A blue circle appeared in the air, half a dozen paces from him—Myrin’s orb, floating of its own accord. It shed a soft light, more like a guiding beacon than a torch. He managed one knee but not the other—his left leg wasn’t obeying his commands. Using his other limbs, he crawled through the darkened chamber toward the orb.
Myrin lay below the orb, so still Kalen feared for a moment that whatever she had done had drained the last of her strength. Her blue runes seemed to shimmer dimly. She stirred as he came close and when he put his fingers to her cheek, her eyes opened. She looked so weary, her eyes shot through with blood and her lids lined with deep wrinkles in black hollows.
“What—what happened?” she asked.
“You did.” Kalen pointed to the orb. “Your spell … that summoned …”
“Oh.” Myrin looked at him dazedly. “But I don’t know a spell like that. At least …” She touched at her throat, and there, just below her right jawline, he saw a shimmering black circle illuminated in ink on her skin. “I didn’t.”
He shivered, though he couldn’t say exactly why.
A familiar stir in the air presaged the reappearance of Sithe. The genasi panted and wheezed, falling immediately to her knees beside them.
“Sithe,” Kalen said, reaching for her. “Are you—?”
She swatted away his hand. “Very well indeed,” she said.
“You sound awful,” Kalen observed.
“Spoken in a voice free of hurt.”
“True.” Kalen wiped blood from his chin. If not for his toughening spellscar, he suspected he would lie twitching on the floor. “Can you dispel this darkness, Myrin?”
“My orb is maintaining it,” Myrin said.
“Lilten’s orb,” Kalen said.
The woman gave a noncommittal shrug. “Let’s see—” She focused on the orb, raising her hand toward it. After a moment, as though it struggled with her, the orb dimmed and dropped like a stone to her hand.
The oppressive darkness lifted as the torch on the floor—miraculously unscathed by the battle—flickered back into existence. At first, the chamber looked empty and Kalen had the briefest moment of elation.
Then he saw it and his heart knew fear.
The mass of buzzing, hissing monstrosities rose up like a mountain before them. Even as he watched, bulges of the demonic beasts emerged to represent limbs. Finally—and perhaps worst—the swarm flowed to form something like facial features.
“Scour … Murmur …,” the swarm said in their minds. “We have dreamed. A world afire.”
The three hardly understood, but the creature’s majesty forced them to silence.
“We are your prince,” it said in a hundred echoing voices. “We are the harbinger.” The swarm made a cacophony of clicking noises that might have been laughter. “This world will feed us. You will feed us … Shadowbane.”
It wasn’t fair, but Kalen didn’t think about that. They were all going to die, but he didn’t think about that either. He did not think about Scour, or Myrin, or Sithe—not even himself. The chamber, Luskan, all of Faerûn—all of it vanished.
He was the thief and the paladin both. He was Shadowbane.
A single voice spoke in his heart, telling him what it needed. What it demanded.
He answered.
Gray flames surrounded him, forming the suit of armor that was the manifestation of his faith. The steel that was his steel—the helm that was his helm.
Slowly, Kalen raised his hand high over his head as though saluting the swarm demon. He reached toward the heavens and opened himself wholly to the Threefold God.
There was no blade in his hand. He was the blade.
He was the destroyer.
A god’s instrument to destroy a demon prince.
He was the protector.
The drive to destroy was also the need to defend.
He was the guardian.
Silver fire lit in the air above him and he felt the familiar weight of a familiar bastard sword in his hand. One that, at last, did not burn him as he touched it.
He knew without looking that his prayer had been answered.
8 FLAMERULE (MIDNIGHT)
HIS THOUGHTS VANISHED AND HE MOVED IN A SEEMINGLY frozen world.
Vindicator, the sword of his soul somehow restored, slashed down and across, burning a score of Scour to ash. He bent low with the momentum, his body moving in perfect balance, and brought it up the other way, ripping away at the demon swarm.
With a roar, Scour slammed a composite limb into him, but hundreds of demons shrieked off his armor to no effect. Calmly, he stepped aside like a breath of wind and slashed the arm in two. Every strike he made against it—every bit of its life that slipped away—made the next strike deeper.
He struck again and again, dodged and struck. He did not think, not in the depths of his ardor—not in the burning light of his god. He struck and struck until it was ended.
Vindicator cut and burned until Scour lay in quivering pieces on the floor.
A hand touched his shoulder and he cut before he felt it. Vindicator smashed into a jagged black axe, knocking it to the floor.
Shar’s daughter stood unarmed before him.
He said nothing, only pulled back his sword for another strike. He knew exactly how to defeat her—exactly how to water the earth with her blood.
Then she appeared—the daughter of another goddess—and laid her hands alongside his cheeks. “Kalen!” she said. “Kalen, wake up!”
He did not know this name.
He drew back the blade, but a crystal in her hand flashed, thunder cracked, and he landed on his backside, five paces distant.
The ardor of the Threefold God fled him and—with it—the deepest secret of all.
Kalen found himself sitting on the blood-smeared floor, the hilt of silver-burning Vindicator in his hand. He stared dazedly at the sword. Hadn’t it been destroyed? How had he come by it?
And more to the point, what had he done?
Scour lay in dozens of pieces, its multiple creatures limping uncertainly.
Myrin fell to her knees at Kalen’s side. “Are you well?” she demanded, feeling at his head. “Are you you?”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
Myrin breathed a sigh of relief. “As thick-headed as ever.”
Kalen might have spoken, but she pulled him forward and kissed his forehead. That was all that needed to pass between them.
“It is not over,” Sithe said.
The genasi stood just removed from them. Her skin was torn in scores of places. Her clothes hung limp and ragged. She pointed.
Kalen saw, with a chill, what she meant. The beasts that had made up Scour were attacking one another, deriving sustenance from the demonic blood they spilled with their bites. Each creature that died fell among half a dozen of its fellows, which started twitching. New beasts grew from the corpses and even from the rock itself—those parts touched by the blood of the abyss.
“I can feel them in my head—they will return,” Sithe said. “Unless the pestilence is contained, it will never be over.”
“So we burn them,” Kalen said, knowing that would not work. “We can—”
Sithe shook her head. “It is not such a bad life I have lived, to see a god’s work,” Sithe mused. “And to know I was worthy of it.”
“I don’t understand,” Myrin said. “What are you saying?”
“Wait—” Kalen started to rise.
“It is the only way.” Sithe tossed her black axe into his chest, knocking him back to the floor. “Take care, Helm’s Champion.”
Myrin blinked, finally understanding. “Sithe, wait!” she said. “We can find you a cure—in Waterdeep, or Silverymoon! Don’t—”
“I wish I had worn your dress, Myrin Darkdance,” she said. “Just once.”
With that, she strode away from them, toward where the beasts were milling about, fighting with one another. The nearest leaped on her and dug its talons into her leg. Another, weakened by the attacks
, leaped for her face, but she caught it instead on her arm. She walked on, unhindered.
“Stop!” Myrin cried, tears streaking her face. “Sithe!”
The veins in his neck bulging, Kalen tried to rise, but he had no strength. His god’s power had left him a hollow shell.
Sithe kept walking as more and more vermin coated her. Five, six, ten, a dozen, two dozen—all the survivors of Scour leaped upon this fresh source of food, who’d so foolishly walked into their midst. They jabbed her with their stingers, over and over. They feasted: Kalen could hear the crunch and pop of pieces of Sithe’s ears, nose, and eyes. The dark genasi’s flesh crystallized as they watched, the corruption spreading from every bite. Panting, she walked on.
Finally, when Sithe had accumulated the rest of Scour to her, she fell to her knees. Her chest swelled rapidly and her breath wheezed.
Sithe’s face changed then—something Kalen had never thought possible. The slit of her mouth spread through the black leather of her face and she smiled.
“I have come, Brothers,” she said, her mouth half crystal. “Feast with me.”
The air split with a great wrenching as all swept toward Sithe for a moment.
Then she and the demons were gone.
For a long time after, Kalen sat among the desiccated corpses and bloody stains in the center of the battlefield, drained of all strength and emotion.
Scour was finished. The last corpses of its merged demon-spawn began to rot away into dust. If any had escaped … He didn’t know—nor did he care. Still, he waited.
Myrin understood, but she wished she didn’t. She wished, for the first time she remembered, for ignorance. She didn’t want to remember this. “Kalen—”
“She’s coming back,” he said.
They breathed together in the empty chamber, broken and bloody.
Silence and death surrounded them.
“Kalen.” Myrin put her hand on his shoulder.
“Any moment now,” Kalen said.
Myrin put her arms around his neck.
8 FLAMERULE (DAWN)
EDEN SAT IN HER PERSONAL ALTAR CHAMBER, IN THE CENTER of the floor. She had bashed the divan to shards, overturned the altar, and dashed her scrying bowl to pieces. Her platinum coin lay on the floor by the corner, where she had thrown it.
How? How could the goddess have chosen the girl?
The goddess had abandoned her. Her goddess—her mother—had abandoned her all over again. All because of that damned Kalen.
Tears leaked down from her eyes, salty water from her good eye, blood from her empty socket. She’d only ever wanted her goddess—her mother—to love her. She …
She heard a snap from outside, followed by the sharp swish of a metal blade. Someone had tripped one of her snares. That gave her a small burst of pleasure. At least she still had the foolishness of men—that would never fail to amuse her.
A second trap went off—this a series of darts clicking off stone. So the intruder had brought a second, had he? How amusing.
A third trap went off, and a fourth, and a fifth—clicks, pops, and the occasional loud blast—with increasing frequency.
Someone was setting off all her traps, she realized. Gods.
She crossed to the door, where she kept a spyhole for just such an occasion. She peered out and gasped at the golden figure walking toward her. He chose a random path, his every step setting off a trap—each of which miraculously missed him.
“No,” she said. “No, no—goddess!”
She closed the spyhole and ran back to search desperately for her platinum coin. The goddess would save her—she must!
There! Eden put her trembling hands around the coin, but it slipped from her grasp and rolled under the broken table. She peered in, with her one good eye, and saw that Beshaba’s visage stared up at her.
The door swung open behind her and Eden froze.
“Left the door unlocked, did you? What terrible luck,” the Horned One said. “Almost as awful as misplacing your symbol. Tsk.”
She made a mad grab for her coin and got it.
Eden threw herself aside and cried out to the Lady. She held the coin forth at the Horned One where he stood not four paces away. She could not miss.
Light flared, but it burst not toward the golden man. Instead, it burst in the opposite direction: right into Eden’s face. As the goddess’s paralysis gripped her, she stared at the visage of Beshaba facing her on the coin. The wrong side—the goddess she had chosen.
“What rotten luck you have.” He stepped forward and plucked the two-faced coin from her fingers. It disappeared into his sleeve. “I asked for one simple thing—just one.”
“Why?” Eden managed to whisper through lips that fought against her.
“The Darkdance girl,” he said. “Not that I have any particular affection for her, but she’s terribly important to my present plans. If you’d left well enough alone, I wouldn’t have had to give her the orb before its time … ah, but you don’t want to hear all this.”
Eden wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her beg. “You’ll … pay …” she said. “I am … queen … of Luskan …”
“Oh, a new power is rising in Luskan, indeed,” he said. “It might have been you, but alas. I’d choose your enemies more carefully in the future you don’t have.”
Eden felt the paralysis fading—enough that she could move her lips. If she could just speak in the proper cadence … She murmured the first words on the scroll he had given her.
“Are you certain that’s a good idea?” he asked. “You might want to think this through.”
“Tluin you!” she shouted. She finished the chant.
At first, nothing happened. Then she heard the chittering and clicking that heralded its coming. “Let us see which of us is the stronger in this place of the Lady,” Eden said. “Her chosen priestess, or a turncloak like you!”
“Hmm,” he said. “This is awkward.”
Beetles and spiders crept up through the walls—not the fiends of Scour, just normal vermin. Rats flitted from holes, drawn toward her casting. Locusts, called from marauding in the fields, tapped against the clear skylight, cracking the glass.
“What is this?” The creatures scrabbled at Eden’s robes and she could not fight them off. “But I am warded! The demon cannot touch me!”
“These are not demons,” the Horned One said. “Scour is gone from this place—perhaps destroyed, perhaps not, but certainly slumbering once again. These are merely his creatures and they are, for lack of a better word, hungry.” He bowed. “Good day.”
“My lord!” Eden cried. “My Lord Horned One! Save me!”
“Unlikely,” he said. “And please, call me Lilten.”
As they crawled up her body, burrowing through her imported robe, Eden shouted hysterically. “It won’t matter!” she cried. “You heard the halfling—his final prophecy!” Rats clung to her hair, spiders burrowed into her underclothes. “Dren will fall into darkness and destroy all he loves! Defend the little slut as you like, you will lose. You will lose!”
“My dear,” Lilten paused at the door and looked back at her, “whoever said he was talking about your brother?”
Kalen perched at the edge of the Drowned Rat’s roof as the sun rose, chasing darkness from the world. He stared not at the sunrise, but rather to the west, where the darkness fled. Myrin didn’t understood what he was doing, but it seemed to comfort him and that was the important thing.
“There was nothing you could have done,” Myrin said. She had bundled up against the cold night, but as the sun hit Luskan, sweat emerged on her skin.
Kalen nodded.
“She was my friend, too, you know,” Myrin said. “Not that I knew her as well as you did.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you? I mean—?”
Kalen shook his head. “I loved her after a fashion. As much as she wanted.”
Myrin wasn’t sure what to make of that, but she accepted it all the same. Kalen Dren was not an easy
man to understand.
“Kalen, I share your grief, but we need to move on. There are things—”
“No,” Kalen said. “This is not grief, but anger.”
“Oh.” Myrin felt her fingers turn cold. “You know Sithe’s death was not your fault.”
“Sithe’s was not my fault, no,” Kalen said. “She left this world as she willed—destroying her enemy. But Rhett …”
“Rhett.” Myrin looked down at her hands.
Silence stretched between them. She joined him at the crenellations between the roof and open space. The Drowned Rat overlooked the bay, whose black waters seemed remarkably calm this dawn—almost like glass. Almost like Vindicator.
Myrin looked down at the sword, which lay on the edge of the roof. With the slightest push, it would dance through the air and scythe into the bay, to be lost forever. Would their lives be lessened or improved by such an accident?
The blade, now cleansed of blood, no longer glowed as it had in Kalen’s hand. The growing sunlight, however, danced off it in a particular way. She reached out and could feel the power in the sword—the source of such power she had not even dreamed of.
“Will you take the sword?” she asked. “I mean, wherever you go next?”
“If I never touch that blade again,” Kalen said, “it will be too soon.”
“Now that is royally stupid,” Myrin said sharply. Kalen looked over at her. “That sword has chosen you, whether you like it or not. You cannot simply ignore it.”
“Don’t I know it,” Kalen said.
Words trailed off again between them and they listened to the gulls ringing in the dawn. Myrin turned, her arms crossed, and leaned back against the wall, looking toward the east. There, outside the city, the Waterdhavians would be hearing that the plague had ended and they would lift the quarantine.
“Looks like Luskan survives another plague summer,” Myrin observed.
“More’s the pity,” Kalen replied, stepping away.
Finally, frustrated, Myrin seized Vindicator by the hilt—awkwardly, since it was too heavy for her—and rounded on Kalen. “Is that all?” she asked. “You’ll just give up? And—”
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