Realms of the Arcane

The Lady And The Shadow

It was the vile smell that triggered the defensive twitch that saved the archwizard's life. The stream of deadly venom sprayed from the mouth of the huge, snakelike thing and fell to the floor, sizzling away into a fetid green vapor. The archwizard Shadow spun on his heel and brought his hands up, his fingers moving through a fast and complex series of patterns. The words he shouted at the beast meant nothing, but held great power.

The blast of fire singed Shadow's eyebrows, and the naga screamed in agony. The ball of orange flame was gone as fast as Shadow had conjured it, and smoke poured off the creature that was its target. The naga's rough, spiky hide was already black, and now it smelted scorched.

Shadow took three long strides backward, starting to smile, nearly bumping into the corner of his big four-poster bed. He stopped in front of the seldom-used dressing table when the damned thing laughed.

"Painful…" it hissed, its voice like gravel being scraped across steel.

Shadow's blood went cold. He hadn't been prepared for another assassination attempt today. It was a bad time.

The naga slithered forward, scraping huge furrows in the expensive wood floor, now scorched from the intense heat of the fireball. The poison still dripped from the corners of its mouth. Four huge gray-yellow fangs filled the gaping maw, and were too big to let it close its mouth all the way. When the poison hit the floor, there was more sizzling, more awful smell, more damage to the woodwork.

The archwizard's fireball had set the curtains behind the naga ablaze. A little dusty wooden sculpture of a dancing woman had fallen off the windowsill and was also on fire.

Shadow reached down to his long black boot and fumbled for the knife there. He had been given the knife for just this sort of eventuality.

The naga drew its hideous face back and seemed to grin as its throat filled with more of the poison.

Shadow actually gasped the word, "No!" and the knife was in his hand. The blue-silver blade seemed to scream through the air, but Shadow knew he hadn't actually thrown it that hard. It crossed the span of his bedchamber faster than a crossbow bolt and sank into the naga's tough black hide with a wet cracking sound. When the naga screamed, the poison welled out of its mouth in a nauseating gurgle and drenched the thing's still-smoking body with the deadly liquid. It screamed again, louder this time. The knife was buried to its golden hilt, about halfway down the thing's twelve-foot body.

"Turn!" Shadow shouted, and something made the naga look down.

The knife twisted in the tight wound, and a quiver of pain and surprise ruffled through the naga's body. It grunted this time instead of screaming and called Shadow something that must have been a terrible insult in whatever dark pit the naga and its kin called home. The thing's blood was a pasty red, so dark it was almost as black as its charred skin.

'Turn!" Shadow shouted again, standing to face the naga and taking another step back away from it. He bumped the little nightstand, and it fell over. A glass shattered on the floor, and a bit of water started to mix with the droplets of blood that were beading on the floorboards.

The knife started to turn again and the blood seemed to pop out. The naga didn't scream this time either. It twisted its head down and latched onto the enchanted blade with its jagged fangs. The snake body quivered again with the pain of pulling it out. When the enchanted blade fell free of the wound, it was followed by a fast torrent of blood.

The sound it made must have been a laugh.

Shadow considered his possible escape routes. The secret door he had installed in his bedchamber three years ago, when everyone was having them installed in their bedchambers, was on the other side of the naga. He could turn invisible, but the thing could still spray the room with poison, and Shadow would be just as dead as if he'd lit himself with faerie fire. He couldn't teleport, and if he jumped out the window it would be a mile straight down off the side of Karsus enclave to the fields below.

He realized he was going to die right then.

Damn, he thought, Shadow wouldn't-

He stopped even thinking when the naga's head popped off its body and bounced twice on the floor before coming to rest. The body flapped and flailed, spraying black-red blood all over the sparsely furnished room. So much of it shot out when the headless body hit the floor that it put out the fire on the curtains.

"Shadow?" asked a woman who had come from nowhere to stand behind the twitching naga corpse. Her voice was the true opposite of the naga's, rich and lyrical.

She was standing almost against the far wall. The secret door hung open behind her, apparently not a secret anymore. In her hand was a rapier with a blade so long and thin it drooped when she held it still and whistled through the air like a whip at her slightest twitch.

"Are you Shadow?" she asked him again.

Coughing from the searing blast of fire, the spraying blood, and the stench of the boiling venom, he nodded.

The woman started toward him, her strides simultaneously guarded and confident.

"I suppose," he started to say, "I should thank you for-"

The sound of the whip-rapier shrieking through the air stopped him, and he was actually alive just long enough to feel his head hit the floor after mouthing the word "Damn" on the way down.

Moments before and hundreds of miles away, the archwizard Grenway stood before a giant glass tank filled with a thick green semi-liquid that was moving with a life of its own.

"Very nicely," the old man muttered to himself, turning in the cluttered laboratory and shuffling slowly to the great palantir that had been a gift from his third wife, just before he'd had her killed. "Coming along nicely."

He had only to think the name of the would-be assassin he'd sent after Shadow, and he could see everything she saw. The information he'd given her, about the tunnel that led under the wall, below Karsus's private gardens, then into the complex of rooms and laboratories inhabited by his foe, was so far proving to be quite correct.

She was running with almost supernatural speed down the dim, low-ceilinged passageway, and Grenway had to admire her physicality. This was something he had been able to admire only from afar, or for a price, since his own body tended to be little more than a frail, withering container for his vast intellect and even greater greed. Yes, he thought, quite a specimen this one. A shame, really.

He looked back over to the huge glass tank, as big as a commoner's house. Something heavy thudded against the inside of the tank. Grenway could see something solid and rough drag itself along the inside of the glass before disappearing back into the thick green medium.

"Soon," he muttered to the tank's inhabitant. Grenway smiled and laughed for little more than a second before falling into a fit of ragged, sputtering coughs. Spittle hanging from his gray, stubbly chin, he smiled yet wider.

Alashar Crywinds, with the tip of her bare left toe, rolled Shadow's head so she could see his face. He was handsome enough to make her frown. Destroying things never really made her happy. Destroying beautiful things almost made her want to stop destroying things altogether. Almost.

She pulled the sack through her belt, and shook it open. Her employer told her it was waterproof; the bloody head wouldn't soak through. He promised her she could even walk the streets of Karsus enclave without attracting attention. Of course, she didn't intend to stay in Karsus that long. She wanted to get back to loulaum, deliver her package, and be done with it all before her damnable conscience started whispering in her ear again. Profitable as it may be, she hated working for archwizards. She hated how insignificant they made her feel.

She sheathed her rapier and crouched, slipping her feet back to avoid the blood on the floor, which would have seemed impossible-would have been impossible-for most people.

"Excuse me," a voice behind her said. She stopped dead, not bothering to whirl at the intruder with her whip-rapier, not bothering to run. She recognized the voice. She was good with voices.

"Shadow," she said, turning her head slowly to see him standing in the high, arched doorway.

Someone was standing behind him, in the shadows of the dimly lit corridor. There was something familiar about the outline, but it was eclipsed in her mind by the presence of the man she'd just decapitated, whole and hearty, dressed in his signature black silks. She resisted the temptation to glance back at the head on the floor to be sure it was still there. It was.

"Damn," the archwizard breathed, "those things are a pain to replace-"

She let her hand slip to the hilt of her whip-rapier, and then heard him mumble something. When her hand stopped just a fraction of a fraction of an inch from the hilt, she knew she was paralyzed. She wanted to curse, maybe say good-bye to the world, but couldn't. She couldn't do anything.

"What a rness," Shadow said, stepping carefully into the room. The figure behind him followed, and if Alashar had been able to do anything but breathe shal-lowly, she might have screamed.

It was her. She was looking at herself, long auburn hair, crystal green eyes, dark green leathers, bare feet, whip-rapier, and all.

The room he brought her to was pure Karsus enclave. This insane city was full of buildings with floors on the walls and bridges where people walked on the top and bottom at the same time. Anyone not actually from there was always dizzy. "Down" seemed to be whatever the bottoms of your feet were touching.

This room must have been hewn from the solid rock of the inverted floating mountain. Four ornately carved pillars looked like spokes holding the whole thing together, but they didn't meet in the center. Each was about forty feet high, leaving a good twenty feet between the top of one and the top of the next.

Floating in the center of the huge chamber was a yellow-green crystal fully eight feet in diameter. It gave off a gentle, somehow disturbing glow.

Alashar's double had carried her here from Shadow's bedchamber. The true Alashar was still frozen in the crouched position, still almost touching the hilt of her whip-rapier, still unable to do or say anything. She rode along in a state of stunned awe at the perfection of the double, the attention to detail in what had to be an illusion.

On some level, she was embarrassed. Shadow must know her, and know her well, though she was sure he had never seen her before.

"You," Shadow told her conversationally after having her rigid form placed gently on the floor near the room's only piece of furniture, a well-organized desk, "are going to help me today. Help me with a bit of an experiment."

He stood behind the desk, shifting absentmindedly through a stack of parchment and paper sheets while he spoke. His voice was lively, as if he was really excited about whatever he was going to do to kill her. Of course he would kill her. She had already killed him, after all, for money. Revenge was actually a more laudable motive for murder than money.

"Usually when I catch an assassin alive, I send him into the demiplane of imprisonment."

She touched her whip-rapier. She felt the warm leather-wrapped hilt against the insides of her fingers. She tried to stand or stretch, but couldn't yet.

"But it never occurred to me," he continued, "to arrange some method for their retrieval. It was always a sort of… life sentence."

She could get her jaw to open just a little wider now. She made each small move as slowly as she could, so as not to attract his attention.

"I knew you were coming, of course," he said, turning away from her now to walk gingerly over to one of the huge pillars. "I have at least as many spies in Grenway's employ as he has in mine. Still, I must admit you are quite good. That simulacrum has… had successfully fended off seventeen major assassination attempts. Bravo."

She could finally bend her elbow a good three degrees, and now that he had his back to her, she started to strain, her sluggish muscles bunching, pushing hard against nothing, but a nothing that was still effectively paralyzing her. He had to know the spell was wearing off, or would be wearing off soon. Certainly, she hadn't much time.

Otherwise engrossed in tracing the pattern of one of the pillar's cryptic carvings, Shadow continued, "Anyway, I made up a simulacrum of you. Or, well, had one made at any rate. This way I can leave you imprisoned for a few years and use the simulacrum's link with you to pull you back out. Well, if the last few components are finished by then."

He glanced back at her. She stopped, but felt a bit of a teeter. She'd almost thrown herself off-balance, but it didn't look as if he noticed. He looked away again, shrugged, and said, "Actually, it could take twenty, thirty years. Honestly, it's not a high priority in my research right now. I'm still rather captivated by the demiplane of shadow, as you may have guessed. But perfecting a simulacrum-link with the prime material… home, as it were… is rather vital to that endeavor as well. Your having destroyed my own simulacrum will mean I'll have to stick around here until I get a new one together.

"Rather inconvenient, actually."

By conjuring some kind of big black disc under their tingling feet, he lifted both of them up toward the crystal in the center of the room. She was gaining greater movement, but so slowly she still wouldn't be able to defend herself before he did whatever he was going to do.

Below, Alashar could see the copy of herself staring blankly ahead, standing in her own customary pose, weight on her right foot, arms crossed over her chest.

Shadow almost never looked at Alashar, instead watching the gemstone nearing above them. "All you have to do is touch it," he told her, not really sounding too consoling. "You won't feel a thing."

They were almost there, an inch away, when he added, "As far as I know-"

Alashar grabbed him. Her elbow was shot through with pain, and it felt as if the joint popped, but her hand took a firm hold of his slippery silk robe. She felt him flinch. She wished she could laugh when he screamed out his own name.

Wherever they were, it was dark gray.

A cold wind whipped the hair around Alashar's face, and she forced herself to stand, releasing Shadow's robe. He stepped away. They stood together on a rolling plain covered in a sort of tall grass with small, sparse leaves. Sprinkled across the gray landscape were the shapes of trees, which ruffled in the wind but made no sound. The grass and trees seemed to blend together where they touched or overlapped.

Nothing had real substance; nothing had color.

Shadow looked at her with a strange mix of anger, relief, and… could that be admiration? His face was the only color anywhere. His cheeks were flushed, his lips unnaturally red. In a black and white world, anything but gray is garish.

When she started backing away from him, he didn't say anything. When she drew her whip-rapier, he laughed. When she threw her body at him, sword first, he disappeared.

"You can't kill me here," he said from behind her. She spun on him, but he was too far away, a hundred yards or more. Movement in the corner of her right eye made her reflexes explode. She drew her whip-rapier through the air. It whistled for a split second. Then there was silence and resistance as it cut through something.

Her own shadow had come up from the ground at her feet and was trying to touch her. Or was it trying to claw her? Scratch out her eyes, or put a reassuring hand on her shoulder to tell her it would be okay if she just-

No, it was trying to kill her. Its touch was like ice, but not even ice was this cold. Her body shuddered-not a shiver but a seizure. She curled the tip of her whip-rapier back at her own shadow, and it passed again through that same strange substance that dragged at the wire-thin blade.

"Kill it!" Shadow's voice called to her. It sounded as if he was farther away, but the wind, the bizarre feeling to the air, and the… shadowy quality to the ground, the grass-everything-made it impossible for her to judge sound here.

Her bare feet were numb from the cold, but moved fast even for her. She managed to keep the tiling away from her. It was a gray, flat nothing, literally a shadow in her shape. Sometimes the arms seemed deformed and stubby, other times overly long and thin. How it was managing to touch her, she had no idea, but when it did it hurt.

Only a few seconds had passed, but she was starting to get weaker. There was more movement. More shadows, or maybe creatures casting shadows of their own, were approaching.

She heard Shadow curse and grunt. There was a flash of light, and he cursed again, almost screamed.

Her own shadow stopped just long enough for her to drag her whip-rapier through it once more. It fell away all at once, even though she never got the feeling she'd hurt it. Her head was spinning, her knees were about to give way, and the whip-rapier quivered in her weakening grip. She looked around and saw dozens more shadows. They were everywhere, in the grass, slithering out of the trees, in a hundred shapes and all sizes. The one coming at Shadow was absolutely gigantic.

The look on his face was a mask of fear and disappointment.

A single, clear thought shot through Alashar's brain like a crystal arrow: He's the only one who can get me back.

Rushing to his defense, she felt hands and tentacles and tendrils and other things her language had no name for reaching shadow fingers from the grass to caress her legs with agonizing cold. Her body felt as if it would shake itself apart. Reaching the huge creature that charged Shadow, she attacked as if her life depended on it… because it did.

The shadow things-smaller ones-were still converging on Shadow, but he was keeping them at bay with flashes of light-for now.

Alashar sent her whip-rapier into a spinning spiral. The sound of it whistling through the air pierced her eardrums and drowned out Shadow's constant, unintelligible muttering. When the giant shadow thing touched her, her knees gave out; she fought from the ground. She had to shred the thing, swing the whirling blade back and forth through it.

Whistle. Silence. Resistance. Whistle. Silence. Resistance… Finally she just closed her eyes and let her arms do their work.

Then the resistance was gone, and she wanted to believe the giant thing was dead.

She felt a hand on her arm, warm and real, and forced her eyes open to see that it was Shadow. He was saying something, but he must not have been talking to her because she couldn't understand a word of it. Another of the smaller things, this one the shadow of a sort of monster goat, touched her again, but the cold wasn't quite as bad and didn't last as long.

Her body gave out. Though she was already sitting sprawled on the cold ground, she started falling. She took a sharp breath, surprised.

By the time she hit the floor, the cold was gone, the wind was gone, and she saw the pillars and the warmth and light of the spherical laboratory. She lay on her back. Her neck went limp, and her head rolled to one side. Her eyes met the eyes of her simulacrum, also lying flat on its back. As she slipped into black unconsciousness, she couldn't help noticing how green her double's eyes looked.

She didn't remember their being that green.

The bedcovers were oppressively heavy, but Alashar was still shivering when she awoke. The first thing she saw was a carved wooden post-a corner of the bed- and a molded plaster ceiling scarred black from a fire. Movement made her turn her head, light flashed in her eyes, and there was pain. When her vision cleared, she saw a young woman, barely more than a girl. The woman wore a simple white shift, her dark hair in an almost comically girlish bob, her face an expressionless mask of ambivalence. A servant. The girl glanced at her, peered over her shoulder at someone or something, and then walked away, holding a bucket of water that didn't seem heavy enough.

"Don't try to move just yet," Shadow's voice echoed slightly from across the room.

She moved anyway, and regretted it. The pain in her head was almost overwhelming, almost made her pass out again. She didn't have the energy to fight it. She could and did accept it, sitting up slowly in the opulent bed, shivering, working at breathing.

"Anyone else would be dead," Shadow continued. "You're quite something."

She tried to speak, but her voice came out as a harsh squeak.

"Do you still want to kill me?" he asked her.

She opened her eyes, only then realizing they had been closed, and she could see him sitting in an armchair across the room. The servant girl she'd seen before was kneeling on the scarred wooden floor, still mopping up the rest of the thick, black-red naga blood.

Shadow looked terrible. There were gray-black bags under his dull eyes, and his face was pale. The startling color of his cheeks and lips was gone. He, too, was wrapped in a thick blanket, shivering.

It hurt when she cleared her throat, and she blushed when a single tear rolled down her cheek. "Yes," she almost grunted, then cleared her throat again, and her voice was almost back. "Yes, I have to kill you."

He smiled and nodded.

"Aren't you going to kill me?" she asked him, not having the energy to fight, and getting the idea that he didn't have the energy to fight either. "Now's your chance. I can hardly move."

It took him some effort to look serious and threatening, and the look didn't really come off. "Honestly, I just don't have the energy to kill you."

Without looking at either of them, the maid stood up and walked out of the room. The water in the bucket was a sickly pink.

"What was that place?" she had to ask.

"Long story," was all he could offer just then. "Suffice it to say, it's the reason your employer wants me dead. One of the reasons."

"Those things were killing you, too."

"Yes," he whispered, "I wasn't ready. You shouldn't drag someone into a demiplane like that, you know, when he's not ready."

He smiled, realizing he had been about to do just that to her. She smiled, realizing he knew she'd beaten him at his own game.

"If I hadn't had a link to your simulacrum, the shadows would be feeding on us by now." Something about the smile on his face warmed her, and she suddenly felt ridiculous, lying in the bed of the man she'd been hired to kill, whom she'd thought she'd decapitated earlier that morning.

"So," she said, "you needed me to get back here."

"Yes, as much as you needed me." He sighed deeply and forced a smile. "Does that make us even?"

She peeled back the heavy blankets and managed to move herself up to a sitting position. Warmth and movement were returning quickly. She had always been able to recover quickly, and it had saved her life at least once that day. Her leathers were gone. She was wearing the same plain white shift the maid wore, and she was embarrassed for no good reason at all.

"The maid changed you," he said. "I was unconscious, myself."

She looked at him and nodded, swinging her legs slowly over the side of the high bed. She heard a metallic twang and looked at him again. He was holding her whip-rapier.

"Interesting weapon," he said, looking at it appreciatively, curiously.

The maid came back in, and there was something wrong. The look on her face made Alashar stand, her knees threatening to give way again but holding firm after a split second. There was a ripping, crunching sound, and the maid's body shook. Something big was in the hallway behind her, filling the door with an amorphous black silhouette. Something thick and green and covered in the girl's thin running blood burst through the maid's chest. Blood exploded out of her mouth, and Alashar couldn't help screaming as the maid was ripped apart in front of her.

Shadow shouted Alashar's name, and she put out her hand, not consciously aware of seeing him throw the whip-rapier. She caught it in one hand and was up and swinging before she even got a good look at the thing coming fast now through the door.

The only way she knew it was covered with hundreds of tentacles was that every time her flashing, shrieking whip-rapier met any resistance, one of the thick, twitching things ended up squirming at her feet. She was aware of its blood, too, hot and yellow-green, sticky and everywhere. The creature was at least twice her size, a wall of writhing green tentacles and dozens of gaping, fang-lined mouths, themselves full of smaller tentacles.

She was shredding it, but stepping back at the same time as it continued to advance on her. She was a blur of motion, her muscles warming and growing looser, more responsive for the exercise.

The fact that the thing made no sound even as she dismembered it actually disturbed her; then she saw that the tentacles were already growing back.

She had no idea what Shadow was doing and had no time to find out. The monster was backing her slowly into the room, and she was cornered. Something wrapped around her foot-something warm and rough like an elephant's hide-and before she could react, the tentacle withdrew into the beast with a snap and pulled her foot out from under her. The force of the fall onto her behind made her teeth bite painfully into-maybe through-her tongue. She tasted blood at the same time she reversed the spin of her whip-rapier to cut the tentacle off her foot.

Her leg came free, dowsed with the beast's hot yellow blood, and she saw it come down toward her. She rolled out of the way fast enough not to be trapped completely under it, but it fell most of the way along her left side. Her right hand hit the floor, and the whip-rapier bounced loose, clattering on the burned wood floorboards.

The weight of the thing was painful enough, but when one of its mouths found her left hip and bit in, she screamed and forced her left hand farther under the writhing, heavy mass. In panic, pain, and desperation, she rolled to her left and forced her hand into the slimy corner of the mouth. She looked up and saw another mouth falling at her from above. It meant to bite her head off. With a grunt, she pulled-ripped, really-her left leg out of the first mouth and kicked up with it. The pain helped her get out from under the thing.

She rolled, leaving a wide trail of her own blood on the floor as she went for her rapier. A hand came under her arm, and she let Shadow pull her up and away from the green thing, which was already drawing itself up and advancing on them again.

"This way," Shadow breathed heavily.

Alashar remembered the secret door.

With frail, liver-spotted hands, Grenway clutched the sides of the palantir. His back jerked with the little coughs that had come to replace his cold, cackling laugh.

Alashar, his paid assassin, his unwitting decoy, had done her job well. She had infiltrated Shadow's inner sanctum, foiled some still unknown rival's own assassination attempt by killing the naga, destroyed the damnable simulacrum that had confused his informants in Karsus for so long, and even seemed to have built some sort of strange bond with the archwizard. She and her victim had become partners of a sort now, and she seemed strangely determined not to let Shadow out of her sight. Since her sight was also Grenway's, things were working well.

The mutant that he'd sent as the real assassin had no ability to think for itself. It had to be guided, and so he had sent Alashar in first. Grenway coughed out a chuckle at the thought that Alashar probably still expected to kill Shadow and collect Grenway's price.

His victory was at hand, and Grenway closed his eyes and prepared his final spell.

The thing barely fit into the snug passageway, but it came at them fast just the same. It was spitting some viscous liquid from dozens of mouths. The spittle let it slide through. Neither Alashar nor Shadow could see past it. Its tentacles seemed to lengthen.

"The lab," Shadow panted.

He was still too weak to really run. He hadn't cast a single spell, and Alashar knew he was completely exhausted. If he had any tricks up his sleeve, he was playing it dangerously close.

The huge bleeding bite in Alashar's left thigh slowed her down, too, and her joints were popping from the cold weakness of the shadow world. She wanted to tell him they wouldn't make it to the lab and opened her mouth to do just that when a sound came from the thing now only a few paces behind them. It sounded like a cough.

Alashar stopped and looked back at it. Shadow stumbled to a stop just behind her and followed her gaze to the front of the mass of green tentacles. Though it hadn't been there only seconds before, the creature now had a face.

"Grenway," Alashar said.

The green, mucous-covered face smiled, and its features stretched like rubber and twitched. The mutant's body was obviously not used to the experience, and if it was capable of not liking something, it was obvious it didn't like the sensation. The face was Grenway's, but even uglier.

"Aaaaaah, Alashar," Grenway's voice whisper-echoed at them through the passageway, like water thrown from a bucket. The face's lips didn't quite move in sync with the voice. The monster was still advancing slowly, and Alashar stepped back, not noticing that Shadow didn't.

"Grenway," Shadow breathed, "I'll blast you to-"

The archwizard's words were cut off when a tentacle shot like a spear from under the green mass and wrapped around Shadow's head. Alashar whimpered when it brushed her temple and pulled slightly at her hair. Shadow's hands came up to claw ineffectually at the tentacle, and only a tuft of jet black hair was visible through the thick limb.

Alashar's heart jumped and she instinctively backed up farther.

"Running, child?" the Grenway face hissed. She brought her whip-rapier to guard position, and Shadow's knees collapsed. The thing was pulling him in slowly, and Alashar could see deep, passionate hatred on Grenway's face.

She heard herself say, "You didn't give me time!"

Grenway laughed. The sound rumbled through the passageway and became a gurgling cough. Shadow was flailing madly on the floor. It was killing him.

Alashar realized she had her chance to run, let Grenway kill Shadow himself. She could get out clean, if she got out now, but Grenway would win. She suddenly realized what had to happen next.

Her fingers tightened around the hilt of her whip-rapier and she slid her feet apart on the rough stone floor. "No, Grenway," she said through gritted teeth. "This time, I win."

The coughing laugh sounded again, and a new mouth, the biggest one yet, opened on the lower side of the great beast. The thing had stopped a few paces from where Alashar stood, and though it spoke to her, Grenway's eyes were fixed lustfully on Shadow. "Grow up, girl," it growled. "You could never kill him."

Her whip-rapier flashed, and she shot forward and down. The Grenway face screamed in frustration and hatred, but not in pain when the tentacle holding Shadow split and fell away under the singing bite of the razor-sharp sword. The tentacle fell away from Shadow's face, and he sucked in a single huge, gurgling breath, his eyes bulging from their sockets, even as Alashar grabbed the collar of his blood-encrusted silk robe and pulled him harshly away.

"I'm not done," she hissed at both of them, "with either of you bastards."

Grenway pulled away from the link with the mutant and screamed his frustrated wrath at the tin-plated ceiling of his laboratory. He grabbed again at the sides of the palantir and watched through Alashar's eyes as she tore his mutant to ribbons. Shadow was still alive, and she now knew her true place in the game.

Yes, he thought, quite a specimen.

"Damn her," he growled.

Alashar's whole body was trembling as she stood knee-deep in twitching pieces of the huge green monster. She didn't remember exactly when it had stopped trying to fight back, but she was aware of that blurry point at which it seemed to resign itself to its fate and let her kill it. She was breathing hard and could barely move her feet.

Behind her, Shadow was panting and coughing, still trying to pull himself together after having been dragged by the head fifteen feet along the rough stone floor. When she turned to look at him, her foot slipped, and she ended up sitting in a pile of dead tentacles and rubbery things.

Their eyes met, and Shadow forced a smile.

"You weren't supposed to be able to do that," he said cryptically.

Anger flared through her, and without willing it, she lunged at him. She grabbed him by the neck. His eyes told her it hurt.

"Damn you," she huffed, "I should kill you after all, you son of a-"

She stopped herself, released his neck, and brought her whip-rapier over her head. Her eyes never wavered from his, but her arm was shaking now almost uncontrollably.

"You were both using me," she accused, "weren't you? Damn archwizards." The contempt in her voice actually seemed to affect him. "Great, petty lords of Netheril," she pressed. "Sitting in the muck and guts and filth of your own little…" She let her words trail off, not having any idea how to express this much outrage.

"Was it me?" he said. His voice was even, ironically so coming from a man half dead, sitting in a pool of stinking yellow-green gore. "You were going to kill me, Alashar. For money. Was it me? Or was it him?"

She let her arm drop, more out of exhaustion than any sudden desire not to slice his arrogant head off. "I woke up in your bed, and it could just as easily have been your prison world. Grenway's… whatever it was… was going to swallow you whole. You could have killed me. I could have let him kill you."

"So that makes us even?" he asked. "You can kill me now if you want to."

"That naga thing wasn't Grenway's, was it?"

He shook his head slowly in reply.

"Then Grenway's not the only one who wants you dead?"

He laughed this time, but with a hint of sadness.

"I might kill you later," she said, smiling, "if somebody actually pays me to. But right now, I think we both have a debt to collect."

The look on his face was the same one she'd seen in the demiplane of shadow. And yes, it was admiration.

Only after making absolutely certain the necessary safeguards were in place did Grenway speak the word that drew the big doors to his sitting room open.

Alashar came in slowly, each step deliberate and careful. Her big green eyes surveyed the dusty, cluttered room. The sack in her hand was soaked in blood the color of a human's. Grenway smirked at the thought that the weaver mage who sold it to him had promised it wouldn't do that. The archmage thought he might have to have someone pay the weaver a visit in the morning.

Alashar stopped a few paces from where Grenway was sitting. The archmage sprawled casually on pillows and cushions spread over a thick rug made from the dark brown fur of a cave bear.

"Well, Alashar, dear girl," he said, "what have you got for me today?" His voice was calm because he knew she couldn't kill him. The fact that she didn't have her strange sword didn't even matter. The room itself would protect him.

He forgave the sneer that preceded her flat answer.

"Something that finishes us, Grenway."

He watched every movement of her lithe body as she reached a slender arm into the blood-soaked bag. When she pulled out the head of the archwizard Shadow, Grenway fell into a fit of laughing, coughing, laughing, and coughing until the cushions were sprinkled with spittle and his nose had started to run. His clawlike hands played absentmindedly with the few tufts of white hair hanging in patches to his withered, spotted scalp.

"The gems," Alashar said sternly, and Grenway laughed again.

Even Alashar couldn't react fast enough to dodge the hand that burst out of the floor behind her, trailing an arm the color and texture of the sitting-room floor. It shot up behind her, up over her head, and came down to palm her scalp and continue pulling back. Her neck snapped, the sound echoing sickeningly in the big stone room. The force of it almost ripped her head off her shoulders. Her body fell backward. The hand followed the arm back into the floor and was gone before Alashar's body stopped its death spasms.

Grenway finally stopped coughing. The ancient arch-wizard stood weakly and spared a happy glance at the head on the floor, not bothering to acknowledge the corpse of his own assassin. He turned, whistling a little tune from his youth, and shuffled to the door to his private bedchamber and opened it.

"Good evening," Alashar said.

Grenway stopped and looked up as fast as his brittle neck would allow. They were there, alive, both of them.

The simulacrums…

He opened his mouth to begin an incantation, but no sound came out. Shadow smiled, and Alashar drew her rapier and stepped forward.

Shadows Of The Past

Brian M. Thomsen

The first thing I can remember is the face of an angel, the real-world variety, with an expression of satisfaction that usually follows a night's satiation.

I quickly returned her smile, sat up to kiss her… and immediately felt a thunderous headache that shattered my focus. I quickly blacked out, not conscious even long enough to sense my surroundings.

All I could remember was the face of the angel.

I awoke again much later-at least I thought it was much later, since the room seemed to have been brighter upon my first awakening.

Careful so as not to repeat the outcome of my first endeavor, I allowed my eyes to get accustomed to the ambient light. I slowly scanned as much of my surroundings as I could without moving my head and jarring my obviously bruised brains. I still felt a certain throbbing tenderness in my skull. Ever so slowly, I turned my head to the side.

The woman I first took for an angel was still in the room. She was turned away, her curvaceous figure backlit by an alcoved lantern. She cast a decidedly human shadow on the opposite wall. I could not make out her face. Saving my strength, I waited for her to turn around.

After a few moments, my patience was rewarded.

As she pivoted toward me, I closed my eyes for a bit more than a wink, to give the impression I was only now coming around.

She noticed my optical flutterings. Her footsteps were soft as she crossed the room to come to my side.

"Easy now," she purred. "No sudden moves. We don't want a repeat of your last episode, now do we?"

With more careful maneuvering, I turned my head to face her. I opened my eyes to behold the face of the angel that filled my memory. Our eyes made contact, and a smile came to her lips.

The fog that filled my head began to dissipate, and the scene around me came into focus.

I was lying on a makeshift cot in some storeroom. The angel of loveliness who had first inspired thoughts of ecstasy, passion, and compassion also became clearer. Far from the angelic vision of my dreams, she had the ragged look of a gutter snipe. This is not to say she was hard on the eyes, mind you, only that she was of the common sort one usually found along the docks of Waterdeep.

Waterdeep! I must have been mugged in some Dock Ward alley. Well, that explained how I'd gotten here, and the abuse my cranium endured.

She smiled again, and whispered, "Good. You're coming around. I was afraid you were going to pass out again."

The tone of her voice had not changed, and what I had taken for the sensuous purring of an amorous angel was probably just the modulated tones of a careful nurse. Perhaps, too, she was reluctant to announce our presence to passersby, predators, or watches.

I slowly turned to the side, raised my head up with the support of elbow, arm, and hand, and hazarded a question. "I'm in Waterdeep, right?"

"You are correct," she answered tentatively, as if expecting another question hot on its heels.

"Good," I replied with false bravado. "It's always good to know where you finally wind up. It's almost as important as your own name."

Even now, I cannot be sure whether the tension that crossing my nurse's face was real or imagined. At the time, I was too distracted to pay attention. Only then did I realize I hadn't the foggiest notion in all Toril what my name was, or for that matter, what my past was.

I panicked and lurched forward. I wanted to escape this storeroom and seek a clue to my identity. The nurse tried to press me back to the cot. I quickly dodged her grip and got to my feet…

And promptly passed out again for all my hasty efforts.

Sounds from outside the storeroom soon brought me around. Numerous dockworkers were none too quietly heading to their jobs. My nurse was once again present, slightly the worse for wear, as if she had just finished a hard night's work. This time, she was accompanied by a burly fellow for whom the term gentleman would have been wishful thinking.

I also noticed a few measures taken to facilitate my rehabilitation. A cool compress was on my forehead, and my arms and legs were tied down, evidently to keep me from further damaging myself; at least I hoped so.

"I've learned my lesson," I said groggily. "No sudden moves for me. Now will someone please tell me who I am?"

My de facto nurse looked at her male companion as if seeking approval, and then back to me before saying, in the innocent tone of the truly naive or the extremely deceitful, "Excuse me?"

I blinked. She couldn't be lying. Even though I didn't know my name, I knew I had a knack for judging a person's character. I decided to change my tack.

"You can untie me," I assured her. "I have no desire to do myself or anyone else any harm. I just want to know what's going on."

She looked at me, and then at him.

He nodded. She started to untie me.

The proximity of her body tempted me with its earthy aroma: I was already well on the mend. Perhaps the preceding hours of unconsciousness had done me good.

Her burly companion stepped within bashing distance, should I try anything. She helped me into a sitting position.

"Thanks," I said absently, then added, " I hope I haven't been too much trouble, Miss…?"

"Scheiron," she replied. "Nymara Scheiron, but you can call me 'Kitten.'"

"I shall," I answered, and turned my attention to her companion. "And the same goes for you, my good man."

The fellow looked at me, then at Kitten, harrumphed, turned, and left me alone with my nurse. The sounds of his weighty footsteps echoed long after his hulking bulk had already left the room.

"Quite the conversationalist, isn't he?" I gibed.

Kitten's face became quite serious.

"I wouldn't talk that way about someone who had just saved my life," she scolded. "If he hadn't fished you out of the harbor, you would have been brigand bait for sure."

"The harbor?" I queried.

"That's right," she insisted. "He brought you back here himself, undressed you, and nursed you back to health, only leaving long enough to tend important business. Even then, he left me to watch over you."

He was my nurse. He rescued me, tended my wounds, undressed me…

I quickly snatched the blanket that had previously covered me and fixed it in place.

Kitten giggled. She stood up, saying, "Nothing that I haven't seen before, so don't trouble yourself."

Looking down, I realized my cover was unnecessary since I still wore pantaloons. I joined her laugh.

"Did I have a purse when he brought me in?"

"No," she replied, "and Lothar would surely have returned it to you if you had."

I slowly tried to stand, but was quickly discouraged by a forceful yet delicate hand that pressed me back to the cot.

''Later," she cooed. "You need your strength."

I reached out to bring her closer to me, but she quickly dodged my grasp.

"I guess you are feeling better," she replied.

"Where am I?"

"You were right with your first guess," she answered. "Waterdeep, the Dock Ward, Lothar's crib."

"And you are Kitten, Lothar's-"

"Friend," she interrupted, "and sometime business associate."

"Business?"

"There's plenty of time for that later."

For Kitten, later was a response to many things.

"How do you feel?" she asked, not quite as tenderly as before.

"Better," I replied. "No worse than if I had been dragged from Undermountain to Skullport by the hair of my head."

She smiled again.

I ran my hand over the top of my noggin, to make sure I wasn't bald, and said, "I just can't remember who I am, where I'm from, or what I'm doing here."

"What you are doing here is easy," Kitten replied. "You're getting your strength back. Perhaps you hit your head and fell overboard from one of the ships in the harbor. A blow like that can cause memory loss."

"So I've heard," I replied, and quickly realized something. "Funny that," I observed, "I didn't lose all of my memory."

"How so?" she queried, her expression again turning serious.

"I can't remember my name, but I recognized I was probably in the Waterdeep Dock Ward. I also knew about memory loss from a blow to the head, and all sorts of other stuff."

"What's the farthest back you can remember?"

"Waking up," I answered, quickly adding, "and seeing your angelic face."

She smiled.

I shrugged. "Well, it's a start."

A rapid thumping against the floorboards signaled that Lothar was once again approaching. He quickly shooed Kitten away and offered me a draught of something. I began to protest, but given my weakened condition, thought better of it, and accepted what I hoped was medicine.

A gentle drowsiness quickly seized me, and I was once again out like a light.

I awakened from my slumbers to the none-too-gentle prodding of Kitten, who seemed to have decided I no longer deserved coddling. She was right. The pain in my skull had disappeared, and my strength had indeed returned. I felt well rested and refreshed, and if it weren't for the fact that I still could not recall a single thing about my past, I might have been tempted to pronounce myself fit as a fiddle.

"Do you remember who you are yet?" she inquired.

"No," I replied, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and thankful that the throbbing didn't return.

"Too bad," she answered flippantly. "I guess you'll just have to make do with what you know."

"Did Lothar tell you anything more? Maybe he knows something."

Kitten laughed heartily. Gone was the girlish giggle of my convalescence. "No such luck," she replied, "and just so you know, Lothar doesn't say anything. He can't."

"He's mute?"

"You might say that. Years back, his tongue was cut out after a particularly ugly argument with a particularly ugly brute."

'Too bad."

Kitten shrugged. "He doesn't seem to mind," she commented. "He can read and write and make his opinions known when he wants to."

"I'm sure."

"It's just an obstacle that needed to be overcome, sort of like losing one's memory."

I couldn't be sure if she intended her comment to be taken as encouragement or a malicious taunt. The only thing I really knew was that I desperately wanted to know who I was.

The formerly soft and sensitive Kitten grew impatient. 'Well," she said, tapping the toe of her soft-soled boot against the floor, "are you ready to get on with your life?"

I was perplexed. "What do you mean 'get on with my life'?"

"You seem well enough," she observed, setting her carefully manicured fingertip against her delicately tapered jaw. "I thought you might be in need of some employment, gainful or otherwise, unless of course you just planned on setting up housekeeping here with Lothar."

"What did you have in mind?" "I have this friend who is exceptionally good at judging the measure of a man. I'm sure he can size you up and situate you in an appropriate position." "What about my identity?"

"Suit yourself," Kitten replied with a shrug. "Personally, I always considered it more important to secure food, shelter, and whatnot before indulging in 'finding myself… but if you have some plan…"

This Dock Ward vixen was right. A question still nagged me, though.

"What sort of work can I do? If I don't know who I am, how can I know my abilities?"

"Don't you worry your damaged little head," she instructed condescendingly. "It's obvious you know a lot more than you realize. You're probably exceptionally good at a lot of things." She started toward the door.

"Just leave it up to Murph."

"Murph?" I asked, hot on her heels. "Who's Murph?" "Let's just say he's a broker of talents," she replied, hastening her step. "Hurry! He doesn't like to be kept waiting."

The door to my entire universe led to a hallway, which in turn opened on an alley. I'd been in a recently abandoned warehouse.

I was surprised how quickly my eyes adjusted to the broad daylight, until I realized our fast-paced journey through byways and back alleys of the Dock Ward was confined to shadowy areas. Like her surefooted namesake, Kitten scurried from patch of gray to patch of gray until I felt we'd walked for miles; we were probably only a few blocks from our original location. Whether she had an affinity for shade or some desire to evade pursuit, Kitten led me on a circuitous tour of the least splendid sights in the City of Splendors. We finally arrived at a boarded-up facade that had once been a tavern.

Kitten looked right and left, gave three firm stomps to the establishment's coal chute cover, lifted it back, and gestured for me to follow her as she slid inside. She whispered the singularly unsentimental admonishment, 'Try not to hit your head. It seems to have sustained more than enough damage for one lifetime."

Pausing a moment to imprint my surroundings on the tabula rasa of my memory, I followed the chimerical Kitten down the chute and through a pair of blackout curtains. I landed on a stack of burlap. Before me sat a one-eyed poster boy for 'lard is good for you' and a band of unsavory brigands with fists the size of traveling kegs.

In the few moments I required to study my surroundings, Kitten took her place on the tub of lard's lap.

"You must be Murph," I ventured with as much false bravado as I could muster.

The tub of lard turned to Kitten and said, "It talks to us?"

"It appears to have forgotten its manners, Murph," Kitten offered, "as well as a few other things."

Murph nodded in acknowledgment. "Ah, so you said. So you said."

I decided to bide my time in silence, having no desire to further offend my amply protected host. I felt Murph's watery eyes sizing me up.

"It knows nothing of its past?" my host inquired.

"No, Murph," Kitten answered, shifting herself off his lap and onto the arm of the exceptionally strong armchair that supported them.

"And it needs our powers of observation," Murph murmured aloud, "… and perhaps a situation."

"Yes, Murph," the feline female replied, steel in her voice.

"It should come closer," the tub of lard instructed.

Before I could regain my feet, a brigand on each side of me grabbed the ends of the bag that had been my settee and tossed me and it closer to my host. I landed hard, in his dale-sized shadow. I could smell the stale sweat of his seldom-washed corpulence. Murph leaned forward and gestured with his fingers to the left and right. I was jostled from side to side by his flunkies so that he might observe some of my finer details.

"It has a tattoo on its left hand," Murph rambled, "perhaps a slave mark, or the mark of a thief. The hands are strong, yet uncallused. The knuckles have been bruised more than a few times. Both earlobes remain intact; no substantial gut from a sedentary life. Not much intelligence either. Looks just less than average."

I had almost reached my limit of tolerance when Murph leaned back, sighed, and belched. "It no longer amuses us," he said dismissively. "Get rid of it!"

I tried to make eye contact with Kitten, but was immediately distracted by the breeze of a bashing blow that just missed my cranium. My shoulder was not so lucky. Without thinking, I rolled with the blow, turning as I tumbled until I regained my footing and a defensible posture, my back to the cellar wall.

The brigands hesitated just long enough for me to get my bearings. A quick look above failed to reveal the curtained chute, and the merry band would not give me time to find it. Turning my head once again forward, I spied my host, reclining as if awaiting the commencement of some boring gladiatorial combat. The chimerical Kitten was still at his side, the deadpan expression on her face failing to hide the fear and concern in her eyes.

Allowing myself a moment of self-satisfaction (realizing it might be my last), I thought silently-You dog, you! You've won her heart already. Too bad you won't have time to get better acquainted.

A quick blink and my concentration returned, and I faced the onslaught.

The brigands came at me one at a time, which didn't make much sense if they wanted to kill me. The first had a mace, the second a garrote, the third a dagger, and the fourth a short sword. In each case, I eluded my attacker with relative ease, surprising myself at my own agility and expertise. Having dispatched the fourth with the hilt of his own short sword, I seized the initiative.

I threw myself at the one I assumed would be the fifth. The heel of one hand smashed his forehead while the fingertips of the other extricated two carefully concealed throwing stars from the inner folds of his tunic. I propelled myself to the side and forward so that I was now situated on the lap of my host, deadly star poised against his jugular vein.

Before I could issue an ultimatum, the tub of lard hailed, "Enough!"

The brigands withdrew to the shadows.

Holding the star still in deadly place, I observed their retreat, and also noticed the tip of a dagger an inch from my own jugular. Its hilt was held steadfast by my own kittenish guide.

Murph saw my concern. He said carefully, "No need for that, Kitten. I think I can now trust this fellow."

Kitten withdrew the dagger and relaxed. In accordance, I did the same with the star.

Murph sighed, and then belched. A grin of satisfaction crossed his lips. "Does it want to know what I know?" he asked coyly.

"What do you know?" I demanded, my stance of bravado resumed.

"It is an exceptional fighter of uncommon training. Despite a certain hardness to its features and its bearing, its breeding and body show few signs of the devastations of poverty or abuse. Fast reflexes, keen senses, good instincts. If I was a bit more confident, I would say it was either a royal assassin or a master thief. Oddly, though, it avoids lethality in its moves. It doesn't kill unless it has to."

"So?" I demanded.

Murph looked to Kitten, smiled, and replied, "So, Murph might have use for it. Kitten can show you to a room I have on retainer. I'll deduct the rent from your first job."

Kitten left his side, opened a previously indiscernible door, and gestured for me to follow. As I passed the tub of lard, who had obviously been entertained by the combat, he volunteered one more observation.

"That mark on its hand. It's a brand, all right, but not of the slave variety. It wasn't burned in. It's of magical origin. Perhaps a marking of some secret society. I wouldn't worry about it if I was it."

The door closed behind me, and I followed Kitten up stairs.

"Quite the job interview," I mused aloud.

"He only brokers the best," she replied noncommit-tally, and showed me to a room where a meal had been laid out. With nary a kiss or a good-bye, she left me to regain the strength I had not even realized I had taxed.

After a few mouthfuls, I retreated to the bed and was soon fast asleep.

For the first time in my short memory, I dreamt.

I was in a subterranean chamber. My hands were manacled and my eyes downcast. The weight of some unpardonable crime pressed down upon my very being. I tried to raise my head to look around, but succeeded only in seeing numerous robed figures surrounding me. They were talking to each other, but I could not hear any of their words.

The sharp rap of knuckles on a door brought a curtain of darkness to the dream, and myself back to consciousness.

Sitting up, my legs already over the bedside, I answered, "Come in."

I looked up at my visitor and was quietly disappointed. It was not Kitten, but a young lad not quite in his teens.

"Kitten said I should bring this to you," the lad instructed. "She said I should wake you up so you could start earning your keep."

I nodded absently, not quite awake, took the note from the lad's hand, broke the seal, and read the missive.

It,

A client of mine desires a certain manuscript that is currently sitting on a desk at the offices of Tyme Waterdeep, Ltd. It is in a traveling folder in the top office overlooking the street, and the publisher returns this evening. Fetch it discreetly. An emissary of mine will take it off your hands later.

You will be ivell compensated should you succeed.

Murph

P.S. The traveling folder should have the monogram VG on it. Let me reiterate, discretion is desired.

I looked up, and the lad was still standing there.

"Kitten said I should lend you any assistance I could, provided I don't have to break the law or anything," he offered.

"Of course," I replied, then thought, I guess that's my job.

Dawn was still an hour or two away, and with no time like the present, I set off for the offices of Tyme Water-deep, Ltd. The lad showed me the way, and scurried home once I was firmly ensconced in the shadows of Faerun's most powerful publishing firm.

Not wishing to overlook the easiest and most obvious course of action, I tried the door. It was bolted from within. I would have to find another way.

My eyes were accustomed to the predawn light, and I scanned both sides of the street for another entry.

The buildings here were high and overhanging, as if to create a sheltered promenade on each side of the street. The top offices had huge, multipaned windows with sumptuous views, letting executives look down on their inferiors both metaphorically and physically. Every other building shared an external wall.

Walking up and down the street a few times, I noticed an occasional alley between buildings, some narrowed by sagging structures. One such alley was barely a body width.

Perhaps a point of access could be afforded from above. I scurried upward, left hand on one building and right hand on the other. It was hand and foot to brick and crack, upward, until I had reached the roof.

None the worse for wear, I crept forward until I was situated over the publisher's offices. My efforts were rewarded with a skylight.

Though it was obviously latched from within, I was quickly able to remove the pins from its hinges and shift it forward on the latch.

Silently I lowered myself inside, and came to rest on the publisher's desk itself. My steps were cushioned by various mounds of paper, one of which was crowned by a traveling folder bearing the monogram VG.

Securing the object of my quest beneath my belt and behind my cloak, I regained the roof. I quickly closed the skylight and replaced its errant pins. Creeping to the eaves, I descended a drainpipe that led to an alley at the end of the street.

Confident I was still unobserved, I returned to the furnished room from which I had begun my quest, scant hours ago, and waited to be contacted.

I nodded to sleep, my back still cushioned by the traveling folder.

Once again I dreamt. I found myself at the mercy of the cloaked men. The room was heavy with magic, and I could feel all eyes bearing down on me. I was undeniably guilty and remained passive, willing to accept my fate.

The circle closed in on me as the dream came to an end.

A few hours later, I awoke of my own accord (a pleasant surprise) and removed the parcel from its hiding place on my person. Undoing the drawstring, I looked inside and read the cover sheet, which bore the seemingly innocuous tile, Volo's Guide to the Moonsea, the Land of Political Intrigue and Conspiracy.

I recalled the name Volo-a best-selling hack writer. Perhaps Murph's client was a rival publisher. Still, it seemed a silly thing to risk life and limb over.

I was about to read the first page when I sensed I wasn't alone. I looked up.

Kitten had arrived as silently as her namesake.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," she instructed. "You're being paid to get it, not read it."

I placed the manuscript in its folder, rebound it, and handed it over.

"Good," Kitten said, placing it firmly in the crook of her arm. "Follow me."

"Where?" I inquired.

'To the place where you will be paid," she said curtly.

I followed her outside, pausing for a moment to close the door. I couldn't help noticing three burly bodies lying in unmoving heaps by the roadside. I tried to recall if they had been there earlier, and decided they hadn't. Kitten seemed to be waiting for me.

I asked, "Friends of yours?"

"No," she replied, "of yours. They, too, desired the manuscript you so eloquently retrieved. It would appear I arrived in the nick of time."

I looked at her, and at them. Had this sweet young Kitten dispatched these rivals with her own bare hands?

"Don't worry about them," she replied. "The city watch is used to cleaning up detritus in this neighborhood."

I was dumbstruck.

Kitten couldn't help noticing. She giggled, and answered my unasked question. "I had a little help. Lothar decided not to stick around."

Kitten once again led me through the shadowed byways of the Dock Ward, darting from shadow to shadow, with occasional stops in doorways and alcoves, until we returned to an area I recognized. It was near my place of convalescence. She saw the look of recognition in my eye, and nodded.

"No place like home," she volunteered. "A new furnished room has been secured for you, one of a more permanent nature than last night's accommodations."

We entered a tavern, passed behind the bar, and up a staircase to a set of furnished rooms. Kitten put a key to one of the locks and opened the door to my new residence.

The furnishings were modest, but adequate-a comfortable bed with a warm quilt and firm pillows, a chest, a lantern, and a table with two chairs. Upon the table were two small purses and an envelope.

"I see our payment has already arrived," Kitten announced, hastening to the table to snatch the purses, the larger of which she pocketed, the smaller of which she tossed to me.

"Here," she volunteered, "your accounts of the past few days have been settled, Murph's cut deducted, and your rent paid for the next two weeks. That wasn't too hard now, was it?"

At this point I noticed her arms were empty. The package bearing the manuscript was nowhere to be seen.

"The package," I sputtered, "where did it go?"

"I delivered it along the way," she answered coyly. "Maybe you're not as observant as I thought you were." With a toss of the head, she danced past me to the doorway, pausing only briefly to kiss my cheek. "I have to go now," she said, "but I'll be in touch."

She saw the look of disappointment in my eyes, and added, "There's plenty more where that came from. You are no doubt a man of great potential."

"A man without a past," I reminded her.

"Whatever," she replied, then added, "I'll drop by later to show you around town. Our relationship doesn't always have to be just professional."

Before I could blink, she had left the room, and I was alone in my new home.

I felt the bag of coins and instinctively knew there was more than enough to fill my needs for a while-and provide a few amenities that were lacking. I could do some shopping later.

All that remained was the question of my identity, the shadows of my past. I remembered the envelope on the table before me. Perhaps an answer was within?

Picking up the missive, I saw that it was unad-dressed. I tore it open. Surprisingly, it was not a letter, but rather a page that had been extracted from some arcane volume. The paper was old and brittle, and featured text in several different languages or codes. My eyes were immediately drawn to an illustration that showed a circle of cowled figures around a prisoner in a set of stocks. The caption below it read:

In rare instances of mercy, the Lords ofWaterdeep would accept indenturement in exchange for clemency for someone accused of crimes against the lords or the City of Splendors. The accused would have his identity wiped clean, returning him to a state of innocence prior to his commission of said crimes. In exchange for various services provided to the lords, the accused would be granted clues to his past. These services always were of a sensitive nature, for which the lords desired plausible denia-bility, and often resulted in the death of the accused, upon which time the accused would be pardoned of all crimes and receive a proper burial. Such men are known as Lord's Men.

A different ink bore the message First Payment.

As I finished reading the page, it and the envelope burst into flames, leaving nary a whiff of smoke.

Strangely enough, I was not troubled by this recent revelation, as if I had already accepted this fate at some earlier time.

The mysterious Kitten, my protector, and nurse Lothar, and the silly business of retrieving a manuscript by some hack writer didn't seem as important as living from day to day, and paying off the terms of my inden-turement.

I was eager to accept my next assignment-to earn another clue to my identity.