Ed Greenwood: Cloak of Shadows

Somewhere in Faerun, Mirtul 29

Overhead, the dragon unfurled its wings with ponderous grace, and began to dance. The tall, silver-haired lady laughed in delight, and the music she'd conjured swelled around them all. Pegasi neighed their pleasure aloud as they swooped past her, and the spell-dance quickened.

The dragon managed a curving cartwheel across the sky, the wind whistling through its scales, and Mystra leapt to meet it, trailing bright silver stars in her wake. The wordless song rose with her, soaring, exultant-and was suddenly shattered.

In the air, the goddess of magic faltered, and her silvery light flickered. With little cries of unease, the cavorting creatures broke off their dancing to watch. Mystra drifted on until she touched the dragon and clung to it, but her face wore a frown, and her eyes gazed on something far off.

Suddenly she shivered. "Evil Art," she whispered sadly, waving her arms as if she could brush the moment away. Returning from wherever her sight had taken her, she shook herself and looked around the waiting sphere of gravely watching creatures.

"A great and dark Art has been worked," she told them calmly. "Not in Toril, but by someone who watches this world and thinks of it even now."

"We must be vigilant," the dragon said then, the deep, melodious rumble of its voice startling them all.

"Aye, that we must," Mystra agreed gravely, and swept her hands up. From between her long, graceful fingers streamed a bright shower of silver stars that made the watching creatures gasp and murmur in awe.

The music sang forth again. "I will not have the spell-dance ended," the goddess said with sudden fire, "by every evil deed of Art… or we should never dance together at all!"

Warily the pegasi, faerie dragons, sprites, swanmays, and the great form of the gigantic copper dragon circled her and began to move in time to the music again. Stars dove and spun around them as the music swelled, but there was a darkness among them now, a shadow of Mystra's mood that even the most spirited of her leaps did not dispel. "Bad times ahead," said one faerie dragon to another, and there was reluctant agreement. A note of proud defiance crept into Mystra's music as the dance went on. More than one troubled creature fell away from it and made for home, and safe lairs, and places where seeking-magic was stored. Bad times are better faced on the crumbling pages of tomes that relate histories of long, long ago-not as deadly events that tomorrow may bring.

The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 6

Milhvar grew a long, tentacled arm that flattened into a leathery wing, and flapped it once. The power of his wing beat plucked him from his feet and took him a good way across the chamber. He noted approvingly that the cloak's gray and hard-to-see substance shifted shape along with him. His cloak of spells was truly a cloak of shadows, as suited to shifting as any of the blood of Malaug. Now to test it against the Chosen of Mystra, to see if the enchantments he'd devised truly held. The cloak must foil all magic wielded or cast by any sworn minion of Mystra, from her mortal Chosen to Azuth himself! If it proved able, the Chosen wouldn't be able to sense the approach of the Malaugrym… and perhaps his kin would have their revenge upon the hated Elminster at last!

Milhvar made a certain gesture. The cloak shrank away from him, rolled itself into a ball, and dwindled into a thing of wisps and tatters. Smiling faintly, he took it in his hand and headed for his favorite hiding place. His cloak of shadows was best kept secret until it had served him in winning far greater power in the ranks of the clan than he commanded now.

Power he deserved. What, after all, had the Malaugrym done under the command of Dhalgrave? Elminster yet lived, and none who walked in the shadows dared set foot on Faerun without great preparation-and greater stealth. All we do these days, Milhvar thought sourly, is watch from afar and brood. And the time for that is fast running out. Something was building among the gods, something that could be turned to advantage by those who knew how to bend both magic and shadows to their will.

"And then," Milhvar told the darkness politely, "things will change-rather violently, as they deserve to." He thought he heard an answering whimper, and stiffened for an instant before he recalled that the cloak in his hand was a priest of Mystra. Of course. He chuckled. "You serve me now," he told it with a savage grin. 'Try to remember that."

As he cast it into a vortex of concealing shadows, the cloak did not answer. He chuckled again and turned away.

Shadowdale, Kythorn 14

The young lass in leathers screamed as a black-fletched arrow leapt from nowhere to take her in the shoulder. It hissed into her flesh before she had time to do more than gape at it, with its one red feather among the sable. The force of its flight plucked her from her feet, spun her about, and slammed her to her knees in the snow. Her face creased in startled pain as the vision wavered, like still water stirred with a hand, and then faded away, leaving only empty air over the table.

Itharr stared at the spot where the conjured image had been and shook his head. "Not a gentle way to die," the burly Harper said softly, one strong hand tightening absently on his tankard.

Sharantyr nodded and set down her ale, stern sadness in her gray-green eyes as she met his gaze. Itharr blinked. The lady knight's fine-boned beauty had made many a man stop and stare, and the firelight dancing on her face made her seem a creature from a dream. Itharr stared into her eyes for a long moment before the other man in the room spoke, and she turned to look at him.

"Whence came you by this magic?" Belkram of the Harpers asked quietly over his own tankard. Sorrow to match Sharantyr's own glimmered in his eyes. He shifted in his chair, firelight flashing on his smooth-worn leathers, every inch the fearless fighting man. A well-used long sword shifted with him, riding his hip, always ready.

An onlooker would have judged Belkram more handsome than his fellow Harper, but like Itharr and the lithe Knight of Myth Drannor across the table, he wore the nondescript harness of a working ranger. They looked, Belkram was sure, like three weary hireswords at ease, not champions of good just back from saving the world from disaster and magical chaos.

The lady ranger lifted her slim shoulders and let them fall in a shrug, noticing a lock of gray hair at Belkram's temple-gray that had not been there a few days ago. "That vision was brought to me by a linking spell known to some elves and elf-friends. Flambarra linked to me when she cast it, so she could show me things of import, should it be necessary. It shows the caster in her last nine breaths before the spell is ended."

"In this case, by her death and not her choice," Itharr murmured, taking up his tankard again. "When do we ride to avenge her?"

Sharantyr shook her head. "That was a brigand's arrow, and a quiverful to match it were found on a man who chose to defy the wrong patrol, three days ago." She took up her wine and stared through it. "We live in dark times, friends."

Silence fell in that dim back room of the Old Skull Inn, and the fire in the grate sent fingers of light and shadow dancing across their faces. A roar of laughter came faintly to their ears from the distant taproom. Belkram stirred, grinned at Sharantyr, and said, "But not all is gloom, or should be. We're the great heroes who rescued Elminster, remember?"

"That sounds perilously like a cue for an impressive entrance," an all-too-familiar voice said from beside the Harper. They all started, whirling to look at the still-closed door of the room. A mist was coiling lazily in front of it. As they watched, the tendrils of mist grew suddenly darker, then seemed to drop and change in a whirl of colors and flashing movement. Elminster of Shadowdale stood regarding them, a twinkle in his eye.