“You shall prove quite worthy of the position, I am sure,” Gord said, not really having any notion as to what the duties of a duplitrix were-other than carrying messages and gathering up guests and depositing them in other places.
“Here is the entrance to the privy audience, noble Gord. My thanks for being so gracious to me,” she said. “If you need further… ministration, ask for Lady Sabina.”
The dark door before which he stood remained shut. It had no handle, no grill to speak through. Should he knock? Inappropriate. He wished he had asked Sabina about what would be happening, but it was too late for that now. Gord folded his arms and stood waiting in the hall-like alcove off the great ballroom. He could be patient. Both lions sat, likewise awaiting the next move. Minutes passed. No person or thing came their way. Sounds only told Gord that a revel was in progress; save for music and whispery voices, laughter and strange singing, he and the shadow-cats might have been in a world alone. Then the door swung suddenly open to expose its half-foot thickness and the fact that no handle existed on its inner side either.
“Enter.” The command was hollow and unhuman.
The Vault of Veils was a double-diamond-shaped room of smallish proportion, although its V-shaped ceiling was twenty feet high. Veils did, in fact, hang everywhere in the place. Gossamer things depending to canopy the room, screen its walls, and divide its eight points. Each cloth was as fine as spiderweb, as sheer as smoke. That such were not to hide anything from view was evident, but Gord felt certain that some purpose for these trappings existed. In the center of the stone chamber was a table that mimicked the room’s shape. Fifteen seats there were, set evenly around the oddly shaped surface. One was darker, mistier than the rest. In it was a very tall, thinnish man of aristocratic bearing and arrogant visage.
“You may seat yourself anywhere… after you pay homage,” the pearly-skinned monarch of shadow said through thin lips as dark as night. His mouth smiled then, but his ashen eyes, the same color as his hair, were as hard as iron.
Gord bent a knee and bowed his head slightly. The gesture was enough to show respect, too little by far) to demonstrate humility. This Shadowking set Gord’s nerves on edge and made his hackles rise. “My thanks, Gracious Lord of Shadows,” he managed to say without any rancor evident. “You are most kind to allow me to see Your Umbrageous Majesty.”
That almost made the fellow start, Gord saw. “It was you who destroyed one of my adumbrates!”
Shadowking said accusingly. “How do you explain that?”
From a place opposite the shadowlord, Gord smiled gently, patting the head of Smokemane as the lion rested at the young adventurer’s side. “I did not come here to explain, majesty. Suffice to say that the monstrosity dared to attack me after being offensive.”
“So, you dare to actually challenge Me in Mine Own Palace! Imprimus said you were meat for the table of the executioner!”
This was all wrong. In a moment the monarch of this plane would be consigning him to whatever passed for dungeons in the realm of shadows, there to await whatever fate was prescribed for criminals in this realm. Based on what he had learned from the folk in Dunswych, this was not the kind of treatment he expected or deserved. There could be only one answer…
Gord rose to his feet and spat out a single word. “Deception!” He meant that he thought the Shadow-king was being deceived, but as he jumped erect and spoke, something wavered before his eyes. The tall, pearl-complected monarch had changed to a smutty form, a hunched gloam.
“Ho, ho, ho!” A new figure had entered the room and was behind Gord. The laughter was soft but somehow conveyed heartiness and force at the same time. “You have failed, Imprimus. This one saw through your pose. Be a good sport and toddle off now to plot my overthrow or something equally useless, there’s a good gloam!”
Gord turned and saw a replica of the man who had been speaking with him from across the table, only this one didn’t strike a wrong note within him, and the smile he now displayed was real. Now Gord made a more humble obeisance, and stood with head inclined until the true Shadowking had ushered the masquerading gloam from the chamber and taken the seat that Imprimus had usurped. “Your Umbrageous Majesty,” Gord said.
“Gord, wayfarer. I welcome you as a worthy subject of My Realm. Do excuse the silly joke. The gloams are amusing, but their schemes and pranks can be tiresome. Now, My time during Twilight is most limited, so I ask you to hand it over, and then you may have your run of the palace.”
The king’s request certainly meant only one thing. “I must wear a blazon upon my cloak announcing what I bear,” Gord thought. Then, speaking firmly, he addressed the Shadowking. “Your majesty, your kind acceptance of my unbidden entrance into your realm is most generous. Know, however, that I came unwillingly as well. I must humbly decline your acceptance-that of myself as a subject of Shadowrealm-for I am of Oerth and am vassal to no one.”
The Shadowking looked annoyed at Gord’s words. “Oh? By your two pets, there, I assume you have ties to the Mastercat. Be aware, mortal, that I rule here. Your present state does not allow you a choice of liege lords, does it? As your king, I now instruct you to give to Me what is Mine. This audience is concluded.”
Gord rose at that, bowing slightly. The two shadow-lions came to their feet likewise, soft growls sounding deep within their massive chests. “Do you claim the scale of the dragon I wear? My sword? What is it that your majesty asks of me?” Gord asked in feigned confusion.
“Don’t try to play cat-and-mouse with me, whelp of the Mastercat! Hand over Shadowfire or face my wrath!”
“The gem is yours, lord…” Gord replied smoothly. But as the Shadowking smiled, he added, “as soon as you restore my memories to my mind and my body to my own plane.”
“You… you… dare make demands of Me?”
“I crave your pardon, Gloomy Majesty. By no means would I be so foolish as to require anything from so royal a lord as you-unless such generosity and favor were given freely, such as in exchange for some service to your majesty and the realm.”
“It is a trifling matter for me to take it from you.”
“Undoubtedly so. Your might is fabled, Lord of Shadows.”
“Shadowfire. Hold it forth.”
“I fear to do so at this moment, majesty. Perhaps when we have discussed the small things which trouble me, we can then view the stone.”
Dark forms began to fill the chamber. Terrible things were taking shape, and all were inimical to Gord and the great lions. Gord responded by reaching into his pouch, touching the strange black opal, and willing its power to travel along his arm and into his body. As he did so, Cord’s flesh began to radiate an iridescent, opaline paleness that washed outward to make deep shadows penumbral.
In effect he had become the luminary of the chamber, and the beams that he shed had a startling effect. Some of the shadows vanished as the pale beams touched them, dispelling into the nothingness they were in actuality. Those not the stuff of illusion became transparent, as if each were but the ghost of a shadow creature, and, lacking substance any longer, wafted harmlessly through the shadowy material stuff of the place to become helplessly entangled in the veils that festooned the room. Fish caught in nets, once-powerful things of Shadowrealm bleated weakly from their filmy prisons as their overlord watched with a bleak expression.
“So you are conversant with the baser powers conveyed to you by the gem,” Shadowking said with a flat tone of resignation in his voice. “Shadowilre bestows such ability because I placed the power within its heart. What I have made, I can unmake.” The last statement contained no hint of threat, not a touch of braggadocio. Indeed, the Lord of Shadows seemed rather filled with sadness when he uttered the pronouncement. This moved Gord.
“Be at ease, majesty. I have no desire to usurp your rule, to contest with your might-even to place myself into an adversarial position. With all due respect and deference, I am here by no will of my own, but the circumstances of my situation demand that I protect myself vigorously.”
The Lord of Shadows scoffed. “You suggest I regard you as a dear cousin even as your flaunt your lese majesty in My palace! Am I to be blackmailed? Never!”
At that, Gord had to take a firm stand. “Have I made demands of you? It is painfully evident that the situation is quite the opposite. I am without memory of my recent past, a virtual prisoner in this place, this shadowy plane, against my desire, and you seek to strip from me my only means of defending myself here as I seek the means to depart from your realm forever. My cause is just, Shadowking, and my course straight. I have that which you seek-Shadowfire. I know not how I gained it, but never did I take it from you! I will gladly gift the gem to your majesty, but in return I ask your royal word that you will restore my memories and see to it I am carried safely to the material world once again.”
“Yet you might be able to usurp the throne, you know.”
“Begging your pardon, majesty, I know nothing of the sort, nor do I care to discover if there is truth in your assertion. Once more, I offer the opal to your lordship, asking only the two small favors I require in return.”
“You are worthy, Gord,” Shadowking laughed, leaning his long spine deeply into the ebon plush of his chair and tilting his pale face back in order to allow the sound to roll forth unhindered. “Without certainty as to strength, potential, or foes, you decide upon a course and walk that line thereafter. Perhaps you do speak truly… I find no guile in your words, nor do the manifold dweomers which cloak this Vault of Veils indicate aught but honesty.” The Shadowlord tilted back his massive seat and looked at Gord along his aquiline nose, black eyes deep and unfathomable. “Am I to accept you as both peer and honest petitioner, then?”
“For the nonce, your majesty… Who amongst us can claim equality and forthrightness for longer?”
Again, Shadowking laughed. “I begin to actually like you, master Gord. You rule naught but yourself, and only that betimes, I think. Still, you are clever and amusing and speak openly. I accept that. Now I shall do the same. Many who dwell within My Realm, the Plane of Shadows, are not indigenous. These Outlanders come here by choice to continue their chosen ways, and such ones are at odds with me, inimical, as it were…”
“The creatures known as gloams?” Gord asked uncertainly.
“Exactly, young prince, but not restricted to that narrow lot by any means. They are once-humans, you know. The murklings were once gnomes and dwarves; the fuligi, curiously enough, elvish sorts. These migrants, along with evil-natured natives of this plane-shadowkin and others too-have combined to oppose My rule and curry mischief and rebellion. I can no longer trust my adumbrates, for instance, due to the machinations of Imprimus and his ilk. Only the phantoms are basically loyal, and, too, certain other of the lesser creatures of Shadowrealm. This split, the division of my subjects, affects me, of course.”
“Disloyalty is always painful, majesty,” Gord said to fill the silence, for the lean monarch had fallen into a reverie.
“You misunderstand. It is natural, for you are not one subject to such conditions. When one’s realm becomes fractious, then the lord tied thereto suffers accordingly. I, Master Gord, am a dangerous schizophrenic. It is a malady not of my own choosing, nor born of any mental frailty I possess. I am shadow, and as It is torn by factiousness, so too am I. Alternately I am the good, the ill, and the indifferent within the bounds of the plane. Should there develop yet another great division within Shadowrealm, then I fear that I, its monarch, would suffer yet another splintering of my already disjointed personality.”
Aghast, Gord leaped to his feet. “Then I must now offer my sword and my service to you, majesty, in order to restore matters to their rightful state or, failing, lose my life.”
“Pretty sentiments, no doubt nobly voiced. Why, then, your refusal to give unto Me what is Mine? Restoration of the opal orb will do much to mend my torn psyche.”
“What of mine own dilemma, majesty?”
Shadowking looked annoyed. “You are consigned to this plane by means supernatural. Some mighty servant of an evil deity sought your death, or perhaps It was the vile deity personally-no matter! Ere you expired, you sought the power of Shadowfire. It cheated the one who slew you, carrying you here instead of to the kingdom where your slayer sought to consign you. Perhaps even another entity had a hand in that… I can but hazard guesses there.”
“Is there aught which will return me to my own place?”
“This place is your own now. Once I might have been able to change the course of things to your benefit. Not now.”
“Shadowflre?”
“Restorative, longed for. but insufficient.” The lean lord of the shadows slumped gloomily, resigned to his fate.
Gord bowed, placing one knee upon the gray-veined black marble of the chamber’s floor. “Majesty,” he said softly, drawing his sword and holding its chill blade gingerly in gauntleted hands so as to avoid its enervation, “I offer my self and my sword in your service. Will you accept?”
“Yes, for all it may matter to either of us. I have but scant hope.”
“In that event. Lord of Shadows, I gladly give over Shadowfire into your hand,” the young adventurer said with firm resolution ringing in his voice. “No vile sect should ever abridge any sovereign lord in his own domain!”
The master of gloom stretched forth his hand, touching the hilt of the sword in token of his acceptance of Gord’s pledge. In a twinkling, the young man slipped the blade back into its sheath and brought forth the strange stone so sought after by all who knew of it. As if unbelieving still, Shadowking himself now arose and reached out for the opal. “Long and long have I sought Shadowfire,” he murmured.
“It is yours, majesty,” Gord said, firmly placing the glowing sphere within the pale palm of the lord of shadows. “May it never be parted from its rightful owner again.”
The tall being gazed at the precious orb for long moments, unspeaking, unable to speak. Then the Shadowking smiled slightly. “Arise, Gord,” he said in stately tones, “for I now create you a Lord and Knight of Shadowrealm. Stand before me, Count of Twilight, Knight of Chiaroscuro. I charge you with aiding Me during My times of need, of giving service to the Realm of Shadow, and with faithfulness in all your dealings until such time as you may return once more to the place which is rightfully your own.”