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 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?”