Page 4 - Mad Shadows II

Prologue

The cat had white fur and large pink eyes, and she was
sitting on my table, watching me finish my dinner. She didn’t
purr or twitch her tale. She just sat there, watching me.

The odd thing about this particular cat was how she had
suddenly appeared out of nowhere. One moment she wasn’t
there, and the next . . . there she was. Even odder: no one else in
Kortono’s Cave had taken any notice of this strange white cat
perched atop my table. No one that is, except for the big,
elegantly-dressed cyclops leaning against the counter, smoking
a pipe and staring at me. Watching us, I should say.

Kortono’s Cave is my favorite haunt, a den of sin, business
and inequity situated at an undisclosed, secret location
somewhere beneath the streets of Valdar, the capital city of the
kingdom of Rojahndria. Valdar: a city of thieves, cutthroats and
women of easy virtue, a city of swordslingers and
necromancers, witch cults and half-human races. It’s a city in a
world of darkness, black magic and creatures of the night . . . a
city where demons serve the needs of any juju woman or
magicman who can summon them to do their bidding.

Valdar is my home and those are my people.
Being that demonic entities were nothing new to me, I
remained fairly certain that this white cat that had popped in on
me so unexpectedly had little in common with the fat mousers
patrolling the streets and alleys of Valdar. I glanced from the
face of this albino feline, whose pink eyes were locked onto
mine, and to the cyclops whose large, green eye was burning a
hole right between my own eyes. He didn’t nod or smile at me,
only sucked on his pipe and blew three rings of smoke.
Turning my eyes away from him, I gave my full attention to
the cat, which at that moment pushed the remains of my dinner
aside with her right paw, leaned forward and, with the claws of
her left paw began to scratch the wooden table. No, that’s not

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