Plague of Shadows Read online

  "Have you found him yet?" he demanded.

  "I think they're in the ruined watchtower."

  "I could have guessed that, the way we were going."

  "And if you'd stood up on the hill here, they'd have seen you."

  Drelm grunted. "What were you doing up there?"

  "Assessing our enemy, Drelm. One wizard and two trusted guards came up to the knoll. Likely there were a handful more about the bottom holding their horses.

  The half-orc nodded slowly. Was that approval, she wondered?

  "Well. If they're in the ruins, let's have the wizard throw a spell on us. For quiet."

  He was at least aware of some of his deficiencies, then, which is more than she'd given him credit for. "I can do better. It's time to enter the shadow realm."

  "You can sneak up on them that way?" Drelm's small eyes narrowed in suspicion.

  "We can. Captain, when next I give an order, you must follow me, or someone may die. Do you understand?"

  "You ride and track well," the half-orc admitted. "The baron says you are a great fighter." He sounded as though he were half-willing to believe the information, probably because he so admired the baron. "But you are a woman. I can see that you are not strong." He waved at her slim body with his free hand.

  "Neither is a serpent," she countered. "But it's still swift and deadly. You forget I am older than I seem."

  He said nothing, and his expression was unreadable. At least he was no longer wrinkling his brow at her.

  The half-orc grunted, somehow conveying finality. He looped his throwing axe back onto his belt, and Elyana started down. As she descended, she wondered what she'd said that had proved more convincing than the last time. Shorter sentences and smaller words, likely.

  Soon they were back beside their mounts, and Elyana quickly hobbled the legs of her companions' horses with lengths of rope. Persaily she trusted not to wander. "Don't forget. The shadow wizard must be taken alive."

  "What can this shadow mage do?" Drelm asked.

  "He will do his best to confuse your senses," Elyana answered. "Arcil was never good at seeing beyond his own senses. He thinks like a human. No offense."

  "None taken." Kellius raised his hand good-naturedly.

  Drelm only frowned, but whether that was because he was insulted to be considered other than human or because he remained impatient Elyana did not know. Or care. "His illusions are more sight-based than anything else," she continued. "Trust your nose and your ears. Stay close, especially as we approach our departure point."

  "Shouldn't we ride?" Kellius asked.

  "Horses aren't fond of the shadow realm," she said, though she did not add that unpracticed riders on those horses worried her more.

  "What is ...on the other side?" Kellius asked. "I have heard about the shadow world, but not very much."

  "The darkness of twilight, and a crushing sense of isolation. Your senses will strain to make sense of it. Try not to pay much attention to the things on the edges of your vision—anything beyond your immediate sight is insubstantial and might well shift."

  Kellius nodded once. His silence might have been meant to hide nervousness. Drelm, naturally, was still frowning. Stelan had called him dependable, and so far his irritability and sullen nature was unflagging.

  "We shall not be there for very long." Elyana hoped that would be true. In her experience distances were always shorter in the shadow realm, though she had heard that sometimes they were longer, or warped, or utterly confused. No need to tell the others. "I'll take us to the ruins through the shadow realm and then into the real world for the attack."

  "You said Arcil's a shadow wizard," Kellius said. "Is he going to be able to sense us coming?"

  "He might."

  Elyana stared down at her ring and tried not to think that Arcil himself had helped her deduce its use. Might he expect her? He had once complained that he could never anticipate her reactions; could she still trust that she'd surprise him?

  Her eyes made contact with the ring, and the full power of it swept into the air surrounding her, like a dark, windblown fog. Focusing her will upon that energy was something like grasping hold of the shoots of a deeply rooted plant and pulling hard enough to feel its connection to the soil without ripping it free.

  She took hold, whispered a word in ancient Azlanti, and reality spun. Persaily nickered in surprise at the formation of the whirling circle of black vapor. She heard Kellius exclaim behind her, and the other horses whinnied.

  Elyana put hand to hilt and stepped through.

  Beyond the portal lay a plain of waving black grass. A few miles to her left the ground twisted sharply, as though some deity had grasped hold of the earth and bent the plain in the middle until it lurched to one side.

  Elyana scanned the grasses and waited for her companions. Kellius stepped through a moment later, his gaze roving wildly.

  Drelm's eyes were narrowed in suspicion as he too took in the place. "May Abadar guide me," he said.

  Elyana lifted her leather-clad arm toward the distant hill. Stone pillars stretched clawlike for the heavens. The stars here were points of flickering blackness in the gray sky.

  "The sooner we're out of here, the better," Kellius said. His voice was dulled in the Plane of Shadow and did not carry far. About them was only silence. There was no wind, nor the creak of insects or the call of night animals. Nothing.

  "I know you're eager to be done with this," Elyana cautioned, "but do not rush. There are things here that our senses may not detect." With that, she started forward.

  The strange ebon grasses reached to her elbows, and the ground was dry beneath her boots. The stars themselves drifted slowly, like clouds. She tried not to look at them. From somewhere far to their right came what she took to be a keening wind, but it did not rise and fall—it just continued in a high, whistling moan for a long moment before ebbing away.

  They were two-thirds of the way across the plain when her sharp eyes caught something moving in the ruin; a man shape half again as large as a man, with long swaying arms. It ducked quickly behind a stone wall and did not reappear.

  Was the beast real or phantom? A guardian that Arcil had summoned? Had he anticipated her?

  They walked to the back side of the hill. A gently sloping path was carved into the hillside parallel to the ruin itself so that the old stone stood sentinel above.

  "Something moved in the ruins," Elyana told her companions, and they followed her gaze. Drelm sniffed the air and unlimbered his axe.

  Elyana loosed her sword in the scabbard but did not yet draw it, knowing that the blade would gleam furiously in the Plane of Shadow. She lifted her bow out of the holster at her shoulder.

  She started up the ramp at a jog, the others following.

  Stone rumbled above them. They looked up in time to see a dark chunk of masonry plummet down.

  "Look out!" Elyana shouted, and sprinted ahead. She heard the impact behind her as the ground shook. There were no screams, only a growled curse from Drelm and the rumble of the rock sliding farther down, so she kept her attention on the final leg of the old ramp. Nothing was left of the gatehouse but a jumble of masonry, though the wall to its right was intact. A long-armed figure rose up from behind shattered second-story crenellations and heaved up a man-sized hunk of stone. It let out a deep-throated roar of challenge.

  Elyana raised her bow, then heard Kellius behind her.

  "I've got him," the mage declared. Lightning flashed up from the man's fingertips. The spell struck the shadow man about head and shoulders, revealing a corpselike face with fangs half the length of its head.

  Its roar transformed into a cry of pain. The beast dropped the stone to shield its eyes with clawed hands.

  Elyana selected one of her silver-tipped arrows by the feel of its feather
s and nocked it to the bow. In a heartbeat it was airborne. Even as the lightning faded and the creature hunched and sniffed toward them, the arrow took it through one eye and it howled and dropped to the slope. It did not rise.

  Elyana readied another arrow and leapt a fallen pillar to move deeper into the ruins.

  She stepped into an uneven rectangle of stone. Loose rock and entire sections of wall lay in shattered lines across the courtyard, overgrown with black grasses. Most of the tower's second story had fallen away, but a few narrow walkways still thrust out jaggedly alongside the merlons.

  Something moved at the corner of her vision. She spun to find a second beast-man rising from behind a pile of tumbled masonry, hefting a broken tree limb.

  Drelm roared a challenge behind her, and she stepped aside so the half-orc could face the charging creature head on. She coolly surveyed the rest of the site.

  The captain ran past her, axe lifted in one thick hand. The beast gibbered and readied to swing its branch.

  She was glad she'd taken her time. Another shadow beast rose up from along the second floor. Elyana threw herself clear as a large hunk of stone blasted into the ground where she'd been standing. She ignored the rocky shrapnel raining against her left leg, rolled to a kneeling position, and sent another silver arrow winging.

  She had aimed for the creature's throat, but it bent to scoop up another rock and the arrow slid over its scalp and disappeared into the darkness.

  On her left Drelm let out a whoop of triumph as his greataxe sliced off the beast-man's shriveled head. Its body roiled away in black smoke.

  Elyana's second arrow caught her attacker through the throat just as it hefted its stone overhead. It too dissolved into vapor. The massive stone it held fell through the space where it had stood and took a chunk of the second floor with it into the ground.

  Elyana scanned the rest of the ruins, then stepped slowly into the center, peering behind rubble. Nothing.

  "Praise Abadar!" Drelm came over to join her. "A good battle, that!"

  Not as Elyana saw it. Arcil must have anticipated her actions and placed these guardians. That evidenced a greater mastery of shadow magics than he'd ever shown. She'd have to plan their next move carefully. Her mood dark, she climbed up one broken wall, then jumped nimbly to grasp the broken ledge of the second floor.

  "What are you doing?" Drelm called up.

  "Retrieving my arrows." It wasn't just that she'd crafted them herself. She had only a handful that were effective against creatures of darkness, and no longer traveled with a wizard who could enchant more.

  The first arrow was completely serviceable, though the fletching would need repair. From the height she looked down on Kellius and Drelm wandering guardedly about the ruins. The dark, endless expanse of the plains twisted beyond ...

  In short order she'd recovered her arrows and rejoined the half-orc and the mage in the center of the ruins. Drelm was grinning, flush with the joy of his battle. She wished she could share his elation.

  "I think Arcil set these things here as sentinels," she said. "He must know we're here."

  Drelm growled. "You said this was the best way."

  She partly agreed with his approbation. She had misjudged. Either Arcil had been planning this for a very long time, or he'd grown far more powerful.

  Her question to Drelm showed none of her internal worries. "Have we failed yet?"

  The half-orc glowered, but did not answer.

  "They may know we're coming," Elyana told them. "However—" she turned to Kellius—"suppose a spell were to come through first?"

  "What do you have in mind?" Kellius asked.

  Elyana smiled. "What do you have on hand?"

  Chapter Four

  Distractions in the Dark

  Elyana and Kellius came through the spiral from the Plane of Shadow at the same moment, Kellius casting forth a blinding light, Elyana sending arrow after arrow into the Nidalese mercenaries who threw shielding arms across their eyes. Drelm charged through on their heels in time to launch a throwing axe at an archer on a ledge.

  After that surprise there were only four of eight men left, one of them the wizard. Elyana spotted him in the corner and sprinted his way, swaying clear of the arrow aimed at her from the darkness. The shaft skittered away against the stones. She closed her eyes to the prismatic blast of colors raining all about her from the column ahead and paused briefly to send an arrow in response. Someone cried out, and then from behind came the scream of men in pain—an old sound, and too familiar, though she was still unused to Drelm's triumphant war whoop.

  Elyana spotted Arcil leaning against the column, his hand clasped around the arrow shaft embedded in his sleeve and upper arm. His lips moved, then closed up as she drew her sword and leveled it at his throat from two paces off. "Let's have none of that, Arcil."

  Before she had even finished her sentence, she knew something was wrong; there was hatred in those hooded eyes, but no recognition, only a wary fear. This was not Arcil, despite appearances. "Where is he?"

  "Where's who, Elyana?" The man's words were in a fine imitation of Arcil's voice.

  On closer inspection, she saw more evidence that she faced someone other than Arcil, for the man in front of her could be no older than forty. Arcil had been the oldest human of their band, and must now be approaching sixty, if he had not surpassed it.

  Yet this man looked like Arcil from the old days. The clean-shaven face was handsome in an arrogant way, with a thin, arched nose. His teeth were white and straight, showing now in a sneer. The tips of his dark hair were flecked with gray, less like actual age and more like the stage makeup of someone playing a distinguished gentleman.

  "Arcil was a comrade," Elyana told him. "You are nothing." She pressed the sword to the man's neck. "Where is he?"

  "I thought you said to go easy on him," Drelm commented, stepping into her field of view. The half-orc held his bloodstained axe almost casually in one large hand.

  "Eyes sharp," she said. "This man's an impostor."

  Drelm yelled for Kellius to look alive for skulkers, but Elyana guessed there'd be nothing more to see.

  She pricked the impostor's neck with her blade and drew a bead of blood. The impostor's chin rose and his eyes—Arcil's eyes—showed their whites in fear.

  "Let me save your time," she said. "You're an apprentice. He placed an illusion of his semblance upon you, then told you to hold this position."

  "Yes," the man said.

  "Why?"

  His eyes considered her blade, faintly catching starlight. She withdrew it a handspan. He risked a breath and paled as she swirled her sword point before him. An elven blade forged for elven physique, it was intended for both slicing and thrusting, and Elyana kept the point razor-sharp.

  The apprentice gulped with Arcil's throat. "He said to relay a message, should you come to me."

  "Yes?"

  "Do you promise not to slay me, if I give it?"

  "Which of us do you fear more?"

  The fellow was not without spirit. He considered her. "In the main, I fear my master."

  "I'm of a mind to let you live," Elyana said, "if there are no tricks."

  "My only trick is that the master watches, and stands ready with magic."

  "There is no one here but us," Elyana countered, and did not care for the satisfied smile that played at the corner of the man's mouth. He did not bluff—either Arcil waited nearby, invisible, or he was ready, somehow, to cast a spell from afar.

  "The message," Elyana prompted.

  His eyes flicked briefly up and to his left in recollection, and then he spoke. This time, the words were so typical of Arcil that, as he said them, it was much easier to believe she faced the real man.

  "You always liked to be kept busy, Elyana, so I arranged several
divertissements for you this evening. I hope they amused you. Questioning this one at any real length will only result in his death, which will sadden you and frustrate me, as I've put considerable time into his training. There's no good way to trace me. I advise you to employ your considerable talent in locating the statuette our idiot friend has hidden so that I don't have to kill him."

  Elyana stared hard at the man before her, wondering for a moment if it wasn't truly Arcil playing some kind of game. Then she saw the wary look in his eye and the way he held himself. This fellow was arrogant, but lacked Arcil's assured superiority.

  "It seems your master places some value in you," Elyana said.

  "Some." The impostor's voice held a hint of pride. "But I would give much to be held in the same regard he holds you."

  Even still? Had Arcil remained infatuated all these years? It was hard to imagine.

  Kellius drew up on her left. "Did you learn anything?"

  Elyana lowered her blade and glared at Arcil's apprentice. "This was all a trap. Well, not a trap, but a waste of time. Arcil guessed my plan. There's nothing to be learned from this one."

  "I can make him talk," Drelm said.

  "My master would not permit me to live," the fellow said.

  "So asking you what he really wants with the statue is right out, then," Elyana asked.

  "It is." The man sounded insufferably pleased to be under a death threat. "Or where he's really staying, or what his strength is."

  The false Arcil smiled at her, smugly, so she wiped the tip of her blade clean on the cuff of his robe. That went a long way toward adjusting his expression to one more palatable."

  "Well then." Elyana sheathed her sword. "You'll just have to find your way back to your master yourself, and let him remove the arrow. That should be fun."

  Drelm stood frowning beside her. "Couldn't Kellius work something out of him?"

  Kellius glanced quizzically at the half-orc. "What do you mean?"

  Drelm took a moment, clearly trying to decide how to communicate his idea. "She's afraid the wizard will be killed by Arcil. With magic. Can you protect him so we can question him?"