Shadowdale

by Scott Ciencin

  Kelemvor squeezed his eyes shut and hacked at the gold-bound volume before him. The binding of the book shattered, and a glowing mist flowed out. All the heroes in the hall faded into clouds of red mist. Then, the hall itself started to blur around the edges and disappear, too. In seconds, only wisps of illusion hung in the air, then they vanished as well.

  Kelemvor found himself in a ruined library on the first floor of the castle. At his feet lay an aged, torn volume of children’s fairy tales. Kelemvor kicked the book out of his way as he ran to the doorway.

  In the hallway, the fighter saw the savaged corpse of a man—probably the deer from his dream. Kelemvor didn’t notice that the dead man wore the symbol of Bane, God of Strife, as he raced for the stairway to Castle Kilgrave’s dark lower levels.

  * * * * *

  Midnight found herself walking through an endless series of dark passageways. Adon was gone, and she could not remember how she came to these shadowy hallways. Tiny movements played at the corners of her senses, but she trained her gaze forward and ignored them. She heard something that might have been voices—sounds of anguish and horror. She ignored them, too. They were meant to distract, to lead her away from her goal. She could not allow that to happen.

  The magic-user stopped before a well-lit archway. She took a breath, then moved forward into the light, which engulfed her senses as she felt an iron grip take hold of her arm.

  “You’re late!” an elderly woman snapped. Midnight blinked, and the details of the shining corridor that the older woman led her through at an alarming speed became shockingly clear. Midnight saw a vast hall of mirrors. Each mirror was embedded in a finely trimmed archway, with an ornately detailed bench covered in bright red leather placed before it. Candelabras were set at each side of the archways, and hundreds of chandeliers descended from the arched ceiling. Thousands of candles burned in the corridor, and Midnight recoiled as she caught sight of her own image.

  “The ceremony has already begun!” the old woman hissed, shaking her head.

  Midnight was dressed in a beautiful gown of sparkling diamonds and rubies, and jewelry made of imperiously set gems adorned her hands and wrists. Her hair had been thrust up and back and was held in a glorious pose by a jeweled crown.

  The pendant was gone.

  Weakness overtook her limbs at this discovery, and the elderly woman set Midnight down upon one of the regal benches. “Now, now, my dear, this is no time to surrender to butterflies in the stomach. You are to be awarded a great honor this day! Sunlar will be most disappointed if you keep him waiting.”

  Sunlar? Midnight thought. My teacher from Deepingdale?

  Midnight felt the blood drain from her head as she attempted to stand. Then the world became a maddening swirl of chandeliers and glowing candles only to right itself as Midnight realized she was now sitting on a throne in a beautiful temple. A throng of robed men and women stood before her, and the opulence of the domed chamber made the corridor of mirrors seem like a tasteful example of understatement.

  Sunlar entered the temple with a small group of students attending him. He was the high priest of Mystra in Deepingdale, and he had taken a personal interest in Midnight’s care and training when she was younger, although he would never explain the reasons behind his actions.

  Sunlar had been handsome and strong when Midnight knew him, and as he crossed the length of the throne room, Midnight saw that his features were exactly as she remembered them. His eyes were a ghostly blue-white, and his hair was brown and full, with immaculately styled waves and two locks that fell to his eyebrows, framing his chiseled features. But he was dressed in ceremonial robes that Midnight had never seen before, such fineries surely held in reserve for greeting visiting royalty.

  A handful of men and women surrounded Midnight. They wore the blue-white star symbol of Mystra, and were careful to avert their gaze whenever Midnight attempted to make eye contact with one of them, as if they were not worthy of looking directly at her. Midnight was unsettled by their actions, and just before she opened her mouth to question them, Sunlar arrived before her.

  “Lady Midnight,” Sunlar called. “This gathering is in your honor. Yet it is in the interest of all who attend to hear your words and honor your decision.”

  “My … decision?” Midnight said, quite confused.

  Sunlar seemed troubled. Despite the reverence in which Midnight and these proceedings had been held, a tide of whispers flooded the chamber. Sunlar raised his hands and there was silence.

  “It is only proper that Midnight is allowed to formally hear what has been offered to her once again,” Sunlar said as he turned to the hundreds of worshipers who had gathered in the temple.

  Sunlar looked back to Midnight.

  “This honor has not been given by the Lady of Mysteries in a long time,” he said, and held out his hand to Midnight. She rose and took it. Suddenly the lights dimmed in the chamber, and an immense blue-white star appeared above their heads, a constant flow of smaller shimmering stars circling its perimeter. There was a collective gasp from the worshipers as the glowing star revealed itself to be flat, like a coin. Then the surface of the star sparkled and changed, becoming a portal to another dimension. The light from this other realm was blinding, and Midnight could see very little of what lay beyond the gateway.

  Midnight covered her eyes. “The power of the Magister?”

  Sunlar smiled. “Yes, Lady Midnight, the power of the Magister.” The glowing portal was spinning wildly, turning end-over-end.

  “Lady Mystra, Goddess of Magic, has chosen you above all else in the Realms to become her champion—the Magister,” Sunlar said.

  They stood directly below the spinning portal. Midnight raised her hand and felt the tiny stars that accompanied the portal as they caressed her flesh. The sensation brought a smile to her lips. She surveyed the faces of the people who had gathered in the temple. They wore expressions of kindness and love, and a great surge of expectation could be felt emanating from them. She recognized many of the people as fellow students from her time in Deepingdale.

  Midnight looked up, into the blinding light of the gateway. “You can’t be serious.”

  Sunlar reached up and the portal descended toward them. Midnight was rooted to the spot. “Come. We will visit Mystra’s domain, the magical weave that surrounds the world. Perhaps that will help you to decide.”

  The gateway engulfed Midnight and Sunlar, and the magic-user found herself in a realm of bizarre constructs of bluish white light that displayed themselves before her, their constantly changing patterns almost a language unto itself. There was a blinding flash, and Midnight saw that she was rising into the air. She and Sunlar passed through the walls of the temple, then rose into the air and flew beyond the clouds until Faerun was only a spinning mote of dust far below. Midnight viewed the planet for a moment, then felt a presence at her back. She turned and found herself confronting an incredible matrix of energy, a beautiful weave of power that spread itself across the universe and pulsed with a fire unlike anything Midnight had ever seen.

  “You can be a part of this,” Sunlar said.

  Midnight reached out to the weave, but stopped as she caught sight of her own hand. Her flesh had become translucent, and within the boundaries of her form, she saw a pulse of fantastic colors that mirrored the raw magical energy before her.

  “This is power,” Sunlar said. “Power to build worlds, to heal the sick, to destroy evil. Power to serve Mystra as she wishes you to.”

  Midnight was overwhelmed.

  “It is within your grasp,” Sunlar said. “And it is your responsibility to take it, Midnight. No one else can be Lady Mystra’s champion on Faerun. No one but you.”

  The raven-haired mage was silent for a moment, then she said quietly, “But what does Mystra want in return for this honor?”

  “Your absolute loyalty, of course. And you’ll have to devote the rest of your life to fighting for Mystra’s causes all across the Realms.”

&nb
sp; “Then she wants everything. I’ll have no life of my own.”

  Sunlar smiled. “That’s a small price to pay to become a goddess’s most powerful representative in the world.”

  Sunlar faced the tiny world far below and spread his arms wide. “All this will be yours, Lady Midnight. You will be gaining the entire world as your charge. And without you, it will certainly perish.”

  The fabric of the universe began to tear. Vast sections of the weave unraveled before Midnight’s eyes, and images of the temple and Mystra’s followers could be seen beyond the rips. They were screaming, calling out for Mystra to save them. Calling for the Magister to heal the Realms.

  “You must choose quickly,” Sunlar said.

  The holes in the universe widened. In places Midnight could no longer see the weave at all.

  “You are the only one who can save the Realms, Lady Midnight, but you must decide to do it right now.”

  Midnight’s breath became ragged. The weave seemed to call to her. She started to open her mouth to speak, to accept her responsibility, when she heard a voice, soft but distinct, crying out with the worshipers in the temple.

  “Midnight,” a familiar voice cried. “I need your help to save Cyric and Adon!”

  “Kel!” Midnight cried. “Sunlar, I must help him.”

  “Ignore his petty concerns,” Sunlar said. “Better still solve his problems by helping all the Realms.”

  “Wait, Sunlar. I cannot forsake everything that makes up my life, everyone that I care about, on a moment’s notice. I need more time!”

  “That is the one thing you don’t have,” Sunlar said softly.

  Eternity vanished. The weave was gone. Only the temple remained. Midnight looked down at her hands and saw that they were flesh and blood once again. She felt the sting of tears on her cheek and almost laughed.

  One of Mystra’s worshipers moved forward. It was a man, and she recognized his face.

  Kelemvor.

  The fighter held out his hand. “Come back,” he said. “The others need you. I need you.”

  Sunlar grasped her shoulder and turned her to face him. “Don’t listen to him. You have a duty to your goddess! You have a duty to the Realms!”

  “No!” Midnight shouted as she pulled herself free from Sunlar’s grasp. Mystra’s followers froze in mid-motion, and Kelemvor, now dressed in his fighting gear, stood before her.

  “You have dishonored yourself and your goddess,” Sunlar said, his face fading into the shadows that fell upon the throne room like curtains, darkening the illusions. Then he was gone. In moments only scattered patches of illusion remained, and Midnight saw Kelemvor crawling on the floor of a room that once might have been an audience hall. A large, overturned chair that bore a striking resemblance to the throne she had sat upon lay in the corner. The musty chamber was domed, just as it had been in her illusion.

  Midnight looked down and saw that the pendant was still there, still grafted to her skin.

  “What’s going on here? One minute I’m opening a door, the next I’m floating above the world, now I’m in a ruined throne room.”

  Then Midnight noticed that Kelemvor appeared wounded. She ran to his side as he collapsed, but saw that his face and body were unscarred. Still, the fighter was sweating and seemed very frightened.

  “Offer me something!” he snarled, his voice low and very menacing.

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  Kelemvor flinched and his ribs seemed to move of their own accord. Midnight looked at him warily.

  “A reward!” he said, and his flesh began to darken. “For helping to free you from the illusion and for going on with the quest. We abandoned it, Cyric and I—”

  The fighter shuddered and turned away from Midnight. “Hurry!”

  “A kiss,” she said softly. “Your reward will be a kiss from my lips.”

  Kelemvor collapsed on the floor, out of breath. When he rose, his skin had returned to its natural complexion.

  “What was that all about?” Midnight said.

  Kelemvor shook his head. “We have to find the others.”

  “But I—”

  “We can’t possibly make it out of here alive without them,” Kelemvor yelled. “So, for our own good, we have to do it now!”

  Midnight did not move.

  “We were separated,” Kelemvor said. “Sent to different parts of the castle. I awoke in a library on the first floor. I followed the noise until I found you.”

  “Noise? Then you saw and heard—”

  “Very little. I heard your voice and followed it until I found you. But we’ll have more time to figure this out later. Now, help me find the others!”

  Midnight followed the fighter down the darkened corridors.

  * * * * *

  After Kelemvor escaped through the tear in the carpet, it started to close in around Cyric, and it dwindled until it was the size of a large chest. The thief tried to slice the rug with his sword, but it was no use; the blade simply bounced off each time he struck at the trap. The carpet continued to shrink until Cyric felt it conform to the shape of his body and squeeze with such pressure that he blacked out. When he awoke, he was in one of the back alleys of Zhentil Keep, being kicked awake by a watchman, just as he had been regularly in his childhood.

  “Move along,” one of the Black Guard said. “Or else nothing but steel will fill your gut this day.”

  Cyric fended off the blows and rose to his feet.

  “Stinking vagrants,” the guard said, and spat at the ground near Cyric’s feet. The thief moved forward to attack the man, but something reached out from the shadows behind him. Hands were pressed against Cyric’s mouth, others held his arms. He fought against the pull of the hands but there was nothing he could do. He was dragged into the side alley as the watchman stood and laughed.

  “Calm down, boy,” an all too familiar voice said.

  Cyric watched as the guard walked to the end of the alley and turned off onto the street, vanishing from sight.

  The thief allowed his body to relax, and the iron grip that held him loosened. Cyric turned and faced the shadows. Even before his eyes adjusted to the darkness he knew the identity of the men before him.

  One was known as Quicksal, an evil little thief who took great pleasure in killing his victims. Just as Cyric remembered it, Quicksal’s fine, golden hair was unwashed, and traces of dyes of every type could be found within it, as he generally tried to disguise himself. False beards, age make up, strange accents, odd personality traits—all these were part of an ever growing repertoire that Quicksal called upon to create vivid characters for potential witnesses to remember. His face was thin and hawklike, and his fingers were extremely long. Strangely, Quicksal still appeared to be in his teens, though Cyric knew he had to be at least twenty-five years old.

  The other man was Marek, and when Cyric examined the face of his mentor, he did not find the aging, hard-lined visage he had looked upon just the other night, when Marek ambushed him at the inn. This Marek was younger, and the tight, curly hair upon his head was jet-black, not the salt-and-pepper-gray it should have been. His skin had only just begun to show a hint of the wrinkles that would one day develop. His piercing blue eyes had not surrendered any of their earlier fires, and the man’s large frame no longer displayed any trace of flabbiness. This was the man Cyric had studied under, had robbed and committed now unthinkable acts for without hesitation. Cyric had been an orphan, and in many ways, Marek was the only father he ever knew.

  “Come with us,” Marek said, and Cyric obeyed, allowing himself to be led through a set of doorways into the kitchen of an inn that Cyric did not recognize. Cyric had always allowed himself to be led, it seemed, and when they passed into the lighted hallway, Cyric noticed his own reflection in a nearby mirror. More than ten years had been taken from his face—the crow’s feet were gone from around his eyes; his skin seemed more resilient, less hardened by the passage of time and the hardships he had endured.

/>   “You’re probably wondering why we’re here,” Marek said to the grotesquely fat cook who stood near a curtain at the other end of the kitchen.

  “No, not at all,” the fat man said, a broad smile holding up his blubbery cheeks. He pointed to the curtain and said, “She’s right in here.”

  Marek grabbed Cyric by the arm and led him to the curtain. “Look,” Marek said and drew open the curtains very slightly. “There’s our next victim, and your ride to freedom, Cyric.”

  Cyric looked out. Only a few tables in the taproom were visible from his vantage, and only one of those was occupied. A handsome middle-aged woman, dressed in fine silks and carrying a purse filled to overflowing sat at the table, sipping a bowl of soup that had just been brought to her by an attractive serving girl. She stopped the girl.

  “This soup is not piping hot!” the woman shrieked in a voice that made Cyric’s teeth hurt. “I asked that my soup be piping hot, not merely warm!”

  “But ma’am—”

  The woman grasped the serving girl’s hand. “See for yourself!” the woman cried, and thrust the girl’s hand into the steaming bowl of soup. The girl bit back a scream, and managed to wrench her hand free without spilling the contents of the bowl upon the middle-aged woman. The flesh of the girl’s hand was bright red. The soup had been scalding.

  “If you cannot meet my needs, I will have to take my business elsewhere!” the woman said. She rolled her eyes. “I do wish I knew what was keeping my nephew. He was supposed to meet me here.” She frowned and gestured at the soup. “Now take this away and bring me what I asked for!”

  The serving girl took the bowl, bowed slightly, and turned to walk back to the kitchen, causing Cyric to draw back before he was seen.

  “Relax,” Marek said from behind Cyric, and the curtains parted, admitting the girl. She looked at Marek and shoved her serving tray into Cyric’s waiting hands. She pressed against Marek and kissed him full on the lips. Then she pulled back, grabbed a damp cloth from the sink, and wrapped it around her hand.