by Paul S. Kemp
Through the gap flew four wraiths, each as large as three of the lesser wraiths. The fell creatures flew toward the companions. Dread and cold went before them.
“Big bastards,” Riven said, and spun his blades.
Cale had never seen them before, but he knew their identity nevertheless. He remembered as if he had learned it in a dream: The Silver Lords of Elgrin Fau.
“Hold your ground,” he said to Riven and Magadon, as if they had any other choice.
The wraiths floated forward until they hung in the air face-to-face with the companions. Their black misty forms towered over Cale. Their red eyes smoldered. They had the vague forms of men, but each was as large as an ogre.
“Lord,” Cale said in their language.
Riven and Magadon looked at him sidelong.
One of the wraiths whispered, “You have spoken the name of the damned.”
Another whispered, “You name him as enemy.”
Cale knew they meant Kesson Rel. He nodded. “I am sworn to kill him and take from him what he stole from the Shadowlord.”
The cloud of wraiths around them burst into urgent whispers. Cale caught only snippets: “Avnon Des,” “the Chalice of Night,” “the Conclave,” “the Hall of Shadows.”
The larger wraiths looked sharply upon the lesser and silence fell.
“You have walked this ground before,” the wraith said. “Name yourselves.”
Another of the large creatures reached out an insubstantial hand toward Riven. The assassin tensed and readied his blades.
“Hold,” Cale said tightly.
“Him or me?” Riven asked, blades still ready.
Cale smiled despite the tension of the moment. “Both.”
Riven held and the wraith stopped before touching him. Its ghostly fingers hovered near the holy symbol that hung on a chain about his neck, then withdrew.
Cale held up his mask. “I am the Right Hand of the Shadowlord.” He nodded at Riven. “And he is the Left.”
“A servant of the Shadowlord murdered this city.”
The horde of smaller wraiths broke into a chorus of whispers. Cale heard the building hostility. He nodded.
“Now it is to be set right. Let us pass.”
“Nothing can set it right,” the Silver Lord hissed, and the cloud of wraiths crept in closer.
Cale inclined his head, conceding the point. “No. But Kesson Rel can be made to pay.”
The wraiths’ whispers died out and the four larger wraiths regarded Cale for a moment before they turned toward each other. They crowded together closely, as if in discussion, though Cale heard no words pass.
Cale, Riven, and Magadon shared glances but no words. Many moments passed before the wraiths turned back to the companions.
“His life is ours to take. But we are bound to this place by his craft. You must bring him to us. Swear it or die.”
Cale shook his head. He was done with promises. “No.”
The wraiths swirled in agitation. The air turned frigid. Red eyes flared. The circle of lesser wraiths around them closed in. The larger loomed over them.
“Cale …” Riven said.
Cale said, “I will return him here if I can. If I cannot, I will kill him where I find him. If that comes to pass, I will bring you proof of his death.”
The wraiths fell silent, considering his offer. Finally, one of them said, “So be it.”
Another said, “You must pass his creature alone. We are bound not to harm it.”
“We are not so bound,” Riven said.
With that, the wraiths flowed apart and opened a path toward the gate for the three companions. Cale, Riven, and Magadon shared a look, then started through. Cale felt the wraiths’ eyes on them throughout. The creatures reached for them as they passed, as if to touch them, but never did.
When they emerged from the mob of wraiths, they could see ahead the raised circular stone platform upon which the darkweaver crouched. The gate glowed behind it, suspended between rune-covered twin pillars. A swirl of pitch wound around the platform, clung in ribbons to the darkweaver’s enormous, spiderlike body. Eight tentacles as thick as barrels and as long as a dagger toss sprouted from the creature’s sides. Clusters of black eyes dotted its form.
The gate flashed brightly and Cale caught an image within it of a black spire suspended over a void.
The darkweaver saw them and its tentacles churned. It lifted half its body from the platform and hissed. A voice in Cale’s head said, Lay down your weapons and approach. No harm will befall you. You may use the gate as you wish.
Cale felt the magical compulsion behind the words but resisted it. He knew the darkweaver’s message was a lie. He looked to Riven and Magadon. Both were clear-eyed; both nodded.
“Oh, we’ll approach,” Riven said, low and dangerous.
“We go,” Cale said, and rushed toward the dais. Riven and Magadon sprinted hard after. The army of wraiths behind them followed on their heels, moaning in anticipation.
The darkweaver hissed again, lifted itself on four of its tentacles, and shambled its girth partway down the platform. It reared up its front, opened a sphincterlike mouth large enough to swallow a man whole, and vomited a cloud of shadows. The darkness roiled forward like a storm and engulfed Cale and his companions.
Cale felt around mentally for the sense of the darkness and found it, distant but there. He stepped through it in a single stride to appear on the platform behind the darkweaver’s hulking form. The energy from the gate behind him made the hairs of his arms stand on end. He ignored it, reversed his grip on Weaveshear, and drove it into the creature’s gray flesh. Shadows poured out of the gash and the darkweaver squealed in agony. It twisted its body and lashed at Cale with three of its tentacles. Cale dived under one blow, and intercepted the second with his upraised blade, severing the thick appendage and leaving it flopping and bleeding shadows atop the dais. A third thudded into his side, cracked ribs, and knocked him from the platform. He hit the ground in a heap and his breath went out of him. The darkweaver loomed over him.
Yellow light pierced the darkweaver’s cloud of shadows, and Riven and Magadon rushed forward out of the darkness. Riven held his sabers before him; Magadon held his glowing yellow mindblade—the source of the light—in his fist. Cale noticed for the first time the thin black streaks that ran the mindblade’s length.
The darkweaver braced its tentacles on the ground and leaped off the dais and into the air. Magadon pointed a hand at the airborne creature as a red glow haloed his head. A beam of white luminescence shot from his palm, hit the darkweaver in mid air, and sent a few chunks of seared flesh flying off. Hissing with pain but undeterred, the darkweaver hit the ground nearly atop the mindmage, tentacles flailing. A writhing limb clipped Magadon on the side of the head and knocked him to the ground. A second wrapped him about the torso, lifted him from his feet, and began to squeeze.
Riven lunged at the creature, his blades and body a whirlwind as he chopped his way through the darkweaver’s tentacle attacks. He ducked, spun, leaped, dodged, all while cutting his way to Magadon. Chunks of the weaver’s flesh flew off in all directions; shadows spilled from the wounds.
Cale shouted the words to a spell that powered his hands with baleful, black energy. He stepped through the shadows, appearing atop the darkweaver’s humped back, and slammed his fist into the creature. The energy streamed out of him and split the creature’s flesh. A deep hole opened, and stinking shadows leaked from it.
The darkweaver shrieked with agony and bucked, throwing Cale from its back. Cale hit the ground in a roll and rode the momentum onto his feet. A tentacle tried to sweep his legs out from under him but he jumped over it. As he came down he drove Weaveshear’s point through the tentacle and pinned it to the earth.
Magadon freed a hand and another burst of energy from his palm hit the creature in the face and destroyed several of its eyes. Riven sent another severed tentacle flopping to the earth.
The darkweaver shrieked,
its ruined flesh gushing shadows.
Cale shadowstepped atop the creature’s back and drove Weaveshear into the wound created by his spell. The blade sank all the way to the hilt. The darkweaver hissed, spasmed, and collapsed. It did not move.
Cale leaped off it, breathing hard.
“All right?” he asked his comrades.
“Fine,” said Riven, wiping his blades on his trousers.
“Better than this pile of dung,” Magadon spat, and hacked the corpse of the darkweaver with his mindblade, once, twice, a third, a fourth. By the time he was done, he was smiling like a madman.
Cale and Riven shared a look. Cale’s gaze lingered over the seemingly corrupted weapon.
Magadon’s smile vanished. Without offering an explanation, he let the blade dissipate.
A hiss escaped the carcass of the darkweaver. At first Cale thought it was not dead, but then black fumes went up from its flesh in a cloud. The stink caused Cale to gag and cover his mouth. Magadon vomited.
The three backed away from the carcass as the hissing grew louder. They watched as the creature’s body began to dissolve before their eyes, shrinking, collapsing on itself, boiling away into foul gas.
When it was gone, Cale sheathed Weaveshear and said to the wraiths, who still watched, “That is the first of Kesson Rel’s servants to fall.”
The wraiths whispered and surged forward, circling the spot where the darkweaver’s body had been.
Cale, Riven, and Magadon climbed the stairs of the platform and walked up to the gate. The glowing green curtain of magical energy stretched between two stone pillars as thick as oaks, both covered in runes. The shadows around Cale poured into the gate, drawn by its power.
The wraiths floated forward and gathered around the platform, an ocean of black forms and red eyes. They whispered their pain and hate at Kesson Rel.
“Your promise binds you,” the Silver Lords said in a whisper. “Bind you … bind you … bind you.”
Cale looked out on them, the lost, and nodded.
“There’s an army of them,” Magadon said, his eyes wide.
“That there is,” Cale answered.
The three men turned to the portal, shared a glance and a nod, and stepped through.
Abelar thundered northward across the plains. Late autumn and the prolonged drought had dried and faded the whipgrass. He pushed Swiftdawn to her limit. With each of Swiftdawn’s strides, he cursed himself anew for leaving Elden behind in Saerb. He’d had little choice—his father had needed him in Ordulin and Elden could not easily travel—but he cursed himself nevertheless. His presence in the capital had accomplished nothing. But his absence from Saerb might cost him his son. He had no illusions about what Forrin would do to his son should he take him alive.
Two days out of the plague-afflicted village, he caught up with his company. They were making camp near a drought-shrunken pond under the fading light. The last rays of the setting sun cast the plains in gold and the sky in red.
He saw figures pointing to him, calling out. He held up his blade and caused it to flare with white light.
“It is Abelar!” someone shouted.
Abelar roared into the camp. Smiles and a chorus of hails greeted him. He swung out of his saddle, gave and received thumps on the back. Regg strode through the throng, grinning, but with a question in his eyes.
“The village, Abelar?” Regg asked.
The men and women around them went quiet.
Abelar touched the holy symbol he wore about his neck. “The Morninglord shined on the village, on me, on us. After you left, I spent the night in meditation, praying for the sick mother, asking the Morninglord to strengthen her, to let her hold on until I could heal her affliction. When morning came the dawn sun filled the sickroom with light the color of a rose.”
The men and women around him murmured.
“We saw that dawn,” Roen said from behind him. “All marveled at it.”
Abelar nodded, continued. “As I stand here now, I swear that all who stood in the light of that dawn were healed. All of them. The entire village. It was miracle.”
Regg bowed his head.
Roen said, “The light of renewal. The Morninglord is gracious.”
Abelar nodded solemnly. “It is good to see you,” he said to Regg. “All of you.”
Regg clasped his forearm. “And you.”
He and Regg had stood together through blood and steel for years. Neither had fought a battle without the other in more than a decade.
Regg said, “The miracle could not have been for naught. All will be well with Elden and my father, I think.”
“You speak my hopes,” Abelar said.
After the company ate, the men settled in for the night and Abelar lit a short candle. He meditated, prayed, and thanked Lathander for his blessings. He slept little. When the candle burned down, he roused the men and the company set off in the pre-dawn darkness. He did not like to start a day’s ride in darkness, but he wanted to cover as much ground as possible. They had two hours behind them before they paused at dawn to greet the rising sun. Afterward, they rode hard and fast.
He let Swiftdawn set the pace. A gift from Lathander after he had matured in his faith, she was superior to an ordinary warhorse in every way: faster, stronger, more intelligent. Regg’s mount, Firstlight, was of the same sire and exhibited the same qualities. The rest of the company’s mounts struggled to say with them but Abelar did not slow.
“Ride, Swiftdawn,” he urged her. “Ride.”
She whinnied and tore across the plains. Firstlight answered with her own snort of excitement and matched her stride for stride. Both horses neighed encouragement at the mounts near them.
Abelar reveled in the sunlight, and prayed to the god who had blessed his son’s Nameday with light, to keep his son safe.
Regg spoke over the pound of hooves. “Kaesa is a wise woman. She will flee before Forrin’s forces ever arrive. Everyone will.”
Abelar nodded but knew his friend was overly hopeful. The Corrinthal estate of Fairhaven lay to the east of Saerb itself. No one in it, including Kaesa, Elden’s nurse, would learn of the approach of Forrin’s forces until it was too late to flee anywhere.
And war would hit the whole area hard. Saerb had no strategic value of any kind and it was not built with warfare in mind. It had no walls and no standing army. Abelar had not mustered his forces there precisely because he did not want to give the overmistress an excuse to bring battle to the city.
Forrin could have only two purposes in marching on Saerb—to draw Abelar into battle, and to make the fate of the city an example to others who might defy the overmistress. To do the latter, Forrin not only needed to burn, he needed to kill. Abelar figured he would send an advance force ahead, probably under cover of night, to cut off any possible retreat of Saerb’s residents. The entire population would be penned and slaughtered. The overmistress and her vile niece would not restrict war to warriors. Yhaunn would be Mirabeta’s excuse. Forrin would be her instrument.
Abelar dug his heels into Swiftdawn’s flanks and rode.
Cale, Riven, and Magadon appeared on the other side of the gate.
“Still the Plane of Shadow,” Magadon observed.
Cale was not so certain. The gloom felt … different.
They stood on a platform high above a wide, concave basin of smooth rock, not unlike a drained lake bed. Polished smooth by time, the surface of the basin glistened like black glass. The gate they had stepped through sizzled behind them. Sheer stone cliffs surrounded the basin on all sides, giving it an effect like a bowl. The jagged peaks of nearby mountains rose above the walls, looking like enormous fangs. Cool air stirred the men’s cloaks.
Over the center of the basin floated a tower of black rock, a spear jutting into the gloom. Tall thin windows and numerous balconies dotted its facade. Clots of deeper darkness floated around it. Creatures of shadow—their forms impossible to distinguish in the distance—flitted through the air along its sides
, in and out of the apertures. Green crystals dotted its surface here and there and cast a baleful luminescence. The glassy surface of the basin dully reflected the tower’s image and the reflection pointed directly at Cale, Riven, and Magadon.
Four thick chains, the links as thick around as a man’s waist, anchored the spire to the basin, as if it would otherwise launch itself like a quarrel. Directly below the floating tower swirled a vast pool of inky shadows, churning slowly, hypnotically. Ropes of shadow, eerily similar to veins, rose out of the pool, wound their way up the chains, and spiraled around the tower.
Looking upon that roiling pool put a pit in Cale’s stomach. As he watched, three man-shaped shadows coagulated from the ink, struggled free of the pool, and burst into the air to join their brethren flitting about the tower.
A walkway of black metal, wide enough to accommodate two wagons abreast, described an enormous octagon around the basin, caging the tower. Like the tower, the walkway floated in the gloom, seemingly supported by nothing.
“We are moving,” Magadon said, nodding at the walkway.
The motion was ponderous but Magadon was correct. The walkway was slowly rotating around the tower. The tower’s reflection in the basin moved with them. Cale did not try to understand how.
A large metal platform stood at the intersection at each of the walkway’s eight corners. Each featured two towering poles of rune-encrusted metal, all of them as tall as a giant. Shadows spiraled around them. Between each pair of poles hung a sizzling curtain of dim green energy.
“More gates,” Magadon said, and nodded behind them at the curtain they had stepped through. “This one comes from Elgrin Fau. What of the others, I wonder?”
“Some kind of nexus,” Cale said.
“A planar crossroads,” Magadon said, nodding. “But to what purpose?”
Riven oathed softly and pointed a blade at the sky.
