Cloak of Shadows

by Greenwood, Ed

  Rent by war for ten summers and more, Daggerdale was fast vanishing as the woodlands spread swiftly across untilled fields and deserted steads alike, reclaiming the land from the rule and hand of men who no longer lived to hold it at bay. In swampy places the trail they followed, once an important trade road, was almost gone.

  Elminster, however, rode with the easy manner of a bored tour guide, never slowing to choose his way or change direction but proceeding as if strolling around his own garden, pointing out once-prominent landmarks as they went. Earlier, a gargoyle had risen heavily from the crumbling rampart of a small keep as they passed, but it had only circled once, high above them, and then descended again to the ruin, thinking better of attacking so purposeful a band.

  The shadows were beginning to grow long when Elminster pointed at a pair of fingerlike stone pillars ahead. “Unless a dragon, lich, or something similarly energetic has decided to dwell there, that’s our camp for the night.”

  “That’s Irythkeep?” Itharr asked, peering through the trees. “There’s not much left of it, is there?”

  “A Harper needs no roof nor servants,” Elminster told the sky overhead innocently, “but is happy to sleep under the stars, where the air is fresh, the living earth is closer, and the body has no chance to become pampered and weak.”

  Belkram and Itharr chuckled together. “Trust you to know that passage from the Code of the Harpers,” said the taller of the two rangers, his eyes on the ruins ahead.

  “Know it? Who d’ye think wrote it?” Elminster replied in aggrieved tones. Behind him, Sharantyr sighed theatrically, but when the Old Mage shot her a coldly meaningful glance, he found her staring skyward with a look of innocence surpassed only by his own recent performance. Elminster snorted and spurred his mount on, ignoring the cautious, weapons-out advances of the Harpers.

  In the dust raised by the old wizard’s hurrying horse, Belkram, Itharr, and Sharantyr exchanged glances, shrugged, and urged their own mounts on toward the ruins.

  Irythkeep may once have been grand, but the winds and winters of passing time had not been kind to it since a besieging orc band had battered its walls from without, and the Zhentarim mage with them had summoned and let loose a fire-spitting hydra within.

  All that was left now, amid fast-growing duskwood, pine, and shadowtop saplings, was a ragged stone ring outlining the outer walls, a few overgrown outbuildings and stables still clinging here and there to their roofs, and those fingerlike remnants of towers. Birds roosted on the stony pillars, and the crows that took wing as the four riders approached cried their anger at the intrusion loudly enough to alert ears anywhere near. Belkram cursed and then shrugged. What point stealth now? Several small furry brown shapes darted away from rocks where they’d been catching the last of the sun, and hurried off into the woods. Elminster watched them go, then rounded on Itharr.

  “Well? Ye got that grand blade out and waved it about, lad. Aren’t ye going to chase yonder scuttlers and do some carving to show thy manhood and deadly prowess?”

  “No,” Itharr replied brightly, and urged his mount ahead into the ruins. He tossed his grand blade into the air as he went, let it flash end over end up into the sunset, and then deftly caught it and sheathed it without slowing in his saddle or looking back.

  Elminster’s sniff was both loud and eloquent. Sharantyr hid a smile behind her own raised blade as Belkram and Itharr dismounted, tossed their reins over branches to serve as tethers for a few breaths, and jogged ahead into the shadows amid the stones.

  The Old Mage watched them scramble and peer alertly about for a breath or two, then he turned in his saddle to fix Sharantyr with one clear blue eye. “Well, lass?”

  Sharantyr raised an eyebrow. “As pouting maidens are wont to say,” she replied, “ ‘Well, what?’ ”

  The wizard’s stare became more forbidding. “What foolishness are ye going to favor us all with?”

  Sharantyr smiled broadly. “Ah. Yes. Guarding you, actually.” She waggled her drawn sword so the sun glimmered on one edge and then the other.

  Elminster snorted. “Unnecessary folly, indeed. Why not put that steel away before ye hurt thyself with it?”

  Sharantyr shrugged, more laughter in her eyes than in her face. “When Belk and Ith say the keep’s safe, perhaps. We can talk about it again then … after I’ve told you how to cast a few spells.”

  “All right, all right, lass,” Elminster said gruffly. “Point taken. Lash me with that pretty tongue o’ thine later, eh? And put the sword away for now. Just do it.”

  Sharantyr gave him a puzzled frown as he vaulted from his saddle with sudden speed, sending his old dapple gray into a startled, snorting little dance. As she leaned forward to catch at its reins, the Old Mage dodged quickly past its head, snatched at her boot, and expertly pitched her backward off her horse.

  Astonished, Sharantyr joined him on the ground, hooves flashing in front of her nose as both mounts decided that the shadows and stones ahead offered quieter grazing than the company of falling humans. She clutched at her sword to keep hold of it and opened her mouth to protest, but Elminster had taken two long strides to one side, away from her.

  “Well, mageling?” he bellowed, staring back along their trail with blue fire in his eyes. He raised his hands in a deliberately flippant, showy gesture, and spoke a grand word.

  Rolling up and staring hard, Sharantyr had a brief glimpse of a black-robed wizard standing on air amid the trees, excitement and fear on his face as his hands flicked and flashed in intricate spellcasting. She couldn’t escape the impression that his fast-speaking mouth was sliding down into shapelessness. Suddenly, eight balls of bright flame erupted out of empty air and roared toward her and Elminster, drawing apart slightly as they came.

  Sharantyr stared at the flaming death she knew she could not escape, heard the two young Harpers shout in alarm from the ruined castle behind her, and swallowed.

  Is this how swiftly and easily death reaches out to take us all?

  4

  A Slaying Moon

  Daggerdale, Kythorn 15

  Sharantyr watched helplessly as flaming death roared down upon the Old Mage. Long ago the spell had been dubbed a ‘meteor swarm,’ castle-rending magic only the mightiest mages could wield. And the wizard who’d hurled it looked so young.

  A Zhentarim? But all time for thinking was gone. She was going to die. Sharantyr looked at Elminster as the roar of the rolling flames grew louder around them.

  The Old Mage was standing calmly, watching the racing fireballs. As Sharantyr looked at him, his eyes narrowed for a moment and he made the briefest of gestures with two fingers. Little wheels of lightning were suddenly spinning in midair, in the path of the howling swarm of fast-growing fireballs.

  The lightnings blazed into sudden blinding brightness as the flames flashed through them, but sliced apart the blazing balls, drawing out their fury. The rush of stolen spell energy made the spinning lightnings moan and turn all the faster. Beyond them, eight failing, flickering tongues of flame reached for the unmoving, watching Old Mage … and fell away into nothingness, spent.

  Elminster raised another finger imperiously, and the whirling lightnings raced away from him, heading for the mage in the trees.

  The young mage cast another spell with desperate speed, hissing and stammering words in clumsy haste. A brief rain of green lances appeared in the air, slicing down at Elminster’s crackling pinwheels of captive fire and lightning, but were shattered and absorbed without pause. The lightnings flashed on.

  The wizard shouted something desperately but hadn’t time to do more before the lightnings struck him. Elminster leaned forward to watch with mild, academic interest.

  Sharantyr had time to shiver at that as she turned to watch what befell their foe.

  Trees cracked in the heat, hissed out all their stored moisture, and fell, smoking, as the writhing mage spun in their midst, small snarling bolts of lightning leaping around his body and scattering bright sparks
where they touched.

  He howled in agony, arching his torso, limbs splayed. Sharantyr stared, fascinated, as his arms grew, darkening and broadening into batlike wings.

  Elminster uttered a satisfied hum and followed it with four quick, sliding words. The struggling figure of their foe spun end over end as the lightnings faded and fell away from it. The young mage seemed frozen, half-in and half-out of bat shape, bright eyes staring at them and brighter fangs gaping, as Elminster’s magic whirled the attacker’s body around and around. “Aye, I like thee better in half-shape,” Elminster told the creature serenely, making a plucking motion with one hand.

  The bat-thing abruptly broke out of its tumbling and seemed to leap across the air between them, directly at the Old Mage.

  Sharantyr swallowed and rose up into its path, face set and blade extended. The bat-thing rushed forward as she held out her bright sword firmly in both hands. With a helpless, howling whimper, it impaled itself on her steel.

  Shar staggered at the impact, icy blood drenching her hands, and stared in sudden alarm as the darkness and weight faded away from around her blade, taken to some other place by magic that flickered and tore at her, leaving her with a confused impression of shadows, watching malevolence, and a cold, dark somewhere filled with strange monstrous beings.

  Someone said coldly, “Now do you see, Taernil?” but the reply, if there was one, was whirled away in a rising whistling, the noise of mournful, misty shadows streaming around and past her.

  Sharantyr felt the magic that had taken the bat-thing trembling through her. She stared at her bare blade and unmarked hands for a dazed moment before a firm hand encircled her arm above the elbow and an all-too-familiar voice rasped, “Did ye or did ye not hear me to tell thee to put thy blade away, lass?”

  Sharantyr shook her head to clear the whirling shadows from it and gasped, “Who … what was that?”

  “ ‘What’ is right, Shar. A Malaugrym mage, young and careless with his power.” Then the voice sharpened. “A fine useful pair the two of ye are! Puffing up here just a breath or six too late, as usual.”

  Belkram and Itharr plunged to a halt, breathing hard, and exchanged an exasperated look. “That’s … our job,” Itharr gasped. “Rushing in … we’re Harpers, remember?”

  Elminster snorted once more. “So am I, young and brainless one,” he reminded them all none too gently. “And d’ye see me running about the landscape like a scared hare, trampling the crops and looking generally ridiculous?”

  “No,” Belkram replied bravely, “but I’m sure if we were a thousand years or so older than we are, we’d have seen you doing just that … probably with a maid or two fleeing in front of you and an angry father or two in hot pursuit at your heels.”

  The snorts of suppressed laughter that answered this sally didn’t come from Elminster, who looked dangerously around at them all but spoke not a word.

  None of them saw a figure watching from atop one of the ruined towers, a crooked smile on its face. “Laugh while you can,” Issaran told the four standing far below him, and faded away.

  A moment later, an oak leaf spun lazily down from that height, which was odd, for there were no oak trees near.

  * * * * *

  The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 15

  “Issaran goes to ground, would you say?” A goat-headed Shadowmaster chuckled, looking into the scrying portal.

  “At least he’s wiser than this flamebrain,” rumbled a giant whose head resembled a warrior’s helm, rising from his shoulders without pause for a neck. He was looking down at the smoking form of Taernil, shifting in slow pain from a puddle of black leather to something that had lizardlike legs. “By the Doomstars!” they heard him gasp. “It hurts!”

  “I can send you back there, if you’d prefer,” Kostil said calmly, watching the young Malaugrym shuddering at his feet.

  “If any of you truly cared, you’d do something about this pain! Gods on their thrones!” Taernil spat, shifting slowly into something that had teeth to clench and eyes to glare around.

  “Care, youngling?” The goat-headed Malaugrym sounded amused. “We do take care, which is why we watch and think before we rush in, trusting to a few spells that our foe learned to cast an age ago!”

  “Clever, Yabrant … you’re so clever, all of you,” Taernil gasped, swaying upright and seeing Huerbara watching him mutely from the shadows not far away. He redoubled his efforts to quell the trembling in his limbs and look grim, calm, and strong.

  The goat-headed Shadowmaster bowed his head sardonically. “At least you have progressed far enough to recognize cleverness, youngling. Keep at it, and perhaps in a century or so you’ll have progressed far enough to be able to converse civilly with me for a moment. Add another century or so on top of that, and spending that moment with you might start to be worth my time.”

  “Well said, Yabrant,” Kostil commented politely, taking a glass from the grasp of a paralyzed slave creature as it drifted past. He sipped delicately at the bubbling mint-green contents, his eyes shifting to match the hue of the drink, and turned to stroll away.

  “You think so?” Taernil hissed, face white with fury, almost spitting the words in his rising rage. “You agree with him?”

  “Why not? He’s right,” Kostil said serenely, walking unhurriedly off across the marble floor.

  The helm-headed giant guffawed, and the recovering Malaugrym mage stiffened, turned, and snarled, “You too, Eldargh?”

  The giant sighed and rose up to the full height of his snakelike lower body. He looked down at the young mage expressionlessly for a moment before he muttered, “Mature a little, Taernil. You’re overdue for it,” and slithered away into the shadows.

  “All is not lost, lad,” Bheloris said suddenly, stepping from behind a nearby leaning pillar shrouded in spiraling shadows. “You’ve learned something of value to us all.”

  “Oh?” Taernil asked bitterly, wary of more sarcastic criticism, his eyes on the grave admiring face of Huerbara as she approached.

  “The spells he used against you told us all that you faced Elminster.” He inclined his head toward the scrying portal. “Yonder is no false image or impostor, but a servant of Mystra.”

  Taernil’s eyes narrowed.

  Bheloris smiled ruefully. “Don’t believe me?” He swept a hand at the shadows around. “They believe. See them go to work on their spells and schemes, now they know truly who they face?” Taernil turned to look at the misty gloom where the far reaches of the Great Hall of the Throne faded away to limits unseen, and saw his kin walking away, some drawn together in excited groups, others striding briskly.

  The young Malaugrym drew himself up with something like pride in his eyes. “They are, aren’t they?” His eyes flashed. “I traded spells with Elminster—and lived,” he said quietly.

  “Well, I wouldn’t preen overmuch about that,” Bheloris said mildly. “I’ve done that myself, as have most of us who style ourselves Shadowmaster. It’s one of the ways we measured ourselves, when the kin were more rash … and more numerous.” He turned to look at the scrying portal. “Why, I reca—”

  The scrying portal flashed blindingly and burst into bubbling motes of light. There came a rumbling that shook every Malaugrym there, and the floor of the Great Hall—the very castle itself—heaved, shook, and tilted slowly and ponderously to one side for a moment. Abruptly, a score or more scrying portals burst into bright being here and there around the hall as an ancient web of spells responded wildly. The awed Taernil and Huerbara clutched each other instinctively, staring around, and were shocked to see naked fear on the faces of elder Shadowmasters as the legion of serenely floating portals showed them all the bright flash of something huge and fiery slashing through the sky of distant Faerûn. The shadows all around them rocked again, to the sound of many thunders, and someone screamed, “Elminster! The Doom is upon us!”

  Someone else shouted, “Flee! Flee, or the House of Malaug is lost!”

  “Not So!” roa
red a voice that echoed and re-echoed from every stone, goblet, and pillar of that vast chamber. Dhalgrave’s voice shook with fury, and Malaugrym all over the hall cowered at the sound.

  “This is no work of our foe, but something greater! Look, all of you, and behold: The gods of Faerûn are come, descending upon their worshipers in wrath. The land is torn! Look well, for this may be our best chance to seize as much of Toril as we can!”

  Even as that great voice rolled out over them, one of the scrying portals burst into sudden blue-white fire, causing the nearest Shadowmaster to leap away from it and frantically shapeshift into something winged, flapping untidily in its haste. The portal spun around, blazing, and consumed itself, even as another portal exploded into a cloud of purple … flowers?

  The Malaugrym barely had time to gape and peer at it before another meteoric descent rocked the Castle of Shadows, and its flash burst forth from every portal. Somewhere a pillar cracked, toppled, and fell with a thunderous, rolling crash. Shrieks of fear arose, and the tattered shadows were suddenly full of flying shapeshifters, adopting any form they could think of that flew and was fast.

  Alone amid roiling mists, Huerbara and Taernil suddenly realized they were clinging to each other and hastily drew apart. Then they smiled at each other, tentatively, and joined hands again in a frantic dive for safety as another portal burst forth a gout of many-hued flame.

  “Another god falling?” Bheloris murmured, strolling calmly through the ruins of rent portals and fallen drinkables. “Are we going to be able to trust any magic, in times ahead?”

  “Ah … not all the wits of the kin have drained away or shriveled up,” Milhvar murmured from the heart of a pillar nearby. “One, at least, has seen or felt the heart of the matter this swiftly.”

  Had a Malaugrym passed by the pillar in all the roaring chaos, it might have seen two dark, hooded eyes staring out of the stone. No more of the watching Shadowmaster could be seen, but somehow the entire stout stone pillar seemed to be smiling. Not that it was a particularly reassuring smile.