the dagger. The man’s gaze was focused above Kadian, and behind him. Taking in a hissing breath, Kadian spun around. At first, all he saw was his oversized shadow sprawled across the stone wall. Then he noticed something odd. Kadian was standing still, but Kadian’s shadow was—

  “By all the gods of midnight, it’s moving!” Kadian gasped.

  The shadow—his shadow, cast by the torchlight—undulated on the rough surface of the wall. The dark silhouette rippled, remolding itself. For a moment it coalesced into an amorphous blob, like a great stain on the stone. Then, with malevolent speed, the dark blotch spread, outlining talon, fang, and horn—the shape of a beast. Two pinpricks of crimson light flared to life like feral eyes. For a moment, those eyes seemed to burn directly into Kadian’s chest. Then the shadow stepped off the wall.

  The petty lord screamed. Reflexively, Kadian swung his head around and stared in dull astonishment. Another black, monstrous form, that moments before had been the nobleman’s shadow, had also separated itself from the stone wall, opening its gigantic maw in a silent howl. Kadian blinked dizzily. Was that starlight he saw through the shadowbeast’s mouth, or the glint of sharp teeth? When he turned back, his own shadowbeast advanced on him.

  “We have to run!” Kadian shouted impulsively, grabbing the lord’s arm. The petrified nobleman did not move. He stared at the two approaching shadowbeasts, his pasty face a mask of horror. “Run, blast you!” Kadian cried, jerking the man’s arm. Still he did not move. By then it was too late.

  Something dark lashed out at Kadian, and his thief’s instinct took over. He dove for the ground, though not fast enough to entirely avoid the shadowbeast as it struck. A hot line of fire traced itself across his cheek. Rolling to a crouch, he pressed his back against the wall. The hand he touched to his burning cheek came away dark and sticky. His mind reeled. HOW could a shadow draw blood?

  Kadian looked up. The two bestial shapes were circling around the paralyzed petty lord, moving with eerie silence. Swiftly they closed in. Kadian’s eyes noticed the flickering torch in its iron sconce, and he was moving before the idea was fully formed in his head. Behind him, a piercing scream of agony shattered the air. Kadian could no longer see the petty lord for the dark bulk of the shadowbeasts. He lunged toward the iron sconce, grabbed the torch, and beat it against the stone wall. Sparks flew. As if realizing what he was doing, the shadowbeasts turned and flew toward him with terrifying speed. Kadian could see the crumpled form of the nobleman lying on the cobbles, the yellow doublet now dark and wet. He beat the torch more fiercely. Dark arms stretched outward; curved talons reached for his heart. The torchlight flickered, dimmed … and was snuffed out.

  Darkness descended on the cul-de-sac like a shroud. Kadian braced himself, waiting to feel the claws of the shadowbeasts plunge into his chest and rip out his wildly beating heart. The death blow did not come. Gradually his thief’s eyes adjusted to the faint starlight that filtered down from above. The small stone circle was empty save for the motionless heap that had been the petty lord. Kadian’s hunch had proved right. The shadowbeasts had been extinguished along with the light source that had spawned them. Numbly, still clutching the knife in one hand, he shuffled toward the fallen lord. Kneeling, he placed a hand on the nobleman’s chest. Quickly he snatched his hand back, dripping gore. The man’s body had been ripped to shreds. Shuddering, Kadian stood. He had to flee this accursed place.

  Abruptly, brilliant light flared to life in the cul-de-sac, causing Kadian to blink against the searing brightness. When his vision cleared, a new fear stabbed at his guts. Three uniformed men stood in the archway, bearing torches. The city guards stared at him with hard eyes.

  “Caught in the act, eh, thief?” one of the guards snarled in disgust.


  Kadian looked down at his hand, still dripping with the dead lord’s blood. Sick coldness filled his stomach. He looked up, slowly shaking his head. “No,” he whispered. “The shadows …” But the guards were already upon him. Gripping his arms brutally, they hauled Kadian roughly through the stone archway.

  That was when he caught a glimpse of the man. For a fractured second, a flickering beam of torchlight pierced the darkness of a corner near the archway. The man stood within. His black attire blended seamlessly with the night, but his face hovered clearly in the dimness. Almost against his will, Kadian met the other’s eyes. They were impossibly deep, and filled with a rage and a sorrow so vast they did not seem human. Kadian thought those eyes would rend his soul.

  The torchlight wavered. Once more the corner fell dark. The man vanished. Kadian struggled against the hands that gripped him, shouting to the guards, trying to tell them about the man who lurked in the corner. But all his protests bought him was a sharp blow to the back of his head, and Kadian was lost in darkness.

  One

  It was the cold that woke the boy.

  Kellen Caldorien opened his eyes and found himself gazing up at the slanted ceiling of the attic room where he slept. Faint illumination filled the small chamber, the steely light that comes before the dawn and that casts no shadows. When he breathed out, his breath hung on the frigid air above him like the pale ghost of a bird. The inn was quiet at this hour, and the silence seemed heavy with portent. Kellen had the feeling that something was going to happen today. He didn’t know what it would be, nor when exactly it would occur, nor whether it would be for good or ill—only that something would happen. Something important.

  As quickly as it came, the odd feeling of prescience vanished, and the last vestiges of dreaminess with it. Wide awake now, Kellen slipped from his bed, shuddering with the cold, and realized at once the source of the fierce chill. The chamber’s round window hung open, and a steady wind blew in. Even this early in the month of Uktar, when the days could still be fine and golden, the nights were sharp with the promise of winter. The window must have blown open during the night.