Shadowrealm

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

7 Nightal, the Year of Lightning Storms

The Source's power starts to fill the hole in my mind, rounds the sharp edges of my jagged mindscape, bridges the cognitive chasms. The jolt of power sends a thrill of pleasure through me.

I sense recognition from the Source. It knows me, and I it. We are old friends.

Shadows clot the air on the far side of the hemisphere, expand, and expel four Shadovar warriors cloaked in darkness and bristling with steel. They shout at me, point at me with their crystalline blades, and charge across the chamber.

I use what the Source has provided to reach into their brains. They feel the pinch of my mental fingers on the root of their minds, drop their weapons, and fall to the floor. I navigate the swirl of their pain and fear, and locate the unconscious mental mechanism that commands their hearts to beat.

I turn the mechanism off. As one they gasp, clutch their chests, die.

I know more Shadovar will come unless I prevent them.

I tap the well of power in my head, charge the walls of the chamber with a feedback matrix of mentally constructed corridors and walls, a labyrinth of the mind. Anyone attempting to transport into the chamber will find their physical form unmoved and their mind locked in an unending mental maze of their own making.

Alone and secure, I walk under the Source, formalize our mental connection. It welcomes me. I look up into the crystal and lose myself in its depths. Deep within the red sea of its form, flickers of light flash truths. I am already drifting. The pulsing in the Source increases. Perhaps it is addicted to me, as I am to it.

Rivalen rose into the air to face his trial. Hope did not pollute his spirit. Protective wards and contingency spells did not shield his person. He would rely on the Lady of Loss for his protection and he would prevail as her servant or he would die as her heretic. He took his holy symbol in his left hand, watched as the dragon closed its jaws over Kesson's form and Kesson, as insubstantial as a shadow, passed through and out the top of the dragon's head.

Furlinastis crashed into Cale and Riven and both men tumbled earthward, trailing shadows like dark comets. The dragon reared up, beat his wings, pulled up, turned his long neck to look back upon Kesson.

Dark energies burned on both of Kesson's fists. He pointed his right hand at the dragon.

The earth and sky alternated rapidly in Cale's vision as he and Riven spun uncontrollably toward the ground. He glimpsed Furlinastis, heard his roar, and used the shadows around him and Riven to transport both of them atop the dragon.

They appeared in time to hear Kesson Rel pronounce an arcane word and point his right hand at the dragon. Furlinastis tried to veer as he breathed a blast of life draining energy onto Kesson Rel.

Kesson stood in the midst of the killing breath, unharmed, and a churning mass of dark energy streaked through with crimson went forth from his hand, struck the dragon's wing, and in an instant, withered it to a nub.

Furlinastis roared, flapped his withered wing futilely, as he, Cale, and Riven spiraled toward the earth. Cale shouted the words to a healing spell as they fell, channelled the energy into the dragon, but it was not enough to repair the lost wing.

Rivalen recalled his own fight with the green dragon outside the walls of Selgaunt. He'd learned a lesson in that combat, one he intended to teach to Kesson.

A cluster of shadows streaked out of the sky toward him, arms outstretched, mouths open and shrieking hate. He held his holy symbol in hand, channeled Shar's power, and reduced them all to wails and vapor.

His eyes still on Kesson Rel, he traced a circle in the air with his holy symbol, spoke a long prayer, and reserved only the final, triggering word.

Furlinastis spun wildly through the air and flapped his one wing frantically, but it only caused him to spin more rapidly. Cale and Riven held onto each other, onto the dragon's neck ridge, and watched the ground get closer and closer. Furlinastis roared with pain and frustration.

Shadows and wraiths whirled past them, brief flashes of red eyes and black forms. The air was thick with the vile vapor of their destruction. By chance, Furlinastis passed through some of the undead, as did Cale and Riven, and cold leaked into his bones.

"Leave him, Cale!" Riven shouted.

But Furlinastis's uncontrolled descent was taking them toward the battlefield where the Lathanderians, many of them aglow with rosy light, fought an army of shadow giants.

"I can't," he said. "Look! Steer clear of them, dragon!"

But Furlinastis, lost in rage and pain, showed no sign of having heard Cale's words and his mountainous form plummeted toward the battle.

With nothing else for it, Cale tried to shadowstep himself, Riven, and the dragon to ground. He deepened the darkness around them, tried to eliminate their momentum while at the same time moving them safely down to the plains.

He felt the lurch of movement but they did not materialize on the plains. They appeared in mid-air, slowed not stopped, and immediately began falling at full speed again.

Cale cursed, tried again, but had the same result. He was stepping them down toward the ground, but doing little to change the dragon's trajectory or speed.

Rivalen stepped from the darkness around him to the darkness around Kesson Rel. Kesson grunted with surprise, but recovered quickly. He reached for Rivalen with his left hand, still charged with energy, still incorporeal. His hand passed through Rivalen's forearm, the energy discharged, and agony lit Rivalen. He felt his arm withering from the shoulder down, disintegrating into desiccated flesh and hollowed-out bones.

Enduring the pain, he spoke the trigger word to the spell he had prepared and a field of anti-magic surrounded him, surrounded Kesson.

All of Rivalen's magic items went inert. All of the spells affecting both of them ceased functioning. Kesson turned corporeal. Rivalen grabbed Kesson's wrist with his one good hand and they fell together, leaking shadows.

Rivalen squeezed Kesson's wrist with all of his shadow borne strength, with enough force to snap the bones of ordinary men. But Kesson's bones did not snap, and he matched Rivalen's strength with his own.

"We will see who is the stronger," Rivalen hissed into his face as they flipped and tumbled earthward.

Flapping his wings, Kesson tried to right himself, but Rivalen's weight made it impossible.

Regg deflected a giant's slash with his shield, slipped on the wet grass, but managed to drive his blade into the huge creature's thigh. It roared, grunted, fell. Regaining his balance, Regg beat back an awkward thrust of the giant's sword and drove his blade into the creature's throat. It gurgled as he withdrew the blade, and it fell face down on the plains.

All around him men and women shouted, cried out in pain, roared. Light from Roen's priests kept the field awash in a rosy hue, preventing the giants from using the darkness to their advantage.

A roar from above drew his attention. He looked up to see Furlinastis tumbling like a falling star toward the battle.

The wyrm's form filled the sky, a cloud of scales and shadows. Uncontrolled and roaring, the enormous creature was plummeting straight for the field where Regg's company fought the shadow giants. It winked in and out as it fell, tracing an irregular line through the sky.

Regg unleashed a flurry of blows on the giant attacking Trewe, managed in his fury to drive the large creature backward.

"Sound the retreat, Trewe! Now! Now!"

Trewe sounded a blast but it was too late.

Cale grabbed Riven and shadowstepped off Furlinastis's back the moment before the dragon hit the earth. They materialized off to the side of the battlefield and watched the dragon hit.

Men and giants saw the falling dragon, shouted, scrambled to get clear as the wyrm crashed to earth, causing the ground to shake as much as had Kesson Rel's earthquake, crushing men and giants, cutting a chasm in the plain and pushing huge, wet chunks of soil, grass, and trees before his huge form. Bones, metal, and scales shattered under the impact.

Kesson and Rivalen, clasping one another, twisted and tumbled earthward. Rivalen, with only one arm and surrounded by a field of anti-magic, could do nothing but hold on. Kesson shouted the lengthy incantation to a spell that could disjoin the anti-magic field, the only spell that could affect it, while with his free hand he tore at Rivalen's face with nails like claws.

Rivalen endured the pain, felt blood flow warm and sticky over his cheeks and jaw, and tried to maneuver Kesson underneath him. But there was no way to control their fall.

Through gritted teeth, he answered Kesson's disjunction by reciting one of the Thirteen Truths, spraying Kesson with the blood leaking into his mouth.

"Only hate endures."

They slammed into the ground before Kesson completed his spell.

Agony exploded in Rivalen as bones shattered, as ribs spiked organs, but he smiled through the pain-until he realized that Kesson, despite the fall, despite the damage he must have suffered, had not lost the thread of his spell.

Black veins form on the surface of the Source, ooze forth from its orange flesh. Eventually their ends detach from the Source and hang loose below it. I reach up, take them in my hand. They are warm, pulsing. I scream as they burrow into the flesh of my hands and forearms, but the pain vanishes quickly.

The Source's energy flows into me unadulterated and I scream with pleasure.

Cale and Riven watched the dragon bury men and giants under the mountain of its form. Furlinastis roared with pain. Cale presumed that the force of his impact had caused many of the weapons borne by the men and giants crushed beneath him to penetrate his scales. Shadows swirled around the dragon. Dirt and soil formed a hillock in front of him by the time his body came to stop.

Cale saw Regg shouting orders, ordering his men and women to realign. Shadows churned around the surviving giants as they too tried to regroup. The shadowwalkers appeared amongst the Lathanderians, clots of darkness amidst their light.

Furlinastis lurched to his feet. Corpses and weapons impressed into his body dangled from the scales of his chest and abdomen. Blood leaked from a score of wounds, poured around a giant's sword that had been buried to its hilt in his chest. He extended his neck and roared his rage into the sky. He turned to face the giants. The Lathanderians rallied to either side of him.

"Where is Kesson Rel?" Riven said.

Before Cale could answer, a surge of unadulterated pleasure ran through him. He gasped, stopped, sought its source, found it in his mental connection with Magadon.

Mags? What happened? Where are you?

It is wonderful, Erevis, Magadon said, and his mental voice sounded as if it were floating. Power leaked into Cale's brain, images, memories, knowledge.

Cale shook his head to clear it, cursed.

"What is it?" Riven asked.

"Mags is at the Source. He's in Sakkors."

"What? How?"

Cale shook his head, blinking as his eyes started to water, as the tone of Magadon's mental impressions grew harsher. He grabbed his head in his hands, tried to hold it together.

Mags, get away from the Source. Don't do it. Don't.

When Magadon spoke again, his mental voice sounded deeper, harsh as a rasp. Don't? You fear the power I hold. You are a liar and a betrayer.

Cale endured the mental storm in his brain and said to Riven, "We have to get to him. He'll be lost."

"He's been lost a long time already," Riven said.

Cale glared at the assassin. "He's half a man. I'm not leaving him. If he were whole…"

He winced as more and more mental energy poured into his mind. Magadon was awash in power and enough of it was leaking through their mental connection that it made the veins in Cale's temple throb.

"He cannot be whole unless we kill Kesson," Riven said. "That first, then we help Mags. Otherwise you, me, and everyone else here dies. Then Sembia. Then the rest. You know it, Cale. You saw Ephyras."

Cale knew Riven was right, but he feared that Magadon, in his mentally wounded state, would be irretrievable if they didn't get to him soon. Meanwhile, the emptiness within him beckoned, expanded, opened wider, ate at him. Riven must have been feeling the same thing. They had to kill Kesson Rel or die.

"There," Riven said, and pointed across the plain, where they saw Rivalen and Kesson rise on shaky legs and face off.

Hang on, Mags.

The Source awakens fully, then awakens me fully. The hole in me is filled, the emptiness bridged. My mind is magnified. My power is amplified. Knowledge fills me. I swim in the warmth of the Source's mind, my mind one with it, my will one with it.

But I am not content.

Rage burns like wildfire through my consciousness. It is born in the mind of the fiend and dwarfs everything else in my mindscape. Its fire consumes the weak barricades of conscience that try to stem its spread. What little of the man that remains in me flees before it. Bits of regret, guilt, love, leak out of the conflagration of my rage and flee my mind.

I am hate.

And I am power.

My mind reaches out into the world, senses the minds of other creatures, some of whom are responsible for what happened to me. My hate is indiscriminate.

With a slight effort of will, I cause Sakkors to move toward the Shadowstorm.

Kesson pronounced the last word of the disjunction and it shredded Rivalen's sphere of anti-magic. Rivalen rolled over, felt in the grass for his holy symbol, found it, and closed his hand over the cold metal. He climbed to his feet, hissing with pain.

Agony blurred his vision. His withered arm hung limp from his shoulder. The shadows enshrouding him had cushioned his fall, but the impact had still ruined his body. Shattered ribs stabbed into his lungs, filling them with blood, and his wet breathing bubbled. One ankle was shattered, causing him to hobble. A ringing sounded in his ears. Shadows spun around him as his regenerative flesh tried to undo the worst of the damage.

Across from him, Kesson, too, climbed to his feet, his dark eyes fixed on Rivalen. One of the bones of his forearm jutted from his dark skin. One of his white horns had broken at the halfway point. Blood leaked from his nose and mouth. His breathing was rapid, labored, his eyes glazed. No doubt he, too, had shattered ribs and a cracked skull.

Rivalen heard the sizzle of a triggered contingency and in an instant, all of Kesson's wounds healed. Rivalen cursed as Kesson spread his wings, glared at Rivalen, and mouthed words of power. Energy gathered in both his hands.

Rivalen stumbled backward, clutching the holy symbol of Shar, and incanted a counterspell. His words rose in opposition to Kesson's as he pitted his power against the burgeoning energies gathering in Kesson's hands.

The magical ring on his finger warmed, and the connection opened. Rivalen felt anger pouring through the mental link. It filled Rivalen's mind, caused pressure behind his eyes, and broke his concentration on the counterspell.

I know what you did to our mother, Brennus said. You murdered her in a meadow of flowers.

The shadows spun around Rivalen. His thoughts spun similarly. He backed away from Kesson, backed away from Brennus's accusation, all while triggering a defensive ring, amulet, and necklace.

Brennus-

Say nothing! Brennus said. I will not hear your denials, your rationalizations! You murdered my mother!

The anger pouring through the connection turned to grief. Rivalen knew that Brennus was sobbing. He had no time for it.

Kesson advanced on him, wings drawn in, power in his hand.

Rivalen tried to gather his thoughts, cast his own spell, but his brother's words had scrambled his concentration better than anything Kesson could have said or done. He found it difficult to take hold of his thoughts. They raced around from possibility to possibility. He could pin none of them down.

I wish you to die, Brennus said.

You may get that wish, Rivalen said, and flew into the air.

Brennus seemed not to hear him. But you are my brother and it will not be by my hand. The spell sequence I provided to you before will kill you if you use it.

Rivalen had nothing around him but air yet he felt walls closing in on him, his plans unravelling before his eyes, the thread of his life being pulled from the weave of history.

I will not cause your death but neither will I cause your deification. I will simply hate you forever.

The words pained Rivalen faintly. He had felt closer to Brennus than other members of his family.

I have not told the Most High, Brennus answered. Nor will I. This is between us, Rivalen. And it will be between us forever.

Rivalen understood Brennus's meaning. He had lost his brother. Soon he would lose his life. He was about to speak when a surge of surprise carried through the connection

What is it? he asked

Sakkors is moving, Brennus answered, and cut off the connection.

Rivalen glanced back and saw Kesson touch himself with his right hand as he completed a spell-an illusion, perhaps- that caused his form to shimmer for an instant, after which he extended his left hand at Rivalen and fired a line of orange energy that Rivalen could not avoid.

Rivalen screamed as his body exploded and he fell back to earth.

Broken bones and damaged organs caused Furlinastis to roar with pain. Blood poured out of him, fountaining around the giant's sword that spiked his chest. He was dying, vaguely aware of the Lathanderians forming up somewhere near him.

Unable to take revenge on Kesson Rel, he decided to take it on Kesson Rel's creatures.

Lurching forward into a mass of giants, he crushed two under his body, impaled another on his right claw, pulled the giant to his mouth, and bit him half. The blood and flesh fired his rage and he roared anew.

The giants shouted and bounded forward. Blades rained down on Furlinastis's scales. Giants shadowstepped atop his back, tried to drive their blades down into his spine. He lurched, throwing them off of him, crushed another under his body, and tore the arm off another with his fangs.

But some of the giants' blows penetrated his scales. Furlinastis leaked shadows and blood. He was slowing, weakening.

Cale and Riven stepped through the darkness and materialized two strides behind Kesson Rel, in time to watch Rivalen's body burst in a shower of blood as veins and arteries exploded outward from his flesh. The Shadovar prince fell to the ground in a twitching heap of glistening gore. Shadows still streamed from his ruined body.

"High," Cale said.

"Low," Riven answered, and both lunged forward, blades bare.

Cale took a two-handed slash across Kesson's throat; Riven stabbed his sabres in the middle of Kesson's back.

Their blades passed through him as if he were air.

"Illusion," Cale said, as the image disappeared. Riven cursed.

Kesson's voice, intoning a spell, carried on the wind from somewhere to their right. They whirled, sought him, saw nothing.

Holding his mask, Cale spoke a brief prayer and a circle of force radiated outward from him in all directions to about twenty paces, countering invisibility in its path.

Kesson appeared, hovering low over the plains, energy gathering in both his hands.

"I have Rivalen," Cale said, and winced as a wave of Mogadon's mental energy caused a spike of pain in his head. "Go."

Riven nodded, and charged Kesson.

I am power, Magadon said in Cale's head, his voice an echo of Mephistopheles's. And I am hate.

Riven threw one of his enchanted sabres at Kesson as he charged. The curved blade, poorly balanced for throwing, cut an irregular arc through the air and struck Kesson in the shoulder. If the blade cut flesh, Riven couldn't tell. He could tell that it had no effect on Kesson's casting.

Kesson's dark eyes fixed on Riven. He flapped his wings, pointed both hands.

Cale shadowstepped to Rivalen's side and gagged at the stench. The Shadovar's body had been opened, as if his skin had been unbuttoned and the vitals pulled forth. One of his arms was little more than a withered stick.

Blood vessels, tendons, intestines all lay in a twisted heap on the ruins of his flesh. His eyes fixed on Cale, still aglow, filled with rage and pain. He opened his mouth to speak but nothing more emerged than a wet gurgle. Cale saw that Rivalen's hand still held his holy symbol, slicked with his blood. Perhaps the Shadovar's regenerative flesh would heal him in time. Perhaps not.

Intoning a rapid prayer, Cale cast his most powerful healing spell and fought back bile as the magic caused Rivalen's innards to squirm back into place and closed the flesh over them.

Rivalen, still slick and sticky with his own blood, inhaled in a gasp.

"Get up," Cale said, and pulled him to his feet.

Magadon's voice rang in his head.

I am power.

Magadon! Cale projected through the mental connection. This is not you! Get control! Get out of the Source, Mags. Get out.

I have control, Magadon answered, and began to laugh. And I will never get out.

Cale looked back the way they had come and saw through the darkness, through the raging battle of wraiths and shadows, a huge form moving through the storm, a floating city.

Sakkors.

And Magadon.

Riven dodged to his right as energy flew from both of Kesson's fists. A glowing orange ball of power streaked toward Riven from Kesson's left hand, while a line of green energy from his right hand coalesced in the air and formed itself around Riven into the shape of a large, barred cage. Riven slammed into its unyielding bars. He was trapped inside with the orange ball, which began to spin and hum.

Riven cut at the bars, but he might as well have been chopping at adamantine.

The ball spun ever more rapidly, emitting a high pitched whine. Riven backed away from it as far as the cage allowed. He looked over and saw Cale pull Rivalen, mostly whole, to his feet.

"Cale!"

The ball exploded, filling the cage with billowing black smoke shot through with burning streams of red-hot embers. Riven had nowhere to hide, no cover, and smoke and embers saturated him. He screamed as his flesh blistered, blackened, as his clothes caught fire.

Cale heard Riven's screams. Lines of burning embers snaked through a cloud of smoke, glowing runes of heat and agony traced in the air. The smoke leaked through the bars of a magical cage. Riven had nowhere to run.

"Forcecage," Rivalen said, and spit a tooth and blood.

Cale felt for the darkness within the cage, found it, held his breath, and stepped to it. Lines of fire wrote letters of pain on his flesh. He gritted his teeth, endured, and followed Riven's screams through the smoke. He found the assassin writhing on the ground, burning. Cale grabbed his cloak and rode the shadows out of the cage and onto the plains. He rolled Riven around on the the rain-swept grass as Cale's regenerative flesh healed the burns on his own skin.

Riven grunted with pain through bared teeth, as much angry as pained. His face and hands were blistered, blackened like seared meat. Blades of grass clung to the charred flesh from where Cale had rolled him on the turf. His hair was melted.

Rivalen stepped from the shadows next to Cale.

"Be still," Rivalen said, and held Riven still with his one hand. He chanted a healing prayer, the language not unlike that which Cale had used to heal Rivalen, and Riven's skin regenerated before their eyes. His breathing eased, though his hair and beard remained blackened and curled.

"Good?" Cale asked him.

"No," Riven said, and sat up. He drew a dagger to pair with his saber. He must have lost his other saber during the battle. He stood. "But that's not new. We cannot beat him, Cale."

Cale nodded. "I know."

Not even Rivalen protested.

"But we see it through," Cale said and looked across the plains to Kesson Rel. The First Chosen of Mask rose into the sky, energy in his hands. Kesson touched his hand to himself once, twice, presumably warding himself against attack.

Cale was about to speak when a blast of power soaked his mind, caused his nose to bleed, and sent him to his knees.

Sakkors, draped in shadows, floated over the battlefield.

I am come! Magadon projected.

Rivalen and Riven both covered their ears and groaned. Even Kesson grimaced.

And Cale realized what he must do. He rose to his feet.

"Spread out," he said. "And wait for my say so."

Blows rained down on Furlinastis's body. His good wing hung in shreds. He'd lost two teeth on a giant's breastplate. He could scarcely see and pinpointed his targets as much by sound and smell as sight. Roaring, he pinned a giant under one claw, pressed down, and felt the satisfying crunch of the giant's rib-cage collapsing.

A pair of giants slashed at his throat, opened huge gashes in his scales. He whirled, caught one by the leg in his jaws, and shook him until the leg came free. He gulped it down as the giant bled out on the grass.

Three giants to his left nocked arrows, drew, and loosed. All three sank to the fletching in his side. He whipped his body around, caught two of them with a tail lash, and shattered their knees.

But he was failing. A group of two score giants charged him. He reared up, roaring.

And a roar from behind joined his own.

The companions of Abelar Corrinthal charged the giants, breaking around and past Furlinastis, their numbers ablaze in magical light.

Regg and his company flowed around the dragon, shouting battle cries. The shadowwalkers, cloaked in darkness even in the midst of Roen and his priests' light spells, ran in the vanguard of the force.

The dragon roared as they passed, lumbered after. With the number of wounds the creature had suffered, Regg did not know how it even moved.

Trewe sounded a blast and the company hit the remaining giants like a maul. Regg sidestepped a giant's stab and hacked into the creature's knee. When it fell, roaring, he drove his blade through the back of its neck. A giant staggered into him, spouting blood from a throat wound, and knocked him down. Another loomed out of the battle, sword raised over his head for a killing blow.

The dragon's head shot out of the chaos of combat on his long neck and the giant vanished in a flash of teeth and spray of blood. Regg climbed to his feet and hacked about him until he could no longer feel his arms.

Cale and Rivalen shadowstepped away from Riven. Together, the three men formed a triangle around Mask's First Chosen, who flew in the air above them.

"You are not enough," Kesson said, and Cale knew he was right. They were not enough. To have any chance, Cale had to risk Magadon.

Rain drizzled from the sky. For a time, the four combatants simply regarded one another, each waiting for the other to begin the final act.

Cale tried to focus his mind, to push his thoughts through the blizzard of mental energy pouring through his connection with Magadon.

Look through my eyes, Mags. Kesson Rel is here. We need you to help us.

Kesson Rel began to cast. Rivalen did the same.

Now, Mags. Look through my eyes! Now!

A hand closed on Regg's shoulder. He whirled in a backhand slash, but a shadow-shrouded hand caught his forearm in a powerful grip and stopped the blow.

A shadowwalker.

Blood, rain, and sweat coated the small man. He had a gash in one cheek and stood uneasily on his left leg. His face remained as impassive as ever.

"It is over," the shadowwalker said in his accented Common.

Regg surveyed the field and realized for the first time that it was raining again.

Hundreds of giants lay on the grass, their enormous bodies torn by fang and claw or slashed by blades. The rain drained their blood into the soil. Most of Regg's company lay dead on the field, too. He saw Roen and Trewe among a few score others start to walk among the bodies, checking for signs of life. When they found it, Roen or one of his fellow priests channelled Lathander's power into a spell of healing.

Regg caught Trewe's gaze, and held up his hand. Trewe, perhaps too exhausted to raise his own arm, merely nodded.

The ten or so shadowwalkers flitted among the giants' bodies, crushing the windpipes of any that still breathed. Regg was too tired to protest. Besides, he could take no prisoners.

The dragon, its enormous, shadow-shrouded form sprawled over the field, with bloody pieces of giants still clinging to his teeth and claws, inhaled a rattling breath. Regg staggered to his side, along his neck, noting the gashes, the spurting blood. The wyrm's eyes were open. Ribbons of shadow and ragged breaths leaked from his nose and mouth. The slits of his pupils dilated to focus on Regg.

Regg removed his gauntlet and put his hand on the ridge over the wyrm's eye.

"I have seen nobility in strange places this day."

The dragon's chest rattled, perhaps in a laugh.

"The one who rode me, Abelar, was at peace," the dragon whispered.

"I know," Regg said, and tears wet his face. "Be at peace also."

Regg stared into the dragon's eye until it closed.

"Dawn dispels the night and births the world anew," Regg said. "May Lathander light your way and show you wisdom and mercy. Today you were a light to others."

Shouts turned Regg around. The members of his company looked past Regg and into the sky, pointing with their blades.

"Sakkors!"

Regg looked up and saw the floating, shadow-cloaked Shadovar city emerge from the darkness.

Cale felt the tell-tale tingle behind his eyes, the displacement of his own consciousness as Magadon shared his senses. The mental energy racing through his brain surged, driving him to his knees. His mouth opened to speak but the voice was not his own.

"Kesson Rel!" Magadon screamed through him.

Use all of the power in the Source, Mags, Cale projected, cursing himself for the words. Kill him if you can and we can save you.

Cale knew that those words would stain him forever, that he might have just surrendered his friend to mental slavery to the Source. He vowed to himself that he would do whatever he must to save Magadon.

But first he had to survive.

I am saved, Magadon said. But I will kill nevertheless. First him, then Rivalen, then you.

Kesson Rel!

Regg heard the deep voice in his mind and felt as if his head must come apart. He gritted his teeth and groaned. Sparks exploded behind his eyes. Moans from the men and women of his company told him they were experiencing the same thing.

Beside him, Nayan stood with one hand held to his brow, his mouth fixed in a hard line, and his eyes half-closed as if against a storm.

"The mindmage," Nayan said

In the air above, the shadows and wraiths, bent on annihilating one another, wailed and keened.

The pressure diminished in moments, leaving only a dull throb in its wake. Regg watched in awe as a faint orange glow haloed the edifice upon which Sakkors stood. The air around him felt charged. His hair stood on end.

The entire company exclaimed as the mountaintop upon which Sakkors sat began to sink rapidly toward the earth, as if the power keeping it afloat had failed, or been diverted.

The power churning through Cale's head lit his body afire. The shadows around him spun wildly. Sakkors and its flying mountain flared with Magadon's power, glowing orange and red like a tiny sun as it sank toward the ground.

I am hate! Magadon shouted. And I am power!

Above them, Kesson's chanting gave way to a scream of agony. His horns shattered, and blood poured from his nose, his ears, his eyes. The shadows around him spun. He grabbed hold of his head, screamed again, and fell face-first to the ground.

"Now!" Cale said, and staggered forward, bent as if against a gale.

Riven and Rivalen, blades bare, did the same. Both men bled freely from their nose and ears.

Sakkors shined red and orange as it slowly sank, its light chasing the pitch of the Shadowstorm, overwhelming the shroud that surrounded Sakkors. To Regg, it seemed an artificial dawn and he fell to his knees.

"There is light even in darkness," he said.

Lathander had provided him another sign. His work was not yet done. He stood and looked around the glowing plains.

Through the rain and darkness he saw four forms in the distance, and marked them as Erevis Cale, Riven, the Shadovar, and Kesson Rel.

He grabbed Nayan by the arm. "There! Can your men take us there?"

Nayan looked, saw, nodded.

"Roen, gather your priests!"

Cale, Riven, and Rivalen stumbled forward to execute Kesson Rel.

But Kesson, his head haloed in red light and bleeding from his eyes, ears, and nose, with pulsing veins tracing a throbbing web on his brow, rose to all fours.

"No!" he said, and made a cutting gesture.

No! Magadon shrieked, and Cale heard madness in the tone.

The red glow around Kesson's head winked out. Cale cursed, lunged forward, and raised Weaveshear high for a killing stroke across the back of Kesson's neck.

Kesson threw an arm out blindly behind him and power exploded outward from his form. Black energy slammed into Cale, Riven, and Rivalen. It blew all of them backward five paces, cracked bone, opened flesh.

Exhausted and bloodied, Cale rose to all fours, knowing they had missed their opportunity, knowing they were all going to die.

He found himself staring at a booted foot. Hands took him under his armpits and lifted him to his feet. Regg stood there, looking past him, through him, to Kesson Rel. Nayan stood behind the Lathanderian, his expression unreadable.

Cale glanced around and saw Roen and the priests of the company, ten in all, arrayed in a circle around Kesson Rel, who rose haltingly to his feet.

Warmth suffused Regg's body. The armor and shields of Roen and his fellow priests glowed orange in the setting sun of Sakkors' fall. He thought of Abelar, of faith, of friendship. The thoughts lit a fire in his spirit and he dropped to one knee, brandished his battle-scarred shield, and channeled the divine light of his god. The seed Abelar had planted in his soul bloomed fully.

"Dawn dispels the night and births the world anew," he began, and the rose on his shield began to glow.

Roen fell to one knee, held forth his own shield, his own rose, and joined his voice, and his light, to Regg's.

"May Lathander light our way, show us wisdom…"

The remaining priests fell to one knee, held their shields before them, and joined in the Dawnmeet prayer.

"… and in so doing allow us be a light to others."

The shields of Lathander's faithful glowed with a brightness to rival a dawn sun. Regg's spirit soared to see their faith so embodied in the symbol of their god. He wept as the holy luminescence exposed the darkness of Kesson Rel.

Kesson, already weakened, screamed in the blast of light, fell to the ground. Their light burned away the shadows that shrouded him. He writhed on the ground as if he were afire, shrieking.

"Finish it," Regg said to Cale.

The light from the Lathanderians made Cale queasy but he endured. He watched Kesson fall, shriek, watched the darkness around Mask's First Chosen fall away. He took Weaveshear in both hands and stepped into the circle. Riven did the same.

The light stripped away the shadows that coated Cale, his shadow hand, and for the first time in a long time he felt human. He glanced at Regg and Roen, and thanked them for that with his eyes.

Still, the emptiness of his spirit, the hole dug by the Black Chalice, needed filled.

He and Riven stepped up to Kesson Rel. Riven stabbed him through the chest with a saber. Cale cut off his head, and his screams, with Weaveshear.

Power began to gather.

Rivalen watched blood and shadows pour from the stump of Kesson Rel's neck. His thoughts seethed, frustration burned. He clutched his holy symbol so hard in his good hand that it cut his flesh.

He had schemed for centuries only to watch it fall apart before his eyes. He didn't know the spells he needed to steal Kesson's divinity. Instead, he had to stand idle and watch Erevis Cale become a god.

He cursed Brennus, cursed fate.

Above, thunder rumbled. A lightning storm lit the sky. The Lathanderians rose, their light diminished, and backed away from Kesson's corpse. One of the shadowwalkers started forward, but the Lathanderian Cale had named Regg held him back.

The wind whipped. Darkness formed around Kesson's body, a cloud of impenetrable blackness. Cale and Riven eased back a step. The wind became a gale, tearing at their robes, turning the drizzle into a sizzling spray. Thunder and lightning lit the sky and shook the ground. Power gathered in the shroud around Kesson's body, the stolen divinity separating from its mortal vessel. It leaked into the air over his corpse to form a cloud that looked less like darkness and more like a hole. Rivalen saw in it the echo of the emptiness devouring Ephyras.

And in the emptiness Rivalen found revelation.

Brennus had told him that only a Chosen of Mask could safely partake of the Black Chalice, but Brennus had not known of the relationship between Shar and Mask. They were related, and so too were their servants. A Chosen of Shar, too, should be able to safely drink.

Cale and Riven fell to their knees as the power gathered. A hum filled the air, growing in volume. The clot of shadows continued to coagulate over Kesson, expanding.

Rivalen spoke an arcane word and summoned the Black Chalice from the extra-dimensional space in which he had stored it. It materialized in his hand, heavy with promise.

"I am your Chosen, or I am your failure," Rivalen said to Shar.

He drank, and screamed.

The hole in Cale's being yawned, and pulled at the dark power seething over Kesson. Cale heard a humming in his ears, the roll of thunder, a scream, and he could not be sure that it was not his. Shadows churned around him. The power gathering over Kesson expanded. The wind blew so hard it threatened to flatten him to the ground. A continuous boom of thunder shook the ground. Lightning shot from the sky, struck the inky cloud above Kesson, once, twice, again, again. The cloud roiled, seethed, the power within it gathering.

Cale braced himself. The hum increased in volume, the wind, the thunder.

A beam of darkness and power shot from the cloud at Cale, but not just at Cale. Another beam struck Riven in the chest. Another struck Rivalen.

All three screamed as a fraction of the stolen divinity filled their beings, overwhelmed their souls, transformed them from men to gods. Cale's senses felt afire. His nose burned. His eyes watered. His bones ached. He fell to all fours as his mortal soul recoiled, as divine power filled the hollow spaces in him.

Then it was over.

The wind died. The thunder and lightning relented.

"Are you well?" Regg called from behind, his voice uncertain. "Erevis?"

"Stay back," Cale said, and the shadows around him roiled. "Far back. Now, Regg. Hurry. You also, Nayan."

Cale heard armor and weapons chink as the Lathanderians and shadowwalkers backed away ten, twenty paces. He heard their every whisper.

"What just happened?"

"Kesson is dead."

"What are they?"

Cale looked up, over to Riven, and nodded. Riven nodded in return. Neither would have to die, at least not for lack of divinity.

He looked to Rivalen, saw the Shadovar rise, terrible and dark. Cale and Riven did the same.

Two gods stood to face one.

They stared at one another over Kesson's corpse. The rain fell.