Shadowdale at-1

by Richard Awlinson

  "Kel, don't!" Midnight shouted. "He can see it's us!"

  The fighter stood still, then dropped his sword. Cyric backed away and saw Midnight standing where Marek had stood only a second earlier. Then Kelemvor was beside her, blood leaking from his wounded shoulder. The fighter's face had gone white.

  The alley started to fade and disappear, but the body of the woman Quicksal had killed, the woman Cyric would have murdered if he'd been given the chance, still lay face down in the dirt. A pool of blood was still spreading out from beneath her. Cyric stared at the woman until she, too, faded from sight.

  "What does he see?" Kelemvor whispered. "There's nothing there." Midnight shook her head.

  "I'm sorry, Kel. I thought you were someone else," Cyric said as he approached the fighter.

  Kelemvor plucked the dagger from his shoulder, flinching at the incredible pain. He dropped the weapon at Cyric's feet as Midnight helped him bind up his wounded shoulder.

  "We have to find Adon," Kelemvor said. "He's the only one left."

  "I can guess what his temptation is," Midnight said as she finished binding Kelemvor's wound and the heroes raced for the stairs.

  Adon had turned away from the bars that separated him from Midnight and walked a short way down the hall, just to see if there was some easy way for him to rejoin the mage on the other side of the barrier. Now he found himself staring up at an incredibly beautiful, star-filled sky.

  And such a strange array of stars, too, Adon noted as he looked up at the night sky. They all appear to be moving.

  Indeed the stars were in motion, rocketing across the sky at such speeds that many were only blurs of light. Adon closed his eyes, but the stars remained, playing their games even behind his closed lids.

  Adon gazed at the stars for a long time. When next he looked around, he found himself laid out on a delicate bed of roses, and the fragrance that flooded his senses was sweet and gentle, although it caused his heart to beat faster and his head to grow numb. The petals brushed against his fingers so lightly that he could not help but smile at the delicacy. Then it occurred to Adon. The stars weren't moving at all; he was.

  He opened his eyes and gazed over the edge of his bed of flowers only to find a dozen of the most beautiful beings he had ever seen. Their hair seemed to have been set aflame, and their bodies were specimens of utter physical perfection. Adon's magnificent bed rested upon their willing shoulders.

  The presence of these beings reassured Adon so much that he didn't even flinch when a wall of flames sprang up around him. His vision blurred a bit, and all he surveyed seemed to take on an amber cast, but there was no heat as the flames leaped from the red to white roses, changing them to black orchids, and finally jumped to the cleric's flesh. There was no pain, not even mild discomfort, when the fires engulfed him. There was nothing but the bright glow of love and well-being that coursed through his soul as he came to the final understanding of his own death that must have happened long before this moment.

  Strain as he might, he could remember none of what happened after he was separated from Midnight in the corridors below Castle Kilgrave. He woke upon his funeral pyre, being carried to what could only be his eternal reward.

  But how did I die? Adon wondered, and the shifting, beautiful voices of his bearers filled the crackling air around him.

  "One never remembers," they said. "The moment of pain is suffered by another, to spare you."

  Another?

  "Others such as we have become. Our purpose is to alleviate suffering. We live your death that you might be reborn into the Kingdom of Sune."

  Shining crystal spires cut through the night, and Adon focused his attention on the temple before him. As it stretched across the horizon, the temple's walls were graced with stunningly beautiful crystalline designs, though no uniform pattern made the infinite palace boring or repetitious. It was as if each of Sune's followers who found rest in this place had contributed their own concepts of the boundaries and appearances that eternity should reveal. An amalgam of expectations resulted, yet some guiding hand had taken all the disparate images and incorporated them into an ordered whole, disappointing no one and creating a place of beauty that defied Adon's wildest dreams to surpass.

  The entrance alone was larger than any temple Adon had seen before, and what lay beyond was a world unto itself. His bearers brought him through lands where a countless number of worshipers bathed and frolicked in pools that had been formed from their own tears of joy, and the rocks they lay upon as they luxuriated in the warmth of Sune's love for them had once been the stones of disbelief that weighted down their souls and made union with the goddess impossible. Relieved of the terrible burdens of life, they could now devote themselves totally to the preservation of order, beauty, and love by worshiping Sune.

  Adon and his bearers passed through many such lands, each new vista overwhelming Adon more than the last, and Adon was surprised at his capacity to take in more and more of these spellbinding raptures until at last his bearers vanished and he found himself standing before a wrought iron gateway that shimmered and became a shower of sparkling water. He passed through it.

  What lay beyond was a very small chamber in comparison to the wonders Adon had witnessed just moments before. There were no walls to this room, though, and all around it vast and intense flames leaped to the sky. Soft, billowing curtains protected the cleric's eyes from the roaring flames and set the boundaries of the room that lay in the heart of beauty's eternal fires.

  "A drink?"

  Adon turned and the Goddess of Beauty herself, Sune Firehair, stood before him. Glasses filled with a rich, crimson nectar waited in each of her glowing hands. As Adon took one of the glasses, he saw that his flesh started to blaze with the same amber light as Sune's flesh.

  "Goddess," Adon said, and fell to his knees before her, spilling not a drop of the drink in his hand.

  Sune laughed and brought him to his feet with one of her powerful hands. Adon felt his breath freeze in his lungs as she touched him, a power undreamed of flooding through his limbs as he stood before her.

  Breath. I'm still alive, Adon thought, rejoicing at the knowledge.

  Sune seemed to read his thoughts. "You have not died, foolish boy. Not yet. I have brought you here for the most basic of reasons: I am in love with you. You, above all my worshipers, are all that I desire."

  Adon was speechless, and so he brought the chalice to his lips and felt the sweet nectar run its course through his body. "Goddess, surely I am not worthy — "

  Sune smiled and disrobed before him, shedding a fiery silk robe and allowing it to fall to the floor and vanish. Adon looked down and saw rolling clouds beneath his feet.

  "I am beauty," Sune said. "Touch me."

  Adon walked forward, as if in a dream.

  "Truth is beauty, beauty truth. Embrace me and the answers to all your unspoken questions will be made clear."

  From somewhere Adon heard a voice cry out in warning, but he ignored it. Nothing could be more important than this moment. He took the goddess in his arms and brought his lips to hers.

  The kiss seemed endless. But even before Adon opened his eyes, he felt Sune changing. Her gentle lips had become fierce, demanding. An endless series of sharpened pincers seemed to move from her elongating jaws, seeking to rend the flesh of the cleric's face. Her fingers had transformed into vicious snakes that latched onto his flesh as they threatened to tear him apart.

  "Sune!" Adon cried.

  The creature laughed as the snaking tendrils of its fingers wrapped themselves around Adon's throat. "You are not worthy of the goddess," it said. "You have sinned against her and you must be punished!"

  Across the open, central courtyard of Castle Kilgrave, Midnight, Kelemvor, and Cyric stared as the cleric fell to his knees in absolute terror, driven to this position by something that only he could see.

  "Goddess forgive me!" Adon cried. "I will do anything to win your forgiveness. Anything!"

  "We have to
get to him quickly," Midnight said.

  "You will do nothing!" a thunderous voice rang out, its echoes filling the courtyard. "You will do nothing but die by the hand of Bane!"

  Suddenly the trio was bombarded by illusions. In the span of a dozen heartbeats, Kelemvor was sent into the dream world of his childhood books: he lived an epic love story wherein he was a foreign prince sent to marry a lovely but heartless princess, and he forsook his very kingdom to run off with a peasant girl. Midnight saw herself as a powerful queen, saving her kingdom from poverty and want. At the same time, images of a free and unfettered life passed before Cyric's eyes, along with offers of gold and priceless artifacts. But the images of heroism and power and freedom held no sway over them. As one, the heroes charged to the center of the courtyard.

  The challenges occurred more rapidly as the heroes moved on: Sunlar appeared before Midnight, daring her to a magical duel. Her entire class lined up behind the teacher, anxious to try their skills against her. Cyric faced the ice creature that stood guardian over the Ring of Winter. He watched helplessly as the monster reached out for him. Kelemvor faced the executioners who took the life of his grandfather, but now they had come for him. He looked down to find that he was now old and tired. His attempts to find a cure for his condition and salvation for his withered soul had been a failure.

  But still the heroes pressed forward to the center of the courtyard and Adon's side.

  Still on his knees, Adon stared as paradise tore itself apart and was reordered. The demon creature that had pretended to be the goddess had left him, but Sune's kingdom had changed. The death and punishment of its charges was now the mainstay of its existence, as robed figures enslaved and tormented Sune's faithful.

  "This is a lie!" Midnight screamed as she got close to Adon.

  The cleric turned, wide-eyed, and saw someone who looked just like Midnight standing beside him — but she wore the robes of the Sunites' tormentors.

  "But… it was so beautiful!" Adon said, angry at Midnight's words.

  "Look about you," Midnight said. "This is reality!"

  Adon looked and saw the goddess Sune chained to a huge slab. The robed figures were lowering the slab into a river that ran scarlet with the blood of Sune's followers.

  And each of the robed figures wore a pendant, exactly like Midnight's.

  "The pendant!" Sune shouted. "It is the source of their power! Take it and I will be free!"

  Midnight grabbed Adon by the shoulders. "Damn it, listen to me!"

  "No!" Adon screamed, and before Kelemvor or Cyric could react, the cleric lunged at Midnight with a ferocity she had not expected. Adon's hand closed over Midnight's dagger, and he pulled it away from her. Feet together, Midnight kicked the cleric in the midsection, sending him flying backward, the dagger still clutched in his hand. There was a sharp crack as Adon's head struck the ground. Then the cleric lay in a heap, stunned by the blow.

  Midnight began the movements and the chanting that would release a spell to dispel the magical assault. As she prayed that the spell would not go awry, the tiny fires upon the pendant crackled. There was a blinding flash of blue-white light as Midnight's spell released a maelstrom of magics that enveloped the courtyard.

  Bane fell back, crying out as the water of the scrying pool became a scalding torrent of blood that erupted in a geyser as the pool exploded. All around Castle Kilgrave, the spells Bane had used to transform the ruins into a minor reflection of his home in the Planes were shattered by Midnight's magic.

  Bane's temple, his New Acheron, was crumbling. The fantastic gateways he had opened were now closing. The corridors and chambers that so cleverly held replicas of Bane's former temple in the Planes lost their tenuous hold on reality and burned away.

  In moments all that was left was the ruined remains of a mortal's castle. Bane fell forward, sobbing, and part of his mind marveled at discovering another new sensation these humans lived with every day of their short existence:

  Loss.

  New Acheron was gone.

  When at last he turned and summoned the hakeashar so he could gather the power to kill Mystra's would-be rescuers, the Black Lord was shocked to find the mystical chains that held the goddess empty.

  Mystra had escaped.

  VII

  Mystra

  Midnight was on her knees, recovering from the shock of her spellcasting, when Adon appeared beside her. The courtyard of Castle Kilgrave displayed no vestige of the battle that had taken place in its confines.

  "It's gone," Adon said. "Sune's kingdom is gone, as if it never truly existed."

  Midnight looked up at him. When she spoke, it was in a comforting tone. "I'm sure it exists somewhere, Adon. When the time comes, you will find your way there."

  Adon nodded, then he and Cyric helped Midnight to her feet. A few yards away, Kelemvor coughed twice and slowly came around. "What happened?" Kelemvor said, holding his wounded shoulder.

  "Something was playing games with our minds," Midnight said. "It tried to control us, set us against one another. I tried a simple dispel magic incantation and — "

  "You caused that explosion?" Kelemvor said, sitting up abruptly.

  "You shouldn't move," Adon said, and attempted to force the man to lay back. His efforts were futile.

  "Damn it, Adon. We lost a day at the colonnade because I was flat on my back. Just leave me alone; I'll be fine!"

  "Let him go, Adon," Midnight said, smiling at the fighter. "Yes, Kel, I caused the explosion — or my magic did, anyway. I gathered from what was happening to us that someone was casting a powerful illusion on all of us. I tried to dispel it, but the spell caused some kind of backlash. It seems to have stopped whoever was throwing the spell."

  "The voice of Bane," Cyric said, laughing. "Probably just some madman with delusions of godhood."

  "Then I suggest we find him," Kelemvor said as he looked around. "He's got to be the one who has Caitlan's mistress captive."

  "I thought you'd given up on finding her," Cyric said.

  Kelemvor smiled and looked at Midnight. "I had. But I think the reward I'll get for concluding the quest will be worth toughing it out." The fighter looked at the bloody rags over his shoulder and wondered if he would be able to wield his sword with only one arm. He was able to make a loose fist with his right hand, although the process caused sparks of pain to erupt before his eyes.

  Cyric simply shook his head as he went to the courtyard's entrance and looked out into the hallway. There was no sign of movement. The corridors looked much the same as they had when Cyric first examined the castle.

  "We should find Caitlan's mistress and escape while we can," Cyric said as he went back into the courtyard. Kelemvor nodded in agreement, and soon the adventurers were in the hallway.

  "Now what?" Kelemvor said. "Search the castle again, floor by floor?"

  Midnight turned and froze, her mouth open wide.

  "I don't think we'll have to," Cyric said. "Look!"

  Kelemvor looked over his shoulder and saw a horrible, blood-red mass barreling down the corridor at them — the hakeashar. From the mist that composed the creature's form, Kelemvor saw hundreds of ten-fingered hands reaching out, clawing at the air. Disembodied yellow eyes broke from the mist, anxious to study the prey before it.

  Kelemvor's shoulders slumped. "I've had about enough of this for one day," he said as he drew his sword with his one good hand. His movements weren't graceful, but he hoped the stance would be impressive enough to frighten the huge creature.

  The creature let out a roar that sent a burrowing pain through the heroes' skulls. The creature had grown large, gaping mouths that seemed to grow larger as it approached. Cyric grabbed Midnight's arm and they ran down the hall, away from the hakeashar.

  "Perhaps you could stand a little more?" Adon said, imploringly, as he backed away, then ran.

  The creature let out another roar.

  "Perhaps," Kelemvor said as he broke his stance and ran, the swirling mist biting at h
is heels as he attempted to catch up to the others.

  The heroes kept well ahead of the mist creature for a few moments, but they soon tired. By the time they'd reached the turret located two hundred yards from the courtyard, the hakeashar was in close pursuit. In the turret, the stairs leading to the upper levels of the castle were filled with debris, so the heroes followed the stairs down, Adon in the lead. In the darkness of the subterranean corridors, the hakeashar appeared as a burst of light as it exited the turret.

  Midnight realized that the corridor ahead of them was blocked by rubble at the same moment the hakeashar caught up with the adventurers. Turning to face the creature, she shouted for her fellows to move out of the way. She was already casting a spell as the creature filled the width of the corridor and stopped, its eyes blinking wildly as Kelemvor held up his sword and Cyric put on his cloak of displacement.

  Suddenly a gust of wind surged through the corridor, originating at Midnight's fingertips. The wind cut through the creature, holding it at bay for a moment. Abruptly the wind died away.

  The hakeashar slowly moved forward, the incredible power it had sensed in Midnight's pendant drawing it's attention.

  Cyric walked forward, his cloak of displacement creating a dozen phantom images of him. The many eyes of the hakeashar fixated on the images created by the cloak as they wildly crossed one another to alter their vantages of the illusion.

  "Besides managing to confuse this thing, what good have we done?" Kelemvor whispered to Midnight. The magic-user stepped away from the fighter just as the hands of the creature shot forward and grabbed the cloak from Cyric. The images disappeared as the cloak was devoured by the hakeashar.

  A dozen new eyes and mouths opened as the creature grew larger.

  "What are you waiting for?" Kelemvor said. "Cast your spell!"

  The hakeashar giggled, memories of feeding from the magic of the goddess flooding into its mind.