Shadowbred (3 page)

Mother held him throughout, rocking him, humming a lullaby. He thought perhaps she was more frightened than he was.

“It’s all right, Mother,” he said, and patted her hand. “He is here to save us.”

He felt his mother shake her head. “No, sweetdew. Not us. He’s here to save himself.”

After a time, quiet settled over the woods. Then Aril heard a whooshing sound. The smell of smoke and burning flesh grew powerful.

He and Mother remained still, as the shadowman had told them. He heard no trolls, no combat, merely the moans of wounded villagers, the soft crying of mourners, the barking of a few dogs.

“Shadowman?” Aril called.

The darkness lifted. He blinked in the flickering orange light of a great bonfire that burned in the communal fire pit between the forest’s edge and the village. Aril and his moher walked cautiously to the forest’s edge. A pile of a dozen or more troll bodies, all of them dismembered and squirming, lay within the flames. Thick, stinking black smoke spiraled up from the corpses. The smell was foul and sickening.

The shadowman was gone.

The survivors from the village wandered slowly, dazed, confused. A few tended the wounded or knelt over fallen friends. Aril avoided looking too long at the dead. He would have cried but he felt too numb to do anything more than stare.

Some of the survivors walked cautiously toward the fire. Many held weapons—mostly pitchforks—but a few carried swords. Others leaned on their fellows, whether from wounds or fatigue Aril could not tell. They murmured amongst themselves as they neared the pyre. Aril could see them pointing, explaining, trying to make sense of what had happened. Some prodded the burning troll corpses with their weapons. Sparks mushroomed into the air.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. A storm was threatening. Aril doubted it would rain, though. It rarely did.

“None escaped,” Aril heard someone say.

“Did you see him?” said another. “Who was it? What was it?”

Aril and his mother limped out of the woods toward the fire. Mother took Aril’s hand firmly in her grasp.

“It was the shadowman,” Aril called, and all eyes turned to him. “The shadowman saved us, all of us. His name is Erevis Cale. We saw him. He talked to me.”

Aril spotted Nem in the village beyond, standing near his father, who held a woodsman’s axe resting on one shoulder. Aril waved, relieved to see his friend. Nem returned the gesture and both forced smiles. The numbness left Aril abruptly and he began to cry. So did Nem.

“The shadowman is a hero,” said another, and everyone nodded.

“Where did he go, Aril?” asked Matron Steet.

Aril glanced around through his tears and could only shrug.

“Back into the shadows,” Mother said.

Aril gazed into the woods, into the dark.

“Come into the light,” he whispered to Erevis Cale.

25 Eleint, the Year of Lightning Storms

Slack clouds roiled in the night sky. Lightning flashed, splitting the dark. Thunder rolled and boomed. Swells like mountains rose and fell on the sea. Rain fell in torrents. The mizzenmast of Night’s Secret bent in the wind. The whole of the caravel creaked from the battering of the storm. Loose rigging and shredded sails snapped like whips in the gusts, but the dark pennon bearing the symbol of Shar and flying from high atop the mainmast held its ground against the storm. Rivalen smiled at that. The black circle bordered in violet looked like an eye, Shar’s eye, guiding them to their goal.

Rivalen stood on the lurching deck of Night’s Secret and tried to keep his footing as the bow again rose skyward, crested a swell, and skidded down a mountain of water. The crew, experienced hands all, gripped lifelines nervously as they lurched across the slippery deck to obey Captain Perin’s shouted commands.

Rivalen knew they were close to Sakkors. The augury he had cast whispered as much in his ear. The first part of his quest would soon reach its end.

More than a year earlier, a cry had sounded across the Weave and the Shadow Weave, the warp and weft of magic, and resounded across Faerun. Every spellcaster of power had heard it, though probably only a handful had understood the language, that of ancient Netheril.

I am here, proclaimed a voice in Loross. Help me.

Rivalen’s father, the Most High Telemont Tanthul, had immediately deduced the origin of the plea, as had Rivalen himself. Its only possible origin was the mythallar of Sakkors, a sentient artifact created thousands of years earlier by one of Netheril’s High Arcanists, Xolund the Maker. The revelation that a second mythallar had survived Netheril’s fall had sent a ripple of excitement through the rulers of Shade Enclave. Divinations had been cast, auguries consulted. Eventually, Rivalen’s brother, Brennus, a prodigy in the use of divinations, had located the site of the mythallar. Rivalen and Brennus had been dispatched to find it.

And they were nearly upon it.

Rivalen reached into the pocket of his rain-soaked cloak and removed a worn platinum coin. The octagonal currency had been known in ancient Netheril as a thurhn. Time had rounded its corners and worn the stampings—twin lightning bolts crossed over a mountain on the obverse, a date on the reverse—almost into illegibility. The coin had been minted in Sakkors long ago, when the city had flown in the sky on an inverted mountaintop. Like all the other floating cities of Netheril, save Shade Enclave, Sakkors had plummeted to earth when Karsus the Mad had attempted to achieve godhood. His meddlings temporarily unraveled the Weave, and the Empire of Netheril had died in a rain of falling metropolises.

Shade Enclave had survived only because the dark goddess Shar had helped Rivalen’s father shunt the city into the Plane of Shadow. Shade Enclave had abided there for centuries, had absorbed the darkness of the plain, and had only recently returned to Faerun.

Rivalen squinted against the rain and watched the coin, waiting. He nodded with satisfaction when his eyes, attuned to see dweomers by merely looking for them, saw a soft red glow emanate from the center of the platinum piece. The spell on the thurhn was of negligible power, little more than a magical mintmark designed to prevent counterfeiting, but its appearance indicated that they were nearing “Sakkors mythallar.

The quasi-magic in the coin had been common in ancient Netheril, but was nearly unknown in Faerun’s present era. The coin derived its power from a mythallar, and the mythallars of the empire had done far more than fly cities through the sky. They allowed spellcasters to create magical items in the mythallar’s presence without physically or psychically taxing the caster. The physical and mental drains of spellcasting, ordinarily natural boundaries that limited a spellcaster’s ability to forge magical items, were thus overcome by the presence of a mythallar.

The quasi-magic went quiescent if items were taken out of proximity of the mythallar, but that had not stopped a profusion of quasi-magical items from rapidly transforming society in the empire. Rivalen remembered those days well—magic had permeated almost every facet of society and culture. The ancient Netherese had used magic and magical items for even the most mundane tasks, from street cleaning and waste disposal to flavoring food or carving a joint of beef.

The presence of such vast quantities of magic had served only to make the empire’s fall all the more spectacular when the Weave unraveled and magic failed.

But before the Fall Xolund of Sakkors had improved on the mythallar’s design. He had infused his enclave’s mythallar with a rudimentary sentience. The self-aware artifact called itself the Source, and unlike all other mythallars, its sentience allowed it to direct or withhold its magical power as instructed. Instead of powering all items in its proximity, it could focus all its power on a single item, on none, or on many.

The development of a sentient mythallar had caused a stir among the arcanists of the empire, but the Fall had ended any attempts

to duplicate Xolund’s feat. Sakkors’s mythallar was unique. And Rivalen wanted it.

He peered through the storm and across the churning sea for Secret’s twin, New Moon. The darkness did not hamper his vision— Rivalen was a creature of darkness, bonded to it, and saw through it as if it were day—but the rain obscured his surroundings. He spotted the caravel two long bowshots to starboard, bobbing on the swells like a toy. Both Moon and Secret would have been lost to the storm but for the water elementals Rivalen had bound to his service. The living waves surged through the turbulent ocean alongside both ships, righting them when they listed, shielding them from swells that would have swamped them.

Rivalen’s younger brother, Brennus, stood beside him, clutching one of the many hemp lifelines that webbed the deck. Shadows crawled over Brennus’s exposed skin, betraying his nervousness. Like Rivalen, like all the Twelve Princes of Shade Enclave, Brennus was a shade. He usually traveled in the company of two homunculi, but the storm terrified the little constructs. They cowered belowdecks.

“The storm is sent by the kraken,” Brennus said, and he lurched as the ship slid down another swell. His shining eyes, the color of polished steel, glittered in the darkness. “It’s not natural. We must be close.”

Rivalen held up the Sakkoran coin for Brennus to see. “Not close. We’re here.”

Abruptly, the storm abated. The rain, thunder, and lightning ceased. Secret and Moon floated on a quietly rolling sea. The clouds parted to reveal a starry night sky.

The soaked crew of Secret was too exhausted to do much more than give a hoarse cheer. Captain Perin issued orders to assess the damage to the masts, sails, and rigging, and to get a headcount. The men snapped to.

Rivalen and Brennus used minor magics to dry their clothing and gear.

“How fare you?” a sailor on Secret shouted across the water to New Moon. His voice carried easily over the calming sea.

“Wet but no worse!” came the shouted answer. “All hands accounted for.”

Rivalen’s augury was nearly at its end, but before expiring, it revealed to him an approaching danger. He secured the thurhn in his pocket.

“It’s coming,” he said to Brennus.

“Now?”

Rivalen nodded.

“Ready yourself and the crew, Captain Perin!” Rivalen shouted to the captain. “Something comes.”

The brothers shadowstepped from mid deck to the rail, covering the distance in a single stride. There, they scanned the sea while the crew heeded Rivalen’s warning and took up crossbows and belaying pins.

“My princes?” the captain called from the sterncastle.

Rivalen did not reply, but gripped the medallion of Shar he wore on a chain around his throat and stared at the water. Brennus held a duskwood wand in his hand. Shadows leaked from their flesh and cloaked them both.

“I see nothing,” Brennus said.

“Wait,” Rivalen cautioned.

They waited, waited … then saw it.

About midway between the two caravels, a soft red glow rose up from the depths and stained the sea crimson. It grew brighter like a rising sun, spreading through the water like pooling blood.

The crew saw it, too. They shouted, pointed, rushed to the rail, not knowing what they would soon see. Rivalen had said nothing about the creature, fearing he would not have been able to secure a crew.

“The glow…” Brennus said.

“Must be from the mythallar,” Rivalen finished.

Brennus nodded. “It bears the mythallar with it?”

Rivalen nodded and frowned. Caution would be necessary in defeating the kraken. They could not risk damaging the mythallar with poorly chosen spells.

Brennus turned to Rivalen, a question in his eyes. “Strange that

the Source has not contacted us, is it not? We know it to be sentient. We are close enough. It should have contacted us. It called to us before.”

Rivalen nodded and said nothing. He’d had the same thought but did not want to give his concerns a voice. Brennus tapped his wand on the rail, demonstrating enough anxiety for both of them.

“Perhaps an attack has weakened it, or destroyed its mind? Perhaps it is now too weak to suit our purposes? Perhaps …”

Rivalen pointed a finger at his brother. Shadows poured from his flesh, betraying his agitation. “Enough, brother. We will know soon. Speculation is pointless.”

Brennus looked chastened. “Of course.”

The red glow grew brighter.

“What is it, my princes?” the captain asked. “What comes?”

The crew’s curiosity was giving way to alarm. They eyed the brothers and the sea nervously. All were Sharrans, and all would die for Rivalen, but that did nothing to quell their fear. They would have been more frightened had they known the truth.

“We capture it, if possible,” Rivalen said.

Brennus looked at him sidelong. “That will be quite a capture, brother.”

Rivalen allowed himself a tight smile before he drew on the Shadow Weave and incanted a series of arcane stanzas. Brennus watched for a moment, noting the spell Rivalen was casting, then put aside his wand and mirrored Rivalen’s efforts. Their voices merged, arcane power gathered, and both moved their hands through an intricate set of gestures.

The magic of their spell gave substance to the darkness and a net of shadows formed on the surface of the water, backlit by the red glow of the mythallar. The lines of the net’s mesh were as thick as a man’s arm. The brothers poured power into the spell until the net of shadows reached across the water, nearly touching both Nights Secret and New Moon. The water between the ships looked not unlike an enormous chessboard.

“That must be quite a fish,” one of the crewman jested. No one laughed.

Rivalen and Brennus held the magic of the shadow net taut, waiting.

The glow grew brighter. “Now!” Rivalen said.

He and Brennus released the pent-up magic of the spell and the giant net shot downward at the kraken, closing as it went. The net was powerful enough to scoop up everything in the sea between the ships to a depth of a hundred fathoms, killing most everything it touched, and trapping and weakening the kraken.

A rush of bubbles rose to the surface as if the sea were boiling. Hundreds of dead fish bobbed upward, their lives extinguished by the enervating touch of the net. A shriek, like nothing Rivalen had ever heard, carried up from the depths and out of the sea.