Shadowbred Page 9

  “Perhaps he did die in his sleep,” Mirabeta said, and Elyril could see in her aunt’s expression that she hoped it was otherwise. “We will know soon enough. A resurrection should be attempted. I will pay for it, of course.”

  Elyril could tell from the marked lack of enthusiasm in her aunt’s tone that she begrudged the idea; she made it only to maintain appearances. No doubt she hoped the resurrection would fail, as they sometimes did. Elyril, of course, knew a resurrection would fail. Rivalen had assured her of as much.

  Minnen said, “That is most gracious, Countess. But …”

  “Speak, Minnen,” Mirabeta ordered.

  Minnen nodded. “I am aware of the contents of Lord Selkirk’s testament, Countess. He specifically forbids any attempt to resurrect him after his death. As you know, he was a faithful follower of Tyr. He regarded his end as his end.”

  For a moment, Mirabeta said nothing. She looked at Elyril and Elyril felt certain that her aunt would not be able to contain a smile. But she did, somehow, and returned her gaze to Minnen.

  “I understand, Minnen. Thank you. Then I shall pay all costs of the investigation into his death. That is the least I can do for my cousin.”

  “Countess, I am certain the High Council would appropriate—”

  “He was my cousin and I will pay,” Mirabeta said, cutting off discussion.

  More positioning, Elyril knew.

  “Of course, Countess,” Minnen said.

  Mirabeta turned to Elyril and Elyril saw the pleasure in her aunt’s expression. The wrinkles around the countess’s eyes looked less pronounced than usual.

  “I will await the arrival of the priests with Minnen and Saken,” Mirabeta said to Elyril. “Return to our estate. Send out messengers under seal. The High Council is to meet in emergency session as soon as possible. A successor must be chosen.”

  Elyril started to go, but turned and said, “May I offer a suggestion, Aunt?”

  Mirabeta nodded and Elyril spoke the Nightseer’s wishes. “A ruler is dead. The stability of the state during the transition is paramount. All suspicions must be laid to rest. My cousin cannot be resurrected, true, but would it not be prudent to put questions to his body about the circumstances surrounding his death, and to do so before the High Council?”

  “Necromancy,” Minnen murmured.

  Saken raised his eyebrows thoughtfully and nodded. “There is precedent. Four hundred years ago, Overmaster Gelarbis was murdered by a mob. The questioning of his body by priests, in the presence of the members of the High Council, helped locate the murderer.”

  Elyril could have hugged the fat house mage, though his words were probably unnecessary. Mirabeta would have seen the political benefit of a magical inquiry before the council. It would publicly exonerate her of any involvement and solidify her guise as a concerned cousin. Her aunt wore false faces almost as well as a Sharran.

  “Your idea has merit,” Mirabeta said. “I will think about this. My cousin’s wishes must be considered. Does his testament speak of such matters, Minnen?”

  Minnen did not look her in the eye. “It does not, Countess.”

  Again, Mirabeta managed not to smile. “Off now, Elyril,” she said.

  As she walked to the door, Elyril noticed Saken’s ragged shadow on the floor. She could tell from looking at it that the mage would be dead within a year.

  “I have a secret,” she whispered to him, grinning, and exited the chamber.

  Sometime later—perhaps days, Magadon could not tell—he opened his eyes to darkness. He did not feel a blindfold against his face. Ordinarily, the fiend’s blood in his veins allowed him to see through darkness, but not this time. A magical shroud, then. The moist air slicked his skin.

  He was seated, and bindings as cold as ice held him at his wrists, ankles, and waist. He could hardly move. He remembered little. His mind felt sluggish. He tried to summon a small amount of mental energy and transform it into light, but the attempt fizzled. Something was suppressing his abilities as a mind mage.

  “He is awake,” said a voice. “The suppression cloud is working.”

  “Then we go,” said another.

  Before Magadon could ponder what the words meant, he felt the sudden rush of motion and the dizziness that often accompanied magical travel. It reminded him of the times Erevis had moved them between worlds by drawing shadows about them.

  When all stopped, he was still in darkness. A smell reached through the ink: salt—sea salt. He heard the telltale creak of a ship at sea, felt the slow roll of the waves.

  A twinge of nervousness ran through him. The smell of the sea reminded him of things he would have rather forgotten.

  “Show yourself,” he demanded, and tried not to betray his nervousness. His dry throat made his voice croak.

  The second voice answered, calm and cold. “Soon, mind mage. The magical shroud is a necessary precaution to prevent the use of your mental powers. Be assured, however, that we can see you.”

  Magadon struggled against the bindings at his wrists and ankles, to no avail.

  “We? Who are you?” Magadon asked. “Where are we?”

  “My name is Rivalen Tanthul,” the voice said from Magadon’s right.

  The name meant nothing to Magadon. Rivalen went on, and this time his voice was behind Magadon. He must have been circling him.

  “Your name is Magadon Kest and you hail from Starmantle. You are fiendspawn and a mind mage. A year ago, you had contact with something that belongs to my people.”

  Magadon did not understand. “Your people? I do not know what you mean—”

  Then he understood. A knot formed in his throat. Rivalen drew the knot tighter.

  “We are Netherese, Magadon Fiendspawn,” he said.

  Fear took root in Magadon’s stomach. The Source was Netherese.

  “Where are we?” Magadon said, but he had already begun to suspect.

  “We are on a ship on the Inner Sea,” Rivalen said. “Above Sakkors. Above the Source.”

  Magadon was sweating. “Why have you brought me here? I will not do anything for you.”

  “You will,” Rivalen answered calmly. “Because I will make you. I am sorry, but I must.” He paused, then said, “The Source … it hurt you?”

  Magadon shook his head. The Source had not hurt him. It had given him everything he could have wanted, or at least made him think that he had everything he wanted. And that was the problem. Once that feeling was gone, he had nearly killed himself trying to find a substitute for it.

  Another voice asked, “How did you come to speak our language, mind mage?”

  The question surprised Magadon. He did not realize that he had been speaking Loross. He had learned it from—

  “Did the Source teach you our tongue?” the voice asked. “How intriguing. What else did you learn from it?”

  Magadon reminded himself of Ssessimyth, the kraken, and how it had been snared in the Source, made content to spend its life in useless indolence, reliving a history that was not its own. Magadon wanted no part of it. He struggled against the bonds, grunting, but they did not budge.

  “The bonds are composed of shadowstuff, Magadon,” Rivalen said. “You cannot break them. You will only exhaust yourself.”

  Magadon ignored Rivalen and struggled nevertheless. He had worked so long to regain himself. He would not lose himself again. He would not.

  As Rivalen had promised, he soon exhausted himself. The magic in the bonds sapped his energy. Gasping, he slouched in his chair. He prayed that the kraken would surface from Sakkors and destroy the ship, kill them all.

  “I cannot help you,” he said. “I will not.”

  Rivalen said, “The Source is torporous, Magadon. How did that happen?”

  “Did you do something to it?” asked the second voice.

  Magadon almost laughed, as if he could do something to the Source.

  The second voice said, “It was attacked. You were here when it happened. I have determined that much. Answer
my question. If you lie to me, I will know.”

  Magadon closed his eyes, tried to convince himself he was dreaming, lost in a drug haze in some smoky basement den in Starmantle.

  “Speak,” commanded Rivalen.

  He was not dreaming.

  “Not attacked,” he said. “Tapped. An artifact tapped it, drew on its power to serve the wizard who created the Rain of Fire.”

  “A wizard created the Rain of Fire?” the second voice said, astonishment in his tone.

  Magadon nodded. “Yes. He was from … somewhere else. He used the power in the Source to empower his spell.”

  “Remarkable,” the second voice said.

  Magadon realized that he had said too much. He did not want his captors to know of the tower on the Wayrock. Riven might still be there.

  “The wizard is dead,” he added. “I saw his body, broken and burned to ash by the sun. The artifact he used to tap the Source is also destroyed.”

  “He is speaking truth,” the second voice said, presumably to Rivalen.

  Silence followed for a time, as if his two captors were silently conferring. Finally, Rivalen said, “We need you to awaken the Source, Magadon. Only a mind mage can do it. Only you can do it.”

  Magadon closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “I am sorry, then,” Rivalen said, and incanted the words to a spell.

  Magadon gripped the arms of the chair, braced himself to resist whatever spell Rivalen would cast.

  “Help us, Magadon,” Rivalen said.

  There was magic in Rivalen’s voice, power. Magadon could feel it pulling at his will. He fought it.

  “No.”

  “You must. Awaken it for us, Magadon.”

  Magadon gritted his teeth while Rivalen’s bidding wormed its way into his mind. He strained against his bonds, felt them give slightly. His heart pounded hard in his chest.

  “It … will … kill … me!” he shouted.

  “Careful, brother,” cautioned the second voice.

  “You must do it, nevertheless,” commanded Rivalen. “Awaken it for us, Magadon.”

  Magadon flailed like a mad thing against his bonds. Rivalen’s spell reverberated through his mind, the words like hammer blows. Rivalen’s voice soaked his will.

  Magadon was weakening.

  The words rang in his ears, sank under his skin. He felt himself losing, thinking of how much easier it would be if he simply submitted.

  “No! No!”

  “Almost,” said the second voice.

  “You wish to do it,” said Rivalen. “I can see it in your eyes. Surrender to it, Magadon. End the pain.”

  Rivalen’s words sounded so much like those spoken by Magadon’s archdevil father in his dreams that they shook Magadon to his core. He gritted his teeth so hard he bit his tongue. The sharp flash of pain and the taste of blood brought him an instant of clarity, of freedom. A sliver of mental energy slipped through the power-dampening shroud and made itself available to him. Magadon grabbed onto it like a lifeline and did the only thing he could think of to save himself.

  Vermilion light haloed his head, penetrating even the ink of the shroud. His captors shouted. He felt hands upon him.

  Magadon grinned even as the pain came. He felt as if he were breaking apart. He screamed as he splintered.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  10 Marpenoth, the Year of Lightning Storms

  Cale dreamed of Magadon, though his friend’s voice sounded like Aril’s, the halfling boy whom Cale had saved almost two tendays earlier. Cale watched, frozen, as Magadon slipped into a dark void, screaming for help. Cale forced himself from his paralysis, shadowstepped to the edge of the void, dived for Magadon’s outstretched hand, and barely caught it. He seized a firm grip, then saw that Magadon’s fingernails had turned to black claws, and that his eyes, ordinarily colorless but for the black pupils, were golden.

  Startled, he lost his grip. Magadon disappeared into the shadows, screaming. Cale shouted after him, “Mask! Mask!”

  But there was no answer. Magadon was gone.

  The roll of distant thunder woke him. He lay on his back in bed, heart racing, and stared up at the log crossbeams of the cottage, barely visible in the dark. The dream had set his heart to racing. He had called Magadon by the name of his god. The realization unsettled him.

  Mags? he projected, tentatively. As a mind mage, Magadon had easily contacted Cale through dreams before.

  No response. Just a dream, then. He exhaled slowly and calmed himself. The deep of night surrounded him. He found comfort in the darkness. A distant lightning flash lit the room and pasted shadows on the walls. Cale sensed every one of them, knew every one of them for the instant of their existence.

  Midnight was near, he knew. The Chosen of Mask always knew when the Shadowlord’s holy hour approached.

  He had been asleep only an hour, perhaps two. He had not even bothered to change his clothing before getting into bed. The stink of another night’s travels, another night’s killings, clung to his clothes.

  Varra lay beside him, warm, soft, human. Her even breathing steadied his jumbled mind. He often lay awake through the night and listened to her breathe, watched the rise and fall of her breast. Since his transformation into a shade, he needed less and less sleep. But he always needed warmth; he always needed someone near him to remind him that he was still human, at least in part.

  He drew the night about him and moved his body instantly across the room into the darkness near the shuttered window. Varra stirred slightly at his sudden absence but did not awaken.

  Thunder rumbled again in the distance, the deep-chested growl of a beast. A storm was coming—a big one. It had been a long while since they had seen rain.

  In silence, Cale lifted the latch on the window shutters and gently pushed them open. Moonlight spilled into the cottage. Its touch nettled Cale’s flesh. Tendrils of darkness swirled protectively across his skin.

  A cloud bank loomed in the distance, bearing toward the cottage, devouring the stars as it came. Lightning split the sky, and its afterglow limned the clouds with a purple cast. Cale thought it ominous. Thunder quickly followed and Cale fancied the thunder had a voice.

  Everything dies, it rumbled.

  He searched the sky for Selûne and found her hanging low in a half-circle over the top of the forest, trailing the glowing cascade of her Tears. Cale could not look at the Tears without thinking of Jak.

  Just about a year ago, he had seen the most powerful wizard he’d ever known pull one of the Tears from the Outer Darkness and use it to eclipse the sun. In the end, the wizard’s reasons for doing so had been small ones, human ones, though the wizard had been far from human. Cale almost admired him for his reasons. But the admiration had not kept Cale from killing him, because the wizard’s small reasons had led to the death of Cale’s best friend.

  Thunder rolled, soft, threatening, and mocking. Everything dies.

  The memory of those days darkened Cale’s already somber mood. The night answered his emotions and the air around him swirled with black tendrils. Behind him, Varra turned in her sleep.

  “I still blame you,” he whispered to Mask.

  When he looked back on the events involving the wizard, Cale saw the Shadowlord’s manipulation in all of it. Through his scheming, Mask had managed to steal an entire temple of Cyric. The whole plot had been little more than divine burglary, petty theft. And it had cost Cale his humanity and Jak his life. Cale could not forgive Mask for exacting so high a price.

  Before Jak had died, Cale promised his friend that he would try to be a hero. He had saved Aril and the halfling village, had done similar deeds throughout upcountry Sembia for months. But it did not feel like enough; he did not feel like himself. He missed his friends, missed … something he could not articulate.

  He looked out on the dark forest meadow. An elm of middling size dominated the oval expanse of low, browning grass. Patches of wildflowers, mostly purplesnaps, daisies, and lady’s slipper, dotted
the meadow. Varra had tried transplanting the wildflowers into a more orderly arrangement, but the flowers she moved invariably died.

  Despite the strange weather and lack of rain, Varra had managed to grow a thriving vegetable garden of cabbages, turnips, carrots, and beans. At Cale’s request, she also grew pipeweed. Large stones from the nearby stream walled the vegetable garden to keep the rabbits at bay. The garden did not produce enough to live on, but Varra supplemented their needs with monthly trips to a nearby village, though she had been returning with less and less of late.

  A table and two chairs sat under the elm. Cale had made them from forest deadwood. Not bad work. Varra loved to sit in the shade of the tree and watch the flowers in the sun. She had come out of the darkness of Skullport and made the forest cottage and sun-drenched meadow in upcountry Sembia her home. Cale thought her amazing for that.

  Cale had bought the cottage and its land from the heirs of a dead woodsman. The place belonged to him, but more and more he knew it wasn’t his home. He remembered words Jak had spoken once—For men like us, friends are home. Cale missed his friends. The time he’d spent in the cottage had been a welcome respite, but a temporary one. Something was coming for him, coming for him as certain as the storm. He was not sure how he would tell Varra. He looked back on her sleeping form and wondered if she already knew.

  Their relationship was unusual. They had lived together a year but Cale knew little about her past, and made a point not to ask. She, in turn, respected his privacy in the same way. They shared a home, a bed, their bodies from time to time, but little else. Cale cared for her deeply, and she cared for him, but he knew he could not stay with her much longer.

  He ticked the moments away as midnight drew closer. When Mask’s holy hour was imminent, he let the shadows in the meadow steal into his mind, and willed himself into the darkness under the elm, near the two chairs. Always keen of ear, and even sharper of ear in darkness, Cale heard the fauna stalking the woods, the chirp of crickets, the soft coo of the nightjar that nested on the ground under the scrub, the rush of the wind through the forest.

  He moved the chair so he could watch the storm approach over the woods. He reached into his pocket and took out the smooth, oval stone that Aril had given him.