Her predecessor smiled, shook his head, and said, "The Blood of Malaug are everywhere these days, it seems, and Cormyr is always entertaining n.o.ble traitors and exiles who think regicide will win them back their estates and t.i.tles with a sword stroke. You'll get used to them." - Caladnei sat up and said almost pleadingly, "I failed the Crown! I didn-"

Vangerdahast snorted. "Nay, nay, la.s.s-don't think to get out of being Mage Royal that easily! The mistakes are all yours to make now. I'm not watching over you all, ready to appear in a puff of spellsmoke to save your various shapely behinds whenever you stumble."

He turned slowly on his heel, to favor everyone in the room with his stern gaze, and added, "Consider this a lucky chance that I was pa.s.sing through. Cormyr is yours now. With the pa.s.sing of Azoun, my duty was done, and I've so little time left to cram all my neglected tasks and whims and unfinished business into. Farewell!"

Amid a vain chorus of protests, he smiled again, wiggled his ringers playfully at the child king, and vanished.

Filfaeril broke the little silence that followed with a sigh, and turned to Caladnei and asked, "How dowizards do that? I've always wanted to just begone into thin air, too-usually when particularly obnoxious n.o.bles were approaching. Twould be very handy-"

It was not considered polite to interrupt the Queen of Cormyr, but Caladnei was suddenly lost in a flood of giggles-mirth that begat laughter from others, a rising chorus of guffaws through which the Mage Royal only dimly heard Glarasteer Rhauligan remark in gloomy tones, "She has a flaw after all, our Royal Magician: she giggles."

In a room that swirled with shadows, Tarane of Shade stood watching the scene in the Chamber of Frostfire Candles through a whorl of scrying magic.

"Well, well," he said, smiling faintly. "An interesting place to rule, to be sure. Let it mature awhile, to grow strong and prosperous again first. Waiting for the right moment is one thing I know very well how to do."

He picked up a ring that had until recently adorned the hand of Maerlyn Bleth from a flaring, flute-topped pedestal table beside him.. Turning it so that its half-aroused enchantments-magic the young fool had been utterly unaware he was carrying-made it flash in the backwash of the scrying spell, the Shadovar added with a smile, "Unlike so many of the fair flowering of Cormyr's proud n.o.ble houses. Or the last Obarskyrs and their handful of loyal servants, for that matter."

King Shadow

Richard Lee Byers

11 Kythorn, the Year of Wild Magic

The old knight and his squire hobbled their weary destriers through the charred and shattered gate.

They walked the rubble-choked streets of the murdered city, where even a fresh horse would likely lose its footing.

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

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

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

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

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

If Ajandor heard, he gave no sign.

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

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

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

"Then shut up."

As Kevin wondered what to say next, a gray form sprang up from the ground, where it had apparently been lying flat as a sheet of parchment. A pair of vague limbs outstretched, it pounced at Kevin.The squire tried to dodge and draw his sword at the same time. He managed neither. The dark thing slammed into him and bore him down to the ground. Raking claws shredded his mantle and surcoat and ripped at the hauberk beneath.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The creature spun, reared on its hind legs like a bear, and raked at Ajandor with talons grown long as daggers. Scarcely giving an inch of ground, the knight met the shadow's attack with savage stop cuts.

At least his blade seemed to be biting something solid, though whether it was doing the phantom any real harm was impossible to say.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ajandor turned away, his patched, faded war cloak swinging, and headed up the street. Kevin mouthed a silent curse, s.n.a.t.c.hed up his ruined mantle, threw it around his shoulders like a beggar's rag, and hurried after him.They prowled until darkness began to envelop the city, creeping up on them as stealthily as the shadow cat, or so it seemed to Kevin. With the sun hidden behind the perpetual gray cloud cover, he had seen no hint of its setting.

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

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

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

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

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

"I still feel like wandering."

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

Ajandor frowned, considering. At length he said, "1 wouldn't want to fall without striking a blow.

That would make a poor end to the tale of my line. We'll return to the Cormyr Gate."

On the way back, they pa.s.sed one of the sets of stairs that climbed to the Old Town, a precinct built on high ground. Famed for its picturesque beauty, it was likely as ruinous as the rest of the city.

Partway up the steps was an Altar of Shields, unmarred by the devastation that prevailed on every side.

To Kevin, it almost seemed a mockery, as if Helm, G.o.d of guardians and protectors, had preserved his own little shrine while permitting the rest of the city to perish.

The squire's mood soured still further when they reached the gate. Redwind, Ajandor's charger, lay dead. No shadow had come to rend the faithful animal. Rather his heart had given out and small wonder.

At the knight's insistence, the two riders had pushed their mounts unmercifully once they heard about the destruction of Tilverton, even though, from a coldly practical perspective, they no longer had any reason to hurry at all.

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

"Poor old fellow," murmured the knight.

"It's too bad," Kevin said.

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

"Until we want to ride away."

Ajandor didn't reply.

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

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

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

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

"Supper's ready," Kevin called.

His master didn't answer.

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

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

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

"No!" Kevin said. "Sir, you need more than that, or you'll get sick.""I'm not hungry."

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

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

"That's a convenient way to think."

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

"But not in time to fight."

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

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

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

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

The squire obeyed then found that suddenly he, too, had no appet.i.te.

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

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

When they'd first entered what remained of Tilverton, Ajandor had paid particular attention to any dead warriors clad in the wine-colored surcoats of the Purple Dragons, the company of knights to which Pelethen had belonged. Now he paid little heed to any of the pathetic corpses sprawled on every side.

Instead, he scrutinized doorways, windows, and rooftops, low walls and the mouths of alleyways, a wagon with two dead mules slumped in the traces-everywhere a foe could lie in wait.

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

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

Come and fight!"

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

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

"Not for me," Ajandor replied.

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

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