Curse of the Shadowmage h-11

by Marc Anthony

  Faladar was arguing with someone. "I'm sure I wouldn't know any friend of yours," the innkeeper said indignantly.

  "Ah, but you might have seen him," the other countered in his sibilant voice. He was swathed entirely in a heavy black robe, his face lost in the shadows of a deep cowl. "I am certain you would remember, for he is a memorable individual-a tall man with green eyes. He wears a blue cloak and plays the pipes. Or perhaps you've seen his companions-a woman with dark red hair, a handsome mage, and a young boy."

  Kellen bit his tongue to keep from gasping aloud.

  Faladar was growing angry now. "I've told you that I don't know your friends. I won't tell you again."

  "I think you lie, innkeeper," the black-robed stranger hissed menacingly. "I think you have seen them."

  "Get out of my inn now," Faladar growled. He raised meaty fist threateningly. "Get out, or I'll-"

  It happened with eerie swiftness. The stranger snaked out a gloved hand and gripped Faladar's throat. The innkeeper didn't even have time to scream. The black-robed man squeezed his hand shut. There was a terrible crunching sound, and a spray of blood splattered against the whitewashed wall. The stranger opened his fist, and the innkeeper crashed to the floor.

  Kellen clamped a hand to his mouth to keep from screaming. Fear propelled him up the stairs. Quickly, he slipped back into the chamber where the others were sleeping. He woke Mari first.

  "Who's there?" she asked in sleepy confusion. Kellen realized he still wore his concealing cloak of shadows. He whistled a sharp note, and the dark aura vanished. The others were awake now. Mari gazed at him in surprise. "Kellen, what is it?"

  He explained in quick, breathless words. Two minutes later they were ready to go. They didn't know who was following Caledan, but considering the importance of their mission, and given the stranger's actions, it would be best to escape first and speculate later. It was a tragedy that poor Faladar had paid for his hospitality with his life, but there was nothing they could do for the Innkeeper now.

  Morhion opened the round window. "It's about a dozen feet to the ground below. We'll have to jump."

  Cormik eyed the window skeptically. "You can't be serious."

  The mage gave him a flat, unfriendly stare. "I've never been more serious in my life."

  "I was afraid of that." Jewel went first, leaping nimbly out the window. Morhion followed. It took a good bit of shoving on Mari's part, but she got Cormik and his paunch through the window. He landed below with an audible thud! but from his whispered cursing he was quite all right. Kellen was next. He scrambled easily down a vine that was too weak to support the others. Mari came last, landing on her feet as gracefully as a cat.

  At first Kellen thought they had made their escape undetected. They retrieved their horses from the stable and rode hard away from the inn; no outcry followed them. Soon he heard the rushing sound of water. They were close to the river now. But then a piercing shriek shattered the chill night air. Wide-eyed, Kellen glanced over his shoulder and saw a dark form running toward them with unnatural speed.

  "It's him," he gasped. "The stranger I saw."

  "Keep riding," Morhion instructed. "I'll stop him."

  The others pressed on while the mage whirled Tenebrous around.

  He raised his hands over his head, shouting a harsh word. Blazing purple magic crackled between his hands. With all his strength, Morhion hurled the sizzling orb of magic toward their pursuer. The orb struck its target and exploded in a sizzling spray of violet sparks. The stranger was thrown violently backward, tumbling to the ground.

  The others reined their horses to a halt and returned to Morhion. The mage smiled sharply in victory. "I think our pursuer will follow us no longer."

  Cormik spoke then, his voice filled with awe and fear. "I think you should have knocked on wood when you said that, Morhion." He pointed with a chubby finger. "Look!"

  Slowly, the stranger rose to his feet.

  "That's impossible…" Mari started to say.

  As the moon broke from behind a cloud, they could see that the stranger's robe had been ripped to shreds by the force of Morhion's magic. Now for the first time, in the pale light, they could see their pursuer clearly. It was not human.

  Jewel swore. "By Shar in all her darkness, what is it?"

  Morhion answered her grimly. "It is a shadevar."

  The creature took a halting step toward them. Kellen stared with terror and fascination. He had never seen anything like the shadevar. Its hide was gray and rough like stone. Onyx barbs protruded from the backs of its arms and from its sternum, while more dark spikes rose along its backbone in a razor-sharp crest. Its face was feature-less with two small pits for a nose and two small depressions where its eyes should have been. Its slit of a mouth opened to reveal countless needle teeth, and it let out a snuffling sound as it began moving deliberately forward, "But this can't be," Mari protested. "We killed the shadevar. I saw it die…"

  "We killed one shadevar," Morhion countered. "But in ancient times there were thirteen of them."

  "Might I suggest we continue this argument later?" Cormik said with a note of hysteria. "Perhaps sometime when we're not about to be gruesomely dismembered?"

  The shadevar was gaining speed. "Make for the bridge," Morhion said quickly. "The shadevar cannot cross large bodies of water. Their nature prevents it."

  The horses required little urging. They galloped wildly toward the bridge. Kellen gripped Flash's mane tightly; he had given up even attempting to control the little pony. The sound of the river grew louder. The stone arch of the bridge loomed before them in the gloom. Without Warning, Mari reined Farenth to a halt. The other horses skidded to a stop.

  "Have you gone mad, Al'maren?" Cormik demanded. "Don't stop now. The thing is gaining on us!"

  "No, she is not mad," Morhion said hoarsely. The others followed his gaze. In the faint light, they could just make out two figures standing in front of the bridge, blocking the way. Both wore thick black robes.

  "By Azuth on High," Mari swore in a mixture of horror and amazement. "More of them!"

  Once, the Fellowship had managed to defeat a single shadevar. Just barely. Now they faced three of the ancient, evil creatures. Morhion looked over his shoulder. The first shadevar loped toward them swiftly. It would be upon them in moments. The other two stood firm before the bridge, and a river too deep to ford. The companions were trapped.

  "This way!" Morhion shouted, turning to the left and spurring his mount away from the road. "The edge of the Reaching Woods is less than a mile away. It's our only chance!"

  The others did not stop to argue. They spurred their mounts, leaving the road behind and thundering toward the dark wall of the forest. A cry of inhuman rage rose the cold night air. Yet, when Kellen dared to glance back a few moments later, the creatures had vanished. Perhaps they had given up. The shadevari were swift, but even they could not outrun a galloping horse.

  Jewel spoke up, her smoky voice tinged with fear. "I really hate to be negative, loves, but you might want to look up."

  The shadevari had not abandoned their pursuit after all. Three dark shapes whirled in the air above the riders, soaring on broad wings. The outlines of the creatures were hazy and indistinct, almost as if they were formed of smoke. They looked like some malformed mixture of lizard and bat, only far larger. Riding on the back of each of the flying creatures was one of the shadevari. The shadowsteeds folded their wings and began to dive, stretching out curved talons.

  "Don't look up!" Morhion shouted. "Keep riding!"

  Kellen tore his eyes away from the horrible scene in the sky. Fixing his gaze on the approaching line of trees, he braced himself as his horse sped up, fearing that at any moment he would feel sharp claws rake deep into his back, peeling flesh from bone.

  Then Flash crashed through a low wall of undergrowth into the forest. Through the lattice of branches, Kellen looked up to see the three shadowsteeds pull up sharply, barely avoiding a collision with the treetops. Scre
ams of pure fury pierced the night, but the terrible cries faded as the horses pushed onward. The winged shadowsteeds could not pursue them into the forest. They had escaped the shadevari. At least for now.

  Kellen let out a sigh of relief as they wound their way deeper into the safety of the trees. Then Mari uttered something that made their hearts sink. "We've lost Caledan's trail," she said quietly. After that, they rode for a long time in silence.

  Eleven

  The wanderer came to the gates of Triel on a gloomy day late in the month of Uktar.

  Even from a distance, Beris thought there was something strange about the fellow, a man clad all in black riding a mist-gray horse. Beris shivered inside his beaten-steel breastplate, chalking it up to the clammy air as he gripped his spear tightly. An unsettling thought drifted through his mind. Didn't one Lord Elvar's priests say that sometimes the King of the Dead appeared in the guise of a dark man riding pale horse? Like all soldiers, Beris was a superstitious man. Under his breath, he muttered a charm against evil spirits.

  "What are you mumbling about now, Beris?" asked the grizzled soldier who stood with him before the open gate.

  "I was just wondering who that rider is, Sarig," Beris answered hastily. Beris was the youngest of the twenty mercenaries Lord Elvar paid to guard Triel, and he took enough abuse from the older men as it was. He didn't want Sarig to think he was afraid of a lone horseman. Which he wasn't, of course. "Who do you suppose it is?"

  "Looks like some beggar to me," Sarig grunted in. disgust.

  Beris nodded. "I suppose he'll be seeking hospitality, then."

  Sarig gave a harsh snort of laughter. "Lord Elvar isn't very hospitable!"

  While the lord was not an evil man, his distrust of strangers was nearly as legendary as his propensity for switching religions. Elvar ruled a small district, of which Triel was the center. Triel itself was more of a fort than a proper town. Here the Dusk Road met up with the larger Trade Way, which continued on all the way to the great city of Waterdeep to the west. Triel served mostly as a way station for traveling merchants. Its small cluster of cottages and storehouses was surrounded by a sturdy stockade of stone and wood.

  When the rider finally came to a halt before the gates, Beris breathed a relieved sigh. The man's skin was mushroom pale, and dark half-moons hung beneath his faded green eyes, but he looked far more like a sick beggar than an incarnation of Death. His midnight blue cloak was spattered with mud. Despite the wanderer's ragged appearance, the gray mare he rode was an exceptional animal.

  "State your business!" Sarig barked, brandishing his spear.

  The wanderer blinked, as if he had just waked from a deep slumber and was surprised to find himself in some new time and place. "Can you help me?" he asked hoarsely. "I'm so tired. And hungry."

  Sarig gave a derisive snort. "I told you, Beris-a beggar."

  Beris ignored him. There was something about the man-perhaps the deep sorrow in his eyes-that made Beris think he was more than a simple vagabond seeking alms. I'd best take you to Lord Elvar," he told the wanderer. "If you'll dismount, I'll lead your horse for you." He reached out to grip the gray mare's bridle, but she bared her big yellow teeth menacingly. Beris was forced to snatch his hand back quickly. The ghost of a smile touched the wanderer's lips. "I'd better lead her," he said quietly. "She bites."

  "So I noticed," Beris said dryly.

  The wanderer dismounted. Beris gestured for him to follow, and they entered the stockade to seek out Lord Elvar They soon found him standing before the open door of the stockade's large stone granary. Elvar was having a fit. Again.

  "Look at that!" he shouted, jowls waggling. Elvar was an overlarge man with beady eyes and an upturned nose that gave him a distinctly piggish look. His expansive gut was stuffed into a too-tight waistcoat of food-stained green velvet. He thrust a torch into the darkened doorway of the granary. A squealing gray form scurried out, vanishing down a nearby drainpipe. "There's another!" Elvar raged. "Rats-they're everywhere!"

  A small group of townsfolk, merchants, and soldiers had gathered around the irate lord. "The rats will eat all the grain." he continued his tirade. "And with winter coming, we're all going to starve!" Elvar looked like a man who had never wanted for food in his life, but his eyes were wide with fear all the same. He bore down on a thin-faced man clad in the drab brown robe of a priest.

  "You!" Elvar growled angrily. "You told me that if I prayed to Malar, Lord of All Beasts, he would keep the rats away from the grain. But Malar has done nothing!"

  "It is not for us to question the actions of the gods," the priest said pompously.

  "I've had enough of you and your foolish prattling, priest!" Elvar roared. He turned to a pair of soldiers. Take this charlatan and throw him out of my town. I am a disciple of Malar no longer."

  The priest looked shocked as the mercenaries grabbed his arms and hauled him away. Elvar had converted to worship of the god Malar nearly a moon ago. By Beris's calculations, that actually made this one of Elvar's longer religious commitments. Most gods didn't last a tenday in the lord of Triel's chapel.

  When Elvar continued to rant about how they were all doomed to die of hunger this winter, Beris decided this was not the best time for a stranger to beg for hospitality. He turned to tell the wanderer they might do better to wait until later, then stared in alarm. Leading his pale mare, the stranger approached Elvar. Beris made a grab for the man but was too late.

  Elvar glared at the wanderer in annoyance. "What do you want?"

  "I am hungry," the strange man said quietly.

  "And I suppose you want me to feed you," Elvar said in disgust. He rested his chubby hands on his broad hips. "I suppose you think we should be happy to give a cretin like yourself food when we haven't enough to make it through the winter ourselves."

  The wanderer gestured to the storehouse. "You have plenty of grain."

  "Don't tell me what I have or don't have," Elvar snapped. He studied the wanderer. Suspicion gleamed in his beady eyes. "Tell me, beggar, where did one so wretched get such a fine horse?"

  "She's mine."

  "Liar," Elvar hissed. "I say you stole it." Beris pressed forward. "Excuse me, milord, but I think that the horse does belong to him. She seems to obey his-"

  "Shut up!" Elvar commanded. "If I say he is a thief, then he is a thief." He gestured to a trio of mercenaries. "Lead the horse to my stable, then take this man and cut off his hands so everyone will know him for the thief he is." With that, Elvar waddled toward the large stone manor house in the center of the stockade.

  Beris tried to protest, but the other soldiers pushed him roughly aside. Two grappled the wanderer, ruthlessly twisting his arms behind his back. Another grabbed the gray mare's reins. She let out a defiant whinny, rearing back on her hind legs. "Stop!" a commanding voice thundered. Everyone froze-the townspeople, the soldiers, even Lord Elvar-staring in amazement. An aura of power surrounded the wanderer, who now looked more like a king than a vagabond. The pale horse quieted and let out a soft nicker.

  The wanderer fixed Elvar with his pale green gaze. "If there were no rats in your granary, would you have given me something to eat?"

  Elvar licked his lips. "Of course," he lied hastily.

  Reaching into a leather pouch at his belt, the wanderer produced a set of bone pipes. He lifted them to his lips and began to play. The throng stared in trancelike wonder. Beris had never before heard such music-mournful, vaguely threatening, yet so achingly beautiful he thought it would break his heart. As the man continued to play, a gasp rose from the crowd. From a dozen dim corners and shadowed alleyways emerged countless small, dark, lithe forms. Cats.

  In moments there were a hundred of them, as black and silent as smoke. The wraithlike felines padded swiftly toward the granary, emerald eyes winking mysteriously, before disappearing through the open door. The hideous cacophony that followed nearly drowned out the piper's music. People clapped hands over their ears against the horrible din of squealing and yowling. A
bruptly, the noise ceased. The dark cats streamed out of the granary now, each bearing a gray bundle in its mouth. As they passed the stunned Elvar, each of the cats dropped its grisly burden at the lord's feet. In moments there was a furry mound of dead rats heaped before the lord of Triel. The wanderer lowered his pipes; the strange music faded into the air. The dusky cats melted once more into pools of darkness.

  "Now may I have something to eat?" the wanderer asked solemnly.

  Elvar gaped at him, then nodded emphatically. "Of course! You shall have my very finest!" This time, Beris noted, sincerity was written across the lord's porcine face. "But please, stranger," Elvar implored, "tell me your name, so that I can know who has saved Triel from disaster."

  The wanderer hesitated a moment, as if he did not quite remember his name. When at last he spoke, he seemed a figure of majesty no longer, but simply a weary traveler.

  "Cal," he said haggardly. "You can call me Cal."

  The statue watched over the ancient crossroads with deep, moss-filled eyes. A cool wind rushed through the sentinel trees, and the misty forest air was filled with cast-off leaves of copper red and burnished gold. Mari reached out and touched the timeworn stone.

  "I've found another one!" she called out.

  There was a crashing in the underbrush as the others approached, leading their horses among the trees.

  "It is indeed a Talfirian Watcher," Morhion agreed after a moment of study. "You have found the path again."

  Whether the statue had once represented man, woman, or god, Mari could not tell. An eternity of wind and rain had worn away all features except the staring pits of the eyes. They had come upon a dozen of the mysterious stone figures over the last two days as they wended their way southward, deeper into the Reaching Woods. It was Jewel who had first discovered the path, the morning after their harrowing flight from the three shalevari in Hill's Edge. At first they thought it was a game trail that paralleled the river. Here and there they turned up what seemed to be cracked paving stones. Then they came upon the first of the Watchers. Morhion instantly realized the significance of the crumbling statue. "This was a road, once," he explained, "built by the Talfirc, the people who dwelt in this land a thousand years ago. They set the Watchers here to guard the way." They had decided to follow the ancient road southward. Again and again they had lost the faint tracks in the underbrush and were forced to stop and make a laborious search. The loss of time worried Mari.