Downshadow

SIX

Night had fallen in the world above, but below-in the tunnels that ran rank with the creations of the mad wizard Halaster-darkness persisted regardless of the movement of sun or stars.

Shadowbane stalked from chamber to chamber in Downshadow. While he did not share any of the special visual acuity of elves or dwarves, his eyes were accustomed to the gloom, and in the presence of even the faintest torch down a corridor, he could see well enough. He could also, of course, create his own light by drawing his sword.

Hand on the worn hilt of Vindicator, he paused and listened. He heard footsteps, harsh breathing, and gentle words ahead, in a chamber that had once been some manner of living quarters. Who could have dwelt this far north in the Undermountain of the old world, he did not know-one of Halaster's legendary mad apprentices, no doubt.

He peered in and saw a single moving figure-a woman in a gray cloak-among several sprawled, moaning bodies. When her attention turned away from the corridor, he ducked into the chamber and climbed to a better vantage point. There he crouched, balanced atop a moldering wardrobe, and watched.

He'd been following the cloaked woman for some time, since she had entered by one of the northern shafts into Downshadow. He'd glimpsed her several times before and knew how to anticipate her comings and goings. This was the night he had chosen to catalogue her doings.

Likely she was a crooked merchant, seeking to peddle stolen goods. But if so, where were her warders? She could be here for no other reason-why would a citizen of the world above come down to Downshadow, alone, if it were not for some vile purpose?

Anyone other than himself, of course.

He watched from the secure, unseen top of the wardrobe as she went about her tasks. Here camped a band of delvers who had seen better days. Two men in armor wheezed pitifully, and a lad in leathers clutched at a torn belly and choked back sobs.

Only three. Shadowbane knew the ways of sellswords: they usually roved in packs of four or five. That meant they had left at least one of their number in the depths.

"Bull-back," the boy murmured. "Back away, lest I… I…" His hand feebly raised a dagger, then dropped it clattering to the floor.

The two armored men beside him only groaned.

As the woman knelt beside the bleeding boy, Shadowbane tensed, ready to spring to his defense. Adventurers were jusr as likely criminals as anything else, and his vigil in Downshadow did not include saving those who had brought a harsh fate upon themselves. Still, he would not watch idly while anyone murdered those who were weak or helpless.

She was casting a spell, he realized, but he recognized the words as similar to those of a healing chant his old teacher, Levia, had used many times. He relaxed his grip on Vindicator, rhough he kept his legs tensed, ready to leap.

Sure enough, healing radiance suffused the woman's body. Shadowbane watched, awed, as she pulled back her hood, revealing a fine-boned face of about forty winters and a forest of beautiful, red-gold curls. Such beauty could touch only a Sunite celebrant, he thought.

The priestess bent to kiss the injured lad on the lips, and healing radiance spilled from her and into his young body. The boy coughed and retched, and Shadowbane saw the wound in his belly close, to be replaced by smooth-albeit bloody-skin.

Jaded as he had become, Shadowbane still smiled at the beneficence of some folk.

The boy looked up in wonder at the priestess who had healed him. "My-my thanks, lady," he said. "I thought for sure, once we lost Deblin…"

She shook her head and pressed the boy's shaking hand to her cheek. "Sune watches over us all," she said. "I am Lorien. While I see to your companions, speak: what befell you?"

"A roving spell," the boy said. "It drains your strength away, so you can barely carry your own bones." As he spoke, the priestess healed the first man in armor, who hugged her around the knees, then promptly fell to a snoring slumber. "We escaped that, but then we ran afoul of a pair of those mad panthers with tentacles-the ones who aren't where you think."

Shadowbane knew such creatures: displacer beasts radiated magic that bent the light, making them dastards to strike. And with the lashing tentacles that grew from their shoulders, one needed to strike them quickly.

Lorien nodded as she bestowed a healing kiss on the second of the armored men, who coughed and stammered his thanks. "Are there more of you?" Lorien asked.

The boy's face went pale. "Deblin, a priest of Amaunator-he died when the beasts attacked-and our wizard, a girl called-called…" He sniffled, and Shadowbane saw his eyes fill with tears. "I was holding her hand when one mauled me. She disappeared. Can't be far!"

Lorien smiled and cupped his chin. "Never fear," she said. "I shall look for your lady love, and where love shines, there Sune shall guide us."

Shadowbane bit his lip. He'd found little enough of love-or Sune's guidance-along his path. Beauty often surrounded him, he admitted, but he allowed it only so close. He'd made too many mistakes.

The priestess pulled down her cowl and hurried down the tunnel where the boy had pointed.

Shadowbane followed, smoothly and silently. The weary delvers could only blink and question whether they had really seen a figure pass.

The priestess hurried north along a tunnel, heedless of traps. Shadowbane shook his head. What if an accident befell her in these depths? If he weren't following, how long would it be before someone found her?

Lorien paused abruptly, and Shadowbane had only an instant's warning to press himself into a crevice before she looked back, searching.

Impressive, that she'd heard him-perhaps she'd once been an adventurer herself.

A blue light flashed in a chamber at the end of the corridor, and the priestess turned to follow it.

Shadowbane pursued-at a greater distance this time.

As they moved, he got the distinct sensation they weren't alone in the tunnel. Something else was there-something hidden. Several times, he looked over his shoulder but saw no one. He kept his hand tight on Vindicator's hilt.

Finally, Lorien passed into the chamber where they'd seen the blue light. Shadowbane saw her stiffen, then creep cautiously toward something he could not see.

He picked up his pace, heedless of making sounds.

The chamber was wide and roughly square, lit by luminous pink and blue mushrooms. It had partly collapsed some years ago, and great shards of rock stuck out of the formerly smooth floor like stalagmites. A second entrance gaped in the west wall. The chamber was otherwise plain, except for two bodies in the northeast corner. They looked whole, though he could not be certain from his distance.

Strange. Though the room smelled thickly of blood and animal spoor, he saw no beasts, displaced or otherwise, that might have attacked the wounded adventurers. That was odd-why would monsters leave two perfectly good bodies lying in the chamber? Why, if they'd been somehow warded off, had they not chased the wounded and weak adventurers south?

A crude jest around the ante table was that one only needed to run faster than one's slowest delving companion.

He saw his answer, then: against the far wall were two bloody, ashen outlines of creatures like great cats. Shadowbane wondered what manner of magic had done that.

"All's well," Lorien was saying. "I'm here to help-not to hurt."

Shadowbane turned, but he could see only that Lorien was approaching someone. He heard another voice-younger, also female-speaking words in a tongue he didn't know. She sounded terrified and, he realized, familiar. He couldn't place the voice.

"Wait!" Lorien said. "Let me help you!"

He saw a flash of blue light, and then the speaker-whatever it had been-was gone. Shadowbane peered closer and saw Lorien kneeling to examine a blood-stained woman, heavy in build and wide of face, who lay in a puddle of blood-spattered robes. Something was odd about her skin, too-it seemed puckered and red as though burned by fire.

Lorien gave her a kiss of healing, and the wizard murmured wordlessly.

Then the back of Shadowbane's neck prickled, and he knew they were not alone.

Lorien looked up, though Shadowbane thought it impossible that she'd sensed him. She looked instead deeper into the cavern, where a short, wiry figure in a black robe perched atop a rock, conremplating her with his chin in his hands. The light of the mushrooms bathed his face in a cruel, fiendish light: Rath.

Shadowbane drew his sword halfway.

"Well," said the dwarf. "Now that-was impressive. How did you hear me, I wonder?"

"I have a guardian, to serve me at need," Lorien said with a defiant toss of her curls.

At first, Shadowbane thought she must be speaking of him, but then he saw it, finally, in the light shed by the mushrooms. A shadow, unattached to anything else, seemingly of a tall and broad man, flitted across the floor, moving fast toward Rath.

Rath calmly raised a hand and spoke a word in a tongue Shadowbane did not know. Light flared from a ring he wore, bathing the room in a white glow. Lorien shielded her eyes.

The shadow hesitated, then fled into the darkness, and Shadowbane saw it no more.

"Simple enough," the dwarf said. "When one is prepared."

Rath stepped toward Lorien, his hand on his slim sword.

The priestess backed away, spreading her arms in front of the wounded woman.

Shadowbane cursed. He knew revealing himself was unwise, yet he couldn't just stand and watch. He stepped into the room, hand on his sword hilt. "Hold."

Lorien looked up at his appearance and her eyes widened. She gaped.

Rath hardly looked surprised. "Ah," he said. "Come to see if I shall fight you this time?"

Shadowbane drew Vindicator, whose length burst into silvery white flames. "Face me or leave this place," he said. "This lady is under my protection."

Rath eased his hand away from his sword hilt, but Shadowbane could see the violence in his eyes. "Very well," said Rath. Unassumingly, he walked forward.

Shadowbane drew back into a high guard, ready to slash down hard enough to cut Rath in two, but the dwarf just ambled toward him as though unaware of the danger. Shadowbane couldn't help feeling a little unnerved, but instinct seized him and he struck.

Rath stepped aside, fluid as water, seized Shadowbane's grasp on the sword, and elbowed him in the face. The blow would have been hard enough to shatter Shadowbane's nose and cheekbones, if not for his helm.

Stunned, Shadowbane staggered back, empty-handed, and the dwarf admired Vindicator in his hands. The sword's silvery glow diminished but did not go out.

"How amusing," Rath said, as power pulsed along the length of the sword, "that you think yourself worthy of me."

Shadowbane's helmet was ringing, or maybe that was his ears.

"Here," said the dwarf, lifting the blade in his bare hands. "Yours, I think."

Not thinking, the knight groggily reached out to take it.

Rath leaped, twisted over the sword, and kicked him once, twice, in the face. Shadowbane fell to one knee, while Vindicator clattered to the stone near Lorien.

The dwarf barked a laugh, then turned to Lorien. "Now, woman," he said. "We shall-"

But Lorien had seized the sword and tossed it toward Shadowbane.

The knight was already running forward, and he seized the blade out of the air. Rath leaped, and only his speed kept Shadowbane's slash from taking one of his legs. The dwarf landed two paces distant and Shadowbane pressed, slashing and cutting high and low. Rath ducked and weaved and snaked aside, dodging each swing.

Then Shadowbane saw irritation flash across the dwarf s face, signaling that the duel no longer amused him. The dwarf dropped low, knees bent, hands at his stomach. Shadowbane pulled Vindicator back to block.

Putting all the force in his compact, powerful body into one blow, Rath slammed the heels of his palms into the flat of Shadowbane's sword as rhough it were a shield. The blade slammed into Shadowbane's chest, and the force sent him back through the air and onto one knee. As though with a great maul, the dwarf had knocked him a full dagger toss away.

His face calm, Rath looked down at his black robe, where Vindicator had cut a single slash below his simple wool belt. He fingered the cut, frowning.

Shadowbane coughed and levered himself up on the sword.

"You yet stand." Rath rose, a smile on his smooth, handsome face. "Good."

Calling on the power of his boots to enhance his leap, Shadowbane lunged, crossing the distance in one great step, and slashed down, as though to cut his foe in two.

Vindicator sliced only air and sparked off the stone as Rath leaped. The dwarf wrapped his legs around Shadowbane's head, rwisted, and tossed the knight back-this time even farther. Shadowbane rolled as he landed and kicked onto his feet.

The dwarf landed lightly and beckoned with one languorous hand.

Shadowbane obliged. He darted forward, sword reversed as though for a high thrust. Rath sidestepped, just as Shadowbane expected. Exploding out of the feint, he spun toward the dwarf, slashing out and across rather than thrusting.

He had not expected the dwarf to be so fast. Rath ducked and, capitalizing on his low gravity, plowed into Shadowbane, driving him out of his spin and onto the ground.

The knight tried to rise, but Rath leaped onto the flat of Vindicator, which lay across his chest. He shifted his feet, caught the sword between his toes, and kicked it away, where it skittered into the shadows, its light still blazing.

Rath's eyes weren't amused. He bent down, pulling back his fist to crush Shadowbane's head against the stone. "Enough of this," he said.

"I agree," said a feminine voice from behind them.

Rath and Shadowbane looked, and there stood Lorien Dawnbringer, divine radiance shrouding her. If she had been lovely before, she was now truly beautiful-fantastically so, glowing with a force and grace not given to mortals. Shadowbane could not look directly at her.

The dwarf danced off Shadowbane and leaped toward her, but then stopped and lowered his fist, unable to approach her aura of majesty.

"Run," Lorien said, and her words bore the weight of royal command. "Flee this place as fast as you can, and do not stop running until your legs fail you."

The dwarf shivered, fighting against her will.

"Run!" Lorien commanded again.

With an angry snarl, the dwarf turned and streaked toward the east tunnel. He moved so fast and with such grace that Shadowbane could hardly believe him a mortal creature.

He looked up. The priestess's figure no longer seemed quite as bright, but she was still almost blindingly beautiful. She reached toward him. "Lorien," she said.

"Shadowbane." He stared at her proffered hand.

"Come," she said. "I shan't hurt you-you just saved me, did you not?"

"You-" he said. "You're not going to command me to remove my helm, or the like?"

She laughed then, and the sound was like cascading water in a nymph's cove. "Of course not," she said. "If you're wearing that helm, then you must have your reasons. Though"-she pursed her lips-"though it isn't horrible scarring, is it? That would almost be a chapbook, right there. The priestess and the masked horror."

She grinned, and Shadowbane realized it was a jest. Warily, he put his hand in hers, and she helped him to his feet.

"You're hurt," she said. She pursed her lips. "I can heal you, if-" Shadowbane tapped his helmet.

"Aye," she said. "Well then, my good knight." She curtsied girlishly, but thanks to the divine grace that lingered about her, ir seemed straight out of the palace courr.

"Well done," he murmured. "Though you might have cast some of those dweomers before he kicked the piss out of me." His cheeks felt hot. "Forgive my rough manners."

"I can swear like a sailor in my rages," she said. "It's unlikely 'piss' will offend my 'virginal' ears. Speaking of which-" She hugged him tightly before he could elude her.

"Ah, lady?" he asked, confused and more than a little uncomfortable.

"My thanks," she said against his chest. "If you hadn't delayed him so long, I couldn't have cast as many spells as I needed to send him away."

"I delayed him?" Shadowbane said. "You mean-with my face?" "Aye." She hugged him tighter. "That."

To distract himself from how good she felt against him, Shadowbane looked at the injured wizard, who was breathing regularly, then at the burned shadows on the wall and wondered what might have done that. Could that wizard lass have managed such a spell? It didn't seem likely, if her band had fled from the displacer beasts.

He considered the dwarf and Lorien's shadowy defender. Rath's ring had only scared the creature away, not harmed it. And where had that shadow come from?

Too many questions, and he couldn't decide which to ask.

Shadowbane's ears perked up, and he became aware of footsteps coming toward them. "Lady Lorien?" came a distant, male voice.

"Oh, shush! She'll just hide from you." The voice was feminine, closer, and familiar.

"Shush, both of you!" came a quiet command.

Time to go. Shadowbane pulled away, but Lorien caught his hand.

"You saved me, and for that I am grateful," she said. "If I cannot give you a kiss, as the tales demand, then"-she pressed a small, pink scroll into his belt-"my temple is holding a revel a few nights hence, and I should be honored if you would attend."

"Lady," said Shadowbane, but she put a finger to his helm, over his lips.

"It is a costume revel," she said. "Famous heroes of the old world and the new-come as yourself, if you will. The invitations have no names, so even I will have no way of knowing you, saer." She smiled. "Your secret is safe."

Shadowbane wasn't sure what to say. He put his hand over hers.

Then, when he heard a gasp from behind them and reached for his empty scabbard, he realized he hadn't reclaimed his sword from the shadows.