*Dusts blog off*

Er.... hi! It's been a while and it may be a while before the next real update. I have lots of stories to relate but will probably forget them all soon; It's just been extraordinarily busy around here.
Since Gus hasn't had a bedtime story from me in a while, I plan on posting something unlike anything you've read before and probably hope you'll never read again. I wrote this in a handwritten letter to a "much-younger" friend of mine as something to keep her entertained. This was several years ago so please don't expect too much and please don't think that I always write this way. Please also note that I'm not even going to take the time to go back and edit it. I was just digging through some old files and found it and decided to share. Hey! I need to be humbled every once in a while!

A slight history: I have been "The Shadow" for many years and one of his attributes is the power to become invisible, this young lady was my "Margot" (who in the radio shows was the sidekick of The Shadow) and I wrote it for her benefit. Many parodies and weird things can be explained. There are 8 chapters and I'll try to post two at a time.

Concerning Shadows
A Shadow’s Tale, by The Shadow

Chapter 1: A Shadow of the Past

It was dark and stormy, clouds gathered in the West and an ill breeze came from there. I knew something must be brewing in the castle of Bizriel, my most dangerous adversary yet.
Bizriel had adopted the methods of old, torturing nearby citizens upon the wheel, the rack, and of course the thumbscrew. Though I tried many times to tell the police about the doings of this wicked man who called himself a magician, they refused to believe me, partially I think because they couldn’t imagine anything so dastardly in this present age, but partially because their chief, Commissioner Farley, was in the pay of Bizriel himself! The villagers lived in mortal fear of telling anyone what was happening, Bizriel was cunning as a serpent and had made sure at least one child from each family was enslaved in his workforce. If one man were to report to any authority, he could jeopardize the life of his son or daughter!
Hmmm, a workforce of children, always working up in the mountains at night; Torture that seemed to have no reason behind it other than pure brutality; Bizriel must be up to something, but what? No one else could do the job, I had to infiltrate the castle and do it myself, disguised as……..The Shadow!


Chapter 2: A Shortcut to Shadows

I clung to the rock face and cautiously peered down past my feet, one slip now and I would fall over a hundred meters to a very certain death. The rocks were slippery since it had already started to rain but I knew I must go on, the very lives of countless children and even their parents depended upon me! I struggled on at the thought but then felt that there was no handholds left!
Suddenly and without warning I found that nearly all the knobs I’d been standing on had vanished, the rock wall I was clinging to was moving! Upwards I felt myself being lifted, over the top of the cliff and then down with a sudden motion I fell to the ground on this small plateau. I lay motionless for a few moments and then carefully rolled over and looked at what it was that I had ridden up. It was an enormous Toad!
Towering far above my head it blinked stupidly at me, then slowly turned and waddled off. I was startled to realize that it had been wearing a top-hat and dinner coat! My immediate thought was that it must have been a by-product of one of Bizriel’s experiments, whether intentional or not I don’t know, but I knew I must continue my attempt to reach the castle undetected. It is true, I could have gotten past the guards at the main gate easily enough, but they constantly kept dogs at the gate as well, I could never fool them, I’d be torn to shreds in an instant.
No, I must find some way around the back. Quickly I studied the plateau, in the corner I saw some monument, many years old with pictures denoting some natives worshipping an image in the sky. I couldn’t see the image very well, it looked rather puffy and clouded to me. But behind this pillar? A secret entrance in a wall of stone! It led in the direction of the castle so I was certain that this tunnel had been previously used to reach the plateau. Then it hit me like lightning. The ancients must have come here to worship or perhaps entreat the Precipitation gods to send rain. I was suddenly reminded of an old saying: ‘The rain in Spain falls mainly on the Plateau.' And sure enough, there was a little circle of clouds overhead and the rest of the sky was only overcast as far as the eye could see. I shrugged my shoulders and stepped into the shadows of the passage."