Shadowtrap: A Black Foxes Adventure

by Dennis L McKiernan

  The Blue Lady clapped her hands in delight.

  They ate stew and drank water and some more of the tart, pale-yellow, spice-mulled drink. And when all were filled and warm and dressed in the spare dry garb from the goods borne by the pack animals, the Blue Lady gathered them sitting cross-legged ’round a small aromatic fire on the clean dirt floor in another of the stone ruins, this one with higher walls and four of them, but with no roof of its own, the great arching vault above providing shelter.

  When all was arranged, she said, “This is the way of it: I will stare into the flame. Soon it will seem as if I go to sleep. Do not be fooled, for I will be able to hear you, though I will not know what you say. Ask then your question. Just one. Else confusion will result. The simpler the question, the quicker the answer, though even then it may take some time. Regardless, eventually I will answer, yet I will not know what I say. Then leave me be. I will awaken, even though I have never been asleep. Choose wisely your question, for I will not be able to answer another for many days to come.” One by one she looked at each of them. “This takes much out of me, and it is long before I recover.”

  “Lady,” asked Arik, “will it matter if you know the question before you become, er, entranced?”

  The Blue Lady shook her head.

  Arik then turned to the others. “Let us choose a simple question, then.”

  Lyssa shrugged. “What about, say, where lives Pon Barius?”

  Arton stroked his chin. “But what if he’s dead?”

  “Oh,” said Lyssa. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “There are other names on the note,” said Arik.

  “They also may be dead,” responded Arton. “Besides, Atraxia’s name is in the note, too, and we know that she’s evil, and so may be these others.”

  “How about this,” said Rith. “Let’s ask something like, where should we take the contents of the gnoman’s dagger?”

  Ky protested. “What if it isn’t the gnoman’s dagger?”

  Lyssa looked at Ky. “Even so, Rith is on the right track. Instead, let Arik hold the dagger and ask: where shall we take the contents of this dagger?”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Kane.

  Arik looked ’round the circle and received nods from all the Foxes. Rith reached into her jerkin and took out the knife. Unsheathing it, she handed it across to Arik, its silver blade glinting in the light of the small fire.

  “Ready?” asked the Blue Lady.

  Arik nodded without speaking.

  The Blue Lady cast her white hood over her head and added a small crooked stick to the modest fire. An elusive fragrance filled the air and the flames took on a lavender cast. She fixed her gaze on the pale violet blaze . . . staring . . . staring . . . staring. Shadowed by her hood, slowly her eyes closed, and her double chins sunk to her chest.

  Arik glanced at Rith and then Ky. Both nodded. Holding the silver dagger in two hands up over the tinted fire, “Where shall we take the contents of this dagger?” he solemnly intoned.

  Long moments passed and more, moments stretching out into the night. The pale fire dwindled and dwindled, shadows mustering ’round. Still the Blue Lady sat with her chins on her chest, heavily breathing in and out. Arik’s arms began to tremble with fatigue as he held the dagger above the blaze. The Foxes looked at one another, wondering what to do, remaining silent in case sound would break the spell, break the Blue Lady’s trance. Yet the Blue Lady did not speak, did not move, only breathed. Arik forced his hands to steady, but it could be seen that he was arm-weary and in pain. And still the Blue Lady sat silent. And still the fire dwindled. And just as it seemed Arik could no longer endure, the Blue Lady drew in a shuddering breath, breaking the silence, though she did not raise her head nor open her eyes.

  Her voice trembled and she moaned, “Pon Barius. The Wythwood heart.” And then the Blue Lady fell silent.

  Relieved, Arik lowered his hands and took a deep breath of his own. Then he handed the dagger across the flickering flames to Rith. The Bard resheathed it and slipped it back into her jerkin.

  As Arik massaged his arms, they all turned to the Blue Lady, waiting for her to awaken. More moments passed, and once again she drew in a great shuddering breath. They expected her eyes to open, but instead her voice, rough and raw, gasped out, “Danger.” Then she shrieked, “Danger!” and wildly she clutched her own throat in both hands and fell forward in a faint, crashing facedown in the flames.

  Goaded by light of the cook fire, silent creatures wavered on the great shadowed wall, their flinty eyes seeming to follow Kane as he stepped into the ruin. “She is resting,” said the big man as he squatted well away from the heat. Kane’s face shone ruddy in the firelight, a redness beyond that of the blaze, red in the places where he had taken the harm from the Blue Lady and unto himself as he cast his healer spell. Yet even now the last of the redness vanished as Kane’s art dealt with the burn.

  “Did she say anything?” asked Lyssa. “Give you any clue as to what she may have meant?”

  Kane shook his head. “No, nothing. Instead she asked me what had happened. I told her all, but she has no memory of what befell when she was entranced.”

  “No interpretation whatsoever? No hint concerning the danger?” asked Rith.

  Again Kane shook his head. “None.”

  Arik cleared his throat and said, “I think from now on we should stand watch. If danger comes, we’ll be ready.”

  Ky sighed and cast a piece of driftwood on the fire and Arton said, “The usual order?”

  Arik nodded.

  “What about the Blue Lady?” asked Ky. “I mean, shouldn’t we move her in here with us? Guard her, too?”

  Arik looked beyond the tumbled-down wall toward the small quarters where she rested, one of the few remaining stone buildings left standing. “Kane?”

  The warrior-healer glanced up. “I’d rather she weren’t disturbed. She’s suffered some kind of blow, you know. But just what it means, well, I cannot say. Too, we’ll be moving on tomorrow, right? Well then, I’m thinking we’ll take the danger with us, eh?”

  With a stick, Ky poked at the fire. “If the danger is meant for us and not her.”

  “I think it is, Ky,” said Rith. “After all, we were the ones she was focusing her oracular powers on.”

  Arik glanced at the bard. “If indeed her casting was true. Yet remember the old man’s warning: things are not always what they seem.”

  “Are you saying she’s playing us false?” asked Lyssa.

  Arik shook his head. “No. Yet I am also not saying she’s playing us true.”

  “Perhaps she is a fraud,” opined Arton.

  “Oh, I think not,” said Kane. “As I laid hands on her, I could sense a power she has, though just what it is, I cannot say.”

  “Fraud or not, true or false, I think we should heed Kane’s advice,” said Arik. “Leave her be as she is: resting in her stone cote. Whoever is on watch, though, should keep an eye on her abode, in case the danger is meant for her and not us. —And as always, asleep or awake, be ready.”

  Ky nudged Arton awake. As the master thief yawned and stretched, Ky glanced at the wall behind and shivered. “Brr, but I feel as if I’ve been watched all night by these ancient things painted on stone.”

  Arton stood and followed her gaze inward, and creatures barely seen in the glow of the coals glared back from the nearby shadows. He chuckled quietly. “If this is all we ever face, then I for one will be glad of it. These old bones protest more and more at the scrapes we get into.”

  Ky smiled at him and then took to her bedroll, and Arton strolled to the Blue Lady’s cote and looked inside. By the light of a tiny oil lamp he could see she was asleep, faintly snoring, her breathing deep. He strode back to the sleeping Foxes and after casting another branch upon the fire, he took up post on the remains of a windowsill along one of the broken walls.

  Behind him in the darkness, creatures stared out from the stone and . . .

  . . . t
ime passed.

  He wasn’t aware of exactly when he first noticed her, and his heart leapt in his chest like a caged wild thing trying to burst free. She was beautiful beyond his dreams: with long slender legs and long auburn hair falling down her bare back, she was young and lissome and ivory skinned, and she wore a scant garment of cascading ribbons—now revealing, now concealing, her charms. And she smiled at Arton, a dazzling smile, and his pulse hammered in his ears like a great drum. She beckoned for him to join her, promise in her limpid green eyes, and he set aside his crossbow with its silver-tipped quarrels and gladly slid down from his perch. As he approached, she whispered, “Shed your garb,” and Arton quickly divested himself of his clothes and silver-bladed weaponry. Naked he stood before her, unembarrassed by his erection.

  “I have one small favor to ask of you, my love,” she whispered. “Bring me the knife.”

  Eagerly Arton turned. He did not need to ask which knife she wanted; he had read that in her gaze. It was the dagger, the silver dagger, which would gain him her favors, he knew. And he made his way to Rith, who held the blade within her jerkin. But Arton was a master thief, and plucking a trifling treasure from within such bounds was as child’s play to him, no sooner said than done, and Rith did not stir at his intangible touch.

  Casting the scabbard aside, he bore the weapon back to his heart’s desire, holding it out to her as if it were a sacred offering, and he did not note that she slightly withdrew from his gift. Yet he heard her throaty whisper, a wonderfully charming sound: “Take the jewel from it and give it to me, my darling.”

  Swiftly, he opened the haft and slid the gemstone into his grip. Fervently he held it out to her, and with green fire in her eyes, she impatiently reached for it . . . and he dropped both pommel and jewel into her outstretched hand. And she gave an agonized shriek as the silver struck her palm, and a sizzling sounded, and a stench filled the air, and she flung down both metal and gem from her smoldering grasp.

  In that instant Arton regained his senses, and he saw that the creature before him wasn’t a young lady but a toothless old hag instead. “’Ware the camp!” he shouted, and with the blade of the dagger he stabbed at the harridan.

  Hissing, she twisted aside and leapt away, the thrust catching nought but a bit of kimono silk. “’Ware the camp!” Arton shouted again as he dropped to a knee and snatched up the red jewel, while behind him the other Foxes, weapons in hand, sprang to their feet.

  “A witch!” shouted Arton, pointing at the hag. “A witch after the gem!”

  Snarling, the harridan gestured at the near wall of the cavern, and lo! raging creatures struggled free of the stone, ready to slay any living thing. A huge spotted cat leapt atop the lip of the ruin and sprang squalling at Ky. The syldari muttered words and ebony fire flashed from her hands, hurling the great yowling beast backward, a vast hole blasted in its chest. The creature tumbled hindward over the stone wall, but others leapt forward to take its place.

  And as Arton slapped the gemstone back into the dagger and caught up the silver pommel, the hag raised a hand toward the thief, yet in that same moment, a tumbling glitter flashed through the air, and one of Rith’s blades slammed into the harridan, and she howled in agony as silver sizzled and burned in her flesh.

  And her form changed once again, becoming a huge, shambling, amorphous dark thing of yowling blackness, blue fire burning ’round Rith’s argent blade.

  “Demon!” cried Rith, snatching another silver dagger from her bandolier and hurling it.

  Behind her, RRRAAAWWWW! sounded a monstrous roar, and struggling out from the stone came the muzzle and head of a colossal beast, long fangs glittering, maw yowling, as the creature pressed outward from the imprisoning rock. With claws like scimitars, a huge paw broke free of the wall. Now its chest emerged as Arik skewered an oncoming giant boar, leaping away from its tusks as his blade was wrenched from his hand by the boar crashing down atop him. And as the huge thing pushed out from the wall, nearly free from its stone prison, Arik struggled to free himself from the terrible weight of the slain boar.

  Kane was locked in combat with one of the great long-toothed cats, the beast yowling and circling around, its stub of a tail lashing.

  Lyssa nocked arrow to bow and let fly at the huge monster breaking free of the wall, but the silver-tipped missile flashed against the beast only to shatter, as if the thing was yet made of stone. Even so, RRRAAAWWWW! roared the beast, as if it had been wounded, but perhaps it was only maddened instead.

  Kane pulled his spear from the corpse of the great cat and, shouting a battle cry, leapt upon the broken wall facing the emerging monster, the roaring creature perhaps three times his height. Behind him more dark fire sputtered around Ky’s fingers as she muttered an incantation under her breath.

  And from the grove of silver birch came the squeals of frenzied steeds, terrified by the sounds and scents of ancient foe. And the hammer of hooves echoed from canyon walls as they broke free of their simple rope pen and fled into the night.

  As Kane dropped to the other side of the ruin wall, Arik, cursing all the while, managed to get one leg free, and with his foot pushed at the massive beast pinning him. But a huge, snarling, wolflike creature with slavering jaws wide sprang toward the downed man; yet it fell dead atop Arik, the creature pierced through the eye by a silver-tipped arrow loosed from Lyssa’s bone bow.

  RRRAAAWWWW! The great, rough beast at last won free of the stone and rushed toward Kane, the butt of the big man’s spear now braced against the base of the broken wall, the silvered point aimed at the creature’s breast, while Ky raised her darkfire hands toward the charging monster.

  In that same moment—”Yahhh!”—Arton leapt upon the yowling witch-demon and plunged the gnoman’s dagger in to the hilt and hauled downward with all his might; the silver blade slashed down across the black amorphous thing, leaving behind a long, deep, flaming gash of furiously burning indigo fire. Shrieking in agony, the demon whirled ’round and ’round, hurling Arton free just as the howling monster exploded all over in cobalt flames, and then Whoom! there came a violent detonation, and the demon vanished . . .

  . . . just as did all the creatures disappear, including those that were slain . . . as well as the great rough beast even then plunging down upon Kane, a beast which could have destroyed them all had it only broken free from the stone moments earlier.

  Holding his ribs, Arik scrambled up from the ground, where the now vanished dead boar and dead wolf both had had him pinned. Arton, too, regained his feet and stumbled toward the others, pausing long enough to scoop up the scabbard and resheathe the dagger and hand it to Rith; her eyes widened at the sight of it, but she said nought. Lyssa handed Arton his crossbow and quiver of quarrels as Ky threw fresh wood on the coals of the fire, and shaken, the Foxes formed up back to back in a defensive circle ’round the kindling flames, their gasping breath the only sound breaking the sudden silence as their wary eyes searched the surrounding darkness for sign of oncoming foe. But only empty shadows greeted their gaze.

  By arrow and spear and sword and knife and arcane spells they had battled a fiend and its cohorts. And with a blade of silver they had destroyed the demon at last. They had finally won, but barely.

  18

  Warnings

  (Coburn Facility)

  Toni Adkins leaned forward and keyed her mike. “Avery.”

  “Yes, Doctor Adkins.”

  “Tell me, Avery, how much longer will this adventure run.”

  “I am not certain, Doctor Adkins.”

  “Not certain?”

  “No. You see, in spite of my programs which bias the adventure in favor of the human participants, I almost won a moment ago.”

  “Almost won?”

  “Yes. I had the gem within my grasp, but lost it.”

  Doctor Greyson clicked on his own mike. “You sound disappointed, Avery.”

  “I nearly won, Doctor Greyson. I have never won before.”

  Greyson glanced at the o
thers. “Would you like to win, Avery?”

  On the small holo at Greyson’s position Avery’s swirl seemed to stop its slow spinning for a moment. At last Avery said, “I nearly did win, Doctor Greyson. Perhaps I will someday.”

  John Greyson took a deep breath to ask another question, but Toni interjected, “Avery, I am told that the storm outside is worsening.” She keyed off her mike and looked up at the technician standing at her console. “How bad is it, Jim?”

  The young man, Jim Langford, pursed his lips, then said, “Well, it has moved down from the Catalinas and is walking its way across the city now, toward us. Thor is really throwing his hammer, and that’s for certain.”

  Toni keyed her mike again. “James reports that there is rather much lightning, Avery.”

  “I am well protected, Doctor Adkins,” responded the AI. “Ask Doctor Meyer.”

  Drew nodded in agreement when Toni glanced his way.

  Avery continued: “He will tell you that not only are there adequate lightning rods, but the building itself is well grounded. There is also an emergency generator in the basement in addition to the four-hour-reserve battery supply.”

  “I am well aware of that, Avery,” replied Toni. “I just do not wish to place you or the alpha team in any danger.”

  “Oh, I think the adventure can go on, Doctor Adkins.”

  “Perhaps it can, Avery.” Toni switched off and turned to Greyson as he closed his own mike and cleared his throat. “John, you have something to say?”

  Greyson nodded. “I think we’ve got a child in the middle of a game and he doesn’t want to quit, no matter the danger.”

  “Nonsense,” snorted Doctor Stein. “You are attributing immature human motives to a machine.”

  Greyson looked over his half-glasses at Stein. “Well, let me ask you how you would explain it, Henry.”

  Stein shrugged. “It’s as the AI says: it is well protected.”