“Oh,” Hessar said. “I doubt he’ll come save you this time.”
Then he put his hands on either side of her head and began to squeeze.
Kalen understood much in that moment, staring at the two Shadowbanes.
He knew, for instance, why on one occasion (when he’d bequeathed Vindicator), his double had offered him no violence, while the other (the trap he’d laid with Levia) had proved a battle to the death. Those had been different Shadowbanes, although they dressed alike. He understood why there were two other Shadowbanes as well—at least one other wanted another wielder of Vindicator for his or her own purposes.
But he could not have predicted what would happen next.
He stared at the two Shadowbanes—Vengeance girded in armor of black flames, Mercy in mortal leather—and focused on untying himself. It was extremely difficult to unravel the knot with one hand, particularly with a broken thumb.
“You’ve made a terrible mistake, boy,” said Vengeance. “This has to be done.”
Mercy shook his head and held Vindicator toward his adversary. “Stand against me, and you stand against us all.”
He might have said more, but in that moment, Brace—blood filling his eyes and trailing from his lips—rose and hurled himself upon Vengeance.
“Coward!” the gnome cried. “Son of a Cyric-loving whore! Detestable curd of maggot-ridden goat shit! You—” His curses only grew fouler.
Taken by surprise, Vengeance strove to fend off the enraged gnome and his twin rapiers. Kalen could feel him calling out for Vindicator with his will, but Mercy clung to the sword, leaving the man in black weaponless.
Kalen focused on the newcomer. He recognized by Tyr’s burning sigil that this Shadowbane—Mercy—was the one to whom he had bequeathed Vindicator. He remembered the words they had shared, the vow that Mercy had repeated to him. Kalen thought he knew the man’s stance and poise. Also, he knew his heart.
“Rhett,” Kalen said. He was almost free. “Rhett, if that’s you—help me.”
Mercy regarded him, expression hidden behind his helm. He hesitated.
“Kalen!” came a cry from below—Myrin’s cry.
Mercy looked around, and instantly gray flames surrounded Vindicator as his focus lapsed. Kalen reached out for the blade, but too late—it vanished from Mercy’s hands. Brace’s insults fell away into gurgling death. The gnome stood spitted on Vindicator, which burned black in Vengeance’s hands.
“Apologies,” Vengeance said. “Was this a friend of yours?”
Then he wrenched the blade free in a torrent of blood. Brace, torn almost in half, collapsed to the floor, dead.
Ilira slashed her rapier quick as a threshing wind, and it was all Fayne could do to parry with steel and magic. Ilira danced around her just as quickly as she wielded her blade, striking from dozens of unexpected angles. Fayne blocked with her own sword only a quarter of the time, and she relied on her shielding aura of blades to deflect the rest. Gods, the woman was fast, but Fayne had the weight of justice on her side. She would not lose.
Fayne thought, madly, that this must be how Kalen felt when he fought. Kalen—
Her sword blazed and struck Ilira’s wounded belly with a blast of eldritch power, just where Kalen had stabbed her. With luck, it would still be tender. Sure enough, with a gasp of pain, Ilira staggered, but before Fayne could land a finishing blow, the elf shadowdanced away. Determined to allow her no escape, Fayne pursued through her aegis.
“You murdered the only person who ever mattered to me!” Fayne cried. “I will kill you!”
They fought their way over walls and around buildings, to the side of the River Thunn and north along the bank. They passed the River Bridge, where the river fell away into the Sea of Fallen Stars. Fayne tried to maneuver Ilira toward a shattering fall to the rocks below, but the elf was careful to keep moving and avoid being trapped.
Their battle led into a graveyard filled with statuary, which the growing rain cut into a bleary world of dark and light. Ilira vanished into the shadow of a leaning statue perched on the edge of the cliff, meant perhaps to be an old king of Westgate. Fayne listened for the call of her aegis to teleport after her. The magic did not call from afar, however—did not activate at all. Had Ilira escaped, somehow? No!
Then a rapier screeched through Fayne’s shielding magic and slashed across her back. Her warding deflected it somewhat, but it still cut open the leather over her shoulder blade. Blood splashed in the hazy moonlight. She whipped around, but Ilira leaped back into Fayne’s own shadow, from whence she had come. Fayne cast around for her, cursing in Abyssal.
“Hail.” The elf perched casually atop the statue. “Your heart may be in this, but your arm hardly is,” she said. “You use the arts of an armathor, but you’re no warrior. You’re throwing all your magic at me, hoping to overwhelm me. Who are you, lass?”
It was true. Fayne was almost out of tricks, and while she’d wounded Ilira, she hadn’t defeated her. She could not let this chance slip past her. She had to win. She had to!
Rage filled Fayne, and she raised her sword, blazing with fire and impossible force. She slashed it around and cut the statue in two. Ilira leaped away from the crumbling top half as it fell over the cliff. As Ilira alighted behind her, Fayne spun and lashed out with a fist coursing with the same spell. Ilira parried awkwardly, which kept Fayne’s punch from going through her chest. As it was, the elf flew backward with the force, bounced off a tombstone, skipped into the air, then crashed back through a stone wall surrounding the Timeless Blade. Ilira collapsed into the fencing yard. There she lay, bleeding and coughing.
Ilira started to rise, but Fayne pointed her blade like a wand and cast a spell she had only cast once, and only upon Ilira herself. “Your worst fear to unmake you!” she cried, the Abyssal syllables ringing like a profane chorus around them. Shadowy magic stirred. The elf drew up straight as though struck, then grasped the sides of her head. Soundless, she crumpled.
“No,” Ilira panted. “I don’t need you. I don’t—”
“How fitting!” Fayne declared. “The same way I first struck you is the way I kill you!”
She leaped through the Feywild and materialized over Ilira, her rapier raised. Writhing in the rain-drenched mud and her own blood, the elf stared up at Fayne with pleading gold eyes. “Please,” she said. “Just leave me. I don’t need you …”
She tried to raise Betrayal, but Fayne stepped on the rapier.
“Cythara—mother,” she said, raising her sword. “Now you are avenged.”
Kalen saw Vengeance murder Brace, and blood filled his vision. He wrenched himself free of his bonds and rose, surrounded by gray flames. He grasped Sithe’s black axe.
“You are angry.” Vengeance raised the bloody Vindicator. “Excellent.”
Kalen lunged at him with a cry, propelled by the Threefold God’s power. The axe chopped down and shrieked against Vengeance’s raised defense. Vindicator cut across Kalen’s middle, but he dodged back enough that it clanged off his flame armor.
As Vengeance slashed, Vindicator danced aside with the same impossible speed he’d exhibited on the rooftop, but Kalen slammed bodily into him.
“Not this time,” Kalen said. “This time, you fall. I swear it.”
“I’m sure.”
In Vengeance’s hands, the sword’s hilt had shifted into a symbol that was not Torm’s gauntlet, Tyr’s scales, nor Helm’s eye. Rather, it was a black hand grasping a coin between two fingers. Upon the coin was a man with two faces wracked with pain and terror.
“The mark of Hoar, God of Vengeance,” Kalen said as they fought. “You pervert the Threefold God’s justice with your heresy.”
“Heresy?” Vengeance laughed. “Ah, Kalen, but you do not know the Threefold God at all, do you? He has chosen a champion for each of his faces—you, Helm the Guardian—he, Tyr the Just. And another—”
He stabbed at Kalen, but the whirling axe knocked the blade wide. Shadowbane grasped the axe and pull
ed Kalen close. Their helms burned against each other.
“Only I serve the greatest of the three: Assuran the Lord of Three Thunders—Hoar the Doombringer, Lord of Vengeance.” He knocked Kalen back with a slam of Vindicator’s hilt. “He is the true heir of the Threefold God, and I am his Chosen. You are nothing.”
This was the final insult. As a boy, Kalen had seen firsthand and done terrible evil in Luskan, and had chosen the slim thread of hope Gedrin offered in Vindicator. As a youth, he’d watched shadow corrupt the Eye of Justice, and chosen his own crusade out of the city. As a man, he’d fought countless villains in Waterdeep and Downshadow, then left to follow his heart and his quest. He had driven all others away, sacrificed so much to heed his god’s call: Levia, Rhett, Myrin—her most of all. All these things he could put aside for the sake of his purpose.
He was the bringer of justice, the guardian of the world, and the wielder of Helm’s fire.
And now, to have his order shattered, his love lost, his faith undermined, and his very identity taken was more than Kalen Dren could bear.
“No,” Kalen said, rage filling him.
Vengeance laughed, and Kalen slammed the butt of Sithe’s axe into his face. The man staggered back against the wall, but his laughter continued.
“What are you, old man,” he asked, “to think you can defeat the Hand of Vengeance?”
“I’m the godsdamned Shadowbane,” Kalen said. “And you are dead.”
He gave into his rising anger, opening himself to the fervor of the Threefold God.
Bleary lights flickered across Myrin’s vision and she rasped for breath as slowly—ever so slowly—Hessar crushed her skull. Myrin struggled, but she could not escape. Her spellscar could not absorb anything through his gloved hands. Her magic added up to nothing in whatever dispelling field he had conjured around them.
Without her magic, she was just a frightened girl being murdered.
She’d cried out to Kalen, but she knew he wasn’t coming. She knew that in her heart. Whatever lay between them had been cast aside, and she had been the one to do it. Perhaps if she’d told him how she felt, rather than toying with him all this time … But no. Kalen had his quest, and Myrin had hers. She’d said as much to Ilira.
No one was coming to save her.
She reached for her dagger—the one Kalen had taught her to wield what seemed like forever ago—but although she managed to draw it, it fell from her nerveless fingers.
The pressure built and built, compressing all thought to guttural directives. Instinct took over and she struggled like an animal—to no avail. Her hands twitched ineffectually at her sides. She needed air, but only sputtered when she tried to breathe. Drool leaked down her chin, and she could feel something in her eyes straining to pop. Gods, she needed air.
Air.
Blue fire sparked in Myrin, heedless of the monk’s antimagic. She visualized the threads of magic that would summon the winds—the delicate weave, forming such a beautiful tapestry of Art. She seized the threads and ripped them apart.
Runes gleamed into being on her body, and she summoned forth the corruption inside. It lacked the luster of true magic. It was raw and unrestrained and it was exactly what she needed.
The tables rattled as winds rose around them. Hessar shuddered, and the pressure eased just slightly. “What are you doing?” he demanded. “What—?”
Myrin seized Hessar in a whirlwind of blue fire and hurled him spinning away from her. The magic slammed him upside down against the wall and dragged him up toward the ceiling. He hung there suspended, gasping for the air that the magic had wrenched out of his lungs.
Myrin channeled her spellscar, seizing raw power untempered by human Art. She wove the threads of blue fire together to serve her will. It was the magic she had used in the Lair of the Night Masters, but even then, she had not called upon it of her own volition. Now she did. She was the mistress of dark magic that bent to her will.
“No more,” she said, in a voice not entirely her own. Although she couldn’t say quite why, she walked toward him on feet that did not touch the floor, her hands wreathed in blue fire.
The monk struggled to speak but could not. His grayish skin turned purple as blood rushed into his head and air rushed out of his lungs.
“I know why you do these awful things—hurt people in the service of darkness,” she said. “But now you can rest. I promise.”
She laid her hands on either side of his upside-down face and kissed Hessar on the lips.
Fayne’s burning sword stabbed down into nothing, and the bleeding Ilira—sculpted out of shadow—dissolved around it. Betrayal remained, resting on the ground untouched.
Fayne blinked. “I don’t understand.”
“Couldn’t fake the sword,” a voice said behind her. “Illusions are so limited.”
Fayne hadn’t detected her coming. Even though the moon was behind her, Ilira cast no shadow to give her away. Fayne turned, but slim hands seized her horns and brought her face down into a leather-wrapped knee. The world exploded in whirling stars. As she reeled, Ilira seized her hand and punched her wrist, making the sword fall from suddenly nerveless fingers.
“You didn’t think my magic extended only to my own shadow, did you?” Ilira asked. “I can sculpt any shadow into an illusion. A minor talent, but effective at least this once.”
Fayne tried to cry out in frustration, but Ilira chopped the butt of her hand into the fey’ri’s throat, cutting off her words. Fayne fell to her knees, and her hand found something cold on the ground: the hilt of Betrayal.
“I remember you now,” Ilira said. “You were just a child, and you used that same spell on me. Eighty years is so long to live for vengeance—and too long to find redemption.”
Desperately, Fayne closed her fingers around the handle of Betrayal, but Ilira caught her wrist. They struggled over the blade.
“You’ve delayed me long enough. I’ve already lost one dear friend tonight, and there could be others.” Slowly, she brought her free hand—this one bare—toward Fayne’s throat. “I am very sorry, but you’ve given me no choice.”
“Wait—” Fayne winced as Ilira touched the taut muscles of her neck.
But there was no burning—no blue fire to sear Fayne’s flesh and leave her permanently disfigured. She looked into Ilira’s eyes. The elf looked as surprised as she felt.
“She did it again.” Ilira’s eyes turned jet black. “That stupid girl.”
She took Betrayal out of Fayne’s hand and strode away from her, toward the nearest bank of shadow by the ruined wall. She was leaving.
“No,” Fayne said, gasping for breath. “No, I won’t let you—”
She reached out with her armathor’s magic and drew her sword back into her hand from five paces. “Ilira!” she cried, raising the blade high.
Fading into the shadows, the elf looked back just as Fayne threw. The sword cut through the shadows where Ilira’s head had been half a heartbeat before. There was a sound, like rending flesh, and then the blade flew on unhindered, trailing blood, and sank into the ruined wall.
Fayne threw her head back and cried her wrath to the sky.
Everything slowed, as it had that last night in Luskan, and Kalen moved gracefully in a world of silence. Without Vindicator, he was still himself—not the hand of a long-dead god—but it would be more than enough to do what must be done.
The Hand of Vengeance slashed at him, but Kalen knocked his arm wide with a casual thrust of the axe’s haft and tore the weapon’s jagged edge along his chest. Black flames boiled away and he saw blood trailing in the wake of his strike. He swayed away from the next attack, whirled the axe around his body, and cut across the same breach he’d left in Vengeance’s armor.
Vindicator rose in a desperate attack—but Kalen stepped back and almost sadly brought the axe scything up to hack off Vengeance’s arm at the elbow. Then he bore the imposter back against the wall, haft against his throat to crush the life from him.
&nb
sp; The arm and Vindicator slapped against the wall and slid to the floor. Hoar’s sigil blurred and faded from the hilt.
Blue runes covered Myrin’s face and Hessar’s power flowed into her. He shivered, at once terrified and ecstatic.
The darkness in his skin bled out into a muted tan even as hers seemed to darken. His yellow eyes lost their unnatural pigment and turned an unremarkable brown.
Then the kiss ended, and although Myrin’s magic still held him against the wall, breath rushed back into Hessar’s lungs. “What—what have you done to me?” he asked in a tiny voice.
Myrin smiled. “I’ve freed you.”
Sounds of battle from the floor above drew Myrin’s attention: clashing blades, cries of fury, and something unsettlingly like laughter. She dropped Hessar limply to the floor and looked up. Her eyes flashed yellow. “Kalen.”
The monk’s antimagic faded along with his consciousness, and the Art filled her once more. She felt buoyant, her spell of flight still infusing her limbs. She raised her orb overhead and flew toward the ceiling. Just before she arrived, she blasted the floorboards apart with a wave of thunder and rose through the hole.
What she saw stole her breath away.
NIGHT, 2 ELEASIS
THEY STOOD TOGETHER AGAINST THE WALL, LOCKED IN A deadly embrace: Vengeance bleeding to death, Kalen strangling the breath from him with Sithe’s axe.
Then Vengeance coughed, and blood sizzled through the black flames of his helm to spatter Kalen’s gray fire armor. Kalen wrenched free to let him slump to the floor.
“This is your vengeance.” The black Shadowbane lay, coughing and rasping. “The Threefold God’s … true face.” He coughed up blood. “Thank you … for showing me.”
He nodded toward Mercy, who stood in the doorway and had just watched all this time. The helm hid the man’s face, but Kalen could feel the weight of his gaze.
“Take your vengeance, champion of Helm,” Vengeance said. “Is it not your duty to punish me as I have punished so many? You have no choice.”
Shadowbane: Eye of Justice Page 32
