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 gloams. Had been, rather, Gord corrected himself mentally. One of the reasons for the paucity of hamlets and villages in the realm was the dragon. Each year he would select a place to terrorize, settle down nearby, and proceed to devour all of the livestock and phantom folk dwelling in the vicinity. When the place became deserted, the dragon simply moved on. Vishwhoolsh had been able to scent out his prey from leagues distant.
“Even with the dragon’s demise, lesser minions might be sought out and enlisted by the gloams,” the village leader said with grim satisfaction evident upon his shadowy features. “But such puny things as will come can be dealt with by dweomered shafts and the Shadowking’s spell-binders!”
Score one for justice for a change, Gord reflected. These phantoms were human enough to make the young thief feel comfortable, to enable him to relate to them as if they were flesh-and-blood humans. Perhaps they would be, or were once, on his own world. “I seek the Chiaroscuro Palace,” he told them. “I believe that your lord and I might transact business to our mutual satisfaction.”
“That is indeed too bad,” the bowman said quietly. “It passed us not two leagues distant but a day ago, but it flows rapidly, and by now it must be a score or more miles beyond.”
“How soon will it approach again?”
“Hmm… It is a difficult problem, reckoning time here,” the bowman said with a shake of his ashen-colored locks. “It comes perhaps four times in a hundred sleeps. This time was just before the Festival of Twilight, when the heavens brighten and Mool’s disc grows penumbral and waxen-a time of great merriment! You must stay for our own celebration here in Dunswych!”
“No, I fear I must find your king.”
“No good now, friend,” one of the villagers assured him. “After Twilight, these lands grow most livid Indeed, and thereafter the Shadowking sets forth on his rounds. He is but seldom in his hall at such a time, and when he is away, you’ll not be welcomed there. Gloams creep in, you know.”
“When is Twilight?” The question seemed odd, here in this place of near darkness.
“Any time now. stranger, any time! We make preparations even as you ask. Let us eat, drink, and then go abed for a bit. There will be those to awaken us when the time is right.”
Gord was making rapid mental calculations. There was a chance he could pull it off. “Can anyone here guide me to the place where your king’s palace was yesterday?”
“Of course! I will gladly do so right after Twilight,” the bowman said heartily, swigging his black ale.
“No, I mean now, this minute! I wish to be taken to the exact spot, distance-wise, where the Chiaroscuro Palace was last seen. Can and will you do that?”
The big phantom took only an instant to consider the request. “It is easy, for I am a hunter. If we hurry, I can have you there in about a quarter-sleep-sooner if you mind not jogging as the dingewolf does.”
Pleadings to hurry back, mixed with good wishes, followed the two as they trotted from the village into the black and gray of the land. Now that Gord was aware of what was coming, the face of the strange luminary above did seem lighter, the illumination it provided less dim, and the faintly glowing black specks that were Shadowrealm’s stars were hardly visible in the gloom above.
Gord was a tireless runner, and he pushed his guide hard. They came to the spot the fellow was sure was the right one within about an hour and a quarter by Gord’s reckoning, based in part on his heartbeat, in part on an inner time sense. The ever-paling face of Mool hung motionless overhead now.
“I must say goodbye, stranger,” the bowman said. “Luck in all you undertake!”
“Thanks, phantom friend,” Gord called back, already jogging downcurrent. “My hopes for prosperity in Dunswych henceforward!” Then the phantom was out of sight and Gord was running hard in the direction the palace had been seen flowing. When he grew winded, he paused, rubbed himself with the flame-hearted opal, and then dashed on again, covering ground as does a dark wind blowing fiercely from the north.
The terrain of Shadowrealm flowed, of that there was no question. Yet, when one moved along the flow, up or down, or even across, the movement altered somehow. Thus, the destination Gord sought was not moving away from him-at least not as rapidly as if he were not coming toward it from behind. Under the ever-lightening disc of Mool, Gord raced. When his muscles again grew tired, and that occurred all too soon, he renewed his vigor with the opal and trotted onward. His pace ate up yards, and yards grew quickly into miles. When he became truly weary, Gord pulled out Shadowfire a third time, concentrated, and pressed the opal sphere to his flesh. Tingling flowed into him, and his skin began to shine with the luster of ancient silver. That was enough-more, and he might actually sink through the fabric of this place!
Like quicksilver he ran, and that suited his looks well. The luminary above was just becoming the color of old tallow when Gord spied a massive structure on the gray horizon ahead. It was a huge place of towers, turrets, spires, and flying buttresses-the Chiaroscuro Palace of the Shadowking at last!
“I am called Smokemane,” a deep voice rumbled at him in the language common to men.
Gord swung quickly at the sound. There, as if conjured from the vapors, was the largest lion imaginable, one whose shaggy head was of smoky hue, just slightly darker and less sleek than his dove-gray body. Near this great beast sat another maned male lion of shadow, seeming to be the soot-maned one Gord had seen in the throng of creatures that had encircled him shortly after his arrival on this plane-the one that had left, taking other shadow lions with it, when Gord had requested it to leave.
The cats smiled at him, a gesture perhaps meant to put Gord at ease but one that had the opposite effect. “I go to the place where the Shadowking holds forth,” he managed to stammer to the pair. “Do not inhibit my progress,” he added, not feeling very threatening to such great beasts as these.
The younger of the two, the huge lion with the sooty-shadow mane, actually laughed in lion-fashion as Gord said that. Smokemane, an even larger creature, cuffed him with claws sheathed. “When that one speaks,” he roared, “you listen!”
The old male then turned to Gord once again, saying, “Your destination was told to us by our liege lord. It was he who commanded us to await your arrival, and we are to accompany you as attendants-if it pleases you.”
Despite the pressure of time, Gord allowed himself to stay still, staring at the two shadow-lions with interest. Perhaps great cats could speak, in a language of their kind, but how was it that these shadow-lions could converse with him in man-speech? Animals of this sort weren’t supposed to do that! But, beast or no, Smokemane was indeed speaking in human tongue, and in a manner that indicated that he and his young companion had intelligence far above that of the felines of Oerth, for instance.
Gord had to know just what these creatures were. “You mentioned your liege lord…” he ventured.
“The Mastercat, of course!” the sooty-maned one supplied. The older lion seemed disturbed at his companion’s disregard of protocol but growled a note of assent at the identification.
That seemed believable, even fitting. Shadowrealm was as appropriate a place for felines as the material plane, and it stood to reason that cats here, as elsewhere, would have but one lord.
“How came it to pass that your lord knew of me?” Gord asked.
“When you sent Hotbreath, there, and his pride away from the circle of shadowfolk who had come because of the compelling force you emanated, he spoke of it to me,” Smokemane rumbled in reply. “I would have done nothing in the matter, for such things are beyond the ordinary course of our folk. In any event, it was taken from my claws by the Mastercat. He came to me. asking about any unusual events here, and I related what Hotbreath had said. Thus we are now at this place awaiting your instructions, lord.”
Lord? The gem he possessed must have powers he still did not fathom! “Thanks to you, bold pridemaster… Thank you both,” Gord said to the two huge lions. “As it is the wish of the Mastercat, evidently in return for my regard for his own, I accept your service. I must enter the Chiaroscuro Palace and have audience with the Shadowking. You two will be my attendants in this matter.”
Hotbreath stood and stretched, flexing forth his long claws and displaying his massive teeth. Above and beyond their extraordinary brainpower, shadow-lions, it seemed, were nearly as amply endowed with fangs as the archaic smilodons, the saber-toothed proto-tigers.
Smokemane too exhibited his arsenal of teeth in a relaxed yawn that followed Gord’s words. Then he snapped his maw shut and rasped, “The Shadowking loves not cat-kind.”
If that is true, Gord wondered, then why would the Mastercat command these two to intercept him just as he was about to visit the hall of the ruler of the shadow plane? But that was not quite the question he wanted to ask. First it was important to get to the heart of the matter.
“Why does the lord of this plane bear enmity toward you?”
“You? Better think of it as us,” Shadowmane purred. “That one would have it that all who dwell in shadow either serve him or strive against him. Being able to classify creatures thusly seems to satisfy Shadowking in some perverse way. But we are cats, and our ways are our own. Our lord is what he is, and we honor and serve in our own particular ways as we choose. If others are princes or peasants, what matters that to cat-kind? Alone we stand, go our way, do as seems fitting. Such independence is disturbing to the ruler of this plane, for it seems he would have control, as the puppeteer pulls the strings, for good or ill. You too are independent, aloof, and your own being.”
“Are you saying that Shadowking is malign?”
“Nay,” the big cat said, shaking its massive head in manlike fashion to emphasize the response. “He is not a servant of EMI. Not even I would so designate Shadowking. His self-will goes beyond the acceptable-for us cats, this is condemnation enough. That one desires to remove liberty from others through control, but in fairness it was not always thus.”
“Wise pridemaster,” Gord said with real respect evident, “I am in your debt, for had I gone alone into the hall of Shadowking, I fear nothing beneficial would have occurred-if, as you say, I would have been treated in some way as a lone representative of cat-kind. In the company of two such as you, I see my chances of a fair audience much improved. Time fleets, and we must press on, but one thing still remains uncertain in my mind. You say that the lord of this realm is changed. What brought such ill?”
“That, lord, I cannot say, for the workings of the minds of such as he are beyond my poor reasoning. You are far more competent at such than I, of that I am certain. Perhaps Shadowking himself will say his own rede to you, for he deals more frankly with peers than with other beings.”
“Me, a peer of his? Not quite, doughty one, not quite. You see in me a false might, a puissance lent by what I bear… no more. Still, into Shadowking’s palace I must go. Let us proceed!”
Both mighty lions seemed to smile at that, as is the wont of such great cats when they choose to express feeling and opinion. “We stand beside you,” Hotbreath coughed in a vigorous assent that ended with a chest-vibrating roar. Smokemane too sent forth the deep sound of lionkind. The two were heralding the approach of their charge.
The Chiaroscuro Palace was a rambling affair, part fortress, part pleasure-place. As they neared the massive pile, Gord loosened his weapons in their scabbards, feeling small and insignificant even with Shadowfire in his pouch. He put the feeling aside and motioned to the great cats. Stepping from the cover of the copse of silver and black foliage, he and his flanking escort strode boldly to the principal entrance of the Chiaroscuro Palace. The entrance was made of obsidian and gray marble, with soaring walkways and pennoned domes high above the broad steps leading to the ornate gates that stood open in invitation to the Festival of Gloaming now getting underway. Silvery-sounding trumps competed with thundering drums as the trio approached. Whether in challenge or salutation, the minions of the Shadowking were responding to Gord’s lion-hearted arrival.
“Why are the walls untenanted, the battlements unmanned?” Gord asked the lions softly.
“My nose says this whole place is filled with many two-legged ones, and the formless things as well,” Hotbreath rumbled in response.
Now that he thought about it, this seemed a far more reasonable way to guard a shadow-palace-not with openly visible sentries, but with gloomy, hidden wards. Shadows cloaked, obscured. They were the stuff of nothingness, yet shadows could mask substance. They aided and betrayed and were everywhere and nowhere at once. They were the stuff of illusion… Of course!
Having hit on the likely solution, Gord determined to accept nothing his eyes told him, and he paused and peered upward at the tall facade of the sprawling place. What he saw made his mind reel for an instant The palace was not so grand and ornate as it had seemed. More a stronghold than a whimsical mansion-the court of a warrior, not the palace of a poet and dreamer. Pillars and columns were actually armed soldiers, stone bartizans were actually great, griffonlike guardians of Inky feathers and pearly beaks, perched to plummet upon unwelcome visitors.
Gord pretended to have something in his eye, going through a series of blinkings and rubbings as he scanned what he could. “Do you see any creatures on the battlements? Warriors on the parapets?”
Neither cat responded, although both of the massive lions had swung their maned heads this way and that as Gord had continued to pause and seemingly remove a speck from his eye. The silence confirmed his assumption. Shadowking masked his palace in illusion; layer upon layer was possible, in fact. The young thief determined to do his utmost to penetrate the veils and discover the true nature of the Lord of Shadowrealm and his chiaroscuro stronghold. “Come, my friends,” Gord said jauntily. “Let us pay our respects to the King of Shadow.” Then he ascended the translucent steps of whorled agate, the huge, maned lions pacing him on either hand.
A shadowy figure in swarthy and insubstantial-seeming robes of voluminous sort was standing against a great pillar of stone, a veined column of polished marble that stretched the height of five men to support the arched ceiling of the long antechamber. When Gord and his lion guard neared the silvery doors at the end of the hall, the figure spoke, but the voice seemed to issue from a marble statue forming part of the opposite support. “A noble man, unproclaimed by bearing or device, save for two male lions as guard and escort!”
The lions shifted their eyes toward the statue, so effective was the ventriloquism of the magical major domo who announced them. The metal valves parted instantly at the words, swinging silently and smoothly inward to reveal a seemingly boundless space beyond. Were those real stars? Mool’s ivory disc, too? No, the phantasm was penetrable when Gord concentrated. The chamber was huge, no question, the ceiling of its dome no less than sixty feet above, but it was no more than a massive room in a mighty palace despite the design of Shadowking to have guests see it otherwise.
“For revelers to be welcomed at Twilight-tide,” a soft voice said sweetly, “they must provide their name and nature. Prithee, my lord, favor me with this dear information so that I may proclaim it first to our sovereign.”
Gord saw a darkly beautiful woman, one he judged to be a phantom lady of the court by her dress and demeanor. “An honor and privilege, m’lady. You may state that Gord, High Citizen of Greyhawk of Oerth, has come to pay his respects to the Shadow-king,” he told her, trying not to overtly stare as he sought to determine her real nature.
“As you wish, honorable gentleman,” the lovely lady of shadow replied, switching honorifics smoothly and giving a tiny and appropriate curtsey suited to Gord’s announced status. “But I must say you are too modest,” she added with a fluttering of long, sable eyelashes. “Your bearing and manner proclaim far more of you than the humble rank you claim aloud, and no simple citizen of a free city anywhere comes accompanied by pridemasters as guards.”
A game of words was afoot, so Gord rephrased his status, but played it down instead of exalting it, which would have given the woman more information than she deserved. “Very well. Let us change it then. Say that Gord, a wanderer and rogue, comes to call.”
The woman started a full obeisance, having anticipated something more glorious than she was told. Then, flustered, she halted, recovered herself, and hurried off into the throng populating the ceremonial hall to report her news. Gord smiled to himself. Illusion could be countered with misdirection and simple truth as well. Those who sought to delude were more often confounded by plain speaking and obvious realities than the stuff of which they were masters. Odd, however, that this inquisitress was as she seemed. A lesson, he supposed, to not expect everything to be masked. A subtlety used by the Lord of Shadows that would not be lost upon him.
“Gord, a worthy personage, accompanied by two pridemasters of our realm,” a hushed but pervasive voice intoned. Eyes suddenly turned toward him, and Gord felt a trifle uncomfortable. The company he saw watching him and the two lions included the creatures he knew as adumbrates, plus what were surely gloams with shadowkin retainers trailing after, all interspersed with phantoms, fuligi, shades, murklings, spirits, and humans too. There! That was a small company of draw! Gray-skinned dwarf beside deep-brown gnome, and a smattering of humanoids of unusual sort-beings who recalled to Gord’s mind the ehjure Pinkus, a memorable creature who had accompanied him long ago on another adventure involving illusion and deception.
A square fellow with jutting brows over a broad, honest face approached them with a swaggering gait. “Hello, Gord. You haven’t any idea who I am, I know, but I’ve heard tell of you!” Then the man turned away, and was about to head elsewhere when he turned back and winked a merry eye. “Don’t worry-I’ll not say a word…” and with that the crowd swallowed him up. Shrugging helplessly, Gord stood uncertain as the strains of a strange melody suddenly were struck up, and the place began to become aswirl with dancing couples.
“My lord?” It was the lovely shadow-woman again, smiling up at him uncertainly as she arose from a full curtsey. Gord nodded, and she spoke on. “I am discourteous, but I fear that the king orders me thus. Rather than dancing, His Gloominess commands your presence in the Vault of Veils. Such an audience during this festive time is unheard of,” she added with a hint of awe. “You should be ashamed for misleading a lady so.”
Gord could only smile ambiguously at that. Whatever the reason for it being granted, he did desire an audience with the Shadowking. Even though the monarch had anticipated him, the need remained. “Sometimes, sweet lady, necessity demands that we not always appear as we are, or say all that pertains.”
The phantom smiled and nodded at his words, a look of relief on her pretty features. “Oh yes, of such I am most aware. Lord… Gord?” She made it almost a question and gave a whisper of tinkling laughter at the rhyme. “I should not have felt deceived because you pretended low rank, I know. It was just that I felt drawn by some… no matter, craving your indulgence. I chatter so that I am mortified. This is my first festival as Court Duplitrix, and so many notables make me feel inadequate.”