Cloak of Shadows

3

Daggerdale, Kythorn 15

The horses snorted, as they always did, at the chill of the mists eddying around their ankles, the mists that cloak the Dragonreach lands of Faerun before dawn. Shoulders and neck tight in the cold, Sharantyr knew just how they felt. "I'll set coins that no gods get up this early," she muttered.

Itharr, riding next to her, chuckled and said, "I'll not bet against you on that, Shar."

"Nor me," Belkram agreed from behind, the white vapor of his breath eddying around him.

Storm turned in her saddle to look at them. "What sort of Knights and Harpers is Faerun breeding these days? Why, when I was your age…"

"I know, I know," Sharantyr interrupted her smoothly. "You went to bed at dawn after spending all night on your knees, cleaning the stables with your tongue, and enjoyed a deep and restful sleep for the time it took the stable master, roused by cock's crow, to walk the length of the stalls and empty his chamber pot over you. Then you had to run two miles to the river to bathe and draw enough water for all the horses to drink, run back with it, and get the axe to go out and chop firewood for the kitchen fires, before y-"

"When I was your age," Elminster said severely, "axes hadn't been invented yet. Nor horses. We walked everywhere to gather our firewood."

"Was it carrying armloads of all those whole, uprooted trees that got you all hunched over, greybeard?" Belkram asked merrily, steering his mount so that Storm was riding between him and the Old Mage.

Elminster swiveled a cold eye in his direction and replied gruffly, "Nay, I got my hunch from fathering dynasties and fortifying kingdoms, a baby and a boulder at a time. Trees were no trouble to carry in those days, lad. The gods hadn't thought of them much before, y'see, and none of 'em'd grown much more than halfway to yer knee."

His reply was a chorus of sighs and groans. There was even one from Storm, as they rode onward in the last dark, misty moments before dawn. Then the lady bard tossed silvery hair out of her eyes with a lazy shake of her head, a motion so beautiful that watching it still made Itharr's mouth go dry, even the fortieth time around. She turned again to regard them all and said, "I can't ride with you much longer. Other duties call. Guard the Old Mage well, now."

Snorts and sardonic chuckles answered her. Storm stilled them with a lifted hand and reined her mount in as spear points loomed suddenly out of the mists before her. A gruff voice behind one of them said, "Hold, in Lord Mourngrym's name! Who are you, riding out before dawn?"

"Storm Silverhand," the lady bard told him calmly, "with two Harpers, the Lady Sharantyr, and-"

"Nay, lass, don't tell 'em my name," Elminster said gruffly, spurring forward. "Let 'em guess."

A helmeted face peered at him out of the mists, and visibly swallowed. "Lord Elminster," he said, "you may pass, of course…"

The row of spear points was suddenly gone, even before Elminster could snarl out any sarcastic reply, and they heard the clink and rattle of men in chain mail moving hastily aside to salute.

"My thanks, men of the guard," Storm said kindly into the mists. "Brion, isn't it?"

"Aye, lady…"

"I'll be back very shortly, alone," she said, and rode on waving for them all to follow. Elminster inclined his head to her in sarcastic acquiescence and spurred past her into the mists.

"Ye bloody gods!" Storm muttered, rolling her eyes and galloping after him, hand going to her sword out of long habit. Seeing that, the three who rode hurriedly after her reached for their blades, too. They rode on, hands on hilts but not drawing their steel, and soon heard ahead the thud of slowing hooves and Storm's soft "Hooo!" to her horse.

They came to an untidy halt in the mists, old wizard and all, milling around thigh to thigh in an open place where trails met. Storm pressed ahead a little way down one grassy ride until they followed her, and then reined in again. "Here I leave you. Follow this trail onward, and may you find fair fortune, all of you." She turned her mount, squeezed Sharantyr's arm for a moment as she rode past, and then was gone back into the mists.

As the thud of hooves faded away down the way they'd come, the first real gray light of dawn came stealing slowly in around them. "Whither now?" Sharantyr asked, peering at trees she could just begin to see on all sides.

"Forward, of course," Elminster said gruffly, and dug a toe into his mount's flank. It snorted its annoyance and moved off briskly down the new trail. The other three riders met each other's gazes, rolled expressive eyes, and followed.

"We appear to be heading into Daggerdale," Itharr observed carefully, as the first brightness of the coming day broke forth around them, and birds began to call and flutter.

"Perceptive, aren't ye?" the Old Mage replied without turning. His three companions, riding in his wake, sighed in unison.

"By all the lazily ruling lords," Belkram said under his breath, "it is Elminster."

The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 15

Shadows shifted uneasily around them, seeming to sense the tension in the Great Hall of the Throne. A Malaugrym who bristled thorny spines from every inch of his lizardlike skin stood erect on the black marble beside the flickering scrying portal.

The portal was dim at the moment, showing only swirling gray mists somewhere in Faerun. As always, the portal hung silent, floating immobile some way above the floor, but the Malaugrym drew away from it after a few moments. While near the endless flickering, he could not escape a prickly feeling of being watched.

He glared at the portal and then turned his back on it, feeling ridiculous.

A moment later, a tentacle brushed his shoulder and he jumped, spinning around with a wild snarl only to freeze amid the titters of his kin, standing around the hall, half-seen in the shadows.

"Don't drop your guard for a moment, not even here," said the tentacled giant mushroom who'd tapped him. Facing it, he recognized the voice. "Or rather, especially not here." Now he was sure.

"Bheloris," he said flatly, and the mushroom cap nodded. "Neleyd," it named him in reply and began to collapse, flowing swiftly into something else.

The words had been helpful, even friendly. Nevertheless, Neleyd drew away warily and grew a stabbing bone-spike at the end of his tail, holding it up over his head, ready to stab if need be.

Bheloris ignored the threatening spike as he settled into the shape of a lion-headed man and stepped forward with his head cocked and a gleam in his eye. "Standing around waiting for a glimpse of the Great Elminster, are you?"

Neleyd shrugged, a small forest of spines shifting. "It seemed prudent," he said in a casual tone. Bheloris chuckled, and his tail briefly came into view, scratching the back of his neck.

"I'm glad to hear at least one of the younger blood of Malaug mention prudence," he said. "It would not be a grand day for our kin if all of you rushed into battle, falling over each other in proud haste, only to be slain by a foe anticipating just that artful tactic."

A strikingly beautiful woman glided forward through the shadows, a goblet in her hand. As she came, barbed bone hooks grew along her forearms, and her head lengthened into a sharklike fin. "I've yet to hear anything but arrogance from the elders of the family," she observed coldly, "all of you sitting in judgment on the coming failure of us 'younglings' and doing nothing yourselves."

"And I have yet to discern anything but aggressive presumption in those younger kin like you, Huerbara, who speak against their elders and find fault with things done long ago, conveniently before such young, bright-browed heroes were on the scene to do things properly."

"Have a care, old one," Huerbara hissed, and Neleyd noticed the beginnings of a stinging tail to match his own, behind her back. He looked quickly at the leonine head beside him but saw only contempt in its eyes. Bheloris made no shifts in shape, made no move save for the very end of his tail, which switched lazily back and forth, seeming to await something interesting ahead.

"The warning is more appropriately received than given," he said flatly, and turned away from her to face Neleyd fully once more. "In this matter of the wizard, have you any plans that you feel moved to share, or simply discuss?" the older Malaugrym asked mildly, ignoring the furious Huerbara.

Neleyd kept a wary eye on her as he said, "Thoughts, yes, but anything approaching a plan or decision, no. I would look kindly on a chance to discuss such affairs freely with someone"-he bowed-"of more experience than myself."

Huerbara, eyes blazing with mounting fury, was shifting out of human form. Her beautiful head did not change, but the shoulders beneath it were sinking down into an insectoid body with many jointed legs. She was taking the form of a giant scorpion, stinger waving menacingly as she sidled forward.

Bheloris inclined his head and said, "I am pleased to see such wisdom and would derive still greater pleasure in being able to aid-even if only in a small way, through frank converse-the aims of so refreshingly intelligent a relative. When would you like to assay such a debate?"

Neleyd eyed the scorpion tail, licked his lips once involuntarily, and replied, "Ah… without delay, elder kin, though I feel it even more pressing to offer you a warning, an immediate warning of-"

Huerbara shot Neleyd a look of pure hatred, hissing loudly, but Bheloris waved a lazily dismissive paw. "I thank you for your regard for my welfare. Would that all younglings valued the resources of their kin so highly. Yet there is no need. The peril you seek to warn me of has the passion but lacks the daring. Observe her. She knows I am older, wiser in the ways of violence, and am expecting her attack. Thinking to awe me, she delayed action for a time… time in which she has inevitably begun to consider the consequences, and probable outcome, of any aggressive action. So it is that she has found she dare not attack, for swallowing an insult is a far less painful thing to do than dying-slowly, and in slavery to the pain and humiliations I can easily visit upon her. However reluctantly, she knows it and thereby takes another slow, unwilling step toward the self-discipline that marks the mature Malaugrym. Perhaps someday she'll have added enough steps along that path for her to finally acknowledge that self-control is necessary for those of our blood, and further, that she lacks it."

The elder shapeshifter spoke mildly, his words almost lost in the ever-louder hissing of the scorpion. Bheloris did not once look at Huerbara, however, but stood at ease, talking to Neleyd.

"Now, as to the matter of Elminster, any schemes you might foster are best hatched in private, lest the less prudent among us leap to the same ends and attempt unauthorized assistance-aid which inevitably will lead to the ruin of your plans and defeat for all kin involved. I speak now from rueful experience."

As the old shapeshifter continued, Neleyd saw Huerbara's fury abate. She backed up hesitantly, tail still wavering, then hissed again deafeningly.

Bheloris continued to ignore her, and she retreated again, dwindling suddenly into a woman's torso on a serpentine body. Neleyd tried not to look at her as she shot him once last venomous glance and glided away into the mists.

Several deep chuckles accompanied her withdrawal, and Neleyd saw her tail switch angrily before it disappeared from view.

"Shall we repair to another part of the castle?" Bheloris asked mildly. "The Great Hall lacks… privacy."

As if his words had been a cue, the scrying portal flashed once and brightened. Malaugrym all over the vast chamber glided or strode closer to afford themselves a better look.

Within the upright oval, it was bright morning, somewhere on a narrow, seldom-used trail through a forest. Four humans were riding horses along the path. In the forefront was an old, white-bearded man whose likeness had been shown to them all.

"Elminster!" came the snarl from a dozen throats. Several younger Malaugrym, who'd never seen the hated human mage properly before, moved right up to the portal to get a good look.

One of them gazed, smiled grimly, and moved one long-taloned hand in two intricate gestures. Then he strode past the portal, heading for a certain archway. "What are all of you waiting for?" he asked the chamber at large as he went. "Destroy him and be done with it!"

A Malaugrym who stood watching, in the shape of a darkly handsome man whose right forearm was a sword blade, turned to face the younger shapeshifter and frowned. "This we have seen before," he observed thoughtfully. "Have you given no thought to the possibility that this may be a ruse to lure us into attack? Is that truly Elminster or another, perhaps an empty husk, set up to lure us to our destruction?"

"Another craven elder?" From the shadows came a high, scornful voice that might have been Huerbara's. "Are you all cowards? How did you muster the courage to approach a human maid close enough to sire any of us?"

There was a stir around the hall, as if some listeners were stifling laughter or exclamations of approval, and others gasps or growls of outrage.

The Malaugrym with the sword arm only smiled coldly. "I've heard such words from several generations of kin before yours, rash one. Some of those who spoke thus still live… but no longer speak so foolishly." He turned and addressed his next words to the young Malaugrym by the archway. "Are you of the same mind as she?"

The young Malaugrym stared at him defiantly for a moment and then said boldly, "I am!"

"Come, then. You attack the human mage, and I'll watch. If you need aid, I'll pluck you to safety, so you at least will live to learn this lesson and not join our fallen too swiftly to think on it all."

"Trust you, Kostil?" the young Malaugrym sneered.

Kostil raised an eyebrow. "Trust, among us? Just how naive are you younglings?"

There was another stir, and at least one clear and deep chuckle from Bheloris. The young Malaugrym mage by the archway stiffened, eyes blazing, but said nothing.

Silence stretched for a breath, and then another, before Kostil added lazily, "Of course, if you're too afraid to strike at a mortal mage, I'll just have to find another of your contemporaries more willing to do so."

Almost spitting the words in his rage, the Malaugrym at the archway snarled, "Taernil son of Oracla fears nothing! Watch me, then, and render whatever aid you see fit-if you can find any way to aid me. I've not seen many elders wield spells that impress me."

Kostil smiled slightly and indicated the archway with a grand, leisurely gesture. Taernil gave him a wordless snarl of defiance, spun around, and charged through the archway.

Neleyd glanced quickly about the Great Hall and saw many older Malaugrym wearing smiles like the one on Kostil's face and shaking their heads. He turned away among the shifting shadowsmokes thoughtfully, seeking his own chambers and a scrying spell of his own. He must see this Elminster fight, if he or any of the blood of Malaug were ever to prevail against the wizard. As he left the open hall through an old tunnel that seldom changed its winding way, he passed two of the elders, standing in the shapes of griffon-headed giants, quietly wagering on the outcome of Taernil's foray. The bets were on how much magic he'd manage to loose at Elminster before being destroyed. Neither granted any chance that he'd survive.

Milhvar nodded. "The payment is accepted." He waved a hand behind him and the mists parted, swirling open in a softly widening whirlpool until Issaran could see the spell-stones that were going to cost him so much, winking and sparkling with their stored power. As he'd expected, they hung in a field of guardian magic. It would have been the sheerest folly to try any treachery upon the older Malaugrym who had hired him.

"I am ready," Issaran said, striving for calm, level tones. "Let it be now."

Milhvar nodded and waved his hand again. Another hole opened in the mists, revealing an empty, flickering upright oval of light. In size and radiance it seemed very like the scrying portal in the Great Hall.

Issaran strode toward the hole without hesitation.

"You recall the word for return?" Milhvar asked from behind him.

"Arthithrae," Issaran replied, not turning or slowing.

"Good. May you have Malaug's own luck," Milhvar said as the younger Malaugrym stepped through the magical gate — and vanished.

White sparks chased briefly up and down the portal's radiance. They were joined by others dancing in the emptiness within the oval, lights that grew swiftly into a glowing window on a scene of four familiar humans riding along a forest trail. The lights flickered once and then settled into silent immobility, identical to the scrying portal that many of the kin were now watching in the Great Hall.

Milhvar watched the scene within the portal shift as Issaran — no doubt walking on air for stealth — moved through the trees, following the four riders. Even if the bold youngling's Art-which Milhvar granted was stronger than most older kin expected or would readily believe-discovered Milhvar's conjured eye, Issaran could not destroy it without shattering the gate and stranding himself in Faerun. Stranding him away from his spells, his kin, the protection of the castle-and the Shadow Throne he so obviously sought. One side of Milhvar's mouth crooked into a mirthless, twisted smile.

He would have been less confident had he been able to see Issaran's face. At that moment, in the woods of Daggerdale on a chilly morning, it wore the same ruthlessly assured expression.

Daggerdale, Kythorn 15

The sun was descending in the west when Elminster turned in his saddle. His pipe floated obediently out of his mouth. "We'll spend the night up ahead, in what's left of Irythkeep."

His companions nodded in silent acceptance and they rode on, as they had all day, through the ravaged wilder-lands that had once been a proud and prosperous dale.

Rent by war for ten summers and more, Daggerdale was fast vanishing as the woodlands spread swiftly across untilled fields and deserted steads alike, reclaiming the land from the rule and hand of men who no longer lived to hold it at bay. In swampy places the trail they followed, once an important trade road, was almost gone.

Elminster, however, rode with the easy manner of a bored tour guide, never slowing to choose his way or change direction but proceeding as if strolling around his own garden, pointing out once-prominent landmarks as they went. Earlier, a gargoyle had risen heavily from the crumbling rampart of a small keep as they passed, but it had only circled once, high above them, and then descended again to the ruin, thinking better of attacking so purposeful a band.

The shadows were beginning to grow long when Elminster pointed at a pair of fingerlike stone pillars ahead. "Unless a dragon, lich, or something similarly energetic has decided to dwell there, that's our camp for the night."

"That's Irythkeep?" Itharr asked, peering through the trees. "There's not much left of it, is there?"

"A Harper needs no roof nor servants," Elminster told the sky overhead innocently, "but is happy to sleep under the stars, where the air is fresh, the living earth is closer, and the body has no chance to become pampered and weak."

Belkram and Itharr chuckled together. "Trust you to know that passage from the Code of the Harpers," said the taller of the two rangers, his eyes on the ruins ahead.

"Know it? Who d'ye think wrote it?" Elminster replied in aggrieved tones. Behind him, Sharantyr sighed theatrically, but when the Old Mage shot her a coldly meaningful glance, he found her staring skyward with a look of innocence surpassed only by his own recent performance. Elminster snorted and spurred his mount on, ignoring the cautious, weapons-out advances of the Harpers.

In the dust raised by the old wizard's hurrying horse, Belkram, Itharr, and Sharantyr exchanged glances, shrugged, and urged their own mounts on toward the ruins.

Irythkeep may once have been grand, but the winds and winters of passing time had not been kind to it since a besieging orc band had battered its walls from without, and the Zhentarim mage with them had summoned and let loose a fire-spitting hydra within.

All that was left now, amid fast-growing duskwood, pine, and shadowtop saplings, was a ragged stone ring outlining the outer walls, a few overgrown outbuildings and stables still clinging here and there to their roofs, and those fingerlike remnants of towers. Birds roosted on the stony pillars, and the crows that took wing as the four riders approached cried their anger at the intrusion loudly enough to alert ears anywhere near. Belkram cursed and then shrugged. What point stealth now? Several small furry brown shapes darted away from rocks where they'd been catching the last of the sun, and hurried off into the woods. Elminster watched them go, then rounded on Itharr.

"Well? Ye got that grand blade out and waved it about, lad. Aren't ye going to chase yonder scuttlers and do some carving to show thy manhood and deadly prowess?"

"No," Itharr replied brightly, and urged his mount ahead into the ruins. He tossed his grand blade into the air as he went, let it flash end over end up into the sunset, and then deftly caught it and sheathed it without slowing in his saddle or looking back.

Elminster's sniff was both loud and eloquent. Sharantyr hid a smile behind her own raised blade as Belkram and Itharr dismounted, tossed their reins over branches to serve as tethers for a few breaths, and jogged ahead into the shadows amid the stones.

The Old Mage watched them scramble and peer alertly about for a breath or two, then he turned in his saddle to fix Sharantyr with one clear blue eye. "Well, lass?"

Sharantyr raised an eyebrow. "As pouting maidens are wont to say," she replied, "'Well, what?'"

The wizard's stare became more forbidding. "What foolishness are ye going to favor us all with?"

Sharantyr smiled broadly. "Ah. Yes. Guarding you, actually." She waggled her drawn sword so the sun glimmered on one edge and then the other.

Elminster snorted. "Unnecessary folly, indeed. Why not put that steel away before ye hurt thyself with it?"

Sharantyr shrugged, more laughter in her eyes than in her face. "When Belk and Ith say the keep's safe, perhaps. We can talk about it again then… after I've told you how to cast a few spells."

"All right, all right, lass," Elminster said gruffly. "Point taken. Lash me with that pretty tongue o' thine later, eh? And put the sword away for now. Just do it."

Sharantyr gave him a puzzled frown as he vaulted from his saddle with sudden speed, sending his old dapple gray into a startled, snorting little dance. As she leaned forward to catch at its reins, the Old Mage dodged quickly past its head, snatched at her boot, and expertly pitched her backward off her horse.

Astonished, Sharantyr joined him on the ground, hooves flashing in front of her nose as both mounts decided that the shadows and stones ahead offered quieter grazing than the company of falling humans. She clutched at her sword to keep hold of it and opened her mouth to protest, but Elminster had taken two long strides to one side, away from her.

"Well, mageling?" he bellowed, staring back along their trail with blue fire in his eyes. He raised his hands in a deliberately flippant, showy gesture, and spoke a grand word.

Rolling up and staring hard, Sharantyr had a brief glimpse of a black-robed wizard standing on air amid the trees, excitement and fear on his face as his hands flicked and flashed in intricate spellcasting. She couldn't escape the impression that his fast-speaking mouth was sliding down into shapelessness. Suddenly, eight balls of bright flame erupted out of empty air and roared toward her and Elminster, drawing apart slightly as they came.

Sharantyr stared at the flaming death she knew she could not escape, heard the two young Harpers shout in alarm from the ruined castle behind her, and swallowed.

Is this how swiftly and easily death reaches out to take us all?