Shadow Prowler

“What is this the key to?” I asked as I reluctantly handed the precious thing back to Miralissa.

“Have you ever head of the double-doored level?”

“The third level of the Palaces of Bone?” I asked, remembering my recent conversation with For and the ancient maps of Hrad Spein. “And then, carry on! The twin doors stand open. . . .”

“Absolutely right. The double-doored or third level of Hrad Spein, with its magic doors. The doors are sealed with very powerful spells, but this key, created by dwarves two and a half thousand years ago at the request of the Lord of the Dark Houses, will open the way down.” She was all business. I could almost see her thinking, comparing possibilities, pla

“This object was brought to us by Kli-Kli,” said Alistan, turning away from the window. “When the jester left, he was . . . But that doesn’t matter now. The most important thing is that we now have the key, and if the doors that Lady Miralissa mentioned to you are locked, we shan’t have to waste time looking for the way round them.”

“If the way round exists, that is.”

“It does, Harold. Or it did. The magicians of the Order who took the Horn to Hrad Spein managed to reach Grok’s grave somehow. The magicians didn’t have the key then, it was in Zagraba,” said Miralissa.

“The artifact has already been in Hrad Spein this spring,” said Alistan, folding his arms across his chest. “Before setting out for the Desolate Lands, Lady Miralissa gave it to the king, and Stalkon gave it to the magicians of the second expedition. We must thank the gods that the only unfortunate to return from the burial chambers managed to bring the key out, even though he lost his mind.”

“It was thanks to the key that the magician survived,” said Egrassa, lighting another candle and setting the candlestick on the table beside the first two. “Whatever it is that dwells there, it didn’t touch the man with the key.”

“It’s no great joy to be alive, but insane,” I muttered. “So, you have this thing now, and that’s wonderful. But why tell me about it?”

“The key is not a toy.” Ell finally stopped peeling his apple and came across to me. “Before it will open the doors, it has to be harmonized with its owner. Made to comply with his will.”

“Marvelous,” I responded with no great enthusiasm.

Stay well away from those who work magic—that’s always been one of my many mottoes.

“We have to harmonize it with you. Everything is ready. Here, hold it.” Miralissa handed the artifact to me again, ignoring my sour grimace.

With or without my consent the elves intended to indulge in a little shamanism, and there was no point in getting uppity, or they might get some word confused and I’d be left wearing horns on my head for the rest of my life, or something even worse.

“Sit down on the bed.” Egrassa lit another candle, but he stood it in the headboard of the bed instead of on the table. “Milord Alistan, if you would be so kind, please leave us while the ritual is taking place.”

The count left the room without the slightest objection, closing the door firmly behind him.

“What are you waiting for, Harold? Sit on the bed!” said the elfess, taking some bundles of dried herbs out of her traveling bag. I was on the bed, sitting before I could think. There was real iron in that voice.

A sweetish scent of bog flowers and late autumn drifted through the room. I sat down and Miralissa came up to me with a cup in her hand. She dipped one finger in it and then drew some signs on my forehead and cheeks. At her touch, a light current went through my body starting at my face and quickly sparking down to my toes. It was a madly pleasant sensation. Ell was already standing over one of the candles, whispering and tossing dust up into the air. It looked to me like some kind of powdered herb.

Somehow the dust seemed to fall very slowly, touching the flame of the candle, giving off a thin streamer of white smoke and disappearing. So this was the shamanism of the dark elves. Long whisperings, dances, signs, and all sorts of rubbish like dried bat dung. Yes, sometimes this art could do things that wizardry could never manage. The ancient magic, correctly performed, is far more powerful, but its cost . . .

A single mistake, a single mispronounced word, the absence of the most u

Some elves understood this and became the light elves, but others, like the orcs, goblins, and ogres, do not wish to abandon their ancient knowledge and stubbornly continue to use this ineffective anachronism, as the magicians of the Order call it. But then, I’m certain that wizardry also has another, weak side to it, which the Order of Magicians, in its polite fashion, simply forgets to mention.

Meanwhile, Miralissa began singing. Her low, resonant voice began twining itself into the air, swirling through it in a taut spiral of words. Her singing was spellbinding. For all its native coarseness, the orcish language, or rather its elfish dialect (the elves thought of themselves as too proud to use the language of the orcs) was like a mountain stream. Its gurgling was very pleasant to listen to.

The elfess sang as she approached me, and I felt as if she and I were alone in the room with her voice. Egrassa and Ell had moved back and away, become just one of the many shadows hemming me in on all sides.

The voice, the shadows . . . And the eyes. Miralissa’s golden eyes, with tongues of amber flame flickering in them. They drew me in, leading me away to distant places and times. They filled the entire room. The signs she drew on my face began burning, and the key clenched in my fist was also getting warmer and warmer.

The walls of the room flared up in bright fire, trembled, collapsed outward, then began falling in blazing ba

A single instant.