by Dave Gross
The water was blessedly cool against his face. When he wiped it away, however, he realized just how badly he stank.
"Dark," he muttered.
"In the grand temples of Shar," whispered a soft voice, "the initiation of a new devotee isn't so primitive."
Keph started and looked up. Variance stood beside him. He flushed and took a step away from her.
"F-forgive me…" he stuttered but the strange woman shook her head.
"No need. I've seen enough of Bolan's initiations now to be used to the effects."
She held out a fresh shirtand Quick. Keph's eyes widened. He took both gratefully.
"Thank you," he said.
As he took Quick, he saw a flash of purple on Variance's hand. A ring of blackened silver set with an amethyst. Variance noticed him looking and nodded.
"You're thinking how like Jarull's this ring is," she said. She smiled slightly. "I gave his to him. He's told me about you, Keph."
Keph managed a small bow. "And me about you, Variance. Do you know where he is tonight? He promised me he'd be here."
"Bolan forbade him from attending. An initiate comes before Shar without support." She said it so bluntly that Keph flushed again. Variance must have seen his shame. "It was Jarull's error," she said. "He shouldn't have offered to be here."
She turned away slightly, giving him some privacy while staying close. Keph set Quick and the clean shirt aside, stripped off his ruined garment, and began to sponge his body clean.
After a moment, Variance said, "You saw through Bolan's illusion."
Keph flinched so violently water splashed the stone around him. Variance glanced over her shoulder at him, then away again.
"Your secret's safe," she murmured, just barely loud enough for him to hear. "Bolan's a coward. Shar demands a sacrifice, but Bolan's too afraid to kidnap real people for fear of the local Sehinites uncovering his cell. He resorts to illusion too easily."
"With whatever was in the Elixir of the Void to help the illusion along?" Keph asked.
He brushed water from his arms and chest, then pulled the clean shirt on over still damp skin. Variance turned back around and looked at him with dark, emotionless eyes.
"The Elixir of the Void is a part of every Sharran's initiation. It's a poison. The Dark Goddess's blessing purges it. An initiate who can't prove his dedication to her deserves death."
"It's too late to back out now," Jarull had said. It was truer, even, than he'd probably thought!
Keph swallowed uncomfortably and asked, "Does Bolan know I saw through the illusion?"
Variance shook her head. "No. He was too busy waiting for the moment of sacrifice. I was the only one watching you." She moved a little closer. Her voice was intense. "Not many people could have seen through the illusion while fighting the effects of the elixir."
The aura of power that Variance commanded was palpable. Keph could feel it radiating off of her.
"Everyone in my family is a wizard," he said. "When you grow up in a house like that, you learn a thing or two about illusions."
"Jarull told me about your familyand your feelings toward them," Variance commented. "But he also told me how you dealt with Bolan yesterday."
Keph winced. Jarull had been talking about him a lot. How often did the big man see Variance anyway?
Between his talking to her and her gift of the amethyst ring to him… Keph began to wonder if Jarull had more than just a special trust for Variance. The nervousness he felt around the woman receded a little bit.
"I just figured out what Bolan was up to," he told her. "He wasn't very subtle."
"You didn't just figure out what Bolan was up to," she said. "You made him uncomfortable. You have remarkable strength of will, Keph. Your penetration of the illusion confirms it." Variance gave him a long, measuring look as if peering deep inside him, then she nodded, almost as though to herself. "You may have potential," she murmured as she started to turn away.
"Potential?"
Without thinking, Keph grabbed for her. Variance's arm was shockingly cool. She stiffened and glared down at his hand. He snatched it away.
"I'm sorry," he apologized, "but… but you said 'potential'?"
No one had used the word describe him for yearsnot since his father had given up hope for him. Variance raised her eyebrows and nodded.
"What do you mean?" Keph blurted. "What kind of potential?"
She gave him another long look, then pulled him a little farther into the nearest shadows.
"Jarull told me that your family ignores you because you're not a wizard," she said.
Keph nodded slowly. "My parents tested me. I have all the talent of a potato when it comes to the Art."
Variance frowned at him. "Your parents have denied you a tremendous gift, Keph." She touched his forehead. Her finger was cold. "The Artthe magic of the arcanecomes from here." Her finger moved to his chest, lingering over his heart. "The power of divine magic comes from here. Wizards often fail to realize that." Her voice was slow and dark. "If your faith is as strong as your will, Keph, you could channel Shar's power as her priest."
Keph's heart was pounding once more. "A priest?" he asked.
"You have the potential," Variance said again. "It's not an easy path. You need"
"Teach me," said Keph sharply. His hands were trembling like they never had before. Blood was singing in his ears. His heart felt ready to leap right out of his chest. "Variance, please. Teach me!" He clutched at the symbol of Shar around his neck. "If there's a test… something to prove that I could do it…"
Variance stepped back. "Faith doesn't work like that, Keph."
"I need to know!"
His words echoed from the rough rock walls of the temple. The other cultists turned to stare at them. Variance narrowed her eyes.
"Lower your voice," she hissed.
Keph clamped his mouth shut. She studied him.
"Perhaps I could try teaching you an orison," she said.
Keph nodded and asked, "That's like a cantrip, isn't it? The simplest kind of divine spell?"
"Don't use the words of arcanists to describe the power of faith."
She spread her hands and shadows seemed to reach out to engulf them, screening them from the other cultists. "Kneel," she ordered.
Keph knelt. The stone floor was hard under his knees. He ignored it and focused on Variance.
Her eyes were half closed and she was breathing deeply. Just as he had mimicked Jarull's obeisance to Bolan the day before, Keph mimicked her.
"Good," Variance said. "Now… feel the darkness. Outside you. Within you. That is Shar." She spoke slowly, drawing out her words into a kind of lulling song. "Shar. The Nightsinger. The Dancer in the Dark. The Mistress of the Night, whose heart is the primal void that existed before all else and will exist again once Shar has drawn all creation into her embrace. Shar is more powerful than any of us. She could extinguish us with a word. Only by recognizing that and in accepting her perfection can we hope to draw on even a fragment of her power." She exhaled slowly. "Do you feel Shar's presence, Keph?"
Keph fought back the excitement that Variance's words had stirred in him. He tried to recall the feeling that had driven him to his knees when he had first entered the templethat sense of a living, primordial darkness, all-powerful, greater, and bigger than him or the puny lights that the cultists needed to…
"Yes," he said. "Yes, I think I can."
"Hold your faith," Variance told him. "Believe in Shar." She reached across her body and made a sign in front of her face. "Mistress of the Night, guide me."
Keph repeated her gesture and her words: "Mistress of the Night, guide me."
Nothing happened.
"Again."
Variance made the sign and spoke the words once more. Keph repeated them. Again, nothing happened.
"Believe in the Lady of Loss," Variance told him. "You speak a prayer, not a command. The words must be felt as well as spoken. Again."
Nothing.
Nothing.
Variance remained silent, but Keph repeated the invocation without her prompting. He closed his eyes, concentrating on combining words, gesture, and faith.
Shar grant me this, he begged his newly-embraced deity silently. My heart is true. I've proven myself, haven't I?
Dimly, he heard Variance chanting under her breath. Different words, maybe a new prayer. He tried to put it out of his mind and pour everything he had into the orison. His knees started to ache, cold seeping up into them from the stone. He did his best to ignore the pain. He dredged up every memory of indignity suffered at the hands of his parents, his sister and brother, laying them before the living darkness.
Take all this, he thought, take it and give me your power!
His words became mechanical, his memories a raw sore on his soul, but still the darkness was impassive. Everything he sent into it simply vanished, swallowed.
Until the darkness stirred.
Within him, outside of himsomething shifted. Keph's eyes snapped open.
"Mistress of the Night, guide me!" he called.
A force swept through him, cold, deep, and terrible. It was like the blessing that Bolan had invoked over him, but different because it welled up from within his very soul and sucked his breath away. Keph choked and fell forward, skinning the palms of his hands. Deep, ragged gasps filled his lungs once more. Just breathing caused him pain, but he didn't care.
Clarity filled his mind, a perfect void from which he saw everything around him. Shar was with him. The Lady of Loss was ready to guide his hands, to inspire him with certainty like night itself.
The clarity only lasted a moment, but Keph knew it would linger on in his heart. He looked up at Variance.
"I did it," he gasped. "I called on Shar." He sucked in another breath and elation burst inside of him. "I cast a spell!" Variance reached down a hand to help him up, but he just grabbed it and kissed her fingers. "Thank you!"
"Don't thank me," said Variance. "Thank the Dark Goddess."
The priestess was smiling, however. She twisted her hand, reversing the grip, and pulled Keph to his feet with surprising strength.
The shadows she had summoned dispersed. The cultists surrounded them. They were staring in aweat him, Keph realized. Shar's newest devotee had suddenly surpassed them all.
Bolan was staring as well, though not in awe. His eyes were dark, cold pits in his flawless face. Keph flinched back from his anger, but Variance met the priest's gaze boldly.
"Have respect, Bolan," she said. "You may be looking at your successor."
Bolan's face didn't move, but he managed to turn his response into a sneer. "A tiny magic, Keph. Do you think it will be enough to save you when a Selunite werewolf goes for your throat?"
There was more than disdain in his voice, though. Maybe it was some lingering touch of clarity, but Keph was certain that he heard a trace of fear as well.
He laughed.
A shadow flickered over Bolan's face and he whirled away. Variance's hand tightened on Keph's.
"Don't mock him," she said. "He's right. An orison is nothing."
"No," said Keph, "it's everything." He bowed deeply to her. "Ask me anything, Variance, and I would do it. That's the debt I owe you."
His heart and soul were alive, burning with a fierce, dark joy. Maybe it had been only an orison, but it meant that Strasus was wrong. He had magic. ft
CHAPTER 6
Your lies have given the boy confidence," Bolan observed.
Variance turned from watching the tunnel down which Keph and the other cultists had departed. Keph was laughing and joking with the cultists he knew, the ones Jarull had introduced him to. The energy within the young man was raw. He would do something dark that night and call it an honor to Shar. She felt a certain pride.
"Which bothers you more, Bolan?" she asked. "His confidence or my lies?
"His confidence," the alchemist said promptly. "It's unseemly. Shar teaches hopelessness and desperation. 'Never follow hope or turn to success, for such things are doomed. Do not strive to better yourself or plan for the future, for the future shall be bleak.'"
Variance looked down at the squat man and said, "That self-defeating dogma is suitable for devotees, but not for priests. If we didn't seek to better ourselves, of what service would we be to Shar? If we can't hope for success, why bother trying?"
Bolan's face betrayed nothing.
"Your lies, then," he said after a moment.
"If lies truly bother you, you have no business being a priest."
Variance walked back toward the altar Bolan had constructed. For a makeshift temple, his creation was actually respectable. The darkness of Shar was true in him.
"It's not the lies as such that bother me," Bolan said as he stomped after her. "His faith is hollow." "His faith is real, Bolan."
"He spoke no oath. You should at least have allowed me that!" He caught her arm, turned her around, looked her in the eye, and said, "And he cast no spell. That was your doing. I could sense it. He can no more work divine magic than he can arcane."
Variance shrugged. "I wasn't lying when I said his will was strong. With time, maybe he could enter Shar's priesthood. But for now" she gave the stunted man the faintest of smiles" he is unmarked. Keph is with Shar, but not o/Shar. He can do things we can't, yet we have a hold over him."
Bolan bent and scooped up the velvet altar cloth.
"It seems to me," he replied as he folded the cloth, "that you're the one with a hold over him. Keph and Jarull both. Every time I meet with that orc-blood Jarull, all I can see in his eyes is you."
Variance raised an eyebrow. Bolan's mouth twitched, the most expression she had ever seen break through his flawless face. He looked away.
"It is your prerogative, Mother Night," he mumbled.
He laid the cloth on the altar and murmured a prayer to Sharnot magical, simply devotional. When he bowed to the altar, Variance bowed as well.
Bolan straightened and began covering the braziers that had illuminated the ceremony. The smell of dying coals and hot metal filled the air. The darkness in the temple deepened.
"I still think we should have had someone who was truly bound to Shar," he said. "Someone to take Cyrume's place." His stained fingers clenched on the lid of a brazier. "I'd like some time alone in my laboratory with that Selunite monster who killed him."
"His remains were scarcely identifiable when I found him," lied Variance. She folded her hands and added sadly, "Shar will bless himhe died in her service. A shame he wasn't able to complete his mission before the Selunite caught him."
She kept her face as expressionless as Bolan's.
The alchemist nodded and said, "The cultists are saying it was an entire pack that took Cyrume down. His martyrdom grows in the telling."
"The better to inspire others," Variance said.
He returned her nod and turned it into an obeisance. "I thank the day that the Temple of Old Night sent you to me, Variance. Together we'll bring Moonshadow Hall low."
Variance smiled and said, "Thank you, Brother Night."
Bolan lit a candle from the embers of the last brazier before he covered it, then turned toward one of the many patches of deep shadow that cloaked his temple. To human eyes, perhaps, the shadow was impenetrable. Variance, however, saw through it easily enough. Beyond lay the narrow passage that Bolanand Variance as well-used to enter and leave the tunnels. The priest probably thought he had a few more secret exits hidden from her. Variance was willing to allow him that delusion.
She followed him through the shadow and into the passage beyond, walking with surefooted ease where Bolan stumbled by flickering candlelight. If he'd guessed over the tendays since she had arrived in Yhaunn and presented herself to him that her confidence in the darkness was anything more than the blessing of Shar, he said nothing.
As they reached the end of the passage, however, he said, "I think Shar has held her hand over us, Variance. We've bee
n lucky."
"How so?"
"The Selunites must have figured out what Cyrume intended, but they haven't taken any action against us. They didn't even tell the city guard."
Variance froze dead in the passage. Bolan continued on several paces before turning to look back at her.
"Mother Night?" he asked.
Variance forced herself to remain calm.
"You know something you haven't told me," she said.
In spite of her best efforts, her anger must have been clear. Bolan shook his head sharply.
"I only just found out myself, Mother Night!" His voice cracked with poorly concealed fear. "I have a client, a devotee of Selune, who comes to my shop to buy tinctures and medicines for Moonshadow Hall. She gossips, though I'm certain she has no idea who she gossips to. She says the guard interviewed the Selunite werewolf, but the werewolf claimed an alibi. The beast must have taken Cyrume's holy symbol too, because the guard has no idea that he was a Sharran or what he intended to do. Only the Selunites know. And we've been watching for signs of reprisal, but there are none. From what my client says, the Selunites are more concerned with some internal matter than with us." He spread his hands and repeated, "We're lucky. Our own plans can proceed uninterrupted."
Variance bit back a curse.
Bolan must have interpreted her silence as anger, because he quickly added, "I can see if there's anything more we can learn"
"No need," she said. "You're not the only one with a source among the Selunites. I'm meeting mine tonight and he's considerably better placed than a servant devotee. I'll find out what's going on inside Moonshadow Hall."
"While it still stands," said Bolan. He sounded relieved and particularly zealous after having avoided her wrath.
"Of course," replied Variance.
She flicked her fingers and Bolan continued up the passage.
