Curse of the Shadowmage

Twelve

Isela served them soup as they huddled around a dancing fire. The night was cold, and Isela’s dwelling offered scant protection from the frosty autumn air. The witch made her home in a chamber of what Morhion supposed was once a palace. Only three of the chamber’s walls still stood, and the roof had collapsed in one corner.

The witch shoved a rudely carved wooden bowl into Morhion’s hands. “Eat, wizard,” she said curtly. “You will need your strength for what lies ahead.”

The mage gave Isela a curious look. She made a peculiar figure, with her straggly gray hair, her craggy face, her bony form huddled inside a shapeless mass of dirty rags. Yet the keen light of intelligence in her eyes was unmistakable. Whatever the witch Isela was, she was not crazy. Morhion did not feel hungry—his head ached fiercely from the wound on his brow—but he did his best to eat some of the soup, so as not to offend Isela. The broth was flavored with strange herbs and contained the meat of an animal he did not recognize.

Cormik cautiously stirred his own bowl. “I really hate to complain—”

“Then I suggest you don’t,” Jewel interrupted, digging an elbow into his side as she glanced at Isela.

He shot her a perturbed look. “It’s only a figure of speech, Jewel. You know perfectly well that I actually love to complain.”

“Really, Cormik,” she chided him, “you have no idea what you’re missing.” She scooped up a large spoonful of soup, including the scaly foot of some nameless creature, and ate it with relish. After that, Cormik made only gagging noises, and the others were able to eat in peace.

It was Kellen who broke the silence. “Isela, why do you think I’m the one mentioned in the prophecy?”

Isela fixed him with her piercing gaze. “I do not think you are the one, child. You are the one.” She shook her head wearily, passing a gnarled hand before her eyes. “But I had no idea you would be so long in coming. How I have longed to lie down upon the forest floor, to let my bones sink deep into the ground and nourish my beloved trees. Still I waited, as I was pledged to do.” She lifted her gaze once more to Kellen’s face. “And now my waiting is over at last. The prophecy has come to pass.”

“But what is the prophecy?” Kellen asked.

When Isela finally spoke, it was in an eerie whisper. “Long, long ago, in an age now lost in the mists of time, there was a great oracle who was a leader of his people, a tribe of the Talfirc. The oracle journeyed to this place and said that, one day, there would come a child marked by magic, in whose hands would lie the fate of all the Talfirc. The child would come on a quest to stop a great darkness. Someone must await his coming, to aid him when he was in need. So the Talfirc built a city here, and they called it Talis. They remembered the prophecy and awaited the coming of the child wizard.” Isela sighed heavily. “But the child never came, the city fell to ruin, and the prophecy was forgotten.”

“Except by you,” Kellen said, reaching out to touch her crooked hand.

Isela stared at Kellen in surprise, then her expression darkened. “Aye, I remembered. But what does it matter now if the child wizard holds the fate of all the Talfirc in his hands? There are no more Talfirc. They vanished long ago. They are all gone now. All gone.”

“Except for you, Isela?” Morhion asked softly.

The witch only laughed her dry, cackling laugh and gazed at him with hard obsidian eyes. After that, Isela seemed unwilling to talk. She curled up in a corner and was still and silent. The companions retrieved their bedrolls from the horses outside and readied themselves for sleep.

“Do you really think she’s a thousand years old, Morhion?” Mari whispered as they lay down by the fire. “I know it’s impossible, but I almost believe she has lived in Talis since its destruction, awaiting the fulfillment of the prophecy. She does seem to know a great deal about what happened here a thousand years ago. What do you think?”

Morhion met her gaze. “I think, Mari, that you have answered your own question.” With that he shut his eyes and swiftly passed into sleep.

“Morhion.”

The whisper jolted him awake. His eyes fluttered open. It was Isela. She held a fìnger to her lips, then gestured for him to follow. He slipped silently from his blanket and padded after her in the sooty predawn light. She led him through twisting corridors until they came to another room. He guessed it might once have been a library, though the wooden shelves had rotted to splinters, and the books had long ago become mulch for the fragrant wild mint that carpeted the floor.

Isela moved to a rusted iron chest and threw back the lid. She drew out two objects and handed them to Morhion. One was a book, its crackling yellow pages still protected by a cover of oiled leather. The second was a silver ring set with a violet gem.

Morhion raised an eyebrow. “What are these things, Isela?”

She placed her gnarled hands on her hips. “That is for you to discover, wizard. But I will tell you this—you will have need of them on your quest.”

His eyes narrowed. “How is it you know what we seek to do?”

She waved this away as if it were an unimportant detail. “How I know matters not. But heed me, wizard. You seek to destroy a great shadow. Yet shadows can exist only when there is light to cast them. To destroy the shadow, you must destroy the light as well. Do not forget that.”

“I won’t,” he promised solemnly, though he was not sure what she meant.

She nodded and, without a word, turned to leave. By the time they made it back to the sleeping chamber, the others were waking. They ate a breakfast of hardtack and leftover soup—ignoring more of Cormik’s grumbling—and discussed their plans. They had to cross the River Reaching and return to the Dusk Road to search for Caledan’s trail. Isela claimed to know a way across the river, though she remained deliberately mysterious.

“You shall see,” was all she said.

They gathered on the damp green bank of the river in the misty light of dawn.

“You have got to be joking,” Cormik said in blatant disbelief. “How, by all the gold of Ghaethluntar, are we going to get a horse across the river in that?”

Jewel gave Cormik’s paunch an appraising look. “I’m not certain it’s the horses that will be the problem.”

Cormik treated her to a withering glare. “You actually enjoy being unpleasant, don’t you?”

“Just to you, love,” she said, parting her ruby lips in a winning smile.

Morhion studied the contraption Isela had rigged for crossing the frothing torrent of the river. He had the distinct impression that the entire thing had not been built, but had rather been grown. A thick vine hung across the river, attached to a stout oak tree on each bank. Suspended from the braided vine was a large basket woven from green saplings. Attached to the basket was another, thinner cord that could be used to pull the craft along the main vine.

“Can it truly hold one of the horses, Isela?” Mari asked.

The witch nodded. “Once each fall I kill a stag for winter food. Often I hunt on the far side of the river, and bring the stag across in the basket. It will hold a horse.”

Despite Cormik’s skepticism, Isela was right. Mari and Jewel crossed first, easily pulling the basket along the vine to the far bank. The others pulled the basket back and began sending the horses across the river to the two women. It wasn’t easy getting the horses into the curious conveyance, but with a cloth sack covering their eyes, the animals stayed reasonably calm. It took a great deal of grunting and heaving on the part of Mari and Jewel, but soon all the horses stood on the far bank.

Cormik and Kellen climbed into the basket next, the crime lord somewhat reassured after the favorable performance with the horses. Before joining them, Morhion turned to bid Isela farewell.

That was when the baying started.

It echoed through the forest, distant at first, yet rapidly drawing nearer. This was not the baying of mundane hounds. It was an eerie noise; the snarls and barking sounded strangely like voices speaking in an unknown evil language.

Bloodthirsty cries pierced the foggy air. These came from above, and the companions recognized the source instantly: the bellowing of the winged shadowsteeds conjured by the shadevari. In moments the baying and bellowing grew frighteningly near. Morhion thought he saw shadowy shapes moving swiftly toward them through the ruins of the city.

“Yes, these hounds are creatures of shadow,” Isela hissed, as if reading his thoughts. She shoved him into the basket with Cormik and Kellen. “You must go. Now.”

“What of yourself?” Morhion demanded.

“I am staying.”

Morhion stared at her. “But the beasts—they’ll be here in moments.”

“I know, you fool,” she snapped. Then her dark eyes softened a fraction. “You must guard the child wizard. Now go.” She tugged the smaller vine twice. In response to the signal, Mari and Jewel began hauling on the cord. The basket swung out over the river.

The baying of the shadowhounds shattered the air. “Isela!” Morhion shouted, but the witch was already lost in the mist of the far bank. He thought he saw a dozen dark forms slinking through the swirling fog, but he could not be certain. Abruptly the basket came to rest on the western bank of the river. Jewel and Mari helped Cormik and Kellen out, but Morhion gripped the vine. “I’m going back,” he said hoarsely.

Before the others could protest, the cord suddenly went slack. The main vine crashed down into the turbulent surface of the river and was swept away. Isela had severed the cords. There was no going back. The snarling of the shadowhounds rose to a frenzied pitch. Across the river, brilliant green light flickered in the mist, and howls of pain mingled with the snarls. Somewhere in the fog overhead the shadowsteeds shrieked again.

“Come on,” Mari said, tugging at Morhion’s hand.

“But Isela …,” he protested.

“I know,” she replied angrily. “She is sacrificing herself so that we can escape. Will you have that sacrifice be for nothing?”

It was like a cold slap. Morhion, of all people, understood sacrifice. “You are right,” he said coolly. They mounted their horses and soon left behind the eerie baying and flashes of light.

Late the next day, they stumbled out of the northern edge of the Reaching Woods and once again found themselves traveling west on the Dusk Road. This time it was Jewel who spotted the sign of Caledan’s passing. Near the road, a dead tree had been twisted into an agonized shape that looked uncannily like a dying man raising his arms toward the sky. The crimson light of sunset dripped down the tree’s bark like blood.

“He has been this way,” Mari said, visibly shaken.

“But how long ago?” Cormik wondered. No one could answer his question.

They rode on, glancing frequently at the sky above, searching for signs of the shadevari. While they did not know who had summoned the ancient creatures of evil, or why, by now it was clear that the shadevari were tracking Caledan, just as the companions were. To their relief, the winged shadowsteeds did not appear.

Two days later, they halted at a fork in the road. Here the Dusk Road continued on west, while a lesser-used track branched off to the north, winding its way into the rocky Trielta Hills. There seemed no way of knowing for certain which direction Caledan had gone.

“Nothing,” Cormik said darkly, scrambling out of the hedgerow he had been searching. “I can’t see any signs that Caledan came this way at all.”

Jewel appraised the rotund crime lord critically. “Let me guess—it’s all the rage in the royal court of Cormyr to wear a bird’s nest on one’s head, and as usual you’re just a pawn of fashion?”

Cormik hastily snatched at the abandoned nest that had gotten tangled in his dark hair. He glowered at her. “You’re evil, aren’t you?”

Her only answer was a disturbingly sweet smile.

Mari sighed in frustration. “I suppose well just have to make our best guess as to which way Caledan went.”

“I have an idea.”

The others turned to Kellen in surprise. He had not spoken much since the ruined city. Whether or not Kellen was in truth the one foretold in Isela’s prophecy, something strange had happened to him in Talis. What had been going on in his mind since, Morhion could only guess.

Jewel knelt, regarding Kellen with curious eyes. “What did you have in mind, love?”

“Ill show you,” he said mysteriously.

From the leather pouch at his belt, Kellen drew out the polished bone flute his father had made for him. Sitting cross-legged at the fork in the road, he began to play a stirring air, almost like a marching song. Morhion felt a prickling on the back of his neck. Then the magic began. Dark shapes coalesced on the surface of the dirt road and slipped silently past Kellen to either side. More and more of the dark blobs drifted down the road, most turning left at the fork, a few turning right, before continuing on.

Cormik let out a booming laugh. “Clever lad!” he said, clapping his stubby hands together. “We can’t know which way Caledan took, but you’ll show us the way his shadow went.”

“And it’s safe to assume that the rest of him went along,” Jewel said brightly.

Kellen smiled as he continued to play the flute.

The shapes moving on the ground were the shadows cast by travelers who had passed this way recently. Raptly, the companions watched the shadows go by: the silhouette of a peasant man bent under a load of firewood, a trio of mounted soldiers, a farmer’s ox-drawn wagon, and a nobleman’s coach-and-six. At last the silhouette of a lone rider came into view. All of them recognized the horse’s graceful head and the rider’s wolfish profile.

Propelled by the magic of Kellen’s song, the shadows of Caledan and his horse, Mista, approached the fork in the road, hesitated a moment, then took the left-hand track. Caledan had continued west, down the Dusk Road. Kellen lowered his flute. As the haunting music faded away, so did the silent procession of shadows. He looked tired but pleased.

“That’s a fine trick, lad,” Cormik said, impressed.

Morhion approached the boy. Kellen’s shadow magic was powerful indeed. He wondered what other unknown abilities the boy possessed. “I did not know that you could summon shadows of the past, Kellen.”

Kellen shrugged, putting away his bone flute. “I didn’t know either, until I tried.”

They mounted their horses and cantered down the broad swath of the Dusk Road. The full moon was rising when they made camp in a copse of beech trees. This time, Jewel made certain there were no caves in the vicinity. While Kellen piped a gentle tune on his flute, Cormik and Mari fashioned what supper they could from dried meat and such wild roots, mushrooms, and herbs as they could find.

From his saddlebag, Morhion pulled out the two gifts the witch Isela had given him. The book, which was certainly ancient, was written in the dead language Talfir, which meant Morhion would have to spend long hours of translation to understand its contents. He was eager to begin; he knew enough Talfir to read the book’s title. It was K’sai’eb’mal, or in the common tongue, On the Nature of Shadows. Morhion carefully set down the tome and picked up the ring, a simple silver band set with a large stone the purple hue of a twilight sky.

“I’ve never seen a gem like that,” Jewel said, sitting down next to the mage. She winked at him slyly. “And you might consider me an expert on the topic.”

“I think it is forged of magic,” Morhion said. “But as to its precise nature, I cannot guess.”

Jewel studied the stone, an intent expression on her ageless face. “The facets refract the firelight beautifully, but the center of the gem is dark. That’s strange. Given this type of cut, the center of the stone should be alive with light.”

Morhion thought about this. “Thank you, Jewel,” he said finally. “I’m not certain how, but I think that’s important.”

“Always glad to be of help, love.”

They ate dinner in silence, each of them wondering the same thing: How far ahead of them was Caledan? As the others readied themselves for sleep, Morhion took the chance to slip away.

The mage circled around a jagged rock outcropping to be certain he was out of earshot of the others. He did not need to call out. A blast of cold air whipped the leaf litter into a miniature cyclone, and out of the swirling leaves drifted a vaporous, armor-clad figure Morhion knew well.

“You are wise to come to me, mage,” Serafi intoned in his sepulchral voice. “Just because we have forged a new pact, it does not mean that our old pact is binding no longer.”

“A fact of which I am well aware,” Morhion said bitterly.

Serafi drifted closer. Pale frost tinged nearby leaves of gold and crimson. “I am angry with you, mage. You risked yourself foolishly in the ruined city. You nearly perished. Have you forgotten that your body belongs to me?”

Morhion shrugged indifferently. “And what if I die, Serafi? There is nothing you can do then.”

The spectral knight’s laughter echoed malevolently from all directions. “Oh, you are wrong about that, mage. I have dwelt long in the twilight world of the dead, and I am powerful here. Die without granting me your body, and I will make every moment of your eternal after-existence one of pure and utter torment.”

Morhion shuddered despite himself. He drew out a small knife and made a cut on his forearm. Dark blood welled forth. He was glad for the pain; it cleared his head. “Get on with it, spirit,” he snapped. “I cannot be long. The others will wonder where I’ve gone.”

Serafi knelt and began to drink rapturously. “Ah, yes …,” he moaned. “Exquisite. But soon I will no longer need to drink to feel the sweet warmth of blood. Soon it will flow in my own veins. Your body will be mine, Morhion. Then, perhaps, that of the woman you call Mari will be mine as well …”

“What?” Morhion hissed.

“Do not play the innocent with me, Morhion,” Serafi said mockingly. “I know you desire her.” The knight’s laughter echoed again on the cold air. “Ah, but you have this perverse need to torture yourself, don’t you? Yes, you must always deny yourself that for which you long. Well, be certain of this, Morhion—if you are too foolish to claim her, then once your body is mine, I will.”

Crimson rage flared before Morhion’s eyes. He snatched his arm from the spirit’s chill grip. “Get away from me,” he snarled. “Your drink is done. Our pact is fulfilled for this moon. Now begone.”

Serafi rose, eyes glowing hotly. “As you wish, mage. But I will not go very far.”

Before Morhion could spit a curse at the spectral knight, the frigid wind gusted again, and Serafi was gone. For a long moment the mage stood still, breathing deeply, trying to regain his composure. The spirit’s mocking words echoed in his mind, words made all the more horrible because there was a shard of truth in them. However, those were feelings Morhion had banished long ago. It is a mage’s lot to dwell in solitude, he told himself. He repeated the words again, and again, until at last his heart quieted. Then he made his way through the grove, hurrying back to camp before the others noticed his absence.

Two days later they reached the small trading town of Triel.

It was more of a fortified stockade than a proper town, but they were able to buy fresh supplies, and at least there was one inn where they could spend a night indoors. As in every town, there were thieves in Triel, and it didn’t take Cormik and Jewel long to ferret them out. The two returned to their rendezvous point in the town square.

“We’re getting closer to Stiletto’s base of operations,” Cormik told Morhion and Kellen.

Jewel nodded in agreement. “The thieves here were extorted into paying tribute to Stiletto months before anyone had even so much as heard the name in Hill’s Edge. We’re definitely not far away now.”

“Then perhaps there is a chance we may yet reach the Shadowstar before Caledan,” Morhion said.

Mari returned then. She had gone to discuss news with the local lord.

“How did it go?” Cormik inquired.

“Strangely,” Mari said, rolling her eyes. “Lord Elvar’s the most paranoid man I’ve ever met. He makes you look as svelte as a willow switch, Cormik, yet he’s convinced he’s going to starve to death. However, he’s less worried now than he was a few days ago.”

“Why is that?” Jewel asked.

Mari went on excitedly. “It seems rats were plaguing Elvar’s granary. Then a stranger came to town—a stranger who got rid of the rats by conjuring dark cats with the music of his pipes. What’s more, the stranger stayed on for a while at Elvar’s insistence. He left just two days ago.” Her eyes flashed brilliantly. “Caledan’s been here.”

“I know,” Kellen said quietly.

He pointed to an object in a dim corner. It was a hand of stone, reaching out of the cobbles from which it had been forged. It was clenched in agony and despair, like the hand of a drowning man.

Mari shook her head in sorrow. “Caledan,” she whispered. “It’s almost as if he’s leaving us these signs deliberately.”

“Yes,” Morhion echoed quietly. “But if so, what do they mean?”

K’shar pushed aside the tangled witchgrass and gazed upon the half-metamorphosed milestone with curious golden eyes. Without doubt, this was the work of Caldorien’s twisted shadow magic. For three nights and two days, the half-elf had been running swiftly through the Reaching Woods, stopping a mere half-dozen times, and then only long enough to sip water from a clear brook or to swallow a handful of acorns or late berries. Now blood surged hotly in his veins. He had found the trail.

Quickly, he examined the footprints pressed into the soft earth around the milestone. Five people had gathered here: a strong yet graceful woman, a tall man, a child, a heavy man, and a small woman who walked lithely but with a slight foot drag—perhaps due to age or injury. K’shar could guess the identities of at least three of them. The strong woman was Mari Al’maren; the tall man was the mage Morhion Gen’dahar; the child was Caldorien’s son, Kellen. The renegade Al’maren was indeed trying to find Caldorien, and it appeared she had help. K’shar regretted that she had a child with her—children were blameless creatures, and far too often paid for the crimes of their elders—but that did not matter. He would let nothing stand between himself and his prey.

As the autumn day wore on, K’shar loped easily down the Dusk Road, stretching out his long legs. From time to time, spying a traveler approaching, he would plunge into the thickets beside the highway, moving silently until it was safe to return to the road once more. K’shar preferred to make his way through the world unseen.

While he felt no hunger, by midday he knew he needed sustenance, or the swiftness of his pace would suffer. Halting, he scanned a hedgerow with keen eyes. Suddenly he plunged a hand into the bracken with uncanny speed. When he withdrew his hand, a fawn-colored rabbit struggled in his grip. K’shar spoke a gentle word, passing a hand before the creature’s face. The animal fell still, gazing at him with trusting brown eyes. It felt nothing when he snapped its neck with a precise twist of his hand. There was no time for a fire, so K’shar ate the rabbit raw. While the half-elf respected all animals, he felt no regret in killing the rabbit. It was the lot of the hunted to sustain the hunter. And one day, when he died, his own body would feed the grass that the rabbit ate. Such was the nature of the chase.

Stars were beginning to appear in a dusky sky when K’shar reached Hill’s Edge. The trading settlement was in a stir; something had transpired here recently. Curious, the half-elf prowled undetected through town, catching snippets of conversations. At last he overheard something of interest. Sinking into a shadowed corner, he listened to two people talking on the front steps of an inn.

“I told Faladar that I didn’t like the looks of them,” lamented a red-faced woman—a cook by her stained apron and the large wooden spoon she clutched. “But he wouldn’t listen to me. Not that he ever did.”

“You saw them then?” a man in merchant’s garb asked in fascination.

“Aye, I did,” the woman replied dramatically. It was clear this was not the first time she had told this tale. “They came here at dusk two nights ago, and a strange-looking bunch they were. The red-haired woman, she wore a sword at her hip. And the tall one, he had the air of a wizard about him. Had a gaze to freeze your blood, he did. They killed poor Faladar, I’m certain of it.” She let out an overwrought sigh. “And now it’s up to me to run the Five Rings all by myself.”

Something made K’shar think that the woman was not truly sorry to be in charge of the inn. Silent as a wraith, he slipped away. He needed to hear no more. Al’maren and her companions had been here just two nights ago, and evidently they had murdered a man. The renegade was sinking low indeed. Quickly, he made his way out of town.

It was full dark, and the moon had not yet risen when K’shar came to the stone bridge over the River Reaching, but his golden eyes required only the faintest of light. He knew it was for abilities such as this that his grandmother’s people had been—and still were—persecuted. Some thought that the ability to see in the dark could come only from evil magic. K’shar knew that the darkvision came from generations of his ancestors living in lightless underground caverns. Regardless of its origin, the darkvision was best kept secret, K’shar knew, even from the Harpers. Those who walked the daylight world would not understand his dark heritage.

As he set foot on the bridge, something caught his sharp eyes. He knelt to examine the moist dirt in front of the stone span.

“By all the stars of midnight,” he swore softly.

The tracks had been trampled by booted feet and iron-shod hooves. But K’shar could see enough to know they were like no tracks he had seen in all his years as a Hunter. They were shaped like the prints of a barefoot man, but the toes were unusually long, and there were only three of them, and these ended in curved talons. No man had left these tracks. Nor had any beast that K’shar was familiar with.

Fascinated, he followed the strange tracks. There had been two of the creatures. They had stood before the bridge for a time before heading southward. The tracks were clearer once they left the heavily traveled road, and after a short way they were joined by the prints of a third, similar creature. K’shar halted. He had come to a place where the tracks of the unknown creatures were superimposed on a different set of prints—prints he recognized.

“Al’maren,” he said in amazement.

He squatted down and studied the myriad shapes pressed into the ground. Whatever the three creatures were, they had chased Al’maren and her friends toward the edge of the Reaching Woods. Had Caldorien ventured into the Reaching Woods as well? Or had he continued westward down the Dusk Road? The half-elf mulled over this dilemma. He could not be certain which way Caldorien had gone. On the other hand, he was certain about Al’maren. He made his decision.

“A Harper in the hand is worth two in the bush,” he noted wryly, before plunging soundlessly into the shadowed forest.