Curse of the Shadowmage

Two

Mari Al’maren sat in the common room of the Dreaming Dragon, waiting. Through a window, she watched as the black night sky softened to slate blue, then pearl gray, and at last blazed into scarlet brilliance. She had been up all night. Finally she heard the sounds she had been waiting for outside the inn’s door: the grating of a boot heel on stone, the rattling of an iron key in the lock, the creak of hinges as the door swung open. A tall figure wrapped in a tattered midnight blue cloak stepped into the common room. Surprise registered in his faded green eyes.

“You’re up early,” Caledan said cheerfully.

“No,” Mari countered crisply. “I’m up late.”

It took a moment for the implication of her words to register on his angular visage. His grin faded. “How about if I told you that I went out for a midnight constitutional and lost track of the time?”

Mari gazed at him steadily. “You can give it a try, but don’t get your hopes up. I’d really hate for you to be disappointed.”

Caledan winced. “I was afraid of that.” He shrugged off his ragged cloak. Beneath, he wore the old travel-stained black leathers he preferred for night work.

Mari stood, taking a half dozen paces toward the stairs before turning to regard him. “All right, Caledan. Where have you been all night? You can tell me now, or if you’d rather, we can scream at each other first. But either way, you are going to tell me.”

Caledan opted to cooperate directly. “I went to the Barbed Hook,” he said. “It’s a tavern down in the New City, on the waterfront.”

“I’ve heard of the place,” she said coolly, crossing her arms. “The clientele consists of brawling sailors, besotted dockhands, one-handed cutpurses, and a generous sprinkling of harlots. A little too high class for you, don’t you think?”

Caledan grimaced. “I’ll be generous and ignore that. Do you remember the spy we discovered in the High Tower?”

“A man dancing around trying to pull a dagger out of his back before he drops dead is a curiously memorable image.”

He pretended not to hear the sarcasm in her voice. “I did a little investigating and found out that our spy had been seen down at the Barbed Hook, so I decided to scout things out. Guess what? I noticed a few of our friend’s cohorts disappearing down a hidden passage into a back storeroom. One of them bore ritual scars on his cheekbones. There’s no question about it. They were definitely Zhentarim.”

Mari arched an eyebrow. She had a sinking feeling. “Were Zhentarim?”

“You can stop worrying,” Caledan snapped in annoyance. “I didn’t harm a hair on their evil little heads. Not that I wouldn’t have liked to. Whatever you may think, I’m not so impulsive I’d follow three Zhentarim into their hideout without someone to back me up.” He shook his head in frustration. “But I still can’t understand this overwhelming desire of yours to sit and have a pleasant chat with every member of the Black Network we turn up. That’s exactly why I left—”

Caledan halted, swallowing his words. Mari finished for him. “That’s exactly why you left me behind last night. Is that what you were going to say?” He stared at her sulkily. Mari felt her wrath building. He had gone too far this time.

“How dare you?” Her voice was low and even, but there was scorching fire in it. “How dare you sneak behind my back, like some cowardly adulterous husband, just so you can indulge your childish impulses? In case you’ve forgotten, Caledan Caldorien, you are not the only Harper in Iriaebor.”

Anger flared in his eyes. “Well, maybe I should be. After all this time, you still don’t have the faintest idea how evil the Zhentarim are, do you, Mari? There’s only one thing worth doing with a member of the Black Network—and that involves a good sharp blade, not polite questions.” His voice rose dangerously. “And by the way, I am not your husband.”

“Believe me, I’m aware of that fact,” Mari replied caustically. All in a rush, harsh words she had been saving up for months poured out of her. “I just don’t understand, Caledan. You never would have behaved this rashly a year ago. I’m not sure exactly what is going on, but you … you’ve gotten careless—no, not careless, but reckless. You don’t give a damn about anything or anyone these days, least of all yourself.” She was shouting now. The noise would wake everyone up, but she didn’t care. “You’ve changed, and I’m not certain I even know who you are anymore, Caledan Caldorien!”

“Maybe you never did,” he snarled, clenching a fist in rage. “Maybe you don’t have the faintest idea, Mari Al’maren!”

It happened so fast that, afterward, Mari was never certain what really happened. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Caledan’s shadow expand on the wall, growing to monstrous proportions. Like a black serpent, the shadow lashed out an arm, striking at her own shadow. A searing line of fire raced across her cheek. She screamed, reeling backward, falling to her knees. Dazed, she lifted a hand to her cheek. It came away wet with blood.

Suddenly, Caledan was there, kneeling beside her. “By the gods—Mari, are you all right?” His voice was desperate. “Mari, talk to me!” He gripped her shoulders with big hands.

She shrank away from him, casting a furtive glance at the wall. Now their shadows were mundane silhouettes, nothing more. Gradually, she let herself relax into his strong embrace. “I’m all right,” she gasped. “It’s a scratch, that’s all.”

“But how did …?”

Mari thought of the way his shadow had moved … or had it? She had been angry and distracted. Caledan could make the shadows dance on the wall—that was the nature of his shadow magic—but the shadows he controlled did not have physical substance or the ability to harm. Maybe in her rage she had imagined it. She could have scratched her cheek when she fell in her attempt to back away from him. She realized that her anger had receded, whatever the explanation for her injury. All she felt now was a great weariness.

“Forget it, Caledan.” She took a deep breath. “It’s nothing. Really.”

Mari pulled herself to her feet. She drew a handkerchief from her pocket and blotted her cheek; already the flow of blood had stopped. There were more pressing matters to concern her now. She took her wine-colored cloak from its hook and opened the door.

Quickly, Caledan stood. “Where are you going?” he asked in confusion.

“The Barbed Hook. It might have slipped your mind, but we still have a mission to complete.” She gave him a wan smile. “So are you coming or not, Harper?”

His wolfish visage was unreadable. At last he nodded. “Lead the way.”

The narrow crag upon which Iriaebor’s Old City was built soared a full three hundred feet above the surrounding plains. Leaving the precarious towers and mazelike streets of the Old City behind, Mari and Caledan made their way down a serpentine road to the sprawling New City below. It was nearing midmorning, and the New City’s broad avenues were crowded with throngs of cityfolk. Iriaebor was prosperous these days.

And that was precisely why the Zhentarim would love to dig their claws into the city once again. With Iriaebor’s gold draining into their own coffers, the Black Network could fuel their evil designs of domination in a dozen other lands. Mari still wasn’t certain how the strange murders might benefit a Zhent plot to overthrow the city, but she didn’t doubt that they could. The Zhentarim were as insidiously ingenious as they were wicked.

A thought struck her. Kellen had told them about the apparition he witnessed yesterday, and she wondered if this strange occurrence had something to do with the Zhentarim. Mari had no doubt that Kellen had in truth seen the ghost of Talek Talembar. She had witnessed Talembar’s shade once herself, far away in the Fields of the Dead, and Kellen’s description of the ghost coincided with her memories. Yet what did the appearance of the ghost portend? And what of his peculiar message? The old king hath fallen … and a new king doth rise to take his place. Perhaps it was a warning that the Zhentarim plotted against City Lord Bron. The appearance of the ghost had left them all shaken, except for Caledan. He had merely brushed the strange occurrence aside, as he did everything these days.

As they walked, Mari glanced sidelong at Caledan. For a time, after the Fellowship defeated Ravendas in the crypt of the Shadowking, life with Caledan had been joyous. Then, gradually—so gradually she didn’t even notice it at first—they had slipped back into their old habits, quarreling bitterly as often as they embraced. She sighed deeply.

Consciously, Mari forced her thoughts to the mission at hand. Morhion had come to the inn yesterday bearing news from their old friend, the monk Tyveris. Tyveris had once been a member of the Fellowship. Now he served as an advisor to City Lord Bron in the High Tower. According to Tyveris, the perpetrator of the unexplained murders had finally been apprehended. Two nights ago, city guards had caught a thief beside the mangled corpse of a petty nobleman. The mystery, Tyveris reported, had been solved. Yet for some reason, Mari did not feel as certain as the monk. It was difficult to believe that a common thief could be responsible for over a score of grisly deaths. Mari fully intended to visit the dungeon, to question the thief before he received judgment. However, first there was the task at hand.

Mari and Caledan turned from the main avenue and picked their way down a narrow lane, trying to avoid the rivulet of foul water that trickled down the middle. The city was not so crowded here. The rank scent of rotting fish hung on the air; gulls cried out raucously above. Between ramshackle warehouses, Mari caught a glimpse of a flat, silvery surface, the Chionthar River. The two reached the end of the lane, finding themselves before a dilapidated building fashioned from the overturned hull of a barnacle-encrusted galleon. The Barbed Hook.

Mari and Caledan exchanged looks. Making an assault on a Zhentarim lair by daylight had its risks, but Zhents tended to do their work under cover of night. They were used to fighting in the dark and to resting during daylight hours. With luck, that would give Mari and Caledan the advantage.

Caledan gestured to the door of the tavern, his grin almost like that of old. “After you, my lady.”

“You’re too kind,” she replied dryly. She sauntered casually toward the door.

And kicked it in.

The two Harpers stepped through a cloud of splinters and dust into the murky interior of the tavern. A dozen coarse faces gaped in surprise at the sudden intrusion. Quickly, surprise gave way to anger. “Harpers!” someone shouted.

“You forgot to take your badge off again,” Caledan said in annoyance, jabbing a finger at the silver moon-and-harp brooch pinned to Mari’s jacket. “Now they know who we are.”

“Oh, bother,” she replied with mock exasperation. “I suppose that means we’ll have to kill them all.”

Caledan bared his teeth in a nasty smile. “Why, I suppose you’re right.”

A brawny sailor launched himself forward, ready to snap Caledan’s neck with his big, callused hands. In one fluid movement, Caledan crouched down, drew a dagger from his boot sheath, and spun inside the sailor’s reach. As he rose, he deftly plunged the blade inward just beneath the other’s sternum, angling it upward until it pierced the man’s heart. The sailor collapsed to the floor like a side of beef falling from a meat hook. Caledan wrenched the dagger free and gestured with its crimson tip. A one-eyed dockhand leapt over a table, bellowing as he unsheathed a rusty short sword.

“Your turn, Mari,” Caledan said graciously.

“Why, thank you.” She dodged a wild swing of the dock-hand’s sword, then whirled inside the circle of his arms. “Care to dance?” she asked demurely. She grabbed the wrist of his sword arm and gave it an expert twist. Bones snapped audibly. The dockhand howled in pain as the short sword clattered to the floor. She spun him around in a dizzy circle, then let go. The dockhand careened backward against a wall covered with dusty fishing trophies. He stared down in dull wonder at the serrated snout of a spearfish protruding from his chest, then had the sense to realize he was dead. His eyes rolled up in their sockets as he slumped on the end of the fish’s sharp proboscis.

Mari turned around in time to see the bony, hook-nosed man who stood behind the bar reach down and pull something out of a hidden recess. With a quick move, the man threw the object in Caledan’s direction. Metal glinted dully. Caledan lifted a black-gloved hand, snatching the thing in midflight.

“I don’t recall ordering this, barkeep,” Caledan said good-naturedly. “Mind if I return it?”

With a flick of his wrist, he sent the object hurtling back toward the barkeep. A second later, the bony man took a step backward, clutching feebly at the knife embedded in his throat before collapsing over the filthy surface of the bar.

Hands on her hips, Mari gazed at the rest of the tavern’s occupants. “All right, who’s next?” she asked sweetly. “No pushing, please. I promise, each of you will be killed as promptly as possible.”

There was a second of silence. Then came a scraping of chairs and a clattering of boots as the remaining customers departed hastily out the tavern’s door. In moments Mari and Caledan were alone save for three rapidly cooling corpses.

“I have to admit, you certainly know how to clear a room,” Caledan commented.

Mari shrugged. “It’s a talent. Now let’s get moving. This isn’t over yet.”

Caledan nodded, following her through a dim archway into the back room. After a few minutes searching, they spotted the corner of a trapdoor, hastily hidden beneath a stack of old ale casks. The two pushed the casks aside and crouched down to examine the iron door. It was locked.

Caledan looked up at her. “Can you …?”

Mari cut him off. “With my eyes closed.” She began rummaging in a leather pouch.

“I think we’re beyond the stage where you need to show off to impress me,” Caledan noted acidly. “With your eyes open will do just fine.”

“As you wish.” Mari slipped a pair of thin wires—one bent, one straight—into the trapdoor lock. Carefully, she began probing, constructing a mental image of the lock’s interior. The mechanism was of good but not exceptional construction. Four minutes was all she would need, five at most. Her brow furrowed in concentration.

It was then that the screams began. The sounds echoed up from beneath the trapdoor, muffled shrieks of terror and agony. Mari and Caledan stared at each other. More screams drifted upward. Something in them made Mari’s blood run cold.

“I won’t tell you your business,” Caledan said hoarsely, “but you just might want to hurry it a bit.”

She nodded silently, bent over her task. After what seemed hours, the lock sprang open. Caledan pulled up the trapdoor. Silence. The screams had ended. All the two could see was a square of perfect blackness.

Mari swallowed hard. “You know, I got to enter the tavern first. I think you should lead the way here. It’s only fair.”

“How thoughtful of you.” Caledan gripped the edges of the trapdoor and lowered himself through, disappearing into darkness. A moment later he whispered, “There’s a ladder.”

Taking a deep breath, Mari followed. In the blackness, her hands found rusted iron rungs bolted to the rough stone wall. In moments she reached the bottom. They were in some sort of low tunnel. The musty air was cold, and she sensed Caledan’s nearness only by the heat of his body. Hunching over, they moved swiftly down the passage. Tomblike silence pressed in from all sides.

The tunnel ended abruptly in a door. A thin line of ruddy light glowed above the sill. Slowly, Mari turned the door handle, which creaked softly. She tensed her body, then threw the door open. Crimson torchlight spilled outward like blood. The two Harpers leapt through the doorway, daggers drawn.

The Zhentarim were all dead.

With caution, Mari and Caledan moved into the long subterranean chamber. It took Mari several moments to count up the corpses, for they were all horribly mangled. Stray body parts were strewn haphazardly across the room, and the floor was slick with blood. She clamped her jaw shut, trying not to retch. Seven, she decided at last. There had been seven agents of the Black Network in the underground lair. And someone had slain them all. Or something.

Caledan knelt beside one of the corpses and touched a finger to a gory puddle on the floor. “However they died, it happened only a few minutes ago.”

“The screams we heard,” Mari said with a shudder. “Those were their death cries.”

Caledan wiped his hand on the dead man’s tunic, then stood. “I can’t say that I’m sorry. I wanted the scum dead myself. But I’m more than a little curious to find out who managed to do my job before I had the chance.”

Mari shuddered. “Whoever … whatever … they were, they’re gone now.” She moved to a table littered with sheaves of parchment. The ones on top were illegible, spattered with blood, but those below were unstained. Several showed schematic drawings of the interior of the High Tower. Mari realized that they were plans for an attack. “Look at these, Caledan. The Zhents were plotting to take over the city. These plans prove—”

“Mari.”

Caledan’s voice was low and quiet, but the tension in it made her freeze.

“Mari, I want you to turn around. But do it very slowly. Do you understand?”

She nodded jerkily. Then, as slowly as she could, she spun around.

They were streaming out of the shadows that filled the far end of the chamber. Dozens of them. Even as they drew near, Mari could not identify them. They reminded her of sea creatures she had once seen off the coast of Amn, far to the south. Raystingers, the creatures were called—flat, boneless animals that floated in the warm tides, trailing whiplike tails barbed with poison. These things that drifted out of the shadows toward the two Harpers were not so different from raystingers, except they were dark as obsidian, and were floating on thin air, not water.

Heart pounding, Mari followed Caledan’s lead, backing slowly toward the door. Suddenly, she felt something cold and slick brush against her hand. She gasped, looking down to see one of the dark creatures float past her and move toward the others. She twisted around. More of the things rose from a shadowed corner behind her. They spilled out of the darkness and streamed silently past. Their touch made her flesh crawl, yet they did not harm her. She saw that the creature’s touch had left a red smear on her hand. Blood.

“By Milil, what are they?” she gasped.

Caledan’s halting reply came from behind her. “I don’t … I don’t know. Perhaps the Zhentarim conjured them, but the spell of binding went awry, and the things turned on the Zhents. I …” There was a pause. Then Caledan’s voice came again, a hoarse whisper. “Mari, help me …”

Dozens of the dark creatures had surrounded Caledan. They drifted around him like a dense black vapor. Caledan gazed at Mari, face pallid, eyes shining with terror. The creatures circled him slowly, brushing gently past his hands and letting their long tails slip softly around his neck in movements that seemed almost like caresses.

Caledan shuddered uncontrollably. Finally he could remain still no longer. “Get away from me!” he hissed, lashing out with an arm.

Like a cloud of smoke, the creatures swirled away from him. The dark mass drifted apart. Caledan stared in amazement, then lurched forward. He grabbed Mari’s wrist. “Let’s get out of here.”

Choked by fear, Mari could barely voice the words. “The door … they’re blocking it.”

A score of the amorphous black creatures had drifted before the open portal. The fear in Caledan’s eyes was quickly usurped by rage. He shook a fist at the nameless creatures, snarling. “Let us pass!”

At once, like a curtain of black velvet, the creatures parted before the doorway, leaving room to pass. Caledan pulled Mari’s arm. “Come on!”

She froze, staring at him. She was struck by a sudden, inexplicable fear. At that moment, Caledan seemed as alien as the jet-black blobs that floated before them.

“What’s wrong with you?” he growled, tugging at her arm.

It was irrational—perhaps even mad—but he frightened her as much as the unnameable creatures. She tried to pull away, but he held her tight. At last she managed to speak. “They … they listen to you. They obey your commands.” She felt dizzy and ill. “But why …?”

Caledan’s eyes were wild with urgency. “What does it matter?” he shouted at her. “The way is open. We have to go!”

This time he pulled her hand so fiercely it seemed to nearly dislocate her shoulder. Brilliant pain flared, but she welcomed it, for it cleared her head. Later she could deal with what had just occurred between Caledan and the things of darkness. Now they had to flee. Hand in hand, she and Caledan dashed between the floating ranks of onyx creatures and careered headlong down the twisting stone tunnel.

Alone in the chamber she shared with Caledan on the upstairs floor of the Dreaming Dragon, Mari set down her quill pen. She sprinkled a dusting of fine sand across the missive she had written, then tilted the crisp piece of parchment, shaking off the excess sand. Finally, she rolled it up with the sketches she had made of the dark creatures and sealed the scroll with hot wax from the single candle resting on the writing table. For a time, she stared at the neatly rolled parchment, thinking how the eerie creatures had drifted around Caledan in what almost seemed to be reverence; how she and Caledan had fled the Barbed Hook in terror; how only at Morhion’s urgent prompting, after they told the mage what they had witnessed, did they return to the Zhent lair and find them vanished.

Why the things had seemed to obey Caledan’s commands was a mystery. Perhaps it had something to do with his shadow magic. After all, the creatures had come from the shadows. Morhion had discovered a black, noxious residue in the corners of the underground chamber, and had collected some in a vial in order to perform experiments on it. The mage’s research might explain why the creatures had behaved as they did.

The other piece of the puzzle that still did not fit was the thief who had been caught in the act of one of the brutal killings. Of course, it could be that the man had simply committed that murder in imitation of the others. It was unfortunate, but such things did occur.

It had been a long day, and there was still one last task to complete … one Mari was not at all looking forward to.

The chamber door opened quietly.

“Mari. You’re still awake. I thought … I thought you’d be asleep.”

Mari regarded Caledan as he shut the door. His face was drawn, his eyes shining with weariness. For a moment her love for him washed over her like a wave. How could she possibly do what she intended? But she had made her decision.

She gestured to the writing desk. “I’ve just penned my report to the Harpers. They’ve sent new instructions. We both have new orders. I’m to go to Easting, and you—”

“I know. I’m to travel north to Corm Orp. I received a missive as well.”

Mari nodded. Silence reigned between them. At last Caledan spoke, his voice gruff. “You’re going to tell me good-bye, aren’t you, Mari?”

It took her a long moment to find the words. “I don’t know, Caledan. Perhaps I am. I think we should let this be a parting of ways for us. At least for now.”

He swallowed hard. “Have I been so terrible, then?”

Mari turned away, crossing her arms across her chest to hide her trembling. “No,” she said hastily. Then she decided to speak her mind. “Yes. Yes, you have, but not in the way that you think. Today, in the Zhentarim hideout … what you did with those creatures … I …” She turned toward him, and only as the words sprang to her lips did she realize how true they were. “I’m afraid of you, Caledan. I think I have been for the last six moons.” She lifted an unconscious hand to touch her cheek. “I’m afraid of who you are becoming.”

A mirthless smile touched his lips. “It’s funny you should say that, Mari. You see, I’m afraid, too.” He approached, enfolding her in his strong, lean arms. She stiffened for a moment, then melted into his embrace. His whisper was fierce now. “I know I’ve been acting strangely lately. I do feel … different somehow. And the truth is, I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s something I’ll be able to find out on my next mission. But whatever is happening between us, believe me when I tell you this, Mari. I would never harm you. Do you understand me? Never.”

“I know that, Caledan.” She held on to him, feeling his hard, muscular body beneath her hands. Yet she could not shake the disturbing sensation that this was not her Caledan she held in her arms, but a stranger. “Perhaps, after we’ve been apart for a while …”

He pressed a finger softly to her lips, silencing further words. Slowly, he ran his finger down her chin, her throat, to the leather laces that bound her green jacket. He bent down and kissed her. She returned the kiss urgently. Their clothes slipped softly to the floor as he bent to blow out the single candle. For a time, fear was lost in the familiar warmth of each other’s touch.

Later, when she floated drowsily in the misty realm between sleep and waking, she thought she heard him rise from the bed. A softness touched her cheek, a low voice whispered in her ear.

“Fare thee well, Harper.”

Perhaps it was just a dream. But in the morning, when she woke to gray daylight, Mari found herself alone and shivering beneath the bed covers.