Cloak of Shadows

2

The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 14

The oval of light flickered and faded. As the dark and ever-hungry shadows crept and slithered back to reclaim the heart of the Great Hall of the Throne, those who'd watched death and laughter in the back room of an inn turned away from the darkening scrying portal. Some were hissing in anger as they went, and some were grim and silent, as their natures governed them.

"Poor entertainment," rumbled one lord, gliding through the shifting shadows in the shape of a cone of many eyes. He grew several long, spiderlike legs, two of which reached out to select a glowing bottle from a forest of glass containers in the vast black marble chamber.

Other Malaugrym muttered agreement, but a single clear, cold voice said, "We did not gather for 'entertainment,' Uncle."

Eyes swam swiftly around the cone to look back at the one who'd spoken so, but the cone did not turn or cease its gliding passage. "I know better than some young and loose-lipped kin, Halastra, why we're here," came the chill reply. "Guard your tongue, if you'd live to an age approaching mine."

"Another lecture? Are such words all you know how to speak?" a third voice put in. It seemed to issue from a coiling, serpentine form gliding half-seen through the mists, bound for the same destination as the cone. A low rumble of anger followed in the cone's wake as it went, expelling an empty bottle, but the lord did not accompany the rumble or the bottle with any words of reply.

Smoothly the cone began to rise through the mists, drawn up by the magic of the lift-spiral. Several half-human forms followed the cone in the ascent — bipedal figures that changed height and girth in a continuous, uneasy shifting but always seemed to have tails, clawed limbs, and spines or barbs here and there. The serpentine creature-sporting a succession of small pairs of leathery wings along its entire length but having no head-joined them, rising to where the mists hung darker and shadows seemed to drift menacingly like cruising sharks.

"Who was it who dared-and died?" a voice asked in hushed tones. The ascent seemed to be bringing a certain caution, or fear, upon all.

"Does it matter? Those who die fools are best forgotten," the conical lord said sternly, but another voice said clearly, "Thalart, get of Galartyn and Chasra."

"Another of us slain by the wizard Elminster," a new voice snarled. "His doom grows heavier by one more death."

"What can be heavier than an eternity in torment?" someone else asked.

"Such a small imagination," an older voice observed, "Learn to think on such things first, and speak after."

"We're very open with judgments today, it seems," the serpentine Malaugrym observed.

"I'd remind you," still another voice said, "that light or heavy, an eternity in torment is a price this mortal wizard hasn't yet paid."

From ahead of them in the mists came a deep, rolling boom, as if a great bell had tolled. Its echoes brought an end to converse for a time as the shapeshifters ascended. Bubbles occurred here and there in the shadows around them, brightening as they rose swiftly past. Dark shapes drifted beneath them. One shape strayed too near the spiral, and a Malaugrym made an exasperated sound and lashed out with a hissed spell.

There was a bright flash of falling sparks, a brief squalling, and the half-seen bulk convulsed away into the roiling shadows. A large, hooked black claw whose cruel curves stretched as long as the cone-lord stood tall tumbled into the spiral in its wake, severed cleanly by the searing magic. Trailing a last burst of sparks, it fell past a pair of Malaugrym in tall, gaunt human form before the power of the spiral took up the claw and it began to drift slowly around and upward. Another Malaugrym kicked the appendage aside, growing a clawed foot to do so. Driven out of the spiral, the severed claw fell from view, dwindling into the concealing mists, and was gone.

The bell tolled again, shaking the shadows, and the cloaking mists fell away in tatters. "Come," a deep voice rolled out, seeming to chase away shadows before it. "My time is not so endless that I can waste it on watching the vain parades of laggards." The last wisps parted, revealing the assembly high above the Great Hall to those drifting up the final arc of the spiral.

Sixty shapes, perhaps more, stood around the Shadow Throne, a vast, soaring spindle that pulsed its customary amethyst of magic and amber of bloodfire, and held the ruler of them all-Dhalgrave, head of Clan Malaugrym. Pale blue fire encircled one of his wrists as he leaned forward to watch the newcomers join the crowd around the floating throne.

In the shape he now wore, he seemed human-a naked, sexless human whose feet ended in a lion's pads; whose ivory body ended in a long, delicate tail; and whose flesh swam with many small fanged mouths that opened, snapped, drooled, and chattered soundlessly. His eyes were two dark, glistening pits that seemed to see the innermost thoughts of those he watched. And his kin, the greater and the lesser, looked upon him and were afraid.

Yes, Dhalgrave was dying, as all knew. Yes, the fires of fury that had seen him victorious through vicious kin strife down the ages were fading, leaving him placidly calm, almost cowardly it seemed. Yet he wore this weak human form-albeit handsome, even as the elves of Faerun were comely, slender and fine boned-because doing so enabled him to control the greatest treasures of the clan. The very things that Malaug had crafted when he took the title Shadowmaster and strode from the strife of the dawn human kingdoms of Faerun to conquer the demiplane of Shadow and build this vast and everchanging Castle of Shadows. Or at least, the two items that had given Malaug and his ruling descendants mastery over the kin: the Shadowcrown and the Doomstars.

The first pulsed and winked on Dhalgrave's brow, darkness glimmering and sparkling in an endless, deadly chaos as it let him read the thoughts of any of the blood of Malaug he locked gazes with. More than that, it was the center of a web of spells and counterspells that waited to defend Dhalgrave against attack, or were set to howl through the castle at his death; and it gave him other powers whose secrets were much rumored but little known.

It was not reverence of Dhalgrave or respect for the Shadowcrown that had gathered most of the kin here today in answer to his summons. It was fear of the Doom-stars.

They circled his left wrist endlessly, as they always did: four spherical stones of winking pale blue radiance, trailing motes of light as they orbited the bracer whose mighty spells-secrets lost with Malaug's death-tied them together, focusing their power into a weapon no shapeshifter could withstand.

The slightest touch of the rays-a dozen or more at a time-that Dhalgrave could call forth from the Doomstars could hold a Malaugrym unmoving, a powerless captive. With an extra caress of fear, some of the assembled clan recalled memories of an earlier disastrous treason-battle that had been settled in this manner. Properly wielded, the Doomstar rays could force a shapeshifter into any form Dhalgrave chose, from worm to mushroom, and bind the victim in that form forever by stripping away the power to shapeshift.

"Hear me, blood of Malaug," their ruler said formally, his old and wise voice rolling out deep and confident.

"Speak, O Shadowmaster High," the ritual response came raggedly, from most throats in his audience.

"You know the time left to me grows short," Dhalgrave said flatly. "Some of you have schemed to make that time even shorter. Thalart was one such schemer, though he saw the error of his designs and volunteered to serve the Shadow Throne by destroying the mortal wizard Elminster… a task in which, regrettably, he failed."

The throne turned slightly at Dhalgrave's bidding, as he looked about at them all. "I say 'regrettably' because his failure leaves that task undone, for one of you to accomplish. Hear this. My successor as Shadowmaster Supreme, head of House Malaugrym, shall be the one who accomplishes the utter and final destruction of the mortal of Faerun known as Elminster of Shadowdale, once Elminster Aumar of Athalantar, and the wearer of many other names in the years between. He is the greatest foe of this house, and I shall not go into the final shadow until I have seen him o'erthrown."

He looked around again, as if waiting for someone to fill the silence he'd left them… but no one did.

"There is a practical reason for this slaying, beyond the pride and passion of avenging the fallen of this house- too many, by far-he's destroyed down the years. An archlich of Faerun, one Saharel, ceased to exist in a battle not long past. Her ending leaves Elminster, as far as we know, the only being besides myself who knows how to wield, empower, or destroy the Crown and Stars of Malaug I wear. He is, therefore, the only foe who can break our power over shadow and end the life all of us have known.

"For the younger and more arrogant among us, hear me and believe. Not only our dreams of greater power in Faerun and in the Etherimm would be swept away-but all the lesser foes the Malaugrym have made down the ages would rise, here in the shadows and elsewhere, and rend us. You'd not then be striving with each other to decide who'd replace me, but fleeing as far and as fast as you could just to cling to life-existence, locked in some shape of lesser power that would begin as a disguise and might soon become a prison."

Dhalgrave rose to stand on air in front of the Shadow Throne. He grew taller, his ivory skin darkening as the batlike beginnings of wings stirred at his shoulders. He raised his left hand to show them all the fast-flashing, bright Doomstars dancing excitedly about it, and snarled, "Elminster must die! This wizard must be de-strayed!"

Several of the senior family members echoed in thunderous unison, "This wizard must be destroyed!" and the very pillars of the castle flashed with sudden light as the Doomstars tolled once more. The ripple of chaos that burst from the circling gems and rolled outward in all directions through the shadows threw many of the assembled Malaugrym to their knees and terrified many of the younger kin-who'd never felt such power before — by clawing them, rudely and with casual ease, out of their carefully chosen shapes.

"If you would rule the house and realm of Malaug, Dhalgrave's voice boomed out over them all, augmented by the Shadowcrown until the echoes were painful in their ears, "go and slay Elminster, and speedily. For if I pass and he yet lives, the hand that wields this Crown and these Stars may be his, and doom will come to us all! Go, and work his death!"

"Death!" they cried in chorus and rushed off into the shadows, thrust away by the power of the Crown's compulsion, growing wings and tails and claws as they went.

Dhalgrave sat, his chin on his hand, and through his Crown watched them from afar. Where the compulsion faded, the younger ones sped on, hunger and fury in their faces. But many of the older kin slowed, and shifted shapes thoughtfully, and shook their heads.

Dhalgrave smiled a cold smile but did not use the Crown to further compel or rebuke them. Deep within, he felt as they did.

Many times that he could recall, Elminster's final and utter death had been a breath away, no more; but always he'd slipped away, cloaked in trickery and distractions and luck. Mystra's Luck. The favor of the goddess who watched over him, doted on him as he grew older and more bent to her will, a crabbed shadow of a man who served her with helpless loyalty. Always she shielded him and sent aid to snatch him back from his final doom.

Yet now her own power was failing, and her own foes were on the move. Bane for one. If only a small part of that one's schemes were accomplished, there'd be a time when the mortal wizard would be left to stand alone- and at last, at long last, Elminster's Doom could be accomplished.

It was time for the Malaugrym to earn their long-awaited victory, and past time for them to win and enjoy it. Then he could rest, his essence stealing into the Shadow-crown to join the other elders there, awakening only when he desired to, with the thoughts of the Shadow-master his to whisper in and all the accumulated memories his to sort and seize upon, until the wearer of the crown saw things his way, and did as he bid… as even now he did the bidding of the whispering elders who'd worn the crown before him.

From time to time, Dhalgrave wondered, as they did, just what had befallen Malaug, the father and founder of them all. Dead, it was said, and by Elminster's hand, others held. Yet none of the elders had any memories of that death, only of a disappearance and many rumors cloaking it, like the fabled Cloak of Shadows, Malaug's lost secret, whose wearer would lead the house to true greatness.

He was looking forward to seeing that.

Shadowdale, Kythorn 14

"And you just left it there, all blood and tentacles, for Jhaele and her boys to clean up, and Shar and my two young blades to explain away?"

Storm Silverhand shook her head in disbelief, one shapely eyebrow raised, as she came around the table with a platter of fresh cheese-laced cornbread hot in her hands.

Elminster nodded as he reached for a slice. "Well, aye," he said, "but-" As he'd expected, she steered the platter deftly out of his reach to offer it first to the Simbul.

The Queen of Aglarond, hair and robes as wild as always, was frowning fiercely and muttering under her breath as she added a fourth layer of shielding spells to those she'd already woven around Storm's farm. She waved her sister away without even looking at the platter.

The lady bard sighed, rolled her eyes, and thrust the platter at Elminster. He smiled serenely, bowed with courtly politeness and, with delicate fingers, took a single slice. Storm set the platter down on the table and slid into the nearest chair to get out of the way. As she'd expected, she had sat down just in time to get clear of the flight of a pewter butter-crock and a knife, gliding in from the pantry to see to the slice he'd selected… as well as another dozen or so slices that rose one by one from the platter as the knife approached.

Storm was surprised when the Old Mage took the next chair and sent the first buttered slice drifting over to her, and the second to hang waiting by his beloved's still-murmuring mouth.

The Simbul finished her cloaking spells, smiled her thanks to them both, and attacked the bread with her usual voracious hunger. Storm watched her with a fond smile. Nethreen spent too much of her time rushing about the Realms as a raven or worse, eating nothing or things best forgotten. When she did dine, she had to approach many meals with cautious suspicion, thanks to the deadly designs of Thay.

Another slice rose from Elminster's plate to near the Simbul's mouth just as she finished the first, and Storm knew from the wizard's surprised expression that Sylune was at work, unseen but sharing the kitchen with them all. Dead she might be, but the Silent Sister had gone right on helping and caring for others.

"Well?" Storm prompted Elminster gently, leaning forward with her chin on her cupped hands.

"I look upon it as a Harper training exercise," the Old Mage told her airily, waving a dripping slice of buttered bread. He didn't notice when Sylune's ghostly hands tore it away to take to the Simbul, leaving him with just a crust.

"Explaining away dead bodies?" Storm asked, amused.

"Yes, I suppose-" She broke off with a snort of mirth as Elminster brought his slice down to take a bite, found he had possession of only a crust, and regarded it with deep suspicion.

"The problem with Faerun these days," he said heavily, "is that ye can't trust anything to be as it should be, or once was. Anything at all." He glared at the offending crust darkly. Storm bit down on a knuckle to keep from laughing aloud at his baffled expression.

And then he winked and dropped the pretense and the clowning together, leaning forward to fix her with a disconcertingly level gaze. "I suspect that the Malaugrym spy on us all, often, watching for any chance to seize influence in Faerun with little risk, and rushing in whenever events fall right for them."

The Simbul nodded. "I know they do," she said between bites, butter running down her chin. "Last summer, thinking to thin the ranks of the ambitious apprentice magelings of Thay, I set two slaying snake spells to seek out anyone who spied on a-well, on an attractive-looking trap I set up, that concealed nothing. Both of the spells struck within a day. When I followed them up, I found two headless bodies sprawled half in one shape and half out of another. Malaugrym, without a doubt."

There were grim nods, confirming similar experiences. Elminster pushed his plate aside and continued, "The point is, they're no doubt aware of the increasing chaos of Art in Faerun, of Mystra's waning powers, of Saharel's final death, and of my own weakness. They must see this as a shining opportunity-perhaps the best they'll ever see-to rid themselves forever of their most annoying foe. Me."

The Simbul wiped her chin and said firmly, "It's just as gleaming a chance for me-for us-to destroy Malaugrym. If they're coming to Faerun to destroy you-so long, mind, as you have the wits to stay here and not go running off to their shadow realm after every lure they set you-then they must come within my reach." She strode across the room to seize the back of a chair, and added softly, "And I'll destroy them."

Her slim hands whitened around the chair, trembled slightly, and abruptly the wood shattered, leaving her holding splinters. She stared down at the ruined chair. "Sorry," she muttered, stepping back.

Storm waved the apology and the damage away with the same gesture. "Are you sure it's the wisest course, battling Malaugrym across lands beset with growing chaos and lawlessness, what with magic fading and failing you?" she asked gravely, turning to eye both arch-mages.

"I'm tired of their attacks," the Simbul replied, forestalling Elminster's speech with a swiftly raised hand, "One of them just might succeed, robbing me of my beloved and Shadowdale-nay, all the Realms-of the best protector available. Moreover, Sister, I can't effectively fight Red Wizards if I must flee the fray often and abruptly to rush back across half Faerun to battle Malaugrym. Who'll defend Aglarond when I'm not there? And how can I finish any foe if I rend his best defenses but must turn away, perforce giving him time to flee or replace his ravished Art?"

She looked at the twisted and shattered chair, and said with sudden cold force, "Destroy them, I say. Once and for all."

"If magic fails much more," Storm answered, "destroying them may suddenly be beyond our powers. Surviving might be a goal we find hard to grasp."

Elminster shrugged. "All magecraft-if one views it clearly and admits what truly befalls-is that sort of risky career. Not to dare is not to wield sorcery."

He got up and paced thoughtfully across the smooth flagstones of the kitchen floor, only to turn when he reached a wall, sigh, and add, "And yet-as always, it seems-I'm too busy to spend enough time on them right now to finish them. I know; this very thing has saved them many times-too many times-in the past. Yet in truth they're not worth it."

El spread his hands. "The Time of Troubles has ravaged Faerun and is still doing so. I must repair this and that and the other-or what we know and love of Toril may be swept away and lost, and the war lost because I indulged myself in riding down a few pet foes."

"Look upon slaying Malaugrym as a repair," the Simbul offered calmly, setting forth the viewpoint in debate, her own emotions in check. "Weigh what they may do in Faerun, left untrammeled, with the certainty of what they cannot do if you've stilled them forever."

Elminster frowned. "I'm too busy to get entangled in battle after battle, as they set their snares for me. And I'm far too busy to set snares of my own, using myself as a decoy to lure Malaugrym to their dooms… however richly deserved."

"Then you must be free to set things right in Faerun, as before. Hidden by magic," Storm said to him, and then looked at the Simbul. "While the Malaugrym are drawn into attacking a false Elminster and open themselves to your attacks, Sister."

Elminster and his beloved both frowned back at her. "That will work but once," they said in unison. They exchanged glances, and Nethreen went on alone.

"Once they see they're facing a clone, or a simulacrum, or an illusion, they'll be far more careful in revealing themselves again. We might slay one, or three if they strike together to do the deed, but no more. I can't see how such a scheme will work in any continuing way, without demanding so much of our time that we might as well both be Malaugrym-hunting night and day through, and letting Faerun fend for itself."

"I can see how it might be made to work," came a whisper from the empty air by her elbow. The Queen of Aglarond drew back a pace, raising a hand to unleash slaying magic, then blinked and said, "Sorry, Sister. How?"

The shadowy form of Sylune faded into view, smiling at her. "I can animate any body you create, and cast spells through it. As long as I don't have to smoke that awful pipe, I can be your Elminster."

"What's so awful about my pipe?" Elminster demanded, and was answered by three withering, silent looks. He looked around at them all, grinned weakly, and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

"Right, then," he agreed, "we have the makings of our false me. We still lack someone to watch over 'me,' someone capable enough to slay the shapeshifters Sylune's spells can't account for."

"We're all still too busy," the Simbul observed wryly, looking to Storm for inspiration.

The Bard of Shadowdale frowned doubtfully. "I've no Harpers close by who are powerful enough to hold their own against such foes, or who can be spared from whatever they're holding together in Faerun right now…"

"Yes, ye do," Elminster said, the twinkle back in his eyes. "Two Harpers and a Knight of Myth Drannor, to be precise. In Shadowdale right now, fresh from ably demonstrating that they can slay Malaugrym with speed and cool regard for the spillage of good ale!"

Storm covered her eyes. "Ah, no," she said weakly. "They'll be slain for sure…"

"Aye, they will indeed, after this night," Elminster agreed briskly, "with all the Malaugrym who must have been watching that fight, if ye just let those three go about their business unprotected. Their best defense is to be a part of this ruse, hip deep in the serious Malaugrym-slaying business."

The Simbul grinned broadly. "It seems our only shining strategy, Sister," she said. Storm looked to Sylune for support, but the ghostly image floating beside her spread half-seen hands and said, "So it looks to these eyes, too."

Storm shook her head. "If they die…" she muttered, and then let out her breath in a deep sigh and waved her hand in dismissal. "Do it," she said heavily.

The Simbul inclined her head in understanding and brought her hands up, fingers spread. Tiny lightnings leapt between them, accompanied by a high, shrill singing sound, and she murmured, "El…?"

Elminster spoke a few soft words of his own and pointed at three flagstones well back from the table.

Abruptly, three people were standing on the flag-stones: two men and a woman clad in leather armor, long swords at their hips, half-full tankards in their hands, and startled looks on their faces.

Behind them the singing sounds ceased as the Simbul raised her shields again. After a few darting glances about, the three relaxed, relieved smiles on their faces, as Storm leaned forward across the table on her elbows, and began, "We have a little task for you…"

Sharantyr groaned. "I know these little tasks," she told the ceiling.

"So do we," Belkram and Itharr said in chorus, catching sight of Sylune's shadowy form and beginning to bow.

Sharantyr drained her tankard at one gulp and went on, cheeks reddening. "Unless I miss my guess, we'll be guarding a certain irritable old wizard against some sinister and ages-old unseen menace, with the fate of all Faerun hanging about our shoulders."

Storm hid a smile by turning her head to address her own favorite spot on the ceiling (where she'd mounted a small round painting of a unicorn she'd done when she was very young, and was irrationally proud of) and replied, "Well, now that you mention it…"