A tall figure stood on the balcony. Long black robes swirled as the figure turned to face them.
“Isn’t naked fear like the sweetest of music?” said the Shadow Master.
It sounded as if the words were being spoken right next to them.
What happened next seemed to Sagandran like it was when he looked through the telescopic lens of Mom’s camera and zoomed in to the picture. He could never decide whether the companions slid toward the Shadow Master or the Shadow Master slid toward them, but in just a couple of seconds the distance between them shrank, until the Shadow Master, the window and the balcony were no longer tiny and far off, but full-sized and just a few yards away.
Now Sagandran could see that the Shadow Master was wearing a crown fashioned out of some dull metal. On the front were three skeletal hands. Two were clutching crystals – one dark, one light – and the central one gripping only emptiness. It wasn’t hard to guess that this middle space was reserved for the jewel, which Sagandran was holding on its chain.
“So we meet at last.” Arkanamon’s voice was like a snake’s hiss. There was something in his manner that was snake-like too. With each syllable, his head came forward a little, as if seeking a place to sink its fangs. His tongue constantly flickered over dry lips. Even his eyes, which were like burning coals that could go from smoldering to blazing in a moment, had the stare of a cobra.
“What a motley little raggle-taggle army it is that Sagaria and the Earthworld have sent to meet me: three runts and a senile incompetent of a wizard who should have died by my hand many years ago. You call this an army?” cried the Shadow Master. “Let me show you poor amateurs what a real army is like.”
Again they slid, this time until they were all, the Shadow Master included, standing on his balcony looking out over the ashen wastes that had once been Tamshado. Almost directly beneath were the flames and machinery of the slave mines, but all that any of them had eyes for were the distant plains beyond a low ridge. There, it seemed as if some giant hand had been cupped to hold a million squirming black maggots. Sagandran could feel his heart sinking. Each of those tiny black dots, he knew, was a fully armed warrior. The Earthworld had weaponry that would be unimpressed by metal armor, but what chance had Sagaria of withstanding an invasion of so many? Even the Earthworld, with its bombs and tanks and drones and white phosphorus and high explosive artillery, had nothing with which to fight the dark magic of the Shadow Master. It felt to Sagandran as if, finally, he was staring into doom’s jaws.
Perima was the one who seized the moment from the Shadow Master. “Your hordes have a poor record, Arkanamon,” she observed with a sniff. “We may be just a group of misfits, though I’d have you know that I am a Princess of the Blood Royal from of a proud lineage, but these misfits” – she pronounced the word as if it were contemptible – “were more than a match for your Shadow Knights in Wonderville, were they not?”
“True.”
“And we made your host of worgs look foolish, did we not?”
“They were foolish before you started,” said the Shadow Master, “but you’re right. You people may be pathetic, but in my own way I’ve come to feel slight admiration for you. Especially for you, Princess Perima. You have spirit. Once it has been tamed by suitable … methods, you might be fit to serve as one of my consorts.”
Perima flushed just enough that Sagandran thought he might be the only one to notice, but she continued gamely.
“Sir Tombin disposed of two of your Shadow Knights just a few hours ago.”
“But died in the process,” qualified Arkanamon. “Let us not forget that, haughty princess. I heard about it all. Even the very walls of my realm report to me everything they see.”
He smiled – a terrible sight. His mouth reminded Sagandran like some lamprey out of a nightmare.
His minions must pass through that temple every day on their way to and from the slave mines, thought Sagandran, so how come he doesn’t know about it? Is there treachery in his ranks, perhaps? A conspiracy of silence? Or does the goddess Tamash choose to reveal herself only to those whom she wishes to see her? Was that why Cheireanna was so urgently reverential the moment we came across the fountain and the statue? Are the hidden temples of Tamshado hidden in a far more profound way than I’ve imagined? Not just tucked away in secret corners, but deliberately hiding from eyes that should not see them?
“Your liege, Deicher, fared no better than your Shadow Knights,” Perima was saying. So great was the vehemence of her passion that her face seemed to glow with a light from another world.
“He served his purpose,” said the Shadow Master with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I was glad to see him go.”
“Irrelevant,” snapped Perima with a wave of her own hand. “Deicher himself was not glad to ‘go,’ and yet we made your mighty sorcerer do so – two of these ‘runts.’”
The Shadow Master stared at her, then abruptly turned his gaze away.
“You have learned so very little, Arkanamon,” murmured Samzing wistfully, sounding almost sorry for the man. “You still make the mistake of confusing cunning and deceit with wisdom.”
“Ah, yes,” said the Shadow Master, looking more like a serpent than ever. “My old acquaintance, Samzing the Infinitely Forgettable.”
“Whom I see you haven’t forgotten,” said Samzing.
The Shadow Master snorted disdainfully. “It has been a long time since we last clapped eyes on each other, schoolmate. I see the years have treated you roughly. You’ve become a stooped old man, while I’m still as young as I was then – and stronger, so very much stronger.”
Staring at Arkanamon, Sagandran couldn’t think how the man could be proud of his physical youth. It was impossible to guess the Shadow Master’s age, because the evil within him had so twisted his appearance that it was hard to believe he was still truly human. Didn’t the Shadow Master ever look in a mirror? Or was the only reflection he ever saw the one he wanted to see?
“If the price to pay for youth like yours is stealing the life force of the innocent,” Samzing was saying stoutly, “then I am glad that I’ve become old.”
Again the Shadow Master gave that horrid giggle, sending bony fingers up Sagandran’s spine. “You still don’t understand, do you, old man? No, I see you don’t, no more than you ever did. Not even when I arranged, oh so cleverly, for your expulsion from the college of the Elemental Orders at Qarnapheeran. It was so simple to make it look as if you’d deliberately tried to murder me. The difference between the magic of darkness and the magic of light is elementary to perceive, Samzing, you fool, and yet you’ve never been able to do it. The magic of light seeks ever to obey the rules, but the magic of darkness knows no limits. Its power is unbounded, unrestricted by the petty concerns of morality. That is why the magic of darkness will always prevail over the magic of light.”
“We shall see,” said Samzing with simple dignity.
The Shadow Master must have felt the restrained force because he flinched away from the wizard. “Only I shall still be there to see,” he muttered.
Sagandran had had enough of this shadow boxing. “Where’s my grandfather?”
The Shadow Master fixed him with a stare. Sagandran could feel it like needles pricking the skin of his face.
“You mean you worry about the dotard? You’re so small that you have time for concern about someone so expendable?”
Sagandran felt his blood beginning to boil. “Only the truly contemptible have contempt for the lives of others,” he said.
Arkanamon shrugged. “Well, you’ll meet him soon enough. I have kept him alive that long. The last I saw of him, Melwin was somewhat … tired after the long hours of his latest interrogation, and said he needed to take a rest.” The Shadow Master giggled once more. “Just a little rest from all the high excitement,” he added.
Fists clenched, Sagandran took a pace toward the cloaked man. Samzing’s hand clamped down on his shoulder, holding him back.
A voice sp
oke from behind, and the companions spun to see the newcomer.
Newcomers in the plural, they discovered.
“You have brought my Earthworldling servant, have you, Tomaq?” said the Shadow Master.
The officer bowed deeply. Beside the armored Shadow Knight stood a smaller figure.
“Webster!” gasped Sagandran. “You again.”
Webster O’Malley’s face looked beaten by circumstance, as if the spirit had been squeezed ruthlessly from him like toothpaste from a tube. But he managed to conjure up a mockery of his old sneer, as if everything was going according to his master plan.
“Ah, yah, Sag. It’s the way it goes, you see. Like my Dad always says, in business there have to be some winners and that means there has to be a heck of a lot of losers. You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs, you know. There’s no more point in the losers whimpering about it than there is in the eggs complaining that they’ve been broken.” He spread his hands. “I had to buy myself a ticket home, didn’t I? And you were the fee the ticket-collector asked for. Now I’ve come to claim my reward.” His grin gained something of its old cocksureness. “Just like the lottery, ain’t it?”
“Creep,” said Perima.
Sagandran, who’d been about to let fly at Webster with a stream of invective, realized that she’d said it all for him.
“But you failed, Webster,” interposed the Shadow Master. “Don’t forget you failed.”
Webster looked at him with a display of defiance. “It wasn’t my fault. It was them halfwit Shadow Knights of yours that failed. I did my best – ’sides, you got Sag and the rest here now, so where’s the difference? When are you going to send me home, like I was promised?”
“Promised, Webster? Do you think I would bother to promise anything to an insignificant wretch like you?”
“You did!”
The Shadow Master looked to his subservient officer. “Did I do any such thing, Tomaq? I do not recall it.”
Tomaq tried to bow even further. “Neither do I, sire.”
Arkanamon gave a mock-sorrowful sigh. “Then I think you must be mistaken, Webster.”
The boy’s eyes were wild with distress. “I did everything you told me to!”
The fiery eyes waxed yellow. “Then you must learn, Webster, that sometimes everything is simply not enough.”
The Shadow Master stretched out a bony hand and pointed a finger at the cringing boy. “Zorax litca abselifor.”
“Whaddya mean, zorax thing?”
As Sagandran watched, his mouth wide in horror, the lower part of Webster’s legs turned the gray of stone.
At first, Webster didn’t notice the transformation happening to his body. Only when he was marble up to his waist did he look down, and then he started to scream.
“Farewell, inadequate servant.” Arkanamon’s voice was soft, yet it cut through the screaming.
The upper edge of the stone was soon around Webster’s chest. His lungs could no longer fill with air. With the last of the air in them, the boy let out a final, despairing shriek, and then the whole of him was gray. Where there had been a living boy, there was now a marble statue whose face was frozen in a scream of anguish.
The Shadow Master tapped the top of Webster’s stone head. “Another masterpiece for my collection,” he commented mildly. “I’ve become quite the connoisseur, you know. Tomaq, take this specimen down to the gallery and place it among the others.”
“Right you are, sire,” said the Shadow Knight, bending to put his arms around the thighs of what had once been Webster. He grunted as he lifted the heavy statue, then staggered away from the open balcony.
Sagandran let out a moan of dismay. “Sheesk. I never liked Webster O’Malley but …”
“Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say,” interrupted Perima with some semblance of cheerfulness.
You’re a princess, thought Sagandran. You’ve been trained to be callous. I haven’t.
The Shadow Master was once more staring at him. “I think we’ve had enough little courtesies, don’t you? Sagandran, give me the Rainbow Crystal.”
“No.”
“Give it to me. You will not enjoy the experience if I have to take it from you.”
“No.” Sagandran stuck his jaw out and gripped the crystal. It seemed to pulse with a life force of its own, feeding him with strength and determination into him. Perhaps it was no more than an illusion, but in that moment he felt invulnerable, invincible, a match for the worst that the Shadow Master might throw at him.
False confidence, but better than no confidence at all.
There was a new voice. Samzing’s voice. “Leave the boy alone, Arkanamon, you scum!”
The wizard raised his arms, preparing to cast a spell, his lips already moving in the first syllables of the incantation. “Scum, am I? You and your cronies at Qarnapheeran always did look down your noses at me. Now the tables have been turned – with a vengeance. I suppose it falls to me to teach you that.”
“Like you taught me before? That retaliation of yours was supposed to kill me, Arkanamon, yet here I stand before you now.”
“You stand before me as an old man, Samzing,” said the Shadow Master, as if repeating something to a deaf great-uncle.
What scared Sagandran the most was that the Shadow Master’s hissing voice seemed compassionate, caring, sympathetic.
“Well, old man, I recall the spell that almost did you in last time. Now I propose to let it finish its work.”
From the Shadow Master’s hand there grew a great ball of light, far too bright for Sagandran to look at. Screwing up his eyes, he half-turned away, trying not to let his vision be dazzled.
With a flick of his skeletal finger, Arkanamon sent the thunderbolt hurtling toward Samzing. The bolt struck the wizard in the chest, throwing up a cloud of sparks and smoke, and sending him crashing into the balcony’s balustrade and almost over it. As the air was crushed out of him, he slumped with a moan against the stone barrier. His face turned as gray as the stone that Webster had become. The air smelled of scorched cloth and flesh.
“You murderer!” cried Sagandran. “You’ve killed him!”
“That’s not all I’ve done,” continued the Shadow Master in that same whimsical, almost tender tone. “Take a look at your friend.”
Sagandran turned. “Oh, no.”
Perima.
Frozen where she stood.
She must have realized at the last moment what the Shadow Master was doing, because her face was twisted and distraught.
“Later,” cooed Arkanamon, “I shall take the greatest of delight in turning her into a statue to join your friend, Webster. Or maybe not. On second thought, I believe I have … other uses for that high and mighty princess of yours. So very pretty she is.”
“I’ll—”
“What you will do, Sagandran,” said the Shadow Master, his voice hardening so that it cut like a cold diamond, “is give me that crystal. Otherwise things will go ill for you and for your friends. They will curse you for not allowing me to merely transform them into pretty stone ornaments.”
Sagandran felt his body moving into a crouch. Ridiculous as it seemed, it was instinctively preparing to launch into an attack. Fight or flight, the old principle. His mind would not let his body flee, so it was readying itself for the only other option.
“Whatever you do to me, to us, I will never surrender the Rainbow Crystal to you. With the last breath I breathe, I’ll fight you to safeguard the three worlds and all that I hold dear.”
To symbolize how the Rainbow Crystal was of the same essence as he was and could never be taken from him without his destruction, Sagandran stuffed the gem back inside his T-shirt.
“So stubborn,” said the Shadow Master, as if Sagandran’s resistance were of little consequence, a minor irritation. “As stubborn as your grandfather. You forget, boy, that I can do to you what I could not do to your grandfather, who served as bait to draw you here – draw you and the Rainbow Crystal here. To
take the trophy from you, all I need to do is kill you.”
“And you can do that so easily?” retorted Sagandran, drawing courage from somewhere. His adrenaline was rushing as if he were the one threatening the Shadow Master, not the other way around. “Then how come you haven’t done it already?”
The Shadow Master’s eyes flared to a white heat, then his mouth tightened in detestation. He made as if to strike out with his thin fist, but managed to control himself.
“I think,” continued Sagandran, “it’s because you can’t.”
A surge ran through him, a feeling of power. He was the one in control.
“And why should that be, Arkanamon? Why are you unable to strike me dead where I stand?”
The Shadow Master did not respond. He just watched Sagandran through eyes that were the narrowest of slits.
“I believe,” said Sagandran, “it’s because for all your talk about the magic of darkness being able to transcend every boundary, it must, in fact, abide by the rules – like every other form of magic. Somewhere in those prophecies you’ve been using as your guide, it says that the Rainbow Crystal cannot be taken. It will remain itself only if it is freely given.”
As if he were mimicking Arkanamon, Sagandran dropped his voice to a whisper. “And I do not choose to give it to you!”
It was a standoff. Arkanamon couldn’t kill him for the crystal, but neither could Sagandran strike out at the Shadow Master. Sagandran could turn on his heel and walk out of the Palace of Shadows unharmed, but that would leave all his friends and Grandpa Melwin to face whatever horrific fate the Shadow Master could dream up for them.
The Shadow Master smiled hideously. “You forget one thing, Sagandran.”
“Yeah, right. Like what?”
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