Cloak of Shadows

4

Daggerdale, Kythorn 15

Sharantyr watched helplessly as flaming death roared down upon the Old Mage. Long ago the spell had been dubbed a 'meteor swarm,' castle-rending magic only the mightiest mages could wield. And the wizard who'd hurled it looked so young.

A Zhentarim? But all time for thinking was gone. She was going to die. Sharantyr looked at Elminster as the roar of the rolling flames grew louder around them.

The Old Mage was standing calmly, watching the racing fireballs. As Sharantyr looked at him, his eyes narrowed for a moment and he made the briefest of gestures with two fingers. Little wheels of lightning were suddenly spinning in midair, in the path of the howling swarm of fast-growing fireballs.

The lightnings blazed into sudden blinding brightness as the flames flashed through them, but sliced apart the blazing balls, drawing out their fury. The rush of stolen spell energy made the spinning lightnings moan and turn all the faster. Beyond them, eight failing, flickering tongues of flame reached for the unmoving, watching Old Mage… and fell away into nothingness, spent.

Elminster raised another finger imperiously, and the whirling lightnings raced away from him, heading for the mage in the trees.

The young mage cast another spell with desperate speed, hissing and stammering words in clumsy haste. A brief rain of green lances appeared in the air, slicing down at Elminster's crackling pinwheels of captive fire and lightning, but were shattered and absorbed without pause. The lightnings flashed on.

The wizard shouted something desperately but hadn't time to do more before the lightnings struck him.

Elminster leaned forward to watch with mild, academic interest.

Sharantyr had time to shiver at that as she turned to watch what befell their foe.

Trees cracked in the heat, hissed out all their stored moisture, and fell, smoking, as the writhing mage spun in their midst, small snarling bolts of lightning leaping around his body and scattering bright sparks where they touched.

He howled in agony, arching his torso, limbs splayed. Sharantyr stared, fascinated, as his arms grew, darkening and broadening into batlike wings.

Elminster uttered a satisfied hum and followed it with four quick, sliding words. The struggling figure of their foe spun end over end as the lightnings faded and fell away from it. The young mage seemed frozen, half-in and half-out of bat shape, bright eyes staring at them and brighter fangs gaping, as Elminster's magic whirled the attacker's body around and around. "Aye, I like thee better in half-shape," Elminster told the creature serenely, making a plucking motion with one hand.

The bat-thing abruptly broke out of its tumbling and seemed to leap across the air between them, directly at the Old Mage.

Sharantyr swallowed and rose up into its path, face set and blade extended. The bat-thing rushed forward as she held out her bright sword firmly in both hands. With a helpless, howling whimper, it impaled itself on her steel.

Shar staggered at the impact, icy blood drenching her hands, and stared in sudden alarm as the darkness and weight faded away from around her blade, taken to some other place by magic that flickered and tore at her, leaving her with a confused impression of shadows, watching malevolence, and a cold, dark somewhere filled with strange monstrous beings.

Someone said coldly, "Now do you see, Taernil?" but the reply, if there was one, was whirled away in a rising whistling, the noise of mournful, misty shadows streaming around and past her.

Sharantyr felt the magic that had taken the bat-thing trembling through her. She stared at her bare blade and unmarked hands for a dazed moment before a firm hand encircled her arm above the elbow and an all-too-familiar voice rasped, "Did ye or did ye not hear me to tell thee to put thy blade away, lass?"

Sharantyr shook her head to clear the whirling shadows from it and gasped, "Who… what was that?"

" What' is right, Shar. A Malaugrym mage, young and careless with his power." Then the voice sharpened. "A fine useful pair the two of ye are! Puffing up here just a breath or six too late, as usual."

Belkram and Itharr plunged to a halt, breathing hard, and exchanged an exasperated look. "That's… our job," Itharr gasped. "Rushing in… we're Harpers, remember?"

Elminster snorted once more. "So am I, young and brainless one," he reminded them all none too gently. "And d'ye see me running about the landscape like a scared hare, trampling the crops and looking generally ridiculous?"

"No," Belkram replied bravely, "but I'm sure if we were a thousand years or so older than we are, we'd have seen you doing just that… probably with a maid or two fleeing in front of you and an angry father or two in hot pursuit at your heels."

The snorts of suppressed laughter that answered this sally didn't come from Elminster, who looked dangerously around at them all but spoke not a word.

None of them saw a figure watching from atop one of the ruined towers, a crooked smile on its face. "Laugh while you can," Issaran told the four standing far below him, and faded away.

A moment later, an oak leaf spun lazily down from that height, which was odd, for there were no oak trees near.

The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 15

"Issaran goes to ground, would you say?" A goat-headed Shadowmaster chuckled, looking into the scrying portal.

"At least he's wiser than this flamebrain," rumbled a giant whose head resembled a warrior's helm, rising from his shoulders without pause for a neck. He was looking down at the smoking form of Taernil, shifting in slow pain from a puddle of black leather to something that had lizardlike legs. "By the Doomstars!" they heard him gasp. "It hurts!"

"I can send you back there, if you'd prefer," Kostil said calmly, watching the young Malaugrym shuddering at his feet.

"If any of you truly cared, you'd do something about this pain! Gods on their thrones!" Taernil spat, shifting slowly into something that had teeth to clench and eyes to glare around.

"Care, youngling?" The goat-headed Malaugrym sounded amused. "We do take care, which is why we watch and think before we rush in, trusting to a few spells that our foe learned to cast an age ago!"

"Clever, Yabrant… you're so clever, all of you," Taernil gasped, swaying upright and seeing Huerbara watching him mutely from the shadows not far away. He redoubled his efforts to quell the trembling in his limbs and look grim, calm, and strong.

The goat-headed Shadowmaster bowed his head sardonically. "At least you have progressed far enough to recognize cleverness, youngling. Keep at it, and perhaps in a century or so you'll have progressed far enough to be able to converse civilly with me for a moment. Add another century or so on top of that, and spending that moment with you might start to be worth my time."

"Well said, Yabrant," Kostil commented politely, taking a glass from the grasp of a paralyzed slave creature as it drifted past. He sipped delicately at the bubbling mint-green contents, his eyes shifting to match the hue of the drink, and turned to stroll away.

"You think so?" Taernil hissed, face white with fury, al-most spitting the words in his rising rage. "You agree with him?"

"Why not? He's right," Kostil said serenely, walking unhurriedly off across the marble floor.

The helm-headed giant guffawed, and the recovering Malaugrym mage stiffened, turned, and snarled, "You too, Eldargh?"

The giant sighed and rose up to the full height of his snakelike lower body. He looked down at the young mage expressionlessly for a moment before he muttered, "Mature a little, Taernil. You're overdue for it," and slithered away into the shadows.

"All is not lost, lad," Bheloris said suddenly, stepping from behind a nearby leaning pillar shrouded in spiraling shadows. "You've learned something of value to us all."

"Oh?" Taernil asked bitterly, wary of more sarcastic criticism, his eyes on the grave admiring face of Huerbara as she approached.

"The spells he used against you told us all that you faced Elminster." He inclined his head toward the scrying portal. "Yonder is no false image or impostor, but a servant of Mystra."

Taernil's eyes narrowed.

Bheloris smiled ruefully. "Don't believe me?" He swept a hand at the shadows around. "They believe. See them go to work on their spells and schemes, now they know truly who they face?" Taernil turned to look at the misty gloom where the far reaches of the Great Hall of the Throne faded away to limits unseen, and saw his kin walking away, some drawn together in excited groups, others striding briskly.

The young Malaugrym drew himself up with something like pride in his eyes. "They are, aren't they?" His eyes flashed. "I traded spells with Elminster-and lived," he said quietly.

"Well, I wouldn't preen overmuch about that," Bheloris said mildly. "I've done that myself, as have most of us who style ourselves Shadowmaster. It's one of the ways we measured ourselves, when the kin were more rash… and more numerous." He turned to look at the scrying portal. "Why, I reca-"

The scrying portal flashed blindingly and burst into bubbling motes of light. There came a rumbling that shook every Malaugrym there, and the floor of the Great Hall-the very castle itself-heaved, shook, and tilted slowly and ponderously to one side for a moment. Abruptly, a score or more scrying portals burst into bright being here and there around the hall as an ancient web of spells responded wildly. The awed Taernil and Huerbara clutched each other instinctively, staring around, and were shocked to see naked fear on the faces of elder Shadowmasters as the legion of serenely floating portals showed them all the bright flash of something huge and fiery slashing through the sky of distant Faerun. The shadows all around them rocked again, to the sound of many thunders, and someone screamed, "Elminster! The Doom is upon us!"

Someone else shouted, "Flee! Flee, or the House of Malaug is lost!"

"Not So!" roared a voice that echoed and re-echoed from every stone, goblet, and pillar of that vast chamber. Dhalgrave's voice shook with fury, and Malaugrym all over the hall cowered at the sound.

"This is no work of our foe, but something greater! Look, all of you, and behold: The gods of Faerun are come, descending upon their worshipers in wrath. The land is torn! Look well, for this may be our best chance to seize as much of Toril as we can!"

Even as that great voice rolled out over them, one of the scrying portals burst into sudden blue-white fire, causing the nearest Shadowmaster to leap away from it and frantically shapeshift into something winged, flap-ping untidily in its haste. The portal spun around, blazing, and consumed itself, even as another portal exploded into a cloud of purple… flowers?

The Malaugrym barely had time to gape and peer at it before another meteoric descent rocked the Castle of Shadows, and its flash burst forth from every portal. Somewhere a pillar cracked, toppled, and fell with a thunderous, rolling crash. Shrieks of fear arose, and the tattered shadows were suddenly full of flying shape-shifters, adopting any form they could think of that flew and was fast.

Alone amid roiling mists, Huerbara and Taernil suddenly realized they were clinging to each other and hastily drew apart. Then they smiled at each other, tentatively, and joined hands again in a frantic dive for safety as another portal burst forth a gout of many-hued flame.

"Another god falling?" Bheloris murmured, strolling calmly through the ruins of rent portals and fallen drinkables. "Are we going to be able to trust any magic, in times ahead?"

"Ah… not all the wits of the kin have drained away or shriveled up," Milhvar murmured from the heart of a pillar nearby. "One, at least, has seen or felt the heart of the matter this swiftly."

Had a Malaugrym passed by the pillar in all the roaring chaos, it might have seen two dark, hooded eyes staring out of the stone. No more of the watching Shadow-master could be seen, but somehow the entire stout stone pillar seemed to be smiling. Not that it was a particularly reassuring smile.

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 Faerun 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 Sylune, the sister whom Faerun 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 Sylune. 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 Faerun. 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. Sylune 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, Sylune did not smile reassuringly, but merely raised a gently mocking eyebrow 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?" Sylune 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.