Realms of Shadow

King Shadow

11 Kythorn, the Year of Wild Magic

The old knight and his squire hobbled their weary destriers through the charred and shattered gate. They walked the rubble-choked streets of the murdered city, where even a fresh horse would likely lose its footing.

At first Kevin felt numb and sick. The short, sandy-haired youth had yearned his whole life to ride to war, had felt feverish with excitement on the long, difficult ride from Kirinwood to Tilverton. But he had never imagined war's aftermath: broken buildings and broken bodies reeking of burning, evil magic, and rot, the stink perceptible despite the drizzling rain.

Gradually, though, pure stupid horror lost its grip on the squire, and he regarded his master, only to discover a new cause for dismay.

Before forsaking martial endeavors to run the family farm and make fern-and-mint wine, Sir Ajandor Surehand had seen other scenes of carnage nearly as grim as this. Yet he trudged along without a word, his thin, wrinkled face with its drooping white mustache ashen, his gray eyes lost and empty beneath his shaggy brows.

Kevin was appalled. He had always thought the gaunt old knight indomitable, but apparently the loss of an only child could overwhelm anyone.

"Sir," he said, picking his way around a spill of field-stone, "you know, it may not be possible to find him."

If Ajandor heard, he gave no sign.

"There are so many dead people," Kevin continued, "some disfigured by fire and the like. Others no doubt lie inside the collapsed buildings."

"Is that what you think?" snapped Ajandor, who had never before spoken harshly to Kevin in all their years together. That my son was cowering indoors when he died?"

"No! I'm sure he died fighting the enemy."

"Then shut up."

As Kevin wondered what to say next, a gray form sprang up from the ground, where it had apparently been lying flat as a sheet of parchment. A pair of vague limbs outstretched, it pounced at Kevin.

The squire tried to dodge and draw his sword at the same time. He managed neither. The dark thing slammed into him and bore him down to the ground. Raking claws shredded his mantle and surcoat and ripped at the hauberk beneath.

Something flashed. The creature leaped away, and Kevin saw Ajandor standing over him with Gray Dancer, his sword of gleaming mithral silver, in his hand. The knight had used it to drive the phantom back.

Kevin scrambled to his feet and yanked out his own blade, a plain steel one, devoid of pedigree and with only the simplest of enchantments. The humans and the creature stood and regarded one another.

Kevin could see that the shadow resembled an enormous cat, though perhaps that was only one of many possible forms, for its murky substance seemed to flow and shift from moment to moment. The refugees whom he and Ajandor had encountered on the road had warned them of such shadow creatures, phantoms apparently engendered by the same wizardry that had destroyed Tilverton and the army assembling inside its walls.

Evidently hoping to flank the apparition, Ajandor edged to the left. Kevin moved to the right. The cat sprang at him, its entire head opening like an oyster to become nothing more than a set of jaws.

Sidestepping to throw off the shadow's aim, Kevin cut at its shoulder. Though he had felt the phantom's weight and strength, his sword swept through it as if it were made of smoke. That should have been good, but he knew it wasn't. Some supernatural beings were all but impervious to mundane weapons, and this was apparently one of them.

The phantom clawed at him, and he jumped back. Ajandor rushed in and drove his point into the shadow's flank.

The creature spun, reared on its hind legs like a bear, and raked at Ajandor with talons grown long as daggers. Scarcely giving an inch of ground, the knight met the shadow's attack with savage stop cuts. At least his blade seemed to be biting something solid, though whether it was doing the phantom any real harm was impossible to say.

Kevin could tell that his master was trying to get inside the shadow's reach for another stroke to the head or torso, where, perhaps, some vital organs resided, but the creature was holding him back. For his part, the squire couldn't hurt the phantom, but perhaps he could distract it. Yelling at the top of his lungs, he charged and beat at it.

The shadow whirled, loomed above him like a mountain about to give birth to an avalanche, then it jerked, and the point of Gray Dancer popped out of its belly. Ajandor had seized his opportunity to bury the mithral weapon in its back. The cat toppled, and Kevin scrambled aside to keep it from dropping on top of him.

Panting, his heart pounding, the squire was content to stand clear and hope that the shadow wouldn't get up again, but Ajandor was not. Seemingly contemptuous of the cat's flailing limbs, he kept on attacking. The shadow stopped moving and still he hacked at it, until the body abruptly melted away to nothing.

Only then did Ajandor turn to Kevin. The knight's eyes had gone from dull and dazed to fierce and hard.

"Are you all right?" Kevin asked. The collar of his tattered cloak chose that moment to tear completely apart, dumping the garment around his boots.

"Yes." Ajandor inspected his blade of "true silver," only to find that, except for drops of rainwater, it didn't need cleaning. The phantom hadn't possessed any blood to foul it. "Let's move on."

"Move on? After a fight, if it's practical, a warrior always rests and recovers his strength. You taught me that."

"Don't throw my own words back in my face."

"I'm just saying… look, further wandering may be a bad idea. We've just seen that the survivors told us the truth. Tilverton is haunted. We should-"

Ajandor turned away, his patched, faded war cloak swinging, and headed up the street. Kevin mouthed a silent curse, snatched up his ruined mantle, threw it around his shoulders like a beggar's rag, and hurried after him.

They prowled until darkness began to envelop the city, creeping up on them as stealthily as the shadow cat, or so it seemed to Kevin. With the sun hidden behind the perpetual gray cloud cover, he had seen no hint of its setting.

"We should get back to the horses," he said, "and make camp for the night."

Ajandor shook his head. "I want to walk."

The mounts need care, assuming that some horror hasn't killed them already."

"You can tend them. It is part of your duties, is it not?"

"Yes. Still, what's the point of searching for Pelethen"- Ajandor flinched almost imperceptibly at his son's name-"in the dark? You could march right past his body and never notice."

"I still feel like wandering."

"But the shadows will be more active in the dark, for that's the way of shadows, and without a single light burning anywhere about the streets, you'll never see them coming. They'll kill you before you can even lift your sword!"

Ajandor frowned, considering. At length he said, "1 wouldn't want to fall without striking a blow. That would make a poor end to the tale of my line. We'll return to the Cormyr Gate."

On the way back, they passed one of the sets of stairs that climbed to the Old Town, a precinct built on high ground. Famed for its picturesque beauty, it was likely as ruinous as the rest of the city. Partway up the steps was an Altar of Shields, unmarred by the devastation that prevailed on every side. To Kevin, it almost seemed a mockery, as if Helm, god of guardians and protectors, had preserved his own little shrine while permitting the rest of the city to perish.

The squire's mood soured still further when they reached the gate. Redwind, Ajandor's charger, lay dead. No shadow had come to rend the faithful animal. Rather his heart had given out and small wonder. At the knight's insistence, the two riders had pushed their mounts unmercifully once they heard about the destruction of Tilverton, even though, from a coldly practical perspective, they no longer had any reason to hurry at all.

Ajandor gazed down at the horse that had borne him for the past ten years, an animal that, Kevin believed, he had loved.

"Poor old fellow," murmured the knight.

"It's too bad," Kevin said.

Ajandor turned away from the fallen steed. "The animal got me here. I suppose that's all that matters."

"Until we want to ride away."

Ajandor didn't reply.

"Well," said Kevin after a pause, "after I see to my horse, we'll want a fire and our supper."

"Do as you like." Ajandor walked back to the east end of the stone tunnel that was the gate, where the rain created a sort of shimmering, pattering curtain and stood staring out as night swallowed the city.

By the time Kevin finished preparing a meal of fried ham, crumbly yellow corn cakes, and dried apples, the vista beyond the gate had gone utterly black. He tried not to think of what might be lurking unseen just a few feet away. A faint cry came from the opposite direction, out in the countryside, making him jump. Some of the refugees hadn't fled very far from Tilverton, and perhaps shadow creatures were ranging outside the broken walls as well.

At the sound, Ajandor glanced over his shoulder then turned away once more.

"Supper's ready," Kevin called.

His master didn't answer.

For a second, annoyed, the youth was tempted to let it go at that. The gods knew, he was hungry enough to eat both portions himself. He rose from the fire and carried the two tin plates to the end of the gate.

"Here," he said, thrusting one dish forward.

Thus prompted, Ajandor accepted it. He took a token nibble of corn cake then stooped to set the plate on the ground.

"No!" Kevin said. "Sir, you need more than that, or you'll get sick."

"I'm not hungry."

Kevin took a deep breath, screwing up his courage. He had never hesitated to speak his mind to the kindly mentor who had taken him in after his own parents drowned in a boating accident, but this taciturn stranger daunted him a little.

"Sir, I think I know what's in your mind. We couldn't have gotten here any faster."

"That's a convenient way to think."

"It's the truth. We left home the same day the herald brought us word of the call to arms, and we had to ride from one corner of Cormyr to the opposite one, slogging down muddy roads and fording swollen rivers." That, of course, was why the kingdom of Cormyr and its allies were going to war. A city of wizards was tampering with the weather, producing constant rain that ruined crops, birthed floods, and made travel a nightmare. "Despite it all, we did arrive before the date specified in the princess's decree."

"But not in time to fight."

"Obviously, no one anticipated that the shades would lay siege to Tilverton before our forces could march on them. Anyway, do you think we could have changed the outcome if we had been here? Do you think you could have saved your son?"

Ajandor sneered. "You're glad you were let off, aren't you? Glad you weren't obliged to die in the service of the Crown."

Kevin groped for a suitable answer. Nothing sprang to mind.

"Get away from me, coward. Leave me to mourn in peace."

The squire obeyed then found that suddenly he, too, had no appetite.

He took the first watch as was customary and his duty, even though Ajandor did not avail himself of the opportunity to rest. Afterwards, the youth found it so difficult to sleep that he almost felt that he shouldn't have bothered, either. The occasional anguished cry from beyond the walls kept jarring him awake.

At daybreak, or what passed for it beneath the perpetual overcast, the two men-at-arms headed back into the streets. It was raining harder, but the stink of the bloated dead seemed worse than ever. At first it churned Kevin's stomach. Eventually, though, he forgot about it, when he noticed something about his master's demeanor.

When they'd first entered what remained of Tilverton, Ajandor had paid particular attention to any dead warriors clad in the wine-colored surcoats of the Purple Dragons, the company of knights to which Pelethen had belonged. Now he paid little heed to any of the pathetic corpses sprawled on every side. Instead, he scrutinized doorways, windows, and rooftops, low walls and the mouths of alleyways, a wagon with two dead mules slumped in the traces-everywhere a foe could lie in wait.

That, Kevin reckoned, was only prudent, but when Ajandor caught a glimpse of a shadow crouching over the burnt corpse of a mother with a blackened, shriveled infant in her arms, his response wasn't prudent at all.

"Ho!" bellowed the knight, throwing back his cloak and taking hold of Gray Dancer. "Shadow! Come and fight!"

The murky form rose from the corpses-had it been eating their decaying flesh? — and Kevin saw that it was shaped more or less like a man. It glided forward through the rain, and four more shadows slipped from the ashy ruins of a bakery to fall in behind it.

"Sir!" said Kevin. "There are too many."

"Not for me," Ajandor replied.

Gray Dancer hissed from its scabbard, the mithral blade luminous even on this dreary, rainy morning. The thin man strode forward.

"My sword might not even hurt them!" Kevin called after him.

Ajandor didn't bother to reply, nor did he falter in his advance. Kevin cast away his hindering rag of a mantle, drew his own quite possibly useless weapon, and trotted to catch up with the knight.

As they closed to fighting distance, the phantoms spread out to encircle their human foes. Resolved to prevent that, Kevin pivoted and cut at the one on the left.

The impact felt as if his blade were shearing through cloth, not sinking into flesh, but at least there was resistance. The shadow reeled back with a rent in the middle of its chest.

Kevin cried out in satisfaction-he was still afraid of the cursed apparitions, but at least this time he was fighting something he could damage-and the shadows responded with a piercing, silent shriek. It wasn't sound, but he could hear it inside his head. He flinched at the pain, and two of the phantoms sprang forward and clutched him by the wrists.

Their fingers were burning cold, but the chill was the least of it. Something, strength, or life itself, perhaps, drained out of Kevin and into his assailants. His vision blurred, and his knees buckled. Inside his mind, the shadows squealed in greed and triumph.

He tried to wrench his sword arm free, but the shadow maintained its hold. As Ajandor had taught him, he heaved up his leg and stamped, raking his boot along the ghostly creature's shin and smashing it down on its foot. It seemed to Kevin that with so much of his strength leeched away already, the stomp kick was a puny, fumbling effort. Still, perhaps startled, the shadow loosened its grip. The squire shoved that one away and turned to the other. It scrambled in even closer, wrapping its arms around his torso, making it impossible to bring the point or edge of his sword to bear. For a moment, weak, frozen, he couldn't think what to do, and Ajandor's lessons came back to him again. He bashed the shadow's head with the heavy steel egg of his weapon's pommel, and losing its hold, the shadow slumped to one knee.

Kevin swayed and stumbled backward. He desperately wanted a moment to collect himself, but the shadows didn't give it to him. Shrieking their psychic shriek, they rushed him.

Gripping his sword in both hands-otherwise, he might not have been able to swing it-the squire swept the weapon in a horizontal arc. The cut decapitated one shadow, and its body and tumbling head vanished. The other phantom nearly succeeded in darting in close enough to grapple, but backstepping frantically, Kevin kept enough space between them to use his blade. He plunged it into the shadow's heart, or the spot where a man would carry his heart, anyway, and it too melted away to nothing.

Gasping, shuddering, he looked about for other foes, just in time to see Ajandor dispatch what was apparently their last adversary. For a few seconds, the knight looked satisfied in a grim sort of way, but then restlessness or hunger crept back into his expression.

"Let's move on," he said.

"No!" Kevin said. "Not yet. This time, I must rest. Did none of the shadows get its hands on you?"

"No."

"Well, they did me, and…"

The world seemed to tilt on its axis, and he realized that if he didn't get off his feet, he was going to fall. He tottered to a horse trough overflowing with rain and sat down on the rim.

"Are you wounded?" Ajandor asked.

"Not exactly. Fm not bleeding. I think I just need a few minutes."

Ajandor's mouth tightened with impatience, and Kevin was sure that he meant to walk away and abandon him, weak and helpless, here in the midst of the haunted city.

Instead the knight said, "Very well."

They waited for a time, Ajandor standing, Kevin sitting, the only sounds the drumming of the rain and the creaking of some damaged building shifting toward collapse.

Finally, when the youth felt that mere talking wouldn't constitute an intolerable strain, he said, "I figured it out. You aren't just watching out for the shadows, you're hunting them."

"Correct."

"With Princess Alusair's army defeated, you have no way to strike a blow against the wizards who killed Pelethen, so you're taking it out on the spooks they left in their wake."

"It's a chivalrous act to purge the land of shadows, wouldn't you agree?"

In Ajandor's tone lurked an irony that mocked the entire notion of knightly duty, and never mind that he had always taught his squire that honor was everything.

"I suppose it should be done," the squire said. "Whatever you think, I'm not afraid to help, but is this a sensible way to go about it? According to your own lessons on tactics, we should have a company of men-at-arms sweeping Tilverton systematically, block by block. We should have priests and wizards to support them with their magic. We-"

"Perhaps," Ajandor replied, "but Fm not in the mood for that much company."

"That's mad! I understand-"

A shadow fell over them. Startled, Kevin looked upward.

Something huge was soaring over the wreckage of Tilverton, eclipsing the attenuated light sifting through the clouds. Was it a dragon? Kevin couldn't tell. He had never seen a wyrm, and in any case, the titan's form was as indistinct as that of the lesser shadows. All he could truly discern were tatters of darkness that reminded him equally of a bat's wings and a jellyfish's trolling tentacles. That, and a sense of awesome power and malevolence.

It suddenly occurred to Kevin that the giant shadow might look down and see them, and he cringed, but the thing passed on over the gapped wall encircling Old Town and disappeared.

"The king shadow," murmured Ajandor. "In the end, if I must, I'll come to you."

"Not without an army behind you," Kevin said, "and Vangerdahast, too." Then he remembered the rumor they'd heard along the road, that Cormyr's famous wizard had likely perished in the destruction of Tilverton with the rest of the defenders. "Well, some mage, anyway."

"Ready to go?"

He wasn't, but he was reluctant to irritate his master by asking for more time. He struggled to his feet, and they wandered on.

Ajandor took to shouting challenges whether any shadows were in view or not, and from his perspective if not his squire's, it paid off. Alone or in groups, sometimes vulnerable to common steel and sometimes not, the phantoms slunk out of their hiding places to fight.

Somehow Kevin survived half a dozen of these confrontations, until to his profound relief, it started to get dark, and Ajandor agreed to return to the shelter of the gate. Not that the squire had any particular reason to think that they were truly safe there, either, but at least they weren't actively looking for trouble.

After he prepared another supper and watched Ajandor set his portion aside largely uneaten, he said, "If you mean to continue hunting spooks, we could at least do it beyond the walls. The folk out in the countryside need protection."

"I imagine the shadows slip out of the city to seek their prey," said Ajandor, staring out at the night and the hissing rain, "but they all lair inside, where the stink of necromancy lies thick on the ground. Therefore, I'll be protecting the refugees just as effectively by killing the phantoms in here."

"The people may have other problems." Kevin shifted position, and his shoulder, bruised by a phantom's attack, gave him a twinge. "They may need a leader to sort them out."

"I told you, I don't feel like bothering with other people right now."

"I know they'd respect your grief. Each of them surely has griefs of his own."

"Grief," said Ajandor, as though the word were a paltry, inadequate thing. "Do you know why Pelethen joined the Purple Dragons?"

"Because you did the same thing in your youth. Sir, that does not make you responsible for his fate."

"It's funny. I was happy when Princess Alusair's summons came. To me, the war, with all its perils, was simply a fine excuse for a reunion with my boy."

"I know how much you wanted to see him."

"I wanted to give him this." Ajandor drew Gray Dancer an inch out of its scabbard then shoved it down again. The guard clicked against the mouth of the sheath. "As my father gave it to me. As we have handed it down in our family for four hundred years. What am I supposed to do with it now?"

"Use it to defend the weak, as you have always done."

Ajandor chuckled an ugly little chuckle. "As I have always done. And here at the end, what do I have to show for it?"

"Sir," said Kevin, "with all respect, you've lost much but not everything. Kirinwood is full of folk who love you. Mistress Waterthorn. Old Nobby. Galen Oakfriend." He could have added himself to the list, except that it would make him feel like a whining child.

"I suppose it ought to shame me," replied Ajandor, "but I just don't seem to care, not anymore. My heart is empty."

"I don't believe that," Kevin replied. "At the moment, all you feel is pain, but when it loosens its grip a little, the gentler emotions will return."

"You're prattling."

Kevin felt his cheeks flush. "Sir, I just don't want to watch you commit suicide, and that's the true objective of our shadow hunt, isn't it? It's a miracle the creatures haven't slain the both of us already."

"If you're afraid, then leave. I release you from my service." Ajandor turned away.

That night, Kevin did indeed consider saddling his horse and trotting away back down the highway called the Moonsea Ride, but he couldn't quite bring himself to do it. There had to be a way to snap Ajandor out of his trance of despair!

After considerable pondering, the squire thought of one ploy that might serve. He was certain-well, reasonably so-that deep down in his heart, Ajandor still did care for all the same folk he'd cherished a tenday ago. If so, then perhaps a threat to one of those dear ones would bring the affection to the surface and restore the old man's perspective. It would show him that his son's death, tragic as it was, hadn't crushed all the meaning out of his life.

Though the scheme did have one drawback: Kevin himself would have to play the role of friend in distress.

All the other candidates were back in Kirinwood.

A nasty voice inside the squire's head whispered that his notion would never work, because Ajandor actually didn't care about him. Hadn't his brusqueness the past few days made that clear? In times past, Ajandor had been kind to his foster child but had really only cherished his son by blood.

No, Kevin insisted to himself, it wasn't so. He could conjure up a thousand memories that proved Ajandor's love for him, and that meant he could make his scheme work. He'd slip away, his foster father would chase after him, and in the end, everything would be all right.

As the night wore on, weariness at last overtook Ajandor. He sat down with his back against the wall, and, gradually, his head drooped until his chin rested on his breast. A soft buzzing issued from his mouth.

Moving quietly, Kevin rose, unlaced one of the saddlebags, and took out a stick of chalk, which Ajandor had packed to sketch out battle plans, duty rosters, and the like. Wincing at

the faint scratching sound, the squire scrawled a message on the wall: I HEAR KING SHADOW CALLING ME, AND I MUST GO TO HIM. FAREWELL.

That accomplished, the youth tiptoed to the arched entrance to the city, thought of all the shadows presumably lurking in the darkness, took a deep breath, and forced himself out into the rain.

To his surprise, he didn't blunder into any phantoms, and after a few minutes, he reached the foot of the Cormyr Stairs. Halfway up, he came upon Helm's shrine. Reflecting that some kindly power certainly seemed to have protected him thus far, he silently apologized to the deity for his earlier irreverence and laid a copper piece atop the Altar of Shields.

He crept on to the top of the steps, peered through the wall, and surveyed Old Town. If any beauty remained to its burnt and battered houses, he couldn't see it under these conditions, nor did he care. He reckoned he'd come as far as required to give Ajandor a nice anxiety-ridden chase, and now he needed a place to wait for him-somewhere indoors, where no passing shadow would spot him. At the far end of a little plaza stood a cottage, its eaves encrusted with carved roses and its door standing ajar. He scurried to it, ducked inside, found a stool, and sat down behind a window that looked out at the head of the Cormyr Stairs.

Soon, he assured himself, Ajandor would come bustling to the top. The knight would probably be furious when he realized Kevin had tricked him, but it wouldn't matter. The shock of his fosterling's disappearance would still restore him to himself.

Suddenly, a wail of anguish broke into Kevin's imaginings. Unlike all the others he'd heard, this one sounded close by.

Looking in all directions, the squire peered out the window. After a few moments, the source of the noise stumbled into view.

Roped together to form a coffle, a matron with gray curls, two men, and a little girl trudged across the plaza, passing only a few feet from Kevin's vantage point. Slinking around them, shoving and prodding them on, were several of the man-shaped shadows he and Ajandor had fought before. The youth couldn't tell precisely how many. In the darkness, he was lucky to glimpse the shadows at all.

He wondered if the prisoners had still been living somewhere inside the city, or if the shadows had captured them out in the countryside. Not that it mattered. The only thing that did was helping them. But how?

Charge out and attack? Ajandor might have managed it, but he'd been honing a genius for swordplay for forty years. Kevin had been training a modest talent for five.

He doubted he could handle so many of the shadows all at once.

What he could do was follow the shadows and hope that an opportunity to free their captives would present itself. Not that he wanted to. Not only would it be risky, it would mean he likely wouldn't be in position to greet Ajandor if-no, when, curse it-the latter climbed the Cormyr Stairs, but Kevin couldn't see any alternative.

As he waited for the shadows to lengthen their lead, he prayed to Helm for aid and wished he'd given the god the sole silver piece in his purse instead of a measly copper.

It was time to go. He crept out onto the porch, and a plank groaned beneath his foot. He cringed, but the shadows didn't seem to hear, so he slunk on.

The stalking proved to be a nerve-racking business. Kevin was no woodsman or housebreaker, schooled in the art of sneaking soundlessly, and no matter how he tried, he couldn't avoid making little noises, each of which threatened to reveal his presence. Nor could he shake the nagging fear that as he concentrated his attention on the shadows ahead, some other phantom would spot him and take him unawares.

But none did, and eventually the shadows and their coffle led him to a drum-shaped keep notorious throughout Cormyr. When Kevin perceived that it was indeed their destination, he nearly laughed in dismay, because it figured, didn't it?

The ruin-now no more ruinous than the rest of Old Town-had once been the residence of the enchantress Tilvara. According to rumor, it was now home to strange beasts and the restless dead, and hellishly dangerous. Few would-be explorers ever even got past the "Medusa's Garden," the field of statuary in front of the entrance. The figures animated and attacked them.

Though many of the statues lay shattered on the ground, a goodly number remained intact. Still, the shadows and their prisoners passed them unmolested. Maybe they knew the trick of it, or perhaps the tides of battle magic washing through the city had somehow rendered the effigies inert.

The procession vanished through an arched door, and Kevin wondered whether or not to keep following. He was sorely tempted to go look for Ajandor, but what if he couldn't find the knight, who by now might already be wandering the city, either to find his errant squire or simply in search of his own destruction? Or what if he did locate Ajandor, and the knight just didn't care? Or what if the shadows slew the captives while Kevin was off searching?

No, curse it, he had to go in.

Kevin headed for the statues. He realized he was breathing hard, tried to control it as Ajandor had taught him, and couldn't quite. He started down the path.

Stone warriors, rocs, manticores, wolves, and double-headed ettins surrounded him on every side. If they all came to life at once, he wouldn't stand a chance, but only one of them even tried. A lion shuddered as he passed but could do no more. Some power had indeed rendered them harmless.

Kevin tiptoed up to the doorway and peeked beyond the threshold into a murky hall. As far as he could tell, no sentries waited there, just as none patrolled the battlements high above. Kevin found the shadows' want of caution peculiar, but perhaps they didn't think like human beings. Maybe they considered themselves so secure in their possession of Tilverton that an assault was inconceivable.

Not that Kevin contemplated anything so grand. Could he simply spirit the captives away, he would be well satisfied.

Onward he skulked, groping his way through stygian chambers that would have been entirely lightless save for the gaps in the ancient walls. Legend peopled these spaces with watchghosts and round, floating, many-eyed beholders, but he didn't encounter any of those. He wondered if the shadows had destroyed even them.

He did soon come to the conclusion that the keep was larger inside than out, but the paradox didn't particularly unsettle him. He'd heard that powerful mages could create such effects. At least the doorways weren't sealing themselves behind him. He'd heard that could happen, too.

A vague form moving on four legs, or perhaps six or eight, prowled out of an arched opening not twelve feet ahead of him. His heart pounding, he flattened himself against the wall. The phantom turned in the opposite direction and disappeared into the blackness.

When his nerves ceased their jangling, Kevin crept on, peeked into the archway, and finally saw the prisoners, those he had been tracking and maybe fifteen others as well.

Tilvara had probably maintained a perfectly good dungeon beneath her residence, but for some reason, the shadows had opted to hold their captives in a spacious chamber where eight or ten looms stood at regular intervals about the floor. Some still supported unfinished bits of weaving, the weft and woof rotting away and tingeing the air with the smell. The humans were still bound, but not with ropes, which lay in careless tangles on the floor. Instead, the prisoners stood enmeshed in strands of darkness, which, anchored to the back wall, floor, ceiling, and looms, were nearly invisible in the gloom.

Kevin didn't know what the black cables were made of-perhaps the same shadow-stuff as the phantoms themselves-but he assumed he would be able to cut them once he disposed of the jailer. For as best he could tell in the darkness, only one shadow lingered in the weavers' workroom, and it had its back to the door.

Kevin crept over the threshold. Evidently sensing his presence, the shadow began to turn, and he cut at it. The sword sheared into its head, and it staggered and disappeared.

The prisoners started to babble, and he frantically tried to shush them, so intent on the need for quiet that it took him a moment to take in what they were saying.

"Look up! The spider! It's right above us!"

As soon as he did understand, he looked up instantly, galvanized by a jolt of terror. He didn't like spiders, and if such a creature had spun the strands holding the captives, it must be huge.

Yet he couldn't see it. The room was too dark, and the ceiling too high. His mouth dry as sand, he pivoted back and forth, trying to spot it.

"Does anybody see it?" he asked the others. "Do you? Do you?"

Evidently they didn't. They simply knew from bitter past experience that it was there.

It occurred to Kevin that he could back out of the room and leave them to their fate. He'd tried to help them, no one could say that he hadn't. It was possible that his sword couldn't even cut the spider.

But he knew he couldn't really abandon them. It wouldn't be chivalrous. Ajandor-the old Ajandor, anyway-would never have countenanced such a selfish, craven act.

Kevin glimpsed motion from the comer of his eye. Impelled by pure reflex, he jumped to one side, and the leaping spider pounced on the spot where he'd just been standing. Some of the prisoners wailed.

Made of the same shifting murk as the other horrors infesting Tilverton, the spider was perhaps the size of a child, its fused bulbs of head and body hanging between arched, segmented legs. Hoping he could land a blow before it reoriented on him, Kevin hacked at its abdomen.

Quick as a cat, the shadow wheeled to face him. His blade slashed through one of its legs, but without encountering any resistance, and without severing the limb.

The spider scuttled toward him and he retreated, cutting and thrusting as he went. It was still like sweeping his sword through empty air. In the dimness, he could just make out a hint of the shadow's ring of bulging eyes, the jagged mandibles opening and closing around its maw.

He backed into one of looms, which banged, rattled, and shed choking, eye-stinging dust into the air. As he started to flounder around that obstacle, he collided with strands of the shadow webbing. The stuff was as sticky as he would have expected, and it had hold of his sword arm, not that his sword had done him any good.

He struggled to pull free. The glue began to give but not quickly enough. The spider scuttled forward to plunge its no-doubt poisonous fangs into his flesh.

Just as the shadow's mandibles were about to close on his knee, he heaved his legs up, evading the bite. The weakened adhesion couldn't support his weight, and he fell free of the webbing and onto the shadow.

He plunged right through the creature just as his sword had done. For an instant, as they were joined, his mind blazed with inhuman sensations. He slammed down on the floor beneath the spider's underbelly.

The shadow started to scuttle off him. Gripping his sword by the blade for use in such close quarters, he jammed the point into the crack between the spider's abdomen and cephalothorax.

For some reason, this time, the steel bit into solid matter, and the phantom jerked and thrashed. Kevin used his sword to roll the spider onto its back, then he kept pressure on the weapon until the ghastly thing stopped moving.

The squire needed to rest but knew he didn't have time. Panting and trembling, he cut the captives free.

Most of them, anyway. On closer investigation, he found that a couple were but dry, shriveled husks.

But the majority were alive. Some were even strong enough to help the weak ones along. Kevin reckoned that with luck, he could get them all out.

He nearly did.

Scouting ahead for shadows, he led the prisoners back the way he'd come. Once, as the procession passed beneath a tattered gonfalon, a toddler started to cry, and everyone froze in terror, certain the noise would bring shadows down on their heads. The child's mother quickly put her hand over his mouth, and no shadow came to investigate the sound. Later on, the fugitives came upon a bellpull, and a scrawny, gap-toothed fellow, who seemed a bit mad from his ordeal, stared at the velvet strap in fearful fascination, as if he didn't want to ring it but felt a compulsion to do so. The matron with the gray ringlets took him by the arm and led him on by.

At last Kevin spied the marble bust of a sharp-nosed, crafty-looking fellow siting on its pedestal. He'd noticed it coming in, and it meant that the exit into the Medusa's Garden was just ahead. He smiled, and a psychic shriek stabbed into his head.

Some of the prisoners cried out. Others clutched their heads and sobbed. Though equally pained by the silent caterwauling, Kevin yelled at them and shoved them. He had to keep them moving, had to get them out the door before their pursuers arrived.

He chivvied them down the long rectangular entrance hall and almost to the arched exit before instinct impelled him to look back. He couldn't see shapes, not yet, but the darkness boiled with movement. Shadows were pouring out of the doorways along the walls.

Kevin reckoned he needed to delay the phantoms for at least a few seconds. Otherwise, few if any of the captives would make it outside. He turned and tried to bellow a war cry, but it came out as more of a weary, frightened squeak. He strode toward the far end of the chamber, and a wave of shadow hurtled out of the gloom to meet him.

He drove his sword into a shadow's chest but never knew whether he'd slain it, for the next instant, the rest of them swept over him, and after that, he was no longer able to keep track of specific adversaries. There was only a pack, a many-limbed mass, striking and snatching at him from every side, as he lurched and whirled and slashed at it.

Once, for a split second, a narrow gap appeared in the mass, and Kevin glimpsed other devils loping toward the door. He wished he could intercept them as well, but knew there was no chance of it. Cold hands seized hold of his arms and shoulders, and the strength began to flow out of him.

Even as he struggled to pull free, other shadows clutched at him, and it was hopeless. He resolved not to scream, but did it anyway, sure the phantoms were sucking out the final traces of his life.

In time, he woke to cold rain spattering his face and hard, wet floor beneath his supine body. He pried open his gummy eyelids. Gray clouds floated directly overhead, but walls rose at the corners of his vision, as if he was in a pit. He tried to lift himself for a better look around but failed. He was horribly weak, and cold deep inside in a way that even his soaked attire couldn't explain.

"Young man!" someone whispered. "Don't move!"

He rolled his head to the side and saw the goodwife with the curly gray hair, who was also lying on the floor.

"Why not?" he whispered back.

"You'll provoke it!"

Somehow Kevin knew without asking what "if was. King Shadow. The lesser phantoms had borne him and his fellow human into the titan's lair. The fancy he'd scrawled inside the Cormyr Gate had more or less come true.

"Did the shadows recapture all of you?" he asked.

"No," the woman said. "Most of us made it out the door."

Kevin surprised himself by smiling. "Helm gave me good value for my penny then. Better than I had any right to expect."

The matron frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"It doesn't matter. Tell me where we are and what's going on."

"We're in a large chamber at the top of the keep. The roof is gone, and this huge… thing apparently makes its lair here."

"Go on."

The lesser shadows dumped us here for the monster to eat when it's ready, the same way you'd put down food for a dog. It already gobbled up Quinn and Evaine while you were unconscious."

"It's not gobbling us at the moment, and if it's not paying attention, perhaps we can slip away."

"It is paying attention. Evaine tried to sneak out, and that's when it snatched her up."

"Oh. All right, I understand. Now try to rest while I figure a way out of this."

"That's mad. If you were facing the way I am, if you could see the creature-".

"Ajandor, the knight I serve, taught me that if a man his head, he can think his way out of almost any peril, and I might as well try. Why not? What do we have to lose?"

The matron smiled. "When you put it that way, lad, not a thing. Think away."

Kevin lay and pondered, wondering what Ajandor would have done in his place, and if the knight had actually come looking for him. Probably not, for by the cold light of this joyless morning, he recognized that the trick he had attempted to play was a puerile one, born out of desperation rather than sense. No doubt the shrewd old man had seen through it at once and simply bade good riddance to the impudent ass who had hoped to gull him.

No, Kevin could only pray that Ajandor would come to his senses by himself, before his one-man campaign against the shadows destroyed him. His squire had another problem to address.

He waited until a little strength seeped back into his muscles, enough, he hoped, to stand, run around, and yell.

"I'm going to distract King Shadow," he said. "You get out of here. I'm hoping the other prisoners will follow your lead."

Her blue eyes widened. "But the shadow will kill you!"

"It's going to do that anyway."

She hesitated. "We'll still have all the smaller shadows, the ones shaped like men and cats and wolves, barring the way out of the fortress."

"Run. Hide. Throw rocks at them. Whatever it takes to get away."

She swallowed. "All right, and may Helm take you into his keeping. The knight you serve must be very proud of you."

Kevin smiled at a pang that had nothing to do with the mauling the shadows had given him. "Well, he used to be. Get ready."

He gave her a moment to gather her strength, then, wishing the shadows had left him his sword, he scrambled to his feet, and spun around.

As the matron had advised him, the room was big and essentially circular, with a ragged hole where the ceiling once had been. Scraps of it were lying about the floor, and painted pentacles adorned the plaster walls. In the middle of the space, taking up a goodly part of it, hulked King Shadow.

Kevin was prepared for the hugeness of the shadow and for the strangeness of its tangled limbs, like fat, flexible feathers writhing in all directions. However, he had had no inkling of the true nature of King Shadow's flesh. He hadn't been able to make it out when the titan drifted past high above his head.

Within the shadow's murky substance flowed human faces distorted and jammed together. Despite the stretching, twisting, and squashing, it was somehow possible to discern their grimaces of agony, madness, and rage. Ilmater's tears, was this what became of the people King Shadow destroyed? Did their souls wind up trapped inside the shadow's body?

Kevin stood frozen with horror as King Shadow reached for him, one amorphous arm dipping down above his head and another curving in on each side. At the last possible moment, the youth snapped out of his paralysis and flung himself backward. The three tentacles closed on empty air, and all the faces inside the titan's body began to rave and howl in a silent cacophony.

Bearing the psychic din as best he could, Kevin made his own noise, shouting and shifting back and forth. King Shadow stretched out more of its members to seize him, and the gray-haired woman jumped up and ran for a doorway. Several other prisoners did the same, and the rippling hillock of a shadow ignored them all.

Kevin grinned. It was satisfying to have played a trick that worked, even if it was going to cost him his life.

King Shadow clubbed at him with blows that flattened its boneless arms and shook the floor. The squire dodged and dodged again, knowing it was only a matter of time before one of the tentacles connected. Once his evasions carried him near a doorway, and he dashed for it. The shadow extruded a great slab of itself between its prey and the exit, cutting him off as effectively as a wall.

Something shattered, flashed, and roared on top of King Shadow, and all the faces inside the devil shrieked in agony, for the immense phantom wore a crown of crackling blue and yellow flame. Kevin looked up at the hole in the ceiling, where Ajandor was preparing to throw another keg of oil. Unlike the first, this one didn't need a fuse. When it broke, the contents would feed the fire that was already burning.

Ajandor heaved the barrel, and the conflagration boomed and flared higher. A man drenched in burning oil would likely thrash about and expire, but the titan floated up toward its tormentor. The falling raindrops shone yellow in the firelight.

Kevin picked up chunks of debris and hurled them at the shadow. Several of the smaller phantoms appeared along the edge of the hole. Apparently trusting them to dispose of Ajandor, King Shadow dropped back onto the floor to confront the squire, who wished he hadn't just wasted his only chance to bolt.

Its ragged tendrils squirming, King Shadow spread itself to either side of Kevin, pinning him against the wall. The titan looked like a pair of hands poised to catch a ball, albeit with fire dancing on the upper surfaces and spatters of burning oil dripping off the sides.

Kevin saw no possibility of escape, so he spat at King Shadow. It was a feeble gesture, but better than nothing.

The twin masses of shadow-stuff began to close on him like the covers of a book, then Gray Dancer fell at his feet, hitting the floor with a clank.

Kevin stooped and grabbed the mithral sword by its leather-wrapped hilt. He was sure that Ajandor had dropped Gray Dancer intentionally, to give his fosterling some semblance of a fighting chance, even though the knight needed the weapon himself to battle his own opponents.

The squire came on guard, and a wave of vitality washed the soreness and weakness out of his muscles. Gray Dancer was bolstering his strength. Ajandor had occasionally permitted him to handle the blade, but it had never done anything like this. Apparently it took a foe to wake its magic.

The adversary in question had faltered momentarily when the sword fell between them, but now the twin arms of its V-shape began to converge once more. The squire ran to the member on the right and swung Gray Dancer in a vertical cut.

The weapon's razor edge split the churning shadow-stuff and scrambled the writhing, flowing faces inside it. King Shadow screamed, and its limb twitched backward, creating a gap between itself and the wall. Kevin dived through.

Once out of the trap, he immediately turned and renewed the attack, cutting and cutting for all he was worth. Drops of burning oil spattered and blistered him, but he scarcely felt the pain. Then a column of shadow-stuff exploded out of the mass before him, slammed into his chest, and hurled him across the room.

If not for his hauberk, the impact likely would have shattered his ribs. As it was, as he dropped on his rump, he started to black out, then felt Gray Dancer's magic grip his mind like a powerful hand and heave it back to wakefulness.

When Kevin looked up, King Shadow had pulled itself up into a gray-black fiery sheet curling over at the top like a huge, tempest-driven wave. The youth saw that he wouldn't have time to roll out from underneath, so as the shadow began to fall, he raised Gray Dancer's point to meet it.

King Shadow impaled itself on the sword, and no more balked than surging water would have been, crashed down on Kevin, swatting him like a fly. He lay in a pool of seething, gibbering, burning ghost-faces. He was dazed, vaguely surprised to still be alive, and Gray Dancer hauled him back to full consciousness again, with more difficulty this time.

Though the blade had no real voice, not even a silent one like the shadows, he somehow sensed what it wanted to tell him: Look, look, look at King Shadow now, look, you only have a moment!

Kevin did look. The shadow-stuff splashed across the floor was still 'humping and slithering, but not with its former nimbleness. Evidently the fire, Gray Dancer, or both had finally done the titan some significant harm. Moreover, the soft, murky substance was converging from all directions toward a sort of bulb, as if to rebuild the creature's body around it. Unlike the seepage, the node contained no tortured human faces. It was pure black.

The squire reckoned he knew what to do, but then hot pain washed over his ribs and leg. He looked down and discovered that his clothing was on fire. He could attempt to extinguish it, or he could ignore it and strike while King Shadow was vulnerable.

He tried to rise, and other pains balked him. His left arm and ankle throbbed, sprained or broken, he supposed. He tried again and this time made it to his feet.

He limped forward. The shadow-stuff was flowing faster now, and had nearly succeeded in coating the titanic creature's heart with itself. He drove Gray Dancer's point into the one sliver of absolute blackness still showing.

All the faces screamed, and King Shadow vanished. Kevin threw himself on the floor and rolled until he was free of the fire.

Then he just sat, too sore and spent for anything else, the strength Gray Dancer had lent him expended, until a shout reminded him that his had not been the only battle. He peered up through the smoky air. The rain felt good on his singed, sweaty face.

Ajandor peered back down at him through the hole. "Are you all right?" asked the knight.

"I could be a lot worse. Thank Helm for wet clothing! We have to move. The other shadows-"

"Seem to have disappeared along with their king," said Ajandor, "dead or fled, who knows? Or cares? I'm coming down."

He stepped away from the hole and came through one of the doors in the room a minute later.

"You're sure they're gone?" the squire asked.

"Well, the ones I was fighting just melted away, and I don't see any of them bursting in on us, do you?"

"Now that you mention it, no. How did you find me?"

"It wasn't difficult. I discovered your note and smelled a trick, but I still didn't want you wandering around alone in a city of shadows. I came after you and ran into one of the captives you freed. He told me where to look for you, and I sneaked into the witch's keep. Eventually, I figured out where you were, but I couldn't reach you. Too many horrors blocked the path. However, I did find a way to get above you and the great flying pudding, and I hoped that if I hurt the thing, you might be able to escape in the resulting confusion. I located some oil old Tilvara had laid in, carried it up to the roof, and the plan fell apart." He grinned. "You jumped up prematurely, and some shadows picked up my trail and followed me up to my perch."

"How did you hold them off without Gray Dancer?"

"With my dagger and a torch. Not the more formidable of weapons, but sufficient to give the creatures pause."

"Evidently." Kevin hesitated. "Sir, are you angry at me for trying to fool you?"

"I was, but… I know why you did it, and maybe it did shake something loose inside me. Maybe it was meeting the fellow you rescued. That shamed me, by reminding me what a knight is supposed to be. Perhaps seeing King Shadow die has made me feel a little better. At any rate, I still sorrow, but I guess I'm no longer in such a hurry to join Pelethen on the other side. I’ll see him when I see him."

"I'm glad." Kevin's gaze fell on Gray Dancer, lying ingloriously in a pool of rainwater. He picked it up and proffered it.

Ajandor made no move to take it.

"Keep it, lad, it fits your hand quite well. I was puzzled what to do with it, but now I see that I have an heir after all."