Realms of Shadow a-8

by Lisa Smedman

  Pleeancis picked absently at an itch behind his ear while he worked up the patience he would need. The Boss just wasn't the Boss anymore, he thought wistfully.

  A shout from within the library nearly scared him out of his scales.

  "Boss!" Pleeancis flapped his wings, leaped into the air, pushed through the door and found — the Boss, seated at his worktable, barely visible behind a pile of stacked tomes, bubbling beakers, and glowing braziers, laughing. Laughing!

  Unsure of what to make of this unexpected mirth, but pleased to see the Boss more like his old self, Pleeancis flitted over to the desk and landed on a stack of tomes.

  They smelled like dry leaves. The Boss shot him a grin, Ids tired gray eyes more alive than they'd been since she had died.

  "I found it, Pleeancis. I've finally found a way." He nodded at the single gray wax taper, still cooling in its iron mold, which sat on the table before him.

  Before Pleeancis could answer, the Boss rose from his chair, took Pleeancis by his tiny, clawed hands, and danced a little jig. Pleeancis could not help but flash his own fangs in happiness. The Boss was as chipper as an archfiend at a feast of souls.

  When the Boss finished the jig, Pleeancis leaned down to look more closely at the candle. Except for some unusual gray and brown whorls that ran through the wax, it was ordinary. The mold too appeared ordinary. Nothing to indicate why it made the Boss so happy. Still, Pleeancis did not want to spoil the mood. Maybe the Boss had gone insane, but the good kind of insane, where he would think everything was great. If so, maybe Pleeancis could convince him to set some decent food at the table for a change. Pleeancis smacked his lips and decided to play along.

  This is a nice candle," he said, and tried not to giggle at how silly that sounded.

  The Boss patted him on the head, still smiling. "It is that, little one. It's the way to bring Jennah back."

  He glanced over at the magically hardened glass case set along the wall that held her perfectly preserved body.

  Pleeancis followed his gaze and bit back a snarl.

  Jennah-she-lay there in her little glass case like some red haired doll with alabaster skin. Pleeancis wished he had gouged out one of her eyes over the years. He could've blamed it on a rat or something.

  The Boss walked across the room to the case, his face wistful. He reached out and laid a hand on the glass.

  "Soon, dearest," he whispered. "Soon."

  Pleeancis ground his fangs and squinted his eyes in anger. Damn it! He did not want her back.

  Since the Boss's back was to him, Pleeancis took what vengeance he could-he stuck out his forked tongue and made a terribly obscene gesture taught to him by a dretch demon. She, of course, made no response.

  Pleeancis used the claw on his forefinger to pop the candle from its mold. He picked it up and held it in his hands. He wondered if it would hurt him to eat it. After all, no candle, no her. He sniffed it. It smelled loamy, vaguely like tenday old mushrooms. He opened his mouth- "Pleeancis!"

  He dropped it with an alarmed squeak. The Boss rushed over and gingerly picked up the candle, as though he were holding an infant.

  "I was just smelling it, Boss." Pleeancis took a step back, prepared to take flight, but the Boss didn't seem angry. Relieved, Pleeancis beat his wings and halted his retreat. "It smells funny. Kinda like the dirt covering dead people. What's in it?"

  The Boss secreted the taper in an inner pocket of his black and purple robe.

  "Souls," he answered cryptically, his eyes aglitter. "Life-force. Enough to overcome the resistance that has prevented the efficacy of my spells. Enough to ensure that my next attempt will bring my love back."

  He looked past Pleeancis to the glass case. Pleeancis rolled his eyes.

  He didn't understand the human obsession with love. What a bunch of tripe. It was neat that the Boss had put souls in the candle, though. No wonder many of the houseslaves had disappeared recently. Pleeancis giggled, then he remembered that the candle would bring her back. He stopped giggling.

  "How can it bring her back, Boss?" he asked and stole a quick, hateful glare in her direction. "It's just a candle. If you couldn't do it by yourself…?" He let the rest of the question go unspoken. If the Boss-one of the more powerful wizards in Shade and one of the preeminent practitioners of shadow magic-couldn't bring her back with his spells, how in the Nine Hells could a candle?

  The Boss smiled absently, but his eyes burned with intensity. "This is a special candle, Pleeancis, one that draws upon the Shadow Weave. When its light casts a reflection of a…" he stuttered over the next word, as though embarrassed to say it aloud, "… a corpse, the reflective surface becomes a portal, a doorway to the place where the soul of that corpse resides." He reached into his pocket, no doubt to touch the candle while he spoke. "The soul can return through that portal, re-inhabit the body, and thereby return to life."

  Pleeancis wanted to puke. He glared at her, showed her his fangs.

  "Now that the candle is complete," the Boss went on, "the critical factor is the reflective surface."

  Pleeancis hung his head and snarled softly. He wanted to hear no more. The familiar kicked petulantly at the books on the table. He and the Boss had spent years alone together. They did not need her. Stupid love.

  The Boss continued on, lost in his own world.

  "In this case, for the shadow magic to work, the reflective surface must be the dusky scales of a living shadow dragon."

  Pleeancis's head snapped up. His wings fluttered with perturbation. "A shadow dragon!"

  The Boss merely looked down on him, still smiling, and nodded.

  Disbelieving, Pleeancis took wing and fluttered before the Boss's face. He snapped his scaled fingers to bring the Boss back from his madness.

  "Shadow dragons are tough, Boss. Tough. And there's only one around here-"

  "Ascalagon," the Boss finished for him and nodded again. Unbelievably, he did not look afraid.

  "But Ascalagon is ancient," Pleeancis squeaked. "And big. Can't you use my scales?" He preened to show his green scales to best advantage.

  "No, little one." The Boss patted him on the head. "The fact that Ascalagon is big and ancient is the very point."

  "You're going to get help then?"

  The Boss shook his head. "No."

  Pleeancis's voice rose an octave. His wings beat crazily. "You're going to take on Ascalagon alone?"

  The Boss chuckled. "Not alone, little one. With you."

  Pleeancis's heart raced. He knew then that the Boss had gone insane but not in the good way.

  They had been walking for over an hour. The colorless sky hung above them, a featureless roof of slate. Darkbriar trees surrounded them on all sides like walls of dull, gray bark. Nightmarish versions of a Faerunian cypress, the branches of the dusky leafed darkbriars hung low enough to brush Zossimus's head. The roots of the great trees twisted their way into the soft, marshy earth like giant worms. The smell of organic decay filled his nostrils. A light mist hung in the fetid air. The dull calls of gray birds and bats mingled with the low buzz of insects. Sound was muted; color was absent. The purple of Zossimus's robes and the green of Pleeancis's scales stood out in this murky, otherwise colorless plane like a giant in a halfling's cottage. Despite the trees, the grass, the insects and birds, the Plane of Shadow felt unreal, like a bard's conception of the realm of the dead. There was motion, true, but no life, no color. The plane was a mirror of the real world, a reflection without substance.

  "Smells like a dungheap, Boss," Pleeancis whispered from his perch atop Zossimus's shoulder. Quick as a cat, the quasit plucked a black fly as large as a coin from the air and impaled it between his thumb and foreclaw. "Why would the big bastard lair here? I thought dragons were supposed to be smart."

  "Quiet, little one," said Zossimus.

  He knew that choosing this dank forest for its lair was smart. Zossimus had numerous protective and divinatory spells cast on his person, among them a spell that allowed him to see thr
ough magically created obscurement, but even his magically augmented vision could not see behind natural barriers to sight. Between the wall of darkbriars, the ubiquitous fog, and the indistinguishable gray hues of every damned thing, Ascalagon could be watching them even now, and Zossimus would not know it. The thought made his heartbeat accelerate. Once again, he told himself that the dragon would be open to reason. He had brought along an incentive to aid negotiation. Behind him, floating on an invisible platform of magical force, was an open mahogany coffer trimmed in platinum. Within lay a king's ransom in dusky opals and black pearls-his offering to Ascalagon.

  Of course, Zossimus had prepared for the possibility that the dragon might prove unreasonable. He had cast so many spells on his person that the turgid air around him fairly sparkled. An enchantment had rendered his skin as hard as granite, to fend off dragon fang and claw. A field of invisible positive energy surrounded him, to protect against Ascalagon's vitality-draining breath weapon, and various additional protective enchantments sheathed him too, all of them attuned to some aspect of Ascalagon's nature. He was as ready as he could be.

  A short while later, they reached a circular clearing, perhaps two spear casts in diameter. The short, gray grass looked like an age-faded carpet, devoid of color. The soft glow from the Shadow Plane's feeble stars trickled past the wall of darkbriars to cast the clearing in an even deeper patchwork of shadows-the ideal environment for the dragon.

  Zossimus knew that he would have to face Ascalagon on the dragon's terms, which probably meant in the clearing. His spells would expire soon. He needed to persuade Ascalagon to show himself

  With a thought, he stepped from the treeline then propelled the invisible platform forward and rested it in the center of the clearing. "We wait here," he said to Pleeancis. The quasit looked around the clearing, his eyes darting from shadow to shadow. "How will the dragon know we're here?"

  "I suspect it already knows."

  Pleeancis's eyes went wide at that. His tail flicked in agitation. He grabbed Zossimus's robes all the tighter. They did not have to wait long.

  Within a few moments, the bats and insects fell silent, leaving only the whisper of the breeze through the dark-briar leaves. Zossimus steadied himself, thought of Jennah's return, and rehearsed in his mind the power-laden phrase that would trigger the first transmutation he would cast-if necessary.

  The shadows on the far side of the clearing grew darker. The soft rustle of leaves bespoke the passage of something within the wood. Even with his vision-augmenting spell in effect, Zossimus still could see nothing but darkness, the impenetrable darkbriar boles, and the brush. Pleeancis clutched so tightly to his shoulder that the quasit's hindclaws sunk into his flesh. He ignored the discomfort and peered into the shadows.

  He took a few steps forward, farther out from the safety of the treeline. He knew the colors he wore, even the color of his skin, made him easily sighted. He was the splash of color superimposed against the painting of a forest done only in varying shades of gray.

  Still, he saw nothing.

  A rich, whispered voice from just behind his ear nearly caused his heart to stop. The exhalation of rancid breath was as strong as a mild breeze.

  "Consider well your next words, human. For the moment, I find you more curious than appetizing."

  Ascalagon.

  Pleeancis let out a squeal and teleported himself within Zossimus's robes. "Unholy crap," he muttered. "Unholy crap."

  Zossimus ignored the quasit, steeled his courage, and slowly turned around.

  Ascalagon's smoke colored eyes, each the size of a man's fist, bored into him like carpenter's awls. Zossimus could have reached out and touched the dragon's scaled muzzle. The sleek reptilian head was the size of a caravan wagon, the teeth as long as broadswords. Its respiration covered his face in moisture.

  Ascalagon's head sat atop a serpentine neck that extended from back within the trees. Within the shadows of the darkbriars, Zossimus could only just make out the huge, powerful body-the great wings that walled off that side of the clearing, the powerful shoulders and forelegs that ended in dagger-length claws, and the semi-translucent black scales, some as large as a kite shield.

  Zossimus could not believe that such a gargantuan beast could move so gracefully, so quietly, through the trees. Only the thought of Jennah's return kept him from running for his life. Beneath his robes, he could feel Pleeancis shivering in fear. He managed to keep his voice level.

  "Mighty Ascalagon, I stand before you to ask a boon. As a token of my good faith, I have brought you an offering." He gestured to indicate the coffer behind him.

  "I have already seen your ridiculous gems, little human, and I will take what I wish when I am through with you."

  The head snaked forward and sniffed at Zossimus, the fangs only a handwidth from the arcanist's body. Zossimus remained still but recited in his mind the words to a spell.

  "I have seen you too, little demon."

  Pleeancis squirmed within Zossimus's robes, poked his head out, and piped indignantly, "Little demon? My name is Pleeancis, dragon! Pleeancis the Mighty."

  Zossimus winced. The dragon fixed Pleeancis with a baleful gaze, and streamers of black energy snaked from his nostrils.

  The quasit let out a yelp, whispered, "Get him, Boss," and teleported into the trees to Zossimus's right, away from Ascalagon.

  Zossimus took a step backward, to prevent premature contact between the dragon's energy-draining breath and his protective spells. Ascalagon reared back his head and showed his fangs. A smile? If so, it reeked of menace.

  "The protective dweomers about you are plain to me, mage. Paltry things."

  Zossimus endured the slight and stood his ground. "As I said, noble dragon-"

  At the word "noble," the dragon hissed in what could only be laughter. Shadows swirled madly about the great head and neck.

  Zossimus continued, "I have journeyed from Shade Enclave to ask-"

  Ascalagon ceased laughing. His smoky, bottomless eyes narrowed, and he lurched forward from the treeline. Darkbriars cracked under the strain. Zossimus took a step backward.

  From somewhere within the trees to his right, he heard Pleeancis exclaim, "Uh oh."

  "Shade?" boomed the dragon, his voice low and dangerous. "A native from the city of invaders dares come to my abode to ask of me a boon? A boon! Insolent cur!" Ascalagon threw back his head and roared. The noise was Же a roll of thunder. "Here is your boon, mage!"

  Jaws wide, Ascalagon exhaled a cloud of seething black energy. The force was enough to paste Zossimus's robes to his body. Blackness swirled about him, and he flinched. When the dragon's breath met the protective sheath of positive energy about Zossimus's person, the contact caused an explosion of golden light, no doubt the most light this dark place had ever seen. The energies sparked and sizzled, opposites at war. Unharmed, Zossimus took the opportunity to incant the words to one of his two most powerful spells.

  "Essare telpim."

  The world stopped. Silence descended. Around him, the black death of the dragon's breath weapon hung unmoving in the air, frozen in time. The dragon towered above him, a colossal statue of scaled flesh. A halo of motionless golden motes surrounded Zossimus's body.

  Zossimus knew he had less than a minute-relatively speaking. To Ascalagon, it would seem as though no time had passed. Unfortunately, Zossimus's spell did not allow him to affect anything other than himself while it was in effect, so he could not yet use the special candle. Instead, he took the opportunity to better prepare for combat. In the end, he had only one spell that would serve his purpose. It was his most powerful, but he needed to weaken the dragon a bit first.

  Moving quickly and deliberately, he stepped out of the cloud of the dragon's breath and backed away, perhaps thirty paces. Far enough, he deemed. With deft hand gestures and a sure voice, he renewed all of his protective spells, and also cast a glamour that created six rapidly shifting phantasms of his person, all shifting about his real body. He hoped t
hey would confuse the dragon and attract some of its attacks.

  He was out of time.

  Sound returned with the rush of an incoming tide. For a fraction of a heartbeat, Ascalagon appeared confused at Zossimus's abrupt movement.

  "Get him, Boss!" Pleeancis screamed from the safety of the trees.

  Zossimus pulled a pinch of sulfur from his robe, cast it to the wind, and began to cast.

  Ascalagon roared, flapped his great wings once, and leaped forward out of the trees to cover the entire thirty paces as quickly and surprisingly as a bolt of lightning. Taken aback, Zossimus stumbled backward, fumbled with the words to his spell, and lost it from his memory. A wall of scales and shadows surrounded him. Fangs and claws ringed him in, seemed everywhere.

  Enraged and roaring, the dragon lashed like a mad thing at Zossimus and the illusionary images. The thrice-damned thing moved like whirlwind! A claw ripped through an image and tore great clods of sod from the earth. A backhand lash sent another image to oblivion. Another claw attack, another image. Fangs descended, snapping. Zossimus leaped sidewise and the jaws annihilated another image. Even as he tried to create some distance between himself and the dragon, a claw caught Zossimus full in the chest.

  Only his protective spell saved his life. With skin as hard as stone, the eviscerating claw strike only tore a deep, but non-lethal gash down his torso. The impact, however, sent him flying through the air toward the trees, where he crashed into the brush with a groan.

  Pleeancis shouted from across the clearing. "Oh, you'll swim up to your snout in Hell's turdpool for that one, dragon."

  Zossimus clambered to his feet and began again to cast. He had only two images remaining.

  Ascalagon was upon him again. Trees cracked under the dragon's weight as he crashed into the woods. A shower of leaves and limbs fell to earth. Fangs and claws lashed. Zossimus dodged backward and managed to maintain his concentration, determined this time to complete a spell.

  With the speed of a striking asp, the dragon's gaping jaws shot earthward, directly at the real Zossimus. He backed off as abruptly as his casting allowed, but he was too slow. The great jaws closed on him and jerked him into the air. Growling, the dragon tossed his head back and forth, trying to devour the human. The powerful teeth and jaws ground against Zossimus's magically hardened skin. Despite the protection of the spell, the teeth pierced his body all over. Warm blood bathed him; pain wracked him. The dragon champed down, trying to crack him open like a stubborn walnut. Bones snapped under the pressure. In agony, Zossimus found himself staring down into the dark tunnel of the dragon's gullet, but he refused to lose his concentration. Prom somewhere, he could hear Pleeancis's terrified shouts.