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?”
“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!