Mari tried to swallow the cold lump of dread in her throat. "Warn us? Warn us of what?"

Kellen gazed at her with his calm, intelligent eyes.

"My father is becoming a shadowking."

Five

It was the dead of the night. High in his tower, Morhion pored over the time-darkened book lying open on the table before him. He took a pinch of silvery dust from a clay jar and sprinkled it over the yellowed parchment. The faded ink began to glimmer with an unearthly blue light. Quickly, before the spell dissipated, Morhion read the spidery runes written in a long-dead tongue. As the glowing runes dimmed, Morhion sighed and leaned back in his chair.

"Worthless." he murmured in disgust.

In the hours since he had left the Dreaming Dragon, Morhion had researched all he could concerning the history of the Shadowking, hoping to find something that might refute Kellen's terrible conclusion. So far he had found nothing.

In a silver dish, Morhion burned an incense of mint, hyacinth, and sage. He breathed in the fragrant smoke-it would help keep him alert—and turned back to the book. It was a copy of an ancient tome, called Mal'eb'dala in the lost language Talfir; this translated into common-speak as The Book of the Shadows. The original book had been destroyed in a battle between two powerful mages an eon ago. This volume was an old replica. It contained passages that had been miscopied in or entirely omitted from the more recent copy in which Morhion had first read about the myth of the Shadowking. The book Morhion now held had been stolen by the Zhentarim warrior Ravendas from the library in Elversult when she began her search for the Shadowking's crypt. Morhion had discovered it in the High Tower after Ravendas was defeated by the Fellowship.

Summoning the discipline for which mages were renowned, he bent again over the timeworn text. After a moment of painful effort, he swore softly. His weary eyes would no longer focus on the intricate runes. He knew he should shut the book for the night. It was all too easy to miss a crucial passage when exhausted, and he had hundreds and hundreds of pages yet to peruse.

"But I must learn what is happening to you, Caledan," he whispered fiercely.

He stood and paced around the table, pondering the problem. Unfortunately, there was no magic he knew that could compel a book to read itself. If only there were someone else who could read the words to him…

Suddenly he knew the answer. With the ashes left from the incense, he traced an intricate pattern on the mahogany table. In the center of the pattern he placed a beeswax candle, lighting this with a minor cantrip. Lastly, he picked up a bronze hand-bell and rang it three times with a small mallet.

"Maharanzu kai Umaruk!" he intoned in the language of magic. "Come to me, Small One!"

The candle flared brightly, as if touched by some otherworldly wind, and purple magic sparked around the magical symbol drawn on the table. There was a great cracking sound, like a clap of thunder, and a dark rift opened in the air above the candle—a tear in the very fabric of the universe. A small, gray shape tumbled out. As quickly as it had opened, the rift mended itself.

"Youch! That's hot!" the little creature shouted, barely avoiding the candle flame as it fell to the table with a plop!

Morhion watched with guarded amusement as the small being picked itself up and dusted itself off. It was shaped vaguely like a man but stood no higher than the length of Morhion's hand; its skin was as rough and gray as stone. It was an imp, a denizen of one of those nebulous worlds that could be glimpsed through the facets of the crystal. They were small and devious beings, of minor importance at best, but they did have their uses.

The imp glared at Morhion with hot-ruby eyes, flapping its leathery wings in agitation. "Was it really necessary to put the gateway right above the candle, mage?" the creature complained in a raspy voice. "I singed my tail. I have a half a mind to turn around and go back to my own plane of existence right this second…"

"I wouldn't advise that," Morhion said ominously. "Attempt to leave, and you will find your tail more than merely singed. Do not forget—the symbol binds you to do my bidding."

The imp glowered at him. "Details, details," it grumbled. "You wizards certainly are a persnickety lot, aren't you?"

"Don't forget 'short-tempered,' " Morhion added.

"Believe me, I haven't," the imp replied acidly. The scaly creature let out a resigned sigh, then sat on the edge of the table, crossing its legs and twirling its barbed tail impatiently in one hand. "All right, wizard. Excuse my lack of enthusiasm, but this makes ten thousand and two summonings so far this millennium, and the eon's not even half over yet. Let's just get this over with as quickly as possible. My name's Qip. So what disgusting, nauseating, and onerous task will I be performing for you today, completely against my will?"

"I want you to read this book," Morhion said, pointing to The Book of the Shadows.

The imp's expression was incredulous. "A book? You want me to read a book?" The creature hopped to its feet and began pacing back and forth on the table. "Let me get this straight. You mean you don't want me to collect the sweat of an ogre for one of your spells? Or find a lost treasure in the Forest of Prickly Rashes? Or"—the imp shuddered at some unbidden memory—"retrieve an enchanted ring you dropped down the privy by accident?"

"No," Morhion said with growing impatience. "I only want you to read the book."

"Just the book? You're quite certain?"

"Unless I'm entirely mistaken, that's what I said."

The imp clapped its hands together jubilantly. "Finally! A simple task. And one that doesn't even smell bad!"

"You can do it, then?" Morhion asked in relief.

The imp stared flatly. "Of course not. Imps can't read, you nincompoop."

Morhion restrained himself from throttling the impudent imp. With a sigh, he raised a hand to banish the wretched creature back to its wretched plane of existence. Abruptly he halted. An idea had occurred to him.

"Qip, you can't understand the runes in the book, but you could recognize a specific pattern of lines, couldn't you?"

The imp rolled his eyes. "I said I couldn't read, wizard. I didn't say I was a moron."

With great effort, Morhion ignored the imp's insolence. There might be a way to make things work yet. He retrieved pen and parchment from his desk and carefully wrote down the specific runes that signified "shadowking." He showed the parchment to Qip.

"I want you to find every occurrence of these runes, in this exact sequence, in the book," Morhion instructed. "Can you do that, Qip? Or is that beyond the limited capabilities of an imp?"

"There's no need to be insulting!" Qip complained. The imp grabbed the parchment, scanned it, then tossed it aside. The creature sidled to the book and began flipping pages with its gnarled hands. Morhion allowed himself a smile. All he would have to do was read the few pages on which the imp found the word "shadowking."

Morhion soon realized the job was going to take as long as it would have taken for him to read every word of the whole book himself. Qip required several minutes to scan each page, and there were hundred and hundreds of pages. It seemed pointless.

"I have a solution," Qip said cheerily when Morhion expressed his impatience.

Morhion regarded the imp cautiously. Why was the devious little creature suddenly being so helpful?

"All I have to do is invite a hundred or so of my cousins to drop by this backwater plane of existence," the imp elaborated. "Divide all the pages up among us, and we'll find your precious runes like that." Qip snapped a pair of clawed fingers for emphasis.

"Yes," Morhion said. "It could work."

"Er, and you don't even have to bother with that silly sigil of yours," Qip added hastily, gesturing to the magical symbol on the table. "I can just bring my friends through the gateway myself…"