Cloak of Shadows

5

Daggerdale, Kythorn 15

When first it came, the violet moonlight made Arashta Tharbrow look up from her bitter reverie in alarmed wonder. What now, after a night in which she'd already seen stars falling from the sky and felt Toril shake around her? A night in which the small radiance she'd conjured to see what she was doing in the dark depths of these endless woods had twisted into a ball of worms and fallen to the earth beside her. A night in which the spell she'd hurled in disbelief to scorch those worms had produced a sprayed handful of ice pebbles instead.

"The gods are against me," she whispered despairingly, sitting down on what was left of a stone wall. She'd been a fool to come here alone, to wild, ruined Daggerdale. And if she couldn't rely on her spells, she'd very soon be a dead fool.

Who knew what beasts or brigands might be lurking near, watching her now?

She pushed down cold rising fear with firm anger and stood up, her robes swishing back to cover her high-booted legs. She was a sorceress of the Zhentarim, and folk feared her. Even veteran warriors deferred to her in the streets of Zhentil Keep-and sometimes in her bed. She took what she desired and did as she wanted, within the orders given by her superiors.

Those serpents! The mocking laughter of Thundyl echoed around her head one more time, and she saw again his amused face-and those of Rhaglar and Morgil, Master of Magelings, standing at his shoulder on the night of her humiliation, wearing smiles that vied with each other in open cruelty.

Arashta ground her teeth and banished those hated visions with a furious wave of her hand. Her long, unbound hair swirled around her head in the moonlight, and she caught at it with one hand, wondering what she must look like, wandering alone in these ruins.

She'd come hoping to slay Randal Morn and the handful of warriors loyal to him. They'd somehow eluded the best efforts of the Zhentarim to hunt them down. They slew encamped hireswords and Zhentilar troops in Daggerdale, striking here one night and there the next, slipping about like ghosts in the trees. They must have spell-cloaks to hide them from scrying, and they'd prevailed against some of the best blades the Zhentilar could whelm, leaving a trail of dead impressive even to an ambitious Zhentarim mage.

And here she was, alone, seeking to bring them down. Arashta smiled thinly. She had a wand, true. Its comforting weight, sheathed in her left boot, rubbed against her leg as she took a few steps out of the full moonlight, to make herself less easily seen by eyes in the trees nearby. The wand had little magic left in it, though, perhaps only a single strike. She also had herself, and men long without a woman might let a hard, wild beauty get closer to them than they'd suffer a peddler or pilgrim to venture. She had to find them first, though, before a brigand arrow or a hungry beast found her. Even if she prevailed against such foes, it would not do to let a watching Randal Morn know she commanded magic that could slay so effortlessly.

The wings of her fury had brought her here so easily: a spell that, without her spellbooks, she could not regain here to take her home again. She had another magic that could change her appearance, but it was a sham seeming only, not a true change in shape. If she used it to hide herself while she slept, she'd be without it when it might be needed in battle.

Sleep. She yawned. Again. Soon she'd be too weary to stay awake. How to sleep in safety, in these wild woods? Arashta sighed in exasperation. It had seemed so simple a mission when Thundyl-gods blast his arrogant smirk! — had charged her with it. All she'd have to do would be to avoid swaggering into Daggerdale with forty warriors or so, as her unsuccessful predecessors had done, and avoid being careless.

It struck her that she wasn't eluding carelessness all that well. Arashta shook her head, smiled ruefully, and took a few steps east, deeper into the dale, to where she could just see the glimmer of a small stream snaking across overgrown fields. Perhaps- She froze and then suddenly whirled around, robes flapping, to stare at the dark wall of trees. Someone, or something, was watching her. She could feel it. She raised a hand slowly, debating whether to cast her lone spell of revealing now or to save it for a more pressing moment.

In the trees, the man whose body looked like the dark trunk of a duskwood had grown tall enough to overtop most of the branches in his way. Steadying himself by grasping a nearby bough, he threw the stone in his hand high and hard, and dwindled again, sinking down as the stone was still in the air.

When it crashed down in the brush behind Arashta, making her whirl around again with a little gasp of alarm to face nothing in the night, the shapechanger had become a nine-foot-tall man with jet black skin and burning red eyes. As he stepped forward, his crooked smile changed and his features sharpened into those of a handsome man wearing spiked black armor and a superior smile.

"It would be best, Arashta Tharbrow, if you knelt to me." The soft, pleasantly menacing voice made the Zhentarim sorceress stiffen and brought her whirling around once more, hands raised to hurl deadly magic.

The figure facing her stood unmoving except for his hands, which stroked and toyed endlessly with something smooth and white… a jawless human skull. Arashta's gaze came slowly, almost unwillingly up from the skull to meet the stranger's blazing ruby eyes, and though she feared she knew the answer, she had to gasp the question.

"Wh-who are you?" As the words came out, she was already dropping to her knees in the grass and stones. He smiled in cold approval. "Most mortals know me as Bane." He left a little silence for her gasp of involuntary awe, and it came. The name seemed to echo and roll away from him when he uttered it. Something flickered across his face for a moment, but he stepped forward with a widening smile. "I've been watching you, lady sorceress, and have come to value you rather more highly than many of my mightier servants in the ranks of the Zhentarim. I have need of an agent who can serve me with true loyalty, and I believe you could be the one I'm seeking."

Arashta's face was the white of sunspun clouds, and her eyes glittered. "M-me, Lord?" she gasped.

"I can see you, in days soon to come," that soft voice continued, as the red eyes seemed to bore into her own, "as my highest servant in all Toril, a sorceress to overmatch the Witch-Queen of Aglarond, who rules more than one realm in my name and who need fear no man nor monster in this world."

A jet black eyebrow lifted. "Will you serve me with utmost loyalty, to the death?"

The sorceress stared at him for a moment, eyes huge and glistening in the moonlight, and whispered, "Lord Bane, I will."

"Speak my name seldom," came the reply, a hint of iron in the melodious voice now. "And hearken. If you'd become my most powerful and trusted servant, prove your worth now. Set aside pursuit of this Randal Morn-his fate is of no consequence, whatever certain Zhentarim believe-and slay for me instead the mage Elminster of Shadowdale and his three companions: the Lady Sharantyr of Shadowdale and two Harpers called Belkram and Itharr." The jet black giant took a step away from her and thrust the skull into his chest, where it vanished without a sound. His hand was empty when he drew it out of himself again and asked, "Will you essay this for me?"

Breathing as if she'd run a long way, Arashta licked her lips and replied, "Lord, I will."

He did not quite smile, but the sorceress, heart racing and excitement rising in her throat like leaping fire, knew that he was pleased. "The four you must kill are not far from here, in a ruined keep beyond yonder hills."

She looked southeast along the line of his pointing arm, marked a stony face on one slope she'd not forget or lose sight of, and quickly looked back to the god.

"You've heard of the magic of Elminster," he said dryly. "These days, my Zhentarim seem to talk of little else." She nodded, too eager to be hesitant, and he added, "Though he is always dangerous, the Art left to Elminster is greatly weakened. Right now even Morgil, Master of Magelings"-he allowed a smile to touch his lips- "could match him in battle, spell for spell." Bane waved a hand, and four life-sized figures were suddenly standing around her. Arashta almost hurled a spell at them before she was sure they were images and not the folk themselves, snatched here by the god's magic. "Look well," he said, "from all sides, if you wish. Rise and be free, Arashta. Know these foes and slay them for me, and more power than you can dream of shall be yours."

He hesitated, and then added softly, "It is not often I take a consort."

She was still reeling from that thought when he added, "I shall be watching you do this for me. Know this: It is the end that I value, not the means. Use hirelings, tricks, whatever. Glory is a foolishness others value, not me."

Sweat drenched Arashta in her excitement, and her body trembled unceasingly as she circled the four silent images as if in a dream, staring until she knew she'd never forget their looks.

Then she turned to Bane and went to her knees again. "Lord," she whispered, "I am ready."

"Good," said the dark figure looming above her. With slow ease, one sable hand drew forth a dagger whose blade did not shine but was a deep black with stars swimming in it. Bane held one flat side of it out in front of her face.

Trembling, Arashta put her lips to the dagger and found it cold. After a moment Bane took it gently away, and one cold black hand-he had long, pointed black fingernails like talons, she noticed-took hold of her left wrist.

He drew the dagger down her forearm gently, slicing a short line so deftly that only a few drops welled out. A finger wiped them away, and finger and dagger both vanished into that black mouth, to emerge clean again.

He handed her the dagger. It tingled in her fingers, cold and deadly, and the sorceress felt the chill force racing through her. "Always worship me thus," he commanded. "If I am not present to take the blood from you, consign it to a flame."

Arashta swallowed. "Y-yes, Lord," she managed to say. "Always." One of his hands suddenly flowed, widened, and became a mirror that showed her the face of Arashta Tharbrow strangely changed. In her reflection, at least, her eyes glowed with black-and-purple fire. She gasped, and looked up at him in wonder.

Bane gave her a wintry smile. "The mark of my power," he said. "It will soon fade." He raised a staying hand, turned away, and strode toward the trees. "Seek not to follow me," his voice came back to her, as soft and as clear as if his lips were by her ear, "but do as I have charged, without delay. The dagger you may keep."

Arashta bowed her head. As she'd expected, when she straightened up again, he was gone.

She stared down at the wickedly curved dagger in her hands. It was one piece of polished obsidian, like no other she'd seen before, its edges razor sharp. Wonderingly, she brought it to her lips again, and then held it up to the moon, panting in excitement. "Elminster shall die!" she told it fiercely, her vow echoing back from the ruins around her.

And then she was up from her knees and running southeast, across the grassy hills, the dagger clutched in her hands.

Moonlight shone back from it, and a tall tree saw the flash, smiled a crooked smile, and shrank back down to man shape. The longer he walked Faerun, the more comfortable this form seemed. This must be why most elder Shadowmasters preferred it, after all.

Issaran of the Malaugrym smiled, shrugged, and twisted into the form of a giant barb-tailed bat. He took wing north into the night, and for greater speed shaped a second set of wings to beat in alternation with the first pair, cleaving the air with a soft moan. A little shifting, a few minor glamers… and a servant was his, to hurl her life away trying to work his ends.

Ruling Faerun-save for dealing with his own kin- would be all too easy. His teeth flashed in a smile as he went. A moment later, a real bat shied away from him, squeaking in terror, and his smile grew broader.

The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 15

"Issaran certainly makes it look easy," a pillar murmured, but no one was close enough to hear it. By the time the bell tolled again and other kin drew near, the scrying portal was once more showing Elminster's camp.

"Things seemed to have settled down, I see," Kostil remarked to Neleyd, as they came out of the Shaft of Many Stairs together and entered the vast Great Hall once more. "We're back to just one scrying portal."

"Why do away with the others, I wonder?" Neleyd asked, as the deep booming of the bell rolled over them again. Kostil gave him an amused look.

"After a surge of wild magic like that, youngling, every second portal could be the eyes and ears of some foe-or a maw waiting to spit out whatever death they choose to send us. Or to suck in whoever passes. Then again, the places they show may not be what you'd like to look at, or think you're seeing. There were a lot of such things in this castle, before Dhalgrave came to power. In those days, folk of our blood were concerned with ruling other planes. We saw Toril simply as a place to snatch up human and elven maids for breeding…"

"I saw old Rahorgha die that way," Bheloris confirmed, coming up beside them. "A manyjaws took off his head- down to the arms-when he looked too closely at a scene in a portal it was using as a lure… a friendly quartet of nude mermaids, as I recall."

"Who?" Neleyd asked, frowning. He thought he'd heard that name once before, but…

"Rahorgha the Brawler, we called him," Kostil said briefly, as they mounted the lift-spiral. "He was slain well before Dhalgrave came to the throne."

Neleyd swallowed. "You remember those times?"

Kostil gave him a despairing look. "Younglings," he muttered, a comment almost lost in the sound of Yabrant, Eldargh, and Bheloris chuckling in unison.

And then the orange and purple radiances flashed on their faces, and the gigantic spindle of the Shadow Throne was floating before them, a many-headed hydra the hue of shore mists seated in it. Several heads of dark, glistening eyes met Neleyd's wondering gaze, and he shivered despite himself. He didn't need to see the Shadowcrown or the Doomstars to know he was facing Dhalgrave.

Other kin were ascending swiftly to join them, more than Neleyd had ever seen gathered together before. He recognized Taernil and realized that the many-tentacled thing slithering along beside him must be Huerbara. When it glared at him, he was sure.

A tall, crimson-skinned biped covered with warts and questing tentacles of loose flesh oozed past, leaving acrid fumes in its wake. As it went, it rumbled to a lazily drifting fish with a snakelike tail that floated beside it, "There've been more assemblies these past few days than in the last few years. What's gotten up Dhalgrave's orifice now, I wonder?"

Bheloris grew a smile on his back, where Dhalgrave couldn't see it, but in front of Neleyd's face. Neleyd found his view blocked not only by Bheloris but by several increasingly bulky arrivals, and grew eyestalks to look over them. He wasn't the only kin to do so, he discovered, locking gazes with several other peering stalks bobbing above the crowd.

Then movement and noise ceased together as the Shadow Throne pulsed with a vivid amethyst radiance, and out of its heart Dhalgrave thundered, "Hear me, blood of Malaug!"

"Speak, O Shadowmaster High," came the ritual chorus, the gathered kin sounding a little resentful at the interruption of their various affairs.

Dhalgrave leaned forward, almost bellowing in his excitement. "At last-at long last! — magic seems to be weakening in Faerun, and when most spells are cast, the magic goes wild. All is in chaos. Beyond the wildness of Art, avatars of all the gods walk Faerun, sent there unwillingly and much hampered in their powers. Their magic overmatches us but is no longer absolute."

The Shadowmaster High leaned forward. "To some of us, sorcery is a strong weapon, but to most folk of Faerun, it's their only weapon. Without it, they cannot stand against us in open strife. If we move more deftly, slaying certain rulers and taking their shapes, entire kingdoms of Toril can be ours without a battle!"

Excited murmurings were swelling. Dhalgrave quelled them with sudden thunder. "I know some of you hunger to play in Faerun. Let me remind you that it is a resource for the use of all, under the protection of the Shadow Throne. Wanton destruction will not be tolerated, except against the person and allies of the foe Elminster. Treat Faerun as our private garden, to be nurtured for later use."

The Shadowmaster High's many heads-Neleyd counted a dozen, but some of them seemed to be slumping down and shifting shape, as others rose elsewhere- looked around at the gathered blood of Malaug, and Dhalgrave added, "I have urged you to seize this bright chance to strike down Elminster, and further suggested that this could be our best opportunity to seize as much of Faerun as we can, but as always, Shadowmasters are free to act as they see fit."

The Shadowmaster High rose from his throne and stood on empty air to look around at the assembled shapeshifters as he said forcefully, "Against our traditional freedom, I lay this sole commandment upon all: No one is to bring beings of Faerun to the Castle of Shadows, or leave an easy route by which Faerunians can find our home by following any of the blood of Malaug, without my prior permission. And be advised that such permission shall be forthcoming only in the case of approved breeding stock or captives who've been demonstrably rendered helpless, but who possess valuable knowledge-such as magic-you deem worth acquiring. I want this clearly understood. The supreme penalty shall apply for transgressions if I deem it appropriate-and I will deem it appropriate."

The Shadowmaster High raised his hands, and the assembled Malaugrym suddenly found themselves sinking, as the unseen floor beneath their feet dropped smoothly down into the swirling shadows toward the black marble floor of the Great Hall far below. The Shadow Throne and the floating figure of Dhalgrave were soon lost to view in the mists above them, and all the shapeshifters began speaking at once.

"He must be furious," Bheloris told no one in particular, "to dismiss us so. Word must have reached him of Olorn's plan to bring in all the Zhentarim, to pluck their spells from them."

"Hah," Kostil said, turning. "The last thing I want is several score of ambitious, ruthless little human mages scurrying about the place trying to slay us all. If such a risk is to be taken, let it be for one mage of real power, so we can learn magic of some worth."

"Such as?" Yabrant asked, snaking out a tentacle that sported a mouth and a trumpetlike ear to better converse.

"A Red Wizard of Thay, I intended."

"If the risk is to be taken anyway," Neleyd blurted, "why not bring in this Elminster?"

He was astonished and embarrassed by the respect he saw in the looks that all the nearby kin gave him-except one.

A gray, withered elder Shadowmaster in hobgoblin form thrust a belligerent face forward until his protruding lower lip almost touched Neleyd's own and snarled, "Have you seen Malator, Dhalgrave's bodyguard?" Neleyd nodded; who had not seen the battered giant Malaugrym who served as the Shadow Throne's champion? He was reckoned the mightiest Shadowmaster in combat, and often wrestled the worst of the marauding night-worms of the shadows.

"I am his older brother, Dlagim. I was always the larger and stronger of us two," the old Malaugrym continued, and smiled bitterly at Neleyd's obvious disbelief. "Aye, you can scarce believe it. Well, this is all that Elminster left of me, the last time he visited the Castle of Shadows. He just strolled in and started telling us what we must not do, and what we'd best stop on the instant- and all of us within earshot must have attacked him. He slew over forty of us before he left; only three survived. Let's hear no more talk of bringing Elminster to the Castle of Shadows."

"It was but a suggestion," Kostil said smoothly.

"A foolish one!" Dlagim said heatedly, but Kostil spread his hands and half-smiled.

"Ah, but that's all the younglings among us know how to make. And if all who make plots or suggestions that seem foolish were sent away from the castle, the place would soon be empty. Only you, I, and Dhalgrave himself would still be here… sitting staring at each other in the echoing emptiness."

"Look upon it as entertainment," Yabrant offered.

The old Shadowmaster's eyes blazed in sudden anger, but he took one look at the large and capable antler-adorned Shadowmaster and recalled that he had urgent business elsewhere that required immediate attention- after a last snarl of, "Bah! Fools and irresponsible rascals, all of you!"

"What'll befall now?" Neleyd asked Bheloris curiously. The elder waved at the groups of talking, gesticulating Malaugrym around them and smiled. "The cautious and the bold will make war on each other with their tongues, each seeking to prevail. In the end, most of us will go our own ways, unconvinced by whatever we've heard. 'Tis always thus. Dhalgrave will be sitting up there listening, mark you, and noting just who says what."

"The cautious being those who want to stay out of Faerun until we know what's going to happen with the gods and magic and all?"

"No, youngling," Kostil corrected him, "we are Malaug's offspring, after all. The cautious are those who favor manipulation of Faerunians, and goading or driving beasts and others to serve as our agents, so that our hand remains unseen. The bold are those who want to rush down there at once and attack everything they see, except that they all want someone else to attack Elminster."

"And the Red Wizards, and Khelben Blackstaff, and the Simbul of Aglarond, and a few others," Yabrant added with a grin.

"Precisely." The word had scarce left Kostil's mouth when angry voices shouted icily from the sneering, snarling mouths of two young and handsome Malaugrym who stood in human form, pointing and gesturing rudely at each other.

Neleyd stared from one to the other. "I've seen that one before, but never heard such words from him…"

"That's Olorn," Eldargh rumbled. "He fancies himself the next occupant of the Shadow Throne and is fool enough to think he can manipulate all of us into giving it freely to him."

"And his rival is Amdramnar-the wiser, I think, and smooth as oiled wine. A loner, where Olorn surrounds himself with the weakest witted among us, forming little whispering societies to make the nothings of the kin feel important."

"Olorn favors bringing human captives in, then?" Neleyd asked hesitantly, looking from one shouting shape-shifter to the other.

"Aye, but he might change his views several times before this day is done."

Neleyd looked at him in astonishment. "Why all the fury, then?"

"Those two?" Bheloris chuckled. "They'd disagree over what their own names are, just to be on opposite sides of something. They'll slay each other one day, for sure, if someone else doesn't get one of them first."

Kostil shrugged. "If they hold to their purposes behind Olorn there-see them storming off, all showy gestures? — that someone bids fair to be Elminster, and soon."

Neleyd suppressed a shudder. "Have you seen many of us-of the kin-die?"

"Down the years?" Bheloris looked thoughtful. "Yes. A good threescore."

Kostil nodded. "More than that, before these eyes."

Neleyd looked from one of them to the other. "So what do you think we should do with human mages?"

"Destroy them," Kostil said calmly. "Once and for all."