Shadowbred

by Paul S. Kemp

  I shake my head again. “With you, he’s lost.”

  The devil does not dispute it. “Go look outside, Magadon. Do it now. See what comes.”

  Despite the dread that floods my chest, I move to the door and listen. I hear nothing. Are the fears truly gone? I have to know.

  Heart thumping, I slide back the lock. When the fears do not renew their assault, I open the door a crack.

  Still nothing. I take a breath and throw it wide.

  “Look at the far side of the bubble, Magadon.”

  I do and see the bubble dissolving. It is as if a horizon is moving across the world, annihilating everything behind it.

  “Loose me and I will save him. I will call his friends to him.”

  I say nothing and watch death approach.

  “They are near,” the devil says. “I called them long ago through the crack but I cannot do it anymore, not unless I am freed. He is too far gone. Let me out. Let me out now, or it will be too late.”

  I cannot. I will not.

  “No,” I say. “I know what you are. He locked you away for a reason. You are evil. It’s better for us to be lost. All of us.”

  “No,” the voice says, and I hear real fear in the tone. “Think of all that will die. Darkness, yes, but light, too. Goodness. Lost forever. Would you let that all die to spite me? Would you? All men harbor a darkness. It’s what makes them men. Save him. Save us. You must.”

  I stand in the doorway and watch the world dissolve.

  “I can’t,” I say. “I can’t.”

  “There is no more time,” the devil says. “We are all going to die. You, me, him, all of us. Do you want that to happen? Can you allow it? Choose. Do your duty or die. Choose!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  11 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms

  Cale and Riven materialized on the edge of a floating city shrouded in darkness—Sakkors, newly raised. The mountaintop that Cale had last seen at the bottom of the sea had been lifted from the depths and positioned so its flat top faced the night sky. Cale leaned over the edge to see the Inner Sea, still and black, far below them.

  Sakkors had been rebuilt somehow. Shadows twined around thin spires, thick walls, along wide boulevards, through the windows of shops, residences, and noble manses. The city was nothing but dead stone; there was no greenery of any kind. Something about it reminded Cale of Elgrin Fau.

  In the distance, he could hear the sounds of workers—hammers banging stone, shouts.

  “Quite a feat,” Riven said, looking around.

  Cale nodded. “They will attack the moment they appear.”

  “Of course they will,” Riven said. “I saw his eyes.”

  Riven reached into a belt pouch and removed two small stones—one a deep purple, one a light purple. He tossed them into the air and both whirred in a tight orbit around his head.

  “More from the Sojourner,” he explained to Cale.

  Cale nodded, grasped his mask, and incanted a spell that made him faster, stronger. He expected an immediate attack from Rivalen and his bodyguards. The delay worried him.

  They moved away from the edge of the mountaintop to give themselves room for combat. Before they had taken ten strides, the darkness around them deepened, swirled, surrounded them. Even Cale had difficulty making out shapes within the darkness.

  “Here we go,” Riven said, assuming a fighting crouch.

  “Rivalen lives,” Cale said, “but only until he tells us where Mags is.”

  A pair of golden eyes formed in the black, then a series of dark forms. Rivalen and his five shade bodyguards emerged from the murk. The bodyguards bore blades, and Rivalen held a black disc with a purple border in his hand, a holy symbol. Cale saw power crackling around it.

  Cale charged. Riven read his lead and engaged two of the bodyguards nearest him, blades whirling. Before Cale had taken two strides, Rivalen pointed his holy symbol and said, “Die.”

  A gray beam shot from the shade’s symbol. To Cale’s surprise, Weaveshear did not absorb it and the dark magic hit Cale’s chest, entered his flesh, and twined around his heart. Cale gasped but kept his feet and continued forward. He lunged and offered a weak overhand swing with Weaveshear. Rivalen dodged backward but not before Cale’s blade opened a gash in his chest. Rivalen hissed with pain.

  “Not enough, shade,” Cale said through gasps. Despite the magic seizing his heart, he pressed ahead and stabbed at Rivalen’s stomach. The shade sidestepped the blow and Weaveshear only skinned his side.

  Rivalen grabbed Cale by the wrist and held it to keep Weaveshear away from him. Cale struggled but found Rivalen’s strength to be a match for his own. Purple light shot through the darkness that swirled around them.

  “You are a priest,” Cale said through gritted teeth.

  “And more,” Rivalen answered, and intoned a prayer.

  Cale recovered enough to chant a prayer of his own. Both completed their spells at almost the same moment. Dark energy flared in both their free hands and each reached for the other. Their hands met and both spells discharged harmful energy.

  Wounds erupted from both of them. Cale’s spell opened rips in Rivalen’s arm, chest, and face. Rivalen’s spell twisted Cale’s organs and tore gashes in his arm and face. Both men shouted with the pain as their flesh struggled to regenerate. Neither released the other. Cale struggled to free Weaveshear for a killing strike but the Shadovar would not let him loose.

  “You are a priest,” said Rivalen through the pain.

  “And more,” answered Cale. He butted his head into the bridge of Rivalen’s nose, heard a satisfying crunch, and used his greater size to drive the shade backward.

  The Shadovar, his nose gushing blood, tried to shake his hand loose to cast a spell but Cale held him tight. The struggle spun them around and around and Cale caught intermittent glimpses of Riven dueling with the shade bodyguards. The shades blinked in and out of the shadows around Riven, but the assassin kept his blades moving so fast that the Shadovar could not gain an advantage.

  Cale grunted, tried again to free Weaveshear. Rivalen grunted in answer, tried to free a hand to draw his own blade. They shoved, spun, grunted, and whirled. Shadows enveloped them. Violet sparks shot through the darkness.

  Finally Rivalen gave up trying to draw his weapon and intoned another prayer. Cale answered with one of his own. As the dark energy of their spells manifested in their hands, as they spun and whirled, shouted and strained, they fell over the edge of Sakkors.

  Both shouted with surprise as they fell. Cale caught a glimpse of the sea far below them. Starlight reflected off its surface. Their grips on one another loosened as they plummeted toward the placid water. Rivalen jerked his hand free and slammed it against Cale’s chest.

  Cale’s body exploded with pain. He screamed, his body contorting with agony. Blood poured from his ears. He responded instinctively, lashing out with a blind stab from Weaveshear. He felt it sink into flesh and Rivalen’s scream joined Cale’s as they fell.

  The dark water rushed upward to embrace them.

  Despite the pain and blood loss, Cale recovered enough to use the shadows around him to transport back to Sakkors. He appeared, bleeding and spent, ten paces from Riven.

  The assassin saw him appear and unleashed a flurry of saber blows that drove back the shade bodyguards. He feinted at one in front of him and unleashed a backhand crosscut to the one on his right. The blow nearly decapitated the man and he fell at Riven’s feet. Before Riven could choose his next move, the shade to Riven’s left stabbed the assassin through the side. Riven grunted, waved his sword defensively, and staggered backward, bleeding and favoring his side.

  For a moment, Cale let himself hope that Rivalen had perished in the fall. But the shade priest stepped from the shadows on Cale’s right, breathing heavily and bleeding. Their eyes met and each glared hate at the other.

  “Where is Magadon?” Cale demanded.

  Rivalen only smiled.

  Cale stepped throu
gh the shadows and appeared beside Riven. A shade bodyguard lunged at him, blade low. Cale parried the man’s blade into the ground and punched him in the face with his other hand.

  “We go,” he said to Riven, and drew the darkness around them.

  They shadowstepped across the city to the roof of a distant shop. Both men stood in the darkness, surrounded by a dead city, gasping, bleeding. Cale’s flesh worked to close the score of tears in his body.

  Riven peeled back his cloak and shirt to check the wound in his side. It was deep and pouring out blood. He closed his eyes, concentrated for a moment, and the dark purple stone circling his head flashed. The wound in his side healed completely.

  “Stores a spell or two,” he explained to Cale. “Someone has to cast them into the stone but I can trigger them after that.”

  “Useful,” Cale said. He held his holy symbol and cast healing magic not into himself—his flesh would take care of his wounds—but into the whirling stone. The magical gem flashed as it absorbed the spell.

  “Healing magic,” Cale explained, wincing as more of his wounds sealed shut. “I don’t want you dying on me.”

  Riven grinned. “We’re in agreement on that. Now what?”

  Cale was working one step at a time. “We find Magadon and get clear.”

  “How?”

  “With spells,” Cale answered, but he was not confident. He had tried magic before. He could only hope that proximity to Magadon would allow his divinations to function more effectively.

  “Got to stay alive for that,” Riven said. “Be quick, Cale. The shades will be after us.”

  Cale knew. They had almost an entire city to search—assuming Rivalen had told them the truth about Magadon—and Cale did not know where to begin. He tried mental contact before casting a spell. If Magadon had reached him in dreams, perhaps he could sense him now.

  Magadon, Cale projected. Magadon, where are you?

  The darkness deepened around them and ten shade soldiers charged out, blades bare. Cale rolled to his left and stabbed upward with Weaveshear. The blade pierced the Shadovar’s armor, his gut, and poked out his back. Before Cale could pull it free, a blade sliced open his shoulder. Another stabbed him through the side. He spat the words to a harmful prayer, held forth his palm, and sent an arc of black energy into the Shadovar standing over him. They grunted and recoiled as the baleful force of Cale’s spell cracked ribs and rent flesh. Cale pulled Weaveshear free of the Shadovar, rolled to his side, and gained his feet.

  Riven shouted a series of power-laden syllables of the Black Speech and the Shadovar quailed, covering their ears. Riven slashed the throat of one near him and Cale decapitated another.

  “Leave the rest,” Cale said to Riven, and intoned a prayer to Mask. As he pronounced the last syllable, he shadowstepped with Riven from the roof to the top of a spire across the street. In his wake, his spell summoned a column of flame that drenched the rooftop and the Shadovar soldiers in fire. He knew that their flesh resisted magic, like his, but he hoped the spell incinerated at least a few.

  Magadon, I need you to tell me where you are. Magadon!

  Riven cursed as Rivalen and two other Shadovar, both with glowing metallic eyes, flew up from street level and hovered in the air less than a long dagger toss from the spire. One of them bore an archaic greatsword as long as Cale’s leg. The other held a staff that bled shadows. Darkness swirled lazily around all three.

  Riven hurled three daggers in rapid succession but the shadows around Rivalen deflected them.

  The staff-bearing Shadovar leveled its tip at Cale and shot a swirling beam of yellow energy. Cale interposed Weaveshear but the blade absorbed nothing. The energy slammed into him, lifted him from his feet, and pushed him backward to the edge of the rooftop. His magic-fighting flesh deflected whatever other injury the spell might have caused.

  Cale spared a glance down at the street below and saw a virtual army of dark-skinned, muscular bipeds with pointed ears charging down the streets toward the spire. They caught sight of Cale, pointed upward, snarled, and roiled forward.

  “Riven!” Cale said.

  “I see them!” Riven said. “Too godsdamned many, Cale!”

  Cale agreed. They would have to leave without Magadon. Desperate, he tried once more to reach out to his friend.

  Mags, where are you? Tell me now or we’ll have to leave you.

  The darkness near Riven swirled and a greatsword-wielding Shadovar stepped out of it. He twirled his black-bladed sword with such ease and speed it might as well have been a whipblade. The weapon trailed frost in its wake. His eyes burned orange. He stood as tall as Cale but as broad in the shoulders as a half-orc. The symbol of a stylized sword decorated the dull gray breastplate he wore.

  Riven turned to face him, whirled his own sabers in answer, and intoned a short prayer to Mask. When he finished, his blades bled dark power.

  “Let’s dance,” he said to the Shadovar warrior.

  Magadon! Cale called in a last, desperate attempt.

  The cell crumbles to nothingness around me. I look up into the sky and see the annihilating line rushing across the thought bubble, eating the world. I will be destroyed. The devil will be destroyed. I smile, laugh, and then remember …

  Magadon will be destroyed, too.

  The devil is frantic behind the wall. “We will all die, Duty! All of us! Unless you let me out! Let me out!”

  My arms hang slackly, still holding the pickaxe, watching the world end.

  “Let me out! Let me out!”

  I see my choice clearly: To save the man, I must save the devil; to kill the devil, I must kill the man.

  Where does my duty lie? I do not know.

  All men have a darkness in them, or so the devil had said.

  I know the devil was a liar.

  But I know that the devil had spoken truth. All men did have darkness. Some wore it in the form of horns. Some bore it invisibly as rot in their souls.

  I can let myself die, but I cannot let the core die. Too much good lives in the core.

  I make my decision, heft the pickaxe, stride to the wall. I strike it with all my might. Stink and cold boil out of the fissure. I strike again, again, again.

  “Yes! Let me out!”

  Riven and the sword-bearing Shadovar moved so rapidly Cale could scarcely follow. The Shadovar swung overhand; Riven sidestepped, slashed with his off-hand saber. The Shadovar spun a circle and unleashed a reverse slash at Riven’s throat. Riven ducked under and landed both blades on the Shadovar’s chest. The magic powering Riven’s blades opened twin gashes in the Shadovar’s armor. The shade warrior recoiled, surprise in his eyes.

  “Rethinking it now?” Riven asked with a sneer.

  “If all of me were here, this would be finished already,” the shade said.

  Cale didn’t know what to make of that and didn’t care. He shadowstepped to the Shadovar’s side and stabbed with Weaveshear. The blade sliced through the shade’s armor and sank deep into flesh. Grunting, the shade slashed backhand at Cale with such speed that Cale could not avoid it. The steel opened a gash in his throat and the magic of the weapon froze his skin. Blood and ice sprayed and he staggered backward.

  Riven leaped forward, slashed the Shadovar’s sword arm, nearly severing it at the bicep, and kicked him off the edge of the tower.

  “Cale?”

  Cale’s flesh worked to close the hole in his throat. He signaled with a hand that he was all right.

  Behind Riven, the staff-carrying Shadovar completed an incantation and shot a bolt of black energy at Cale and Riven. Cale leaped to his feet and tackled Riven. The bolt missed them and both came up in a crouch as the energy melted a stinking hole into the spire’s roof.

  “If we stay, we die,” Riven said to him.

  “I know,” Cale managed, his voice awkward from the throat wound.

  There was nothing else for it. Cale wrapped himself and Riven in darkness and prepared to flee. A voice rang out in his head, so loud it
drove him to his knees.

  Let me out!

  Riven clutched his ears, as did every other creature on the street. Cale recognized the voice, though its tone was different.

  Mags! Show me where you are!

  Magadon answered, Erevis? Erevis Cale? Are you here? Can you be real?

  Now, Mags! Now!

  A mental image formed in Cale’s mind—a hemispherical chamber deep within Sakkor’s floating mountain. Cale reached for the connection between where he stood and where he wanted to go.

  At that moment Rivalen completed his spell and gestured at Cale with both hands. A wave of gray energy poured forth from Rivalen’s hands and hit Cale’s body, penetrated the magical protection of his flesh, and burst him from the inside. His skin ruptured and blood, tissue, veins, and arteries exploded from him in a stringy shower of gore. He tried to scream but choked on his own blood.

  He fell to his knees in the wet mess, gagging, coughing, agonized. Woundshock was setting in. He was drifting, falling. Riven cursed and leaped to his side. Cale caught a flash of purple as Riven pulled a healing spell from his stone. Cale’s vision cleared. The pain remained and his flesh struggled to regenerate the rest.

  “Get us out of here, Cale,” Riven said, looking up at the shade warriors. Behind Riven, Cale saw the greatsword-wielding Shadovar. The door to the spire’s roof burst open and a column of snarling, muscular humanoids burst through. Their white fangs stood out starkly against their black skin. The lead creatures raised their blades, shrieked, and charged.

  His face sticky with blood, his mind cloudy with pain, Cale let himself sink into the darkness. He rode the shadows to the place Magadon had shown him.

  He and Riven appeared in a hemispherical chamber bathed in red light. The mammoth, glowing crystalline mythallar hovered unsupported in the center of the room. Whorls of orange and red flowed within the facets. Waves of magical energy poured forth from it with the regularity of a heartbeat.

  Cale’s ears throbbed with each pulse. The room vibrated with arcane power and ropes of shadow floated from Weaveshear toward the mythallar. The weapon pulsed in Cale’s bloody hand in perfect time to the magical vibrations.