Cloak of Shadows

9

The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 17

Shadows danced and shivered around the edges of the scene in the portal. Six sweating elder Shadowmasters, under the gasped directions of Bheloris who stood among them, trembling with effort, fought to hold its view so large and clear.

Most of the kin-sixty or more-were in the Great Hall of the Throne now, but the bell tolled on. Everyone but the struggling elders was talking excitedly, eyes glued to the portal, which showed Dhalgrave sprawled on the gleaming tiles of his private audience chamber. His eyes were two smoldering, empty holes. A long forked tongue trailed from his mouth, and his brow and wrists were bare. The Shadowcrown and the Doomstars were gone.

There was more. A word had been written on the tiles beside the head of the Shadowmaster High… written in his own blood. That word was "UNWORTHY."

The talk was growing excited, as hope to seize the Shadow Throne grew in the hearts of two dozen Malaugrym, tempered only by fear of what might befall anyone who tried to hold that throne without the Shadowcrown and the threat of the Doomstars. Even if the ambushes and treacheries of open rivals were quelled, whoever had the missing items could appear without warning and slay any new Shadowmaster High, to take the throne in turn.

"Who could have done this?" Taernil asked for the sixth time, his voice as awed and outraged as it had been at first. Beside him, Huerbara sighed.

"Someone has," she said simply. "Accept that and go on. What now, for the two of us?"

"Accept that someone-" The rising rage in Taernil's voice broke off abruptly, and he fell silent and looked at her. "You're right. We must decide what to do, and not rage or dither." Then his sharp features changed, and he added softly, almost wonderingly, "The two of us, you said…"

Huerbara blushed, eyes glittering into his, and then abruptly turned her head away.

"Young idiots," Kostil said under his breath, flapping his wings down to reabsorb them into his body, eyes on the quivering scene of Dhalgrave dead in his chambers.

Yabrant shrugged beside him. "We all were, once." He seemed about to say more, but at that moment Bheloris shuddered, cried out, and pitched forward on his face — and the scene of death flew apart into shards and streamers of radiance, fading swiftly into the mists.

"He managed to force the portal's eye through Dhalgrave's defenses?" Kostil muttered. "I'm surprised he held it together so long."

"Dhalgrave wasn't resisting him or directing the shield spells," Yabrant said thoughtfully. "The feat is not that impressive. Doing it with such swiftness is."

"The young she-kin's question remains a good one," Kostil said. "What to we do now, the two of us?"

"Rescue Bheloris, before one of his old rivals decides to take advantage of his condition. We'll need him," Yabrant said, shouldering his way forward. "I believe the killing's about to start."

As he spoke, shouts arose across the Great Hall, and there was frenzied movement. The flaring radiance of a spell followed, accompanied by a scream, as the unleashed magics returned to their caster.

"Didn't that idiot pay any attention to Dhalgrave's words about the defenses he'd added to this hall? He made enough noise about 'a truly safe meeting-ground for all of the blood of Malaug' and such!" Kostil's voice was disgusted. "Do we really share kinship with total idiots?"

"It's a common fate in the multiverse, I'm told," Yabrant replied wryly as they forced their way to Bheloris. They found Neleyd there before them, his body shifted into a shield of many curling tentacles. "Well done, boy."

Neleyd flushed at the words, then sighed and asked, "Am I to be 'boy' forever?"

"No," Kostil told him kindly. "You get to alternate between that, 'young fool,' and 'brainless youngling' for a few hundred years yet."

"I'll enjoy that," Neleyd told him dryly, as the chamber rocked under the impact of two warring explosions, and kin all around them grew weapons out of their limbs and began shouting and hacking. "Let's be gone!"

"Wisely said, young fool," Yabrant told him with a many-fanged smile.

His expression was matched by a figure none of them saw, who stood watching the tumult from a high, shadow-cloaked balcony. Milhvar smiled only that once, then turned silently away. There was much to do.

Somewhere in Faerun, Kythorn 17

Elminster paused for a moment on a hilltop, his eyes full of swirling stars. The sight that showed him the flows of Art-that is, where magic could be expected to twist wild-was an exhausting thing to use for long, but he had to be sure of his next move. He had a long, hard day ahead, what with avatars stalking around Faerun, egos first, trying to destroy anything and everything that so much as looked askance at them.

A thought brought his pipe whizzing around his head to his lips, and he puffed on it thoughtfully. Over there was the next battle to be fought, aye, but first…

He leaned forward, banished the mage-sight, and called on farseeing for a moment. A gnarled tree, bark crumbling off a dead limb that curved just so… and the ground beneath… a-hum. Enough. Do it!

Abruptly the hilltop was empty except for a silently circling pipe. An instant later, the pipe vanished too.

Faerun: a camp on the High Road south of Tunland, then Hawkgauntlet, Kythorn 18

"I told ye to strike at the goblins, an' leave the orc to me! Tempus take thee for a softskull, lad! Now we'll have to… leave him lie."

"To die." It was not a question.

"Get out of my sight!" the old warrior roared, rounding on the younger with his eyes blazing almost-visible flames. The younger man fell back, fumbling for his blade in fearful habit. "If ye knew how to rotting take orders as well as ye know how to rotting well ignore 'em, we'd not have to be leaving anyone! Go now, afore I really lose my temper!"

The young warrior gulped, spun about, and ran.

The older armsman spat after him and then turned back to the injured priest of the Wargod, who lay clutching at a lapful of his own steaming innards where an orc scimitar had bitten deep. "Roarald?" he asked roughly. "Are ye with us yet, man?"

"I… I suppose," the reply came dully, the priest's eyes not seeing him. "Beware, Symon. I may be the luckier of us two. The days ahead will be dark. I have seen gods walking Faerun, and whole cities laid waste, and the land much changed. Titans clash with their heads among clouds and their feet trampling us poor folk beneath, and rivers run black with poison… and more death than any war has brought to this world. No good. No good I've seen… no end that Tempus would show me." He caught his breath for a moment, and then gasped, "Symon! I am much afraid. Speak gently to the boy, for my sake. He was only… a helpful fool, and we've all been that a time or two."

The old warrior took him by the shoulders. "Don't leave us, Roarald! Call on Tempus, man! Surely he owes ye something, after all these years! Surely he'll-"

"Speak not of the god that way!" Roarald was protesting feebly under his hands. "The way of Temp-"

"Surely he does," a powerful, melodious voice thundered around them.

The two men gaped, dumbfounded, at the man-high, glowing battlesword-of one piece of deadly blue-black metal, standing vertically with its point not quite touching the ground-that stood beside them. A sword that had certainly not been there before. That thunderous voice issued from it again.

"Stand clear, good Symon. Thy loyalty to a comrade pleases me."

White to the lips, the old warrior hastily scrambled back, going to his knees in the mud. "M-my pardon, Great Lord! I meant no presumpt-"

"I know this. Be still now." The sword began to move, and the old warrior gulped once and was silent.

The black blade drifted silently through the air to hang with its point above Roarald's hands, where they clutched at his bloody vitals.

"I need ye, faithful servant. I need thy obedience and strong arms to keep order in this Time of Troubles. I need thy continued service, Roarald of Tempus. Will ye obey me still?"

"L-lord," the priest gasped, "I will… if I can."

"Then go to Luskan, and put down a rising of dark wizards who seek to plunge all the North into bloody slaughter not sanctioned by me. They seek to whelm all the Uthgardt tribes, rule their minds with potions and spells, and hurl them upon the cities of the North, Neverwinter first. Ye will gather my faithful against them, and Symon here will aid ye. The strife will be hard, and there may well be death in it for ye both. Knowing that, will ye do this?"

"I will!" Roarald gasped, a pink froth rising to his lips. "But, Lord, I-"

"Be still! Symon, will ye do this?"

"Lord of Battles," the old warrior said, face to the ground and teeth chattering, "I will!"

"It is good. Roarald, draw thy hands away from thy belly."

Hastily the priest did so, and the sword plunged down.

A blaze of white fire shrouded the priest's agonized scream.

When he could see again, Symon struggled to his feet.

"Roarald? Roarald, do ye live, man?"

The priest was rising whole and strong, the stains of blood and dirt gone from his body. "I do," he said, wonder in his voice. "I live!"

"Praise be to Tempus!"

"Praise be!" the priest agreed, and clapped his comrade on the shoulder. "Speedily, now-find the boy and our horses. We ride on Luskan without delay!"

As Symon hurried off, the priest went to one knee and whispered, "Thank you, Tempus. I shall not forget."

"See that ye don't," a quiet voice came from the empty air, startling the man. He gulped, got up hastily, and ran after Symon.

And behind him a black sword melted out of the air, wavered, and became a thoughtful-looking old man, worn and much-patched robes draped about his thin frame. The morning sun gleamed on the man's long white beard and whiskers as a pipe floated into view from somewhere in the trees nearby and drifted gently up to the old man's mouth.

"That's done," Elminster muttered. "Too good a man to lose, Roarald, even if he is as stubborn as an old post. Hmmph! A certain Queen of Aglarond has used those same words to describe me a time or two, hasn't she?"

He strolled away, calling to mind the next place he'd viewed from the hilltop-and abruptly he was there, worn boots stepping onto the soft ground behind a tent.

"Another one dead? Have all the gods cursed this caravan?" The voice was proud and angry. "Who is it this time?"

"Mider, sir. He's-eaten away, sir, like the others. Only his feet left, and his scalp. In his tent, still in his blankets."

"Was he the only one of us alone in a tent?"

"Yes, sir. Albrar was his tent mate, until…"

"I know. Maybe it's something they were carrying, the two of them. Burn that tent and everything in it, just as it stands. Now!"

"Yes, sir." There was the sound of hastily receding booted feet, followed by a rustling of canvas and tent silks.

"Do they suspect?" a new voice asked in a whisper that did not carry beyond the ear it was said into.

"Mider did, but it's just a little too late for him, now," was the amused reply. The shared mirth that followed was silenced by the meeting of lips, a mouth-coupling that soon became a frantic, muffled screaming as the doppleganger couple found themselves locked in their embrace, immobilized by something that had twisted them into their true, monstrous shapes, and frozen them there. Something that drifted up from the tent like a ghostly mist and whirled back into the shape of Elminster.

"It shouldn't take long for someone to find them," he said, turning away in satisfaction. "Live by trickery, die by trickery. That'll be my ending too, no doubt, when at last it comes."

He stepped through the trees to where his pipe hung. "Now I'd best hurry," he murmured. "Galdus hasn't much time left." And then he was gone, an instant before a guard, drawn sword in hand, came warily down the path in search of the privy bench.

The Hawkgauntlet Arms was distant indeed from that privy bench at the back of the caravan camp, but it was the pride of Hawkgauntlet, a hamlet north and west of Ilipur too small to grace any map. And too poor to loot, unless one was a brigand too hungry to care.

Elminster shoved open the groaning front door and stepped into the gloomy taproom beyond. The old man behind the bar blinked at him in the sudden shaft of daylight. "We're not open yet," he said gruffly. "Come back at sundown."

"I'm not thirsty, Galdus," the Old Mage replied, coming to the bar. "I've come to give ye something."

The old man's eyes narrowed, and he peered at Elminster in the dimness. "I know you, don't I?" he asked thoughtfully. "That voice…"

"The magefair when Almanthus tried to make the mountain fly," Elminster reminded him gently. The man's head snapped back.

"Elminster?"

"The same," El said, sliding a coin across the bar with one finger.

The old man stared at it, and then up at him. "What'll you have?"

Elminster shook his head. "I need ye to do something for me. Four things, actually."

The old man blinked again, and grinned. "That sounds like the Elminster I knew, to be sure."

"Ye have only a few minutes left to live, if ye do these four things wrong," the Old Mage said softly. "So heed."

Galdus glared at him, then swallowed and nodded. It had been years since he'd worked magic, and he knew he'd been no match for Elminster even at the height of his striving. "Say on," he said shortly.

"Armed men are coming this way-hungry and ruthless wild-swords," El said, "and they'll be here very soon. I need ye to stand still whilst I cast two spells on thee."

Galdus sighed. "Do it," he said simply. El nodded, and made two quick sets of gestures, touching the old bartender at the end of each.

"What-what did you do?"

"Made ye immune-for a little while-to all harm from weapons of iron and to all thrown or hurled things, like arrows. The same cannot be said for anyone else ye may employ or dwell with here. So the second thing I need ye to do is to keep all such folk from harm. Warn them now, but be quick!"

Galdus stared at him for a moment, then ducked his head through the door behind him and spoke quickly and sharply. Then he closed the door, and Elminster heard a bar being settled across it from within. "Done," the old man said simply.

"I need ye to give this coin to the men when they demand money of ye. Best give them a handful to go with it, so they don't suspect a trick."

Galdus reached down behind the bar, opened a cupboard door, and dumped the contents of an old, cracked earthen jar onto the bar. A gleaming fan of silver and copper coins slid out. "I'll be counting coins when they come in, then."

El nodded. "I couldn't help but notice, on my way in, that thy outhouse is a bit of a ruin," he said, nodding his head in its direction.

"That one?" Galdus grinned. "We don't dare use it. When it falls in, I'll have the lads take away what they want, for manure. If you have to feed the gods, the real one's out back."

It was Elminster's turn to smile. "Feed the gods? I hadn't heard that expression!" He chuckled, then stopped at the look on the old man's face. "Ye call it that because of what befell ye at the temples?"

Galdus nodded, face set. It had been forty summers ago that his health had been broken and his magic torn from him by two warring priests in Sembia. Their temples had grown in size and splendor, and doubtless they'd grown fat and powerful with them, but Galdus had been left with only one spell he could use. There's not much future for a mage who can create magical radiance at will, and do nothing else.

Elminster leaned forward across the bar. "If it makes ye feel better, old friend, know that all the gods have been cast down into Faerun. That's what's behind all these troubles-the wild magic and roaming monsters, outlaws and armies everywhere. The gods are wandering Faerun with little more up their sleeves than ye or I have. A lot of folk will get hurt, aye, but at least the gods'll be feeling just what ye went through."

Galdus stared at him, slack jawed. Then a deep red color slowly rose in his face, and he leaned forward with the first enthusiasm El had seen in him. "Is this true?" he asked excitedly, and then paled. "I–I didn't mean…"

El smiled. "Be easy, Galdus. Yes, it's true."

And then the old, balding bartender threw back his head and bellowed with laughter. "Yes!" he cried. "Yes!" He whooped, jumped around behind the bar, and with sudden resolve snatched up a cracked tallglass and hurled it exultantly across the taproom. Watching it shatter into a thousand shards in the empty fireplace, he looked up with fierce exultation in his face and said,

"Where are these brigands? I'll face 'em, and fifty more besides! Bring 'em on!"

Elminster grinned. "There's the fourth thing," he added.

"What?" Galdus grinned back.

"Ye may have to lose that old outhouse," El told him. "And I hope ye have a fire in the kitchen ye can get to swiftly, with some logs on it that're well and truly alight, but have unburnt ends ye can carry 'em by."

Galdus stared at him for a moment, and then laughed again. "I have, and can. What's this all about?"

"Well," El began, "just be sure ye say With Elminster's regards' to whoever touches that coin, an-"

The door banged open suddenly, and the Old Mage was gone, as if he'd never been there. Galdus blinked at where he'd been and then at the drawn swords coming across the room at him, followed by the stench of old sweat and desperate men.

"Counting the coins, were ye? Well, I think that right kindly of ye, to save us the trouble of finding 'em. Go and get yer real savings, old man, with Baerlus here beside ye to save tricks, while we have a pull or two at a keg o' yer best!"

"Who-? What're y-" Galdus began, struggling to keep a smile from his face. Then he saw the man's hands raking the coins across the bar, and knew the enspelled one might bounce and roll on the floor in a moment, so he stammered, "With Elminster's regards!"

"You fools," he added a breath later, watching the coin erupt into wildly coiling black tentacles. The five brigands shouted in alarm, and the one who must be Baerlus snarled and drove his blade into Galdus, under the old man's ribs, jerking his steel savagely up and sideways.

Galdus stared down in wonder as the weapon slid through him as though he were a ghost. He didn't feel a thing! The outlaw stared up at him, face paling, and then hacked wildly at him, the blade whipping back and forth like a flail on the threshing floor.

The blade seemed not able to touch him, though he felt the man's knuckles graze his shoulder on one wild swing. Baerlus stared at him, dumbfounded. Galdus snatched a wooden salad bowl from its wall peg and brought it down smartly on the man's sword hand.

Baerlus howled and stepped back, dropping his blade with a clatter, so Galdus leaned in and walloped him across the side of the head with the edge of the bowl. The outlaw staggered and stepped back, right into his four fellows.

They were thrashing and grunting in fear, staggering around his taproom helplessly in a confused tangle of arms and legs. The coin had become a black ball with many long tentacles that stuck to flesh as a sucking eel sticks to fish. The tentacles were wriggling and probing constantly but didn't stick to clothing, weapons, or wood. The four outlaws-no, five now, with Baerlus-were firmly bound together, unable to straighten up or even turn to face each other as the tentacles pulled them in closer together… and closer still…

Galdus watched the brigands struggle, slipping and sliding on the coins and swords that lay dropped and forgotten all over his recently cleaned floor. They crashed aside chairs and even a table, yelling in muffled fury and mounting fear, and rolled about, their struggles taking them vaguely away from the bar.

The front door groaned open again, and Galdus looked up warily, wondering if he could reach any of the swords on the floor. The man who stepped inside, however, was Elminster.

"My apologies, Galdus," he said. "I'd something else to attend to and no time to do it in. But 'tis done now."

"Can I-may I ask what it was?"

"I had to talk a few frightened archpriests in Baldur's Gate out of starting a religious war-on each other."

"Why bother?" Galdus asked, frowning. Then his frown deepened. "Did it work?"

"No, of course not, so I had to scare them into a truce by showing them what I'd do if they didn't make peace."

"You flattened both temples," Galdus said hopefully.

Elminster grinned. "I see ye know the basics. I did indeed. Rebuilding and trying to keep folk from looting will keep both sides busy for a time." He stepped carefully around the tangled knot of rolling, kicking brigands and continued. "And to answer thy other question, I bothered because I didn't want to see a lot of homes burned and innocent folk slain in the Gate over some disagreement that had nothing to do with them." He sighed. "This is going on all over Toril, right now. First thing this morn, I had to do the same thing to head off rival factions of illithids, in a city in the heart of Raurin."

Galdus stared at him. "Mind flayers? You stopped mind flayers from killing each other? Why?"

"They're intelligent folk too, just as ye, I, and these dolts here are. And besides, they're sitting on enough battle spells there to destroy half the eastern Realms! I didn't want any tentacle-heads to remember that and start tearing open vaults and using 'em. A few hundred years more, and most of the scrolls will have crumbled away to nothing… and it'll take them half that time to dig out all the stonework I piled up on top of those vaults!"

Galdus grinned. "Make sure you check back with me in a few hundred years, then, to let me know Faerun is safe to live in at last. In the meantime"-he gestured down at the tightening mass of bodies on the floor-"what do we do with these?"

"Roll them into thy outhouse and burn it," Elminster said calmly.