Shadowdale

by Scott Ciencin

  She was dead.

  Something dark and horrible within Cyric rejoiced at the knowledge, but a brighter part of his soul pushed the thoughts away.

  Cyric heard a noise beside him and turned. The pain from his wound suddenly flared, and the thief tumbled to the ground, falling upon the corpse of the girl. Although he could not move, he saw Midnight and Adon as they challenged the remaining two members of the band of brigands.

  There were less than forty summers in age between the two remaining attackers, so it wasn’t surprising when they turned and ran to the other side of the overturned wagon. They barked out commands for their supposedly injured mounts to rise as they pulled the gently laid debris from the flanks of the beasts.

  Cyric watched as Midnight scanned the area, her gaze suddenly locking on him. He reached out as Midnight and Adon rushed to his side. A moment later he was staring up at Midnight’s face. His head was in her lap, and her hand was gently caressing his chest. The thief’s head fell back in relief, and Midnight’s hand caressed his brow. Then her expression changed.

  “Kel,” she said softly, and Cyric realized she was staring toward the road. He turned his head in the direction of the road and watched as Kelemvor was besieged by a small band of archers. Midnight called to Adon, and the cleric took Cyric as the magic-user stood and started to run toward the road.

  “Midnight, wait!” Adon shouted. “You’ll only get yourself killed!”

  Midnight hesitated. She knew Adon was right. Kelemvor was too far away. Even if she had been by his side, her daggers would be useless against arrows. The only way she could save the fighter was with her magic. She thought of the child she had inadvertently slain, images of the exploding stone body etched in her mind.

  When Mystra’s gifts had crumbled into dust, Midnight had taken a small pouch of diamonds that had been reduced to powder. Reciting the spell to create a wall of force, Midnight reached into the bag and took a pinch of the diamond dust between her fingers. She released the dust at the correct moment, and there was a blinding flash of blue-white light. Midnight was thrown from her feet as a complex pattern of light formed in the air where she had stood. Feeling as if a part of her soul had been wrenched from her, Midnight looked to the road as the pattern of light vanished.

  The wall had not appeared.

  Midnight threw her head back in frustration. She was just about to loose a scream of rage when something appeared in the sky.

  It was a huge rift in the air, a swirling mass, with lights of every color of the spectrum visible within it. The rift appeared in the form of a coin set on its end and thrust at the sky, and as the rift grew, it began to block out the sun.

  By the road, Kelemvor stood his ground as the archers closed in. There was a roar in his ears, but he assumed it was an effect of the wounds he had sustained. Two arrows had already gotten past his defenses, but Kelemvor turned a blind eye to the pain that surged up from his right calf and his left arm.

  The archers were advancing, ready to finish the fighter off, when suddenly they stopped.

  Kelemvor wondered if the brigands had finally run out of shafts as they backed away, pointing at the sky. Two of the archers dropped their weapons just as Kelemvor noticed that his shadow seemed to be deepening. Then a vast, dark veil fell upon the earth, and the archers screamed in a language Kelemvor did not understand and ran in the direction of Arabel.

  Kelemvor looked up. The archers, all else, was instantly forgotten. The rift was growing larger now, and Kelemvor stumbled back as something that appeared to be an incredibly huge eye looked out of the vast hole in the sky, then vanished.

  Kelemvor turned and looked across the battlefield for Midnight, Cyric, and Adon. Their shapes were hard to distinguish because of the darkness that fell over the entire area, but the fighter could see that two figures were still on their feet. They seemed to be carrying someone.

  Adon, Kelemvor thought. The thieves murdered poor, defenseless Adon!

  Despite the blood he had lost and the pain he had suffered, Kelemvor ran to the figures in the distance.

  Across the field, Cyric, too, had seen the eye. His head had lolled back as Midnight and Adon carried him to the relative safety of the overturned wagon, then set him down.

  The earth shuddered.

  “Don’t leave me,” Cyric said.

  Midnight looked down at him, confused. She caressed the side of his face. “No,” she said simply.

  Then, just before he lost consciousness, he saw a figure approaching from the road through the blinding whirlwinds of sand and dust.

  Midnight ran toward the fighter as he struggled across the sand, and with her help, Kelemvor reached the overturned wagon. Just then, a huge part of it was sheared off by the wind. The oak planks creaked horribly, then snapped and sailed off into the air. “We’ve got to get out of here!” the fighter screamed, but he was barely able to hear his own voice of the whine of the wind.

  “Cyric’s been wounded. We can’t leave him,” Midnight cried.

  “Cyric!” Kelemvor yelled in surprise, and a wall of dust rushed toward him. The fighter turned his face away from the winds. “Can he be moved?”

  “No!” Midnight shouted. “Adon is tending to his wounds as best he can!”

  There was a slight hiss as the ground beside the couple turned into vapor. The air beside them crackled with a rim of tiny white stars, and a hole the size of a man tore through the air just as Midnight raised her hands and prepared to release another spell.

  An old man exited from the portal, a large staff in his left hand. His face, although lined with wrinkles, held a sharpness that spoke volumes on his barely contained annoyance. Beneath his frown, the man’s pure white beard reached down to play against his chest. The man wore a large hat and a simple gray cloak. He looked to Midnight.

  “Why have ye summoned me?” he said.

  Midnight’s eyes widened. “I didn’t summon you!”

  The old man looked up at the growing rift in the sky. Strange lights had begun to play across the opening. Eyes narrowing, he pointed to the rift. “Are ye responsible for this?”

  “I didn’t mean to—”

  Raising his hand to indicate silence, the old man shook his head and turned from Midnight. “There are far easier ways of getting my attention, ye should know. Ye could have come to Shadowdale, for example.”

  “Elminster!” Midnight cried, and suddenly the winds cut her off from the old sage. The dust cleared, and she caught a glimpse of movement from Elminster’s direction. The gray mist parted and revealed the seemingly frantic movement of hands, coupled with the sage’s unmistakable voice rising to levels that cut through the winds. Then the mist engulfed Elminster once more. A moment later a section of the mist faded and the sage stood before her.

  “Do ye know what that is!?” Elminster said, his impatience all too evident as he gestured at the growing rift in the sky. He did not wait for a reply. “That is the direct effect of Geryon’s Death Spell. Spells of this sort are directly forbidden, although it is difficult to punish transgressors as they are usually dead before the spell reaches this stage!” Elminster let out a deep breath. “Besides that, Geryon himself died over fifty summers ago.”

  The roar from above became worse.

  “Can you stop it?” Kelemvor shouted.

  “Of course I can stop it!” the old sage shouted. “I’m Elminster, aren’t I?” Elminster looked back to Midnight. “Is this spell written some place?”

  “No,” Midnight said.

  “Can ye recall it again, through any other means?”

  Midnight shook her head. “No,” she said. “I summoned it by accident.”

  “Very well,” Elminster said. “Consider thyself warned. A spell of this type is very dangerous.”

  The rift seemed to be lowering. Elminster looked up and stood away from Midnight and Kelemvor, concentrating his attentions on the hole in the sky.

  The fighter and the magic-user found themselves staring at the old
man, speechless.

  The aged hands of the great mage moved with surprising speed, and he chanted in a deep, resonant voice. A field of sparkling energies surrounded him, a flood of stars that pierced the heavy veil of grayish winds. Sweat was beginning to form on Elminster’s brow as he worked his spell, then a web of tiny, glowing eyes began to form in the space between his fingers. Just before it reached completion, the web collapsed inward and a silver, spinning disc hung in the air.

  Elminster issued a command, and the spinning disc shot up into the air, growing in size. It shattered in a blinding display, and the rift in the sky slowly tilted down. The hole descended like a kite with its strings cut, floating to the ground at a leisurely pace, moving back and forth on the winds erratically.

  “Goddess!” Midnight screamed as the rift engulfed the entire area, robbing her of her senses. When sight and sensation returned, she found that she was still standing in the same spot, but night had fallen.

  Elminster let out a deep sigh.

  The rift was gone. The only source of light came from the glowing blue-white portal behind Elminster. The mage looked at Midnight.

  “No more of this,” he said solemnly.

  Midnight shook her head frantically. She heard a groan and saw Kelemvor sitting on the ground, holding his head.

  Elminster stepped into the portal, and Midnight screamed at the top of her lungs for him to stop. He poked his head from the glowing rift. “What is it!?”

  “The goddess Mystra,” Midnight said.

  Elminster looked at her sadly.

  “The goddess is dead,” she finished.

  Elminster tilted his head. “So I’ve heard.” Then he darted back inside the portal, and the opening burst apart in a shower of spiraling flames.

  Midnight stood in the darkness. “But she had a message,” she said, alone and in shock. “A message for you.” The mage walked forward, to the spot where the portal had been.

  “Elminster!” she cried, but her desperate call remained unanswered.

  * * * * *

  Lighting torches to pierce the absolute pitch-black of the night sky, Midnight and Kelemvor went in search of Cyric and Adon. Twice they had ventured south, to the road, the stars misleading them, and their calls had fallen upon deaf ears. But now they stood before their fallen comrades.

  Adon’s back was turned to Midnight and Kelemvor as they approached, and the cleric jumped as Midnight touched his shoulder. Turning to address his comrades, Adon nearly screamed his welcome. When Midnight inquired about Cyric’s condition, the cleric stared at her in surprise. As she continued to speak, his expression changed to one of panic.

  In moments it became clear that Adon was deaf. Most of his attempts to read his friends’ lips met with failure, adding to the cleric’s panic, but Midnight managed to calm Adon by holding his palm open and tracing her words, letter by letter, with the gentle touch of her index finger.

  It was easy enough for Midnight to figure out that the rift’s collapse had somehow caused Adon to lose his hearing. Adon was left in the middle of the storm, protected only by the disintegrating wagon, while she was near Elminster, who must have been protected from the effects of the storm somehow.

  When Midnight examined Cyric, she found that, although his breathing had become regular, she could not wake him. As the magic-user had no means of examining the extent of the damage the brigand’s blade had caused, she covered the wound and hoped for the best.

  While Midnight tended to Adon and Cyric, Kelemvor searched for any horses, either their own or the brigands’, that might have survived the sandstorm. The fighter found Midnight’s horse and one of the brigands’ mounts still alive. He brought them back to Adon. The cleric knew what to do with the animals without Kelemvor having to mouth one word at him.

  As Adon tended the horses by torchlight, Kelemvor and Midnight sat in the darkness with Cyric. “Your debt must be paid,” Kelemvor said.

  Midnight turned on the man. “What? We have far to travel before we reach Shadowdale.”

  “That was not our agreement,” Kelemvor said quietly. “I was to accompany you until you spoke with Elminster of Shadowdale. You’ve already done that.”

  “He wouldn’t listen!” the magic-user cried.

  “Nor will I,” Kelemvor said harshly. “Every debt must be paid.”

  “Very well,” Midnight said. “My … true name …”

  Kelemvor waited.

  “My true name is Ariel Manx.”

  There was a cough, and Midnight and Kelemvor both turned to see Adon help Cyric raise his head. “Cyric,” Midnight said as she went to the man’s side.

  Cyric cried out when he tried to sit up, but his body slowly relaxed as Midnight eased him back to the ground. Kelemvor stood watching, a sharp uneasiness biting through him.

  “How will we move him, Kel? His wound is serious,” the mage said.

  Kelemvor looked away. “I had not considered …”

  “Surely you didn’t mean to leave him—”

  “Of course not!” Kelemvor said. “But …”

  “Another reward?” she said. “Doesn’t what we’ve been through together make any difference to you? Do you really care about any of us, or is it only the reward you care about?”

  Kelemvor said nothing.

  “I need your help getting Cyric to Tilverton and seeing that he is well enough to ride on to Shadowdale. After that, I don’t care what you do.” Midnight took out the purse of money she had earned with the Company of the Lynx. “I’ll give you all the gold I have left.”

  After a few moments, Kelemvor lifted his head and spoke. “We can make a wooden frame from the wreckage of the thieves’ wagon, wrap the canvas of our tent around it, and make a stretcher. The wheels are intact, and we can pull Cyric behind us as we ride.”

  Midnight handed the bag of gold to Kelemvor. “Take this now. I want to be certain that you honor your promise.”

  Kelemvor took the gold and waded into the pile of wreckage that was strewn about the plain, where he found a small lantern that was still in one piece. Once the lantern was lit, Kelemvor looked at Midnight’s face and noticed the tears running down her face.

  * * * * *

  In Zhentil Keep, a criminal had been dragged through the streets, hands and feet bound. His body bounced against the pavement of the torch-lit streets, and his screams echoed for all to hear. The mangled body had been deposited at Bane’s feet and the Black Lord was surprised to find the human still clinging to life, though by a gossamer thread at best.

  The man was Thurbal, captain of arms and warden of Shadowdale. He had somehow entered the city undetected, then tried to join the Black Network under an assumed name. Fzoul had caught on to the man instantly, and although he advised Bane to feed the man false information then allow him to return to Shadowdale, the god could not suffer the affront so casually.

  Thurbal had been subjected to endless sessions of interrogation, and he claimed he knew nothing of Bane’s plans. The Black Lord did not wish to take chances, and so he ordered his men to drag the spy through the streets and then bring him to the temple to be executed. Invitations had been sent by messenger to Bane’s elite, and the execution had become a standing room only event.

  As the time of execution arrived, Bane left his throne to stand over Thurbal, then attempted to torment the aging, half-dead warrior at his feet. The man’s eyes were sharp and alert, and Bane suspected they would continue to look that way, even after the spy had passed into Lord Myrkul’s domain.

  The throne room was crowded with officials and their wives. They raised a toast to their dark lord and chanted his name as his taloned hands reached down toward Thurbal. Just before the tip of a single nail from Bane’s gauntlet could reach the eye of the dying man, there was a flash of blue-white light and Thurbal vanished. Bane was stunned for a moment. Someone had teleported Thurbal away, presumably to a place of safety.

  The chanting ceased.

  Bane studied the eyes of his worshiper
s. He noticed surprise and confusion in their expressions. Until this moment, the loyalty of Bane’s worshipers had been unswerving. He did not want them to know that his will could be thwarted this easily.

  “And now only a memory remains,” Bane said as he rose and allowed his talons to unfurl with practiced grace. “I have sent the interloper into Myrkul’s Realm, where he will pay for his crimes with an eternity of suffering!”

  Then the chanting started once more. The Black Lord was relieved that the lie had been accepted. Still, he was troubled for the rest of the evening by the victory that had been snatched from him.

  Hours later, when Bane was alone in the chamber, he sat and brooded.

  “Elminster,” Bane said aloud. “No one but you would dare interfere with my plans.” Bane’s goblet was crushed in his grip. “You will take Thurbal’s place soon enough, and your agonies will be legend throughout my kingdom! For this I will not only see you dead, but after I secure the Celestial Stairway, I will reduce your precious Shadowdale to a smoking pit. I swear it!”

  The Black Lord felt the wine that had escaped the ruined goblet stain his leg. He stared at the goblet and cursed at it, but it did not regain its shape. He threw it across the room and called out for Blackthorne to bring him another.

  “Milord,” Blackthorne said, lowering his head.

  “The assassins?”

  “They have departed, Lord Bane. We await word of their success.”

  Bane nodded and became silent as he stared off into space. Blackthorne didn’t move, as he had not yet been dismissed. Bane and his emissary stayed like this for close to thirty minutes before Blackthorne’s leg cramped and he involuntarily shifted his weight. Bane looked up slowly.

  “Blackthorne,” Bane said, as if he had forgotten about the other man’s presence. “Ronglath Knightsbridge.”

  “Yes, milord?”

  “I wish to have Knightsbridge lead one of the contingents from the Citadel of the Raven in the attack on Shadowdale. He has much to atone for, and he may be willing to do what others are not and without hesitation,” Bane said.