Marc Anthony - Curse of the Shadowmage

Night.

It mantled the city of Iriaebor, veiling all with the soft stuff of darkness. A thousand spires loomed silent and mysterious as sentinels above the shadowed labyrinth of the Old City. Selune had long since fled beneath the western horizon with the luminous orb she bore nightly in her silver chariot, and false light-the first pale omen of dawn-had not yet touched the eastern sky. It was the darkest hour of the night, the hour caught in the rift between one day and the next, when the world is the most still and magic the most strong. The Darkling Hour, some called it. The hour for thieves and wizards.

Kadian was no wizard. Not that he lacked brains enough to study the arcane arts, or was deficient in the nimbleness required for the intricate rituals that shaped magical energies into spells; he possessed both characteristics in no small quantity. Once, when Kadian was a boy, a white-haired mage on the Street of Runes had noticed these qualities and, gazing at the barefoot street urchin in pity, had taken Kadian into his tower as an apprentice. An hour later, the kindly mage had gaped in round-mouthed surprise as Kadian deftly pinned the old fellow's moon-and-star robe to the wall with a knife and made off with three enchanted rings, a sack of gold dust, and the mage's best magic wand. These days, the only sort of magic Kadian worked involved moving without sound, scaling impossibly smooth walls, and opening unopenable locks. If these required no mystical incantations to perform, they were no less remarkable for that fact.

Guttering torches cast wavering shadows across the intersection of the Street of Jewels and the Street of Lanterns. Kadian used these pools of darkness to good advantage as he moved to an alcove in a stone wall. He was a big man. His broad shoulders and pale hair came from his father, but he had his mother's grace. More than once, he had heard it whispered that there had been an elvish tinge to her blood, so she had been graceful indeed.

Kadian hunkered down to wait. The alcove provided good vantage of the squat building across the street. Its windows were heavily curtained, but from time to time a corner of the fabric stirred, as if someone were peering outward, and a thin ray of crimson light spilled into the street along with the dissonant music of wicked laughter. For a while the only comings and goings were those of the rats searching for food in the filth-strewn gutters. Finally the building's door opened, a thin figure stumbled out, and the door quickly closed again.

The figure paused, wobbled precariously, found some small reserve of balance, and lurched across the cobbled square. Passing through the flickering circle of light beneath a smoking torch, the figure was revealed for a moment. He was thin, so emaciated that the possibility of some wasting disease could not be discounted. Gaudy finery draped his bony frame: ruffled shirt, ridiculously puffy breeches, and a doublet of yellow silk that clashed hideously with his sallow complexion. A thick coating of powder failed to disguise the deep pockmarks that savaged his pinched face. The ugly, foppish man continued to weave his way down the Street of Lanterns.

Kadian's bared teeth glowed in the dimness. "Slumming tonight, milord?" he murmured wryly. A dagger glinted sharply in his hand as he slipped soundlessly from the alcove. The waiting was over.

The drunken petty lord was so easy to follow that it was almost unfair-almost, for Kadian had never been of the opinion that life was meant to be in any way fair. Justice weaves as Justice sees, or so his mother had told him. Kadian pursued his quarry through the tortuous streets of the Old City. Overhead, countless spires wove themselves together in a tangle of spindly bridges and midair causeways that blotted out the starlit sky. Beneath the towers, the narrow streets were no less tangled, forming a maze in which the unfamiliar or the unwary could all too easily find himself lost.

A short distance ahead, the nobleman hesitated at a crossroads. He looked first right, then left, then-and now a bit dizzily-right again. At last, apparently at random, the foppish lord plunged through the left-hand archway.

Kadian's smile broadened. "Wrong choice," he whispered with a feral smile. That way was a dead end. Gripping his knife, he hastened through the archway.

Kadian came upon the petty lord moments later, in a small cul-de-sac lit by a single greasy torch. Realizing he could go no farther, the nobleman turned around and found himself facing Kadian. His expression of astonishment sent fine cracks through the thick layer of powder that coated his face. Swiftly, surprise gave way to dread.

The man licked his rouged lips. "What… what do you want of me?"

Kadian spun the dagger casually on a fingertip before returning it firmly to his grip. "Come now, milord," he said chidingly. "There's no use in stating the obvious, is there? You know exactly what I want."

The petty lord's reply was limited to a small, strangled squeak as he sidled clumsily backward. Kadian moved smoothly toward him. As he did, he felt a peculiar prickling on the back of his neck. It was a sensation all good thieves experienced when being watched. But Kadian could see no one who might be doing the watching, nor even any windows through which watching eyes might peer unseen. There were only the shadows of the two men cast by the guttering torch-tall, distorted silhouettes that played like malformed giants across the stone walls of the circular dead end. Kadian shrugged the odd feeling aside. Wasn't he a bit too old to be unnerved by shadows? He affected a cheerful tone and gestured with the knife.

"Hand it over, milord. That's right. Your purse. Don't feign surprise. What else would a cutthroat be interested in? Now don't let that disturb you, milord. 'Cutthroat' is simply a name, my title if you will. I don't actually cut throats-usually." Kadian dropped his voice to a low growl with that last word.

"Here! Take it!" the foppish man squealed in a choked voice. "Take all of it. I don't care. I won it only tonight playing at Dragon's Eyes."

The petty lord clumsily fumbled with the plump leather purse and heaved it at Kadian's feet. Kadian casually stooped to retrieve the heavy purse and stood, tucking it under his belt. The nobleman eyed the curved dagger in Kadian's hand fearfully. "You aren't… you aren't going to use that, are you?"

"As a matter of fact, I think I am," Kadian replied jovially. The petty lord let out a small whimper as Kadian slowly lifted the dagger. Then, with a deft motion, Kadian turned the blade and began using it to clean his fingernails. He chuckled to himself and looked up to see what the lord had thought of his little joke.

The nobleman was gaping, his beady eyes wide with terror.

Kadian sighed in annoyance. "Oh, stop it," he growled. "I told you, I'm not going to kill you, so-" He realized then that the petty lord's eyes were not fixed on the dagger. The man's gaze was focused above Kadian, and behind him. Taking in a hissing breath, Kadian spun around. At first, all he saw was his oversized shadow sprawled across the stone wall. Then he noticed something odd. Kadian was standing still, but Kadian's shadow was-

"By all the gods of midnight, it's moving!" Kadian gasped.

The shadow-his shadow, cast by the torchlight- undulated on the rough surface of the wall. The dark silhouette rippled, remolding itself. For a moment it coalesced into an amorphous blob, like a great stain on the stone. Then, with malevolent speed, the dark blotch spread, outlining talon, fang, and horn-the shape of a beast. Two pinpricks of crimson light flared to life like feral eyes. For a moment, those eyes seemed to burn directly into Kadian's chest. Then the shadow stepped off the wall.