Shadowbred

CHAPTER TWO

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. Selune 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 Faerun. 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 Faerun. 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, deliberately 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 Faerun. 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 overmasters 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 beard.

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 overmasters 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.

The moment the shadow animated, it began to squirm free of the floor. Rivalen took it by the armpits-it felt slippery in his grasp, as if coated in oil-and helped draw it forth. He turned it and held it before him like a cloak-it had no weight-and looked into its face. A duller version of his own golden eyes looked back at him. He smiled. His shadow self was as much a construct as his brother's homunculi.

"You know what you are to do?" Rivalen whispered.

"I am you," the shadow self hissed.

"Then do it."

Rivalen released the shadow and it floated to the overmaster. It hovered over the bed for a moment, leering, then stretched itself into little more than a ribbon and wormed its way into the Sembian's body through one of the nostrils.

When it was gone, Rivalen cast another concealment spell on the body and surveyed the chamber one final time. The chamberlain would find the overmaster dead in his bed of a failed heart, his personal wards and the alarm spell still intact. Perfunctory divinations would be cast but would reveal nothing. Resurrection would fail, if tried, and the customary attempts to speak with the dead would reveal only what Rivalen wished.

Satisfied, he thanked Shar, drew the shadows about him, and rode them in an instant back to Brennus's scrying room. The homunculi greeted his return with applause.

"Well done," Brennus said.

Rivalen did not acknowledge the praise. Events would move quickly. He needed to contact Elyril.

The Lord Sciagraph entered her dream, dwarfed her consciousness. The proximity of the Divine One hollowed out Elyril, reduced her to an empty rind of flesh. Her dream-self trembled with awed anticipation. It had been two decades since she had last felt the oblivion of the Lord Sciagraph's presence.

Then, she had been a mere adolescent, the daughter of a Sembian noble family. The Lord Sciagraph had entered her dreams for the seven consecutive nights of the new moon and ordered her on the last night to do Shar's will by murdering her parents and older brother in their sleep.

Awed by the magisterial void of Volumvax, the Divine One, the Lord Sciagraph, the Voice and Shadow of Shar, Elyril had obeyed. Her parents had been planning to murder her anyway. She knew that for certain.

The memory of that blood-spattered winter night in Uktar still pleased her. The murders became her Own Secret, an event known only to Elyril, Volumvax, and Shar, and as reward for the deed Shar had granted her a secret name: Nightbringer.

The murder had resulted in Elyril being fostered in the house of her aunt, the Countess Mirabeta Selkirk. Elyril assumed her fostering to be Shar's plan all along, so she wasted no time worming her way into the confidence of her aunt, a dark-hearted, petty woman whose only virtue was unbridled ambition. Over the years, Elyril became the daughter Mirabeta wished she'd had, so much so that the countess sent her own sons away from the capital and paid for Elyril's tutors. By the time Elyril reached womanhood, she had become the countess's chief advisor and confidante. Elyril made it a point to dismiss all suitors, which only pleased her aunt further.

"I serve only the Countess Mirabeta," Elyril always told them.

So positioned, Elyril had bided her time and waited for word from the Lord Sciagraph to learn what Shar wanted next. The wait had been long, but it appeared to be over.

Elyril let her dream-mind careen into the cold, empty abyss of Volumvax's manifesting eminence. She tumbled downward toward infinity, and the metaphorical fall went on for a time that felt like years. Her body smashed flat as her fall was arrested on a bleak gray dreamscape, as level and featureless as a board of slate. The abrupt stop elicited a gasp but otherwise left her unharmed. Naked, small, and merely human, she rose to her knees and waited for her lord and intercessor to reveal himself fully.

Within moments a heaviness suffused the air, its presence more tactile than visible. An oiliness formed on Elyril's skin, black, thick, and viscous. From her earlier experience, she knew it to be the precursor to the manifestation of Volumvax. She waited, eager, awed, shaking with anticipation.

Slowly, like sweat squeezed from pores, darkness oozed from the slate of the dreamscape. She kept still as it formed an expanding pool at her feet. The touch of the shadowstuff elicited shivers. She sensed her physical body, still asleep in her bedchamber, trembling with the ecstasy and exquisite terror that accompanied contact with the divine.

Her heart thumped like a war drum, her flesh tingled, and blood pulsed in her pelvis. She knew that she would awaken with the flushed skin and weak legs that always afflicted her after sexual release, but she did not care. She was in the presence of Volumvax, the highest servant of her goddess, himself a demigod, and she trembled.

The shadowstuff rose up and began to take shape before her, solidifying, twisting itself into a form that Elyril's mind could not fully comprehend, whose dark borders reached into the secret corners of the world, whose presence murdered light.

Elyril averted her gaze and abased herself before her manifesting lord, pressing her forehead into the slate of the dreamscape. She knew that she was unworthy to look upon Volumvax, even in a dream. The Divine One was too beautiful in his darkness for a human to see unveiled.

A palpable wave of bitterness went forth from the forming demigod and washed over Elyril. Primal emotion pressed against her mind until she screamed. The sound died the moment the scream left her lips, absorbed by the nothingness around her. Terror and excitement drew her breath forth in gasps.

After a timeless moment, she felt a presence before her, so heavy, so substantial that it surely must shroud the world.

Elyril knew when Volumvax's gaze fell upon her trembling form. She felt his eyes on her back like the stabs of twin spears. The weight drove her chest flat against the floor and she lay there, pinioned by his might, impaled by his eyes.

Drool dripped stupidly and unheeded from her lips as she mouthed the words to the Supplication: "I kneel before Shar's Shadow, who shrouds the world in night. I kneel before Shar's Shadow…"

Elyril knew that the Lord Sciagraph would not speak in her dream. He never did. But she heard him nevertheless; she knew him nevertheless. She waited, her breath like a bellows. As one moment stretched into another, she tried to brace herself. Her fingers gouged grooves into the dreamscape. Her heart bounced in her chest. Her lungs rose and fell, rose and fell.

"I kneel before Shar's Shadow, who shrouds the world in night. I kneel before Shar's Shadow…"

Volumvax touched her, the gentle caress of the demigod who would rule the world in Shar's name.

An instant of excruciating pain wracked her body. She convulsed, and swallowed her scream only by biting down hard on her tongue and pressing her forehead into the ground. Back in her bed, blood from her mouth joined the drool that already dampened her pillow.

The pain passed quickly, replaced by indescribable pleasure. The touch of divine fingers excited such arousal in her already sensitized body that she experienced wave after wave of sexual release, one rapid, agonizing, ecstatic pulse after another. The wail elicited by that ecstasy was uncontainable, even in the dream. She arched her back and groaned her pleasure into the nothingness.

Volumvax's fingers lingered on her flesh as he communicated his intent. His eyes burrowed through her back and into her soul to impress upon her his will, Shar's will: So says Shar, the Lady of Loss, through her instrument and Shadow, the Lord Sciagraph. Follow the Nightseer until the sign is given and the Book is made whole. Then, summon the Storm to free the Divine One. This to be a secret known only to we three.

Elyril sagged, began to weep. She had waited for so long to be Shar's instrument. The time, at last, was at hand.

Now see the Lady's vision for you, secret even from me.

The Lord Sciagraph removed his hand from Elyril, leaving her bereft, and the gray plain instantly fell away. She found herself alone, suspended within the nothingness. Elyril's stomach rushed into her throat. Vertigo made her dizzy. Back in her bedchamber, she felt her body vomit its evening repast.

Mountains, seas, rivers, and plains took shape far below her. Her nausea passed and she recognized the landscape. She was floating as high as the clouds above an image of Faerun's heartland. She could see for leagues in all directions. The landscape stretched from the sandy wastes of Anauroch and the Dalelands in the north to the Dragon Coast in the south, from the jagged Stormpeaks that bordered Cormyr on the west, to Sembia and Ravens Bluff in the east. She recognized the dark lesions on the land as cities: Arabel, Selgaunt, Urmlaspyr, her own home of Ordulin.

She waited.

After a moment a thin, purple-veined tendril of shadow formed in Anauroch, within Shade Enclave, home of the Shar-worshiping Shadovar and their high priest, the Nightseer, Rivalen Tanthul. The tendril expanded southward and east, toward Sembia. At the same time, a second shadowy tendril, thick and blunt but also lined with veins of purple, burst out of Ordulin and made its way west across Sembia.

Elyril smiled to see Sembia caught in the vise of her goddess's will. She smiled even more to see one side of that vise originate in Ordulin, presumably with her.

Summon the storm, the Lord Sciagraph had commanded.

The two fronts moved inexorably toward one another, swallowing the light, shrouding the land. Darkness devoured Sembia, and all of Faerun cowered. Elyril watched it all, satisfied that she would live to see Shar's final victory in Faerun, until…

A third tendril of darkness, narrower but deeper than the other two, arose in central Sembia and expanded rapidly outward in both directions to meet the onrushing shadows of Shar. This tendril bore no trace of Shar's holy purple.

The competing fronts of shadow met and did battle. Elyril shouted in rage as darkness warred against darkness. Who would dare stand in the path of the Shadowstorm? How would-

Without warning, the vision ceased and Elyril was alone in the nether. She screamed her frustration into the void.

Some time later she awakened in her bed, sweat-soaked, exhausted, and staring up at the beamed ceiling of her bedchamber in her aunt's mansion east of Ordulin.

"No!" she said, and sat up, disturbing the vomit, blood, and drool that stained her silk sheets and pillow. Her tongue ached from where she had bitten it in her dream. She ignored the pain and the sloppy mess on the bed.

Volumvax's will throbbed at the forefront of her consciousness and she whispered it aloud: "Summon the storm to free the Divine One."

She wanted to know more, needed to know more, but she knew she would learn nothing else. The Lord Sciagraph and the Lady of Loss kept their secrets. Such was the nature of the faith. As a priestess of Shar, Elyril often had to act while ignorant of Shar's plans.

Near the foot of her bed, she heard Kefil stir. The black mastiff climbed to his feet, stretched, and uttered a contented rumble from deep in his huge chest. The dog's shoulder stood even with the top Elyril's bed and his bloodshot brown eyes fixed on her.

You thrashed about in your sleep, Kefil projected. Gray hairs dotted his massive jaws, and his bleary eyes showed their age.

Elyril smiled in spite of her concerns. The dog spoke to no one but Elyril-it was their secret. Kefil had first spoken to her the night after she had murdered her parents. He had been a pup then, and his name had been Mors. Elyril had renamed him after her dead brother. She assumed his intelligence to be a gift granted by Shar. Over the intervening years, he had become a trusted confidante. Her aunt hated the dog, but allowed Elyril to keep him in her room anyway.

Kefil whirled around to nibble at an itch in his hindquarters.

"The Lord Sciagraph spoke to me," she said to him, and offered no further explanation. She would not share even with Kefil the intimacies of her relationship with Volumvax.

Kefil continued biting his itch, and respectfully asked no further questions.

Mindful of her soiled sheets, Elyril carefully pushed the silk from her legs and swung them off the huge bed. Her head felt as if it were stuffed with rags; her temples pounded. She cradled her brow in her hands.

"Thank you, my lord," she said to Volumvax, wincing at the pain in her tongue and head. "It is my humble pleasure to serve."

Kefil abandoned his itch and devoured some of the darkness in the room.

Elyril smiled. Kefil always hungered for shadows. The mastiff sank back to the floor with a grunt.

A tingle under her scalp told her that the Nightseer was trying to contact her through the magical silver and amethyst ring she wore. She looked down, saw the amethyst set into her ring sparkle as its magic linked into the Shadow Weave. The connection opened.

You have received a sign, dark sister, Rivalen said, and it was not a question.

Elyril's breath caught. Volumvax had commanded her to keep the sign a secret. How could Rivalen have known? He could not know of Elyril's relationship with Volumvax, could he?

Elyril could not answer the Nightseer for a moment. Finally, she responded. Yes, Prince Rivalen. I have received a sign. I believe the Cycle of Shadows is beginning.

A long pause passed before Rivalen answered. No, dark sister. The Cycle was begun long ago, thousands of years before your birth. Know that the Overmaster is dead.

Elyril gave a start. Dead? When?

This night. He appears to have died in his sleep.

Elyril giggled. She had never fancied her aunt's cousin.

All will suspect murder, she projected. And most would suspect her aunt.

And they will have their murderer, Rivalen answered. Resurrections will fail and none but a user of the Shadow Weave will be able to learn the true cause of death. Speaking with the spirit of the dead will reveal a name-the name of he who we wish known as the killer. Be certain that it occurs in public, before the High Council if possible. Prepare your aunt to take power. Prepare yourself to steer her as I and the Lady direct.

Elyril's aunt had been positioning herself for over a decade to challenge Kendrick for power. With Elyril's aid, Mirabeta had bribed or extorted alliances from fully half of Sembia's High Council. She would be among the leading candidates to replace the dead overmaster.

That should not be difficult to arrange.

That is what I expected, Rivalen said, and Elyril thought she heard a smile in the tone.

Night shroud you, Nightseer.

And you, dark sister.

A gentle hum in Elyril's ear indicated that the magic of the sending ring had gone quiescent. Rivalen was gone.

Elyril sat on the edge of her bed for a moment, letting the import of the night's events settle on her. She had been directly contacted by the two most powerful servants of her goddess. She must indeed be Shar's instrument. Now she needed only to await the sign, and for the book to be made whole.

But what book?

She did not know. For the moment, it was Shar's secret.

She touched the disc she wore on a chain around her neck. Years earlier she had paid a wizard to make the black and purple disc permanently invisible, then used it in a ceremony sacrificing him to Shar. No one but Elyril, Volumvax, and Shar knew of the symbol. Its existence was their secret. So, too, was the fact that the holy symbol stored the souls of those Elyril had killed, including her parents.

Elyril's headache reminded her that divine visions did not come without a physical price. She stood, and her legs, weakened from sexual release and the exhaustion that accompanied contact with the Lord Sciagraph, wobbled under her. She touched a fingertip to her tongue, looked at the blood, clasped the invisible holy symbol that hung from her neck, and whispered a healing prayer to Shar. The wound in her tongue closed; the pain in her head subsided.

She noticed a chill in the room. Embers glowed in the huge stone hearth that dominated her bedchamber, but they offered scant warmth to her body, covered as it was only in a thin nightshift. She crossed the chamber, stirred the embers with a poker, and added a log. She caught Kefil leering at her out of the corner of her eye. She knew her lithe body pleased the dog.

Flames rose from the stirred embers and caught quickly, sending flickers across the room. The wood crackled.

She walked to the night table and rang a small, magical brass bell. Her personal servants, all magically attuned to the bell and others like it, heard its ring no matter where they were or what they were doing.

After ringing, she began a mental count. She had adopted her aunt's rule that servants had a twenty count to attend her after the ring, no longer, or they would be flogged. Before she reached ten, she heard the sound of feet rushing down the hall, the tinkling of bells, and a hesitant knock on her door.

"Enter," she commanded.

The door opened. Daylight from the hall outside cascaded into the room. She blinked in it. She had not realized that the sun was well into its daily course.

"Close that door," she snapped.

Kefil growled at the sudden light.

A skinny adolescent boy hurried in, eyes on the floor, and closed the door behind him. The room returned to darkness. The youth wore the black tunic, belled head wrap, and calf-length trousers that Mirabeta required of all the servants. Bony legs and arms jutted from the clothes, the limbs like those of a scarecrow. Elyril did not know his name and did not care. Probably the boy was the result of one of the sexual unions that Mirabeta had arranged between her servants. Her aunt enjoyed breeding the staff, selling some to slavers, some to fighting rings, some to brothels, and keeping those who pleased her. She had done so for decades.

"Mistress," the boy mumbled. "You summoned me?"

The boy's eyes never left her bare feet.

Kefil stood up and the boy gulped. The mastiff cocked his head and eyed the boy as he might a piece of meat.

"My sheets and bed pillow require laundering," Elyril said. She reached for the tiny iron snuffbox she kept in the drawer of her night table.

"Yes, Mistress," replied the boy. He stepped to the bed, keeping as much of it between him and Kefil as possible, and began to gather the sheets.

Elyril popped the snuffbox with her thumb. The piquant, bitter aroma of dried and powdered minddust filled her nostrils. The drug was a poor substitute for Volumvax's touch, but she found it pleasing nevertheless. She'd once heard from an apothecary that prolonged minddust use drove its users mad. Elyril found the notion absurd.

She'd been using the powdered leaf for nearly a decade and showed no ill effects.

She cook a pinch between her fingers, brought it to her nose, and inhaled sharply. The drug danced over the back of her throat, tickled her senses. She felt the effects almost instantaneously. Her head went light, she heard a melody in the crackling of the fire, and the hairs on her arms stood on end, tingled in the air.

She caught the servant-boy watching her from the corner of his eye as he leaned over her bed and pulled in the sheets and pillow. He bunched the bedding into a ball, bowed-Elyril heard a poem in the tinkling of the head wrap's bells-and prepared to leave.

Elyril held out the snuff box and purred, "Do you wish to try some?"

He froze for a moment, shook his head, and refused to look at her.

"I wish you to try some," she said. "Come here."

He lifted his eyes to hers for only a moment before restoring his gaze to her feet. She could smell the fear in his sweat and it intoxicated her nearly as much as the minddust. She took another pinch from the box, inhaled it, and laughed aloud.

"Come," she ordered. "This instant."

He took a slow step toward her, another, and she glided the rest of the distance to him. Her shift clung to her as she moved and showed her body to best effect.

The boy trembled, uncertainty and fear writ clear on his troubled brow.

"You are a pretty boy," she said.

Still looking at the floor, the boy said, "The mistress is gracious, but I should see to these sheets immediately, lest the stain become difficult to remove."

Elyril smiled and clapped her hands. The boy was clever, moreso than most. Mirabeta's breeding program had resulted in a fine specimen.

"You are articulate," she said, and leaned in close to let her breath warm his cheek. Before he could frame an answer, she lightly ran a fingertip over his arm.

Startled by her touch, the boy stumbled backward a step and nearly fell down. The bells on his wrap tinkled loudly. Their melody told her to kill the boy.

The youth scrambled to his feet, holding the bedding defensively between himself and Elyril. Vomit from the sheets smeared his clothing. "Mistress, I-"

Kefil padded around the bed and the boy froze. Kefil sniffed around his legs.

May I maul him? Kefil projected.

Elyril considered it but decided that she did not want blood in her chamber. She could chop him up and feed him to the dogs later.

Devour his shadow, she answered.

The mastiff seized the boy's shadow from the floor, shook it, and devoured it as it screamed. The boy never made a sound, never moved. Kefil finished his repast and let out a satisfied grunt. He sank to the floor beside the boy.

"What is your name?" Elyril asked the slave at last, keeping her voice level. She liked to know the names of those she would sacrifice to Shar.

"Mard, Mistress," the boy said, and she could hear the beginnings of tears in his voice.

"Mard," she said. She let the word hang between them for a long, delicious moment before deciding to end the game. "Mard, do not get your tears on my sheets. Begone from me. Alert one of the kennel boys that Kefil requires a walk."

Mard stared at her for a moment, as if unsure what she had said.

"This instant," she ordered.

"Thank you, Mistress," he said, and fled the room.

She watched him go, thinking how pleasant it would be to hear him scream as he died.

Kefil belched, sated on shadows.

In the darkened chambers of his mansion in Shade Enclave, Rivalen stared at his coin collection and let the ache in his temples subside. He always found mental contact with Elyril uncomfortable. Her minddust madness polluted the connection and made his head throb, and it had grown worse over the years. Still, she was a useful tool to him as he prepared to bring his plan to fruition. The most high wanted a new Netherese empire. His goddess wanted the Shadowstorm. Rivalen knew that the two goals were compatible. He would use the one to bring about the other. And a Sembian civil war would be the means.

Over the centuries, Rivalen had spent much intellectual energy finding ways to make the requirements of his faith compatible with his duty to his city, his people, and his father. So far, he had been successful, but Hadrhune's words made him worry that the day would arrive when he would not.

Rivalen did not know the entirety of the Lady's plan-such was the nature of Shar's faith. Through the years, Shar had revealed to Rivalen only bits at a time. But Rivalen had faith that she would reveal to him what he needed to know when he needed to know it, and that she would reward his successes. While he dared not hope to be Shar's Chosen, after experiencing firsthand the power of Mystra's Chosen, he had allowed himself to… consider the possibility.

He dismissed such thoughts as unproductive and continued with his sendings. He activated the magic of his sending ring and thought of another of his Sembian agents, the Sharran dark brother in Selgaunt. The familiar tingle of the magic tickled his scalp. He sensed the channel opening.

Prince Rivalen, answered the dark brother, an heir to a wealthy Sembian family.

Rivalen knew him to be an effective servant of the Lady, posing as a rich dilettante.

Is all prepared? Rivalen asked.

As well as it can be. Construction proceeds apace. None suspect the truth.

See that it is complete within the next three months, Rivalen said. There will be still more for you to do afterward.

The night shroud you, Nightseer.

And you, Rivalen answered, and terminated the magical connection.

Rivalen went on to contact the leaders of each Sharran cell in Sembia, over two dozen of them. Each wore a sending ring paired to his master ring, though none knew the other powers of the rings. To each, he gave a variation of the same message: Be prepared. The Shadowstorm is brewing.

None asked him questions, for they all knew they would receive no answers.

Prior to Rivalen's involvement, the Sharran cells in the heartlands had operated independently, mostly ignorant of each other. But after Variance, at Rivalen's command, had recovered The Leaves of One Night, Shar had revealed to him the identities of the leaders of the cells. One by one, he and Variance had contacted the cells and brought them all under his leadership, until finally Rivalen commanded the grandest conspiracy in Faerun. A small army of Sharrans lurked beneath the veneer of Sembian society, eating away at the core.

His sendings complete, Rivalen relaxed by sipping tea and examining his coin collection. He stored his coins in a large case of magically hardened glass, each piece placed in a black velvet setting. He had an electrum falcon from the year of Cormyr's founding, one-hundred-year-old gold belbolts from Chessenta, a cursed copper fandar from Amn that caused the bearer's business decisions to go poorly, a magical platinum Calishite kilarch that returned to its spender thrice, and a host of other coins, both magical and mundane, from all across Faerun, from almost all eras of its history. He looked to the empty place in his collection where he had kept his Sakkoran thurhn. The hole in his collection reminded him of the magnitude of his tasks. He had many holes to fill in the coming years.

He finished his tea and turned his mind to the first of his holes- the problem of awakening the sentience in Sakkor's mythallar. He would need Brennus's divinations to find the mind mage.