The huge opal that the creature had called… Shadowfire? An appropriate name… was not of help. Neither was the small heap of gem-studded jewelry Gord discovered secreted here and about his person and in his old pouch. Nothing else helped, but eventually he located the silver flask and took a healthy swig from it, shuddering as the fiery liquid burned its way over his tongue, down his throat, and into his gut. Feeling better, Gord steeled himself and poured about half of the remainder of the flask’s contents on the rag that bound his arm. That burned worse still, but at least the stuff was cleansing the outer portions of the wound. The bleeding had certainly taken care of the inner part, Gord thought. One more jot for himself, and the nearly empty flask was tucked away again along with the rest of his gear.
Now, back to the other matters at hand. He knew who he was—that was no problem. But where he was, why he was here, and what had recently happened in his life still remained unknown to Gord. Was there some place he could find to refresh himself and rest? He stood up and carefully examined the surrounding terrain, letting his gaze sweep from near to far, scanning outward in segments, until the whole of this shadowy place that surrounded him had been viewed.
Now that he was somewhat used to the place, Gord could detect traces of color. There were hints of purple, suggestions of brown, deep ultramarine, and some hue like verdigris, only darker and more intense. His eye caught pearlescence, opalescence, brilliancies, and iridescence in the blacks and grays of the place that did not exist elsewhere. Black was no longer just black; the word legitimately could be used to describe a dozen sorts of colors so subtle in difference that the eye could scarcely discern them unless one concentrated. Grays were twice as varied, even if the many metallic sheens and crystalline permutations were discounted.
“It moves!” Gord exclaimed aloud. In his examination of the strange world around him, he had become so absorbed in the minutiae of things that the larger scope had escaped him for several minutes. When he suddenly realized that a low hummock in the distance that had been in front of him was now off to the right and somewhat behind him, Gord understood that the seeming play of shadows in the place was more than that. The terrain actually flowed as if it were a vast, shadowy river.
“Yet this place I stand on does not move,” he murmured to himself, continuing to speak aloud because the sound gave him a sense of security in this strange land. “Let’s see what occurs when I move elsewhere,” he said softly, and then he left the spot he had been resting upon and trudged through the shadows and the tall, black grass to the mound he had observed earlier. He sat atop it for a time, observing the scene. The hillock became a stationary islet, while all else drifted away or across his field of vision. Eventually Gord tired of the experiment and decided this place was as good as any to rest in. He curled up under a low bush with leaves of jet that hid him from casual view, and despite the strangeness and possible dangers was soon in a state of blissful sleep.
A susurration awakened Gord from his rest. Even a slight sound was sufficient to arouse him from deepest slumber, and in strange surroundings, the young thief slept even more lightly than usual. The sound disturbed him, alerting his senses on a primeval level. Without moving, Gord opened his eyelids a crack and peered out between the long, shiny-black fronds that screened him. What he observed was sufficient to cause him to grab his sword and spring to his feet, ready to fight for his life. Once he was clear of the ebon shrub and erect, the scene was far more startling. Gord was fully ringed by a circle of creatures, the strangest collection of beings that he had ever witnessed assembled in a single place.
He immediately recognized several of the congealed-shadow things he now identified as adumbrates. These were scattered here and there among a throng of other shadowy creatures—things with faintly glowing eyes that resembled snakes, men, hounds, badgers, moths, owls, elk, and a host of other, unidentifiable forms as well, all facing the hummock he was upon and looking toward him. Gord’s eye fell upon a huge, maned lion, one of umbral mane and penumbral body, with silvery eyes that gazed back at him without winking.
“Go, friend, and take all of your kind with you,” Gord said to the weird cat. “I have no desire to harm you.” To his surprise, the monstrous creature turned and bounded off, and when he did so, shadowy shapes similar to that of the huge male shadow-lion likewise left the strange circle for parts unknown.
“You are a nonesuch!” a murky form said from behind him—too close behind!
Gord spun to confront the speaker, sword ready. A man-shape of somber tones and insubstantial form drew back as the sword of magical metal neared it. “And so are you,” Gord retorted. “Come not near, or I shall have to send you to some yet-darker plane!”
There was another shushing sound, collectively from the strange assemblage of creatures, individually voiced by the murky man-shadow. “Brash!” the form hissed in a rustling shadow-voice that Gord had grown to expect now. “Never threaten… especially what might be beyond your power to perform.”
The leaden eyes of the shadowy figure searched Gord’s face, and, detecting uncertainty, the thing smiled at him, a translucent yawning that showed gray teeth and the suggestion of what was behind at the same time. “But be at ease, stranger, for unlike the others, I have come to assist and befriend you, not seeking any special gain.”
Of course, such a statement put Gord on instant alert. “Why is that, man of shadow?” he inquired calmly but cautiously.
“Shadow? Nay, though there be some here,” the dusky form replied. “I am Smirtch, the Gloam Imprimus…. Is that not sufficient reason for my special accommodation?”
“Shadow, shade, or spirit—what matter?”
“Are you of dwarven ilk? Or giantish?” rejoined the shadow-figure. “As readily as you deny such heritage, so too know that there are those named shadow or spirit, shade or phantom, who are as different, one from the other, as pixie and ogre are in the world that was once yours.”
This piqued Gord’s interest, disarming him slightly and confusing him considerably. “Ever since I awoke from what I thought was death to find myself in this odd place, I have had questions answered with queries, riddles with conundrums. I will bargain with you then, Smirtch-the-Gloam. You may remain close and converse with me without threat, but you must pledge two things.”
“Two? Pray speak fully, for no oath can be made without full disclosure of the terms and conditions of such a binding act.”
Relieved, Gord named his conditions. “First, you must swear that you will not attempt to harm me… or cause another to do so.”
“Agreed, readily accepted,” Smirtch said eagerly.
“Second, you must answer each question I ask honestly and fully, without any misleading or confusing elements in such answers.”
Smirtch shook his inky locks at that. “Not so fast, stranger. You demand much and offer naught save nonaggression. I will gladly agree to answer your questions, but in return you must likewise consent to answer those I might have of you.”
“That sounds acceptable,” Gord said after a brief pause to consider the ramifications of the pact. “But what of these others? This benighted bestiary of shadow-creatures?”
“Not one of them will linger if I tell them to be gone,” the gloam assured him. “This throng is naught but a collection of ordinary denizens of this plane, all curious, some perhaps curiosities to you, but all of no great power or peril to us. Why not let such harmless beasts be?”
Again a question with a question! Gord stepped back from the gloam and used his sword to wave off the encircling array. Those nearest the blade moved backward, seeming to float, making no sound except for the strange susurration. No wonder they had succeeded in ringing him while he slept. These things not only looked like shadows, they conducted themselves as quietly as shadows.
“These are shy and weak things,” Smirtch said. “As you proved, since your threat sent them scurrying; and this proves my veracity as well. They pose no threat to you now—though they can be us
ed at times…. Now, let us begin our discussion.”
“At your insistence,” Gord said briskly. “What is this place called?”
“Shadowrealm,” the gloam replied abruptly. So, thought Gord, the creature he had encountered earlier used the name that must be the generally accepted one for this place. “What have you done since you’ve arrived here?” Smirtch continued, getting in his first question.
Gord noticed that the manlike shapes of darkness, spirits, shades, and shadows, the smaller, dwarflike murks, and the tall, gangly fuligi, were gliding nearer as he spoke with Smirtch. The young thief knew some of these creatures from chance, violent encounters in the past, and he had heard tales and seen depictions of both the murklings and the skinny, fuliginous humanoid things of coalesced shadow-stuff. Pretending not to see this encroachment, the young man answered the gloam’s counterquestion blandly. “Me? But little, I fear. A rest, a look around, and then this chance meeting.”
Smirtch followed up with another question, perhaps hoping that Gord wouldn’t notice the impropriety. “Do you know what an adumbrate is?”
“No, I’m quite uncertain as to the nature of an adumbrate,” Gord replied politely. “Now, since you spoke out of turn, you must answer two questions for me. First, what is the nature of Shadowrealm? Second, how does one such as I come to this place?”
“It is a place much as any other of its sort,” said Smirtch, grinning at the way he had sidestepped the first of the two queries. Then he added another equally vague answer. “One such as yourself comes to Shadowrealm by various means, including those of magical nature, but I am unable to say with certainty how you arrived until you give me the details of what transpired just prior to your arrival here… which was when?”
“Time in this place is difficult to measure,” Gord countered. He didn’t really want to give a direct answer, but the question intrigued him for his own sake—how long had it been, anyway?—and he paused a moment to reflect before responding further. Watching the slowly advancing shadowfolk out of the corner of his eye, Gord continued, “I was… asleep when I arrived, and I also took another rest later, so I could have been here an hour or a day, or even longer. Now, tell me, what race rules this realm?”
Smirtch seemed to scowl a bit at the question, but it was difficult to be certain. “We gloams are the most potent of the folk who dwell here, just as duskdrakes are the most fearsome of the great beasts inhabiting the plane—I mean, place,” the gloam corrected hastily, but not before Gord noted the first noun. Smirtch hastened on, perhaps hoping that the human would forget the slip if he covered it with a flood of interesting information.
“The phantomfolk are next, although we easily defeat them, then there are the shadowilk and the murklings and the fuligi. As the adumbrates aren’t really more than monstrosities, I leave them off the hierarchy of folk. But I ramble! When we first met, you mentioned that you had recovered from what you presumed was death—indeed, I see a wound there on your arm. What do you recall of the circumstances which brought you to such a sorry pass?”
“Little… little if anything,” Gord admitted sincerely, meanwhile pondering in another part of his mind the information he had managed to glean from the gloam’s statements. Shadowrealm apparently was, as he had suspected, actually the Plane of Shadows, a plane that connected to the real world as well as to the planes of Yang and Yin, the positive and negative. He also had good reason to think that this Smirtch fellow was doing his best to keep Gord ignorant of the true nature of this place and its politics.
Smirtch had claimed to be the principal gloam, and from the deference given by the other shadowy denizens around, this seemed quite possible. Yet it was obvious that the creature desired something that Gord possessed, thus indicating that Smirtch was not the lord of much of anything. Similarly, his remarks regarding the adumbrates seemed to indicate that there was enmity at best between such things and Smirtch’s race. Enmity exists where there is competition. Adumbrates were as powerful as gloams, at least in certain aspects, it seemed, although the scale of power was uncertain.
Gord reasoned that the rivalry between the two species was a matter of concern to Smirtch, and he seemed to think that Gord might be useful in tipping the balance in favor of his own side. Interesting… but what means did a new-come human possess? The sword seemed potent here, but still…. Resolving to listen most carefully, Gord asked his next question. “What king or kings are sovereign here?”
“There are those who proclaim a Shadowking. We gloams do not recognize his suzerainty. I, as Imprimus, am as great a lord as any,” Smirtch added, still frowning slightly as he droned on, but obviously drawing himself up with what seemed more than a touch of hubris. “That is of no great import at this moment, for you have a problem which I can assist you with. You said that you could remember virtually nothing of what transpired prior to your awakening in this place, did you not? Perhaps if we inventoried and examined your possessions, there would be some clue, something which would restore your mnemonic functions. …”
At this, Gord smiled. “Yes, I did in fact say that I could not recall the time before my entrance to the Plane of Shadow. Now, are the gloam-folk then at war with the Shadowking?”
“You have not allowed my question!” Smirtch said with irritation.
“But I have, dear Smirtch, I have indeed. You asked if I had said a certain thing—that was your question. I affirmed that I had so said—my answer. Now, pray, answer mine!”
“No. We do not war.”
That told the young adventurer much more than he was sure the gloam suspected. The slight inflection on the last word made it probable that there was strife between the factions. That there was no war indicated that the gloams were not powerful enough to openly contest with the Shadowking, despite Smirtch’s boast that he was a lord of equal stature; certainly, this being was less puissant than the king—perhaps on the order of a powerful baron…. Just then Smirtch spoke again, forcing Gord to concentrate on his words.
“What did you bring here?”
“Oh, not much. What I wear and carry is all,” Gord answered lightly. “And whereabouts is the capital city or castle of the one who is called Shadowking?”
“Location is always relative here,” Smirtch supplied, meanwhile making a tiny gesture that the gloam undoubtedly thought would be indiscernible to Gord. “Just be in the right place, and the palace comes to you. Now, would you be so good as to display your possessions?”
“Certainly not,” Gord said matter-of-factly. “How would you describe the so-called right place?”
“Briefly, if at all,” Smirtch shot back at the young man. “Do you have any amusing trinkets with you?”
“Amusement is a matter of taste and perspective,”
Gord replied as a group of the shadow-men drew near behind him, with a clump of murklings and fuligi trailing behind. Gord decided that he had played this game long enough. It was time to test his theory. Should he be mistaken, his fate could hardly be worse than what the gloam undoubtedly planned In any case. “However,” Gord said, casually reaching into his pouch with his injured arm, “I do have a trantle which you might regard as meriting some diversion,” he smiled. Fingers grasping the sphere, Gord suddenly withdrew the stone that the adumbrate had called Shadowfire, exposing its surface to the gloam as he brought it forth.
“Put that back in the pouch!” Smirtch groaned in a scratchy whisper, sliding away slightly as he hissed the command.
Ignoring the creature for the moment, Gord spun rapidly, gem held at shoulder height, short sword suddenly sweeping in a glistening circle as he turned. Green and scarlet motes danced along the blade, colors he never had seen before in this place.
It was more than the mere sight of those colors that made the menacing creatures who had been about to fall upon him from behind moan and whimper as the young thief confronted them. The force of Shadowfire swept them backward as a gust of chill air sweeps away the dry leaves of autumn. Not all of them were quick enou
gh; where blade touched shadow there was a coruscation of glittering black and lambent maroon. As if formed of these flickering, burning flashes, each shadow so touched became a thing of whirling sparks for an instant, then disappeared entirely, leaving only a little sound, a noise like the whine of a receding mosquito, behind for a moment.
After four shadow-things were thus touched and made gone, Gord completed his circle and again faced Smirtch. “What is wrong, most helpful of beings? Don’t you care for pyrotechnical displays?”
“You’ll pay for this!” the thing threatened, safe at a distance many feet beyond the reach of the still-fulgent blade. Then Gord advanced, and the gloam sped away, making an evil susurration as it glided rapidly out of sight. With that, all the remainder of the other shadowy creatures fled as well. Moths and birds fluttered and flapped to escape, while animals of other sort scuttled or ran to be clear of the spot. In a short time Gord was quite alone.
Chapter 19
“Most enlightening!” Gord said to himself heartily after all the creatures had gone.
To test his newfound power more thoroughly, Gord then brought the opal’s sphere into contact with the pommel of his sword. The motes brightened and grew larger, each particle seeming to spin and whirl more rapidly. Then the whole multitude of coruscating flashes merged into twin halos of color. One nimbus was coralline, shot through with weaving tongues of snapping scarlet; the other was of peridot hue, and similarly filled with darting arcs of bright emerald.
The transformation took but an instant, and Gord scarcely had time to note the sudden change before the hues intensified and dual bolts shot from either side of the blade to strike a fat-trunked, treelike growth at which the sword happened to be pointing.
“Zow!” Gord exclaimed as he viewed the results, hastily withdrawing Shadowfire from contact with his weapon. Where the shadow-tree had been there was nothing, and the shadow-ground where its roots must have spread was now a gaping hole, a place of deeper blackness from which faint tendrils of silvery stuff wafted upward and away.
[Gord the Rogue 05] - City of Hawks Page 23
