Crypt of the Shadowking h-6

by Mark Anthony

  "That's not going to hold them for very long," Mari said, eyeing the door nervously.

  "Then you'd better think of something fast."

  "Me? This was all your idea," she retorted hotly.

  The door shook under additional pounding.

  Mari glared at him angrily. "A window, Caldorien," she said flatly. 'Try a window."

  Unfortunately, the outside walls of the tower offered only a sheer drop to the ground far below. The only chance lay with the west window, where there was a decidedly crumbly-looking bridge about twenty feet down, spanning the gap from this tower to the next.

  "We'll never make it to the bridge," Caledan said after peering out the window. "Even if we don't break our legs, the impact would probably destroy that rickety thing."

  "What's the alternative?" Mari asked in exasperation.

  The door shuddered violently. One more blow and it would fly apart.

  "All right, let's try it," Caledan snapped.

  Mari threw her arms tightly around his neck. The door burst open in a spray of splintering wood, and a dozen guards charged into the room, swords drawn. Gripping Mari tightly, Caledan jumped out of the window. With one hand, he grabbed a handful of the tangled ivy that snaked up the west face of the tower. The tendrils could not support both his and Mari's weight, and the vines ripped from the wall as the two fell.

  They landed hard on the narrow stone bridge that arched between the two towers. Mari felt the stones shift beneath them with the impact, but the derelict old bridge withstood the shock. Though winded and bruised, the two scrambled to their feet. Guards shouted angrily from the window above, but Mari and Caledan dashed across the bridge.

  They froze in midstep.

  The door in the next tower flew open. A half-dozen guards stood in the opening. Mari and Caledan spun around, only to view a similar obstacle behind them. They were trapped.

  Something hissed past Mari's ear. She looked up to see one of the Zhent officers above, reloading a crossbow. From both directions the guards began to edge their way carefully onto the bridge. Mari felt the stones shudder beneath her.

  "This thing is about to collapse," she whispered to Caledan.

  He nodded. "Do you see what I see?" he asked, not daring to point.

  She peered down into the moonlit dimness. At first she could see nothing, but then her eyes adjusted, and she nodded jerkily.

  "When I give the signal," Caledan whispered, reaching down and gripping her hand. She squeezed back tightly. She supposed it wouldn't hurt to be nice to the scoundrel. They were going to die together, after all.

  Another crossbow bolt whistled by, this one putting a hole in Caledan's stolen cloak. The guards drew closer. When perhaps a dozen stood upon the bridge, Mari heard a low groan and felt the bridge lurch beneath her feet.

  "Now!" Caledan shouted. Without hesitation they both ran and leaped off the bridge. The guards stared after them in dumb amazement Then the bridge broke apart, and the guards went crashing to the street below along with several tons of bone-crushing rock.

  For a moment Mari felt as if she were flying. She heard the noise of the crumbling bridge behind her, but their leap had carried her and Caledan clear. They landed, hand-in-hand, in a cloud of dust and chaff.

  "You couldn't have picked a wagon with clean straw, could you, scoundrel?" Mari said in disgust, spitting out an unpleasant mouthful. Her sore shoulder throbbed painfully. The two quickly slid off the back of the wagon that had been passing under the bridge.

  "I wouldn't complain," Caledan countered, eyeing the rubble of the stone bridge and the bodies buried beneath it. They started off swiftly through the city's shadowed streets and were nearly back to the inn before they remembered to argue about whose fault this had all been.

  Six

  The priceless statuette shattered into a thousand pieces as it struck the dark marble wall of the tower's topmost chamber.

  "I want them strung up by their necks!" Ravendas, Zhentarim lord and ruler of Iriaebor, demanded through clenched teeth. She was pale and lovely despite her rage, or perhaps because of it. "No, I want them run through, left to the rats, then strung up!"

  A young boy sat in a chair before the fireplace, a dulcimer lying in his small hands. Ravendas's son. His green eyes were focused on the fireplace, watching the flames, as if he were oblivious to his mother's fury. The lord steward, Snake, stood serenely by the door, watching his mistress's tantrum. "You're being unreasonable, my Lord Ravendas," he said in his low, almost droning voice.

  "I'm being unreasonable?" she thundered, turning upon Snake, her deep blue eyes flashing like lightning. "First two intruders raid my countinghouse and make off with a fortune in jewels, not to mention managing to kill a half-dozen of my guards. Then one of my best warships catches fire and burns to the water. Now I learn that-despite my orders against drinking-someone has been selling cheap casks of tainted wine to my guards and poisoning them sick in the bargain. More ships and caravans are passing through the city every day as the weather warms, and a quarter of my soldiers are flat on their backs puking their guts up."

  Ravendas's golden hair glimmered in the torchlight. Her beautiful face was as hard as marble. "Did you not tell me that a sorcerer had been sent to deal with the Harper in my city, my lord steward?" The honorific was twisted into a sneering insult. "Did you not tell me that Caldorien was run out of Iriaebor by some underworld filth he had made an enemy of? Tell me, Snake, am I imagining these reports?"

  "No, my lord, you are not," Snake replied deferentially.

  This time it was a crystal vase that succumbed to Ravendas's wrath. "Then who is to blame for these outrages against me?" Snake started to speak, but Ravendas lifted a hand, silencing him. "No, I will hear no more excuses. Inform my captains that I want the perpetrators of these offenses found. Otherwise, it will be my captains' heads I will have. Is this perfectly clear, Snake?"

  "Of course, my lord," Snake said, bowing deeply.

  Ravendas lowered herself onto a silk-draped lounge and lifted a glass of wine. She drank deeply, and gradually the livid rage melted away. "Come, Kellen," she crooned to the boy, "Come play for your mother."

  Without a word the boy slipped from the chair and sat at Ravendas's feet. His small fingers plucked at the dulcimer, and a sweet, sorrowful music filled the air. Ravendas closed her eyes for a moment, drifting with the music.

  It would be a pity if Caldorien truly has fled Iriaebor, she thought. I would like to give him a taste of my power. He spurned me once. But no one, not the Harpers, not even those fools in Zhentil Keep, can stand against me now.

  Her eyes opened and she regarded Snake, still standing subserviently near the ornately carved door. "How fare the excavations?" she asked him, her voice languid now.

  "Very well, my lord. Soon you shall have what you desire. Every soul in Iriaebor will belong to you, and even those beyond."

  "Excellent." A small black kitten crawled into Ravendas's lap, and she stroked its soft fur absently. Her cheeks were flushed with the wine, with thoughts of power. And of Cal-dorien.

  The boy's music had stopped. The chamber was silent. Ravendas ran a hand over his dark, glossy hair-hair as dark as shadows, such a striking contrast to her own golden tresses. "Go with the lord steward, my son," she said to him. "It is late."

  The boy nodded silently and stood, kissing her once upon each cheek. Snake turned to leave, and the small boy padded after him. They left Ravendas alone in her chamber, petting the black kitten, a smile curled about the corners of her deep red lips.

  "Do you require anything, Kellen?" Snake asked when they reached the boy's room. The boy shook his head, clutching his dulcimer tightly.

  "Do you think she will keep me when she is done with me?" Kellen asked then, with the utter seriousness of which only a child is capable. "Or will she break me when she is through?"

  Snake regarded the child for a long moment. The boy was just eight years old, but he always struck Snake as being older than his years. T
here was a wisdom about him that was odd in one so young. But then, with a mother such as Ravendas, there were many sights this child had witnessed which other children never dreamed of, not in their most terrible nightmares.

  "Go to sleep, Kellen," he said finally. The boy shrugged and stepped into his room, shutting the door behind him.

  Snake turned and descended the tower's central stairwell. He had orders to give.

  Caledan and Mari sat at a table in the Dreaming Dragon's private dining chamber. A map of the city lay unrolled before them, its corners weighted down by mugs of ale. The two of them were arguing, as usual, this time about a possible raid on a weapons warehouse in the New City.

  "Either you're feebleminded or you're mad, Harper," Caledan barked, thrusting a finger at the map. Disagreeing with Mari was getting to be a habit. "There's no route of escape. Ravendas's guards would have our backs to the wall and their swords at our throats in a second."

  Mari opened her mouth to say something, but suddenly Estah hurried into the room, slamming the door behind her. Her brown eyes were wide with fear.

  "Estah, what is it?" Mari asked in concern.

  "City guards!" the halfling healer managed to gasp. "They're searching every house and business on the lane. And they're headed this way."

  Mari shot a worried look at Caledan. "Do you think we can slip out the garden and into the alley without being seen?"

  Caledan laughed grimly. The Harper's inexperience was showing again. "You don't have a clue how the Zhentarim work, do you, Harper? They'll have someone keeping watch on the back door of every place they search."

  He stood and pushed the heavy oaken table aside. "It's still here, isn't it, Estah?" He stuck a finger through a knothole and pulled. A small panel opened up in the floor. This part of the inn jutted precariously out over the edge of the Tor. Through the trapdoor Caledan could see the maze-work of beams that supported the structure and beneath them nothing but air and space until the jagged bottom of the Tor three hundred feet below.

  Jolle hurried into the room. "You'd better hurry. They're nearly here."

  "Let's go, Harper," Caledan said. He didn't wait for a reply but lowered himself quickly through the trapdoor, clambering onto one of the beams below the inn. Mari's eyes widened as she stared at the dizzying drop. She started to protest.

  "Surely there must be another-"

  "Now, Harper!" Caledan growled. "Unless you'd rather explain to the Zhentarim where you got that fancy moon-and-harp pin you're so proud of wearing."

  Mari's eyes flashed fire, but she bit her lip and lowered herself through the opening. "Be careful, Estah," she told the healer.

  A stern look crossed the halfling's face. "Don't you worry about Jolle and me. We can handle a few of Cutter's men. Now you two stay quiet." She shut the trapdoor, and there was a grating sound as she and Jolle moved the heavy table back into place.

  "Comfortable, Harper?" Caledan asked patronizingly.

  Mari gave him a scathing look. With white-knuckled hands she clung to one of the oaken beams. Wind whipped at her dark hair. A trio of swallows lazily spun and dove below them.

  Caledan rather enjoyed the view himself, but he knew his was an unfair advantage. He and the other members of the Fellowship had used this hiding place on more than one occasion in the past.

  Both of them tensed when they heard the heavy thumping of booted feet on the planks above their heads. A growling voice drifted down through the boards, but Caledan couldn't make out the words. A gentle yet resolute voice spoke then. Estah.

  The booted feet departed, and for a long time the only sounds were birdsong and the voice of the spring wind. Then there came that same dull scraping sound, and a moment later the trapdoor opened. Estah's broad face was framed in the square.

  'They're gone," she said in a relieved voice.

  Minutes later they were once again safe within the inn's private dining chamber. Mari's face was pale, and she fairly gulped down the cup of spiced wine Estah offered her. However, she was none the worse for wear. Caledan had to admit to himself, albeit grudgingly, that the Harper had been brave.

  "At least this should keep Ravendas's attention away from the Dreaming Dragon for a while," Caledan said. How long that might be was another question.

  It was evening when Cormik arrived at the inn. He had traded his normally fastidious, opulent attire for a disguise consisting of the patched, mud-spattered garb of a peasant farmer and wore a wide-brimmed straw hat pulled down low to conceal his eye patch.

  "You know, I think it suits you," Caledan told him with perfect seriousness.

  "I've killed men for much less than that," Cormik snapped, plucking at his threadbare attire with a look of profound distaste. "What necessity can make us stoop to," he lamented in a pained voice, but then his manner grew businesslike. "I didn't come here for compliments, Caledan. I came to warn you and the lovely Harper Al'maren. I just received word that the lord steward, Snake, has ordered a door-to-door search of every habitation in the city."

  "We already know," Caledan said matter-of-factly, enjoy-'ng the startled look on Cormik's face. The owner of the Prince and Pauper wasn't used to others learning things before he did.

  Caledan and Mari spent the rest of the evening deep in conversation with Cormik. Estah brought them a plate of good but simple fare-bread, cheese, and a jug of pale wine. Cormik eyed everything with a sense of novelty.

  "So this is how the masses live," he remarked, picking up his earthenware cup and studying it carefully. "How interesting. How peculiar." He sniffed the wine, and his bulbous nose wrinkled. He quickly set it back down. "How revolting."

  Not possessed of such delicate palates, Caledan and Mari enjoyed the repast while Cormik talked. The efforts to try to wear Ravendas down and, more importantly, to discover her weaknesses were going well. A few small opposition bands under the direction of some of Cormik's agents had scored several hits against Lord Cutter's city guard.

  "We've been a thorn in her side, to be sure," Cormik said, "but we have a long way to go. We still need to find more people who are willing to fight the Zhentarim. And then we have to arm them. You two came away from the countinghouse with a fair sum in jewels, but I can't simply sell them openly on the market here. Ravendas is bound to notice. Besides, she has a lock on the weapons trade, and there isn't a blacksmith in a dozen leagues that isn't firing up his forges to arm her men. However, agents of mine are currently making deals in Berdusk and Elversult, though it's going to be a slow process smuggling weapons into the city."

  Mari sighed deeply. "Let's hope she moves even slower than we do."

  Cormik chuckled deeply. "Don't despair, Mari Al'maren. I have ways of sowing problems among Cutter's men." His one good eye gleamed wickedly. "As a matter of fact, I suspect that even as we talk new reports are making their way to the tower, telling how the leaders behind the insurrection are in truth captains of Ravendas's own city guards. More than a few of Cutter's men who don't swear their complete loyalty quite fast enough will be swinging by their necks before morning."

  Caledan shook his head. "You're a devious man, Cormik. Remind me never to get on your bad side."

  Cormik stared at Caledan flatly. "You are on my bad side, Caledan."

  Mari laughed after Cormik had left. "You know, I'm really beginning to like that man," she commented.

  "You would," Caledan replied sourly.

  It was late. The inn had closed for the night. Its shutters were drawn, giving Mari and Caledan the freedom to sit in the glow of the fire in the common room with Estah. Jolle was upstairs. He said he wanted to check on a leak in the roof. Mari didn't remind him there hadn't been a drop of rain in days. She knew the halfling was keeping watch.

  "Despite Cormik's deceptions, it's still only a matter of time before Ravendas discovers us," Caledan said in a low voice, gazing into the flames. He twirled a dagger absently in his hands.

  Mari started to reply, but just then two pairs of small feet came thundering down the
stairs. Pog and Nog burst into the common room and dashed to Estah, clinging to her desperately.

  "My bonnies, what is it?" Estah asked them, hugging the two tightly. "You should be long abed." Nog tried to explain in whatever language it was that he spoke, but Pog interrupted.

  "It's the shadows, Mother," she said gravely, her brown eyes wide in her small, round face. "The ones in the closet. I woke up and saw them moving, and Nog did, too. They want to eat us!"

  Estah laughed, hugging her two children tightly. "Why, that's nonsense! Even if the shadows could move, how in the world could they step off the wall to eat you? And if they did eat you, where in the world would they put you? Shadows are awfully thin, you know." Pog's little forehead wrinkled a bit as she considered this information. She didn't seem entirely convinced.

  "Well, if you're still worried," Estah said, "perhaps I could have your Uncle Caledan here speak with the shadows. He's a friend of theirs, you know."

  "You can talk to shadows, Uncle Caledan?" Pog asked. Mari looked at Caledan, raising an eyebrow. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair.

  "It's just an old trick, nothing more," he explained. "I haven't done it in years."

  "An old trick?" Mari asked curiously.

  "Oh, a bit more than that, I'd say," Estah said, her brown eyes twinkling. "Why, with the music of his reed pipes, Caledan can make the very shadows dance upon the wall."

  Pog's eyes lit up then, and Nog squealed in glee. "Oh, please, Uncle Caledan. Make the shadows dance on the wall for us! Please?"

  Caledan shook his head. "I don't suppose I even remember how." He turned to Mari in explanation. "It was just an old parlor game-an odd talent that ran in the family." He looked at Pog and Nog and grinned, tousling their straw-colored hair. He picked them up, one in each arm, much to their squeals of terror and delight, and headed up the stairs. "I may not make them dance on the wall, but I will talk with them. Maybe I can convince them not to eat all of you. Perhaps just a few bites…" Pog and Nog squealed in horror and delight.