Jack Of Shadows Read Free

entered the tent and passed between them. During this time, Quazer had said, "We compete beneath the banner of the Bat."
    Jack's laughter was broken by the creature's passage. When he saw it, he lowered his head and the muscles at the hinges of his jaws tightened.
    The silence that followed was interrupted only by the scratching of the quill.
    Then, "So be it," said Jack.
    They took Jack to the center of the compound, where the man named Blite stood with his huge axe. Jack looked away quickly, and licked his lips. Then his eyes were drawn irresistibly back to the blade's bright edge.
    Before he was asked to kneel at the chopping block, the air about him came alive with leathery missiles that he knew to be a horde of dancing bats. More of them poured in from the west, but they moved too quickly to cast him shadows that mattered.
    He cursed then, knowing that his enemy had sent his minions to mock him in his passing.
    When it came to a theft, he generally succeeded. He was irritated at having to lose one of his lives on a sloppy job. After all, he was who he was ...
    He knelt and lowered his head.
    As he waited, he wondered whether it was true that the head retained consciousness for a second or two after being severed from the body. He attempted to dismiss it, but the thought kept returning.
    But could it be, he wondered, more than simply a botched job? If the Lord of Bats had laid a trap, it could only mean that one thing.

2
    FINE LINES OF light traced in the blackness- white, silver, blue, yellow, red-mainly straight, but sometimes wavering. They crossed the entire field of darkness, and some were brighter than others...
    Slowing, slowing...
    Finally, the lines were no longer infinite roadways or strands of a web.
    They were long thin rods-then sticks- hyphens of light...
    Ultimately, they were winking points.
    For a long while he regarded the stars uncomprehendingly. It was only after a great time that the word "stars" seeped into his consciousness from somewhere, and a tiny glimrner began behind his staring eyes.
    Silence, and no sensations but seeing...
    And again after a long while, he felt himself falling-falling as from a great height, gaining in substance, until he realized that he was lying on his back staring upward with the full weight of his being once again on him.
    "I am Shadowjack," he said within himself, still unable to move.
    He did not know where he was lying or how he had come to that place of darkness and stars. The sensation seemed familiar; however, the return felt like something previously experienced, though long ago.
    A warmth about his heart spread outward, and he felt a tingling that quickened all his senses. With this he knew.
    "Damn!" was the first word he spoke, for with the return of his sense of smell came a full awareness of his situation.
    He was lying in the Dung Pits of Glyve at the West Pole of the World in the realm of the sinister Baron of Drekkheim, through whose kingdom all who seek resurrection must pass.
    He realized therefore that he was on a mound of offal in the middle of a lake of filth. An evil smile crossed his face as he considered for the hundredth time that while men begin and end in such fashion, darksiders could claim nothing better.
    When he could move his right hand, he began to rub his throat and massage his neck. There was no pain, but that last dreadful memory came vividly to mind. How long ago had it been? Several years, most likely, he decided. That was average for him. He shuddered and forced away the momentary thought of the time when his last life would be expended. This shudder was followed by a shivering which did not cease. He cursed the loss of the garments which by now had either moldered with his former body or, more likely, had been worn to tatters on the back of another man.
    He rose slowly, requiring air but wishing that he could forego breathing for a time. He tossed aside the eggshaped stone he had found in his hand. It would not do to remain long in