THE SHADES OF SHADOWS

A torch whooshed through the air, hot tongues of flame hungrily licking the darkness and sizzling drops of oil taking flight from the burning rags. The sword followed, no less deadly, but so cool and slick and silent compared to the messy fire, decapitating the monster. It lived long enough to scream in that unbearable shrill voice. Norman wished that the padding under his helmet were thicker.

Ten steps, maybe twelve to the shimmering barrier hiding the exit… The exit to safety…

The torch found a maw of a ghostly wolf; it would have burned the lolling tongue crisp, if it was not made of transparent steaming matter. Another shade whirled away, split to its waist by a powerful sword blow. Norman wailed himself, feeling his shoulder twisting out its socket as his sword and his arm were sucked into the vortex inside of the torn monster. Aerie's fingers, nails turned bluish from cold, touched his back, and the elven girl struggled to keep up with him, singing her spell. If only he could cover those slender fingers with his palms to warm them as he had done once, on that unforgettable night… No…I cannot think of it just now… The pain was gone as abruptly as it came, and Aerie fell behind him, like a leaf blown past by the wind. Haer'Dalis's voice broke for just a second, before taking up a new verse with a renewed strength. It was a triumphant battle lay, but it sounded to Norman's ear as a love song. A triumphant love song.

Five steps to the barrier… and three shades.

An arrow fringed with flames fell down from somewhere over his head into the gray outline, and Norman's cracked lips smiled – Imoen. The arrow gave him a moment's break and he used it to find Imoen with his eyes. The rogue perched herself on a once plump column, now eaten away by the devastation of the temple. She smiled at him – a mischievous, dare smile, that finally came back to her, after the horrible days in Spellhold. She is truly back and she is my sister… nothing else matters. Even Aerie.

Another arrow fell.

"Fall back, Norman, fall back!"

He obeyed, without questioning or looking. It seemed that Jaheira would never lose that sort of influence over him. More than love, stronger than trust, deeper than friendship. He did not regret it when a ball of flames hit the floor a step ahead from where he was just standing and broke into a rapidly expanding ring of flames.

"Edwin, you idiot, you could have killed him!" Jaheira screamed and Imoen shrieked on top of her lungs in horror. But the scream was replaced by relieved laughter immediately when she saw that Norman outran the wave of shimmering scarlet.

"That wingless monkey was supposed to tell him to retreat; is it my fault that my superior plans are thwarted by weeping willows capable of speech only when they need to complain?"

"I…" Aerie stumbled, "I told… Norman…"

"She did," Norman said calmly. She did, and I was too busy with jealousy… Would have served me right if Edwin dropped the fireball on my head. The flames fell, clearing the space in front of the shadow wall.

"Sungem!" Norman commanded. Silence. He turned towards Imoen, as did all the others. The rogue wedged herself between the column and the wall, halfway up to the ceiling. She held her bow in a tight squeeze between her round knees, where her new suede pans already went baggy from being stretched in all directions, as the agile rogue jumped and crawled and kneeled and bent. With an uncharacteristic taught expression on her face Imoen was digging into a small bag at her belt. Finally, in a whisper, she said: "It is gone… the sungem is gone…." Blush crept up her cheeks, and Norman felt a sharp jolt of pity – nothing is so painful to a thief as a robbery. But he had no time to console Imoen.

He turned and run calling for the rest to follow. In the whole dungeon there was only one place still safe from shades. So Norman led them there, into a large room, its floor covered by square terracotta tiles, the sort you see in every other courtyard of Amn. A letter of a Common tongue was inscribed on each red tile. Once it was gilded, but now the gold was all but wasted with time, and the letters looked black. Norman suspected that the initial purpose of the room was ceremonial, for the puzzle was too simple for a trap. He motioned for his companions to cross the room, himself standing guard at the entrance. Aerie's slim figure glided across the floor, her tiny feet in flopping oversized sandals stepping gingerly from letter to letter, reading the gigantic inscription.

A-M-A-U-N-A-T-O-R

Norman wandered if Aerie was lithe and quick enough to walk the room at random without sparking a column of flames that would strike anyone stepping on the wrong tile… One by one the company made it to the safety of the two small rooms and settled there. Norman tried to school his face, to avoid showing his exhaustion and disappointment, just like Jaheira, who walked from companion to companion checking their wounds.

Imoen poured out the content of their backpacks and bags on the floor, searching through it, aided by Haer'Dalis and Aerie. Edwin tried to distance himself from the company, sour-faced and every inch of his stiff back saying that he had fallen in with these village idiots by mere chance and would be gone from them as soon as the opportunity presents itself. But it was a lie, Norman knew. Edwin had nowhere to go. Whatever he had done in the past half-a-year had put him on the hit list of the Red Wizards of Thay – or at least on a hit list of one of the numerous secret factions within the organization. He needed Norman.

"It is not here…" Imoen mumbled, almost tearfully, interrupting Norman's flow of thoughts.

"Then we shall rest and fight our way back to the entrance tomorrow," Norman said in a tone that brooked no argument.

Aerie looked about her with a sigh. Such was her expression that Normal felt how the dark stone walls crowded her, and drew life from her slim figure.

Edwin produced a small flask from under his robes and took a long seep. Unexpectedly, he then turned to Aerie and extended the spirit to her: "Drink this, monkey; I am in no mood for listening to your sighs and sobs all night." Aerie backed away from the wizard, but Haer'Dalis propped her forward. "I think our fairest wizard is right, my dove. It will calm your nerves." Edwin's lips twisted at the hint to his ordeal with the Netheril scrolls, but he said nothing. Jaheira took the flask from Edwin and sniffed at the liquid, then nodded assertively. "If it won't calm your nerves, it will sure to make you sleep." Imoen giggled, good mood returning to her. "Can't be that strong!" and she playfully took the flask from Jaheira, "I'm gonna drink it all up and won't even wince!" Edwin mumbled something under his nose, with "macaque" being the only audible word. Imoen laughed even harder and proffered the vessel to Aerie, who finally stepped forward and took the flask. She coughed hard after just one swallow and thanked Edwin in a tiny voice.

"She did not even look at me…" Norman thought bitterly, laying down and turning to face the wall. Jaheira came and put an extra cloak over him, but it did not take away the age-long coldness of the stone floor and dusty air. Still he tried to empty his mind of everything groping for some sleep.

An adventurer should eat and sleep whenever he can…

Norman came awake with a start, which was not unusual at all. In fact it was good that the sword he grabbed for was not needed. A sound that woke him was that of someone crying, not of the attacking orcs or shades or vampires or… some other monsters that awoke him in the past. But, in a way, the subdued sobs and hiccups as someone was choking on air, laboring hard to push it through a tightened throat was no less terrifying than the foul battle cries he was accustomed to.

Haer'Dalis sat cross-legged, clutching Aerie to his chest, unmoving but for his lips, that opened and closed with the same desperate articulation that one sees on a fish lifted from the sea to a ship's deck. Large drops of water pooled in the corners of the elongated blue eyes before sliding down the eyelashes and making their way down the scarred cheeks toward the chin. Tears lingered there for a while before dropping down on Aerie's upturned forehead. So clumsy Haer'Dalis was at it, that Norman realized that it had been a very long time since the scald cried. Perhaps he had never done it before…

But then Norman understood why the bard was crying and he did not care for Haer'Dalis' tears any longer. Aerie looked serene, her porcelain skin near translucent, her hair hanging from Haer'Dalis's arm like a curtain, her eyes staring into the ceiling. Aerie looked still and the soft glow, that to Norman's eye always surrounded her, went out.

"Dead," Norman knew with sudden certainty, "Aerie is dead…" The fighter screamed then, and the shadow wolves answered from the depths of the dungeon with otherworldly howls of their own, full of human pain.