Shadowrealm (20 page)

He smiled at her. "Thank you."

When the four men were alone, Cale said, "Ordulin is in ruins, as we suspected. Its people have been consumed by the storm and raised as shadows serving Kesson Rel. The storm transforms Sembia as it moves."

"The Morninglord's light," Regg oathed.

"He is more powerful than we thought," Cale said.

"Much more," Riven added.

Abelar shook his head. "Darkness grows. You see our straits." He nodded at Sakkors. "The Shadovar will prevent us from crossing the river on orders of the Hulorn. I misjudged Tamlin Uskevren badly. He did not seem a man to countenance this. When I met the two of you, I thought it you I should worry over, not him."

Cale smiled at that, recalling their first meeting. "Tamlin is desperate to prove himself and easily steered. I misjudged him as well. It is... unfortunate."

He could think of no better word. He was just pleased Thamalon had died before seeing his son sink so far.

" 'Unfortunate' understates his culpability should something happen to these refugees," Regg said.

Cale took the point. "The Hulorn is not behind this. Prince Rivalen of Shade Enclave is. Tamlin—the Hulorn—is just a tool."

"What does he hope to gain, this Shadovar prince?" Regg asked. "These are ordinary folk."

"Our assistance," Cale answered, and the shadows around him spun.

Regg and Abelar's expression formed questions, waited for answers.

Cale and Riven told them of their encounter with Rivalen, of the deal he offered if Cale and Riven helped him with Kesson Rel.

"He makes hundreds of innocent people the stakes in his play," Regg said.

"He is a Sharran," Abelar said simply, and Regg grunted in agreement.

"I am sorry," Cale said, and the darkness around him crowded close. "We did not intend for your people to be caught up in any of this.

"You are not at fault," Regg said, but Cale felt otherwise.

Abelar nodded at Regg's comment. He looked to Cale. "I have seen you use the shadows to move yourself and others from place to place. Can you take the refugees through the darkness, remove them to safety? Avoid this Sharran plot all together?"

Cale considered. Once, he had attempted to transport an entire ship and its crew across the Inner Sea. Instead, he had

inadvertently taken the ship from Faerűn to the Plane of Shadow. He knew he could not safely move the refugees as a group.

"In twos and threes, perhaps, but I think the Shadovar would learn of it and exact payment from those who remained behind."

"At least some would get to safety," Regg said. "Elden could go first, with Endren."

Cale watched the war in Abelar's head do battle in his expression. He shook his head. "No. We cannot put everyone else at risk to save a few. If matters become desperate and there is no other way..."

Cale said, "If we assist Rivalen, all of you will be granted passage."

"If he keeps his word," Regg said, his tone doubtful. "He is a Sharran," Abelar said again, as if that were all that needed said.

"He wants Kesson Rel dead," Riven said. "I saw it in his face. Cale?" "Agreed."

Riven withdrew his pipe, shielded it from the rain, and used a tindertwig to light it.

"Why?" Regg asked. "To dispense with a rival? Is this prince strengthened if Kesson is defeated?"

Riven shrugged.

Cale said, "We have few options. Kesson is more than a match for us alone. We were fortunate to escape at all."

Riven exhaled a cloud of smoke.

"You have another?" Regg asked, nodding at the pipe.

The question seemed to take Riven by surprise. He eyed the Lathanderian over his pipe, grunted an affirmative, found his spare wooden pipe, tamped it, and provided it and a tindertwig to Regg.

"My thanks," Regg said. He propped the stem between his teeth, lit, took a long draw, and exhaled with a satisfied sigh.

"Been a while since I've enjoyed a smoke. That's good leaf."

Riven nodded. "Grown east of Urlamspyr."

"Good soil there," Regg said, nodding. "Or was, before the drought. Good folk, too."

"Aye, that," Abelar said.

Silence fell, as if the folk of Urlamspyr were already dead in the storm and the four men were paying their respects in silence. Smoke, shadows, and worry clouded the air.

"You believe this Sharran, then?" Abelar finally asked Cale.

"Hells, Abelar, I rarely believe my own god," Cale replied. "I believe Rivalen wants Kesson Rel dead. He says he has a way to do it but needs us."

"Why?"

"I don't know but it seems he needs a... special servant of Mask."

Regg looked away, as if made uncomfortable by the statement, and blew out a cloud of smoke. "You?" Abelar asked.

"Us," Cale answered, indicating he and Riven.

"How long will you be gone?" Abelar asked. "We have only a short time before the storm reaches us. We will have to do something before that."

Cale shook his head. "I don't know. We don't know where we're going, what we're doing."

"Then you are at the Sharrans mercy," Regg said.

"Hardly," Riven answered, and tapped the pommel of one of his sabers.

"When will you go?" Abelar said.

"We meet him at midnight," Cale answered.

"An hour holy to Sharrans," Regg said.

"And to Mask," Cale said, and Regg looked away.

Silence fell, and all eyes drifted to the Shadowstorm, all of them measuring the distance it would close between then and midnight.

"We will march into the storm if necessary," Regg said. "Gain you the time you need."

"Let us hope it is not necessary," Cale said.

Abelar changed the mood with a lighter tone. "A meal. And rest if you need it."

Regg blew out another cloud of smoke, snuffed the pipe, tapped out the burned pipeweed and held it out to Riven. "Your pipe."

"Keep it," Riven said. "Until we sit down together for another smoke."

Regg looked Riven in the face. He seemed to want to say something, but instead just nodded, and tucked the pipe in his beltpouch.

Darkness fell. So, too, did the rain. The refugees in the Saerbian camp settled in for sleep, nestled against the river between Sakkors and the Shadowstorm. Abelar and his company stood assembled at the outskirts of the camp, on the side facing the Shadowstorm.

At midnight, Cale asked the Shadowlord to provide him with spells and Mask obliged. Cale's mind filled with power.

"Ready?" he asked Riven, and the assassin nodded.

Cale pictured in his mind the one-time Saerbian camp at Lake Veladon. Riven drew his sabers. Cale drew Weaveshear.

Cale tried to reach through the dormant connection with Magadon.

Mags, hang on. We have another way to kill him.

No response. He toyed with the idea of returning to the Wayrock to check on Magadon but decided that he could not spare the time. Besides, he could do nothing there other than bear witness to Magadon's slip into the void. He served his friend best by finding a way to kill Kesson Rel.

A little apart from Cale and Riven, the Lathanderians appeared to be readying themselves for battle, for a possible march into the Shadowstorm. Cale caught Abelar's eye and raised a hand in farewell. Abelar returned the gesture. Meanwhile, the men and women of his company checked and rechecked straps, secured shields, and donned helmets.

Cale drew the darkness around himself and Riven, left the Saerbians alone in the shadow of the Sakkors, and rode the shadows to Lake Veladon.

They appeared in darkness and rain. The remains of the Saerbian camp littered the lake's shoreline, the flotsam of war. Broken wagon wheels, a shattered axle, fire pits, buckets, a few sacks, a slashed waterskin, a tent that had been left behind, the snap of its flap in the wind like the crack of a whip.

The front edge of the Shadowstorm, a black shroud darkening the land, was within sight and drawing closer. The wind screamed. Thunder and lightning assaulted Faerűn, more intense than that experienced by Cale and Riven within the storm.

"It's growing stronger," Cale said.

Riven nodded.

With his shadesight, Cale watched the storm's darkness twist and wither the trees it engulfed, brown and curl the grass. A clutch of rabbits buist from their burrows and sprinted away from, the storm. Squirrels and raccoons scrambled down trees and fled. To his right Cale saw deer and foxes, even a lumbering bear, bound past in the distance.

Sembia would nevei be the same. Sembians would never be the same. "Rivalen!" he shouted into the wind.

He and Riven stood side by side, blades out, awaiting the appearance of the Shadovar prince. Shadows leaked from Cale's flesh, from Weaveshear.

Rivalen emerged from the Shadowstorm, backlit by a flash of lightning. A stride through the shadows brought him to Cale and Riven's side.

"It is growing stronger and moving faster," Rivalen said. "We must hurry."

Odd, Cale thought, that two men could want the same thing but for such different reasons. "Hurry to where?" he asked.

"We travel to Kesson Rel's world of Ephyras, where we will find a temple at the edge of nothing. Within is a weapon for a Chosen of Mask."

"Sounds like we don't need you, then," Riven said to Rivalen.

Rivalen showed his fangs. Smile or grimace, Cale could not tell.

"How did you learn all this?" Cale asked Rivalen. "My secret," the shade prince said. "What kind of weapon?" Cale asked. The shadows around Rivalen churned. "I do not know." "Dark and empty," Riven said, shaking his head and forcing a laugh.

Rivalen stretched out his hands and gathered the shadows to him as fauna streaked over their boots and the wind threw up a blizzard of leaves, twigs, and pebbles. The water of Lake Veladon seethed.

Cale found the shadows Rivalen gathered to himself, shadows shot through with the prince's power, surprisingly familiar. He caught a gleam in Rivalen's hand, thought at first it might have been the prince's holy symbol, but then saw it for what it was—a gold coin, a Sembian fivestar.

He had no time to puzzle over it before the darkness engulfed them all. Before they moved between worlds, Cale reached into his pocket and took his holy symbol, a silken mask, in hand.

Abelar and Regg stood side by side, watching the darkness grow in the night sky. Selune, if she were not new, was curtained off from Faerűn by the Shadowstorm. The wall of black filled their field of vision, filled their world. It pulsed and lurched like a living thing. The severity of the thunder and lightning elicited a steady stream of gasps from the Lathanderians.

"They will have to return quickly if they are to stop it from reaching us," Regg said. He put his hand to the holy symbol he wore on a chain at his throat.

"Roen has used his divinations on the storm," Abelar said. "An intelligence guides it. Kesson Rel, I presume. It grows in power with each hour that passes. He tells me the very air within it will drain a man's life."

"We have wands," Regg said. "We can ward the company."

"Aye," Abelar said, "but what else is within that storm?"

"Shar is in that storm," Regg said softly. Aye.

Regg cleared his throat and said, "If Cale does not return before matters greatly... worsen, I think we will have to march on it, Abelar. If an intelligence guides the storm and the creatures within it, we can perhaps slow its approach by offering resistance."

Abelar suspected that there would be no returning from such a battle. And he knew Regg thought the same thing.

"Light will battle against darkness," Regg said. "Lathander's servants will face Shar's. It is fitting that we face it so, I think."

"I do not think it will come to that," Abelar said.

"If it does," Regg said. "I say we march."

Abelar winced inwardly at the word "we." He could no longer hold his peace. He faced his friend. "If we march, you will have to lead the company."

Abelar's words eroded the resolve in Regg's expression. "What... what do you mean?"

"I cannot leave my son, Regg. Not again. Not even for this."

Regg studied his face, and Abelar imagined his mind whirling behind the calm facade of his expression. Abelar saw no judgment in his friend's eyes, but neithet did he see understanding.

"The sun rises and sets," Regg said. "So be it. I will lead."

--••-----• •--

Cale noticed the cold first, an unearthly frigidity that settled in his bones and chilled him to his core. Wind assaulted his ears, the sound the anguished howl of a trapped animal as it surrendered to death. He pulled his cloak tight as the darkness that had brought them dissipated.

"Ephyras," Rivalen said, glancing around.

They had materialized on the decaying corpse of a world. Black, barren earth with the consistency of sand stretched out in all directions for as far as he could see. Dry gullies cut deep, jagged lines in the dead earth but he saw no water to form them. The wind blew up dust cyclones here and there, little black spirals that frolicked on the grave of the world before losing their coherence and collapsing. If there had ever been vegetation on Ephyras, Cale saw no sign; it had long ago dried out and crumbled away.

The air smelled faintly of ancient decay, like the memoty of rot. Long ribbons of shadow floated through the air, squirming in the wind like worms. A tiny, exhausted red sun hung in the sky, ringed by a collar of absolute black. Its wan, bloody light made no real attempt to light the world, merely colored it in a hue that hinted at slaughter.

As Cale watched, the darkness ringing the sun expanded slightly, reducing its glowing core to an even smaller circle. The darkness was choking off the sun.

"Dark," Cale oathed.

The dimness of the light allowed him to see stars twinkling faintly in the black-gray vault of the sky, appearing and disappearing behind the long columns of ink-black clouds that streaked across the heavens. Cale did not recognize any of the constellations. Lightning flashed now and then, long, jagged bolts of green that seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon, as if they ringed the world.

The sight of it all caused an ache in Cale's head, made him dizzy. He felt pressure building in his ears, numbness in his extremities, then realized of a sudden that his feelings had nothing to do with the sight of a dying world. Something was wrong.