Shadowbred

by Paul S. Kemp

  29 Eleint, the Year of Lightning Storms

  Rivalen and Brennus stood in the doorway of a scrying chamber in Brennus’s mansion. Shadows cloaked the room, cloaked the brothers. Rivalen had decided to do the killing before the capturing.

  A domed ceiling of dusky quartz capped the scrying chamber, and the starlight that crept timidly through did little to dispel the murk. No moonlight marred the darkness. Selûne was new, in hiding, as if she knew what was to come.

  Rivalen brushed his fingers over the enameled black disc that served as his holy symbol. He wished the Lady’s eyes to be upon him, so he pronounced a bit of her liturgy into the room.

  “In the darkness of night, we hear the whisper of the void.”

  “Heed its words,” answered Brennus.

  Rivalen heard only partial sincerity in his brother’s rote response but did not let it bother him. While the most high and all of the princes of Shade worshiped Shar, only Rivalen served the Lady of Loss. His father and his brothers craved worldly gain, for themselves and for their city. For them, Shar’s worship was a means to that end. Rivalen, on the other hand, craved gain for the world—by returning it to the peace of Shar’s nothingness. For him, Shar’s worship was the end.

  None of them fully understood that. But none of them needed to.

  Few men were called to true faith. Rivalen’s father and most of his brothers were powerful wizards—several were even more powerful than Rivalen, but they were only wizards. Their understanding was therefore limited. Rivalen was more—he was both archwizard and priest, a theurge. Among the Twelve Princes of Shade Enclave, he was unique. Among all men, he was unique.

  Rivalen had received Shar’s calling as a young man, when Netheril still had ruled much of Faerûn. To prove his faith, Shar had required him to arrange the murder of his own mother, Alashar, and Rivalen had done it. The death of Alashar had sunk the most high into despair and that, in turn, had led him to Shar, the Lady of Loss.

  Through the ensuing years, Telamont had turned all of Shade Enclave to the worship of Shar. Rivalen had taken the dark rites and become first her priest, then her high priest. As a reward for their service, Shar had gifted the Tanthuls with special knowledge—how to bind their essence with shadowstuff. She had taught them of the secret weft of magic, the Shadow Weave, and had helped Shade Enclave avoid the otherwise complete destruction wrought on Netheril by Karsus’s Folly.

  She had given Rivalen still more. She had whispered to him his Own Secret: Rivalen would bring about the destruction of the world. She had birthed a plan then that would only see fruition two thousand years later.

  Rivalen still marveled at the depth of Shar’s planning, at her patience. He did not regard the murder of his mother as a betrayal of his father. Alashar’s death had served a more important purpose than her life. All was according to Shar’s plans.

  “Come,” Brennus said, and gestured him from the doorway into the chamber.

  The brothers crossed the smooth floor of the scrying room. The shadows gave way before them to reveal a massive cube of tarnished silver, half again as tall as Rivalen—Brennus’s scrying cube. Dim images played across one of the four vertical faces.

  Brennus’s two homunculi sat cross-legged on the floor, their backs to the brothers, watching the images displayed on the cube. The tiny humanoid creatures, each constructed by Brennus, absently fiddled with their toes while they watched intently. When they noticed Brennus, one nudged the other and both jumped nimbly to their feet. Toothless smiles opened under flat noses. Both had droopy eyes the same steely color as Brennus’s. Their gray skin creased like old leather as they bowed. To Rivalen, they looked like unfinished clay sculptures.

  One of the homunculi croaked, “The master arrives. We have observed the images as you commanded. There is nothing of interest to report.”

  “Well done,” Brennus said.

  The homunculi preened at his praise. They asked, “Up? Up?”

  Brennus smiled and extended an arm downward. The homunculi grinned and gripped his shirt sleeve to clamber up his arm, then took station on either shoulder. From there, they eyed Rivalen through narrowed eyes.

  “I do not understand your fascination with constructs,” Rivalen said, studying the creatures. His brother was also adept at crafting golems.

  The homunculi stuck their tongues out at him.

  “No more than I understand your fascination with numismatics,” Brennus answered.

  “Coins are bits of history, Brennus. Countless realms rose and fell during our two-thousand-year absence from Faerûn. Collecting the coins of those failed kingdoms reminds me of the fragility of empire. A useful lesson, as we craft another.”

  “Crafting constructs reminds me of the fragility and delicateness of life,” Brennus retorted. “A useful lesson, as we take those of others.” He grinned and his fangs gleamed. “You see? We are similarly motivated, Rivalen.”

  The homunculi giggled.

  Rivalen smiled and tilted his head to concede the point. He studied the images that the homunculi had been watching. Brennus waved his hand before the device and the images cleared and brightened. The homunculi clapped.

  In one of the images, two women sat in solemn counsel across an ornate wooden table. A blue tapestry featuring a purple dragon hung on the wall behind them. The younger of the two, an attractive woman with blond hair, gestured intensely as she spoke. The other, a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman with a serious countenance, remained still and listened, sometimes offering an observation.

  “The Regent of Cormyr and Lady Caladnei,” one of the homunculi observed.

  Rivalen nodded and turned to the other image. A man with long gray hair and a thick beard sat in a padded chair, studying a thick tome in an expansive library. Smoke spiraled toward the ceiling from an ornate, dragon-headed pipe set on the desk before him.

  “Elminster of Shadowdale,” the other homunculus said.

  Rivalen recognized Mystra’s Chosen. He faced his brother. “Impressive. No doubt the most high is pleased.”

  Brennus smiled distantly. “Perhaps not as much as you think. The Steel Regent and Caladnei incessantly discuss and debate the plots and counterplots of her nobility. They are convinced, correctly, that some of the rebellious nobles are allied with us. But they do not know which. Other than that, we have learned little of value. As for Elminster, the image is fake. He thinks to deceive us by feeding us an illusory image.”

  “A fake, a fake, a fake,” one of the homunculi chanted.

  Rivalen raised his eyebrows and more closely examined the image of Elminster.

  “Are you certain? The detail is extraordinary.”

  Even as he watched, the false Elminster leaned back in his chair, took up his pipe, and studied the ceiling, as if pondering a point he had read in the tome before him. Care lines creased his face, though his eyes looked as young as a man in his prime.

  “I am certain,” Brennus answered. “The illusion is a spell tag. It is designed to attract divinations, twist the magic, and turn them back on the caster, allowing Elminster to scry those who would scry him. I prevented that, of course.” Brennus eyed the image with open admiration. “Still, it is extraordinary work. He is clever, and his spellcraft formidable. I have been unable to pierce his defensive wards.”

  “Yet you continue to scry the illusion? Why?” Rivalen asked.

  “It amuses me to do so. And I hope to turn his own spell against him. It must reach back to the real man somehow. I simply have not figured out the method. But I will.”

  Rivalen had no doubt. Few could match Brennus’s skill with divinations.

  Brennus gestured at the cube and the images of Elminster and Alusair went dim.

  “Bye-bye,” said one of the homunculi.

  “Shall we proceed?” Brennus asked.

  Rivalen nodded.

  Brennus asked, “The most high is aware of your plan?”

  “Only you and our father are aware of my plan,” Rivalen answered, deliberat
ely leaving out any mention of Hadrhune. “And the most high wishes it to remain just so until events progress further.”

  The two took positions before one of the blank faces of the scrying cube. Speckles of black tarnish marred the silver face.

  Brennus held up his hand and the homunculi mimicked his gesture. Streams of shadow leaked from his flesh. He spoke an arcane word and the tarnish on the cube face began to swirl and eddy.

  “What do you hope to see?” Brennus asked, as the magic intensified.

  “Shar teaches that hope is an indulgence for the weak,” Rivalen answered.

  “Of course,” Brennus answered with a half-smile.

  Rivalen said, “Therefore, let us not hope. Instead, let us expect. And what I expect to see is opportunity. Consider it yet another test of faith.”

  Brennus smiled at that.

  The swirling cube face took on depth, dimension. Rivalen felt as though he were looking into a hole that never ended. He felt nauseated, as he always did when scrying, and had to look away for a moment.

  Brennus extended both arms and pronounced the name of the Overmaster of Sembia: “Kendrick Selkirk.”

  Rivalen looked back to see colors spinning on the cube face as the magic of the device sought its target, found him, and wormed its way through a number of wards against observation. The colors slowed, expanded, and an image began to take shape.

  The homunculi clapped with glee.

  Rivalen put a hand to his holy symbol as the image cleared. With his other hand, he took from his pocket one of the coins from his collection that he had pocketed for the occasion: a five-pointed Sembian fivestar, stamped in 1371 Dalereckoning to commemorate Overmaster Selkirk’s ascendance to power. He flipped it over his knuckles, a nervous habit, and waited.

  The face of the scrying cube showed a balding, bearded man asleep in an ornate bed. Dyed silk sheets covered his tall frame. The soft glow of embers provided the only light.

  He was alone.

  Rivalen smiled and ran his tongue over his left fang. Another test—passed. He slipped the fivestar back in his pocket. Sembia would need another fivestar designed and stamped for 1374, to commemorate the beginning of a new overmaster’s reign.

  “Opportunity, indeed,” Brennus said. “He is alone.”

  Rivalen concentrated to engage the magic-finding in his eyes, then examined the overmaster through the viewing cube. His enhanced perception showed him magical auras as fields of glowing color.

  Two protective dweomers warded the overmaster, probably emanating from the two magical rings he wore. But neither would protect him against what Rivalen planned to do. Rivalen also saw the glowing lines of a spell of alarm that warded the overmaster’s chambers. He frowned, even though he had expected a magical alarm. It could be defeated by dispelling it, which Rivalen did not wish to do, or by speaking the password, which Rivalen did not know.

  “The wards are easily dispelled,” said Brennus, who had his own ability to see magic.

  “Dispelling them will not serve my purpose,” Rivalen answered, but he had another idea. “Maintain the image.”

  Brennus did as Rivalen bade him, asking no further questions.

  Rivalen lowered himself to a sitting position on the floor, drew on Shar’s Shadow Weave, and spoke a series of arcane words. As he cast, he stared at the sleeping overmaster, let the image sink into his brain, and completed the spell by speaking aloud Kendrick Selkirk’s name.

  Instantly his consciousness separated from his body and streaked through the scrying cube at dizzying speed until it reached the overmaster’s chambers. There, it oozed into the overmaster’s mind and infected his dreams. The phantasm allowed Rivalen to adopt a guise pleasing to the overmaster in his dream, to use that guise to cause the overmaster to do what Rivalen requested upon waking.

  Rivalen did not see Selkirk’s dreams, nor did he know what guise the spell adopted for him. Instead, his mind hovered around the edges of the dreams until the spell captured the overmaster’s attention. Rivalen felt the connection open.

  He projected a compulsion through the spell and into Selkirk’s dream: Upon waking, speak aloud the password of the alarm spell that wards your chambers. Otherwise, all will be lost.

  The spell allowed no more, so Rivalen pulled himself out of the overmaster’s sleep. In a fraction of a breath, his mind returned to his body. He opened his eyes to find himself once more in the scrying chamber.

  “And now?” Brennus asked.

  “And now we wait until he awakens and speaks the password. Then I will kill him.”

  Brennus nodded. “Do you wish me to accompany you?”

  Rivalen shook his head. He was Shar’s servant. He would do her will and he would do it alone.

  “This is a task set by Shar for me alone,” he answered.

  Brennus accepted his statement with a nod. None of the other Twelve Princes disputed Rivalen on matters of religion. Even the most high accorded great respect to Rivalen’s views when it came to Shar’s faith.

  “My gratitude, however, for the offer,” Rivalen added.

  The homunculi grinned, as did Brennus.

  They spent the next few hours watching the scrying cube, waiting. Rivalen used the time to pray, to rehearse his plan, to toy with the Sembian coin. He had already committed to memory the many spells he would need, including several that he had memorized so they could be cast with only a thought.

  “He stirs,” Brennus announced.

  Rivalen tensed, placed the coin back into his pocket.

  The overmaster rolled over in his bed. His eyes opened, he blinked, and he sat up, a glazed look on his face.

  “Machinations,” he announced.

  Rivalen knew that the puzzled frown on Selkirk’s face would soon change to worried alarm, so he wasted no time. He spoke aloud the single arcane word that would transport him bodily across Faerûn. The magic whisked him into the bedchamber of the Overmaster of Sembia.

  “Machinations,” he said as he appeared, preventing the magical alarm from functioning. He followed this immediately with one of the spells triggered only by his thoughts.

  The magic took effect and silence cloaked the room. No sound could be made or heard within the chamber.

  Selkirk saw him and recoiled. His mouth opened but his shout made no sound. His eyes went wide and he lunged for an exquisitely carved night table beside his bed.

  Rivalen triggered a second spell and a swirl of magical shadows went forth from his outstretched hand. The dark tangle struck the overmaster, expanded, and wrapped his arms, torso, and legs in chains of shadow.

  Selkirk struggled futilely against the bindings but managed only to fall off the bed to the floor. The Sembian’s labored breathing, though silent, was visible even through the shadowy chains.

  Rivalen stepped through shadowspace, covering the length of the chamber in a single stride, and knelt at the overmaster’s side. The acrid smell of fear rose from the Sembian’s body. Words spilled out of his mouth—desperate words, to judge from his expression. Probably he was offering Rivalen wealth, station, trying to make a bargain. Rivalen had come to expect as much from Sembians. But even if Rivalen could have heard the words, he would not have cared what the overmaster had to say. Rivalen had not come to bargain; he had come to kill.

  He put his hand gently on Selkirk’s brow. The man’s body went rigid and he shook his head over and over again. Rivalen would have respected him more had he shown defiance.

  With a thought, Rivalen tapped the Shadow Weave and triggered a powerful necromancy spell. The overmaster might have been powerful enough to resist the spell, so Rivalen poured his power into the casting to make his fate certain and quick. The shade had no desire to prolong the Sembian’s suffering.

  Energy flowed out of Rivalen’s hand and into the overmaster’s body. It drove an arcane spike into the Sembian’s heart. Selkirk arched his back, grimaced in pain, convulsed for a few moments, and died. His eyes stared upward; foamy spittle glistened in his bear
d.

  Rivalen dispelled the bindings on the overmaster’s corpse and they vanished. Using the strength granted him by the darkness, he lifted the body into bed and covered it neatly with the sheet. Wondering what Selkirk had been lunging for, Rivalen examined the night table. A glass vial stood near an oil lamp and a small pile of coins. The vial’s contents glowed with a faint magical aura. Within it was a clear liquid. Rivalen tilted the bottle and the liquid grew cloudy. He smiled.

  The potion would have turned the overmaster into mist, allowing him to escape the room, probably through a tiny bolt hole. It was a simple but prudent bedside elixir for a head of state. Rivalen placed the vial where he had found it and eyed the coins, tempted. One of the fivestars was dated 1374 Dalereckoning, the year Overmaster Selkirk had died. The overmaster’s profile was featured on the obverse.

  Rivalen could not resist. He pocketed the coin. In his pocket, he had a fivestar minted in the year of Overmaster Selkirk’s ascendance and a fivestar minted in the year of his death.

  Coins are history, he thought.

  He waved his hand to dispel the magical silence. Placing his hands over the overmaster’s nose and mouth, he softly uttered the words to a powerful spell that severed the metaphysical tie between the Sembian’s body and his soul. There would be no resurrection for Kendrick Selkirk.

  He evaluated the room to ensure that nothing betrayed his presence, then took some time to cast several masking spells that would make his presence undetectable. Under the best of circumstances, Weave users had difficulty detecting spells cast through the Shadow Weave. Riven’s masking spells made it nigh impossible.

  His plan was almost complete. He had but one final spell to cast.

  He stepped before the limestone hearth that filled nearly half of one wall of the chamber. The night embers glowed red. Crossed sabers and a shield featuring a coat of arms, a silver raven on a blue field, hung over the mantle.

  Rivalen turned his back to the fire and the light from the embers stretched his shadow out before him on the carpeted floor. He held his holy symbol in his hand and intoned a prayer to Shar. As the spell progressed, it drew off some of his essence—he gasped as part of him drained away—and funneled it into his shadow, giving it rudimentary life.