Shadowtrap: A Black Foxes Adventure

by Dennis L McKiernan

  Arik signaled to all, and Arton and Ky rode forward, Rith and Kane drawing near as well. Gorges rose at the sight of the gnoman’s hideous mutilation, but no one puked. When all had dismounted and had mastered their nausea, Lyssa pointed toward the slain riding pony, where gorcrows now squabbled again. “The pony tracks show that it was running from the direction of the pass when it was brought down. The rider—this gnoman—managed to leap clear. He ran from the road but was pursued by his killers. He had no chance afoot, and they caught him here and slew him. Then they did this.” She gestured at the hideous length of gutted esophagus and stomach and entrails strung out through the grass and sliced open, and at the torn and slashed clothing strewn ’round.

  “What would bring a gentle gnoman out from under his mountain,” asked Rith, her eyes looking everywhere but at the mutilated corpse, “and who would do such a horrible deed?”

  Lyssa shook her head. “I don’t know,” she muttered, and waved a hand toward the road, “but whoever did this”—she fished the black stone tip from her pouch—”used blades of obsidian and came on cloven-hoofed steeds.”

  Rith gasped, “Drakka? That cannot be! They were shut away from Itheria after their defeat in the demonwars.”

  Ky seemed stunned, but she shook her head as if to clear it, then pointed at the gnoman and asked, “When did this happen?”

  Lyssa turned up a hand and looked to Kane. The big man squatted beside the corpse and dipped a finger into a small pool of red gore, breaking through a thin crust to do so. He studied the ruddy tip of his finger for a moment, then rubbed a thumb ’round and across the grume. At last he said, “From the state of the blood, no more than sixteen candlemarks past, and no less than twelve.”

  “Sometime after sunup,” muttered Arton, looking up at the late morning sky as clouds thickened among the peaks of the range and a chill wind blew down.

  “But that’s impossible!” exclaimed Ky. “Even if they could cross into our plane, drakka are demons of the dark, creatures of the night. For them, to step into sunlight is to step into death.”

  12

  Observers

  (Coburn Facility)

  “Jesus H. Kee-rhyst!” exploded Mark Perry, pointing at the holovid. “Would you look at that! What the hell is going on here?”

  White-faced and grim-lipped, the Coburn Industries technical team stared at the gutted gnoman. Sickened, one of the terminal jockeys turned his face away. The others looked on as if unable to do anything else, horror and revulsion in their eyes.

  Forcing herself to look at the scene with a critical eye, Toni Adkins took a deep breath. “Settle down, everyone. Settle down.”

  Mark Perry did not hear her. “Lord! Lord! His guts have been stretched out like Jack the Ripper was getting ready to string his Christmas tree.”

  “Dammit, Mark”—Toni raised her voice—”I said, settle down.”

  Mark Perry spun around and faced Doctor Adkins. “Settle down, hell! If this is the kind of game Avery plays, crap, we’ll be sued out of our gourds for mental endangerment.”

  Fascinated, Doctor Stein walked ’round the holovid, examining the projection from all sides as Lyssa knelt at the corpse and worked something out from its shoulder joint. “They can’t sue, Mark,” declared Stein. “They can’t sue. You had them sign a waiver.”

  Shaking his head, Perry turned and pointed a finger at the scene. “That waiver is not worth a popcorn fart in light of this. I mean, this would drive Count Dracula mad.”

  “Oh, I doubt that,” replied Doctor Stein, his voice cold, without emotion. “Vlad Drakul impaled his victims, you know. Shoved a great stake up their—”

  “Quiet, both of you,” demanded Toni Adkins. She looked at Timothy Rendell. “Can you explain such a horrifying scene?”

  Timothy shook his head. “I can’t, but I suspect Avery can.”

  Toni nodded. “Quite right.” She turned to her console and keyed her mike. “Avery.”

  “Yes, Doctor Adkins.”

  “Explain the scene we are witnessing, Avery.”

  “Yes, Doctor Adkins. It is here the adventure begins.”

  “The adventure? It looks more like a horror show to us.”

  “I am merely following the style of Mister Daniel Patrick’s writing, Doctor Adkins.”

  Toni looked at Timothy and cocked an eyebrow. He nodded in confirmation.

  “Mister Daniel Patrick is quite graphic, you know,” continued Avery.

  Toni turned back to the terminal. “But, Avery, couldn’t you have been, um, less bloody, more euphemistic?”

  Even as she asked it, Toni suspected she already knew the answer to her own question. Avery confirmed her suspicion. “No, Doctor Adkins. You see, in a book a grisly murder can be sketched in with but a few words, the horrific scene stepped past without the reader getting all of the gory details. In a holovid or a holofilm, the camera can cut away, show a bit of splatter on a wall, a bloody hand or foot, a corpse under a sheet that the detective lifts in such a way that the audience doesn’t see the mangled victim but only the detective’s reaction. Again, the audience is sheltered from anything graphic. But in a virtual reality, the participant experiences all . . . all the blood, all the guts, all the torn flesh, the totality of the encounter—sight, smell, taste, touch, sound, kinesthetics—no matter how hideous, no matter how sweet.”

  Toni sighed. “I understand, Avery. But did you have to gut that man-thing?”

  “The gnoman?”

  “Yes, Avery. The gnoman.”

  “Doctor Adkins, given who the killers are and the descriptions in Mister Patrick’s books on Itheria, this is exactly what they would have done.” Avery paused a moment, then said, “Would you like me to censor what you and the others out there see, Doctor Adkins? Make it like a holovid show?”

  Toni groaned and held up a hand of denial. “No, Avery. Don’t censor anything. Let us see it all.” With the tips of her fingers, she rubbed her temples.

  “As you wish, Doctor Adkins.”

  “Thank you, Avery,” Toni said, then keyed off her mike.

  She turned to Doctor Greyson. “John, perhaps you ought to speak with him when this is over. Explain the difference between authenticity and good taste.”

  Mark Perry growled, “And I want to talk to him about liability, too.”

  The fact that the Coburn technical managers had deliberately avoided choosing Mark as one of Avery’s tutors was not suspected by the attorney. As Timothy Rendell had said, “God, can you imagine turning Avery into a lawyer? Hell, the contradictions alone would drive him insane.”

  Timothy leaned forward in his chair and spoke into his mike. “What’s next, Avery?”

  “Well, Doctor Rendell,” came Avery’s androgynous voice, “that’s entirely up to the Black Foxes. They have free will, you know.”

  13

  Jewel

  (Itheria)

  “What now?” growled Kane. “I mean, we haven’t enough to solve the question of the drakka, so what’s our next move?”

  Lyssa looked at the mutilated remains. “We should lay him to rest.”

  Rith gestured toward the mountains. “The gnomen believe that their dead should be buried in rock. I’m going to cast about for stones for a cairn.”

  Arik nodded. “We’ll all help.”

  On the road nearby, gorcrows squawked and squabbled over choice bits of the gutted pony carcass. At the other butchered animal closer to the pass, another raucous flock did the same. Kane stepped to his horse. “You five collect the rocks; I’ll prepare the gnoman as well as I can.”

  As the big man took a blanket from his bedroll, the remaining Foxes spread wide to collect stones for the cairn. Bare moments had passed when Rith called out, “Hoy. What’s this?” She held up a silver dagger.

  Ky glanced from Rith to the blade to the slain gnoman. “Perhaps it was his.”

  Rith shook her head. “I’ve never heard of a gnoman bearing weapons, ever.” She examined the dagger closely. “Hmm
. Exceedingly well crafted, though the balance is a bit off. Perhaps it was lost by one of his attackers.”

  Now it was Ky who shook her head. “Oh no, Rith. Drakka cannot abide silver. It burns them.”

  Rith turned the blade ’round and ’round. “If not the gnoman’s nor the drakka’s, then whose?”

  “Perhaps he wasn’t slain by drakka,” rumbled Kane, unrolling the blanket.

  “Then how do you explain the obsidian shard, the cloven hooves?” asked Ky.

  Kane shrugged, but Arton said, “It may be that someone wishes us to think that drakka did this deed, but it was others instead.”

  “Impostors, you mean?” asked Rith.

  “Perhaps. Such ruses have been committed in the past.”

  Lyssa shook her head. “The steeds of the killers were truly cloven-hoofed, Arton. No ruse there. And from the depth of the tracks, they weighed as much as a horse. Yet they are neither the spoor of elk nor moose nor other such animals of comparable size. I have never before seen such prints as these.”

  “They might have had devices on the hooves,” replied Arton, “to fool whoever found the gnoman.”

  Again Lyssa shook her head and found a track and knelt down, motioning Arton to join her. When he squatted at her side, she said, “If they were devices, then they were manufactured with great cunning: look here in the soft earth, see how the dirt is pushed outward? The hoof that made this print spreads in a natural manner, and here is a trace of the pad between. If you examine the trace closely, you will see the imprint of what looks to be scales on the pad.”

  Standing at hand, Ky muttered, “Demonsteeds are scaled.”

  “Perhaps it was someone who rode with the drakka,” offered Arik, “someone who can abide the touch of silver.”

  Ky shook her head. “I’ve never heard of anyone other than a drakka riding a demonsteed.”

  Kane turned up his hands. “Well, if the blade doesn’t belong to a drakka, an impostor, or the gnoman, then just who in the seven hells lost it?”

  Arik pondered a moment. “A passerby?”

  Rith examined the weapon. “If a passerby lost it, it was recently, for the silver shows no tarnishing . . . and see this smear?” She held it so that all saw the indistinct smudge on the blade. “I think it is a grass stain.” She handed the dagger to Lyssa.

  The ranger examined the smear and nodded. “It’s grass, all right . . . juice now dried but still faintly tacky. And we’ve seen no strangers though we’ve kept a sharp lookout.” Lyssa gave the blade back to Rith.

  The bard studied the dagger and said, “Hmm. Even though I’ve never heard of his kind carrying a weapon, still I think it was being borne by the gnoman and meant something special to him. I say we bury it at his side.”

  They looked at one another and nodded or canted their heads in agreement. And as she began searching for rocks, Ky muttered, “I yet don’t see how drakka and demonsteeds could run about under the sun.”

  Even though he was a healer as well as a warrior, Kane was hard-pressed to overcome his revulsion and gather together the remains of the gnoman, scattered and torn as they were. Yet Kane shoved his queasiness aside and succeeded as well as could be expected, while the others collected stones. Finally, Rith judged that there were enough rocks to build a cairn, and following her directions, Arik and Arton dug a shallow grave, and all pitched in to line it with stones.

  Kane placed the gathered remains of the gnoman in the pit. “Take the blanket away,” said Rith, “and strip off any remaining shreds of his clothes. I think gnoman custom requires him to be in full contact with rock.”

  When the grisly task was done, Rith pulled the silver dagger from her belt and made ready to lay it at the gnoman’s side. “Poor balance,” she said, hefting the knife as if it were one of her own throwing blades. At this motion there came a faint click. Rith held the weapon to her ear and shook it. A muted clk-clk-clk sounded. “Hold it now. There’s something loose here.”

  Carefully she examined the dagger, but it seemed solidly built. “Here, Arton, this is your specialty,” she said, handing the silver weapon to him.

  After a moment Arton breathed “Aha,” and pressing inward on the pommel while turning it, the butt of the grip opened; the handle was hollow. Arton glanced inside, then said to Rith, “You asked what would bring a gnoman out from under his mountain. Well, perhaps it was this.” He turned up the dagger and out slid a large, dark red gem. He handed the stone to Rith, while he looked inside once more. Then carefully he extracted a small roll of tissue-thin parchment. Unscrolling the paper, he glanced in puzzlement at it. “Hm. Either this is in a language I don’t know, or it’s in code. Perhaps it is written in gnoman. Can anyone read this?”

  He held out the paper to Rith, yet she did not take it but instead studied the red jewel closely. It was square cut and faceted, and was nearly an inch long and an inch wide and a quarter inch through. It was a ruby and worth a king’s ransom. “This gem has a symbol within,” she finally declared, looking up at the others, bafflement in her eyes. “How it got inside, well, that’s beyond any crafting I’ve ever seen. And if it’s someone’s sigil, it’s not one I am familiar with.”

  She and Arton traded: he took the gem; she, the parchment. After a moment, virtually simultaneously they shook their heads, and then passed the jewel and the paper to the others. One by one they examined the ruby and its arcane symbol . . .

  . . . unaccountably embedded within, and none could say how the figure had been incised in the interior of the gem, though Arton suggested that perhaps it was done by magic. And one by one they puzzled over the contents of the note, each able to make out the individual letters, but none able to decipher the meaning of the words:

  >urdab ~ suirab nop

  >cakinyw ynwep einezczsinz ajezdan yt uk ono cisonyzrp ynwep ceinalzop
  Finally, Arik passed the gem and the note back to Arton, saying, “We have a gnoman to bury. The only question is, should we place the dagger and its contents in his cairn, or should we instead keep them until we discover what’s in the note? That is, until we get it translated or decoded. It might be something simple, like a statement of provenance or a note of ownership or some such. On the other hand, it may be a message of great import—the gnoman but a courier—in which case, with drakka involved, should these items fall into the wrong hands, dire consequences may follow.”

  “Arik is right,” declared Kane. “I say we keep all for the moment. If conditions turn out to be benign, we’ll bring all three back and bury them, too.” He squatted and began placing stones on the cairn.

  “Benign?” said Arton, handing the now reassembled dagger back to Rith, note and gem once again secreted within. “If things were benign, this fellow would still be alive.” He squatted beside Kane and joined him in piling up the stones.

  Without further discussion, the remaining Foxes did likewise.

  When the cairn was completed, Lyssa stood and looked on with tears in her eyes, the ranger thinking of another cairn a thousand miles and seven years away. Rith fetched her silver-stringed lute from her horse, and she sang a haunting dirge, her husky sweet voice accompanied by the swirling wind and the raucous caws of gorcrows squabbling over pony entrails.

  “I will take point,” said Lyssa. “I want to see where these cloven-hoofed steeds come from, and where they go. The rest of you hang back; I don’t want the tracks disturbed.”

  Arik’s face fell grim, yet he did not protest.

  But Meredith said, “Perhaps Ky ought to ride at your side, Lyssa. I think she knows more about the drakka than anyone else here.”

  Ky’s eyes widened. “More than you, Rith?” When it came to broad knowledge—historical lore, especially—none of the other Foxes had the overall breadth of the black bard.

  Rith smiled. “Who would know more about creatures of
the dark than a Shadowmaster?”

  “More like creatures of the night, Rith,” replied Ky, “though I admit they dwell in darkness, too. They are, after all, demonkind.”

  “I should say so,” declared Arton, “given that they ride things named demonsteeds.”

  “Regardless,” said Arik, “Rith’s idea is a good one: Ky should join you on point, Lyssa. And, Kane, I want you close after and make ready that spear-lance of yours . . . with demonsteeds involved, it could come to mounted combat. I’ll ride next, then Rith. Arton, take drag.”

  Lyssa nodded and Ky smiled and Kane merely grunted his acknowledgment; and all mounted up, Arik, Rith, and Arton taking the tethers of the mules. Helmed and armed and with shields at the ready, they set forth.

  Lyssa rode away first, cutting a wide arc to come back to the road passwards from the first slain pony. Ky followed close behind, with Kane some ten yards back, the others trailing him. Lyssa stopped at the verge of the road and dismounted. She stepped to the center and knelt. A moment later she remounted and began riding slowly toward the pass, her eyes on the rutted way. The other Foxes followed. They came to the second gutted pony, sending a cloud of black-winged protest milling into the sky. Keeping firm control of the steeds, ’round this slaughter they passed. Ahead yawned the shadowy gap.

  With chary eyes they entered the canyon, the great cleft twisting and turning before them, the towering walls a hundred yards apart and a thousand feet high. A ragged slash splitting down into the dark stone, the gap was the lone way through the Rawlon Range for three hundred miles or more. At places in the chasm ramps of scree piled against the walls, slopes of broken rock fallen from above; they reached outward across the floor of the cleft as if seeking to bar the way. At other places, the floor of the split was clear of rubble all the way to the walls. The road itself ran down the middle, here and there zigging or zagging to left or right to get past vast wedges of schist and jagged boulders. And up ahead the trail wrenched from sight ’round a leftward twist in the gorge.