Plague of Shadows

by Howard Andrew Jones

  "I do not object," she said, wondering as to his tone. He seemed to have taken it upon himself to instruct her in etiquette.

  He nodded gracefully to her. "Allow me to compliment you on your wardrobe. In such garments, your natural beauty shines all the brighter."

  Was that flattery, more polite conversation, or an icy attempt at elven seduction? She could not entirely tell, but bowed her head. "Thank you. I like your crown."

  Alavar laughed. "Ah! By sweet Calistria, your unpredictability amuses me." He eased against the rear of the chair, his back still regally straight. "Be so good as to tell me why you have come to these lands."

  "If you do not mind, Lord, there are one or two things I would ask. Aliel was a delightful hostess, but I could scarce get a question asked of her."

  Alavar arched an eyebrow, then indicated his permission with a minute inclination of his head. "What would you know?"

  She would start with simpler questions first. "Are we in the elven kingdom? I though the border lay farther east."

  "You are quite right," he said with a regal nod. "This is merely an outpost."

  "It is quite an impressive one." In her experience, outposts were usually a small fort with a hamlet.

  "I am delighted that the beauty of my home impresses you. From here we can monitor the border for nearly a hundred miles to north and south. We have eyes in the heavens." Alavar smiled at Elyana's curious look. "I refer to our falcons. Some of the finest falcons in all of Kyonin are trained here. They scout far and wide for us."

  "Is that how you detected us?"

  "It was the primary means for watching you, yes, although there are other methods for monitoring this area of the Five Kings range."

  Means he obviously planned to keep to himself.

  "Is there more you would know?" Alavar asked. "Why are you so curious about the border?"

  "Because I hoped not to trespass."

  Alavar waved her concern off.

  "I mean to enter the Vale of Shadows, Lord Alavar. What can you tell me about it?"

  At mention of the valley, Alavar's expression clouded. "I was afraid that you were going to say that. My people forbid access to the vale."

  "And I was afraid you were going to say that."

  "No good can come from that place, Elyana. Few who enter return alive."

  She watched him warily, wondering how best to continue.

  "Why would you even want to go inside the place?"

  "I intimated the problem earlier, Lord. My friend has been cursed. He is baron of Adrast, and Renar is his son. Drelm and Kellius are his retainers."

  "I am sorry to hear about your friend. What has any of that to do with the Vale of Shadows?"

  "I believe Stelan's cure is hidden inside."

  The lord studied her silently. "Your speech is so very simple," he observed finally. "It is as though you have no time to contemplate longer ideas. I expect it comes of being raised by folk with such short lifespans."

  "I expect it does."

  Alavar frowned briefly and leaned forward. "Elyana, am I correct in assuming that this baron is a human?"

  "You are." Elyana tried to keep her tone neutral.

  "How old is he already? You must ask yourself—"

  "Do not finish that sentence."

  Alavar's eyebrows rose precipitously. All but the smallest children knew that it was the height of rudeness to interrupt someone while speaking, especially for elven children, as Elyana had been told during her time in northern Kyonin. She could easily imagine Alavar saying something very similar, and did not give him the chance.

  "However many years Stelan has left before him," Elyana said, "they are just as precious as mine. Or yours. Perhaps even more so, because he has so few to begin with."

  Alavar eyed her in consternation.

  "I mean to enter that vale, Lord. If it is not within Kyonin, you have no right to stop me."

  The lord of Elistia settled into his chair, back straight, expression bland. "Your manners are more than a little brusque, Elyana. I blame not you, but those who raised you."

  "I do not mean to offend," she answered. "Just as I'm sure you did not mean to insult the memory of my parents."

  Alavar blinked in surprise.

  Elyana had grown tired of Alavar's prejudices. "I lost my parents in a boating mishap when I was very small. I barely recall their faces. My foster parents almost died trying to help them. They were strangers. They had no call to aid my blood parents, or to take me in and raise me as their own. Yet they did so." She stared directly into his eyes, hoping to hammer home her point. "I am sorry if my speech troubles you. But please do not malign those who raised me because their customs are different from your own."

  By his expression, Alavar recovered swiftly from his surprise, but he did not speak for a long moment. Finally he said: "I shall keep that under advisement. You must have been very close to your foster parents."

  "I was."

  He nodded slowly. "I do not like to think how difficult it must be for you to live amongst the humans. I would find it very challenging."

  "I have little with which to compare it."

  He conceded this with a wave of his hand. "You are set upon this errand to the Vale of Shadows."

  "Yes."

  "You spoke aright, earlier. It is not my right to forbid those not of my nation from entering the place. But I wish you to know exactly what you are venturing toward. What do you know of the place?"

  She hesitated momentarily, for her ignorance embarrassed her. "Little more than its name."

  "I think if you knew more, you would be far less eager to travel there."

  "I am hardly eager, Lord. It is duty, not pleasure, that takes me there."

  "Of course." He gathered his thoughts for a moment. "Our sages say that it has been scarred for millennia, almost since the dawn of time. The Rough Beast, Rovagug, was mightier almost than all the other gods combined, but they overthrew him at last. He could not be killed, so the gods split Golarion itself and entombed him and his followers inside. They healed the seams in the world, but some points were weaker than others, and these were reinforced. One of these points is the Vale of Shadows."

  Elyana did not tell him that she already knew this; she did not wish to appear rude again.

  Alavar continued. "Over the millennia, the seal on the vale has deteriorated. Things seep up from below, and from other places, as well, for the energies used during its construction weakened the borders between the planes of existence. It is one of my duties to patrol near the vale, so that we may protect this area from whatever might creep forth from the nightmare realms contiguous to the vale."

  "What does the vale look like?

  "It is a blight upon our reality," he said with vehemence, "filled with shifting energy from the Plane of Shadow. From outside it looks as though it is permanently shielded by the darkest storm clouds. I have ventured inside a handful of times. It is not a pleasant place. Creatures drift in and out from other realms, sometimes bringing twisted landscapes with them. There are no colors to be seen inside. There is a tower there, but neither I nor my predecessors have allowed anyone to enter. I assume this tower to be your goal?"

  "It is."

  "And you are still intent upon reaching the place, knowing what I have told you?"

  "Yes."

  "I also assume that you have no other option before you."

  "I have pledged ...the item we seek to the clerics who are keeping my friend alive."

  "Why do you not wish to name it?" he asked her.

  She smiled sadly. "If I do not name it, you cannot forbid me from removing it."

  He chuckled. "Should you be so fortunate to survive a journey within, you will have earned whatever you find there. But you may keep your se
cret."

  "I thank you."

  "Don't you worry someone else has found that which you seek? The tower has stood there for a very, very long time. Someone might have penetrated its defenses."

  "If they have, my friend is doomed."

  Alavar chose his next words carefully. "Please do not take this the wrong way, Elyana. But I must wonder. Would a true friend have sent someone on such an impossible quest?"

  "He did not send me. He lies unconscious."

  "So you took this upon yourself. The strength of your friendship is to be praised. But surely a true friend would not be pleased were you to kill yourself in aiding him."

  "He would do the same for me."

  The lord's chin lifted ever so slightly. "Then he is worth your sacrifice. A loyal friend is the brightest treasure of all." He fell silent. "Very well. If you are determined to follow this mad enterprise, I will guide you there. Once inside, you will be on your own, but I can leave soldiers to guard your mounts until your return, should you be so fortunate. I do not think you would wish to ride your horses within."

  Elyana was fairly sure she could ride Persaily anywhere, but she bowed her head in acknowledgment. "Thank you. You are most kind." She hoped that sounded more formal and polite, though she was certain her sentences still lacked the polish expected here.

  "It is my pleasure," Alavar said. "I now have another question for you. There is a large force of humans trailing you. I believe them to be Galtans. Why are they following?"

  Elyana did not bother asking how Alavar knew; if his birds and sorcery had detected them, surely it could find the Galtans.

  "Years ago, my friends and I crossed through Galt to fight the shadow wizards. I made enemies there, and rediscovered them when we passed through this week."

  "They appear very determined. I'm not inclined to interact with so large a force unless they come upon Elistia. They will have trouble enough in the mountains."

  The humans sometimes said that elves were cowards because they let the ground and the environment do the fighting for them. Elyana understood the elven viewpoint on this matter. For a race so long-lived, with offspring so rare, it was better to let time and the elements do the fighting rather than risk elven blood.

  "Do they seek the same thing as you?" the lord asked.

  "I don't know how they could. I did not speak of it to them."

  He nodded. "These new Galtans are even stranger than most humans. Orcs are far simpler to understand. Not so long ago, I would sometimes ride down amongst the humans and sample their wines. I have not gone amongst Galtan lands for almost sixty years. They are a strange race, humans."

  "They are capable of great courage, and loyalty."

  "So you lead me to understand," he said. "Many human generations ago there were some that I was fond of. But I never named one friend."

  Interlude

  Ring of Shadows

  Darkness wrapped them only moments after they were through the doorway. Cold pierced their flesh like thorns. One of the men screamed, and there was the sound of metal clanking on stone, protesting as it was crushed and rent.

  Stelan's voice echoed through the dark chamber. "Arcil, light!"

  A brilliant flood of white energy lit the space an instant later, and Elyana finally saw what they faced. A reptile the size of an ox lashed its spiny tail near bookcases which ornamented the curving two-story wall behind it. The dragon seemed fashioned from plates of shadow wrapped around a skeleton. Its head twisted from side to side, its fierce red eyes blinking against Arcil's flaring ball of light that burned high in the vast, cathedral-like space.

  Black vapor drifted from its fanged maw. Under one claw the knight Daramont lay twisted, blood trickling out from multiple rents in his armor to gather in a widening pool.

  Eriah cried out at sight of his twin. Elyana advanced. If there was hope for the fallen knight, there was no way to give aid until they stopped the dragon.

  "Run!" Young Nadara backed frantically toward the archway, her voice rising in panic. "He's summoned an umbral dragon!"

  They had thought only to find Lathroft, the shadow wizard who'd fled before them. They had not expected this horror. Elyana knew it was small, as dragons went, but that made the creature no less deadly.

  She charged forward on the left, Stelan on the right. There was no hesitation. After so many years, they reacted with rapid precision to every challenge. It was no surprise to hear Vallyn's voice raised in a martial melody, or Arcil shouting something in cryptic words.

  The dragon swung toward Stelan, hissing, its backswept horns pointing to Elyana. A draconic wing brushed down at her at the same moment its tail lashed. She ducked under the one, her hair streaming out behind her, and leapt the whipping appendage in a crouch. She landed nimbly, then noticed a strange blur in the air a few paces to her left.

  Stelan cried out to Abadar and shouted as he swung at the creature's darting head. Elyana's eyes were rooted on that widening whirl of energy. A human hand in a dark sleeve thrust out from its center.

  She had found the shadow wizard.

  Elyana's leap carried her into the blur and through into a strange, dark place occupied only by the wizard; her sword came down across Lathroft's hand and severed it at the wrist. Blood weltered as the hand flew free. The hooded wizard howled and dropped to his knees, stump pressed to his chest. Elyana noticed that her blade's swirling, intricate runes glowed here as they did when the weapon was wielded against creatures of shadow. Their light bloomed even more fiercely as her second strike swept down through cowl and skull; brain and blood sprayed out and the wizard fell, gurgling and twitching.

  So died Lathroft, the second most powerful of the shadow wizards. It was hard to believe him truly finished, and Elyana stared down in wonder.

  They'd tracked him for most of the last year, finally honing in on this last location when his own niece had decided to turn on him. Elyana had not thought to fell him so easily. She supposed the running battle through the fortress had exhausted a lot of his spells, and it was probably no easy task summoning a dragon.

  In any case, Lathroft looked like he'd moved well past dying to dead, so she rotated slowly to scan the rest of the space.

  She stood in a black-and-white version of the room she had just quitted. While Elyana had never before entered the Plane of Shadow, Arcil had told her that there was a place from where the shadow wizards drew their magic and conjured their monsters. Instinctively she knew she was in that place, and she wheeled quickly to verify that the portal was still open behind her. The rip in reality hung in the air, its edges blurred and shimmering. She shouldn't have worried. She could sense its presence even with her back turned.

  A quick survey of her environment showed twisted walls that did not quite meet at right angles, and a bizarrely slanted ceiling. All else was just the semblance of reality. Where there were books in the real world, here were only dark recesses, and there were no counterparts to the living beings she'd left behind.

  Her first impulse was to jump back to her own reality, but she then understood she could use her position to her advantage. Lathroft might be dead, but his severed hand still radiated a magical nimbus. She bent cautiously beside it. Even an idiot would have been able to guess that the ring upon the long index finger, emanating an aura of darkness, had created the opening. Arcil would want that, she knew.

  She glanced back through the portal. She heard Arcil call for her even as the dragon roared. The thing had turned its back to the opening. There was no better time.

  Inured to gore by long years of exposure, Elyana snatched up Lathroft's hand by the wrist and jumped back through the portal. She was reluctant to handle the ring itself without Arcil's advice.

  She dropped the bloody hand as she came clear into the normal world. The dragon's roar seemed insanely loud, part growl, part hig
h-pitched whine, as though steel were being ripped in two at the same moment a pack of wolf hounds growled. The Plane of Shadow deadened noise, she realized—everything in the real world seemed louder now.

  She aimed for the dragon's wing joint, and struck with a two-handed blow. The monster shrieked. Its injured wing beat at her, but she ducked and rolled, the floor cool against her palms. She came up on one knee only to find herself facing the dragon's open maw. That looked bad.

  But Stelan was suddenly beside her, brandishing his great two-handed blade. The dragon's maw swung and cocked hard left, birdlike, before letting loose a cloud of darkness. It enveloped Stelan completely.

  Elyana sprang with a keen slash even as the beast's ghastly, emaciated head whipped back. She suddenly found herself facing a cavernous maw of silver-black teeth. Her blade split scales along its jaw and it hissed, snapping those teeth together only inches from her face.

  "Elyana!" Arcil shouted. "Down!"

  She dropped. A great clap of thunder and a blinding flash of light followed. The dragon keened and threw its head back in agony. The tail lashed out and struck a wall of books, sending dozens of volumes flying off the shelves. Blue electrical energy danced in long lines all across the dragon's head and neck. It scuttled backward.

  Eriah charged up from Elyana's right and hacked into the head, shouting something about vengeance as black ichor flew forth. And Vallyn was weaving a spell with another song.

  The cloud of darkness still overhung Stelan, but the knight staggered free. His greatsword hung loose in his grip. The dragon saw him and scrambled further back, its claws scraping against the tile.

  "I can kill you all," it said in a harsh, rasping voice.

  "Back to the hell that spawned you," Stelan shouted, and struck again. The dragon raised its head, but the mighty blow cut deep into its chest. Stelan stumbled in the track of his swing, off-balance.

  Elyana dashed out, grabbed Stelan's arm, and guided him to safety, yelling for Eriah to retreat. Daramont's brother was too slow. A great blow from a flapping wing sent him careening into a wall.

  And then Arcil let loose with another blast of magical energy. An even brighter arc of blue electricity lit the dragon's underside and it reared up, mouth wide.