Cloak of Shadows

by Greenwood, Ed

The head chuckled and said, “Done, then? Well done, I should say!” and faded slowly away.

  * * * * *

  “Are you whole?” Syluné asked softly, standing barefoot in the air before them.

  Belkram grinned up at her. “I could ask you the same question,” he replied. “I can see through you!”

  She put her hands on her hips and said tartly, “But I am the lady of us two, and I asked first … so answer, sirrah!”

  Shar and Itharr chuckled at that, and fell into each other’s arms weak with relief. “Yes … we’re whole,” Shar gasped, “I think …”

  “Good,” Syluné said crisply. “Then have the sense for once to sit still. I’ve work to do yet.”

  She raised her hands and cast a spell they’d all seen worked before: a simple telekinesis magic. The blade thrummed happily as it took the spell, and again when the ghostly witch cast an extension spell on top of her first magic.

  Then she sank down onto Belkram’s shoulder, crossed her legs gracefully, and closed her eyes. Driven by her will, the sword of Mystra spun about and shot to the wall, in the direction of the Hall of Stars.

  It struck the wall and hung quivering there, and the shadows around it began to melt and run, flowing away from it.

  When the wall was gone, the blade leapt on to the next barrier.

  “Gods!” Itharr swore suddenly. “She’s burning away the castle!”

  They scrambled up, and a look of annoyance crossed Syluné’s ghostly face. “Don’t let me fall, you great lout,” she told Belkram, opening her eyes. “I may weigh nothing, but I don’t appreciate being bounced on my head on floors made of shadow. To me, they seem very solid.”

  “It’s all right if we move about, then?” the Harper asked her.

  She frowned. “Yes, it’s better if you do, I suppose. Follow the sword. If any Malaugrym show up to do battle, it can drink their spells and shield you.”

  And that is what befell. As the Hall of Stars boiled away into the black emptiness of distant shifting shadows that is Shadowhome, the three rangers saw a tower beyond it topple soundlessly down into the Well of Shadows.

  “Don’t destroy it all,” Shar said to the ghostly form riding on Belkram’s shoulder.

  “I haven’t the time to do so if I wanted to,” Syluné told her. “I am going to ruin the Great Hall of the Throne, though, and carve up the Shadow Throne. I want the Malaugrym to know they were defeated this day, not just that some lucky humans got loose and managed to do a bit of damage while escaping.”

  There were a lot of walls between the Well and the Great Hall, and the adventurers soon caught up to the blue blade. It melted away one last wall and then flew down a long corridor into the Chamber of the Veils, the last antechamber before the Great Hall.

  As the veils blazed up around the sword, Malaugrym melted out of invisibility all over the chamber. Ahorga, Bheloris, and several others faced them, Malaugrym the rangers knew by sight if not by name. They saw grim determination, and fear, on the shapeshifters’ faces.

  Syluné spread her hands an instant before forty or more spells crashed down upon them. The room rang with her high, wild laugh of exultation as the spells all flashed back against those who’d hurled them.

  The chamber rocked; balconies broke off and crashed to the tiles below. All over the chamber, Malaugrym bodies collapsed, slain by their own spells, or sagged back in pain and flickered out of sight as contingencies and rings took them elsewhere.

  Amid the veils, the blue blade began a sudden spiral. Syluné looked up at it and said a very unladylike word.

  As they all looked up at her in amazement—and Belkram almost dropped her—the entire chamber shook, pulsed under their feet, and grated into life, joining the spiral. The shadows moved slowly at first, then faster and faster, a whistling drone around them rising slowly toward a scream.

  “Syluné! What’s happening?” Itharr shouted.

  “The blade struck a gate and is taking us all with it in a vortex,” the Witch of Shadowdale announced calmly. “Watch this closely … you’ll probably never be in one again. They’re often fatal.”

  “Thanks,” Belkram told her feelingly as they began to whirl around faster and faster. “Are you going to do something about it?”

  “I am doing something about it, overly muscled one,” Syluné told him crisply. “I’m calling on the sword’s powers to make sure the vortex takes us to Faerûn and not into the fires of Dis, say, or a plane of endless fire or antimatter.”

  “What part of Faerûn?” Belkram called back over the mounting shriek of the vortex. She turned blazing eyes on him until she saw his teasing grin, then she punched him instead.

  And the world fell apart.

  * * * * *

  Daggerdale, Kythorn 20

  The blue blade sizzled deep into the turf of a familiar-looking hillside with a ruined manor house at its top and a decrepit bridge across a stream at the bottom.

  As they tumbled to the grass in a last slow spiral, the blade exploded in blue radiant shards that went spinning past them, soft blue shards that dissolved into the shimmering air in moments. The sword of Mystra was gone as if it had never been. As Mystra no longer was.

  Three rangers and a spectral sorceress sat up and blinked. Around them, seven other figures rose too, beings who had tails and spike-studded arms and angrily curling tentacles.

  “Oh, blast!” Belkram cursed, and several Malaugrym flinched, expecting a spell to explode over them at his words.

  When nothing befell, they acquired cruel smiles and flexed their tentacles and barbed tails and pincer claws. Then they began the slow climb up the hillside toward the rangers in tattered leathers. The ghostly woman who’d been with them had disappeared.

  “To come all this way …” Shar said, close to tears, as she saw sure death coming up the hill toward her.

  “See the world! Have daring adventures! Join the Harpers!” Belkram and Itharr chorused, in the deepest, most stirring and cultured town crier voices they could manage. And they waved their weapons.

  “Hey, breeding maiden!” Belkram called. “Catch!”

  His sword—still silver—came flashing through the air to her. Sharantyr caught it, tears in her eyes at his gesture, as she saw him draw a boot dagger, salute her with it, and stand beside Itharr. Each them held two drawn daggers to use against seven ever-changing monsters.

  “Mystra and Tymora,” Shar said between her teeth, “this is not fair!”

  She raised the sword wearily, resolved to die well—and white light broke over the hillside, fire that raged briefly across the Malaugrym.

  The shapeshifters danced in agony. When the fire subsided, all stood in human form. There were gasps of horror from the Malaugrym, and frantic cries as they tried to shift shape and could not.

  Ahorga, face streaming sweat with the effort, finally managed to produce wings. He sprang back, retreating down the hill, and cried, “I go now, cowards! Know that you’ve made a foe forever this day! I’ll be back!”

  “Don’t hurry,” Belkram called to him as the shapeshifter flapped his wings and climbed heavily into the sky. As Ahorga turned into the wind, to rise, Belkram thought he saw that great shaggy head bare its teeth in a cold answering grin. Then the Malaugrym mounted the winds and soared aloft.

  Two more shapeshifters, panting and groaning with the effort, overcame Syluné’s magic and managed the same trick. They wasted no breath on proud exit lines because by then their audience was gone.

  Men and women were rolling over and over in the grass, tearing at each other in desperate fury, one side trying to snatch weapons and the other, smaller side trying to use them.

  While the two Malaugrym flew frantically away from any place where that ghostly sorceress might be able to see them, Syluné used her last forcebolt to blow apart the head of a Shadowmaster who was throttling Belkram.

  As the smoking, headless body toppled sideways, Belkram rolled to his feet to find Itharr and a blood-drenched but unhurt Sharantyr
doing the same thing. They stood looking soberly at each other across the corpses.

  “Well,” Itharr said with a sigh, “we’re back.”

  From out of the ruins of the manor atop the hill, something small and dark came flying. Belkram snatched up a fallen dagger to make a throw, but the object banked smoothly past him and he saw that it was a pipe. A curved, familiar-looking pipe that trailed wisps of smoke and drifted to a halt in their midst.

  “Back, are ye?” The voice that issued from it was even more familiar, and as testy as ever. “A fine mess ye leapt into, and stirred up further, to be sure!”

  “That wouldn’t be who I think it is, would it?” Belkram asked wearily as Sharantyr groaned and covered her eyes.

  “Aye,” Itharr replied. “It would be.”

  PRELUDE

  There is a world where elves dance beneath the stars, where the footsteps of humanfolk trace restless paths in ever-widening circles. There is adventure to be had in this land, and magic enough to lure seekers and dreamers with a thousand secrets. Here there are wonders enough and more to fill a dragon’s lifetime, and most who live in this world are content with the challenges life brings.

  A few, however, remember the night-told stories that terrified and delighted them as children, and they seek out the whispered tales and grim warnings so that they may disregard them. Intrepid or foolish, these hearty souls venture into forbidden places deep beneath the lands of their birth. Those who survive tell of another, even more wondrous, land, a dark and alien world woven from the fabric of dreams—and of nightmare. This is the Underdark.

  In gem-studded caves and winding tunnels, turbulent waterways and vast caverns, the creatures of the Underdark make their homes. Beautiful and treacherous are these hidden realms, and perhaps chief among them is Menzoberranzan, fabled city of the drow.

  Life in the dark elves’ city has always been dominated by the worship of Lloth—the drow goddess of chaos—and by a constant striving for power and position. Yet in the shadows of the temples and the grand ruling houses, away from the academy that teaches fighting and fanaticism, a complex and diverse people go about the business of life.

  Here the drow, both noble and common, live, work, scheme, play, and—occasionally—love. Echoes of their common elven heritage can be seen in the artistry lavished on homes and gardens, the craftsmanship of their armor and ornaments, their affinity for magic and art, and their fierce pride in their fighting skills. Yet no surface-dwelling elf can walk among her dark cousins without feeling horror, and earning a swift and terrible death. For the drow, fey and splendid though they are, have been twisted by centuries of hatred and isolation into a macabre parody of their elven forebears. Stunning achievement and chilling atrocity: this is Menzoberranzan.

  In a time some three decades before the gods walked the realms, the chaos and turmoil of the dark elves’ city achieved a brief, simmering equilibrium. Wealthy drow took advantage of such intervals of relative calm to indulge their tastes for luxury and pleasure. Many of their leisure moments were spent in Narbondellyn, an elegant district of the city that boasted broad streets, fine homes, and expensive shops, all crafted of stone and magic. Faint light suffused the scene, most of it from the multicolored glow of faerie fire. All drow were able to conjure this magical light, and in Narbondellyn the use of it was particularly lavish. Faerie fire highlighted the carvings on the mansions, illuminated shop signs, baited merchandise with a tempting glow, and glimmered like embroidery on the gowns and cloaks of the wealthy passersby.

  In the surface lands far above Menzoberranzan, winter was beginning to ebb, and the midday sun struggled to warm the harsh landscape. The Underdark did not know seasons and had no cycle of light and dark, but the drow still went about their business according to the ancient, forgotten rhythms of their light-dwelling ancestors. The magical warmth deep in the core of Narbondel—the natural stone pillar that served as the city’s clock—was climbing toward midpoint even as the unseen sun reached its zenith. The drow could read the magic timepiece even in utter darkness, for their keen eyes perceived the subtlest heat patterns with a precision and detail that a hunting falcon might envy.

  At this hour the streets bustled with activity. Drow were by far the most numerous folk in Narbondellyn. Richly dressed dark elves wandered down the broad lane, browsed at the shops, or paused at chic cafes and taverns to sip goblets of spiced, sparkling green wine. City guards made frequent rounds mounted on large, harnessed lizards. Drow merchants whipped their draft animals—most often lizards or giant slugs—as they carted goods to market. And occasionally, the sea of activity parted to permit passage of a drow noble, usually a female riding in state upon a slave-carried litter or a magical, floating driftdisk.

  A scattering of beings from other races also made their way through Narbondellyn: slaves who tended the needs of the dark elves. Goblin servants staggered after their drow mistresses, arms piled high with purchases. In one shop, bound with chains and prompted by three well-armed drow, a dwarf smithy grudgingly repaired fine weapons and jewelry for his captors. A pair of minotaurs served as house guards at one particularly impressive mansion, flanking the entrance and facing each other so that their long, curving horns framed a deadly arch. Faerie fire limned the nine-foot creatures as if they were living sculpture. A dozen or so kobolds—small, rat-tailed relatives of goblins—lurked in small stone alcoves, and their bulbous eyes scanned the streets anxiously and continually. Every so often one of the creatures scurried out to pick up a bit of discarded string or clean up after a passing lizard mount. It was the kobolds’ task to keep the streets of Narbondellyn absolutely free of debris, and their devotion to duty was ensured by an ogre taskmaster armed with whip and daggers.

  One of these kobolds, whose back was lined with the recent marks of the ogre’s whip, was busily engaged in polishing a public bench near the edge of the street. So anxious was the slave to avoid future punishment that he failed to notice the silent approach of a driftdisk. On the magical conveyance rode a drow female in splendid robes and jewels, and behind her marched in eerie silence threescore drow soldiers, all clad in glittering chain mail and wearing the insignia of one of the city’s ruling houses. The snake-headed whip at the female’s belt proclaimed her rank as a high priestess of Lloth, and the haughty tilt of her chin demanded instant recognition and respect. Most of Narbondellyn’s folk granted her both at once. They cleared a path for her entourage, and those nearest marked her passing with a polite nod or a bended knee, according to their station.

  As the noble priestess glided down the street, reveling in the heady mixture of deference and envy that was her due, her gaze fell upon the preoccupied kobold. In an instant her expression changed from regal hauteur to deadly wrath. The little slave was not exactly blocking her path, but its inattention showed a lack of respect. Such was simply not tolerated.

  The priestess closed in. When the driftdisk’s heat shadow fell upon the laboring kobold, the little goblinoid grunted in annoyance and looked up. It saw death approaching and froze, like a mouse facing a raptor’s claws.

  Looming over the doomed kobold, the priestess drew a slender black wand from her belt and began to chant softly. Tiny spiders dripped from the wand and scurried toward their prey, growing rapidly as they went until each was the size of a man’s hand. They swarmed over the kobold and quickly had it enmeshed in a thick, web-like net. That done, they settled down to feed. Webbing bound the kobold’s mouth and muted its dying screams. The slave’s agonies were brief, for the giant spiders sucked the juices from their victim in mere moments. In no more time than the telling might take, the kobold was reduced to a pile of rags, bones, and leathery hide. At a sign from the priestess, the soldiers marched on down the street, their silent elven boots further flattening the desiccated kobold.

  One of the soldiers inadvertently trod on a spider that had lingered—hidden among the bits of rag—to siphon the last drop of juice. The engorged insect burst with a sickening pop, spraying its kille
r with ichor and liquid kobold. Unfortunately for that soldier, the priestess happened to look over her shoulder just as the spider, a creature sacred to Lloth, simultaneously lost its dinner and its life. The drow female’s face contorted with outrage.

  “Sacrilege!” she declaimed in a voice resonant with power and magic. She swept a finger toward the offending soldier and demanded, “Administer the law of Lloth, now!” Without missing a step, the drow on either side of the condemned soldier drew long, razor-edged daggers. They struck with practiced efficiency. One blade flashed in from the right and gutted the unfortunate drow; the strike from the left slashed open his throat. In the span of a heartbeat the grim duty was completed. The soldiers marched on, leaving their comrade’s body in a spreading pool of blood.

  Only a brief silence marked the drow soldier’s passing. Once it was clear that the show was over, the folk of Narbondellyn turned their attention back to their own affairs. Not one of the spectators offered any challenge ta the executions. Most did not show any reaction at all, except for the kobold slaves who scurried forward with mops and barrels to clear away the mess. Menzoberranzan was the stronghold of Lloth worship, and here her priestesses reigned supreme.

  Yet the proud female’s procession kept a respectful distance from the black mansion near the end of the street. Not a house like those known to surface dwellers, this abode was carved into the heart of a stalactite, a natural rock formation that hung from the cavern’s ceiling like an enormous ebony fang. No one dared touch the stone, for on it was carved an intricate pattern of symbols that shifted constantly and randomly. Any part of the design could be a magic rune, ready to unleash its power upon the careless or unwary.

  This stalactite manor was the private retreat of Gromph Baenre, the archmage of Menzoberranzan and the eldest son of the city’s undisputed (if uncrowned) queen. Gromph of course had a room in House Baenre’s fabulous fortress castle, but the wizard possessed treasures—and ambitions—that he wished to keep from the eyes of his female kin. So from time to time he retired to Narbondellyn, to enjoy his collection of magical items, to pour over his vast library of spellbooks, or to indulge himself with his latest mistress.