Lizz Baldwin - Realms of Shadow

Of course, the Boss didn't feel that way. He had put her body in stasis immediately after her death and had tried all the ordinary spells-even called in priests-to bring her back from the dead. Much to Pleeancis's delight, something had interfered, and the spells had failed. The Boss thought the difficulty had to do with the fact that she had died while the city had been in the midst of a planar crossover. Interaction of magic and planar mechanics or something like that.

Pleeancis picked absently at an itch behind his ear while he worked up the patience he would need. The Boss just wasn't the Boss anymore, he thought wistfully.

A shout from within the library nearly scared him out of his scales.

"Boss!" Pleeancis flapped his wings, leaped into the air, pushed through the door and found -the Boss, seated at his worktable, barely visible behind a pile of stacked tomes, bubbling beakers, and glowing braziers, laughing. Laughing!

Unsure of what to make of this unexpected mirth, but pleased to see the Boss more like his old self, Pleeancis flitted over to the desk and landed on a stack of tomes.

They smelled like dry leaves. The Boss shot him a grin, Ids tired gray eyes more alive than they'd been since she had died.

"I found it, Pleeancis. I've finally found a way." He nodded at the single gray wax taper, still cooling in its iron mold, which sat on the table before him.

Before Pleeancis could answer, the Boss rose from his chair, took Pleeancis by his tiny, clawed hands, and danced a little jig. Pleeancis could not help but flash his own fangs in happiness. The Boss was as chipper as an archfiend at a feast of souls.

When the Boss finished the jig, Pleeancis leaned down to look more closely at the candle. Except for some unusual gray and brown whorls that ran through the wax, it was ordinary. The mold too appeared ordinary. Nothing to indicate why it made the Boss so happy. Still, Pleeancis did not want to spoil the mood. Maybe the Boss had gone insane, but the good kind of insane, where he would think everything was great. If so, maybe Pleeancis could convince him to set some decent food at the table for a change. Pleeancis smacked his lips and decided to play along.

This is a nice candle," he said, and tried not to giggle at how silly that sounded.

The Boss patted him on the head, still smiling. "It is that, little one. It's the way to bring Jennah back."

He glanced over at the magically hardened glass case set along the wall that held her perfectly preserved body.

Pleeancis followed his gaze and bit back a snarl.

Jennah-she-lay there in her little glass case like some red haired doll with alabaster skin. Pleeancis wished he had gouged out one of her eyes over the years. He could've blamed it on a rat or something.

The Boss walked across the room to the case, his face wistful. He reached out and laid a hand on the glass.

"Soon, dearest," he whispered. "Soon."

Pleeancis ground his fangs and squinted his eyes in anger. Damn it! He did not want her back.

Since the Boss's back was to him, Pleeancis took what vengeance he could-he stuck out his forked tongue and made a terribly obscene gesture taught to him by a dretch demon. She, of course, made no response.

Pleeancis used the claw on his forefinger to pop the candle from its mold. He picked it up and held it in his hands. He wondered if it would hurt him to eat it. After all, no candle, no her. He sniffed it. It smelled loamy, vaguely like tenday old mushrooms. He opened his mouth- "Pleeancis!"

He dropped it with an alarmed squeak. The Boss rushed over and gingerly picked up the candle, as though he were holding an infant.

"I was just smelling it, Boss." Pleeancis took a step back, prepared to take flight, but the Boss didn't seem angry. Relieved, Pleeancis beat his wings and halted his retreat. "It smells funny. Kinda like the dirt covering dead people. What's in it?"

The Boss secreted the taper in an inner pocket of his black and purple robe.

"Souls," he answered cryptically, his eyes aglitter. "Life-force. Enough to overcome the resistance that has prevented the efficacy of my spells. Enough to ensure that my next attempt will bring my love back."

He looked past Pleeancis to the glass case. Pleeancis rolled his eyes.

He didn't understand the human obsession with love. What a bunch of tripe. It was neat that the Boss had put souls in the candle, though. No wonder many of the houseslaves had disappeared recently. Pleeancis giggled, then he remembered that the candle would bring her back. He stopped giggling.

"How can it bring her back, Boss?" he asked and stole a quick, hateful glare in her direction. "It's just a candle. If you couldn't do it by yourself…?" He let the rest of the question go unspoken. If the Boss-one of the more powerful wizards in Shade and one of the preeminent practitioners of shadow magic-couldn't bring her back with his spells, how in the Nine Hells could a candle?

The Boss smiled absently, but his eyes burned with intensity. "This is a special candle, Pleeancis, one that draws upon the Shadow Weave. When its light casts a reflection of a…" he stuttered over the next word, as though embarrassed to say it aloud, "… a corpse, the reflective surface becomes a portal, a doorway to the place where the soul of that corpse resides." He reached into his pocket, no doubt to touch the candle while he spoke. "The soul can return through that portal, re-inhabit the body, and thereby return to life."

Pleeancis wanted to puke. He glared at her, showed her his fangs.

"Now that the candle is complete," the Boss went on, "the critical factor is the reflective surface."

Pleeancis hung his head and snarled softly. He wanted to hear no more. The familiar kicked petulantly at the books on the table. He and the Boss had spent years alone together. They did not need her. Stupid love.

The Boss continued on, lost in his own world.

"In this case, for the shadow magic to work, the reflective surface must be the dusky scales of a living shadow dragon."

Pleeancis's head snapped up. His wings fluttered with perturbation. "A shadow dragon!"

The Boss merely looked down on him, still smiling, and nodded.

Disbelieving, Pleeancis took wing and fluttered before the Boss's face. He snapped his scaled fingers to bring the Boss back from his madness.

"Shadow dragons are tough, Boss. Tough. And there's only one around here-"

"Ascalagon," the Boss finished for him and nodded again. Unbelievably, he did not look afraid.

"But Ascalagon is ancient," Pleeancis squeaked. "And big. Can't you use my scales?" He preened to show his green scales to best advantage.

"No, little one." The Boss patted him on the head. "The fact that Ascalagon is big and ancient is the very point."

"You're going to get help then?"

The Boss shook his head. "No."

Pleeancis's voice rose an octave. His wings beat crazily. "You're going to take on Ascalagon alone?"

The Boss chuckled. "Not alone, little one. With you."

Pleeancis's heart raced. He knew then that the Boss had gone insane but not in the good way.

They had been walking for over an hour. The colorless sky hung above them, a featureless roof of slate. Darkbriar trees surrounded them on all sides like walls of dull, gray bark. Nightmarish versions of a Faerunian cypress, the branches of the dusky leafed darkbriars hung low enough to brush Zossimus's head. The roots of the great trees twisted their way into the soft, marshy earth like giant worms. The smell of organic decay filled his nostrils. A light mist hung in the fetid air. The dull calls of gray birds and bats mingled with the low buzz of insects. Sound was muted; color was absent. The purple of Zossimus's robes and the green of Pleeancis's scales stood out in this murky, otherwise colorless plane like a giant in a halfling's cottage. Despite the trees, the grass, the insects and birds, the Plane of Shadow felt unreal, like a bard's conception of the realm of the dead. There was motion, true, but no life, no color. The plane was a mirror of the real world, a reflection without substance.