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!
Chapter 20
“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.