Erik de Bie: Downshadow

She blazed like an angel of Celestia, he thought. Like amp; goddess.

She was saying something, but the words were nonsense to his ears.

She screamed and sobbed in a tongue that sounded like the blackest whispers from the foulest dreams. Her eyes scanned things he could not see, and she seemed to be fighting invisible demons.

Then, just as abruptly, she vanished. The light died as though it had never been.

"What?" said the dwarf.

At that moment, the half-ogre howled-the bellow starred low, then grew in volume and pitch until it became a scream. The beast clutched at himself where the knight had kneed him in the groin. The half-ogre tipped and fell with a tremor that shook the underground chamber.

The dwarf started to cry out but the knight slammed him against the wall and pressed his empty sword scabbard under his chin.

"Don't!" the dwarf gurgled, but the knight just shook his head.

His voice was cold as ice and sharp as lightning. "Run."

"Uh?"

"Run," the knight said. "Leave your friends-they belong to justice now. I have told the City Watch where they will be found. Go, and warn those like yourself."

The dwarf blinked rapidly.

"The Eye of Justice watches Downshadow." He pressed the dwarf harder. "Tell them." "I don't understand!"

The knight's glare gleamed in the dwarf's terrified eyes like sunlight off ice.

"Tell them Shadowbane waits." He narrowed his eyes. "Tell them I wait for them."

And with that, he jerked the scabbard away and sent the dwarf scrambling with a shove. Without even looking back, the thug vanished into the everlasting night, choking and sputtering.

The world seemed so heavy-and cold. Shadowbane watched the dwarf flee down the tunnel, then turned his head heavenward.

A bowshot above, through thousands of tons of stone, rain would be falling on Waterdeep. Rain that would shatter against his steel helm.

He knew he would barely feel it, thanks to the spellplague.

He felt, instead, only a creeping numbness-the absence of feeling. The surfaces of his thighs and arms had become like natural armor, like frozen leather greaves and bracers. It left his flesh filled with senseless nerves. His fingers, however warm, perpetually felt frostbitten to his touch, and his legs, as much as he pushed them, felt disconnected. His skin felt like dead flesh.

The spellplague had stolen feeling from Shadowbane, as it had stolen so much from the world. In time, it would take his life as well. He could only hope it would give him long enough.

"Long enough," he whispered, "to do what I must."

He thrust the scabbard through his belt, turned down another passage, and ran through the darkness below the world.

24 Tarsakh, the Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR)

Araezra Hondyl sighed heavily, smiled, and silently counted to six. The ranking valabrar of the Waterdeep Guard despite her tender twenty-odd winters, she exercised the iron-clad control of her passions that had secured her so many early promotions.

Despite her firm grip on the reins, patience was fleeing her. She put her fingers to her temple where, Kalen saw, a vein had risen beneath her skin.

"Once again." Her long tail of braided black hair trembled under the strain. "Slowly."

Kalen Dren, vigilant guardsman and Araezra's chief aide, took notes in his small, tight script, spectacles balanced on the end of his nose. His plume scratched quickly and efficiently, and his face remained carefully neutral. He had his duties as a scribe and fulfilled them scrupulously. Not that they were on official business, exactly, but it was his job.

Araezra's best friend, Talanna Taenfeather, loitered casually nearby. She had bent to examine some of the wares in a shop window. The "fashion" spikes wired out of her orange-red hair bobbed behind her head as she nodded and murmured to herself. She wore the uniform of her office but was off duty, and was present for the same reason as Araezra: to part with coin. They'd stopped after morning patrol out of South Gate, only to find a situation requiring their attentions.

"A fine sun that brings you through my door, lady," said Ellis Kolatch, a greasy, unpleasant man who sold jewelry and fine silksalso knives, flints, and small crossbows, if the rumors were to be believed. "And timely, for I have need of the Watch!"

"Guard," Kalen corrected indifferently, but no one seemed to hear. He continued scribbling down the merchant's words and those of the accused thief: a small half-elf boy.

"I tell you, this little kobold pustule is stealing from me," Kolatch said. "He's been in here twice in the last ten days, I swear-him, or someone like him. Always some half-blood trash that's lashed me with his tongue an' stolen my wares!"

"Blood-blind pig!" The half-elf grinned like the scamp he was. "I've never been in this place afore-you must think all the pointy ears be the same, aye?"

"You!" Kolatch raised his fists threateningly.

"Goodsir." Araezra's voice snapped like a whip. "Have peace, lest I arrest you."

Nothing about the valabrar's fine face-widely and fairly thought to be one of the best in all of Waterdeep-suggested impatience. Here was the controlled seriousness that had won her the respect and love of the Guard, the Watch, and much of Waterdeep. One who knew her well, as Kalen did, might see her fingernails straining and failing to pierce her gauntlets as if to draw blood from her palms.

"Aye, my apologies." Reining himself, Kolatch put his hands behind his back and cleared his throat. "I am sorry, gracious lady Watchman."

"Guardsman," Kalen murmured, but kept writing.

The distinction meant less and less, these days. The City Guard had become a division of the Watch, and while the guardsmen might be-as professional soldiers-better armed and trained than the average Watchman, the names meant little to the ordinary citizen. Kalen, who had been an armar in the Watch proper two months before, didn't mind.

Araezra had commissioned him as her aide based on his record as a lion who had to be lectured more than once regarding his "impressive but nonetheless embarrassing zeal."

Now things had changed, though she couldn't have known they would do when she called him to service. His debilitating sickness had been his first confession, and he knew he'd become a disappointment to her: he was a kitten and not a lion.

But Araezra had a great love of kittens, too. He smiled.

"Sst-Kalen!" Talanna hissed.

Kalen looked around to find Talanna poking at him. He hadn't felt it, of course-because of his sickness-but he heard her quite well. He raised an eyebrow.

The red-haired lass held a sapphire necklace to her throat. "What ofrA«? Aye?"

Kalen sighed and turned back to his parchment booklet.

"And you, boy?" Araezra asked the half-elf accused of thievery. "Name yourself."

He bowed his head. "Lueth is the name my father gave me, gracious lady."

Kalen noted this, recalling that "Lueth" meant "riddle" in Elvish. A false name? The boy was unremarkable, forgettable in face and form, but for the sharp gray eyes that peered up at Araezra with intelligence, wit, and bemusement. Something was not quite right about him. Kalen's neck tingled.

"What have you to say?" Araezra asked.

"Naught but what I said, good lady," said Lueth. "This stuffed puff of a blood-blind don't know what he seen. Was just admiring the baubles and gewgaws, and he done accuse me of stealing." The boy spread his hands. "Why'd I need jewels, aye? They'd better laud your beauty, good lady." He blushed and winked.

Kalen saw Araezra stiffen and recalled the one time he had brought up her looks on duty-and the blackened eye he had suffered. Not that she minded being beautiful, or being beloved of half the Watch (and half the magisters, merchants, and lordlings of the city), but when she ceased to be taken at her word because of her face, it tended to