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 were gone!
And Storm, standing in her kitchen clad only in boots, armed against the world with an iron bar half as long as herself, felt a swift icy finger run down her spine. She whispered, "No, Sister. I don't know what's befallen him. Do you think-?"
Start looking and asking, her sister told her crisply, every inch the Queen of Aglarond, but without raising rumors about his death or disappearance. That, as before, we dare not do. The voice paused, and then resumed with an amused mindtone. Making folk think everything's fine and you're just casually asking if they've seem Elminster about will no doubt work better if you put some clothes on. I know all you folk are weird up there in Shadowdale, but…
Storm faced west and made a certain gesture with the pry bar that looked almost as impossible as it seemed painful.
Gods above, her distant sister replied, you've seen him do that? Perhaps I shouldn't be worried after all!
"Nethreen," Storm said, managing to keep her voice steady, "leave me be for now. Unobtrusively searching all of Toril for Elminster isn't going to be swiftly done."
It may be unnecessary, the Simbul said hopefully. He may just be off gallivanting in disguise, or hidden in the heart of wild magic somewhere…
"Yes," Storm replied, putting as much hearty reassurance into that word as she could. But as she hung the pry bar back on its hook and sought the stairs to her wardrobe, her heart was dark and heavy, and foreboding ran lightly beside her. She had a feeling it would be at her elbow for a long time to come.
The Castle of Shadows, Kythorn 20
"This must be the Red Chamber," Belkram announced unnecessarily as he strode into the room in front of them.
Sharantyr stayed where she was, gazing around in amazed wonder at a high-ceilinged room as large as the feasting halls of most proud palaces of Faerun. Every surface-walls, floor, and ceiling-was entirely covered in what looked like red plush velvet. She'd never seen a room decorated in such poor taste, but it looked grand and impressive when done so completely and on such a large scale. "Gods," she murmured, "it looks like the inside of some gigantic beast's stomach."