by Paul S. Kemp
Magadon nodded. “I do. I am sorry about my … tone.”
“You’re not yourself.”
“No,” Magadon said. “I am not.”
He turned and Nayan led him off. Cale and Riven shared a look. “He’s fading,” Riven said.
Cale nodded.
“But you are going to answer this Abelar Corrinthal’s call anyway.”
Cale nodded again. “I’m indebted to him. And I’ve got enough debts outstanding. Time to start closing them out.”
“I will come with you.”
Cale shook his head. “This is my problem. You stay with Mags. I’ll return quickly and we’ll hunt Kesson Rel.”
“He may be hunting us, Cale. You think of that? You think that duplicate was there by chance? He arranged it all.”
Cale nodded. Riven was right.
“If he comes for us, he needs to find you and me together. Mags is safe in the temple. Not even Kesson Rel can scry here. No one can. Nayan can watch over him. I am with you,” Riven said.
“Riven …”
The assassin cut him off. “I’ve got debts to pay, too, Cale. I am with you.”
Cale stared into Riven’s one good eye. “Well enough. I will find Abelar with a divination and we go.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
Cale’s spell located Abelar quickly. The servant of Lathander had taken no steps to ward himself. He resided in an encampment along the shore of a small lake. Fires burned here and there in the camp. Hollow-eyed men, women, and children gathered around the fires, hovered near the tents.
Refugees, Cale figured, as he drew the shadows to himself and transported there with Riven.
They materialized before a group of seven armed men seated near a fire. The men leaped to their feet and exclaimed in surprise, but none drew blades.
Cale held up his hands, still leaking shadows. “We are friends and are here to see Abelar Corrinthal.”
“He has answered,” one of the men said.
A man as tall as Cale stepped forward. He wore a holy symbol on a chain around his throat—Lathander’s sun. His long brown hair hung loose to his shoulders.
“I am Roen. You can only be Erevis Cale. Well met. My sending found you. Thank you for coming.”
Old men, women, and children, perhaps attracted by the commotion of Cale’s sudden appearance, hovered at the edge of the firelight. They eyed Cale and Riven warily. They looked dirty, underfed, fearful.
“All is well here,” Roen called to them. “These men are allies.”
The refugees nodded, some of the children even smiled.
“I will take you to Abelar,” Roen said, and led them to a nearby canvas tent. “Abelar, the sending is answered.”
Cale heard motion within and the tent flap flew open. Abelar Corrinthal stepped out and Cale scarcely recognized him. Dark circles stained the skin under his eyes. Lines of worry creased his brow. His red-rimmed eyes pronounced how little he had slept.
“Thank you for coming, Erevis,” Abelar said. He eyed Riven appraisingly and without judgment.
“Why did you send for me?” Cale asked.
Despite his forlorn appearance, Abelar held Cale’s eyes with the same calm intensity he had when first they’d met. “My father told me that you got him out of the Hole, that you can walk the shadows like roads. Is that so?”
Cale nodded and the shadows around him swirled. “Yes. That is so.”
Voices behind Cale and Riven murmured. Abelar’s men had followed them to the tent. Abelar nodded and took a deep breath, like he was leaping into deep water. “I thank you for that. But now … I need to ask your assistance again.”
“Abelar, Sembia’s civil war is not—”
Abelar’s face twisted in grief. “To the Hells with Sembia. They took my son, Erevis. My four-year-old son.”
“What? Who?”
“Malkur Forrin. His soldiers. They burned my estate and took my son to get at me. We pursued but … could not save him. I failed. Lathander failed. I need your help.”
Before Cale could answer, Riven said, “They took a boy to get at you?”
Cale heard brewing anger in the assassin’s tone.
Abelar nodded, his eyes filled with tears. “My son was born without his full wits. He will not understand what is happening to him. He has never been away from our estate. I cannot bear the thought of …”
He bowed his head and tried to compose himself. Roen stepped forward and put a hand on Abelar’s shoulder.
“Forrin’s army numbers over a thousand,” Roen said. “We saw it for ourselves.”
“Where did they take the boy?” Riven asked.
Abelar looked up, first to Riven, then to Cale, his eyes hopeful. “Their camp. He is in the midst of their army still, I presume. It is much to ask, I know, but I thought if you could pull my father from the Hole, you could …”
He trailed off, staring at Cale, at Riven.
Cale’s thoughts turned to Jak, to Aril, and he did not hesitate. “We will help you get him back.”
“Tonight,” Riven said with a nod. “Steps over a line, taking a boy. Someone pays for that. In blood.”
The men around them murmured approvingly.
Abelar stared at them with gratitude, nodded. “You are what I’d hoped. But not what I’d expected.”
“Nor I,” added Roen.
Riven chuckled.
“We bring him back here?” Cale said. “To you?”
Abelar looked surprised by the question, as if he had not considered it. His expression went from hopeful to troubled to pained. He shook his head. “No … no. Bring my son back here to my father. I … do not want him to see me this way.”
“What way is that?” Riven asked.
Abelar looked down at his palms as if they were covered in stains. He looked at Riven and Cale. “I have to get something out of me before I see him. Do you understand what I am saying?”
“It doesn’t come out,” Riven said softly, and Abelar blanched.
“Abelar,” Roen said, “The Morninglord is …”
“You want Forrin to pay,” Cale said. “Where do you want him?”
Abelar’s eyes focused, burned. “The ruins of Fairhaven, my estate. Can you take me there, or should I ride?”
“I can take you there. At dawn?”
“No,” Abelar said, and a cloud passed over his face. “Before dawn. This is nothing to be done under the light of the sun. Well enough?”
“Well enough. Gather your gear. We go now.”
They waited while Abelar donned his armor, belted on his blade, and explained matters to his men.
“Your shield?” Cale asked.
Abelar glanced at the still lake, its surface reflecting the stars and Selûne’s light, and shook his head. “I do not use it anymore.”
Cale decided to ask nothing more. “Fairhaven, you said?”
“Aye.”
“I will return shortly,” Cale said to Riven. He focused his mind on the name and opened his consciousness. The name alone was enough to provide a beacon for his power. He shrouded himself and Abelar in darkness, felt the corresponding darkness in Fairhaven, and took them there.
The smell of smoke still hung in the air. The shadows parted to reveal the charred skeleton of a once grand estate, burned nearly to the ground. Outbuildings, too, had been set aflame and reduced to heaps of blackened wood. Only the stables and a small village had been spared the flames. A breeze whistled the ruins.
They stood in the midst of dozens of graves marked with river stones. The turned earth showed them to be freshly dug.
“Dark,” Cale oathed, and shadows swirled around him.
“They murdered everyone,” Abelar said, and the coldness in his tone reminded Cale of Riven. Small wonder he had not wanted to see his boy before doing what needed to be done. “Children. Women. The old. Forrin ordered it, the same way he ordered the burning of Saerb.”
Cale stood in respectful silence for a moment. “
I should begin the process of finding your son. I need his name.”
Abelar’s expression softened. “His name is Elden. He is a good son.”
Cale and Abelar clasped hands. “You can tell him so yourself. Elden comes home tonight. Then I’ll bring you Forrin.”
Abelar’s expression hardened. “I will be waiting.”
Cale stared into his face. “What Riven said … he’s right, Abelar. There’s no stepping back from some things once you’ve started down the path.”
“I know.”
Cale was not sure Abelar did know, but did not feel it his place to lecture the man further. He gathered the shadows to him, knowing there would be another murder in Fairhaven before the sun again showed its face.
Cale materialized in the camp beside Riven and wasted no time. “The boy first,” he said, and started for Abelar’s tent.
“The boy first,” Riven agreed, falling into step beside him.
A bearded man in plate armor stood outside Abelar’s tent. He bore a shield enameled with the rose of Lathander. Cale recognized him as Regg, Abelar’s lieutenant. They stopped before him.
“He’s gone?” Regg asked.
“He’ll be back. He needs to do something first.”
Regg nodded, his expression troubled. “I know what he needs to do. It’s deserved, but …” He looked up at Cale. “Is there anything I can do to help?”
Cale shook his head.
“Thank you for your aid,” Regg said, and stepped aside.
Cale and Riven ducked into the tent and found it furnished with only a few blankets, a bucket, and a tree stump for a table. Cale pulled shadows into the air before his face and thickened them into a circular clot that looked like a hole in the world. He focused his mind and cast his scrying spell. “Elden Corrinthal,” he said.
The circle of shadows spun lazily, took on a reflective gloss. Dim flickers of light flashed deep within it. Cale felt the magic of his spell reach through the shadow lens and across Faerûn. He pushed through any resistance he encountered, using his will as a weapon.
An image formed in the lens.
A small form lay trussed on the ground within what looked like a field tent. Ropes bound the boy at wrist and ankles. Dirt and blood stained his shirt. Bruises discolored his small face. His eyes were closed, nearly swollen shut. Cale feared him dead until he noticed the slight rise and fall of his chest. He was sleeping, or unconscious.
“He’s been beaten,” Cale said. “Badly.”
A low hiss slipped Riven’s lips.
Cale forced the magic of his spell to change perspective, to show Elden from another angle and give them a glimpse of the interior of the tent.
A hulking figure with long black hair sat with his back to a large wooden travel chest. His shield and a double-headed battle-axe lay on the ground beside him. He slept in his breastplate, with one hand on the axe’s haft. Furs and wool blankets lay piled elsewhere on the floor. A short spear and a second battle-axe lay propped near the tent flap.
“You get the boy,” Riven said. “Then silence the tent with a spell and leave me.”
Cale studied Riven’s face, his ruined eye. There was no mercy in that eye.
“Well enough,” he said. “Ready?”
Riven sheathed his sabers. “Ready.”
Cale pulled the shadows about them, felt the corresponding darkness in the distant tent, and took them there.
They stepped from the shadows to the sounds of snores from the long-haired axeman and whimpers from the sleeping boy.
Riven knelt and put his left hand on the boy’s head. Shadows leaked from Riven’s hand, coalesced around the boy’s bruises. Most of them faded and the swelling around his eyes lessened.
Elden winced, cried out in his sleep, curled up into himself. Cale whispered a healing spell of his own and gently placed his right hand on Elden’s shoulder. The bruises on his face faded entirely and the boy murmured, muttered something inaudible, and inhaled a deep breath.
Riven and Cale shared a hard look. Riven used handcant to communicate to Cale. I’ll wake him, he said, nodding at the sleeping man. He gets to see what’s coming.
Cale nodded, leaned in close to Elden, and whispered in his ear, “You are safe. I will take you to your grandfather.”
Elden said nothing, but his small body started to shake. Cale and Riven might have healed the physical wounds, but the boy’s scars ran deeper than the flesh.
Cale’s anger burned. Any man who beat a boy deserved what he got. He signaled Riven in handcant, the gestures curt and cutting. Make it hurt.
Riven nodded, his gaze as hard as adamantine. The assassin prowled across the tent, his hands empty of weapons.
Cale readied his spell of silence.
Riven kicked the axeman’s foot and said, “On your feet. Time to die.”
Cale cast his spell as the axeman’s eyes snapped open and his hand tightened around his weapon.
Sound died, but Cale had already heard the emotionless tone of Riven’s voice and it told Cale all he needed to know. The assassin was working. And the tent was no place for a boy. He pulled the shadows about himself and Elden and rode them back to the camp at Lake Veladon.
Years of training and hundreds of combats had sharpened Riven’s skills to a sharp edge. Controlled rage honed them to a razor. He stepped backward and drew a throwing knife as the lumbering man jumped to his feet, axe in hand.
Riven hurled the small blade at the man and it tore a gash in his forearm. He screamed in silence and dropped the axe. Blood streamed down his wrist and hand and onto the tent floor.
Riven showed the man his empty hands and beckoned him forward.
The big man understood his meaning. His mouth twisted in a silent roar and he charged Riven, head down and arms out. He outweighed Riven by twenty stones, maybe thirty, but Riven did not back off. Instead, he stepped forward into the man’s charge and combined a jump with a sharp right knee.
The man’s jaw broke from the impact and his charge ended on the spot. He fell to all fours, wobbling, senseless, bleeding from arm and mouth and spitting teeth.
Riven kicked him in the side of the head and he fell flat to the ground. Straddling him, Riven turned him over roughly. The man’s eyes tried to focus. Riven punched him in the face, shattering his nose in a spray of blood and snot. The man screamed silently, tried to roll away, but Riven held him fast. He punched him again, again, again, and again. Soon the man’s face was a shattered mess of blood and bruises, and Riven’s knuckles were sore and nicked.
Riven knelt over him and stared into his eyes, one of which was clouded with blood from broken vessels. He shook the big man’s head by the hair until the eyes focused.
“This is what it feels like to be beaten,” he said with a snarl, though Cale’s spell swallowed the sound.
The man’s mouth moved but Riven could not read his bloody, broken lips. He did not care. The man had nothing to say that Riven cared to hear.
Riven normally killed with efficiency, but he had occasionally provided services for a patron who wanted a target to suffer. Riven had never enjoyed it, but he’d done it.
He would enjoy it now.
He stepped away from the stunned man and walked across the tent. He retrieved the metal-tipped spear and returned.
Drooling blood, the man stared up at him and moved his head slowly from side to side.
Riven cuffed him about the face, used another of his knives to cut the straps of the man’s breastplate. He tore it off and threw it to the side. He searched the man to ensure he bore no healing potions. He didn’t.
Riven stood and put the point of the spear on the man’s gut.
The man was senseless. Riven would not have it.
With his free hand he pulled shadows from the dark air, twined them about his fingers, and put his darkness-adorned hand on the man’s shoulder. He let healing magic flow through him. He did not need to speak to generate healing energy, so Cale’s spell did not thwart him.
Some of the bruises and cuts on the man’s face closed, as did the slash in his forearm. Riven waited for the man’s eyes to clear. When they did, he stared into the man’s face and drove the spear through his gut. The man’s mouth opened in a silent scream of agony that continued as Riven leaned on the spear’s haft and sank it half an arm’s length into the dirt. Blood poured from the wound.
Wailing and squirming, the man pulled at the spear haft but his strength was already failing him. He pawed at the wooden shaft futilely. He glared at Riven through his pain, cursed him, spat at him.
Riven sneered.
Cale’s spell would prevent anyone from hearing the man’s screams. Riven had seen men die of gut wounds before. The man would be dead within a hundredcount but every moment would be agonizing. The man who beat a witless boy would die swimming in his own blood, in his own shit, in excruciating pain.
He deserved worse.
Staring without sympathy into the pain-wracked eyes of the dying man, Riven pictured the camp at Lake Veladon in his mind, triggered the magic of his ring, and transported himself there.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1 Nightal, the Year of Lightning Storms
Cale carried the limp boy through the camp. Eyes followed him, then a crowd of men, women, and children. He had two score refugees in his wake by the time he put Elden into Endren’s arms. The elder Corrinthal, too shocked to speak, cradled the boy as if he were a babe and cried. Elden stiffened at first.
“Granfah?” the boy said in a tiny voice.
“Yes,” Endren said through his tears. “Yes. It’s grandfather.”
Elden wrapped his arms around his grandfather’s neck, buried his face in his beard. Sobs shook his small frame. “He hurt Bowny,” the boy said, and sobbed.
“Shh,” Endren said, and caressed the boy’s back. “Shh. It is all over and you are safe. You are safe.” Endren looked past Elden to Cale and said, “I owe you whatever you ask, whenever you ask it.”
“No need. It is rare that I get to do something like this.”
Endren looked puzzled.
Cale shook his head, “Nevermind.”
Endren’s eyes showed sympathy, appreciation, concern. Cale could not bear it. He turned to go back to Abelar’s tent and found himself facing a crowd. Gratitude filled their eyes. An approving murmur ran through them.
