Mark Anthony - Crypt of the Shadowking

The creature caught scent of him much sooner than Caledan expected it to, and when it did it moved with a speed that amazed him.

The wind seemed to be whirling in all directions now, and some eddy must have borne his scent to the shadevar. The creature let out a high, inhuman scream that cut across the noise of the storm and made Caledan's blood run cold. Its scaled, muscular legs pumping with blinding speed, its taloned feet gripping the stone, the shadevar hurled itself forward.

Caledan looked for a place to stand his ground. The shadevar had already covered nearly half the distance between them. It screamed again, baring its obsidian tusks, a viscous, ruddy ichor drooling from its gaping maw. Caledan saw a flat-topped boulder and made for it. He drew his sword and leaped onto the rock.

The heel of his boot skidded on the wet granite. The rain had made the stone slicker than he thought, and he shouted a curse as he lost his footing. He tumbled backward, land" ing hard on the edge of the cliff and grunting with pain-The sword skittered away from his fingers.

Suddenly a shadow loomed over him. Another high, soulless scream sliced through the air. Caledan blinked the blinding rain from his eyes. Out of the corner of his eye Caledan saw his sword, just out of arm's reach, balancing precariously on the precipice. He wanted to turn to grab it, but could not break his gaze away from the shadevar.

The creature raised a clawed hand, preparing to strike a blow that would gut Caledan. "Damn you, mage!" he shouted above the raging storm. "Damn you to the Abyss!"

The shadevar's talons descended.

Suddenly another scream rent the air, only this one was a cry of agony. Caledan opened his eyes. The shadevar reeled above him. Its razor-sharp talons were clawing at its own face, at the hollows where its eyes should have been. It screamed again in fury and pain. Caledan watched in horror as the creature writhed above him.

A brilliant flash of lightning sliced across the dark sky, and the shadevar screamed again, clawing at its eyeless face even more furiously. Hot, dark droplets of blood fell against the stone, sizzling before they were washed away by the rain.

Suddenly Caledan understood. The creature could see. The shadevar had seen the lightning, and the brilliant illumination had caused the thing pain! Somehow the mage had given the sightless creature the power to see, and it was driving the shadevar mad.

The shadevar stumbled, on the verge of losing its balance. Caledan did not waste more time. He snaked out a hand and grabbed his sword. He thrust it upward into the shadevar's gut. The creature's scaly armor was nearly impenetrable, and the blade did not bite very deeply. But it was enough.

The shadevar slumped forward over the sword point, Caledan kicked out, grunting with effort as he used his foot and the sword to lift the creature above him.

The shadevar's claws flailed wildly, one talon tracing a hot, crimson line across Caledan's cheek. With one last blood-chilling scream it sailed into the ravine.

There it struck a jagged, razor-edged column of granite Even the shadevar's scales could not withstand the impact of the fall. The creature's hideous cry was cut short as the shard of rock was driven through its body. Dark blood sprayed out in a hissing, steaming fountain.

Caledan nearly slid over the edge after the shadevar, but he caught himself at the last moment, wedging his fingers in a crack and dragging himself back up. He lay on his side, panting, gazing down at the shadevar impaled below. The wind tugged at the shreds of its black robe, but this time the creature did not stir. The torrent of blood gushing from its body gradually slowed to a trickle, then stopped, and soon the rain washed the dark stain away. Caledan groaned, his head sinking to the stone in weariness just as the companions reached him.

The shadevar was dead.

The storm was over.

It was late afternoon, and all that remained of the storm were a few ragged shreds of clouds scudding along against the azure sky. Morhion had ridden back down the game trail and into the ravine to examine the shadevar's body Now the mage was returning astride his black gelding.

'The shadevar will not rise again," Morhion said when he reached the others. "The stone driven through its body pierced its heart, shattering the magic that gave it power. Already its body is decaying. By nightfall nothing will be left of it but cinders." The mage drew something from a pocket of his gray robe. "However, I did find this."

In his hand Morhion held an egg-shaped crystal, its myriad facets dim and opaque.

"What is it?" Caledan asked.

"I cannot say," Morhion replied. He muttered several words in the tongue of magic. Suddenly the gem began to glow with a crimson light.

"Magic…" Tyveris whispered.

Morhion nodded solemnly. "I will be able to study it further when I return to my tower." The mage spirited the crystal away into a hidden pocket of his robe.

"Your magic was greater than the shadevar's, Morhion." Mari said. "We saw the creature ready to strike Caledan, and the next moment it was writhing in pain."

The mage nodded, his long, pale hair blowing in the wind. "The shadevari were sightless from the moment of their creation. Their spirits were never meant to be touched by light. I think the lightning burned it from within. I doubt it had ever known such pain."

Caledan regarded Morhion carefully. He could never let himself forget how dangerous the mage could be.

"Do you think there will be more of them?" Tyveris asked. "More shadevari, I mean. We still don't know who sent the thing after Caledan in the first place."

The mage gestured noncommittally. "That even one of these ancient creatures yet remained in the world surprises me. For all we know, we have killed the last of their kind."

"Then good riddance," Caledan growled.

Ferret called to the others then. He had gone off wandering as usual and now was standing by the low heap of rock where they had first seen the shadevar. The little thief was gesturing wildly.

"What is it?" Caledan asked when they reached him.

"Take a look," Ferret said, pointing to the bare rock at the base of the small hill. "It looks like a fissure that's been filled in with stones."

Caledan knelt down and picked up one of the loose rocks. "I think you're right, Ferret." The fissure, filled with a jumble of rocks and dirt, was perhaps a half-dozen feet long and several feet wide. "This has to be it-Talembar's tomb." He started clearing the rubble away from the fissure. Tyveris joined in, flinging huge stones aside as easily as if they were pebbles.

Caledan grinned as Tyveris helped him heave another heavy chunk of granite from the fissure. All of them felt their spirits lifting.

They had been working only scant minutes, however, when Caledan felt a sudden chill. The golden sunlight dimmed as if a cloud were passing overhead, and the wind carried the scent of dry, stale dust to his nose. That was strange after all the rain that had fallen.

"Caledan. Look above you." Something in Mari's voice made the hair on the back of Caledan's neck stand up. He and Tyveris looked up, and both of them froze.

A man stood on the side of the small hillock no more than ten paces away, gazing down at the companions. He was a noble-looking man with a strong, aquiline nose and eyes of pale gray. His attire-a brocaded longcoat over a ruffled shirt, tightly fitting breeches, and high leather boots-was fine, even opulent, but it looked strangely archaic, bespeaking the fashions of another age. Oddest of all were his silvery cloak and his long, onyx-black hair, for neither of these stirred in the brisk wind that whipped across this high, open place.

"By Oghma above, I can see right through him," Tyveris whispered, and Caledan realized he could do the same. The outlines of a gnarled cedar tree were hazy but clearly visible through the man. The loremaster gripped the holy symbol that hung about his neck and muttered a prayer to appease the dead.