As they walked, Futhark kept stopping and looking around, head cocked as if he were listening for something. Occasionally, he would stretch out his arms, his hands held palms out, fingertips splayed and extended, as if he were feeling the air. And then, abruptly, as they started on a slight downward slope entering the rocky pass, the halfling stopped and made a pass with his hands, as if clearing cobwebs from before him, and a gray, swirling mist appeared on the trail just ahead.
It was as if a fog had suddenly risen, but in only one small area, an arched space in front of them no larger than a portal. And it was a portal… a doorway into another dimension, a bridge to the world between the worlds.
Aedan recalled how his stomach had suddenly tensed and a sharp pressure had started in his chest. His mouth had gone completely dry, and he found it difficult to swallow. His breath began to come in short, sharp gasps, and cold sweat trickled down his spine. His curiosity had been fully satisfied. He had seen a halfling make a dimension portal. He did not quite understand how he did it, but that was something he could pursue another time. He had seen the door to the world between the worlds opened. However, he did not want to find out what was on the other side.
Anyone with half an ounce of sense would have known enough to feel at least some trepidation at passing through that swirling mist and into the unknown, especially since people had been known to pass into the Shadow World and never emerge again. Anyone in his right mind would have thought twice about entering that misty portal that had suddenly appeared like a low-flying cloud upon the trail. Anyone except Michael Roele. Michael was positively thrilled and could not wait to go through. It was then, seeing the eager expression on his young face as it lit up with enthusiasm, that Aedan became convinced the new and not-yet-crowned young emperor was not merely fearless; he was crazy.
With Futhark leading the way, they had gone through the swirling cloud into the Shadow World, emerging in a place that looked, in many ways, much like the world they had just left… except, at the same time, it was different.
They could recognize the trail they were on. The path ahead of them looked much the same as it had back in the world of daylight. The countryside was similar, as well, and so far as Aedan could tell, they were still in the foothills of the Stonecrown Mountains, heading into the pass that led to Markazor. Only after that, things were not quite the same.
For one thing, the light was completely different. Even though it had been a clear and sunny day when they passed through the portal, when they came through into the other side, everything was dark and gray and damp, as if on a foggy, heavily overcast day out in the coastal marshlands. Tendrils of mist rose up from the ground, over which hung a perpetual fog that came up almost to their knees. Vision was limited to no more than a dozen yards or so, except for brief periods when the mists parted from a sudden gust of bone-chilling wind. And it was cold. Numbingly cold. The kind of cold that seeped into the bones and made them ache. It was a mirror image of the daylight world, only this mirror was a dark one, reflecting only … shadow.
At first glance, the surrounding countryside looked similar to the place they had just left, except that everything was gray and mist-shrouded, but on closer examination, the trees turned out to be twisted into macabre shapes and choked with hanging moss that trailed down from the branches and raised unpleasant shudders if it contacted the skin. The underbrush was different, too. It was more sparse and spiky, with thorns large enough to cut the flesh like daggers. The ground was mostly bare and rocky, save where a strange silvery-blue moss grew in widespread tufts, like a diseased carpet. And there were nervous scurryings in that tangled thorny underbrush, creatures stirring that Aedan didn’t really want to see. He found out about some of those creatures soon enough.
“Aedan, stop! Don’t move,” Sylvanna said, as they headed down the trail.
She had spoken calmly but forcefully, and something in her tone had made Aedan freeze at once. “What is it?” he asked uneasily.
“Just don’t move,” she replied. “Not even a muscle. Don’t even twitch. Stand very, very still.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her draw her dagger from its sheath on her belt. He frowned in confusion, then felt something moving across the back of his neck. He swallowed hard and clenched his teeth as he fought down the shiver that threatened to run through his entire body. Something was crawling on him … something hairy.
Sylvanna stepped forward quickly, and her blade flashed at the back of his neck. He felt just the faintest scratch as the tip of the blade barely brushed his skin, then saw Sylvanna stomp her thick-soled moccasin down on something white and multilegged. A violent shudder went through him, running down his spine all the way into his feet.
“What was it?” he asked, uneasily.
“Albino spider,” she replied. “A small one, just a baby. They grow as large as your head, and that’s just the body. Sharp fangs, deadly poison. One tiny bite, even from a little one like that, and you would have died in horrible agony within moments, beyond the help of any healer or magician. The poison simply works too fast.”
Aedan had paled. “Thank you,” he said. “It seems you’ve saved my life.”
“Just be careful of that hanging moss,” she replied. “They like to make nests in it, and they can’t tell the difference between the moss and your hair. If you let one get into your hair, even if it doesn’t bite you, it might still lay eggs.”
Aedan still felt rather queasy whenever he thought about that. Since then, he had fought in many battles, and had faced several of the horrors the Shadow World had to offer, but nothing had ever made his skin crawl like the thought of tiny eggs hatching in his hair, releasing a horde of little white spiders with sharp fangs dripping poison. He had avoided the hanging moss ever since, as if contact with it would be lethal. And, he thought, when one considered what it sheltered, it easily could be.
“What are you thinking?” Sylvanna asked, riding up beside him on the trail through the misty woods. Her voice brought him sharply back to the present once again, and he realized he had been preoccupied with reverie. That was entirely too dangerous to be countenanced under present circumstances, but he was exhausted—they all were—and his mind had simply started drifting of its own accord.
“I was thinking of spiders,” he replied to her question. “Little white spiders, hatching from a score of tiny eggs.”
For a moment, she stared at him, frowning with puzzlement, and then her face cleared as she suddenly made the connection. “Ah, you were thinking back to the first time we journeyed through the Shadow World.”
He nodded. “In some ways, it seems as if it were only yesterday. But in others, it seems like a lifetime ago.”
“It was about five years ago, wasn’t it?” Sylvanna asked. “Or was it longer?”
“It was eight years,” he replied, smiling to himself. Elves were not good with the concept of time. Being immortal and consequently having all the time in the world, they found little significance in time, unlike humans, who had less of it and therefore paid it more attention. “Eight years in which a great deal has happened.”
For one thing, he thought, as he glanced at the emperor riding a short distance in front of him, Michael had grown up. At twenty, he was still young, but physically, he was a full-grown man. He had shot up to over six feet and was now taller than Aedan. He outweighed him, too, by at least forty pounds. Michael had taken his training very seriously, working out with the weapons master every day. As a result, he had developed a husky, muscular build, with a thick chest and large, powerful arms able to swing a two-handed broadsword with great speed and strength.