Cloak of Shadows - Ed Greenwood [114]
"Before I do so," Shar replied icily, "why don't you recite to me just what soothing explanation you'll give to any host of furious Malaugrym who show up to dispute that tactic?"
"Urn, ah," Itharr began, "Hello, gentles… it occurs to me that you might be wondering what the lady behind me is, ahem, doing. Well-ask her."
His two companions hooted, but their laughter fell away into the deadening maw of muting shadows all around. They exchanged quick glances and fell silent.
Wordlessly Sharantyr raised the blade and held it out in front of her like the prow of a ship. It seemed dull, and dewed with a clinging mist of shadows. Troubled by the sight, the lady Knight quickened her pace into the shadows that hid everything.
All around them, small shadowspawn writhed and spun in the excitements of their birthing, twisting this way and that in the swirling, rainbow surf of shadow-borne energy. This was the place of shadows, where all things were spun of shadowmist – and in the end, spun back into shadowy fading dreams. Their skeletons sank forgotten into the glooms where no creatures went but foolish questing mages, dying shadowbeasts, and lurking prowlers-in-shadow. Belkram and Itharr looked at each other, and their blades hissed out in unison. Looking warily behind them at every second or third step, they went on. It seemed to be taking an awfully long time to cross the chamber.
* * * * *
Shadowdale, Kythorn 20
Storm Silverhand sighed and pulled on a boot. Clothing might be optional for a morning selecting stones on the rock pile, but footwear was not.
The kitchen around her seemed… empty. Lonely. She missed Sylune more than she'd thought she would.
"Well," she said lightly, "time to start talking to yourself, dearie."
She grimaced at her own imitation of a trembling dodder-wits and reached for the other boot. As she had done after Maxan's death, as she had so many times before, she must put this melancholy aside and go on. Chosen of Mystra always had to go on.
Time to sigh again. She thought about that for a moment, then tossed her head and stood up, stamping both boots firmly on. Pirouetting idly across the kitchen, the Bard of Shadowdale took down the long iron pry bar from its hook on the wall.
And then a voice sounded in her head, a voice that held an unaccustomed note of concern.
Storm, the Simbul asked from half a world away, do you know what's befallen El? I can't feel him. It's as if he were gone!
And Storm, standing in her kitchen clad only in boots, armed against the world with an iron bar half as long as herself, felt a swift icy finger run down her spine. She whispered, "No, Sister. I don't know what's befallen him. Do you think-?"
Start looking and asking, her sister told her crisply, every inch the Queen of Aglarond, but without raising rumors about his death or disappearance. That, as before, we dare not do. The voice paused, and then resumed with an amused mindtone. Making folk think everything's fine and you're just casually asking if they've seem Elminster about will no doubt work better if you put some clothes on. I know all you folk are weird up there in Shadowdale, but…
Storm faced west and made a certain gesture with the pry bar that looked almost as impossible as it seemed painful.
Gods above, her distant sister replied, you've seen him do that? Perhaps I shouldn't be worried after all!
"Nethreen," Storm said, managing to keep her voice steady, "leave me be for now. Unobtrusively searching all of Toril for Elminster isn't going to be swiftly done."
It may be unnecessary, the Simbul said hopefully. He may just be off gallivanting in disguise, or hidden in the heart of wild magic somewhere…
"Yes," Storm replied, putting as much hearty reassurance into that word as she could. But as she hung the pry bar back on its hook and sought the stairs to her wardrobe, her heart was dark and heavy, and foreboding ran lightly beside her. She had a feeling it would be at her