Gary Gygax - City of Hawks

“There are those who proclaim a Shadowking. We gloams do not recognize his suzerainty. I, as Imprimus, am as great a lord as any,” Smirtch added, still frowning slightly as he droned on, but obviously drawing himself up with what seemed more than a touch of hubris. “That is of no great import at this moment, for you have a problem which I can assist you with. You said that you could remember virtually nothing of what transpired prior to your awakening in this place, did you not? Perhaps if we inventoried and examined your possessions, there would be some clue, something which would restore your mnemonic functions…”

At this, Gord smiled. “Yes, I did in fact say that I could not recall the time before my entrance to the Plane of Shadow. Now, are the gloam-folk then at war with the Shadowking?”

“You have not allowed my question!” Smirtch said with irritation.

“But I have, dear Smirtch, I have indeed. You asked if I had said a certain thing-that was your question. I affirmed that I had so said-my answer. Now, pray, answer mine!”

“No. We do not war.”

That told the young adventurer much more than he was sure the gloam suspected. The slight inflection on the last word made it probable that there was strife between the factions. That there was no war indicated that the gloams were not powerful enough to openly contest with the Shadowking, despite Smirtch’s boast that he was a lord of equal stature; certainly, this being was less puissant than the king-perhaps on the order of a powerful baron… Just then Smirtch spoke again, forcing Gord to concentrate on his words.

“What did you bring here?”

“Oh, not much. What I wear and carry is all,” Gord answered lightly. “And whereabouts is the capital city or castle of the one who is called Shadowking?”

“Location is always relative here,” Smirtch supplied, meanwhile making a tiny gesture that the gloam undoubtedly thought would be indiscernible to Gord. “Just be in the right place, and the palace comes to you. Now, would you be so good as to display your possessions?”

“Certainly not,” Gord said matter-of-factly. “How would you describe the so-called right place?”

“Briefly, if at all,” Smirtch shot back at the young man. “Do you have any amusing trinkets with you?”

“Amusement is a matter of taste and perspective,”

Gord replied as a group of the shadow-men drew near behind him, with a clump of murklings and fuligi trailing behind. Gord decided that he had played this game long enough. It was time to test his theory. Should he be mistaken, his fate could hardly be worse than what the gloam undoubtedly planned In any case. “However,” Gord said, casually reaching into his pouch with his injured arm, “I do have a trantle which you might regard as meriting some diversion,” he smiled. Fingers grasping the sphere, Gord suddenly withdrew the stone that the adumbrate had called Shadowfire, exposing its surface to the gloam as he brought it forth.

“Put that back in the pouch!” Smirtch groaned in a scratchy whisper, sliding away slightly as he hissed the command.

Ignoring the creature for the moment, Gord spun rapidly, gem held at shoulder height, short sword suddenly sweeping in a glistening circle as he turned. Green and scarlet motes danced along the blade, colors he never had seen before in this place.

It was more than the mere sight of those colors that made the menacing creatures who had been about to fall upon him from behind moan and whimper as the young thief confronted them. The force of Shadowfire swept them backward as a gust of chill air sweeps away the dry leaves of autumn. Not all of them were quick enough; where blade touched shadow there was a coruscation of glittering black and lambent maroon. As if formed of these flickering, burning flashes, each shadow so touched became a thing of whirling sparks for an instant, then disappeared entirely, leaving only a little sound, a noise like the whine of a receding mosquito, behind for a moment.

After four shadow-things were thus touched and made gone, Gord completed his circle and again faced Smirtch. “What is wrong, most helpful of beings? Don’t you care for pyrotechnical displays?”

“You’ll pay for this!” the thing threatened, safe at a distance many feet beyond the reach of the still-fulgent blade. Then Gord advanced, and the gloam sped away, making an evil susurration as it glided rapidly out of sight. With that, all the remainder of the other shadowy creatures fled as well. Moths and birds fluttered and flapped to escape, while animals of other sort scuttled or ran to be clear of the spot. In a short time Gord was quite alone.

“Most enlightening!” Gord said to himself heartily after all the creatures had gone.

To test his newfound power more thoroughly, Gord then brought the opal’s sphere into contact with the pommel of his sword. The motes brightened and grew larger, each particle seeming to spin and whirl more rapidly. Then the whole multitude of coruscating flashes merged into twin halos of color. One nimbus was coralline, shot through with weaving tongues of snapping scarlet; the other was of peridot hue, and similarly filled with darting arcs of bright emerald.

The transformation took but an instant, and Gord scarcely had time to note the sudden change before the hues intensified and dual bolts shot from either side of the blade to strike a fat-trunked, treelike growth at which the sword happened to be pointing.

“Zow!” Gord exclaimed as he viewed the results, hastily withdrawing Shadowfire from contact with his weapon. Where the shadow-tree had been there was nothing, and the shadow-ground where its roots must have spread was now a gaping hole, a place of deeper blackness from which faint tendrils of silvery stuff wafted upward and away.

“No wonder, then, why Smirtch and the menagerie were attracted to me,” Gord murmured as he carefully sheathed the sword. “This gem is more precious than one might suppose-at least in this realm of shadow!”

With the potent black opal safely back within his pouch, Gord set off to locate the Chiaroscuro Palace of the Shadowking, confident that he could handle any chance encounters along the way. His dweomered blade was more potent here than elsewhere, it seemed, and in combination with Shadowfire something much greater was at his disposal.

“Perhaps this plane is due for a new ruler,” Gord said to himself as he strode along. “No, I take that back… This drabness and gloom is not for me. When I discover how I came here, and how to leave, I shall ask no more than an emperor’s ransom as a parting gift!” Then he tried whistling a jaunty air, but somehow all he could manage was a rather mournful tune in a minor key.

After what seemed several days, Gord had trekked across many miles of the Plane of Shadow. During the course of his journey he had been left alone.-whether by chance or through avoidance, he neither knew nor cared. During the time so spent, however, the young thief had found opportunity to think and observe.

For one thing, he recalled that his flesh had been gray when the adumbrate had forced him to awaken. He remembered assuming at the time that the light had made his skin appear that way. But after his experimentation with the gem, Gord’s complexion had become silvery and he had felt more alive. Then it turned grayish again, and lethargy crept into his body.

Application of the huge opal to his skin seemed to restore the bright sheen to it, so periodically Gord rubbed himself with it. Somehow he had been consigned to this plane, but there was no sense in allowing any transition of his normal self to the stuff of shadow if he could prevent it. He hoped the gem would negate or at least stave off such a metamorphosis. That posed another problem, though. When he was radiating the sheen of argent tone, then the shadow-water and shadow-food he foraged was useless to him. Gord found it slaked not his thirst nor assuaged his hunger.