“Another spell,” said Corvus, “that humans are not supposed to know.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I had a good…well, he wasn’t a good teacher. I had an interesting teacher, let’s say.” I rubbed my forehead with a moment with my free hand, trying to will my headache into acquiescence. It didn’t work. “You’ve been here before?”
“I have,” said Corvus, looking at the dead trees as the ribbons of ghostly light danced overhead, throwing strange shadows in all directions. “A long time ago, when I was a man-at-arms in service to an Elven lord.”
“Before you became a Shadow Hunter, I take it,” I said.
“Yes,” murmured Corvus, still gazing into the trees. Then he shook his head, as if throwing off a dark memory, and turned to face me again. “We need to depart at once. There are darker creatures than wraithwolves in the Shadowlands.”
I almost asked if that included Shadowmorphs, but for once in my life I managed to hold my tongue.
“Actually,” I said, “we’re going to avoid both of them. If we hurry up.”
“And just how are we going to accomplish this?” said Corvus.
“How much do you know about the Shadowlands?” I said, rubbing the concrete chip.
“More than I would wish,” said Corvus. “This is the realm that connects the worlds. The Warded Ways cross through the Shadowlands, and are the closest things to safe paths. Many dangerous creatures dwell here, some more alien than you can imagine. Parts of the Shadowlands are claimed as demesnes by powerful lords, whether by spirits or mortal wizards, but such lords cannot leave their demesnes.” He looked at the dead trees for a moment. “Unless I miss my guess, we are in the demesne of the Knight of Grayhold, a lord who controls a large portion of the Shadowlands nearest to Earth.”
“Entirely correct,” I said. “Missing only one part.” Morvilind’s old lessons filtered through my head. “Every mortal world casts a shadow into the Shadowlands. The Elves call it an umbra. The umbra touches the material world in different places. So if you do it right, you can open a rift way to the Shadowlands, cross through a few miles in the umbra, open a rift way back, and cross over several thousand miles of the real world with only a few minutes’ journey in the Shadowlands.”
“Indeed?” said Corvus. “I never knew that.”
“It’s a secret among the Elven nobles and wizards,” I said.
“So if it is possible to journey over thousands of miles with a few moments’ travel in the Shadowlands,” said Corvus, “why do not more of the Elven lords travel in such a manner?”
“Two reasons,” I said. “Wait, three. One, it doesn’t work in a heavily warded destination. It’s easy to block a rift way from the Shadowlands with a few spells. Two, sometimes the distance isn’t a few miles. Sometimes it’s hundreds and hundreds of miles, and it has to be on foot. Gunpowder doesn’t ignite and gasoline doesn’t burn in the Shadowlands. Electronics don’t work, either.” Belatedly I remembered that I had forgotten to turn off my burner phone. Well, it was a useless brick now. “Third…the Shadowlands are dangerous. Even for Elven archmages. It’s safer to fly or drive three thousand miles on Earth than it is to walk three miles in the Shadowlands.”
“I am keenly aware of that last fact,” said Corvus. Perhaps he had acquired some of his previous scars in the Shadowlands. “Then you have abandoned your mission? You plan to escape from McCade’s mansion entirely?”
“Nope,” I said. “We’re going to go right back where we were…but maybe a dozen yards or so further to the right.”
Corvus blinked, and then I saw him figure it out. “You will open the rift way back to Earth within the vault door.”
“That’s right,” I said. “Another fun fact about the Shadowlands.” I hefted the concrete chip. “You can use physical objects from a specific location like…oh, a compass, I suppose. It will draw us to the place in the umbra of Earth that corresponds to an actual physical location on Earth. Then all I have to do is put a little more power into the spell, and the rift way will open inside McCade’s vault.”
“Admirably clever,” said Corvus. “I suggest we proceed before something finds us. The wraithwolves are powerful and fast, and they are nonetheless some of the weaker creatures of the Shadowlands.”
“Agreed,” I said. Of all the many ways I could die doing Morvilind’s dirty work, getting eaten alive by some horror out of the Shadowlands would be one of the worst. I took a deep breath and summoned magic. It came easier, far easier than it would have in the real world. All magic originated from the Shadowlands, and it was the source of the power that leeched into the real world that I could touch and use. Until the High Queen had breached Earth’s umbra and allowed the aura of the Shadowlands to spill through, magic had been unknown on Earth…
I blinked.
No, that wasn’t quite right. There had been magic on Earth before the Conquest, hadn’t there? Else how had the Assyrians enchanted that tablet that Morvilind wanted so badly?
It was a question for another time.
I forced the magic through a spell and gestured with my free hand, and the chip of concrete began to shimmer with a ghostly gray glow. I turned it back and forth, feeling the tugging of the spell against my thoughts.
“This way,” I decided, pointing into the dead trees. I tried to discern out the direction, and then realized that since the Shadowlands had neither sun nor moon nor stars, there was no such thing as north or south or east or west here. “About three miles, I think. Then I can open a rift way back to McCade’s vault…”
A hideous, shrieking cry rang out from the trees behind us. Corvus whirled with catlike grace, his dark sword coming up, his face tight and hard. The echoes from the cries died away…and a dozen more answered.
A dozen cries that were coming closer.
“Um,” I said. “What is that?”
“Anthrophages,” said Corvus. “An entire pack.”
“Anthrophages?” I said. “What is an anthrophage?” It didn’t sound pleasant.
“They’re ghouls,” said Corvus. “Essentially. No one know what they really are. They feast on living flesh when they can get it, but they have no qualms about eating the dead. They attack and kill anyone they can catch in the Shadowlands, and haunt the battlefields.”
“They sound like wraithwolves,” I said.
“They’re worse than wraithwolves,” said Corvus. “Not as strong, but faster and much smarter.” Again that chilling chorus of screams rose from the dead trees. “They hunt by scent.”
“Oh,” I said. “The blood in your clothes…”
Corvus shook his head. “They could hunt you by the smell of your sweat. A rift way. Can you open it here?”
“I could,” I said, “but I have no idea where it would go. We might end up in the middle of the Sahara. Or in the center of the Pacific.”
“Your Cloaking spell,” said Corvus. “Could you cast it over both of us?”
“In the Shadowlands, yes,” I said, “but I don’t know how long I could hold it.”
“Then do so,” said Corvus. “Quickly!”
I started to snap that he couldn’t give me orders, but the grim urgency in his face made the retort die in my throat. I wouldn’t say he was afraid, not precisely…but he was certain that if we did not get away from the anthrophages, we were going to die. After seeing his capabilities, after seeing him handle himself in the fight against the wraithwolves, I knew that if something alarmed him, I had better take notice.
“Fine,” I said. “Hold still.” I stepped next to him and grabbed his elbow. “Whatever you do, don’t move. I can’t maintain the Cloak if you move. And stay in contact with me. If you stop touching me, the Cloak stops shielding you and the anthrophages find you.”
In answer he slipped out of my grasp and put his arm around my shoulder.
Well, that would work too.
I summoned magic and cast the spell, silver light flashing around my fingers as we vanished. Back on Earth, summoning enough power to
Cloak both of us at once would have been hard. Here, it was far easier, but concentrating to keep the spell in place was just as challenging. It was a difficult task, and I gritted my teeth, focusing the way I did when lifting a particularly heavy barbell or sprinting the final mile of a long run.
A moment later the anthrophages burst from the dead trees, loping over the dusty ground.
They looked vaguely man-shaped, tall and thin and skeletal. Ropy muscles moved beneath their glistening gray hides, and some of them ran on two legs, but others ran on all fours. Jagged black claws jutted from their fingers and toes, and their eyes were venomous pits of yellow. They did not have noses, only triangular pits in the center of their faces, yet they seemed able to hunt by scent. They spread out through the clearing, lowering their grotesque faces to the ground and sniffing. As they bent over, I saw that their ears were long and pointed, that a row of black spikes jutted from their spines. The stench of them, a mixture of rotting meat and sulfur, washed over me, and I tried to keep from gagging.
I held the Cloak as the anthrophages moved back and forth, snarling at each other in some sort of mewling, growling language. Sweat trickled down my back, a faint quiver of fatigue going through my limbs. The Cloak spell blocked scent as well as sight and sound, so I didn’t have to worry about the creatures sniffing us out. I did worry that they were going to walk into us. The Cloak made us undetectable, but that would not keep an anthrophage from blundering into us through dumb luck.
The trembling in my legs got worse. I took deep, long breaths, trying to relax my legs, and Corvus’s iron-hard fingers settled in a gentle but firm grip around my right shoulder. That actually helped me stay standing, and I poured all my concentration into the Cloak, keeping the spell in place. Sooner or later the anthrophages would give up and go in pursuit of other prey.
But they didn’t.
The creatures kept moving back and forth through the clearing, and I realized they were searching in a systematic fashion. If the anthrophages hunted through scent, then they had not found any trail leading from the clearing. Eventually, I knew, they would give up…but they would find us before that.
A shudder went through me as I fought to maintain the Cloak. I had to open a rift way back to Earth. Better to take the chance of appearing at some random location than to say here to be devoured. Except to open the rift way I would have to release the Cloak, and it would take me a few moments to draw in the necessary magical power. There was no way Corvus could hold off the anthrophages long enough for me to gather the spell.
To sum up our situation in a word, we were screwed.
My trembling got worse, the effort of holding the Cloak harder. An anthrophage moved closer to us, sniffing at the dusty ground. The thing was following our trail, smelling the path of Corvus’s blood and my sweat. It would walk right into us, and then we would be dead. I felt Corvus tense as he prepared to move…
Then the anthrophages stopped.
In perfect unison, all of the creatures turned their heads to look in the same direction. I couldn’t see anything, but all the anthrophages were staring at something. They went as motionless as statues.
Then they raced away as one, vanishing into the dead trees.
A moment later we were alone in the clearing.
I held the Cloak as long as I could, maybe another ninety seconds. Then my entire body shuddered, and only Corvus’s arm kept me from pitching over. The Cloaking spell unraveled and we reappeared, my breath sounding loud and uneven in my ears. I feared the anthrophages would return at once, that they had only hidden themselves to wait until we appeared, but nothing moved in the dead trees.
They were gone.
“Excellent work,” said Corvus.
“Thanks,” I muttered, blinking the sweat from my forehead. The beginnings of a massive headache stirred behind my eyes. If I lived through this, I was going to sit in a hot bath with a bottle of ibuprofen for hours. “Surprised that worked.”
“Your skill with illusion magic is impressive,” said Corvus. “But the Shadowlands are a dangerous place. Little wonder those who travel its reaches prefer to stay to the Warded Ways.”
“Yep,” I said, slipping out from under his arm. I didn’t want to lean on him too much. His Shadowmorph was still hungry, and I was exhausted. His instincts would be screaming that he could feed upon me, and for all his talk of self-control, I trusted actions, not words. “Let’s go before whatever scared off our new friends finds us.”
“Perhaps they found likelier prey,” said Corvus.
“They were screaming when they attacked us,” I said. “Like hounds flushing out birds or something. They ran away from us in silence. Like they didn’t want to be noticed.”
“That is a very good point,” said Corvus. “Lead the way.”
I nodded, held up the glowing concrete chip, refreshed my sense of direction, and started walking.
We moved through the dead trees as quietly as we could. The trees were twisted and distorted, glowing moss clinging to their branches here and there. Morvilind had told me that each world’s umbra was a twisted reflection of the world that cast it into the Shadowlands, that you could find distorted reflections of cities and mountains and even significant historical events in a world’s umbra. Considering some of the things that had happened in human history, I hoped we didn’t encounter any of those historical reflections.
Suddenly we came to another clearing, and I stopped.
“Damn it,” I muttered.
A road of dull white stone stretched before us in either direction. It was about twenty feet wide, smooth and flat and hard. Alongside the road stood monoliths of rough gray stone, each of their four sides covered with glowing Elven hieroglyphics. The stones stood alongside the road at regular intervals, about every thirty yards or so.
“The Warded Ways,” I said. The ward spells upon the monoliths kept off most of the predators of the Shadowlands, allowing travelers and armies to traverse the Shadowlands in…well, not safety, but at least somewhat less danger. The Warded Ways crisscrossed the Shadowlands, leading to the umbrae of dozens of different worlds.
“I remember this road,” said Corvus, gazing at the ribbon of white stone with a distant expression. “This very road. I marched here as a man-at-arms, long ago. I…” He shook his head, his expression hardening again. “We should continue on…”
“No,” I said. “We have a problem. We have to cross the road to reach our entry point.”
Corvus shrugged. “So? At worst, we can shelter upon the road if the anthrophages return.”
“No,” I said. “The Inquisition will know if we stay upon the road for too long.”
“They could not possibly know that,” said Corvus.
“How do you think the High Queen knows when the Archons or the frost giants or someone else tries to open a rift way to Earth?” I said. “How do you think she knows when someone tries to attack? If someone stays on a Warded Way within Earth’s umbra for too long, it alerts the wizards of the Inquisition, and the High Queen calls out some of her nobles to meet the attack.”
“And how do you know that?” said Corvus.
“Same way I know illusion magic,” I said. Morvilind had mentioned it, not out of any concern for my welfare, but to keep his secrets from falling into the grasp of the Inquisition should I find myself in the Shadowlands. “Someone taught me. We’ll have to go around. Sometimes the Warded Ways cross over streams or ravines, and we can go under the bridge...”
“There isn’t enough time,” said Corvus.
I opened my mouth to answer, but he moved before I could speak. His arms coiled around me like steel bands, and for an awful moment I was sure that his self-control had snapped, that he was going to call his dark blade, drive it through my chest, and feast upon my life force. Instead he slung me over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry, and did it so fast that I could not react.
Then he sprinted forward.
He could move fast, even when bearing my weight
. Far faster than a normal man should have been able to go. The Shadowmorph must have been lending him strength. He sprinted forward, jumped, and landed maybe a third of the way across the Warding Way. He sprinted forward another few yards and jumped again. We shot through the air, and he landed on the dirt on the far side of the road, my chin bouncing off his side. Corvus stopped, turned, and put me back on my feet.
He wasn’t even breathing very hard.
“Don’t do that again,” I said, wobbling a bit. God, but he was strong. He would have been strong even without the Shadowmorph’s influence. I cast the spell to detect the presence of magic, and felt a faint stirring from the nearby monoliths. “It’s activated, but…”
“But not very much,” said Corvus. “The Inquisition, for all its power, does not have infinite resources. A dozen different major concerns continually occupy their attention, and wizards with the divinatory skill to see into the Shadowlands are not that common. Someone will investigate what we just did, I am sure…as soon as they can get around to it.”
“Fine,” I spat out. His logic made sense, I had to admit, but I still did not like it. “Then let’s get the hell out of here before someone does come to investigate.”
“Can you run?” he said. “Or should I carry you.”
“Oh, shut up.”
We jogged into the trees, following the pale light in my hand. The ground became rockier, more uneven, the trees more twisted. Here and there I saw piles of yellowing skulls stacked up like miniature pyramids. I didn’t know if they were real skulls or some distorted reflection of the real world, and I didn’t want to find out. The concrete chip in my hand glowed brighter, the mental tugging growing more insistent.
The trees thinned, and suddenly I found myself standing on the edge of a precipice, a vast canyon that had to be at least a half-mile deep and two miles wide. A turbulent river surged through the heart of the canyon, and it was so far down that I spotted clouds floating below me. We didn’t have canyons like this on Earth. Maybe there were canyons like this on Mars, or this was some sort of abstract representation of a historical event.
Cloak Games: Omnibus One Page 12
