Ed Greenwood - All Shadows Fled

One of their younger, newer apprentices, Paershym Woodstoke of Neverwinter, was trotting excitedly along a passage, his head down and a precious spell tome clutched in his hands. Its covers, two polished plates of ever-bright silver, flashed suddenly as the lord and lady mage of Waterdeep stepped out of a side door, spilling light into the dim hallway. They leapt across the passage like a pair of pranksome apprentices. With a softly spoken password, they opened the door of a closet that had to be tiny, crunched between two flanking rooms, and crowded into it together, giggling.

Lady Laeral winked at Paershym just before the door closed behind her-leaving the apprentice, who'd halted to gape in astonishment, quite alone in the passage. He blushed a brilliant crimson and stared in disbelief at the closed door of the tiny closet. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he stole up to it and tried the handle. It was locked.

He turned away feeling almost relieved-and stiffened as the doorknob behind him emitted a faint, girlish giggle.

Clutching the book very firmly, he hurried away, wondering how his father would take the news if he wrote a letter home explaining that he'd changed his mind about becoming a wizard…

In a chamber deep within Twilight Hall, a lady laughed. "We've more than earned this, beloved," she purred to the person in the heart of the canopied bed. His reply was a wordless growl that left her giggling-until the closet door beside the bed burst open.

"Please excuse the intrusion," the lord mage of Waterdeep said gravely to the astonished Harper couple as he marched briskly across the room to the closed door of another closet.

Laeral mouthed, "Sorry," to the shocked faces above the covers, waved a farewell, and stepped into the closet behind Khelben.

There were a lot of dusty cloaks inside, and she sneezed more than once before Khelben found the catch on the secret door and led her on into a lightless passage that zigged, zagged, and opened into the back of yet another closet.

As the Blackstaff briskly opened the closet door, they saw a bored Harper guard sitting in the room beyond, sharpening his blade. No intruders ever got this far, after all, and…

The guard sprang up as the wizards strode into the room. He waved his sword menacingly. "Halt, by the silver Harp and the blood spilled for it!" he charged sternly-but the two mages were already past him, heading for one of the doors across the room.

The Harper gaped. "But you're-you're Khelben!"

The archwizard sighed. "Has the disguise spell failed again? Oh, dear…" He rolled his eyes theatrically.

Laeral chimed in breathlessly, "We've tried everything…"

As she spread her hands in despair, Khelben touched the door in a certain spot-and it flared into a blinding glow. The Harper threw up his hand to shield his eyes, just in time to see the two mages fade away… The Castle of Shadows, Shadowhome, Midsummer Day

In a room where shadows were rarely still, two tentacled things met, exchanged grunts of recognition, and rose into manlike forms.

"It's even worse than I'd thought," Hulurran said without preamble or greeting. "Since Dhalgrave was slain and the intruders first came, over sixty of the kin have perished or disappeared… perhaps as many as seventy!"

"Seventy!" Gathran sighed gloomily. "Will we live to see the House of Malaug dwindle to nothing, and the shadowbeasts finally slither in to tear the last few of us apart?"

Hulurran shrugged. "There's just one good thing," he said. "Milhvar was working on a cloak that shielded him from the prying magics of the mages of Faerun… a 'cloak of shadows,' he called it in his notes. If anything's befallen them, the secret of its making is gone with him."

"You saw his notes?" Gathran did not bother to hide his astonishment.

Hulurran smiled. "Milhvar was so old that he sometimes forgot that others of us have seen just as many years… He hid some of his notes-and the finished cloak; I saw him testing it-in a hideaway Anduthil created for safe storage. Since Anduthil's passing, I believe he thought only he remembered its existence." He turned slightly, and made a gesture. "It's right here," he added, "and-"

Hulurran fell abruptly silent. Gathran peered over his shoulder to see why. The hideaway was a small room with a cot, a chair, a desk, and a chamberpot. A few blank scraps of parchment were strewn on the desk, but the cot-where his companion was probing emptiness-was quite bare. " 'Twas right here," Hulurran said, frowning, "and he wasn't wearing it when he met his end-I saw him die."

"Then where is it?" Their eyes met and held in silence for a long while.

Hulurran sighed. "Let us hope one of us is wearing it in Faerun right now."

"A prudent one of us," Gathran agreed.

They both sighed then, and left that place.

When the world stopped whirling, they were sitting together on a bench in Shadowdale, with Elminster's Tower rising crookedly in front of them-and a startled guard scrambling up from where he'd been lounging on the bench beside them. He swung his gleaming pike down.

Khelben calmly struck it aside and twisted it out of the armsman's hands.

Laeral said mildly, "Perhaps it's the clothes we're wearing…"

"With all due respect, sir merchant," the guardcaptain said firmly, "no one brings wagons into Shadowdale without our looking inside them."

The paunchy, unshaven merchant glared at him. "Aye, I know your sort of searching. What's the point o' my coming all the way from fair Cormyr"-one of his men gave him a strange look, and the guardcaptain almost smiled-"if you steal half my stock, eh? Pendle's Fine Meats are known from Suzail to Selgaunt, and I'll be damned by all the gods if I let some uniformed thugs in a backwater dale rob me of what I've worked so hard for!"

"Then turn your wagons about, merchant, and go around Shadowdale," the guardcaptain said softly, his hand on his sword.

"This one's open, sir," one of the guards spoke out, pointing at the second wagon back. Without taking his eyes from the guardcaptain, Pendle grew a tentacle thirty feet long that snapped like a lash around the armsman's throat.

There was a collective gasp of horror and fear from men on both sides of the roadblock. The guardcaptain stared hard at Pendle as his sword flashed out. "What are you?" he asked, white to the lips.

Lorgyn smiled a wintry smile at him as two tentacles smashed the man's sword away, and a third rose with a bony spear to stab him in one eye. "I wondered when you'd get around to asking that," he said softly.

Men were screaming on all sides now. There was a general rush from the wagons into the woods. Pendle's outriders turned their horses and spurred westward as fast as the horses would go.

The Malaugrym reached out and calmly slew another man, and another, reaching always for those trying to flee or raising horns to arouse the dale. Some of the guards got their bows out, and arrows hissed and hummed. Lorgyn ignored them as he went on killing.

By the time all the guards were dead, lying twisted and broken in the road around him, the Malaugrym was feathered with many arrows. Heedless of the blood streaming from him in a dozen places, Lorgyn shifted to oxen form to drag the lead wagon aside; its draft horses had taken even more arrows than he had, and lay dead in the traces.

The wagon of wizards was all that mattered now. Lorgyn led the frightened horses past all the blood, into Shadowdale. The time for skulking was past… now, let all in Faerun beware the Malaugrym, and cringe in fear!

"There it is again," Belkram said, pointing at Sharantyr's pack. "You'd better see what it is!"

The lady ranger set down her pack with more haste than grace, and drew her sword.

"I'll open it," Belkram offered, "and you keep blade ready, right?"