The Kingdom of Shadow

by Richard A. Knaak

  “Get to the point, Tsin, the point of our being here at all.”

  “Cretin.” With a scowl, the robed figure continued. “Twelve years after Ureh, Gregus Mazi returned to his abandoned homeland. In his wake he left scrolls and books, all indications of his studies. He left notes here and there, most of which I’ve tracked down. Twelve years after Ureh, Gregus Mazi came to the ruins . . . and simply vanished.”

  Kentril rubbed his mustache. He had a very real answer for the ancient sorcerer’s fate. “An animal ate him, or he had an accident.”

  “I might have thought the same, my dear captain, if I had not early on in my efforts procured this.”

  Quov Tsin reached into a massive pouch where he kept his most valued notes and withdrew an old scroll. He held it out to Kentril, who reluctantly took it.

  Captain Dumon unrolled it as gently as he could. The parchment was fragile and the script written on it badly faded, but with effort he could make it out. “This was written by a man from Westmarch!”

  “Yes . . . the mercenary captain who journeyed with Gregus Mazi. I found it both ironic and perhaps telling that you approached me when I sent news of my offer to those who might be interested. I see it as fate that we two follow the tracks of my predecessor and this man.”

  “This man” proved to be one Humbart Wessel, a veteran fighter with a thankfully plain manner of writing. Kentril puzzled through the passages, at first finding nothing.

  “Toward the bottom,” Tsin offered.

  The slim mercenary read over that part of the aged scroll, which Humbart Wessel had clearly written years after the fact.

  On the seventh day, near dusk, the passage began, Master Mazi again approached the edge of the ruins. Says I to him, that this quest’s seen no good end and we should go, but he says he’s certain this time. The shadow will touch at just the right angle. It has to.

  Master Mazi promised much gold to us and another offer none there’d take, however worthy any might think themselves. Fly up to Heaven . . . older now, I still wouldn’t have taken it.

  The shadow came like he said, Nymyr’s hand reaching out for old Ureh. We watched, certain as before that we’d been on a fool’s quest.

  Aah, what fools we were to believe that!

  I recall the shadow. I recall the shimmering. How the ruins suddenly looked alive again. How the lights glowed inside! Swear I still will that I heard the voices of folk, but couldn’t see any!

  “I’m coming . . .” Those were Master Mazi’s last words, but not to us, though. I remember them still, and I remember how we thought we saw the glitter of the gold that he’d told us about again and again—but not one man would enter. Not one man would follow. Master Mazi went it alone.

  We camped there, hearing the voices, hearing some of them call to us, it seemed. None of us would go, though. Tomorrow, I says to the others, tomorrow when Master Mazi comes out and shows all’s well, we’ll go in and get our fill. One night, it won’t matter.

  And in the morning, all we saw were ruins. No lights. No voices.

  No Master Mazi.

  Lord Hyram, I writ this down like I agreed and it goes to the Zakarum—

  Captain Dumon turned the scroll over, looking for more.

  “You’ll see nothing. What little was left beyond this passage speaks of other matters and was of no concern to me. Only this page.”

  “A few scribbled lines by an old warrior? This brought us all the way here?” Kentril felt like tossing the parchment back into Tsin’s ugly face.

  “Cretin,” Quov Tsin repeated. “You see words but cannot read past them. Don’t you trust one of your own?” He waved a gnarled hand. “Never mind! That was just to show the one point. Gregus Mazi found a way to the Ureh of old, the Ureh he had lost twelve years before—and we can do the very same!”

  Kentril recalled the line about gold, the selfsame gold that had lured him into this foolishness in the first place. However, he also recalled how Humbart Wessel and his men had been too frightened to go after it once the opportunity had finally presented itself. “I’ve no desire to go to Heaven just yet, sorcerer.”

  The diminutive Tsin snorted. “Nor have I! Gregus Mazi was welcome to that path, but I seek earthier rewards. Once they had ascended, the people of Ureh would not need the items they had collected in their mortal lives. Any valuables, books of spells, talismans . . . those would have been left behind.”

  “Then why haven’t we found anything?”

  “The clues are in the manuscript of Humbart Wessel! For these living mortals to ascend, Juris Khan and his sorcerers had to cast a spell like no other. They had to bridge the gap between this plane and that of Heaven. In doing so, they created a place in between—in the form of this shadow Ureh that Gregus found again years later!”

  Captain Dumon tried desperately to follow the mage’s reasoning. The gold that he had been promised existed not in these ruins but rather in the floating vision described by the previous mercenary leader, the ghostly city.

  He glanced at the rubble, all that remained of physical Ureh. “But how can we possibly reach such a place, even if it does exist? You said it isn’t part of our world, but in between ours and—and—”

  “And Heaven, yes,” finished the Vizjerei. He returned to his devices, peering through one. “It took Gregus Mazi more than a decade to do it, but because of him, my own calculations took but three years once I had the proper information. I know exactly when it will all occur!”

  “It’s coming back again?”

  Tsin’s eyes widened, and he gave Kentril an incredulous look. “Of course! Have you not been paying attention to anything I have said?”

  “But—”

  “I have told you more than enough now, Captain Dumon, and I really must return to my work! Try not to bother me again unless it is absolutely necessary, is that understood?”

  Gritting his teeth, Kentril straightened. “You summoned me, Vizjerei.”

  “Did I? Oh, yes, of course. That’s what I wanted to tell you. It is tomorrow evening.”

  More and more the slim captain began to wonder if he and Quov Tsin actually spoke the same language. “What’s tomorrow evening, sorcerer?”

  “What we were just speaking of, cretin! The shadow comes tomorrow evening, an hour before night!” Tsin glanced again at his notes. “Make that an hour and a quarter to be safe.”

  “An hour and a quarter . . .” the captain murmured, dumbstruck.

  “Exactly so! Run along now!” The bald Vizjerei became enmeshed in his work once more. Watching him, Kentril realized that the slight figure had already completely forgotten the presence of the two fighters. The only thing that mattered to Quov Tsin, the only thing that existed for him, was lost, legendary Ureh.

  Kentril retreated from the vicinity of the wizened mage, thoughts racing. Now he knew that he had indeed followed a madman. All the talk of gold in the past had made the captain assume that Tsin actually meant that the wealth of the city had been secreted in some cache whose whereabouts could be ascertained only by the direction of the shadows at some point of the day. He had never truly understood that the Vizjerei had literally hunted a ghost realm, a place not of this world.

  I’ve brought us here to chase phantoms . . .

  But what if Tsin were right? What if the legend of the city had any grain of truth? Heaven had no need of gold. Perhaps, as the sorcerer had claimed, it had all been left behind, there for the taking.

  Yet, Humbart Wessel had been offered the opportunity, and not one man of his had risked the shadowed kingdom.

  Kentril Dumon’s hand slipped to his belt pouch, removing from it the elegant brooch he had discovered. For the woman it depicted, he would gladly have journeyed into Ureh, but, failing that, some bit of valuable jewelry from her household or that of another wealthy citizen of the fabled realm would satisfy him just as much.

  It was not as if any of the owners would still need them.

  Zayl watched the band of mercenaries from his posi
tion atop the crumbling guard tower with much trepidation. The men below moved about the ruins like a small but determined swarm of ants. They went through every crevice, searched under every boulder, and even though they obviously met with meager success, they pushed on.

  Pale of skin and with a studious expression more suited to a clerk in a shipping house than to a well-trained and well-versed necromancer, Zayl had observed the newcomers since their arrival. None of his readings had predicted the coming of these intruders, and at such a critical juncture Zayl felt this no mere coincidence.

  Ureh had always been treated most gingerly by the followers of Rathma, who had sensed in it some delicately held balance among the various planes of existence. Zayl knew the legends as well as anyone and knew a little of the true history behind them. Ureh had always drawn him, much to the displeasure and dismay of his mentors. They believed him enchanted by the notion of the astonishing spells utilized and the power one might wield if one learned how to recreate them. After all, the sorcerers of the ancient land had blurred the lines between life and death far more than any necromancer could have ever dreamed. In fact, if the legends spoke true, then the people of Ureh had bypassed death altogether, which went against everything in the teachings of Rathma.

  Zayl, however, did not desire to relearn the secrets of those mages—not that he had bothered to tell his teachers that fact. No, the plain-faced necromancer who now watched the mercenaries through almond-shaped eyes of gray desired something entirely different.

  Zayl sought to commune with the archangels themselves—and the power behind them.

  “Like rats hunting for garbage,” mocked a high-pitched voice from his side.

  Without looking at the speaker, the necromancer replied, “I was thinking more of ants.”

  “Rats is what they are, I say . . . and I should know, for didn’t they gnaw off my legs and arms, then burrow through my chest for good measure? This bunch has the same look to ’em as those beasts did!”

  “They should not be here at this time. They should have stayed away. That would have been common sense.”

  Zayl’s companion laughed, a hollow sound. “I didn’t have enough sense even though I knew better!”

  “You had no choice. Once so touched by Ureh, you had to come back eventually.” The hooded necromancer peered beyond the mercenaries, surveying the region from which their apparent captain had just come. “There is a sorcerer with them. He has not stepped out into the open since he came here, but I can sense him.”

  “Smells that awful, does he? Wish I still had a nose.”

  “I sense his power . . . and I know he senses mine, although he may not realize the source.” Zayl slipped back a little, then rose. The grave robbers would not be able to see him from their much lower vantage points. “Neither he nor his paid underlings must interfere.”

  “What do you plan to do?”

  The black-clad form did not answer. Instead, he reached for a small array of objects previously positioned by his side. Into a pouch he kept handy at his belt went a dagger carved from ivory, two candles nearly burned down to wax puddles, a small vial containing a thick, crimson liquid—and the human skull, minus jaw, that had been the centerpiece of the display.

  “Gently now,” mocked the skull. “We’re quite a height up! I wouldn’t want to be repeating that fall again!”

  “Quiet, Humbart.” Zayl placed the macabre artifact in the pouch, then strung the latter shut. Finished with his task, he took one last look at the treasure hunters below and pondered their fates.

  One way or another, they could not be permitted to be here tomorrow evening—for their sakes as well as his own.

  THREE

  “Cap’n Dumon . . .” Kentril rolled over in his sleep, trying to find comfort on the rocky ground beneath his blanket. Only Quov Tsin had a tent, the mercenaries more accustomed to dealing with the elements. Yet the area around the ruins of Ureh seemed the most disturbing, most awkward of places to try to rest even for such hardened fighters. Throughout the camp, the captain’s tossing and turning were duplicated by every man save Gorst, who most believed could slumber peacefully on a bed of thorns.

  “Cap’n Dumon . . .”

  “Mmm? Wha—?” Kentril stirred, pushing himself slowly up on one elbow. “Who’s there?”

  The nearly full moon shone with such brightness that it took little time for his eyes to adjust to the night. Kentril looked around, noted the snoring forms around the low fires. From the sorcerer’s tent, the snoring sounded particularly loud.

  “Damned place . . .” The mercenary lowered his head again. He would be glad when they abandoned the ruins. Not even the field of battle left him so on edge.

  “Cap’n Dumon . . .”

  Kentril rolled off his blanket, hand already on the hilt of the dagger he always wore on his belt. The hair on the back of his neck stiffened, and a cold chill washed over the mercenary leader as he focused on a figure only a few feet to his right, a figure who had not been standing there a second before.

  Of itself, that discovery might not have bothered the captain, for he himself could move with the utmost stealth. However, what did unnerve him so very much, even to the point where the dagger nearly fell from his shaking fingers, had to do with the fact that the one who faced him could be none other than the hapless Hargo.

  Faced might have been an inappropriate and unfortunate choice of terms, for Hargo no longer had a good portion of his. The right side of his head had been ripped away, exposing skull and rotting muscle. One eye had been completely lost, a deep red and black crater all that remained. The mercenary’s bedraggled beard framed a mouth curled open to reveal death’s grin, and the eye that did remain stared almost accusingly at Kentril.

  The rest of Hargo had fared no better. The right arm had been gnawed away just below the shoulder and the chest and stomach torn wide open, revealing ribs, guts, and more. Only tatters of clothes still existed, emphasizing even more the horrific fate of the man.

  “Cap’n Dumon . . .” rasped the monstrous visitor.

  Now the dagger did slip, Kentril’s fingers limp. He glanced around, but no one else had been disturbed by this monstrous vision. The others all slumbered away.

  “Har-Hargo?” he finally managed.

  “Cap’n Dumon . . .” The corpse shambled forward a couple of steps, water from the river still dripping from the half-devoured form. “You shouldn’t be here . . .”

  As far as Kentril had suddenly become concerned, he should have been back in Westmarch, drinking himself into a stupor at his favorite tavern. Anywhere in the world but where he now stood.

  “You gotta leave, cap’n,” Hargo continued, ignorant of the fact that his own throat had a gaping hole in the side and therefore should not have let him even speak. “There’s death in this place. It got me, and it’ll get you all . . . all of you . . .”

  As he warned Kentril, the ravaged figure raised the one good arm he had left, pointing at his captain. The moon accented the pale, deathly sheen of Hargo’s corpse and the rot already taking place even on the otherwise untouched appendage.

  “What do you mean?” Dumon managed. “What do you mean?”

  But Hargo only repeated his warning. “It’ll kill you all. Just like me, cap’n . . . Take you all dead just like me . . .”

  And with that, the corpse raised his face to the moonlit heaven and let out a blood-chilling cry full of regret and fear.

  A brave man, Kentril still broke. He fell to his knees, his hands over his ears in a pathetic attempt to keep the heart-jolting sound out. Tears streamed from his eyes, and he looked earthward, no longer able to face the ghastly sight before him.

  The cry came to an abrupt halt.

  Still holding his ears, the mercenary captain dared to glance up—

  —And awoke.

  “Aaah!” Kentril scrambled from his bedroll, tossing aside his blanket and stumbling to his feet. Only as he straightened did he realize that all around him his men acted in
similar fashion, shouts of dismay and wild looks abounding. Two men had swords free and now swung them madly about, risking injuring their fellows. One hardy fighter sat still, eyes wide and unblinking, body shivering.

  From more than one Kentril heard whispered or shouted a single name . . . the name of Hargo.

  “I saw ’im!” gasped Oskal. “Standin’ before me as big as life!”

  “Nuthin’ live about him!” snarled another. “Death himself couldn’ta looked worse!”

  “It was a warning!” Benjin declared. “He wants us out of here now!” The fighter reached down for his bedroll. “Well, I’m all for that!”

  Seeing his men in disarray brought Captain Dumon back to his senses. Whatever fearful message Hargo might or might not have delivered, common sense still dictated certain cautions.

  “Hold it right there!” the fair-haired officer shouted. “No one goes anywhere!”

  “But cap’n,” protested Oskal. “You saw him, too! I can see it plain in your face!”

  “Maybe so, but that’s no reason to go fleeing into the jungle, the better to end up like Hargo did, eh?”

  This bit of truth struck all of them. Oskal dropped his blanket, eyes briefly shifting to the murky landscape to the south. Benjin shivered.

  “What do you say, Gorst?” Kentril’s second appeared the most calm of the band, although even he had a perturbed expression on his generally cheerful countenance. Still, it did Captain Dumon some good to see that Gorst had not fallen prey to the panic of the others.

  “Better here,” grunted the massive figure. “Not out there.”

  “You hear that? Even Gorst wouldn’t venture back into the jungle right now! Any of you think you’d survive better?”

  He had them back under control now. No one wanted to reenter that hellish place, at least not in the dark. Even the almost full moon would do little to illuminate the many dangers of the jungle.

  Kentril nodded. “We’ll decide better come morning. Now, sheathe those weapons! Put some order back into this camp, and build up those fires!”