City of Hawks

Chapter 19

“Most enlightening!” Gord said to himself heartily after all the creatures had gone.

To test his newfound power more thoroughly, Gord then brought the opal’s sphere into contact with the pommel of his sword. The motes brightened and grew larger, each particle seeming to spin and whirl more rapidly. Then the whole multitude of coruscating flashes merged into twin halos of color. One nimbus was coralline, shot through with weaving tongues of snapping scarlet; the other was of peridot hue, and similarly filled with darting arcs of bright emerald.

The transformation took but an instant, and Gord scarcely had time to note the sudden change before the hues intensified and dual bolts shot from either side of the blade to strike a fat-trunked, treelike growth at which the sword happened to be pointing.

“Zow!” Gord exclaimed as he viewed the results, hastily withdrawing Shadowfire from contact with his weapon. Where the shadow-tree had been there was nothing, and the shadow-ground where its roots must have spread was now a gaping hole, a place of deeper blackness from which faint tendrils of silvery stuff wafted upward and away.

“No wonder, then, why Smirtch and the menagerie were attracted to me,” Gord murmured as he carefully sheathed the sword. “This gem is more precious than one might suppose-at least in this realm of shadow!”

With the potent black opal safely back within his pouch, Gord set off to locate the Chiaroscuro Palace of the Shadowking, confident that he could handle any chance encounters along the way. His dweomered blade was more potent here than elsewhere, it seemed, and in combination with Shadowfire something much greater was at his disposal.

“Perhaps this plane is due for a new ruler,” Gord said to himself as he strode along. “No, I take that back… This drabness and gloom is not for me. When I discover how I came here, and how to leave, I shall ask no more than an emperor’s ransom as a parting gift!” Then he tried whistling a jaunty air, but somehow all he could manage was a rather mournful tune in a minor key.

After what seemed several days, Gord had trekked across many miles of the Plane of Shadow. During the course of his journey he had been left alone.-whether by chance or through avoidance, he neither knew nor cared. During the time so spent, however, the young thief had found opportunity to think and observe.

For one thing, he recalled that his flesh had been gray when the adumbrate had forced him to awaken. He remembered assuming at the time that the light had made his skin appear that way. But after his experimentation with the gem, Gord’s complexion had become silvery and he had felt more alive. Then it turned grayish again, and lethargy crept into his body.

Application of the huge opal to his skin seemed to restore the bright sheen to it, so periodically Gord rubbed himself with it. Somehow he had been consigned to this plane, but there was no sense in allowing any transition of his normal self to the stuff of shadow if he could prevent it. He hoped the gem would negate or at least stave off such a metamorphosis. That posed another problem, though. When he was radiating the sheen of argent tone, then the shadow-water and shadow-food he foraged was useless to him. Gord found it slaked not his thirst nor assuaged his hunger.

As he became more like the substance of the plane, the dim waters of sable streams became more substantial, and quaffing them did ease his parched throat and cool his brow. In like vein, the fruits and berries depending from shadow-tree and shade-bush were as nourishing as smoke unless he allowed himself to become shadowy. Gord chose a middle course. Thus he was always somewhat thirsty, his stomach never quite full, his step slightly weary, but it was not difficult to keep going and remain alert. He was no stranger to hardship.

It interested him to note a subtle change that seemed to be occurring as he made his way. Gord thought of the plane as having essentially only two axes of direction. One was parallel to the flow of the terrain, the second was across the current. The first was easy to observe and verify. If one waited in a certain spot, it seemed that all of the plane’s landscape would eventually flow by. The second direction was assumed, but it seemed logical. The landscape slid by, getting more and more distant downcurrent, as he moved along at right angles to the flow.

The longer he traveled on the same path perpendicular to the flow, the faster the shadow terrain slipped by him, before and behind. Therefore, it seemed there were backwaters, of a sort, and a main stream. Gord was certain that if he backtracked on his path and trudged long enough, he would eventually come to the relatively slow-flowing portion of the plane again, and then by continuing he would come once more to the swiftly flowing main portion. This indicated that Shadowrealm had but a single surface and one edge. How broad the surface? How long the edge? Those questions he had no desire to speculate upon. He decided that such thinking could only bring disheartenment.

After more time, the movement of the terrain seemed to slow its pace. How long a period had elapsed there was no telling, but the time had certainly come to alter his course. Gord found a likely spot, a place where there was a hill dotted with berry bushes, around which a little pond spread to cover three sides of the elevation. Trusting that his presence upon the high mound would suffice to hold the shadow-water in place too, Gord sat down and waited. Rather than traversing the entire plane on shank’s mare, he would let the realms of shadow come past his vantage point.

He had been sitting, staring dully upflow, for an interminable period when something began to nag at his consciousness. A corner of Gord’s mind sent alarm signals along nerve paths, but his brain was so occupied with other thoughts that he hardly recognized the signals. He did shift uncomfortably and begin a slight unconscious jiggling of his crossed leg. This reaction so annoyed him that Gord forced his body into absolute stillness.

Sitting rocklike, he assessed what had caused the sudden burst of twitching and unease. That’s when something clicked, and the warning flashed through him in a prickling wave. Too late…

“Greetings, man!” a basso voice rumbled from behind, and a chilling rush of damp, fetid breath wafted over his shoulders as the words were spoken. Another man might indeed have been as good as dead then, but not so Gord. Even as the first word sounded, he was diving and rolling in a somersaulting maneuver that brought him out of range of Immediate danger In a fraction of a second. The salutation was punctuated by a loud snap, as if great teeth had closed suddenly. As this sound occurred, Gord was cartwheeling off to the right so rapidly that a mortal eye could hardly follow his gymnastic performance.

With a spring that brought him to a position that flanked the spot he had rested in a moment before, Gord crouched and drew forth his blades. Before his gaze was a long, wormy shape of near-transparent shadows. The great head however showed very substantial-looking teeth, and the monstrous thing’s eyes glowed with a baleful, opalescent light as it swung its horrid snout toward the place its intended victim now occupied.

“My fondest regards, worm!” Gord managed to utter. Then he was moving again-just in time, it seemed, for from the monstrous creature’s mouth gouted a stream of utter darkness that shot forth to engulf the area where Gord had been but an instant previously. The gray vegetation flickered with colorless fire, and was gone everywhere the ebon gout touched.

The shadow-dragon hissed angrily as it discovered the inky gout had not touched this agile little victim after all. Well, there were many ways to handle men and their kind, the creature decided. The dark worm had many means of attack in its arsenal, and a potent magic spell seemed quite in order now, for the man now dared to stab at his precious hindquarters with his puny sword.

“Ffaaahh!” The sound of pain issued forth unbidden as the silvery blade actually pierced the worm’s thick scales and sunk a foot into its body. Now the human would suffer!

Deciding to save its pitchy breath for later, the monster began to hiss forth the sounds that would create the magic of ribboned hues here upon the shadow plane-a weapon that never failed! While the insignificant fool gazed stupidly at the weaving stream of color, he, Vishwhoolsh, would rend the offending one into tasty bits to be devoured casually at his leisure.

Then the streamer appeared suddenly, actually entwining itself around the stupid man! Vishwhoolsh was ecstatic, and writhed round to finish his work, taking his gaze away from his quarry for a couple of seconds.

“You lend brightness to a drab world,” Gord laughed as the massive head of the shadow-dragon turned and once again came snaking toward him. Certainly the thing was startled, for the rainbow now formed a flowing figure-eight around the young thief’s sword, and as the colors played they changed and altered to become but two hues, mossy green and magenta.

The sword’s negation of his magic was bad enough, but quickly the ebon-hued worm’s lambent gaze fixed on an even more upsetting sight. Gord held Shadowfire now so that the orb rested lightly against his weapon’s dark pommel, and the flame within the heart of the black opal seemed to pulse and sway in rhythm with the dancing band of colors made from the dragon’s own magic.

“Spare me!” the thing hissed, transfixed, as the bicolored band suddenly became a darting tongue that shot out and twisted around the worm’s long neck The colors were no longer touching the sword, but were still controlled by it.

“Why?” snarled Gord. “You would not have showed me the same kindness!”

“I have a rich hoard. Spare my life, greatest of men, and I will bestow all my treasure upon you in return.” The creature hissed forth its plea in a voice laden with evil despite its attempt to sound pleasant and promising.

With a twitch of his blade, Gord caused the twin-colored strand to tighten suddenly, making the black worm gulp and swallow the gush of foul stuff it was about to vomit forth upon him. “I grant you mercy,” Gord said with a grim face. “The mercy of a quick end!”

As he spat out the last words, the young adventurer raised the sword’s blade so that it pointed directly at the worm. The mossy hue suddenly changed to glowing bright green, and the magenta turned to brilliant red. The monster stiffened as if its head and tail were being pulled in opposite directions by a colossal titan, rising parallel to the shadowy ground as it did so. The two colors infused the shadow-dragon’s entire body, inculcating the gloomy substance with twin hues of brightness before turning dim. As the colors faded away, so too did the monster.

“And I never learned its name,” Gord remarked in mock sorrow.

A single huge scale lay on the ground nearby. The metallic thing must have come free from the shadow-dragon’s hide when Gord had struck it with his sword. He pierced the plate twice, a laborious process even with his enchanted dagger, and then ran a thong through it. The glittering bit of dragon’s armor was as broad as both of his palms and long as his hand. Gord hung it around his neck as if it were a gorget, thinking it was a suitable memento of his encounter with the beast. Then he resumed his seat on the flat boulder and waited once again.

An indefinite time later, the young thief was startled from his reverie by something new. This time there were no flashes of warning, and he was uncertain what it was that caused his numbed thoughts to suddenly become alert. Then it came to him. Penumbral rows of shadow vegetation had flowed into his vicinity and were standing, so to speak, to either hand. Shadow-crops to feed shadow-folk and phantom-kine… Without moving a muscle, he had come to the outskirts of a town!

The village could have been transplanted from Oerth-from someplace near to Greyhawk, in fact-save for its deep shade and insubstantial-seeming stuff. Gord thought that if he made himself glow with the silvery radiance bestowed by the great stone, he could walk through shadow-brick and umbrageous stone as if it were gossamer. He did nothing of the sort, however. Choosing to remain looking as much a native to this plane as he could, he strode toward the village, knowing that his former hillock perch would be slipping off into the distance behind him as soon as he abandoned it.

“Ho, stranger! What want you in Dunswych?” The challenge came from a large, bow-armed fellow wearing what Gord assumed was a jack of shadow-leather sewn with horn plates. Shadow-stuff was still rather difficult for him to distinguish. When Gord hesitated in replying, the big fellow slipped his long bow from his shoulder and casually nocked a sable-feathered shaft, whistling loudly as he did so.

“Peace, stalwart!” Gord called at that, showing open hands. “I am but a lone and friendly wayfarer seeking a place to eat and rest, a little drink to refresh myself.”

The arrow remained aimed halfway between the ground and Gord as another half-dozen shadowy folk hastened to join the first. Each was armed in some fashion-axe, hunting spear, flail, fork Common but efficient weapons, used by freemen everywhere for both work and defense.

“You are no phantom!” the bowman said in a tone half awestruck and half accusatory.

“Quite so,” Gord laughed in response, “but I daresay we have other things in common.”

What had been meant as a jest seemed to have the desired effect, setting the minds of these folk at ease. Ready arms were eased from striking positions, and the bow-armed fellow reslung his weapon. “Yes, of course. You expected naught but shadowkin, did you?” At that there was a little ripple of uneasy mirth. Then the big one saw what graced Gord’s neck. “Where came you upon that dragon scale?” The query was both suspicious and curious at once. The others crowded closer to see what their comrade had spoken of, and there were whispers of awe as they viewed the makeshift gorget.

“This?” Gord responded with a negligent pinch at the tar-hued scale. “An obliging dragon, one of shadow-stuff like all round here, was kind enough to leave it for me ere I sent it to its just end.”

“You lie!” This sentiment, in several specific forms, came almost simultaneously from the assemblage.

That provoked him a bit, and the young man’s face darkened with anger as he retorted. “Lie!? See if you think this blade lies,” he snapped as his sword seemed to spring into his hand magically. The villagers started to raise their weapons for an attack, but their anticipation proved wrong. “See here, fellow,” Gord said to the bowman, presenting him the blade. He had not bothered to wipe the shadow-dragon’s blood from it, for the silvery metal was enchanted and never seemed to corrode. “Is this not the dried gore from the very sort of monster I speak of?”

The big phantom, as he had called himself, examined the sword, carefully picking off a bit of the crusted blood and examining it. After sniffing, feeling, and even gingerly tasting a flake of the stuff, the fellow decreed it to be dragon’s blood indeed.

“Stranger, you are welcome in Dunswych!” he said happily. “The longer you choose to stay with us, the better, in fact,” and the others echoed this feeling to a man… or to a phantom.

Later, seated in a chair at the village tavern, Gord learned more of Dunswych. The community was one of only a score or so that existed on the Plane of Shadow. All of them were populated by the phantom folk. There were decayed towns and vast, ruined cities too, but gloams and their servants, the shadow-kin, inhabited these desolate places. While phantoms sought to dwell in peace and behaved very much as human commoners would, husbanding and farming, hunting and fishing, the gloams were baneful and destructive parasites that preyed upon the community of phantom folk.

When Gord inquired why their lord didn’t protect them better from such depredations, the locals were quick in defense of their sovereign, the Shadowking. “The gloams are quite like rebellious nobles,” the elderly master of the village explained. “Our king has not enough strength to subdue these marauders… Such slipped from his grasp long and long ago. Why, my own grandsire couldn’t remember the time when the Great Gloams were faithful-although he told me that in his younger days the lesser of their sort were still vassals of the Chiaroscuro Palace.”

The monster he had slain, the shadow-dragon-Vishwhoolsh, as the phantoms named him-was an ally of the gloams. Had been, rather, Gord corrected himself mentally. One of the reasons for the paucity of hamlets and villages in the realm was the dragon. Each year he would select a place to terrorize, settle down nearby, and proceed to devour all of the livestock and phantom folk dwelling in the vicinity. When the place became deserted, the dragon simply moved on. Vishwhoolsh had been able to scent out his prey from leagues distant.

“Even with the dragon’s demise, lesser minions might be sought out and enlisted by the gloams,” the village leader said with grim satisfaction evident upon his shadowy features. “But such puny things as will come can be dealt with by dweomered shafts and the Shadowking’s spell-binders!”

Score one for justice for a change, Gord reflected. These phantoms were human enough to make the young thief feel comfortable, to enable him to relate to them as if they were flesh-and-blood humans. Perhaps they would be, or were once, on his own world. “I seek the Chiaroscuro Palace,” he told them. “I believe that your lord and I might transact business to our mutual satisfaction.”

“That is indeed too bad,” the bowman said quietly. “It passed us not two leagues distant but a day ago, but it flows rapidly, and by now it must be a score or more miles beyond.”

“How soon will it approach again?”

“Hmm… It is a difficult problem, reckoning time here,” the bowman said with a shake of his ashen-colored locks. “It comes perhaps four times in a hundred sleeps. This time was just before the Festival of Twilight, when the heavens brighten and Mool’s disc grows penumbral and waxen-a time of great merriment! You must stay for our own celebration here in Dunswych!”

“No, I fear I must find your king.”

“No good now, friend,” one of the villagers assured him. “After Twilight, these lands grow most livid Indeed, and thereafter the Shadowking sets forth on his rounds. He is but seldom in his hall at such a time, and when he is away, you’ll not be welcomed there. Gloams creep in, you know.”

“When is Twilight?” The question seemed odd, here in this place of near darkness.

“Any time now. stranger, any time! We make preparations even as you ask. Let us eat, drink, and then go abed for a bit. There will be those to awaken us when the time is right.”

Gord was making rapid mental calculations. There was a chance he could pull it off. “Can anyone here guide me to the place where your king’s palace was yesterday?”

“Of course! I will gladly do so right after Twilight,” the bowman said heartily, swigging his black ale.

“No, I mean now, this minute! I wish to be taken to the exact spot, distance-wise, where the Chiaroscuro Palace was last seen. Can and will you do that?”

The big phantom took only an instant to consider the request. “It is easy, for I am a hunter. If we hurry, I can have you there in about a quarter-sleep-sooner if you mind not jogging as the dingewolf does.”

Pleadings to hurry back, mixed with good wishes, followed the two as they trotted from the village into the black and gray of the land. Now that Gord was aware of what was coming, the face of the strange luminary above did seem lighter, the illumination it provided less dim, and the faintly glowing black specks that were Shadowrealm’s stars were hardly visible in the gloom above.

Gord was a tireless runner, and he pushed his guide hard. They came to the spot the fellow was sure was the right one within about an hour and a quarter by Gord’s reckoning, based in part on his heartbeat, in part on an inner time sense. The ever-paling face of Mool hung motionless overhead now.

“I must say goodbye, stranger,” the bowman said. “Luck in all you undertake!”

“Thanks, phantom friend,” Gord called back, already jogging downcurrent. “My hopes for prosperity in Dunswych henceforward!” Then the phantom was out of sight and Gord was running hard in the direction the palace had been seen flowing. When he grew winded, he paused, rubbed himself with the flame-hearted opal, and then dashed on again, covering ground as does a dark wind blowing fiercely from the north.

The terrain of Shadowrealm flowed, of that there was no question. Yet, when one moved along the flow, up or down, or even across, the movement altered somehow. Thus, the destination Gord sought was not moving away from him-at least not as rapidly as if he were not coming toward it from behind. Under the ever-lightening disc of Mool, Gord raced. When his muscles again grew tired, and that occurred all too soon, he renewed his vigor with the opal and trotted onward. His pace ate up yards, and yards grew quickly into miles. When he became truly weary, Gord pulled out Shadowfire a third time, concentrated, and pressed the opal sphere to his flesh. Tingling flowed into him, and his skin began to shine with the luster of ancient silver. That was enough-more, and he might actually sink through the fabric of this place!

Like quicksilver he ran, and that suited his looks well. The luminary above was just becoming the color of old tallow when Gord spied a massive structure on the gray horizon ahead. It was a huge place of towers, turrets, spires, and flying buttresses-the Chiaroscuro Palace of the Shadowking at last!