City of Hawks

Chapter 20

“I am called Smokemane,” a deep voice rumbled at him in the language common to men.

Gord swung quickly at the sound. There, as if conjured from the vapors, was the largest lion imaginable, one whose shaggy head was of smoky hue, just slightly darker and less sleek than his dove-gray body. Near this great beast sat another maned male lion of shadow, seeming to be the soot-maned one Gord had seen in the throng of creatures that had encircled him shortly after his arrival on this plane-the one that had left, taking other shadow lions with it, when Gord had requested it to leave.

The cats smiled at him, a gesture perhaps meant to put Gord at ease but one that had the opposite effect. “I go to the place where the Shadowking holds forth,” he managed to stammer to the pair. “Do not inhibit my progress,” he added, not feeling very threatening to such great beasts as these.

The younger of the two, the huge lion with the sooty-shadow mane, actually laughed in lion-fashion as Gord said that. Smokemane, an even larger creature, cuffed him with claws sheathed. “When that one speaks,” he roared, “you listen!”

The old male then turned to Gord once again, saying, “Your destination was told to us by our liege lord. It was he who commanded us to await your arrival, and we are to accompany you as attendants-if it pleases you.”

Despite the pressure of time, Gord allowed himself to stay still, staring at the two shadow-lions with interest. Perhaps great cats could speak, in a language of their kind, but how was it that these shadow-lions could converse with him in man-speech? Animals of this sort weren’t supposed to do that! But, beast or no, Smokemane was indeed speaking in human tongue, and in a manner that indicated that he and his young companion had intelligence far above that of the felines of Oerth, for instance.

Gord had to know just what these creatures were. “You mentioned your liege lord…” he ventured.

“The Mastercat, of course!” the sooty-maned one supplied. The older lion seemed disturbed at his companion’s disregard of protocol but growled a note of assent at the identification.

That seemed believable, even fitting. Shadowrealm was as appropriate a place for felines as the material plane, and it stood to reason that cats here, as elsewhere, would have but one lord.

“How came it to pass that your lord knew of me?” Gord asked.

“When you sent Hotbreath, there, and his pride away from the circle of shadowfolk who had come because of the compelling force you emanated, he spoke of it to me,” Smokemane rumbled in reply. “I would have done nothing in the matter, for such things are beyond the ordinary course of our folk. In any event, it was taken from my claws by the Mastercat. He came to me. asking about any unusual events here, and I related what Hotbreath had said. Thus we are now at this place awaiting your instructions, lord.”

Lord? The gem he possessed must have powers he still did not fathom! “Thanks to you, bold pridemaster… Thank you both,” Gord said to the two huge lions. “As it is the wish of the Mastercat, evidently in return for my regard for his own, I accept your service. I must enter the Chiaroscuro Palace and have audience with the Shadowking. You two will be my attendants in this matter.”

Hotbreath stood and stretched, flexing forth his long claws and displaying his massive teeth. Above and beyond their extraordinary brainpower, shadow-lions, it seemed, were nearly as amply endowed with fangs as the archaic smilodons, the saber-toothed proto-tigers.

Smokemane too exhibited his arsenal of teeth in a relaxed yawn that followed Gord’s words. Then he snapped his maw shut and rasped, “The Shadowking loves not cat-kind.”

If that is true, Gord wondered, then why would the Mastercat command these two to intercept him just as he was about to visit the hall of the ruler of the shadow plane? But that was not quite the question he wanted to ask. First it was important to get to the heart of the matter.

“Why does the lord of this plane bear enmity toward you?”

“You? Better think of it as us,” Shadowmane purred. “That one would have it that all who dwell in shadow either serve him or strive against him. Being able to classify creatures thusly seems to satisfy Shadowking in some perverse way. But we are cats, and our ways are our own. Our lord is what he is, and we honor and serve in our own particular ways as we choose. If others are princes or peasants, what matters that to cat-kind? Alone we stand, go our way, do as seems fitting. Such independence is disturbing to the ruler of this plane, for it seems he would have control, as the puppeteer pulls the strings, for good or ill. You too are independent, aloof, and your own being.”

“Are you saying that Shadowking is malign?”

“Nay,” the big cat said, shaking its massive head in manlike fashion to emphasize the response. “He is not a servant of EMI. Not even I would so designate Shadowking. His self-will goes beyond the acceptable-for us cats, this is condemnation enough. That one desires to remove liberty from others through control, but in fairness it was not always thus.”

“Wise pridemaster,” Gord said with real respect evident, “I am in your debt, for had I gone alone into the hall of Shadowking, I fear nothing beneficial would have occurred-if, as you say, I would have been treated in some way as a lone representative of cat-kind. In the company of two such as you, I see my chances of a fair audience much improved. Time fleets, and we must press on, but one thing still remains uncertain in my mind. You say that the lord of this realm is changed. What brought such ill?”

“That, lord, I cannot say, for the workings of the minds of such as he are beyond my poor reasoning. You are far more competent at such than I, of that I am certain. Perhaps Shadowking himself will say his own rede to you, for he deals more frankly with peers than with other beings.”

“Me, a peer of his? Not quite, doughty one, not quite. You see in me a false might, a puissance lent by what I bear… no more. Still, into Shadowking’s palace I must go. Let us proceed!”

Both mighty lions seemed to smile at that, as is the wont of such great cats when they choose to express feeling and opinion. “We stand beside you,” Hotbreath coughed in a vigorous assent that ended with a chest-vibrating roar. Smokemane too sent forth the deep sound of lionkind. The two were heralding the approach of their charge.

The Chiaroscuro Palace was a rambling affair, part fortress, part pleasure-place. As they neared the massive pile, Gord loosened his weapons in their scabbards, feeling small and insignificant even with Shadowfire in his pouch. He put the feeling aside and motioned to the great cats. Stepping from the cover of the copse of silver and black foliage, he and his flanking escort strode boldly to the principal entrance of the Chiaroscuro Palace. The entrance was made of obsidian and gray marble, with soaring walkways and pennoned domes high above the broad steps leading to the ornate gates that stood open in invitation to the Festival of Gloaming now getting underway. Silvery-sounding trumps competed with thundering drums as the trio approached. Whether in challenge or salutation, the minions of the Shadowking were responding to Gord’s lion-hearted arrival.

“Why are the walls untenanted, the battlements unmanned?” Gord asked the lions softly.

“My nose says this whole place is filled with many two-legged ones, and the formless things as well,” Hotbreath rumbled in response.

Now that he thought about it, this seemed a far more reasonable way to guard a shadow-palace-not with openly visible sentries, but with gloomy, hidden wards. Shadows cloaked, obscured. They were the stuff of nothingness, yet shadows could mask substance. They aided and betrayed and were everywhere and nowhere at once. They were the stuff of illusion… Of course!

Having hit on the likely solution, Gord determined to accept nothing his eyes told him, and he paused and peered upward at the tall facade of the sprawling place. What he saw made his mind reel for an instant The palace was not so grand and ornate as it had seemed. More a stronghold than a whimsical mansion-the court of a warrior, not the palace of a poet and dreamer. Pillars and columns were actually armed soldiers, stone bartizans were actually great, griffonlike guardians of Inky feathers and pearly beaks, perched to plummet upon unwelcome visitors.

Gord pretended to have something in his eye, going through a series of blinkings and rubbings as he scanned what he could. “Do you see any creatures on the battlements? Warriors on the parapets?”

Neither cat responded, although both of the massive lions had swung their maned heads this way and that as Gord had continued to pause and seemingly remove a speck from his eye. The silence confirmed his assumption. Shadowking masked his palace in illusion; layer upon layer was possible, in fact. The young thief determined to do his utmost to penetrate the veils and discover the true nature of the Lord of Shadowrealm and his chiaroscuro stronghold. “Come, my friends,” Gord said jauntily. “Let us pay our respects to the King of Shadow.” Then he ascended the translucent steps of whorled agate, the huge, maned lions pacing him on either hand.

A shadowy figure in swarthy and insubstantial-seeming robes of voluminous sort was standing against a great pillar of stone, a veined column of polished marble that stretched the height of five men to support the arched ceiling of the long antechamber. When Gord and his lion guard neared the silvery doors at the end of the hall, the figure spoke, but the voice seemed to issue from a marble statue forming part of the opposite support. “A noble man, unproclaimed by bearing or device, save for two male lions as guard and escort!”

The lions shifted their eyes toward the statue, so effective was the ventriloquism of the magical major domo who announced them. The metal valves parted instantly at the words, swinging silently and smoothly inward to reveal a seemingly boundless space beyond. Were those real stars? Mool’s ivory disc, too? No, the phantasm was penetrable when Gord concentrated. The chamber was huge, no question, the ceiling of its dome no less than sixty feet above, but it was no more than a massive room in a mighty palace despite the design of Shadowking to have guests see it otherwise.

“For revelers to be welcomed at Twilight-tide,” a soft voice said sweetly, “they must provide their name and nature. Prithee, my lord, favor me with this dear information so that I may proclaim it first to our sovereign.”

Gord saw a darkly beautiful woman, one he judged to be a phantom lady of the court by her dress and demeanor. “An honor and privilege, m’lady. You may state that Gord, High Citizen of Greyhawk of Oerth, has come to pay his respects to the Shadow-king,” he told her, trying not to overtly stare as he sought to determine her real nature.

“As you wish, honorable gentleman,” the lovely lady of shadow replied, switching honorifics smoothly and giving a tiny and appropriate curtsey suited to Gord’s announced status. “But I must say you are too modest,” she added with a fluttering of long, sable eyelashes. “Your bearing and manner proclaim far more of you than the humble rank you claim aloud, and no simple citizen of a free city anywhere comes accompanied by pridemasters as guards.”

A game of words was afoot, so Gord rephrased his status, but played it down instead of exalting it, which would have given the woman more information than she deserved. “Very well. Let us change it then. Say that Gord, a wanderer and rogue, comes to call.”

The woman started a full obeisance, having anticipated something more glorious than she was told. Then, flustered, she halted, recovered herself, and hurried off into the throng populating the ceremonial hall to report her news. Gord smiled to himself. Illusion could be countered with misdirection and simple truth as well. Those who sought to delude were more often confounded by plain speaking and obvious realities than the stuff of which they were masters. Odd, however, that this inquisitress was as she seemed. A lesson, he supposed, to not expect everything to be masked. A subtlety used by the Lord of Shadows that would not be lost upon him.

“Gord, a worthy personage, accompanied by two pridemasters of our realm,” a hushed but pervasive voice intoned. Eyes suddenly turned toward him, and Gord felt a trifle uncomfortable. The company he saw watching him and the two lions included the creatures he knew as adumbrates, plus what were surely gloams with shadowkin retainers trailing after, all interspersed with phantoms, fuligi, shades, murklings, spirits, and humans too. There! That was a small company of draw! Gray-skinned dwarf beside deep-brown gnome, and a smattering of humanoids of unusual sort-beings who recalled to Gord’s mind the ehjure Pinkus, a memorable creature who had accompanied him long ago on another adventure involving illusion and deception.

A square fellow with jutting brows over a broad, honest face approached them with a swaggering gait. “Hello, Gord. You haven’t any idea who I am, I know, but I’ve heard tell of you!” Then the man turned away, and was about to head elsewhere when he turned back and winked a merry eye. “Don’t worry-I’ll not say a word…” and with that the crowd swallowed him up. Shrugging helplessly, Gord stood uncertain as the strains of a strange melody suddenly were struck up, and the place began to become aswirl with dancing couples.

“My lord?” It was the lovely shadow-woman again, smiling up at him uncertainly as she arose from a full curtsey. Gord nodded, and she spoke on. “I am discourteous, but I fear that the king orders me thus. Rather than dancing, His Gloominess commands your presence in the Vault of Veils. Such an audience during this festive time is unheard of,” she added with a hint of awe. “You should be ashamed for misleading a lady so.”

Gord could only smile ambiguously at that. Whatever the reason for it being granted, he did desire an audience with the Shadowking. Even though the monarch had anticipated him, the need remained. “Sometimes, sweet lady, necessity demands that we not always appear as we are, or say all that pertains.”

The phantom smiled and nodded at his words, a look of relief on her pretty features. “Oh yes, of such I am most aware. Lord… Gord?” She made it almost a question and gave a whisper of tinkling laughter at the rhyme. “I should not have felt deceived because you pretended low rank, I know. It was just that I felt drawn by some… no matter, craving your indulgence. I chatter so that I am mortified. This is my first festival as Court Duplitrix, and so many notables make me feel inadequate.”

“You shall prove quite worthy of the position, I am sure,” Gord said, not really having any notion as to what the duties of a duplitrix were-other than carrying messages and gathering up guests and depositing them in other places.

“Here is the entrance to the privy audience, noble Gord. My thanks for being so gracious to me,” she said. “If you need further… ministration, ask for Lady Sabina.”

The dark door before which he stood remained shut. It had no handle, no grill to speak through. Should he knock? Inappropriate. He wished he had asked Sabina about what would be happening, but it was too late for that now. Gord folded his arms and stood waiting in the hall-like alcove off the great ballroom. He could be patient. Both lions sat, likewise awaiting the next move. Minutes passed. No person or thing came their way. Sounds only told Gord that a revel was in progress; save for music and whispery voices, laughter and strange singing, he and the shadow-cats might have been in a world alone. Then the door swung suddenly open to expose its half-foot thickness and the fact that no handle existed on its inner side either.

“Enter.” The command was hollow and unhuman.

The Vault of Veils was a double-diamond-shaped room of smallish proportion, although its V-shaped ceiling was twenty feet high. Veils did, in fact, hang everywhere in the place. Gossamer things depending to canopy the room, screen its walls, and divide its eight points. Each cloth was as fine as spiderweb, as sheer as smoke. That such were not to hide anything from view was evident, but Gord felt certain that some purpose for these trappings existed. In the center of the stone chamber was a table that mimicked the room’s shape. Fifteen seats there were, set evenly around the oddly shaped surface. One was darker, mistier than the rest. In it was a very tall, thinnish man of aristocratic bearing and arrogant visage.

“You may seat yourself anywhere… after you pay homage,” the pearly-skinned monarch of shadow said through thin lips as dark as night. His mouth smiled then, but his ashen eyes, the same color as his hair, were as hard as iron.

Gord bent a knee and bowed his head slightly. The gesture was enough to show respect, too little by far) to demonstrate humility. This Shadowking set Gord’s nerves on edge and made his hackles rise. “My thanks, Gracious Lord of Shadows,” he managed to say without any rancor evident. “You are most kind to allow me to see Your Umbrageous Majesty.”

That almost made the fellow start, Gord saw. “It was you who destroyed one of my adumbrates!”

Shadowking said accusingly. “How do you explain that?”

From a place opposite the shadowlord, Gord smiled gently, patting the head of Smokemane as the lion rested at the young adventurer’s side. “I did not come here to explain, majesty. Suffice to say that the monstrosity dared to attack me after being offensive.”

“So, you dare to actually challenge Me in Mine Own Palace! Imprimus said you were meat for the table of the executioner!”

This was all wrong. In a moment the monarch of this plane would be consigning him to whatever passed for dungeons in the realm of shadows, there to await whatever fate was prescribed for criminals in this realm. Based on what he had learned from the folk in Dunswych, this was not the kind of treatment he expected or deserved. There could be only one answer…

Gord rose to his feet and spat out a single word. “Deception!” He meant that he thought the Shadow-king was being deceived, but as he jumped erect and spoke, something wavered before his eyes. The tall, pearl-complected monarch had changed to a smutty form, a hunched gloam.

“Ho, ho, ho!” A new figure had entered the room and was behind Gord. The laughter was soft but somehow conveyed heartiness and force at the same time. “You have failed, Imprimus. This one saw through your pose. Be a good sport and toddle off now to plot my overthrow or something equally useless, there’s a good gloam!”

Gord turned and saw a replica of the man who had been speaking with him from across the table, only this one didn’t strike a wrong note within him, and the smile he now displayed was real. Now Gord made a more humble obeisance, and stood with head inclined until the true Shadowking had ushered the masquerading gloam from the chamber and taken the seat that Imprimus had usurped. “Your Umbrageous Majesty,” Gord said.

“Gord, wayfarer. I welcome you as a worthy subject of My Realm. Do excuse the silly joke. The gloams are amusing, but their schemes and pranks can be tiresome. Now, My time during Twilight is most limited, so I ask you to hand it over, and then you may have your run of the palace.”

The king’s request certainly meant only one thing. “I must wear a blazon upon my cloak announcing what I bear,” Gord thought. Then, speaking firmly, he addressed the Shadowking. “Your majesty, your kind acceptance of my unbidden entrance into your realm is most generous. Know, however, that I came unwillingly as well. I must humbly decline your acceptance-that of myself as a subject of Shadowrealm-for I am of Oerth and am vassal to no one.”

The Shadowking looked annoyed at Gord’s words. “Oh? By your two pets, there, I assume you have ties to the Mastercat. Be aware, mortal, that I rule here. Your present state does not allow you a choice of liege lords, does it? As your king, I now instruct you to give to Me what is Mine. This audience is concluded.”

Gord rose at that, bowing slightly. The two shadow-lions came to their feet likewise, soft growls sounding deep within their massive chests. “Do you claim the scale of the dragon I wear? My sword? What is it that your majesty asks of me?” Gord asked in feigned confusion.

“Don’t try to play cat-and-mouse with me, whelp of the Mastercat! Hand over Shadowfire or face my wrath!”

“The gem is yours, lord…” Gord replied smoothly. But as the Shadowking smiled, he added, “as soon as you restore my memories to my mind and my body to my own plane.”

“You… you… dare make demands of Me?”

“I crave your pardon, Gloomy Majesty. By no means would I be so foolish as to require anything from so royal a lord as you-unless such generosity and favor were given freely, such as in exchange for some service to your majesty and the realm.”

“It is a trifling matter for me to take it from you.”

“Undoubtedly so. Your might is fabled, Lord of Shadows.”

“Shadowfire. Hold it forth.”

“I fear to do so at this moment, majesty. Perhaps when we have discussed the small things which trouble me, we can then view the stone.”

Dark forms began to fill the chamber. Terrible things were taking shape, and all were inimical to Gord and the great lions. Gord responded by reaching into his pouch, touching the strange black opal, and willing its power to travel along his arm and into his body. As he did so, Cord’s flesh began to radiate an iridescent, opaline paleness that washed outward to make deep shadows penumbral.

In effect he had become the luminary of the chamber, and the beams that he shed had a startling effect. Some of the shadows vanished as the pale beams touched them, dispelling into the nothingness they were in actuality. Those not the stuff of illusion became transparent, as if each were but the ghost of a shadow creature, and, lacking substance any longer, wafted harmlessly through the shadowy material stuff of the place to become helplessly entangled in the veils that festooned the room. Fish caught in nets, once-powerful things of Shadowrealm bleated weakly from their filmy prisons as their overlord watched with a bleak expression.

“So you are conversant with the baser powers conveyed to you by the gem,” Shadowking said with a flat tone of resignation in his voice. “Shadowilre bestows such ability because I placed the power within its heart. What I have made, I can unmake.” The last statement contained no hint of threat, not a touch of braggadocio. Indeed, the Lord of Shadows seemed rather filled with sadness when he uttered the pronouncement. This moved Gord.

“Be at ease, majesty. I have no desire to usurp your rule, to contest with your might-even to place myself into an adversarial position. With all due respect and deference, I am here by no will of my own, but the circumstances of my situation demand that I protect myself vigorously.”

The Lord of Shadows scoffed. “You suggest I regard you as a dear cousin even as your flaunt your lese majesty in My palace! Am I to be blackmailed? Never!”

At that, Gord had to take a firm stand. “Have I made demands of you? It is painfully evident that the situation is quite the opposite. I am without memory of my recent past, a virtual prisoner in this place, this shadowy plane, against my desire, and you seek to strip from me my only means of defending myself here as I seek the means to depart from your realm forever. My cause is just, Shadowking, and my course straight. I have that which you seek-Shadowfire. I know not how I gained it, but never did I take it from you! I will gladly gift the gem to your majesty, but in return I ask your royal word that you will restore my memories and see to it I am carried safely to the material world once again.”

“Yet you might be able to usurp the throne, you know.”

“Begging your pardon, majesty, I know nothing of the sort, nor do I care to discover if there is truth in your assertion. Once more, I offer the opal to your lordship, asking only the two small favors I require in return.”

“You are worthy, Gord,” Shadowking laughed, leaning his long spine deeply into the ebon plush of his chair and tilting his pale face back in order to allow the sound to roll forth unhindered. “Without certainty as to strength, potential, or foes, you decide upon a course and walk that line thereafter. Perhaps you do speak truly… I find no guile in your words, nor do the manifold dweomers which cloak this Vault of Veils indicate aught but honesty.” The Shadowlord tilted back his massive seat and looked at Gord along his aquiline nose, black eyes deep and unfathomable. “Am I to accept you as both peer and honest petitioner, then?”

“For the nonce, your majesty… Who amongst us can claim equality and forthrightness for longer?”

Again, Shadowking laughed. “I begin to actually like you, master Gord. You rule naught but yourself, and only that betimes, I think. Still, you are clever and amusing and speak openly. I accept that. Now I shall do the same. Many who dwell within My Realm, the Plane of Shadows, are not indigenous. These Outlanders come here by choice to continue their chosen ways, and such ones are at odds with me, inimical, as it were…”

“The creatures known as gloams?” Gord asked uncertainly.

“Exactly, young prince, but not restricted to that narrow lot by any means. They are once-humans, you know. The murklings were once gnomes and dwarves; the fuligi, curiously enough, elvish sorts. These migrants, along with evil-natured natives of this plane-shadowkin and others too-have combined to oppose My rule and curry mischief and rebellion. I can no longer trust my adumbrates, for instance, due to the machinations of Imprimus and his ilk. Only the phantoms are basically loyal, and, too, certain other of the lesser creatures of Shadowrealm. This split, the division of my subjects, affects me, of course.”

“Disloyalty is always painful, majesty,” Gord said to fill the silence, for the lean monarch had fallen into a reverie.

“You misunderstand. It is natural, for you are not one subject to such conditions. When one’s realm becomes fractious, then the lord tied thereto suffers accordingly. I, Master Gord, am a dangerous schizophrenic. It is a malady not of my own choosing, nor born of any mental frailty I possess. I am shadow, and as It is torn by factiousness, so too am I. Alternately I am the good, the ill, and the indifferent within the bounds of the plane. Should there develop yet another great division within Shadowrealm, then I fear that I, its monarch, would suffer yet another splintering of my already disjointed personality.”

Aghast, Gord leaped to his feet. “Then I must now offer my sword and my service to you, majesty, in order to restore matters to their rightful state or, failing, lose my life.”

“Pretty sentiments, no doubt nobly voiced. Why, then, your refusal to give unto Me what is Mine? Restoration of the opal orb will do much to mend my torn psyche.”

“What of mine own dilemma, majesty?”

Shadowking looked annoyed. “You are consigned to this plane by means supernatural. Some mighty servant of an evil deity sought your death, or perhaps It was the vile deity personally-no matter! Ere you expired, you sought the power of Shadowfire. It cheated the one who slew you, carrying you here instead of to the kingdom where your slayer sought to consign you. Perhaps even another entity had a hand in that… I can but hazard guesses there.”

“Is there aught which will return me to my own place?”

“This place is your own now. Once I might have been able to change the course of things to your benefit. Not now.”

“Shadowflre?”

“Restorative, longed for. but insufficient.” The lean lord of the shadows slumped gloomily, resigned to his fate.

Gord bowed, placing one knee upon the gray-veined black marble of the chamber’s floor. “Majesty,” he said softly, drawing his sword and holding its chill blade gingerly in gauntleted hands so as to avoid its enervation, “I offer my self and my sword in your service. Will you accept?”

“Yes, for all it may matter to either of us. I have but scant hope.”

“In that event. Lord of Shadows, I gladly give over Shadowfire into your hand,” the young adventurer said with firm resolution ringing in his voice. “No vile sect should ever abridge any sovereign lord in his own domain!”

The master of gloom stretched forth his hand, touching the hilt of the sword in token of his acceptance of Gord’s pledge. In a twinkling, the young man slipped the blade back into its sheath and brought forth the strange stone so sought after by all who knew of it. As if unbelieving still, Shadowking himself now arose and reached out for the opal. “Long and long have I sought Shadowfire,” he murmured.

“It is yours, majesty,” Gord said, firmly placing the glowing sphere within the pale palm of the lord of shadows. “May it never be parted from its rightful owner again.”

The tall being gazed at the precious orb for long moments, unspeaking, unable to speak. Then the Shadowking smiled slightly. “Arise, Gord,” he said in stately tones, “for I now create you a Lord and Knight of Shadowrealm. Stand before me, Count of Twilight, Knight of Chiaroscuro. I charge you with aiding Me during My times of need, of giving service to the Realm of Shadow, and with faithfulness in all your dealings until such time as you may return once more to the place which is rightfully your own.”

These words were sufficient to bring a trickling of recollection back to him. It took a few moments for the surge of memories to emerge, wash over his mind, then sink again into their proper channels. “Dyvers! The black sapphires!”

“That is where you were slain. The gems you seek are here in Shadowrealm.”

“But if-”

The Shadowking raised his pearly-palmed hand. “The forces which split this plane now impinge upon Me most sorely. Before long I shall be as malign as the duskdrake. The gloams now work to undo the weal wrought by your gift, Prince Gord. I resist their evil now only through the renewed force granted by the power of Shadowfire. Leave Me now, for I must fight off the attack alone. When there comes an interlude in the assault, I will summon you again, for there is urgent need of your office in this matter. More I cannot say, now, for who can tell what will occur soon?”

With that the lord of the murky plane seated himself with determination stamped on his features. The Shadowking was about to fight a battle, and in it he had to stand alone.