Crypt of the shadowking - Mark Anthony [1]
The rat squealed in agony.
Startled, the thief cracked his eyes open once again. The rat writhed in pain before him, bathed in the dull red glow emanating from the chasm. In moments its struggling ceased, and it lay dead. That was when the voice spoke.
Serve me, and you shall be made whole.
It was a dry voice, as dusty as old death. The thief shrank from the sound of it. He could not tell where the voice came from, only that it was there.
Serve me, and I shall make you whole, thief.
The words came from the chasm itself, he realized, rising up from the unthinkable depths with the haze of blood-red light. The voice was ancient, enormous, and the thief shriveled beneath it. Yet its words lit a spark of dark hope in his heart.
You are dying, thief. Will you accept?
He tried to wet his lips, but his tongue was as dry as sand. Finally he managed to croak a few words. "Who are you?"
I am darkness.
The thief shuddered at those words. For a moment his mind caught a glimpse of something vast and terrible, ancient yet alive, and hungry, so enormously hungry. He realized this voice reaching up was just a thin tendril of the entire being that waited, down there in the darkness. The thief felt his soul withering. His whole being screamed to let death consume him.
But he had vowed to survive.
Do you accept?
With agonizing effort the thief lifted his head and peered unblinking into the endless depths of the chasm. "Yes," he croaked. There was a vast rumbling deep below, almost like laughter.
Then be made whole, thief!
From the depths of his broken body, the thief screamed. His back arched rigidly, lifting him off the cold stone. White-hot fire seared through him, burning away all that he was. But then cool darkness quenched the fire, drowning him, and he knew no more…
… for a time.
One
The purple gloom of twilight was deepening into night as the traveler rode toward the gates of the city. Torches flickered on the high stone wall that stood on the far bank of the slate-colored river, and beyond, on the dark crag looming above the city's center, a thousand spires rose like silent sentinels into the leaden sky.
The hooves of his mount-a pretty gray mare with a fine, noble head-thudded dully against the damp stones of the road. She was weary, her flanks stained with the sweat and mud of a long journey. Her rider leaned forward to scratch her roughly behind the ears, an action which brought a soft nicker of appreciation.
"Not much farther, Mista," the rider told her. "We're almost home." As if she understood the words-and in truth the rider was not at all certain that she didn't-the horse quickened her pace, lifting her delicate legs a bit higher off the rain-slickened cobblestones. The rider took a deep breath of the moist air. The fine, steady rain had ended only an hour ago, and his midnight blue traveling cloak was dusted with tiny, pearl-gray droplets. The cloak was worn and faded, stained with long years of travel, and in places it was more patches than anything else. But it was a good cloak, its wool still thick and warm, and in this it was much like the man who wore it. He was not a young man. Seven years of wandering the Realms had carved their mark upon his angular, almost wolfish face, and though his green eyes were clear, their color was as faded as the cloak thrown over his broad, sharp-edged shoulders.
But despite the rider's frayed appearance his dark hair bore no trace of gray, and the muscles knotted about his rather large and bony frame were surprisingly strong and quick, as more than a few highway bandits had learned to their dismay over the years. The rider's name was Caledan, and once, before his years of wandering, he had been a Harper.
The Harpers were the meddlers of the Realms. Troubadours and mages, warriors and thieves numbered among their ranks, along with men and women of all races and crafts. Theirs was a small, secret fellowship whose members vowed to work against villainy and wickedness. But instead of