Curse of the Shadowmage (7 page)

dissonant. It seemed to pierce Tarn’s ears and numb his brain. The shadows began to whirl faster and faster above the bonfire. One of them spun away from the whirling ring of darkness. It stretched outward, engulfing a stone house close to the commons.

When the shadow rose once more into the air, the house had changed. Now the stone walls were hideously warped and distorted, as though they had melted partway under some fierce heat, only to resolidify into something more grotesque. More screams rang out. The dance descended into panic as humans and halflings alike fled in all directions.

Still the stranger continued to play, his eyes staring blankly as if he did not notice the mayhem all around. More shadows spun away from the bonfire. Everything they touched became horribly disfigured. Cottages, sheds, fences, wells, and signposts—all were reshaped by the dark embrace of the shadows.

A cry of animal pain rent the night, and Tam turned to see a hideous form stumble toward him. In horror, he realized it had once been a milk cow. One of the shadows had brushed it in passing, and somehow the beast had been turned inside out. White bones and glistening mus’cles clung to the outside of its body. Its still-beating heart dangled from its chest. A moment later, the tortured beast collapsed and died, its agony blessedly ended. Tam stared in horror. If one of those shadows were to touch a villager…

In desperation, he wondered what he should do. Suddenly, an idea struck him.

“The bonfire!” he shouted above the din. “We have to put out the bonfire!”

At first, he thought no one had heard his words amid the tumult. Moments later, Ali Bramble and a pair of humans pushed their way to his side. They had had the same idea. Dodging fleeing villagers and the horrible

shadow creatures, they grabbed buckets of water and heaved their contents onto the bonfire. There was a terrible hissing noise as clouds of steam rose into the air. The flames flickered and died out. Night closed about the commons like a dark hand. With it came a deep silence. The music had stopped.

Tam held his breath. Gradually, his eyes adjusted to the pale moonlight. The shadows were gone. So too was the stranger.

Exhausted, Tam sank to the ground, only to feel something damp and sticky beneath him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the remains of a sugarberry pie, smashed but still edible. As he gazed at the destruction that had minutes ago been a happy and prosperous village, Tam found he no longer had much of an appetite for sugarberry pie.

The sun was dying on the western horizon when Mari crested a rise and caught her first glimpse of Iriaebor shining in the distance. The big chestnut gelding beneath her nickered excitedly, sensing a stable and a meal of oats were near, and quickened into a canter.

Mari laughed aloud. “Oh, come now, Farenth. Must you risk our necks just because you can’t wait to have a feed bag strapped to your nose?” As was his custom, Farenth pointedly ignored her. There was nothing for Mari to do but grip a handful of dark mane and hold on as he raced across the gray-green moor. Not that she really minded. She too was ready for this journey to end.

It had begun a tenday ago, in the small but lively trading town of Easting. Here the dwarven smiths that dwelt in the southern Sunset Mountains came to sell the exquisite metal work they fashioned in their subterranean forges.

However, over the last several months, fewer and fewer dwarves had journeyed to Easting. Without the trade, Easting was failing. The Harpers had sent Mari to investigate.

At first she had been frustrated. No one in Easting knew what had happened to the dwarven smiths, so she undertook a journey into the mountains to scout the dwarven clanlands themselves. As it turned out, she didn’t need to go that far. While traveling a road that wound deep into the rocky crags, she espied a hapless dwarf being ambushed by a band of ores. As she watched, the hairy, pig-faced creatures knocked the dwarf on the skull and hauled him into the mouth of a cave. Keeping a safe distance behind, Mari followed and soon discovered the fate of the missing dwarven smiths.

They were being held prisoner by the ores. An ore prince named Gtharn was behind the kidnappings. Gth-arn was forcing the dwarves to forge weapons—swords, axes, and arrowheads—for an all-out assault on the dwarven clans. Mari prowled unseen through the ore warrens—the brutes always made bad sentries—and discovered that over fifty dwarves were being held captive. However, each was imprisoned in isolation, without realizing so many other dwarves were nearby, and so believed escape was impossible.

Mari took it upon herself to rectify this. She stole a set of keys from a guard and freed the dwarves. When the dwarven smiths saw the number of their kinsmen, they banded together and attacked their captors. The cowardly ores were no match for fifty furious dwarves all swinging bright, newly forged weapons. It was a rout. Mari herself slew Gtharn as he tried to flee. Freed from the filthy ore warrens, the joyous dwarves had tried to reward her with gold and silver. She had refused, telling them instead to return to Easting and renew their trading there. This they did, and so both dwarves and town were saved.

As ever when she completed one of her missions successfully, Mari had ridden away with a warm sense of accomplishment and pride. However, the three-day ride from the mountains across the plains grew tedious, and she soon found her thoughts turning to other, less cheerful matters. Even now, as Iriaebor rose higher on the horizon with each passing moment, Mari found herself wondering if Caledan’s mission was going equally well, and whether she had been right to bid him such a definite farewell. She was resolved to stay true to her decision, but she thought she might come back to Iriaebor in a year or two. Perhaps Caledan would have sorted out his problems by then. But for now, wasn’t it best that she make her good-byes and leave?

She was jolted from her reverie as Farenth skidded to a snorting halt, bridle jingling and leather creaking. Mari had long ago learned to trust the horse’s instincts. Her hand strayed to the knife at her hip. “What is it, friend?” she whispered. They had stopped in a low hollow at the base of a round hill. Atop the hill was a circle of wind-worn standing stones, raised by some forgotten folk. A soft mist was slowly rising from the ground, and Mari’s spine tingled with a preternatural chill.

“All right, show yourself!” she called out sharply, suddenly certain she was not alone. The mist swirled, and seemed to take on human form.

The first things Mari noticed about the woman were that she was very beautiful and very pale. Her skin, her hair, her clothes—all were as gray as the rising fog. The second thing—and this Mari noticed with surprise—was that the woman was not standing on the ground. Rather, she drifted atop the mist as if she were no more solid than the vapor itself. Mari’s arms broke out in gooseflesh.

This was no living person, but an apparition. Farenth pranced skittishly, and Mari tightened her grip on the reins.

“Who are you?” she dared to ask in a quavering voice.

The ghostly woman’s words floated eerily on the wind. “Do you not know me by this?” She lifted a hand to her breast. There Mari caught a glint of light and a silvery shape: a harp surrounded by a crescent moon. Mari’s breath caught in her throat. Finally she managed to whisper the word, her voice trembling with awe.

“Kera?”

The spectral woman smiled wistfully. “I was certain you would know me, Mari Al’maren. Though we have never met, it is as if we were sisters.”

Mari shook her head, choking back a sob. Once, long before Mari had ever met Caledan, he and Kera had been lovers. They had worked together as Harpers and were betrothed. All their plans were shattered when Ravendas murdered Kera, an act made all the more loathsome by the fact that the two women were sisters. All these years, Mari had felt a sort of kinship with the Harper woman she had never known. Now she found herself face-to-face with her. It was wondrous, and bitterly sad as well.

“Weep not, Mari,” the ghost intoned. “I have never begrudged you Caledan’s love. I am joyous he found one to make his heart whole once more. And do not be sad that you have parted ways, for you came to each other wounded, and now you each leave with those old wounds healed.”

Mari bowed her head.

“I have but one thing to ask of you, Mari.”

She looked up, her cheeks damp with tears. “Anything,” Mari said fiercely, and meant it. “I will do anything you ask, Kera.”

The ghostly woman smiled fondly. Then her smile vanished, and there was an urgency in her colorless eyes. “Though you have parted with Caledan, do not turn your back on him. He needs your help, Mari, now more than ever.”

Mari shook her head in confusion. “I don’t understand. Is Caledan in some sort of danger?”

“All of Toril is in danger.” The spirit was fading, her edges blurring with the mist. Her voice echoed faintly on the wind. “Beware the king, Mari. He must not ascend the throne …” The tendrils of fog swirled, the ghostly woman faded.

“No, Kera, don’t go!” Mari reached out a hand. “What do you mean?”

It was too late. An evening zephyr stirred the mist. When it cleared, the ghost of the beautiful Harper was gone. Mari gazed for a time into the gloaming, hardly able to believe what she had just witnessed. Finally she nudged Farenth’s flanks, and the big horse started into a trot, his hoofbeats muffled by the moist grass. Mari huddled inside her cloak, but all the rest of the way to Iriaebor she could not stop shivering.

It was full dark when she reached the Sign of the Dreaming Dragon, where a missive from the Harpers was waiting for her.

“It arrived earlier this evening,” Estah explained. “I told the messenger I wasn’t certain when you’d return.”

Shaken by her encounter with the ghost of Kera, Mari was glad to have something mundane to concentrate on. She sat by the fire in the common room and let Estah bring her a cup of chamomile tea. She drank down the hot tea and finally managed to control her shivering.

Breaking the wax seal on the scroll, she unrolled the parchment and began to read. In moments, it was clear that this was no routine directive. By the time she finished reading, her shivering had commenced anew.

Estah returned and noticed Mari’s pallid face. “Dear

one, you look as if you’d seen a ghost!”

Mari smiled ironically. “I’m afraid that’s only half of it, Estah.”

Estah drew up a chair and listened raptly as Mari spoke of her encounter with Kera’s shade. At some point, Mari looked up and noticed Kellen was there, sitting on the floor and watching her intently. For a moment, the Harper realized how much he looked like his aunt Kera— far more so than he resembled his mother, Ravendas.

“First Talek Talembar, now Kera,” Estah said in soft amazement. “What can these appearances mean, Mari?”

“I’m not sure. But I don’t think this is a mere coincidence.” She gestured to the parchment before her. In it, she explained, were two disturbing pieces of news. The first concerned a strange occurrence in the village of Corm Orp. Apparently, some local harvest festival had descended into a riot in which several people were hurt. The details were unknown, but the villagers whispered of how shadows had come to life and attacked them. “Sound familiar?” Mari asked.

“It sounds like the creatures you and Caledan saw in the Zhentarim hideout,” Estah agreed. She frowned in puzzlement. “But you said the creatures were dispelled. And there hasn’t been another murder in Iriaebor since you and Caledan left.”

Mari took a deep breath. “I know. That brings me to the second report. Caledan was supposed to meet with a Harper operative in Corm Orp on the same day as the festival, to receive his orders. But Caledan never showed up at the appointed meeting place.”

Estah clutched her apron worriedly. “What are you saying?”

Mari gazed directly at the halfling innkeeper, her expression grim. “Caledan is missing.”

It took a moment for the implication of this to register

on the halfling. Then she gasped. “But you don’t… you don’t think the strange happenings in Corm Orp have anything to do with Caledan?”

“I’m not sure what to think, Estah.” Mari squared her shoulders. She recalled Kera’s urgent words. Do not turn your back on him, Mari. “It’s time I paid a visit to someone I should have spoken to a long time ago. There’s only one person in Iriaebor who ever witnessed one of the murders and lived to tell about. I’m going to find out what he saw.” She pulled her cloak about her shoulders. “If he hasn’t been executed yet, that is.”

An hour later, Mari picked her way down the slimy stone steps that led to the gaol beneath Iriaebor’s High Tower. Behind her came Morhion; she had fetched the mage on her way to the tower and filled him in on all she knew. Leading the way down the steps to the dungeon was another draftee—a big, bespectacled man with dark, coppery skin.

“I hope you know I’m doing you an enormous favor, Mari,” the big man grumbled. He was as powerfully muscled as a warrior—in fact, he had been a warrior once— but now he wore the plain brown robe of a monk. Or, to be more exact, a Loremaster of Oghma. “It would be decidedly awkward if City Lord Bron’s chief advisor were to be caught sneaking around the dungeon at night to talk with murderers on death row.” He turned to glare at Mari. “In fact, I have half a mind to go back right now.”

“Shall I cast that charm spell so he’ll be forced to do our bidding, Mari?” Morhion asked with a musing smile.

She blinked at the taciturn mage’s rare display of humor, then laughed. Reaching up, she patted Tyveris’s cheek affectionately. Despite his dusky skin, the big man’s blush was clear to see. “No, thank you, Morhion,” she replied lightly. “I think I have our good monk suitably charmed already.”

Tyveris scowled darkly, though his brown eyes glowed with devotion. “You never did play fair, Mari.”

Of all the old members of the Fellowship of the Dreaming Dragon, Tyveris was the biggest and strongest, but he also had the softest heart. Years ago, the big Chultan gave up the sword he had never enjoyed wielding and became a man of learning—though, when necessity required, he could still bring down a running horse with his bare fists. Mari was awfully fond of him.