Shadowrealm (5 page)

coming for him. He saw the same sentiment reflected in the alarmed faces around him.

They were moving too slowly.

"On the double quick! On the double quick, damn it!" "There!" someone shouted, the word nearly lost in the wind. "There!"

Shouts erupted along the line and carried through the black. Reht turned in his saddle to see thousands of coal red points of light floating in the darkness, as numerous as the stars.

Eyes.

The darkness was coming for them.

The keening sounded again, a mistuned longflute, and Reht realized it was not the wind. It was the creatures, shrieking at them, closing on them.

"Around and hold formation!" he shouted, and hated himself for the tremor in his voice. "Around and hold!"

The shouts of commanders carried through the darkness, echoing his words. Horns sounded again, making a cacophony with the keening.

The army scrambled into formation as the wind turned to a gale and the creatures sped toward them. A few men deserted, fled with their horses at a dead run. Reht cursed them for cowards.

Armor chinked, men cursed, and weapons were readied. Hundreds of crossbows and bows twanged. A swarm of bolts and arrows flew into the darkness at the eyes, veering wildly in the wind. The creatures wailed again, apparently unharmed, and closed. Soul deadening cold went before them.

Reht drew his blade, readied his shield. His magically augmented vision allowed him to distinguish the creatures as they neared, but barely. Vaguely humanoid in shape and composed of living shadow, they rode the wind and flew like arrow shots through the night. Red eyes glowed with malice.

"Shadows!" Kelgar shouted, and clanged his blade on his shield.

The darkness deepened as the throng of shadows closed. Some darted into the earth and disappeared. Others flew high and circled around the army. Still others flew directly for them. There were still more behind the initial wave, so numerous they blotted out the storm. They seemed unending, filling the air with their cold, their shrieks, their hate.

They hit Reht's army and men and horses began to scream. Beside Reht, Kelgar roared a battle cry and galloped into the shadows. A lightning bolt shot from the war priest's outstretched hand as he charged the undead. Two other Talassans followed him, whooping battle cries.

"Hold your ground, dammit! Hold!"

The darkness prevented a large-scale organized response and the battle turned into a series of isolated melees. Shadows darted in and out of Reht's field of vision, merging with the darkness in the air. Red eyes flashed past him, around him, over him, under him. He slashed and stabbed at any within reach, heard the men near him do the same. His horse reared, kicked, whinnied.

He and a dozen other men formed a circle, but it proved useless. The incorporeal shadows moved as freely through the earth as through the air. He and his men were attacked from all sides no matter their formation. The cold hand of panic gripped some of the men, more.

Magical globes of light formed in the darkness but lasted only moments before the shadows blotted them out. Screams sounded from all directions, muted shrieks, all of it an eerily beautiful symphony for the dying.

Reht's mount neighed and bucked as a throng of shadows burst from the ground under it. The movement threw Reht, and he hit the ground in a clatter of steel. His mount wheeled, nearly trampled him, and darted off in a panic.

Reht scrambled to his knees, to his feet, slashing, shouting. Men fought and died beside him, around him. The shadows nearest him focused their dead, glowing eyes on him and in

the otherwise blank holes of their faces he was able to distinguish features. "Lorgan?"

His fellow commander's expression wrinkled with hate. Reht saw other faces he recognized and understood what had happened to Lorgan and his men.

And what would happen to Reht and his.

"Find peace, old friend," Reht said, and charged Lorgan.

Lorgan shrieked and his features dissolved again into indistinguishable darkness. Other shadows darted in close, reached through Reht's shield and armor, cooled his flesh, diminished his soul. He screamed, and slashed at Lorgan. His enchanted blade bit Lorgan's shadowy form and sent streamers of deeper darkness boiling away into the air, but Lorgan reached into Reht's chest and nearly stopped his heart. Reht staggered backward, gasping, his vision blurred.

In the distance, he heard the sound of chanting, the Talassans calling upon the power of their god to fight the undead. Reht glanced around, saw men and horses dead and dying all around him. He heard their shouts, screams, and whinnies, but he felt isolated, alone in a cyst of darkness warring against his own personal shadows.

The surrounding sounds diminished then went silent. He heard only his own labored breathing, his grunts as he swung his blade, and the sound of his own heartbeat keeping time in his ears. He slashed, backed away, stabbed, twisted, stabbed again. Shadows emerged from the ground and passed into and through him. Others flew, heedlessly, at and through his blade, reached into his chest to his lungs and heart, stole his breath, his strength. He staggered, still breathing, still fighting. He looked around for a mount, any mount, saw none. He tripped over a corpse and fell on his back.

Shadows swarmed him. He felt so cold he could not breathe, felt his heart slow. He saw Lorgan's face in one of the shadows

over him, Enken's on another, both of them caricatures of the living men they once were.

They reached for him. He felt himself drifting, floating. He reached for the maps at his side, thinking of his father, and the cartographer to whom he should have been apprenticed, the life he should have led. Cold filled him and he gasped. He could not see anything but red eyes and darkness.

He died thinking of maps and regrets.

He rose thinking of hate.

CHAPTER THREE

2 Nightal, the Year of Lightning Storms

Cale and Riven materialized on the Wayrock, outside the Temple of Mask. Sunlight, alien after the darkness of the storm, cast the temple's shadow out before it. Cale and Riven stood within the column of darkness. Rain dripped from their cloaks.

Both men turned and looked back toward Sembia but the Shadowstorm was too far away to see. Cale saw only the rocky ledges of the Wayrock and the boundless blue-gray of the sea. White clouds dotted the sky. There was no indication of the black lesion spreading across Sembia, across Faerűn.

Still staring into the distance, Cale said to Riven, "Never do that again."

Riven, too, stared over the sea. "I do what needs done, Cale. Get clear on that. I'll do it again next time,

and the time after that. You don't get to give up."

The truth in Riven's words stung. Cale faced him. "I wasn't giving up."

Riven said nothing. He didn't need to.

Cale sighed, looked away. He was tired and did not understand how Riven was not.

"How do you keep fighting, Riven? Why? Not for Sembia."

Riven made a dismissive gesture. "No. Not for Sembia."

"Then?"

Riven tapped the holy symbol he wore around his neck, the black disc. "This is why. Mask wants Kesson Rel dead and his divinity returned to him. That is enough of a why. Should be enough for you, too."

Cale stared at the disc, at Riven's face. "It's not."

"Then find something that is. This is a long way from over."

Cale shook his head. "You don't understand. You can't."

Riven stared at him for a moment. "You're tired. I see that."

Cale looked Riven in the eye, grateful for even that little bit of shared understanding.

"Yes. I'm tired."

Riven's face did not change expression. "It's a lot of weight." "It is."

"Bear it. We can only see this through together. You see that, yes? Find a way to stay with it." When Cale said nothing, Riven went on, "Cale, you didn't kill Jak. You didn't. And you didn't take Magadon's soul, and you didn't make that Uskevren boy join with the Shadovar. You're carrying weight that is not yours to bear. No damned wonder you're tired."

Cale heard the words, heard the sense in them, but they did nothing to ease the burdens he bore. Safe, far from you. That was what his god had said to him.

"Let's go," he said and started up the drawbridge.

Magadon stepped out of the darkness of the temple's interior and appeared in the archway. The mind mage looked as

thin and dried out as an old stick, wan, with circles the color of bruises under his eyes.

"Mags," Cale said, and tried not to wince at Magadon's appearance.

Riven's two dogs bolted through the archway past the mind mage and for their master, a blur of brown fur and wagging tails. Riven knelt to meet them, rubbed heads and sides. They growled playfully and jumped on him.

Magadon walked up to Cale, wavering in his stride like a drunk. He looked even paler in the light.

"You all right, Mags?" Cale asked.

"I want off this island, Cale," he said. "Now."

Each time Magadon said "Cale" instead of "Erevis," Cale felt it like a punch in the stomach. He and Riven shared a look. Riven stood and pointed at the temple.

"Go on," he said, and the dogs darted back inside. To Magadon, he said.'You don't look well."

"That's because I'm not."

"Then why leave the island now?" Riven asked. "Stay. Get better."

Cale saw anger in the crease between Magadon's eyes, quickly suppressed.

"My own affair," Magadon said. "Is that right?" Riven said.

Cale reached out to touch Magadon's shoulder. The mind mage recoiled but Cale persisted, taking his thin shoulder in hand.

"Listen, Mags. Kesson Rel is here, in Faerűn. He opened a rift. The Calyx is pouring through. It's rolling across Sembia."

A spark touched tinder in Magadon's white eyes and something kindled there. Cale decided to take it as hope and was pleased to see it.

"Where? We've got to kill him, Cale. I can use the Source to..."

He stopped, white eyes wide, perhaps realizing he'd said too much. He took a step back, and his gaze darted about, as if looking for an escape.

"The Source?" Cale and Riven said in unison.

Magadon licked his lips, steadied himself.

Cale spoke softly. "What are you talking about, Mags?"

Riven did not speak softly. "We nearly died taking you out of the Source. The Hells if you're using it for anything again. The Hells if you're leaving this island. You're not yourself. You'll wait—"

Magadon's face contorted with rage. He emitted a roar and bounded forward for Riven, hands reaching as if for the assassin's throat.

Riven put a short, sharp kick in Magadon's gut and the mind mage doubled over at his feet, gasping, coughing, retching.

"Damn it," Cale said to both of them.

Nayan and Vyrhas materialized out of the shadows in the archway of the temple.

"It's all right," Cale said to them, and waved them back. "Go, Nayan. It's all right."

The shadowwalker looked at Magadon, at Cale, then at Riven. He nodded, bowed, and melded back into the darkness.

Magadon recovered his breath and rose to his knees. He glared at Riven and an orange glow formed around his head, rage leaking from his skull.

Riven had a blade at his throat in a breath.

"I feel a tingle in my head, Mags, and I open your throat. I mean it."

Magadon, his pale face flushed, stared fury at the assassin. The orange glow faded.

"You're an addict, Mags," Riven said. He lowered but did not sheathe his blade. "And I know a lot about addicts. And you're, damaged. You're no use to us until you're well."

Magadon coughed, started to stand. Cale tried to help him but Magadon shook him off irritably.

"I'm worse than that," the mind mage said, standing. He burst into a giggle and the sound made Cale uneasy. "Much worse. And I'm never going to be well."

He wobbled on his feet and Cale put an arm around him, held him upright. His shadows coiled around the mind mage, supporting him.

"We will kill Kesson Rel," Cale said, trying to ignore how light Magadon felt in his arms. "Take what he took, give it to your father, make you whole. We'll do it, Mags."

Magadon grabbed a fistful of Cale's cloak, the gesture one of desperation. When he spoke his voice cracked but he sounded more like himself. "I need myself back, Cale. I'm falling so fast. You cannot understand..."

Riven started to speak but Cale silenced him with a glare. To Magadon, Cale said, "We will see it through, Mags. But Riven is right. This is not your fight, not like this. You'll be a problem for us, not a help. You know that. If we need you, we'll come for you."

Magadon pulled away and looked Cale in the face. "And if I need you?"

Cale shook his head. "I don't understand."

"I mean if you can't do it, if you can't take back what Kesson Rel stole, then I want you to kill me. I need you to. I can't do it myself but I can't go on this way. Either of you. Hells, get Nayan to do it. He's been watching me and thinking the same thing." Magadon ran a hand through his hair, over his horns. "My thoughts, Cale. I don't know what I might do. I can't continue this way."

It took Cale a few moments to produce a reply. "Mags, it won't come to that." "If it does." "Mags—"

"If it does!" the mind mage said, and tears glistened in his eyes. He looked at Riven, at his blade. "You're both killers. I know it. You know it. Tell me you'll do what needs done."

Cale just stared, his throat tight, his mouth unable to work.

Riven sheathed his saber and looked Magadon in the face. "I always do what needs done, Mags."

Magadon stared at Riven, his breath coming fast. He nodded once, turned, and walked back into the temple.

"Come, Nayan," he said to the shadows as he passed under the archway.

When he was gone, Riven said, "What's next?"

Cale stared after Magadon, his thoughts racing. "What?"

"What's next, Cale?"

"With Mags?"

"No. With Kesson Rel. The Shadowstorm. Hells, Mags too. It's all the same."

Cale shook his head, still unnerved. "I don't know." "You don't know?"

Cale turned to face the assassin. "That's right. I don't know. I need some time."