Curse of the Shadowmage

Five

It was the dead of the night.

High in his tower, Morhion pored over the time-darkened book lying open on the table before him. He took a pinch of silvery dust from a clay jar and sprinkled it over the yellowed parchment. The faded ink began to glimmer with an unearthly blue light. Quickly, before the spell dissipated, Morhion read the spidery runes written in a long-dead tongue. As the glowing runes dimmed, Morhion sighed and leaned back in his chair.

“Worthless,” he murmured in disgust.

In the hours since he had left the Dreaming Dragon, Morhion had researched all he could concerning the history of the Shadowking, hoping to find something that might refute Kellen’s terrible conclusion. So far he had found nothing.

In a silver dish, Morhion burned an incense of mint, hyacinth, and sage. He breathed in the fragrant smoke—it would help keep him alert—and turned back to the book. It was a copy of an ancient tome, called Mal’eb’dala in the lost language Talfir; this translated into common-speak as The Book of the Shadows. The original book had been destroyed in a battle between two powerful mages an eon ago. This volume was an old replica. It contained passages that had been miscopied in or entirely omitted from the more recent copy in which Morhion had first read about the myth of the Shadowking. The book Morhion now held had been stolen by the Zhentarim warrior Ravendas from the library in Elversult when she began her search for the Shadowking’s crypt. Morhion had discovered it in the High Tower after Ravendas was defeated by the Fellowship.

Summoning the discipline for which mages were renowned, he bent again over the timeworn text. After a moment of painful effort, he swore softly. His weary eyes would no longer focus on the intricate runes. He knew he should shut the book for the night. It was all too easy to miss a crucial passage when exhausted, and he had hundreds and hundreds of pages yet to peruse.

“But I must learn what is happening to you, Caledan,” he whispered fiercely.

He stood and paced around the table, pondering the problem. Unfortunately, there was no magic he knew that could compel a book to read itself. If only there were someone else who could read the words to him …

Suddenly he knew the answer. With the ashes left from the incense, he traced an intricate pattern on the mahogany table. In the center of the pattern he placed a beeswax candle, lighting this with a minor cantrip. Lastly, he picked up a bronze hand-bell and rang it three times with a small mallet.

“Maharanzu kai Umaruk!” he intoned in the language of magic. “Come to me, Small One!”

The candle flared brightly, as if touched by some otherworldly wind, and purple magic sparked around the magical symbol drawn on the table. There was a great cracking sound, like a clap of thunder, and a dark rift opened in the air above the candle—a tear in the very fabric of the universe. A small, gray shape tumbled out. As quickly as it had opened, the rift mended itself.

“Youch! That’s hot!” the little creature shouted, barely avoiding the candle flame as it fell to the table with a plop!

Morhion watched with guarded amusement as the small being picked itself up and dusted itself off. It was shaped vaguely like a man but stood no higher than the length of Morhion’s hand; its skin was as rough and gray as stone. It was an imp, a denizen of one of those nebulous worlds that could be glimpsed through the facets of the crystal. They were small and devious beings, of minor importance at best, but they did have their uses.

The imp glared at Morhion with hot-ruby eyes, flapping its leathery wings in agitation. “Was it really necessary to put the gateway right above the candle, mage?” the creature complained in a raspy voice. “I singed my tail. I have a half a mind to turn around and go back to my own plane of existence right this second …”

“I wouldn’t advise that,” Morhion said ominously. “Attempt to leave, and you will find your tail more than merely singed. Do not forget—the symbol binds you to do my bidding.”

The imp glowered at him. “Details, details,” it grumbled. “You wizards certainly are a persnickety lot, aren’t you?”

“Don’t forget ‘short-tempered,’ ” Morhion added.

“Believe me, I haven’t,” the imp replied acidly. The scaly creature let out a resigned sigh, then sat on the edge of the table, crossing its legs and twirling its barbed tail impatiently in one hand. “All right, wizard. Excuse my lack of enthusiasm, but this makes ten thousand and two summonings so far this millennium, and the eon’s not even half over yet. Let’s just get this over with as quickly as possible. My name’s Qip. So what disgusting, nauseating, and onerous task will I be performing for you today, completely against my will?”

“I want you to read this book,” Morhion said, pointing to The Book of the Shadows.

The imp’s expression was incredulous. “A book? You want me to read a book?” The creature hopped to its feet and began pacing back and forth on the table. “Let me get this straight. You mean you don’t want me to collect the sweat of an ogre for one of your spells? Or find a lost treasure in the Forest of Prickly Rashes? Or”—the imp shuddered at some unbidden memory—“retrieve an enchanted ring you dropped down the privy by accident?”

“No,” Morhion said with growing impatience. “I only want you to read the book.”

“Just the book? You’re quite certain?”

“Unless I’m entirely mistaken, that’s what I said.”

The imp clapped its hands together jubilantly. “Finally! A simple task. And one that doesn’t even smell bad!”

“You can do it, then?” Morhion asked in relief.

The imp stared flatly. “Of course not. Imps can’t read, you nincompoop.”

Morhion restrained himself from throttling the impudent imp. With a sigh, he raised a hand to banish the wretched creature back to its wretched plane of existence. Abruptly he halted. An idea had occurred to him.

“Qip, you can’t understand the runes in the book, but you could recognize a specific pattern of lines, couldn’t you?”

The imp rolled his eyes. “I said I couldn’t read, wizard. I didn’t say I was a moron.”

With great effort, Morhion ignored the imp’s insolence. There might be a way to make things work yet. He retrieved pen and parchment from his desk and carefully wrote down the specific runes that signified “shadowking.” He showed the parchment to Qip.

“I want you to find every occurrence of these runes, in this exact sequence, in the book,” Morhion instructed. “Can you do that, Qip? Or is that beyond the limited capabilities of an imp?”

“There’s no need to be insulting!” Qip complained. The imp grabbed the parchment, scanned it, then tossed it aside. The creature sidled to the book and began flipping pages with its gnarled hands. Morhion allowed himself a smile. All he would have to do was read the few pages on which the imp found the word “shadowking.”

Morhion soon realized the job was going to take as long as it would have taken for him to read every word of the whole book himself. Qip required several minutes to scan each page, and there were hundred and hundreds of pages. It seemed pointless.

“I have a solution,” Qip said cheerily when Morhion expressed his impatience.

Morhion regarded the imp cautiously. Why was the devious little creature suddenly being so helpful?

“All I have to do is invite a hundred or so of my cousins to drop by this backwater plane of existence,” the imp elaborated. “Divide all the pages up among us, and we’ll find your precious runes like that.” Qip snapped a pair of clawed fingers for emphasis.

“Yes,” Morhion said. “It could work.”

“Er, and you don’t even have to bother with that silly sigil of yours,” Qip added hastily, gesturing to the magical symbol on the table. “I can just bring my friends through the gateway myself …”

So that’s the little cretin’s plan, Morhion thought. Any imps summoned by Qip outside the sigil would not be bound by the symbol’s magic. Imps were capricious and maleficent creatures. Freed of the mage’s binding magic, they would be all too happy to turn on Morhion and tear him to bits.

A musing smile touched Morhion’s lips. “I like your plan, Qip,” he began. The imp’s ruby eyes flared with victory. “But,” Morhion added quickly, “you will open the rift within the sigil, not without.”

Hatred burned in the imp’s gaze. “And what if I don’t?”

Morhion’s smile broadened nastily. “With a single spell, Qip, I can ignite your tail with a fire so hot you’ll think the candle’s flame a cold winter wind by comparison.” He lifted a hand menacingly.

Qip’s crimson eyes bulged out of his skull. “Now, there’s no need to for that,” the imp said hastily. “Did I say to ignore the sigil?” He thumped his forehead with a fist. “What was I thinking? Of course I’ll use the sigil. Why, I would never think of not using the—”

“Just open the rift, Qip,” Morhion said testily.

The imp gulped, then clambered back inside the glowing magical symbol on the table. The creature rang the bell three times, and the dark rift in the air opened once more. At once, dozens of imps began to pour out, swearing colorfully when they found themselves bound by the mage’s spell. Morhion allowed himself a satisfied smile. This was going to be fun.

Morhion was reluctant to tear the pages out of the ancient book, but there was no other solution. Besides, the old binding was cracking, and he could have the pages resewn. Soon the mage’s study was littered with imps. The little creatures perched on every available surface—shelves, ledges, chairs—some even hanging from the rafters like bats. Each clutched several pages of the book, scanning furiously. Whenever one of them came upon the rune-words that Morhion had specified, the imp would flutter crazily through the air to deliver the parchment excerpts to the mage. Within a quarter hour the imps were finished, and Morhion had a dozen such pages, each bearing a reference to the ancient being of shadow magic. Some were pages he recognized from past readings, but a few contained passages he had never seen before.

“You and your kin have done well, Qip,” Morhion told the imp.

“Oh, thank you, Great One,” Qip replied with mock adulation. “You know your approval means everything to me. I crave nothing else.”

The imp’s tone was sarcastic, but Morhion was surprised to see a glint of sadness in the creature’s crimson eyes. He realized what a difficult existence it must be, constantly being summoned and forced to do another’s bidding. Then Morhion made an unusual decision. He moved to the magical sigil, erased some of the lines, and redrew them.

“What’s the meaning of that?” Qip asked suspiciously.

“It means,” Morhion explained, “that once I send you back to your plane of existence, no one—not even the most powerful wizard—will be able to summon you or your kindred for three hundred years.”

Qip’s eyes went wide. “You’d really do that for us?” the creature asked in astonishment.

Morhion shrugged indifferently. “I just want to make certain you don’t come back to pester me in my lifetime.”

Qip grinned, displaying countless needlelike teeth. “Thanks, wizard. You’re not so bad after all.” The imp gestured elaborately to the others. “Come on, everyone! No summonings for three centuries. It’s vacation time!”

Morhion rang the bronze bell once, and the imps vanished in a puff of acrid smoke. He found himself laughing softly at the curious creatures. Then he picked up the pages that the imps had brought him, and his laughter halted. Instinct told him that what he was about to read would not give him cause for mirth.

He was right. He read the crackling pages once quickly, then again slowly, making certain that he did not misinterpret the ancient runes. What he read chilled him to the core. At last he set down the sheaves of parchment. There could be no doubt about it. Caledan was indeed undergoing the same terrible transformation that the sorcerer Verraketh had experienced a thousand years ago. He was becoming an inhuman creature of utter evil—a shadowking.

Morhion collected all the loose pages of the Mal’eb’dala. Dawn was still a few hours away. He was exhausted, but he knew there would be no sleep for him that night. The upheaval foretold by the runestones approached. Morhion was filled with dread, yet also with renewed exhilaration. This was what it felt like to be alive. Gathering the book pages into a neat stack, he set them on the table and turned to leave his study.

Before he could open the door, a cold wind blew through the chamber. Morhion turned to see the gale rip through the stack of papers, filling the air with hundreds of swirling pages. A piece of yellowed paper slapped itself against Morhion’s face, blinding him. He clawed it away, then gasped. The whirling pages were coalescing into a small cyclone in the center of room. They spun faster, until they were little more than a blur. The noise of the gale rose to a keening howl. Abruptly, the wind ceased. The loose parchments fluttered to the floor. The dark figure of a knight, surrounded by an eerie corona of light, hovered where the pages had spun.

“Serafi,” Morhion hissed in trepidation and loathing. “Why have you come to me? It is not the full moon. You have had your blood for this month.”

The spectral knight drifted slowly toward Morhion, his eyes glowing with unearthly blood-red fire. “I have come to help you, Morhion,” the spirit intoned.

“I do not think I can afford any more of your help,” Morhion said bitterly. He gestured to the myriad scars that covered his arms.

“Oh, but you can, Morhion,” Serafi countered in his chilling voice. “You can, and you will.”

Morhion’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What makes you so certain I’d be interested?” His tone was bold, but he could not quite disguise the trembling in his voice.

“I know you, Morhion,” Serafi said, drifting closer. “I know you as no other possibly could.”

Morhion choked down the panic rising in his throat. “What do you want, usurper?”

The ghostly knight’s eyes flashed. “Do not taunt me with that name, Morhion. You will only regret it. For I have something that you would pay dearly to possess.”

“What?”

“Knowledge. The power to save or damn Caledan Caldorien once and for all.”

Morhion found himself sinking weakly into a velvet chair, gripping the smooth wood of the arms. Serafi hovered behind him. Morhion could feel the spirit’s chill, dusty breath on the back of his neck.

“What do you seek in return for this knowledge, Serafi?” the mage asked in disgust. “Do you wish to drink my blood twice each moon?”

The spirit’s laughter curdled Morhion’s blood. “Nay. Knowledge this great is worth far more than a mere sip of blood.”

“Then what?”

The spectral knight’s voice became a chantlike whisper. “I do not think you realize, mage, how cold it is to be dead. How cold, how dry, how hollow. I long to experience again all the sensations of life. You cannot imagine how deep and vast my hunger is, Morhion. To feel again—that is what I crave beyond all. To see with living eyes, to taste with fleshly tongue, to touch with warm fingers. I want these things, and all the other delicious sensations that living flesh has to offer.”

Morhion was sweating. “But life brings pain as well as pleasure, Serafi.”

“Yes, and I want to experience that as well,” Serafi spoke exultantly. “After the numbing cold of death, even the fiercest agony would be sweet awakening.”

“But how can I give you what you want?” Morhion demanded, fearing the answer. Suddenly he stiffened. A chill caress ran down his neck, his shoulders, his chest, traveling over his body, touching him in places where he had not been touched by another in long years. He wanted to cry out, to leap from the chair, but he sat as if frozen to the spot. A low moan escaped his throat, a mixture of fear and strangled pleasure.

“You have kept your body well.” Serafi’s voice burned in his brain like poison. “You are older than I would like, yet you are strong, and handsome of face. I think that, with a body such as yours, I could seek out and enjoy all the sensations I desire …”

At last, Morhion managed to wrest himself from the ghostly embrace, lurching from the chair. Gasping for breath, he spun around to stare at the spectral knight. “I don’t understand,” he choked. But even as he spoke the words, he knew he was lying—that he did understand, and had already made his choice.

Serafi’s sinister voice echoed all around him. “I would live again, Morhion. And I require your body to do so. I will give to you the knowledge you need to save Caledan. I will grant you the time you need to pursue him and halt his metamorphosis. But, when the quest is over, my payment will be due.” The spirit’s eyes burned into Morhion. “And your body will become mine.”

“What … what then will become of my spirit?” Morhion managed to gasp.

Serafi waved a translucent hand, as if this were a matter of no importance. “You will be dead, Morhion. Nothing more, nothing less. Simply dead.” Drifting through the chair, the spectral knight approached. “Tell me your answer, mage. Do you accept my bargain?”

Terror clenched Morhion’s heart. He could not do this. Even he, who had sacrificed so much in his life for what he believed was the larger good. Or could he? Once before, he had destroyed his friendship with Caledan in order to save Caledan’s life. Now that friendship had grown anew, stronger than ever. Once again, was there anything he would not do for Caledan’s sake? All at once, the terror melted from Morhion’s chest. A strange peace descended on him. As if in a dream, he heard himself speak the words.

“I accept.”