Cloak of Shadows - Ed Greenwood [95]
"No, thank you," Shar said calmly, her fingers laced about the hilt of her still-drawn sword as she sat with its point grounded on her boot. "We're not thirsty."
The Malaugrym half-smiled. "Inform me when that situation changes, please," he said smoothly, as a velvet-shrouded seat glided up out of the floor behind him. "I can assure you that whatever I offer will be safe to consume."
He poured himself a glass and sat, adding, "Hard as you may find it to believe, trust is something that can grow between us."
"Well, then," Belkram said, a trifle less smoothly, leaning forward in his seat, "perhaps we can begin by trading information."
"An excellent idea," the Malaugrym said, growing another hand. As they watched, fascinated-for it looked identical to his other limbs and to their own-it deftly took his wineglass, leaving his other hands free to gesture. "Pray state what it is you'd like to know, and what you offer in trade for it."
"Who and what the Malaugrym are," Itharr said calmly, "and what your folk intend to do in the-in Faerun."
Amdramnar nodded. "An inquiry bound to touch on sensitive areas before it is done. And for such lore you will give me-?"
"Tongue-fencing is not a sport all of us here favor," Sharantyr told him bluntly. "What do you want to know?"
The Shadowmaster raised an eyebrow. "Oh? You show mastery of it, though. As to my desires, they approximate yours. I want to know who you are, and why you're here. What are your intentions in Shadowhome?"
"Clear and civil enough," Itharr said. "Who begins?"
"As host," Amdramnar said smoothly, "I feel under some obligation. A little, then, you shall have. My name you know. I am a male of the blood of Malaug, a family who can shapeshift, descended from the sorcerer of that name."
"Who was this Malaug?"
Amdramnar shrugged. "I'm not a historian, and we tend to speak the same few admiring phrases about the family founder, without really knowing overmuch. He's been dead a long time." He sipped wine. "All I really know is that Malaug was a human mage, the first in Toril to find his way here and master the use of shadow in magic."
"What is shadow, anyway?"
"It is the formless, ever-changing stuff of this demiplane. Sages-even among our kin-argue a lot about what shadow really is, but most of us consider the matter something like this. Shadow is the mobile, mutable essence of Shadowhome, a fog that is everywhere, as air is everywhere in Faerun. It absorbs energies and traces of whatever it flows past, and uses these energies to move about. Shadow can easily be harnessed-as a power source and as a raw material-to make things, or used to change things or do things. Its unevenly stored energy gives it lighter and darker areas, although it usually looks sort of gray, like sea mist or moon shadows in Faerun."
"You can make things out of it-solid, permanent things?"
"Well, nothing is permanent. The shadows are ever changing by nature. But yes, some of us can craft items, tools, furnishings, even weapons from it. Much of this castle is made of shadows, and it changes, most of it, only slowly. Learn to fear shadow here, for those who do not learn may die, killed by creatures out of shadow or by their own foolhardy actions."
"Some of you use magic, too," Shar said slowly.
"As with other humans," the shapeshifter said with a smile. "A few of us are mages; most are not."
"Forgive the manner of my asking," Itharr said quietly, "but you are… human?"
"Of course. We can take other shapes-as you your selves have found, shadow tugs at everyone who enters Shadowhome-but we are humans underneath the shapes we take."
"I was wondering about that," Belkram said, looking at his own hands.
Amdramnar spread his hands. "Here in my chambers, as in most inhabited rooms of the castle, the wild effects of shadow are lessened by enchantments and habit and… the force of our wills. Out in the passages, shadows play, though Malaugrym learn to counter unwanted effects until it becomes a habit. Your shifting marked you as mortal. Only the young of my