opalescent light as it swung its horrid snout toward the place its intended victim now occupied.
“My fondest regards, worm!” Gord managed to utter. Then he was moving again-just in time, it seemed, for from the monstrous creature’s mouth gouted a stream of utter darkness that shot forth to engulf the area where Gord had been but an instant previously. The gray vegetation flickered with colorless fire, and was gone everywhere the ebon gout touched.
The shadow-dragon hissed angrily as it discovered the inky gout had not touched this agile little victim after all. Well, there were many ways to handle men and their kind, the creature decided. The dark worm had many means of attack in its arsenal, and a potent magic spell seemed quite in order now, for the man now dared to stab at his precious hindquarters with his puny sword.
“Ffaaahh!” The sound of pain issued forth unbidden as the silvery blade actually pierced the worm’s thick scales and sunk a foot into its body. Now the human would suffer!
Deciding to save its pitchy breath for later, the monster began to hiss forth the sounds that would create the magic of ribboned hues here upon the shadow plane-a weapon that never failed! While the insignificant fool gazed stupidly at the weaving stream of color, he, Vishwhoolsh, would rend the offending one into tasty bits to be devoured casually at his leisure.
Then the streamer appeared suddenly, actually entwining itself around the stupid man! Vishwhoolsh was ecstatic, and writhed round to finish his work, taking his gaze away from his quarry for a couple of seconds.
“You lend brightness to a drab world,” Gord laughed as the massive head of the shadow-dragon turned and once again came snaking toward him. Certainly the thing was startled, for the rainbow now formed a flowing figure-eight around the young thief’s sword, and as the colors played they changed and altered to become but two hues, mossy green and magenta.
The sword’s negation of his magic was bad enough, but quickly the ebon-hued worm’s lambent gaze fixed on an even more upsetting sight. Gord held Shadowfire now so that the orb rested lightly against his weapon’s dark pommel, and the flame within the heart of the black opal seemed to pulse and sway in rhythm with the dancing band of colors made from the dragon’s own magic.
“Spare me!” the thing hissed, transfixed, as the bicolored band suddenly became a darting tongue that shot out and twisted around the worm’s long neck The colors were no longer touching the sword, but were still controlled by it.
“Why?” snarled Gord. “You would not have showed me the same kindness!”
“I have a rich hoard. Spare my life, greatest of men, and I will bestow all my treasure upon you in return.” The creature hissed forth its plea in a voice laden with evil despite its attempt to sound pleasant and promising.
With a twitch of his blade, Gord caused the twin-colored strand to tighten suddenly, making the black worm gulp and swallow the gush of foul stuff it was about to vomit forth upon him. “I grant you mercy,” Gord said with a grim face. “The mercy of a quick end!”
As he spat out the last words, the young adventurer raised the sword’s blade so that it pointed directly at the worm. The mossy hue suddenly changed to glowing bright green, and the magenta turned to brilliant red. The monster stiffened as if its head and tail were being pulled in opposite directions by a colossal titan, rising parallel to the shadowy ground as it did so. The two colors infused the shadow-dragon’s entire body, inculcating the gloomy substance with twin hues of brightness before turning dim. As the colors faded away, so too did the monster.
“And I never learned its name,” Gord remarked in mock sorrow.
A single huge scale lay on the ground nearby. The metallic thing must have come free from the shadow- dragon’s hide when Gord had struck it with his sword. He pierced the plate twice, a laborious process even with his enchanted dagger, and then ran a thong through it. The glittering bit of dragon’s armor was as broad as both of his palms and long as his hand. Gord hung it around his neck as if it were a gorget, thinking it was a suitable memento of his encounter with the beast. Then he resumed his seat on the flat boulder and waited once again.
An indefinite time later, the young thief was startled from his reverie by something new. This time there were no flashes of warning, and he was uncertain what it was that caused his numbed thoughts to suddenly become alert. Then it came to him. Penumbral rows of shadow vegetation had flowed into his vicinity and were standing, so to speak, to either hand. Shadow-crops to feed shadow-folk and phantom-kine… Without moving a muscle, he had come to the outskirts of a town!
The village could have been transplanted from Oerth-from someplace near to Greyhawk, in fact-save for its deep shade and insubstantial-seeming stuff. Gord thought that if he made himself glow with the silvery radiance bestowed by the great stone, he could walk through shadow-brick and umbrageous stone as if it were gossamer. He did nothing of the sort, however. Choosing to remain looking as much a native to this plane as he could, he strode toward the village, knowing that his former hillock perch would be slipping off into the distance behind him as soon as he abandoned it.
“Ho, stranger! What want you in Dunswych?” The challenge came from a large, bow-armed fellow wearing what Gord assumed was a jack of shadow-leather sewn with horn plates. Shadow-stuff was still rather difficult for him to distinguish. When Gord hesitated in replying, the big fellow slipped his long bow from his shoulder and casually nocked a sable-feathered shaft, whistling loudly as he did so.
“Peace, stalwart!” Gord called at that, showing open hands. “I am but a lone and friendly wayfarer seeking a place to eat and rest, a little drink to refresh myself.”
The arrow remained aimed halfway between the ground and Gord as another half-dozen shadowy folk hastened to join the first. Each was armed in some fashion-axe, hunting spear, flail, fork Common but efficient weapons, used by freemen everywhere for both work and defense.
“You are no phantom!” the bowman said in a tone half awestruck and half accusatory.
“Quite so,” Gord laughed in response, “but I daresay we have other things in common.”
What had been meant as a jest seemed to have the desired effect, setting the minds of these folk at ease. Ready arms were eased from striking positions, and the bow-armed fellow reslung his weapon. “Yes, of course. You expected naught but shadowkin, did you?” At that there was a little ripple of uneasy mirth. Then the big one saw what graced Gord’s neck. “Where came you upon that dragon scale?” The query was both suspicious and curious at once. The others crowded closer to see what their comrade had spoken of, and there were whispers of awe as they viewed the makeshift gorget.
“This?” Gord responded with a negligent pinch at the tar-hued scale. “An obliging dragon, one of shadow- stuff like all round here, was kind enough to leave it for me ere I sent it to its just end.”
“You lie!” This sentiment, in several specific forms, came almost simultaneously from the assemblage.
That provoked him a bit, and the young man’s face darkened with anger as he retorted. “Lie!? See if you think this blade lies,” he snapped as his sword seemed to spring into his hand magically. The villagers started to raise their weapons for an attack, but their anticipation proved wrong. “See here, fellow,” Gord said to the bowman, presenting him the blade. He had not bothered to wipe the shadow-dragon’s blood from it, for the silvery metal was enchanted and never seemed to corrode. “Is this not the dried gore from the very sort of monster I speak of?”
The big phantom, as he had called himself, examined the sword, carefully picking off a bit of the crusted blood and examining it. After sniffing, feeling, and even gingerly tasting a flake of the stuff, the fellow decreed it to be dragon’s blood indeed.
“Stranger, you are welcome in Dunswych!” he said happily. “The longer you choose to stay with us, the better, in fact,” and the others echoed this feeling to a man… or to a phantom.
Later, seated in a chair at the village tavern, Gord learned more of Dunswych. The community was one of only a score or so that existed on the Plane of Shadow. All of them were populated by the phantom folk. There were decayed towns and vast, ruined cities too, but gloams and their servants, the shadow-kin, inhabited these desolate places. While phantoms sought to dwell in peace and behaved very much as human commoners would, husbanding and farming, hunting and fishing, the gloams were baneful and destructive parasites that preyed upon the community of phantom folk.
When Gord inquired why their lord didn’t protect them better from such depredations, the locals were quick in defense of their sovereign, the Shadowking. “The gloams are quite like rebellious nobles,” the elderly master of the village explained. “Our king has not enough strength to subdue these marauders… Such slipped from his grasp long and long ago. Why, my own grandsire couldn’t remember the time when the Great Gloams were faithful-although he told me that in his younger days the lesser of their sort were still vassals of the Chiaroscuro Palace.”
The monster he had slain, the shadow-dragon-Vishwhoolsh, as the phantoms named him-was an ally of the
