Cloak of Shadows

by Greenwood, Ed

  * * * * *

  Daggerdale, Kythorn 15

  As Toril rocked around them, Elminster stood watching the rain of stars with a smile on his face. Not that it was a particularly reassuring smile.

  Belkram glanced at him once, as the flash of a star coming to earth somewhere south and east of them—in the Vast, perhaps—lit that craggy old face, and through the snow-white beard and moustaches saw that smile.

  The Harper ranger shuddered, drew a deep breath, and announced to the Realms around, “Adventure … I know I asked for it. Thanks. Handsomely done. No more—got it?”

  Sharantyr heard him and laughed rather wildly as the sky split apart above them and bright things fell in legions from a roiling rainbow sky that a moment before had been the soft purple of dusk stealing in.

  “By all the gods, what’ll the fanfare be?” Itharr shouted excitedly, staring up. Elminster shot him a look that had sent stronger men to their knees, but the young Harper was lost in trying to look at all the world at once.

  The very air around them was alive, tingling and stirring. It felt as if all the world were awakening, rushing toward something exciting and splendid. The four friends felt exultant, on fire, and stirred as if by wild lovemaking all at once. They turned inward, looking at each other with shining eyes.

  “What is all this?” Sharantyr asked the Old Mage, catching at his arm.

  He swayed, almost falling, and for one terrified moment the lady ranger thought she saw him flicker and almost wink out. Then he was rounding grimly on her, as solid and as grumpy as ever.

  “The Fall of the Gods,” he almost whispered. “Come upon us at last. All of the gods will walk Faerûn before this night is out … and not willingly. We must be on our guards from this moment forth. Nothing is safe, and the land may well be laid waste or changed forever with each passing hour.” He bared his teeth in a smile that had no mirth in it and added, “Just so ye know what to do with thy idle moments, from this breath onward.”

  Shar looked at him in sudden, quickening fear, her eyes wide. “Did the … the Shadowmasters have anything to do with this?” The two Harper rangers drew in close to hear his reply, swords out and ready but with no foes to fight.

  “No,” Elminster said shortly, holding up a hand to forestall further questions. Shar followed his gaze and saw that he was watching the rangers’ drawn swords.

  Small balefires flared and ran down the edges of those blades, and the four companions felt their hair rising to stand on end as the world lifted under them, hung for a moment, and then fell sickeningly through emptiness. As abruptly, the world returned to its normal state, seeming as it always had until moments before.

  Cool breezes were stirring around them as night came down on Daggerdale, a night like any other.

  They stared at each other and into the gathering gloom around them, hardly believing what had befallen and ended so suddenly. After a time, Itharr murmured, “What now, Old Mage?”

  “Make camp, as we intended,” Elminster said calmly, scratching the hair above one of his ears with the stem of his pipe. It was unlit and empty; Shar thought she’d seen him bring it out of a pocket only moments earlier. “Always keep an eye for the night around and blades at the ready. All the beasts of the wilderlands are liable to be up and about, stirred and upset by what just befell. First, see to the horses. They took fright, of course, and I can’t hold them from bolting much longer.” The Old Mage’s voice changed. “Aye, that’s another thing. Magic is no longer something ye can depend on. So don’t set store by it. As of now, casting a spell is like starting a wildfire in dry wood; all things may be burned, not just what was intended.”

  “Without magic as our shield,” Belkram asked very quietly, his eyes on the night around, “what’s to stop these Shadowmasters from attacking in force and rolling over us?”

  “Fear of me,” Elminster said sweetly, clapping him on one biceps. “Now get ye to work. My old bones are looking forward to the softest cot ye can rig, this night.”

  Sharantyr raised a warning finger and eyebrow to forestall any jest in bad taste Belkram or Itharr might have been thinking of making, and after a silent moment they gave her identical grins and went away warily into the night, the first tongues of moonlight touching the edges of their swords.

  “What will you be doing now?” Shar asked. “Should I be helping with wards or suchlike?”

  “I must raise a shield and go within it, apart from ye for a time,” Elminster replied. “Ye could do the heroic thing, of course, and stand guard with a drawn sword like those two heroes”—he snorted, jerking his head at where the two Harpers had gone—“or just sit down at watch for intruding beasts. I won’t be long; just shout if ye need me.”

  Sharantyr inclined her head in a slow nod and stepped back, her sword hissing out. Never taking her eyes from the Old Mage, she sank down to sit cross-legged with her back against a sloping stone block that had once been part of the keep’s wall. The lady Knight laid her sword across her thighs and settled herself into calm immobility.

  “No snoring now,” Elminster told her, waggling a finger in admonishment and farewell. An instant later, a ring winked and the world around vanished.

  Then the shield rippled, wavered, and El frowned at it, pursing his lips and letting the tiniest part of his life-force slip out of him into the shield, steadying it.

  That essence was gone forever now, and Elminster was the lesser for it. Which would have been a fatal miscalculation for the Archmage of Shadowdale—but for Syluné, the sister whom Faerûn thought dead, the loss was but a fleeting sorrow, lost amid so many more she carried already.

  She shut the body’s eyes for a moment, sighed, and then opened them again with a wry smile and went about what she had to do without haste or regret, for she was Syluné. First, the various depleted or partially spent rings, wristlets, and pendants that stored spells came off into a neat pile on the turf. Then she drew off one of the boots the body wore, did something to its heel, and spilled forth a fresh supply of enchanted baubles. She selected two rings immediately and slipped them on. Then she turned her attention to the other boot.

  Its heel was empty and received the contents of her first pile. She put that boot back on and knelt for a moment in thought, selecting what would best serve from the small heap of fresh items.

  There was so little magic here, and the lives of her companions—her friends—depended on it. So, to a lesser but not dismissable extent, did the freedom of much of Faerûn. Even so, conflicts of Art prevented her from wearing and wielding all of this at once. She made a few careful selections and put the rest away again.

  Booted once more, she donned the various items, settled herself, and sat in stillness for a time, awakening things that had to be activated. Lines of force blazed through the lifeless body at her direction, linking this with that, building a web of interwoven magic as swiftly as she could. Now she could call up power after power without speech or gesture. This body didn’t even need to breathe. The fire that animated it looped through the lifeless flesh, weaving tightly around enchanted items and muscles that moved limbs and gave expression to the now-slack face, and returned along a thousand channels to the stone nestled low between two ribs on the right flank. A stone from her hut, the anchor around which her spectral form could coalesce, the only thing that allowed her to animate this false Elminster. She felt for the stone with the body’s fingers. When she could not feel it from the outside, she nodded in satisfaction and got up. The longer she stayed shielded, the more danger her companions were in.

  Worse, the moment this imposture was discovered, they were walking dead. Syluné sighed experimentally, nodded again in satisfaction, and set her shoulders.

  “Elminster once more,” she murmured, raising a hand. The shield fell away, and she was gazing across moonlit space to the anxious eyes of Sharantyr, hand on the well-worn grip of her sword.

  Being Elminster, Syluné did not smile reassuringly, but merely raised a gently mocking eyeb
row and said, “Enthralled by the spectacle of my manly beauty, lass?”

  Shar’s face melted into a grin. “All the time, Old Mage,” she replied happily. “All the time.”

  “Hmmph. Great advantage ye take of it, I must say.” Elminster strode past her to peer hawklike into the night, locating the two Harpers. Belkram was curled up asleep in his cloak, drawn sword laid ready on its spare folds by his hand. Itharr was standing watch, looking around alertly. He raised a hand in salute to Elminster, who returned it and seated himself on the most comfortable-looking rock.

  “All’s well?” Shar asked, shifting her legs into a more comfortable position. Moonlight flashed on her blade as she moved. El watched it glimmer down the steel as an owl hooted somewhere not far off in the trees behind them.

  “Aye. Should it not be?” Syluné made the words a testy challenge.

  Shar gave her a quick smile of admiration for capturing the Old Mage’s manner and said mildly, “Well, given that we’ve just seen the skies open and Toril wracked by forces that beggar even your mighty magic …”

  Elminster snorted. “Be not so sure. Gods seem to feel the need to impress.”

  Sharantyr wrinkled her lips in wry disbelief. “Indubitably,” she replied in cultured, courtly tones, “and yet the earth did shake, and magic is either failing us or going wild. Forgive me if, as a mere mortal, I find myself somewhat anxious as to what the future holds. Say, tonight and the morrow.”

  Elminster sighed. “The world has been falling apart for a long, long time. I know—I’ve been watching it. What particular part of this ongoing devolution concerns thee most, just now?”

  Belkram rolled over and eyed them both. “Sleep fails me, amid all this chatter. Is this another version of his ‘I’m older than the earth beneath ye, and have seen a thing or three’ speech?”

  “It is,” Sharantyr said gravely. Belkram yawned.

  “Ah, ’twas well I woke, then … wouldn’t have wanted to miss this …”

  “A little less biting sarcasm, ranger, if ye please,” Elminster responded, looking around them at the night.

  Tattered wisps of cloud were racing across the sky now, as if hurrying to a meeting they’d missed with all those divine falling meteors. When the clouds touched the moon, Daggerdale was bathed in a bright light of a violet hue that none of them had ever seen before. A little way distant, Itharr stared up at it in wonder, shook his head, and returned to peering into the dark trees around.

  “What a sky,” Shar murmured. Belkram gave her a look.

  “It’s all those Shadowmasters circling up there, interfering with the moonlight. Stop staring at it and get some sleep; I’ll take over watch. If we start falling asleep where we stand, we won’t even give the shapeshifters a moment’s entertainment in battle.”

  “Cheerful, isn’t he?” Elminster said to Shar, and added indignantly. “And what am I, suet pudding? Why must he take over watching from ye? Are my eyes so old and wandering?”

  “Wandering, yes,” Sharantyr mock-growled, and added sweetly, “besides, you’re the one we’re watching over, because you’re the bad-tempered, witless wizard in this band.”

  And with that, she rolled herself in Belkram’s cloak and sought slumber. The ranger and the wizard watched her in silence until they heard the faint rattle that served Sharantyr as a snore. Then Belkram leaned forward and whispered, “Old Mage, what’s to stop these shapeshifters scrying us from afar and simply attacking when we fall asleep?”

  “The Fall of the Gods. Magic will fail the Malaugrym as it fails us, in this e’er-growing chaos of Art.”

  “Aye, but without any magic of our own, how can we hope to stay alive against foes who can take any shape to elude our notice, escape us, or defeat us?”

  “There is a way to make magic more reliable, if the need is strong enough,” Elminster growled, and sat back as if dismissing the subject.

  “How?” the ranger asked softly.

  The Old Mage glared at him, but Belkram waited in unblinking patience.

  Elminster made no move, but the singing of a quick cloaking spell was suddenly around them. “Spells ye cast can be steadied by feeding thine own life-energy into them, giving of thyself to make the magic as steady as it should be.”

  “Has a spectral one enough to spare, to so give?” Belkram asked, eyes steady.

  “I shall do this when necessary, but only then,” Elminster replied firmly, and let the cloaking magic fall away. The owl hooted again, and somewhere far off over the moonlit hills to the northeast a wolf howled.

  They listened to the mournful sound until the wolf was done, and then Elminster stirred and spoke again. “Be more worried about attacks when relieving thyself is of paramount importance, or when you’re hungry and downing weapons and wariness to eat.”

  “The monster who disturbs my meal,” Belkram said darkly, “is liable to become my dessert.”

  “I shall devote myself,” Elminster offered serenely, “to recalling the most superb sauces to accompany a platter of whole roast shapeshifter with apple in mouth.”

  “You could use the same sauce Lhaeo drenched those frogs with, a few nights back,” Sharantyr murmured.

  They both stared at her, but she was fast asleep, even through the sputters and chuckles of their suppressed mirth that followed.

  Overhead, one last flaming star burst out of the night and flashed across the sky, heading west. It passed the waning “slaying moon” without pause or herald, and they did not see it fall.

  5

  Fallen the Flames

  Daggerdale, Kythorn 15

  When first it came, the violet moonlight made Arashta Tharbrow look up from her bitter reverie in alarmed wonder. What now, after a night in which she’d already seen stars falling from the sky and felt Toril shake around her? A night in which the small radiance she’d conjured to see what she was doing in the dark depths of these endless woods had twisted into a ball of worms and fallen to the earth beside her. A night in which the spell she’d hurled in disbelief to scorch those worms had produced a sprayed handful of ice pebbles instead.

  “The gods are against me,” she whispered despairingly, sitting down on what was left of a stone wall. She’d been a fool to come here alone, to wild, ruined Daggerdale. And if she couldn’t rely on her spells, she’d very soon be a dead fool.

  Who knew what beasts or brigands might be lurking near, watching her now?

  She pushed down cold rising fear with firm anger and stood up, her robes swishing back to cover her high-booted legs. She was a sorceress of the Zhentarim, and folk feared her. Even veteran warriors deferred to her in the streets of Zhentil Keep—and sometimes in her bed. She took what she desired and did as she wanted, within the orders given by her superiors.

  Those serpents! The mocking laughter of Thundyl echoed around her head one more time, and she saw again his amused face—and those of Rhaglar and Morgil, Master of Magelings, standing at his shoulder on the night of her humiliation, wearing smiles that vied with each other in open cruelty.

  Arashta ground her teeth and banished those hated visions with a furious wave of her hand. Her long, unbound hair swirled around her head in the moonlight, and she caught at it with one hand, wondering what she must look like, wandering alone in these ruins.

  She’d come hoping to slay Randal Morn and the handful of warriors loyal to him. They’d somehow eluded the best efforts of the Zhentarim to hunt them down. They slew encamped hireswords and Zhentilar troops in Daggerdale, striking here one night and there the next, slipping about like ghosts in the trees. They must have spell-cloaks to hide them from scrying, and they’d prevailed against some of the best blades the Zhentilar could whelm, leaving a trail of dead impressive even to an ambitious Zhentarim mage.

  And here she was, alone, seeking to bring them down. Arashta smiled thinly. She had a wand, true. Its comforting weight, sheathed in her left boot, rubbed against her leg as she took a few steps out of the full moonlight, to make herself less easily se
en by eyes in the trees nearby. The wand had little magic left in it, though, perhaps only a single strike. She also had herself, and men long without a woman might let a hard, wild beauty get closer to them than they’d suffer a peddler or pilgrim to venture.

  She had to find them first, though, before a brigand arrow or a hungry beast found her. Even if she prevailed against such foes, it would not do to let a watching Randal Morn know she commanded magic that could slay so effortlessly.

  The wings of her fury had brought her here so easily: a spell that, without her spellbooks, she could not regain here to take her home again. She had another magic that could change her appearance, but it was a sham seeming only, not a true change in shape. If she used it to hide herself while she slept, she’d be without it when it might be needed in battle.

  Sleep. She yawned. Again. Soon she’d be too weary to stay awake. How to sleep in safety, in these wild woods?

  Arashta sighed in exasperation. It had seemed so simple a mission when Thundyl—gods blast his arrogant smirk!—had charged her with it. All she’d have to do would be to avoid swaggering into Daggerdale with forty warriors or so, as her unsuccessful predecessors had done, and avoid being careless.

  It struck her that she wasn’t eluding carelessness all that well. Arashta shook her head, smiled ruefully, and took a few steps east, deeper into the dale, to where she could just see the glimmer of a small stream snaking across overgrown fields. Perhaps—She froze and then suddenly whirled around, robes flapping, to stare at the dark wall of trees. Someone, or something, was watching her. She could feel it. She raised a hand slowly, debating whether to cast her lone spell of revealing now or to save it for a more pressing moment.

  In the trees, the man whose body looked like the dark trunk of a duskwood had grown tall enough to overtop most of the branches in his way. Steadying himself by grasping a nearby bough, he threw the stone in his hand high and hard, and dwindled again, sinking down as the stone was still in the air.