When Kyle arrived at the stronghold and attempted to take his share of the gold, he felt a sudden weakness. He dragged himself away to a secluded chamber where he changed into a near-mindless, snarling panther. Instinctively, the beast knew it had to escape the stronghold. Only after half a day’s flight from the castle, when the beast had killed a traveler, did Kyle suffer the painful transformation and become human once again.
For the rest of his days, Kyle Lyonsbane suffered the curse of the sorceress: whenever he attempted to perform an act for any type of reward, he became the beast. And even though only selfless, heroic acts were permissible for the mercenary under the curse, he had sworn he would never devote his life to such activities. He was forced to retire from the mercenary life he loved the most and live off the gains he had made from his previous adventures. When his gold ran out and the only avenue open to him was to live off the charity of his wife’s family, he took his own life rather than live with the humiliation of poverty or perform any good deeds.
Before Kyle died, he sired an heir to his misfortune. Strangely, when the curse finally revealed itself in Kyle’s son, the effects were reversed. Kyle’s son could not perform any act, unless it was to protect his own life, without the promise of some type of reward. If he performed an act and did not receive his reward or he dared to perform a charitable act for no reward at all, he became a panther and was forced to take a life.
A roaming mage had a theory that as the original curse was meant as a punishment for evil and greed, and as all babes were born into the world as innocents, the curse found no evil to punish, and instead altered itself to punish the innocence and good in Kyle’s son.
The intent of the sorceress’ curse had been undone, and a long line of mercenaries with histories as bloody and unscrupulous as Kyle Lyonsbane’s were born. It was Lukyan, Kyle’s grandson, who discovered an inherent danger in his father’s condition as his sire grew old and senile: the aged mercenary could no longer remember when a reward had been offered or warranted, or even when or if it had been paid. Because of this, the old man changed into the beast without provocation, and became a menace to all he came near. It became the responsibility of every child in the Lyonsbane clan to slay their father when they reached fifty summers.
The family survived for many generations, but the ritualistic killing of sires by their offspring was not always necessary: the curse did not strike every generation. Kelemvor’s father and uncle had, for example, been exempt from the effects of the curse, free to live their lives the way they pleased. Like Kelemvor, all of the sons of Kendrel Lyonsbane were not as fortunate as their father.
Kelemvor was a seventh generation descendant of Kyle, and he had tried all his life to free himself of the curse. He longed to perform acts of kindness, of charity and right. But the years had passed for the fighter, and there had been no hope of a cure, no hope for redemption. Only the bloody path of service and payment as a mercenary lay before him.
Kelemvor finished the tale and waited for Midnight to respond. She was quiet and caressed the fighter gently as he spoke.
“We’ll find a way to cure you,” she said at last.
Kelemvor looked into her eyes. There was compassion, mixed with regret.
“Will you come with me to Shadowdale?” Midnight asked, her hands caressing Kelemvor’s face. “I offer a handsome reward.”
The fighter could not look away. “I must know what you offer.”
“I offer my love.”
Kelemvor touched her hands. “Then I will come with you,” he said and held her close.
* * * * *
As Kelemvor and his companions rode back to the Flagon Held High, Cyric stopped a number of times to gather the supplies they would need for their journey to Shadowdale. He found fresh mounts for Adon and himself, and meats and breads for the party. When they reached the inn, Midnight accompanied Kelemvor inside so they might retrieve their few possessions. Cyric and Adon waited outside, near the inn’s front door.
The young man with pale gray eyes sat unnoticed in the shadows beside the door. There was an uncomfortable silence between Cyric and Adon. Looking out at the main street of Tilverton, Cyric saw a group of riders approaching from the direction of the temple. A floorboard creaked, and Cyric turned just in time to see the gray-eyed man rise up from the shadows behind Adon, wielding a knife. Cyric was already moving as the cleric turned, but the blade sliced through the air, too quick for even the thief to stop. A spray of blood blossomed onto the wall as the knife struck Adon in the face.
Cyric pulled the unconscious cleric back with one hand as the gray-eyed man prepared to strike again. The thief already had his dagger in his free hand, and he thrust forward, impaling their attacker.
“I die for the glory of Gond,” the gray-eyed man said and fell back into his chair.
Kelemvor and Midnight appeared in the doorway. “Take him,” Cyric said as he shoved Adon toward Kelemvor. The cleric’s face was covered with blood. Midnight moved to help Kelemvor with their wounded, unconscious friend, and Cyric ran for the horses.
The gray-eyed man clutched at his stomach as he leaned back in his chair. “Phylanna warned us,” he said and pointed at Kelemvor. “She told us that Lord Gond had sent a monster into our midst to test us. Only by killing it can we prove ourselves worthy of the presence of Lord Gond, the Wonderbringer.…”
The gray-eyed man fell out of the chair and sank to his knees, his back scraping against the wall.
Cyric looked to the road. The riders from the temple were approaching and would be upon them in moments. “We have to leave now, Kel,” he said and turned his mount away from the Temple of Gond, toward the road to the north and Shadowdale.
With a swiftness born of desperation, Kelemvor heaved Adon over his shoulder and climbed to his mount. Midnight grabbed the cleric’s belongings as she ran to her horse. The townsfolk were still on their heels when the heroes reached the road and headed out across the Stonelands.
The heroes rode long into the night, their pursuers never far behind. Kelemvor’s plan was simple: the riders were not prepared for a lengthy journey, so they would have to stop or turn back at some point. Losing the pursuers was simply a matter of endurance.
It was dawn, and the riders from Tilverton were falling behind by a considerable distance, when the heroes came across a small lake near the mountains of the Shadow Gap. The water was surrounded by a scattering of trees, tired sentinels that longed to reach down and cool themselves in the sparkling water. Kelemvor knew that the party couldn’t afford to stop, though he almost fell to the temptation of the cool water. As they rode by the lake, the fighter hoped that their pursuers’ willpower was not as strong as his own.
A few minutes later, the heroes let out a cheer when they saw that Phylanna and the Gond worshipers had stopped by the lake. And though they were now far ahead of the Tilvertonians and were all very tired, the heroes pushed on until highsun. By then, there had been no sign of their pursuers for almost two hours. They stopped long enough to eat and drink, but sleep was out of the question.
As Cyric and Kelemvor ate and tended to the horses, Midnight checked on Adon and took the time to cover his wound. He had lost a great deal of blood during the ride and was still unconscious, but the magic-user thought that he’d live to see the Twisted Tower in Shadowdale. However, as the heroes got ready to leave and Adon was hoisted onto Kelemvor’s horse, Midnight wondered if the cleric would be better off not waking up at all.
As the day wore on, the heroes got closer and closer to the Shadow Gap. At highsun, the huge granite slabs that made up the steel-gray ranges of the gap appeared ghostly, as light bathed the valley between the opposing ridges and made the heroes wonder how the place got its name. But as afternoon wore on and the heroes got closer to the mountains, they quickly learned that the gap’s name was really quite appropriate.
As the sun moved to the west, a veil of darkness fell upon the road as the massive peaks of the Shadow Gap blocked the sunlight
at every turn. Long before nightfall, the heroes felt as if they had been traveling with a blanket of cool thin air over them, even though the sun baked the Stonelands to the south of the gap, as well as the Desertmouth Mountains to the west.
Still, the heroes pushed on, until in the half-light just before night fell upon the Stonelands, the ground started to make odd noises. Kelemvor dismissed the sounds at first, believing them to be nothing more than underground rock-slides, or perhaps the earth settling after the rain that had drenched the area recently. But then the mountains around the Shadow Gap started to move.
At first, Midnight thought a lack of sleep was causing her senses to betray her, but then she saw the ridge to the west slowly turning to face her. To the east, massive boulders were falling from the cliffs, crashing through the trees, crushing or uprooting them.
The earth quaked beneath the heroes, frightening the horses. The sounds quickly became deafening, and soon the boulders were coming closer, crashing against the trees that flanked the road. The road through the Shadow Gap was closing, and to the northeast, the heroes could see new mountains pushing up from the ground.
“We have to make it through,” Kelemvor yelled, and dug his heels into his mount’s side. “Come on!”
As the fighter raced down the narrowing road, Cyric and Midnight behind him, it became clear that both ridges were moving, closing the distance between them, closing off the gap. Rocks and other debris crashed down around them, uprooting trees and raising huge clouds of dust and dirt as the chaos continued. Soon it was impossible for the adventurers to see more than a few feet ahead, but they had to ride on as fast as they could. Though they might be hit by a boulder as they dashed for the other side of the gap, they would certainly be crushed when the mountains came together if they slowed down and rode cautiously.
Then, as the heroes raced through the falling debris, the chaos in nature struck again. Midnight’s mount sensed it first and abruptly drew back, despite the magic-user’s efforts to force the horse on. The color of the clouds that suddenly engulfed them was burnt amber, and they had to cover their noses and mouths to keep from inhaling the foul gases that made up the mist. When they had no choice but to breathe, the billowing, heavy clots of air the heroes inhaled burned horribly. No matter which direction they turned, the mist was there.
Their horses found breathing difficult, too, but they continued to move, gasping and wheezing. In the thick, filthy air the heroes could barely see where they were going. Luckily, when the mists came, the mountains seemed to stop moving so quickly.
Cyric knew it was a miracle that they had survived this long. And if the peaks started to shift again, the adventurers would be buried in a river of displaced earth, rocks, and trees long before they could get out of the Shadow Gap.
“We’d better stop for a minute,” Midnight said, hacking and coughing. “We can get our bearings and make sure we’re going in the right direction.”
“Aye,” Kelemvor wheezed. “It seems safe enough at the moment.”
The heroes stopped and let their horses rest for a moment. They searched the mist for some recognizable landmark, something to guide them north through the destruction. The mist was too thick, though, and it was already getting dark, so they had to settle for Cyric’s best guess.
“I think we’re heading in the right direction,” the thief said as the heroes mounted and got ready to move. “We have no choice but to follow what we think is the road through the gap.”
Midnight laughed. “That certainly worked in that bizarre forest outside of Arabel.”
As Cyric and Kelemvor scowled and kicked their horses into motion, Midnight screamed. A rat with glaring red eyes and a huge bloated body shot at her out of the mist. The magic-user struck the creature, which was as big as a man’s forearm, and it squealed loudly. The rat fell to the ground with a thump and ran away.
Then the heroes heard a sound that made even Kelemvor shake. All around them were loud, high-pitched squeals. The cries echoed in the rocks and sent shivers down the adventurers’ spines. There must be at least two hundred of them, Cyric thought as the first of the horde of giant rats broke through the mist.
Kelemvor’s horse reared and nearly dumped Adon to the ground. “Get behind me!” Midnight screamed. Suddenly, a blue-white shield appeared all around the heroes, deflecting the bodies of the giant rats.
Kelemvor tried to steady his horse within the shield. “Don’t you think throwing a spell is a little risky? I mean, you could have turned all the rats into charging elephants or something.”
“If you’re so unhappy about it, Kel, she could let the shield down,” Cyric said.
The fighter said nothing, and Midnight smiled, though she didn’t turn to look at her companions. Instead, she concentrated on holding the shield up as rat after rat bounced off the magical barrier.
Cyric looked out at the rodents running by them, “They don’t seem to be particularly interested in attacking us,” he said. “I wonder if they’re running away from something or if the earthquake destroyed their nests.”
Once the last of the rats had scampered by, the shield shattered as if it were a mirror struck with a hammer, and the broken shards faded from existence. “I think we should go right now,” Kelemvor said, and the heroes navigated a passage through the fallen trees and boulders.
They rode for hours that night, but the mist showed no sign of lessening. Kelemvor felt a sickness growing in the pit of his stomach, caused no doubt by the sour air. He felt weak and tired, and from time to time he was certain he was going to be ill, though he never was. Occasionally, the rocks ahead seemed to shift slightly, but Kelemvor was so used to the sounds, he had grown deaf to the noise of the mountains as they shifted and drew closer.
Eventually, though, the mist got thinner, and the heroes’ spirits rose as they found it easier to breathe. The road, too, was clearing. After walking their mounts for over a mile through a broken terrain of rocks and shifting ground, the adventurers found that they could again ride. Adon was moved to Midnight’s horse, and Kelemvor pushed his horse to a gallop and rushed ahead to scout.
The fighter found that the mist soon parted and he could breathe in fresh, clean air again. The mountains hadn’t tossed debris in the road this far north, and it looked like they were out of danger. Still, the land to the north of what used to be the Shadow Gap had changed, too. It was now strange and beautiful.
The road glowed white as it wound its way north for a few miles. Then it disappeared into the jagged foothills of a beautiful mountain range, which looked as if it were made entirely of glass.
Cyric and Midnight rode up beside Kelemvor as he stood, staring at the strange mountains to the northeast.
“Where are we?” Cyric said as he stopped and dismounted. “I don’t remember any glass mountains in the Realms.”
“I think they’re new,” Kelemvor said. “We went in the right direction. Now we’re just north of Shadow Gap. See,” the fighter said, pointing to the west. “Those are the Desertmouth Mountains, and that’s the Spiderhaunt Woods right in front of us to the north.”
“Then we’re trapped,” Midnight said and hung her head. “We can’t go through those mountains, and they’re right in our path.”
The heroes were silent for a moment. “Then we’ll have to go through the woods,” Cyric said at last. “We certainly can’t go back the way we came. So that’s our only choice unless, of course, Midnight wants to fly us over the mountains on her broom.”
“If she had one, it probably wouldn’t work right anyway,” Kelemvor said and started for the woods.
As the heroes got closer to the woods, something moved in the trees, something the size of a horse, with eight spindly legs and icy blue eyes.
As Midnight and Kelemvor stared at the glowing eyes in the woods, Cyric turned to get one last look at the Shadow Gap. Emerging from the mist were a group of riders. “The riders from Tilverton!” the thief cried. Cyric wheeled his horse around and drew his bow.
Kelemvor drew his sword and rode up next to Cyric. Midnight looked for a way out. The shapes in the woods were moving quicker now, patrolling the shadowy perimeter of Spiderhaunt Woods.
Midnight dismounted and stood in the path of the advancing riders. Despite her exhaustion, she drew her dagger and prepared to fight. The unearthly glow from the road illuminated the scene, and the heroes could see the riders clearly as they got close. Midnight recognized the bald-headed man in the lead.
Dragon Eyes.
“Thurbrand,” Kelemvor and Midnight said together, their mouths hanging open.
The bald-headed man stopped and dismounted. “Well met,” he said to Kelemvor and Cyric. Then the fighter turned to Midnight. “We meet again, fair daffodil.”
“How did you get through Shadow Gap?” Kelemvor said as he sheathed his sword.
“The same way you did. I’ve seen worse disasters,” the bald man said. “The mountains had pretty much stopped moving by the time we got to them anyway. It wasn’t so tough.”
One of Thurbrand’s men cleared his throat noisily. “We did lose one man in there,” Thurbrand added. “He was crushed by a boulder.”
“The people of Tilverton,” Midnight said with concern. “The ones who were chasing us.”
“They needed a bit of persuading to turn back. We lost two of our men doing so, but they lost a dozen of theirs,” Thurbrand said. “That persuaded them.”
Cyric shook his head. The fools, he thought. Dying for a god who doesn’t care about them.
“By the way,” Thurbrand said. “Along the road we learned that a squad of assassins is on the way from Zhentil Keep to dispatch the lot of you. They are Bane’s elite force, trained practically from birth.”
Cyric drew a sharp breath. “They wear bone-white armors, and their skin is bleached. The symbol of Bane is painted in black upon their faces.” The thief shuddered. “I was almost sold into their order as a child. If they find us, we’ll all be corpses soon.”
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