asked almost reproachfully.
Amdramnar gave this sally a delighted grin. 'This is fun. I must tell you all, I've really enjoyed hearing jests and clever words with every third breath of the day. It's something… rare in the Castle of Shadows.'
'You get tired of it,' Sharantyr told him flatly. 'Really you do.'
The Shadowmaster spread his hands. 'Perhaps after years together, I might, but I've had barely more than an evening to enjoy your company so far.'
'We'll be happy to stay with you again this night, if you'll have us,' Shar said firmly, 'but we'd like to see more of this wondrous castle today. May we wander it freely?'
Their host grimaced and then reluctantly nodded. 'With care, yes,' he said. 'Speak to others with deference, I urge you, and tell them you're… my allies, if questioned. Do not mention Elminster or the goddess Mystra, and I strongly advise you to refuse all duels, no matter what the provocation. Nor should you surrender that sword.' He nodded at the faintly glowing blade in Sharantyr's hands, and then at the plate before her. 'But eat first, and drink deep. Water and food will be scarce as you wander. Meals are taken privately among my kin, never consumed in banquets or at set times. Oh, and worry not, young sirs, about controlling your shape-shifting when you leave my chambers. My magic has taken care of that small problem.'
The Harpers exchanged uneasy glances at the news they had been bespelled without their knowledge, but shrugged, and smiled again.
'Who heads your family?' Sharantyr asked casually, chewing strong-seasoned buttered rolls, and being surprised at how marvelous they tasted.
'The Shadowmaster High, who sits on the Shadow Throne,' Amdramnar replied calmly, perching himself on the edge of a seat as the three rangers ate. What he'd made was very good, and they told him so. He grinned with pride, and Sharantyr found herself warming to their host. He was just like Belkram and Itharr, at heart.
No, lass, Sylune said quietly, in the depths of her mind. That's what he wants you to think, but that's not what he is. Watch him always.
'What's he like?' Belkram asked. 'I mean, how'll he react if someone complains that three humans are wandering around his halls?'
'He'll do nothing,' Amdramnar replied, 'because he's dead. The Shadow Throne sits empty.'
'Empty?'
'Yes, and don't even approach it when you reach the Great Hall. It's guarded, and an attempt to sit on it will bring swift death upon you.'
'I'll try to remember that,' Belkram said dryly. 'Help me, will you Itharr?'
'Great Hall… don't sit on throne,' Itharr murmured. 'Yes, I think I've got it.'
'Good,' Belkram said. 'Anything else?'
'Don't mind them,' Sharantyr said. 'They mean no offense by this flippancy. It's just their foolish way.'
'Oh, I realized that early on,' the Malaugrym told her, 'but I must warn you that some of my kin won't understand it so, or will consider the insult all the greater if they do. Friends, be very careful.'
Belkram sighed. 'Everyone tells me that… aunts, mother, tutors, passing rangers and merchants… even you and you and you. Doesn't anyone want me to have any fun?'
'During your execution, or after?' Itharr inquired, running a finger around his plate to catch the last of the butter.
Shar sighed. 'Just do as Amdramnar says, will you?'
'Heroes never do as they're told,' Belkram informed her proudly.
Shar looked at him. 'Has it never occurred to you,' she asked dryly, 'that such stone-headed habits might be why the term 'dead' usually goes in front of the title 'hero'?'
'I thought it was just to make tombstones look grander,' the Harper replied.
Itharr sighed heavily. 'I'll start work on yours straight away.'
Not far away in the castle, a lean and lithe woman embraced a long gray saurian neck. It stretched up from a body as large as twenty of her, but it ended in a tiny head that sported a huge underslung jaw lined with hooked teeth, opening up to well back down the massive neck. The jaw opened now.
'Daughter,' the voice came out, as deep and as rough as always, 'I must go. Milhvar's schemes run on while we wait and debate and do nothing.'
'Be careful, father,' Huerbara whispered, so their servitor creatures could not hear. 'I don't want to lose you.'
'I'm always careful,' Ahorga told her gruffly, his stout forelimbs growing long, dexterous claws.
'Be… very careful,' his daughter replied gravely, and he turned away quickly as he saw tears glimmering in her eyes. Malaugrym should not weep.
He waved a jaunty farewell with his tail as he plunged into deep shadows, and in so doing failed to see the small, dark shape that peeled itself off the wall outside his door and drifted after him, flitting from thick shadow to thick shadow.
But then, he'd been a Shadowmaster elder for long centuries. He'd probably have done no differently had the shadow spy walked along right under his nose. Fear's cold iron taste was something he'd almost forgotten.
'This place still makes me feel… uneasy,' Shar murmured as they passed the stair post of chained maidens and set foot on a stone floor hidden beneath knee-deep swirling shadows. Close together and warily they began their cautious walk across the chamber known as the Well of Shadows.
'Is this the heart of their power, d'you think?' Itharr asked quietly. 'What would happen if you called on your sword and started burning and slicing some shadows, right here?'
'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
