Cloak of Shadows Read online

  He strolled away, calling to mind the next place he’d viewed from the hilltop—and abruptly he was there, worn boots stepping onto the soft ground behind a tent.

  “Another one dead? Have all the gods cursed this caravan?” The voice was proud and angry. “Who is it this time?”

  “Mider, sir. He’s—eaten away, sir, like the others. Only his feet left, and his scalp. In his tent, still in his blankets.”

  “Was he the only one of us alone in a tent?”

  “Yes, sir. Albrar was his tent mate, until …”

  “I know. Maybe it’s something they were carrying, the two of them. Burn that tent and everything in it, just as it stands. Now!”

  “Yes, sir.” There was the sound of hastily receding booted feet, followed by a rustling of canvas and tent silks.

  “Do they suspect?” a new voice asked in a whisper that did not carry beyond the ear it was said into.

  “Mider did, but it’s just a little too late for him, now,” was the amused reply. The shared mirth that followed was silenced by the meeting of lips, a mouth-coupling that soon became a frantic, muffled screaming as the doppleganger couple found themselves locked in their embrace, immobilized by something that had twisted them into their true, monstrous shapes, and frozen them there. Something that drifted up from the tent like a ghostly mist and whirled back into the shape of Elminster.

  “It shouldn’t take long for someone to find them,” he said, turning away in satisfaction. “Live by trickery, die by trickery. That’ll be my ending too, no doubt, when at last it comes.”

  He stepped through the trees to where his pipe hung. “Now I’d best hurry,” he murmured. “Galdus hasn’t much time left.” And then he was gone, an instant before a guard, drawn sword in hand, came warily down the path in search of the privy bench.

  The Hawkgauntlet Arms was distant indeed from that privy bench at the back of the caravan camp, but it was the pride of Hawkgauntlet, a hamlet north and west of Ilipur too small to grace any map. And too poor to loot, unless one was a brigand too hungry to care.

  Elminster shoved open the groaning front door and stepped into the gloomy taproom beyond. The old man behind the bar blinked at him in the sudden shaft of daylight. “We’re not open yet,” he said gruffly. “Come back at sundown.”

  “I’m not thirsty, Galdus,” the Old Mage replied, coming to the bar. “I’ve come to give ye something.”

  The old man’s eyes narrowed, and he peered at Elminster in the dimness. “I know you, don’t I?” he asked thoughtfully. “That voice …”

  “The magefair when Almanthus tried to make the mountain fly,” Elminster reminded him gently. The man’s head snapped back.

  “Elminster?”

  “The same,” El said, sliding a coin across the bar with one finger.

  The old man stared at it, and then up at him. “What’ll you have?”

  Elminster shook his head. “I need ye to do something for me. Four things, actually.”

  The old man blinked again, and grinned. “That sounds like the Elminster I knew, to be sure.”

  “Ye have only a few minutes left to live, if ye do these four things wrong,” the Old Mage said softly. “So heed.”

  Galdus glared at him, then swallowed and nodded. It had been years since he’d worked magic, and he knew he’d been no match for Elminster even at the height of his striving. “Say on,” he said shortly.

  “Armed men are coming this way—hungry and ruthless wild-swords,” El said, “and they’ll be here very soon. I need ye to stand still whilst I cast two spells on thee.”

  Galdus sighed. “Do it,” he said simply. El nodded, and made two quick sets of gestures, touching the old bartender at the end of each.

  “What—what did you do?”

  “Made ye immune—for a little while—to all harm from weapons of iron and to all thrown or hurled things, like arrows. The same cannot be said for anyone else ye may employ or dwell with here. So the second thing I need ye to do is to keep all such folk from harm. Warn them now, but be quick!”

  Galdus stared at him for a moment, then ducked his head through the door behind him and spoke quickly and sharply. Then he closed the door, and Elminster heard a bar being settled across it from within. “Done,” the old man said simply.

  “I need ye to give this coin to the men when they demand money of ye. Best give them a handful to go with it, so they don’t suspect a trick.”

  Galdus reached down behind the bar, opened a cupboard door, and dumped the contents of an old, cracked earthen jar onto the bar. A gleaming fan of silver and copper coins slid out. “I’ll be counting coins when they come in, then.”

  El nodded. “I couldn’t help but notice, on my way in, that thy outhouse is a bit of a ruin,” he said, nodding his head in its direction.

  “That one?” Galdus grinned. “We don’t dare use it. When it falls in, I’ll have the lads take away what they want, for manure. If you have to feed the gods, the real one’s out back.”

  It was Elminster’s turn to smile. “Feed the gods? I hadn’t heard that expression!” He chuckled, then stopped at the look on the old man’s face. “Ye call it that because of what befell ye at the temples?”

  Galdus nodded, face set. It had been forty summers ago that his health had been broken and his magic torn from him by two warring priests in Sembia. Their temples had grown in size and splendor, and doubtless they’d grown fat and powerful with them, but Galdus had been left with only one spell he could use. There’s not much future for a mage who can create magical radiance at will, and do nothing else.

  Elminster leaned forward across the bar. “If it makes ye feel better, old friend, know that all the gods have been cast down into Faerûn. That’s what’s behind all these troubles—the wild magic and roaming monsters, outlaws and armies everywhere. The gods are wandering Faerûn with little more up their sleeves than ye or I have. A lot of folk will get hurt, aye, but at least the gods’ll be feeling just what ye went through.”

  Galdus stared at him, slack jawed. Then a deep red color slowly rose in his face, and he leaned forward with the first enthusiasm El had seen in him. “Is this true?” he asked excitedly, and then paled. “I-I didn’t mean …”

  El smiled. “Be easy, Galdus. Yes, it’s true.”

  And then the old, balding bartender threw back his head and bellowed with laughter. “Yes!” he cried. “Yes!” He whooped, jumped around behind the bar, and with sudden resolve snatched up a cracked tallglass and hurled it exultantly across the taproom. Watching it shatter into a thousand shards in the empty fireplace, he looked up with fierce exultation in his face and said, “Where are these brigands? I’ll face ’em, and fifty more besides! Bring ’em on!”

  Elminster grinned. “There’s the fourth thing,” he added.

  “What?” Galdus grinned back.

  “Ye may have to lose that old outhouse,” El told him. “And I hope ye have a fire in the kitchen ye can get to swiftly, with some logs on it that’re well and truly alight, but have unburnt ends ye can carry ’em by.”

  Galdus stared at him for a moment, and then laughed again. “I have, and can. What’s this all about?”

  “Well,” El began, “just be sure ye say With Elminster’s regards’ to whoever touches that coin, an—”

  The door banged open suddenly, and the Old Mage was gone, as if he’d never been there. Galdus blinked at where he’d been and then at the drawn swords coming across the room at him, followed by the stench of old sweat and desperate men.

  “Counting the coins, were ye? Well, I think that right kindly of ye, to save us the trouble of finding ’em. Go and get yer real savings, old man, with Baerlus here beside ye to save tricks, while we have a pull or two at a keg o’ yer best!”

  “Who—? What’re y—” Galdus began, struggling to keep a smile from his face. Then he saw the man’s hands raking the coins across the bar, and knew the enspelled one might bounce and roll on the floor in a moment, so he stammered, “With Elm
inster’s regards!”

  “You fools,” he added a breath later, watching the coin erupt into wildly coiling black tentacles. The five brigands shouted in alarm, and the one who must be Baerlus snarled and drove his blade into Galdus, under the old man’s ribs, jerking his steel savagely up and sideways.

  Galdus stared down in wonder as the weapon slid through him as though he were a ghost. He didn’t feel a thing! The outlaw stared up at him, face paling, and then hacked wildly at him, the blade whipping back and forth like a flail on the threshing floor.

  The blade seemed not able to touch him, though he felt the man’s knuckles graze his shoulder on one wild swing. Baerlus stared at him, dumbfounded. Galdus snatched a wooden salad bowl from its wall peg and brought it down smartly on the man’s sword hand.

  Baerlus howled and stepped back, dropping his blade with a clatter, so Galdus leaned in and walloped him across the side of the head with the edge of the bowl. The outlaw staggered and stepped back, right into his four fellows.

  They were thrashing and grunting in fear, staggering around his taproom helplessly in a confused tangle of arms and legs. The coin had become a black ball with many long tentacles that stuck to flesh as a sucking eel sticks to fish. The tentacles were wriggling and probing constantly but didn’t stick to clothing, weapons, or wood. The four outlaws—no, five now, with Baerlus—were firmly bound together, unable to straighten up or even turn to face each other as the tentacles pulled them in closer together … and closer still …

  Galdus watched the brigands struggle, slipping and sliding on the coins and swords that lay dropped and forgotten all over his recently cleaned floor. They crashed aside chairs and even a table, yelling in muffled fury and mounting fear, and rolled about, their struggles taking them vaguely away from the bar.

  The front door groaned open again, and Galdus looked up warily, wondering if he could reach any of the swords on the floor. The man who stepped inside, however, was Elminster.

  “My apologies, Galdus,” he said. “I’d something else to attend to and no time to do it in. But ’tis done now.”

  “Can I—may I ask what it was?”

  “I had to talk a few frightened archpriests in Baldur’s Gate out of starting a religious war—on each other.”

  “Why bother?” Galdus asked, frowning. Then his frown deepened. “Did it work?”

  “No, of course not, so I had to scare them into a truce by showing them what I’d do if they didn’t make peace.”

  “You flattened both temples,” Galdus said hopefully.

  Elminster grinned. “I see ye know the basics. I did indeed. Rebuilding and trying to keep folk from looting will keep both sides busy for a time.” He stepped carefully around the tangled knot of rolling, kicking brigands and continued. “And to answer thy other question, I bothered because I didn’t want to see a lot of homes burned and innocent folk slain in the Gate over some disagreement that had nothing to do with them.” He sighed. “This is going on all over Toril, right now. First thing this morn, I had to do the same thing to head off rival factions of illithids, in a city in the heart of Raurin.”

  Galdus stared at him. “Mind flayers? You stopped mind flayers from killing each other? Why?”

  “They’re intelligent folk too, just as ye, I, and these dolts here are. And besides, they’re sitting on enough battle spells there to destroy half the eastern Realms! I didn’t want any tentacle-heads to remember that and start tearing open vaults and using ’em. A few hundred years more, and most of the scrolls will have crumbled away to nothing … and it’ll take them half that time to dig out all the stonework I piled up on top of those vaults!”

  Galdus grinned. “Make sure you check back with me in a few hundred years, then, to let me know Faerûn is safe to live in at last. In the meantime”—he gestured down at the tightening mass of bodies on the floor—“what do we do with these?”

  “Roll them into thy outhouse and burn it,” Elminster said calmly.

  10

  Talking to Gods

  Daggerdale, Kythorn 18

  The Mountains of Tethyamar rose like a distant wall ahead on their left as the three rangers in worn and patched leathers rode warily into another soft-shadowed evening. They were headed into the heart of lawless Daggerdale, Randal Morn had warned them; reaches where steads lay abandoned to the forest, orcs and hobgoblins roamed the land in raiding bands and clashed whenever they met, and monsters lurked in the ruins and woody tangles for the unwary. For all those dire warnings, they’d ridden all day and seen nothing more deadly than birds. Of course, Itharr reflected, they had no idea just what might have seen them.

  “Oh, but the land is beautiful,” he sang softly as they forded their third tinkling stream.

  “And the living carefree,” Belkram sang the next line, heavy irony in his tone.

  Sharantyr chuckled and took up the song. “So come, ye fairest of dark-eyed maidens …”

  “And come dwell in the greenwood with me!” Itharr and Belkram sang together. Ahead of them, a gore-crow took wing heavily from a dead branch and flapped away with a derisive caw.

  “What are you, a bard?” Itharr called after it. The bird circled, winked at him once with a very steady black eye, and flew away.

  “The Simbul?” Belkram breathed the question as they all stared after it.

  “Without a doubt,” Syluné’s voice came to them from the stone in his breast pocket. “She probably appreciates your singing about as much as I do.”

  “A little less sarcasm there,” Belkram told her. The stone thrummed against his chest in reply. The handsome ranger stood up in his stirrups to look all around and sighed. “I suppose we’d better start looking for somewhere we can defend—and protect the horses, too—and camp for the night.”

  “Agreed,” Sharantyr said, drawing up beside him on her patient steed. “But after we’re out of the saddle, I’d like to talk about the wisdom of riding aimlessly around the most dangerous territory we can find, now that we lack a false Elminster to escort. Surely these deadly shapeshifters can find us wherever we are?”

  Belkram sighed again. “To hear good sense spoken so directly and clearly is always disconcerting. It makes debate seem so … foolish.”

  “Spoken like a man!” Itharr agreed in robust tones.

  “Exactly,” Shar and the stone that was Syluné said in perfect unison. After a moment, everyone laughed.

  Belkram rose again in his saddle still chuckling, and pointed northwest. “Is that a suitable place I see before me?”

  “Pray, good knight, ride ye and see,” Itharr quoted in response.

  Belkram looked quickly at the lady ranger who rode with them, cleared his throat, and said loudly, “Ah, no, Itharr. Not that ballad. Really.”

  Shar gave him a smile, a twinkle in her gray-green eyes, and sang steadily, “For I crave a bank by a stream running softly, where yell lay me down and make love to me!”

  “Oh, no!” Itharr said in shocked tones. “You were right, bold Belkram. Not a suitable ballad at all!”

  “Belt up and stow it,” Belkram told him dryly. “Well, what say you? Does anyone know what that place might be?”

  “It’s a little hard to see from inside this pocket,” Syluné said sweetly. “Perhaps if we get closer and you dismount, I could tell something about it. We’d best poke about a bit first, to see if that’s a prudent course of action.”

  Itharr and Sharantyr both spread eloquent empty hands in answer to Belkram’s query. “We’re out of the bits of Daggerdale I know,” Shar added. “It looks more like a manor on a hill than a keep, but just as far past its proud days as Irythkeep. Well be lucky to find any part of it still with a roof.”

  “Well, we’ve been very lucky in avoiding rain thus far,” Itharr observed brightly.

  “Hush!” both of the other riders said severely.

  “Do you want to bring it on?” Sharantyr demanded, scowling. “I’ve heard of lump-headed idiots before, but—”

  “You were
n’t prepared for what a couple of Harpers can do,” Syluné said loudly enough for them all to hear, startling Belkram into nearly falling out of his saddle.

  “Steady on, there,” Itharr commented. “The bit of the horse that snorts and has ears is the front. Now, all you have to do is keep a leg either side of the beast and that front bit pointed—”

  “You can belt up any time, friend,” Belkram said easily. “Your tongue runs on almost as much as Elminster’s!”

  The stone in his pocket laughed heartily.

  “Enough,” Sharantyr said, her eye on the lowering sun. “Trap or no, let’s look at this place before darkness leaves us no choices at all.”

  The ruin they were fast approaching stood on a grassy hill whose steep slopes fell away into thick, tangled woods to the east and south. Broken land, all hills and copses, lay beyond it to the north, and there seemed to be a patchwork of woodlots and meadows—the former manor farmlands, no doubt—to the west. An overgrown road of sorts crossed the rolling country before them, leading down into the woods and thence up that oddly bare hill to the ruin. Why had no saplings sprung up on the hillsides?

  “I don’t like the look of it,” Itharr said.

  “Nor do I,” Belkram said, “but I must remind you that I’ve heard those same words from you about seventy times since we began faring together.”

  “And how often was my concern justified?”

  “Umm … twenty times or so.”

  “Well?”

  “But if we strike out the times we were looking at known Zhentarim holds, brigand camps, and undead holds, Itharr … four times.”

  “Perhaps this’ll be five,” Itharr offered, almost hopefully.

  “You don’t really have too much doubt, do you?”

  “No. The backs of my hands itch,” the burly Harper said, as if that explained everything.

  “The backs of his hands itch,” Belkram told the sky. “Shar, you’re closer. Scratch them for him, will you?”

  “I go out riding with a pair of hairily handsome men,” Shar told her horse conversationally, “and what do they want me to do? Scratch the backs of their hands. You certainly meet some crazed-wits in the ranks of the Harpers, don’t you?”