Shadowrealm

CHAPTER NINE

4 Nightal, the Year of Lightning Storms

They materialized not along the Dawnpost but somewhere in the Shadowstorm. The echo of Magadon's rage and despair rang in Cale's mind like a temple bell. Rain thudded into their cloaks. Thunder rumbled. Flashes of green lightning illuminated the twisted landscape in ghastly glimpses. The Shadowstorm pawed at their unprotected souls, drained away their essence. Cale hurriedly intoned the words to the protective wards that shielded them from the life draining energy of the storm, touched a hand to himself, to Riven, and replaced what Kesson Rel had stolen.

"Dark and empty," Riven cursed. Smoke still rose from his charred armor. Blisters dotted the exposed skin of his seared arms and face. Slivers of rock were still embedded in the flesh of his cheeks and brow.

Cale shared the sentiment. The faint green glow of Kesson's spell flashed in and out, warring with the shadows that cloaked him. His regenerative flesh collected the darkness around him and filled his wounds with it. He winced as burns healed, gashes closed.

You failed me, Cale, Magadon said in his mind, and the calm pronouncement hit him as hard as a maul.

Cale was too tired to argue.

Moving gingerly, Riven spun a hand in the air, wrapped his fingers in shadows, and patted them into his wounds, the way he might a healing loam. The magic pulled the slivers of stone from his flesh, healed some of his blisters, but did not heal his wounds entirely. Cale placed his palms on him and intoned a healing spell to Mask. The assassin breathed easier, and nodded thanks.

"Where are we?" Riven asked, looking around.

Cale shook his head. "Not where I intended. This-" he indicated the intermittently flashing green glow around him- "interferes with my abilities even when I'm able to slip it."

Riven paced a circle, his hands on the hilts of his sabers. "He's more powerful than the Sojourner."

"Maybe," Cale said.

Riven stared into Cale's face, a look in his eyes, then he resumed pacing.

"Something you want to say?" Cale asked.

Riven stopped pacing and looked off into the darkness. "I don't know, Cale. I don't."

The sense of Riven's sentence echoed in Cale's head: I don't know if we can stop Kesson Rel.

"There has to be a way," Cale said.

Oathbreaking bastard, Magadon said in his mind.

Cale shook his head, as if he could shake Magadon loose from his thoughts. In handcant, he said to Riven, Mags is almost gone.

Riven stared at Cale a long while before he signaled back, Then we keep our promise to him.

"No." Cale shook his head. "No."

"You see another way?" Riven asked, then signed, He almost killed us both.

They stared at each other through the rain, the funeral of their friend suspended in the dark between them.

What are you discussing? Magadon asked.

It's a mercy killing, Riven signed.

Cale signed back, his gestures sharp and cutting. For who? And we are not there yet.

Not yet, Riven signed. But soon. Get your head around it. He's a risk. We've seen what he can do. He's in your head, Cale. He took control of you.

Cale could not deny it. Anger boiled up in him and he shouted it into the sky. "Dark!"

Go back, Cale, Magadon said in his mind. Please go back. Do what you promised.

The shadows around Cale boiled.

"Damn it, Mags, I will go back! I will kill Kesson! But we need another way."

I have no time for another way, Magadon said, the voice more his own. Before Cale could answer, the connection went quiescent. Cale still felt the uncomfortable itch of mental contact deep in his skull, but it was as though the door through which he and Magadon communicated had been left ajar only a sliver. Only Magadon could reopen it. Cale could not.

Riven exhaled a change of subject, shook the fatigue from his arms. He looked around, squinting in the rain. "Kesson will be coming. As long as we're in the Shadowstorm, he'll be coming."

"He will have to find us first," Cale said. He cast a series of wards to shield them against scrying and divinations, but had his doubts they would work against Kesson. "I can try to get us out, back to Lake Veladon…"

Riven was already shaking his head. "Not with that spell on you. We could end up anywhere-back in Ordulin."

Riven looked at his right hand, as if pondering the absence of the ring Kesson had slagged with his spell.

"We walk, then," Cale said, and threw up his hood.

"So we do," Riven said with a nod. "Bad things in this storm, though."

Cale remembered the looming, dark creature whose presence they had fled on their way in.

"Nothing for it," he said, his mind on Magadon. "We have to find another way. I am not putting Magadon down. Get your head around that. The horse got out, yes?"

"Cale, if we have to-"

Cale stopped, turned, and stared at Riven. "We are not giving up on him."

"I can offer another way," said a voice to their right, a voice that put Weaveshear in Cale's hand and Riven's sabers in his.

Rivalen Tanthul's golden eyes appeared to float freely in space until the Shadovar disengaged from the darkness. He bore no visible weapon. The shadows hugged his form, blurred his borders.

Cale and Riven fell in side by side, weapons ready. Cale scanned the darkness around them, but saw no one else.

"I am alone," Rivalen said. He held his hands at his side.

"All the worse for you," said Riven.

Cale put his free hand on Riven's shoulder to prevent him from charging. "He could have attacked already," he said. What Cale did not say was that Rivalen had mentioned another way and Cale was prepared to grasp at anything to save Magadon, even the words of a Shadovar.

Rivalen eyed Cale, inclined his head.

The tension went out of Riven. Somewhat.

"You wonder why I am here," Rivalen said. He advanced a few steps and stopped, perhaps eight paces from Cale and Riven.

"You are a Sharran dog and Kesson has your leash," Riven said.

Genuine anger flashed in Rivalen's eyes before he hid it behind a mask of calm.

"Your words are those of a fool," the Shadovar said.

Cale held onto Riven as his mind hurried through possibilities. He did not think Rivalen was delaying them for his fellow Sharran. The Shadovar prince could have simply watched them from afar, and brought Kesson whenever he wished. They had not known Rivalen was near. And had the Shadovar wanted to attack, he could have. They would not have seen it coming.

"This makes no sense," Cale said. Shadows leaked from his body, from his blade.

"That is because you think Kesson Rel and I are allies because we both serve Shar. Not all who serve the same god are allies."

Cale understood that well. He and Riven had started in service to Mask as rivals.

"Kesson Rel is a heretic," Rivalen said. "I want him dead, the Shadowstorm stopped."

In answer to his words, the wind gusted and thunder rumbled.

Riven scoffed. "That's a dungpile."

Rivalen's eyes flared, and the shadows around him whirled.

"Why?" Cale asked.

Rivalen smiled. "He is destroying Sembia, and Sembia is an ally of the Shadovar."

"Another dungpile," Riven said, and Cale agreed. If Rivalen was offering even a little truth, there was much more to the matter than he was sharing.

"Stop him, then," Cale said. "You will find him in Ordulin."

"I know where he is but I have learned that I cannot stop him alone. It will take a Chosen of Mask."

The shadows around Cale spun. "Learned? How?"

"I am willing to lay our past differences aside…"

"I'm not," Riven said.

Rivalen continued, "… to rid Sembia of this threat. Our interests coincide. We both want the same man dead."

"He's not a man," Cale said.

The shadows around Rivalen churned. "No. He's not. But we can end this, and him, together."

Cale considered. He wondered if Rivalen, too, sought what Kesson had stolen from Mask. He reminded himself that Rivalen had kidnapped Magadon, bonded him to the Source. That had been the beginning of Magadon's descent. Rivalen Tanthul was a bastard, not to be trusted.

"To the Hells with him, Cale," Riven said. "We do it our way."

"Agreed," Cale said reluctantly. "No."

Riven sneered. "You fly away now, little shade. And the next time we see you, our discussion will be a little different."

Rivalen never lost his mask. He showed no anger, did not even raise his voice.

"I believe I can make you reconsider."

Drizzle sank through Abelar's armor and caused the leather and padding under the steel to chafe. After spending several hours riding with his father and son in the wagon, he rode on Swiftdawn at the head of the column of Saerbians. His father and Elden rode in the body of the caravan.

Behind them, the Shadowstorm expanded, devouring the sky and casting Sembia in darkness. The roiling black thunderhead, streaked through with flashes of lightning, was gaining on them.

"We need to move faster," he said to Regg. He kept his eyes from the rose enameled on Regg's breastplate.

His friend looked back at the storm and nodded. "We may have to abandon the wagons. There are not enough horses for all, but we would move faster afoot."

"Not with the children and elderly," Abelar said. "And they would all be exhausted in a few days."

Regg surrendered to Abelar's point and grunted agreement.

Abelar looked on the long column of men, women, children, and wagons that snaked out behind him. Oxen and horses, heads lowered against the rain, stubbornly pulled their burdens through the muck. Mothers cradled children, and tried to shield themselves from the rain with blankets and cloaks. Men walked beside wagons and helped push when they bogged down in the soft earth. They were moving at a crawl. If the storm continued its present course and speed, they would be caught in mere days.

A sharp roll of thunder from behind elicited gasps and turned heads. Dozens of lightning bolts lit the ink of the Shadowstorm.

The Lathanderians of the company rode up and down the caravan, offering encouragement, spell-summoned food, or a prayer of blessing. Smiles and grateful nods greeted their passage and the Lathanderians kept flagging spirits from sinking into despair. But Abelar knew that blessings and food would mean little if they could not outrun the storm.

"We continue west to the Mudslide," he said. "Then south to the Stonebridge and on toward Daerlun."

"The race is on," Regg said softly, and patted Firstlight.

Hours later, the caravan reached the Mudslide, a murky flow that ran south out of the Thunderpeaks, then hooked east, back toward the River Arkhen and the Shadowstorm. It made a triangle out of Sembia's plains, with the river on two sides and the Shadowstorm on the other. Ordinarily not a very wide river, the recent rains had swollen its width.

The men, women, and children dismounted wagons and horses, plodded through the muddy shallows, and re-filled waterskins. The pack animals were unyoked and watered. Abelar released Swiftdawn to drink and forage.

To Regg, he said, "Roen and his fellow priests should summon as much food as they can. Let's put a hot meal in everyone's bellies. We eat quickly and press on."

"What are you going to do?"

"Check on my son."

Regg nodded and rode off, calling Roen to his side.

Abelar walked through the caravan on his way to the small, roofed wagon in which his father and son rode. He kept his eyes off the sky, off the storm. The refugees smiled at him, nodded, but he saw the questions in their eyes, the confusion. He did not bear his shield. He did not display a holy symbol. Returning greetings and smiles, he offered no explanation for their absence and went to his son.

He found Elden and Endren standing in the rain outside the wagon. Elden was smiling and petting the muscular side of the ox yoked to the wagon, perhaps in preparation for unyoking it. Endren stood with one hand on the boy's shoulder.

Elden saw Abelar approaching. Rain pressed his hair to his scalp. "Papa!"

His exclamation startled the big animal and it lurched. Abelar's heart jumped in his chest but Endren pulled Elden backward and the ox, too tired for much exertion, calmed immediately.

Abelar hurried forward and glared at his father. "Mind his safety."

Endren lost his smile, looked surprised, then hurt, then angry. "He was in no danger."

"My all wight," Elden said.

Abelar scooped him up, put his body between Elden and Endren. To his father, he said, "The caravan is taking a meal then continuing onward. Get some food in you."

Thunder rumbled.

"How do matters stand?" Endren asked.

"Morale is holding. We make for the Stonebridge. But the terrain and weather work against us. We are moving too slowly."

Endren nodded. He understood the implication, though he would not say it in Elden's presence.

"If the storm does not change course, I want you to take Elden on Swiftdawn and ride for Daerlun. We'll mount as many as we can. The others will… remain behind with me and some others to guard them."

Elden clapped at the prospect of a horseback ride. He loved riding Swiftdawn.

"You come, too, Papa?"

Endren and Abelar stared at one another.

"You should go, too," Endren said.

Abelar started to shake his head but stopped. Duty to the refugees did battle with his paternal instincts. He did not want to leave his son but was not sure he could abandon the refugees. He remembered the words Riven had said to him-You have to live with yourself first. He was not sure he would be able to live with himself whatever his choice.

"We will discuss it again if it comes to that," he said to Endren.

Thunder rumbled.

Elden put two fingers on Abelar's throat, where he would ordinarily have worn his holy symbol.

"Where flower?"

Where indeed, Abelar thought, but said only, "Gone, Elden."

"Bad men take it?"

Abelar smiled. "No, son. It's just… gone. I… I gave it away."

"You get back, Papa."

To that, Abelar could think of nothing to say.

"Let us eat," Endren said, and took Elden from Abelar.

Abelar took his father by the arm. "I am sorry I snapped at you."

"It is nothing," Endren said. "Come, Elden."

They headed off to where the priests were summoning meals.

Abelar stood alone in the rain, thinking of flowers and choices. He resolved to speak to Regg about contingencies.

The caravan took the meal quickly, in a drizzle, and started moving south along the rapidly flowing Mudslide. Abelar and Regg took their position at the front.

As they started off, Abelar said to Regg, "If matters become dire, I want you and the company to double up with as many of the women and children as possible and go ahead. Without the wagons to slow them, the horses will outrun the storm."

"You speak as if you would not come."

"I won't. But I would want you to take Elden."

"You ask me to do something you would not?" Regg smiled, and thumped Abelar on the shoulder. "You know I cannot do that. None of us can. None of us will. We will find another way or we will give our horses to the refugees. They can ride in twos. That gets more than four hundred to safety."

"They cannot be left unguarded."

"Then a small force will accompany them. But I think we will have to draw lots to determine who leaves. None of the company will want a spot in a saddle better filled by a refugee. You know this. You made us, Abelar."

Abelar nodded.

"The light is in you, Abelar. Rose or no rose. I see it."

Abelar looked off into the rain. He did not feel the presence of his god in his soul but he did feel something. The sensation puzzled him.

"What is that?" Regg said, squinting into the rain.

Abelar followed his friend's gaze into the southern sky. The rain and twilight reduced visibility, but he saw what had caught Regg's eye. At first he thought it a cloud, but that could not be.

"It moves against the wind."

"Aye," said Regg, pulling Firstlight to a stop.

Abelar did the same with Swiftdawn and studied the sky.

Behind them, the caravan slowed, then stopped. Above the patter of rain, above the constant low roll of thunder, Abelar heard the murmur of questions turn to cries of dismay.

The object continued to close, looming larger, darker.

"It is immense," said Regg.

"Get Trewe to sound the muster and form up."

Regg spun Firstlight and rode back into the caravan. The clarion of Trewe's trumpet sounded. The company began to assemble around Abelar and all eyes watched the sky.

A floating, inverted mountaintop closed the distance. A pall of shadows enshrouded it, leaked from it like fog. Hints of buildings-towers and spires-poked here and there from the swirling darkness. Winged forms wheeled awkwardly about its craggy, conical bottom. Abelar marveled at the power that must have been needed to keep an entire city afloat.

"Shadovar," he said, as much puzzled as alarmed.

The caravan huddled in the plains, exposed, caught between a Shadovar city before and the Shadowstorm behind.

The city stopped a few bowshots distant, on the other side of the Mudslide.

"They are near the Stonebridge," Regg said.

Abelar nodded. The Stonebridge provided the only means of crossing the Mudslide for leagues.

The rain continued. Eyes moved back and forth from the Shadowstorm to the Shadovar city. The tension thickened.

The city hovered ominously in the air, hovered ominously in their future, a lesion on the sky.

"What do they want?" someone shouted from the caravan.

"We cannot just remain here," shouted another.

"If they meant us well, we would have heard already," Regg said. "Let us go knock on their door."

"I won't leave Elden," Abelar said, and felt Regg's gaze on him.

"Then we wait a while longer," Regg said softly. "After that, I will take a party forward."

The sun sank low on the horizon and night crept over the plains.

Regg turned to the company. "I want twenty swords to ride forward to the city. Volunteers?"

Most everyone in the company indicated a willingness and Regg started ticking off names.

As he did, the darkness ten paces before them started to swirl and deepen. Abelar grabbed his friend by the biceps and turned him around.

"Regg-"

Swords rang from scabbards. Shields were unslung. The soft sound of spell casting carried through the rain, Roen asking for Lathander's blessing.

The darkness expanded and eight or nine score Shadovar warriors materialized from the darkness. They wore archaic black plate armor that featured points, studs, and spikes in abundance. Their large, oval shields, enameled in black, showed no heraldry and looked like holes. Helms with nose guards obscured most of their faces, but the gray skin Abelar could see reminded him of a corpse. They bore bare swords in their fists, the blades made of black crystal. Shadows leaked from all of them. They seemed part of the darkness.

"Shades," Abelar said. Like Erevis Cale.

Leather creaked. Horses whinnied. The two forces regarded each other across the grass, the rain thudding off of armor.

One of the Shadovar took a step forward and in that single stride moved from the darkness in which he stood to within a few paces before Abelar and Regg. Firstlight and Swiftdawn did not buck. Abelar and Regg did not start.

The Shadovar removed his helm to reveal a bald head and black eyes.

"By order of the Hulorn, ruler of Sembia, you are prohibited from crossing the Mudslide River."

A rustle went through the company, the murmur of anger. It took a few moments for Abelar to reconcile the words with reality.

"The Hulorn does not rule these lands," Regg said. "His power extends to Selgaunt and its environs. No farther."

"You are mistaken," said the Shadovar.

"The Hulorn and Selgaunt are allies of Saerb," Abelar said.

"If it were otherwise," the Shadovar said, "you would all be dead already."

Regg, on Firstlight, took a step forward. Abelar stopped him with an arm across his chest.

Regg said, "You should hope your blade is as sharp as your tongue, shade. Should it come to that."

The Shadovar did not take his gaze from Abelar. "Matters are as I have stated. You will not be allowed to cross the Mudslide. Go back. Stay. Neither is of any moment to me. We will prevent with force any attempt to cross the Stonebridge or otherwise ford the river."

The company murmured angrily.

"Force?"

"Prevent?"

Horses inched forward. The tone grew uglier than the weather.

Shouts carried to them from the caravan.

"What does he say?"

"What is happening?"

"Have they come to aid us?"

"We must cross," Regg said. "Whatever the Hulorn may say."

Following the Mudslide would hook the refugees back in the direction of the Shadowstorm. And mountains blocked them to the north. Their only hope was to cross.

Abelar dismounted and approached the Shadovar. The shadows around the shade swirled.

"Look behind us, man," Abelar said, working to keep his voice calm. "These people cannot be caught in that storm. We must get across the river. We are trapped against it. I will answer to the Hulorn for you allowing us passage."

The Shadovar looked past Abelar and into the sky, to the Shadowstorm. When his gaze returned to Abelar, Abelar saw no pity or understanding in it, just darkness.

"You have heard my words."

Growing anger put an edge on Abelar's tone. "My son is in this caravan."

Shadows spun around the Shadovar. "The more pity you."

Day after day of constant tension had drawn Abelar's emotions taut and they snapped at the Shadovar's words. Sudden rage stole his sense and he punched the Shadovar in the face with a gauntleted fist. Bone buckled and the man's nose exploded blood. He fell to the ground, groaning, shadows whirling. Abelar drew his blade and advanced.

"The more pity me, you say? The more pity me?"

Ten Shadovar appeared around their fallen commander, blades bare. Arms closed around Abelar from behind, lifted him from the ground, and turned him around. His entire company looked ready to ride the Shadovar down. Trewe's horse reared. Others whinnied and tossed their heads.

"Calm heads!" Regg shouted. It was he who had hold of Abelar. "Calm heads! Think of the refugees!"

Regg was right.

"All right," Abelar said to him. "All right."

"All right?" Regg asked.

Abelar nodded and Regg set him down and released him. Abelar turned to see the entire Shadovar force had stepped through the shadows and assembled before their commander in a bristling arc of steel. The bald Shadovar rose, and as Abelar watched, his nose stopped bleeding and the broken bones squirmed back into place. The Shadovar sniffed loudly and spit a glob of blood and snot.

"Attempt to cross the Mudslide and you all die."

The shadows engulfed him and his troop and they disappeared into the darkness.

Curses made the rounds of the company. Lightning ripped the sky behind them.

"Gods damn it," Abelar said.

"What the Hells is going on here?" Regg asked.

"How do you mean, 'reconsider'?" Cale asked Rivalen.

The Shadovar prince approached them, but stopped short of the reach of their blades.

"A dimensional tether," he said, nodding at the green glow that flashed around Cale. "Kesson tried to prevent your escape."

"He failed," Riven said.

"Did he? Why are you still within the storm, then?"

To that Riven said nothing.

"You had something to say," Cale said. "About us reconsidering."

"Yes. By now Sakkors and an army of Shadovar have intercepted the Saerbian refugees retreating before the Shadowstorm."

"What?" Cale asked. The shadows around him churned. Those around Rivalen swirled in answer.

"They will not be allowed to cross the Mudslide and continue to Daerlun. Instead, they will sit with the river to their backs and Kesson Rel's Shadowstorm closing in on them."

"You are a liar," Cale said.

"No. I will take you to them."

Riven took a step forward and spoke in a low voice. "There are children in that caravan."

"A solution is before you," Rivalen said, giving no ground to Riven. "Assist me in destroying Kesson Rel. When he dies, so, too, does his Shadowstorm."

Cale and Riven looked one to the other.

"Let them pass and we will help you," Cale said to Rivalen. "You have my word."

"Your word means nothing to me, priest. And while we debate and haggle, the Shadowstorm draws closer to the Saerbians. Their deaths will be on your head."

The shadows around Cale roiled. Weaveshear bled darkness. "You are a bastard."

"I am trying to save Sembia. Your intransigence leaves me little recourse."

"A show of good faith, then," Cale said, and indicated the glow of Kesson's spell. "Get this off of me."

Rivalen considered. "Very well."

Riven stepped to Cale's side. Shadows poured from his sabers. "You try anything other than a counterspell, you'll find me less than helpful."

Rivalen smiled, and took in his hands a holy symbol of platinum and amethyst. He intoned the words to a counterspell and shadows went forth from his outstretched hand and engaged Kesson Rel's spell.

Cale felt the power of the two spellcasters charge the air around him. Green sparks shrouded him, flared, flashed.

Riven tensed and Cale held up a hand to head off the assassin's attack on Rivalen.

"I am all right," he said.

Rivalen's face showed strain, then surprise.

His counterspell ended. The sparks of magical battle died. Kesson's spell did not.

"You cannot counter it," Cale said, not a question.

"No."

Riven sneered. Rivalen glared at him, the shadows around him roiling.

"It will expire in time," Rivalen said, his brow furrowed.

"How long?"

"An hour. No longer. When it does, verify my claims. I will meet you at the shores of Lake Veladon at midnight tonight. Then we can begin."

"Begin what?"

"Go see that what I say is true. When you come to me at midnight, I will tell you what you need to know."

Cale had no choice but that did little to mitigate his anger. "When Kesson's dead, then it's you and us, Rivalen. You have my word on that, too."

Rivalen smiled, showing fangs. "As I said, priest, your word means nothing to me."

A stab of pain behind Cale's eyes caused him to wince, his eyes to water. Hate sizzled in his consciousness.

Kill him, Cale, projected Magadon. He is at the root of all of this.

He offers a way to kill Kesson Rel.

He lies, like my father.

Mags-

Kill him!

Magadon tried again to control Cale, to control his weapon arm and lunge at Rivalen. Cale thought of the Saerbians, and resisted.

To his relief, the shadows swallowed the shade prince, extinguished his golden eyes, and he disappeared.

Magadon's attempt to control him ended.

Do not do it again, Magadon. Never again.

You are a liar, too. You are all liars. To the Abyss with you, Magadon said, and the connection closed.

Riven must have seen the mental exchange on Cale's face. "You all right?" the assassin asked.

"Magadon," Cale said, and the darkness around him roiled.

Riven stared at him a moment, then paced the dead grass. "There's more to all this than that Shadovar is telling, Cale."

"Agreed, but he wants to kill Kesson. He's gone through too much to just set us up. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

"After we've done that, after we've saved Mags, we'll deal with whatever comes."

Riven seemed to accept that. He stopped pacing. "Says something, him coming here by himself."

"It does," Cale said. It said Rivalen was not afraid of them.

They spent half an hour huddled against the rain, back to back, watching the darkness for the creatures that prowled the Shadowstorm. Cale felt like the green glow of Kesson's spell made him a beacon, but they encountered nothing. After a time, the glow winked out and stayed gone.

"Spell has ended," Cale said, and stood.

"Let's move," Riven said.

Cale smeared shadows into a lens, cast a minor divination, sought Abelar, found him, and caused the shadows to take them there.

Whether waking or sleeping, I dream of the Source. Cale has betrayed me, so the Source must be the tool of my revenge, my salvation. Remembering the feel of its power in my mind, the touch of its ancient intelligence, I feel a hole of longing open in my mind, an absence that needs to be filled.

I find myself standing near the hole, a gaping, jagged aperture in the mindscape of my mental domain. The stink of rot rises from it. I creep forward, peer inside, hoping to plumb the depths to which I have sunk.

Veins as thick as my wrist wind a jagged path along its sides, pulse like a nest of vipers. Its depth extends as far as I can see, the bottom lost in darkness, like me.

A voice whispers from within the hole, echoing up its sides. The veins throb when the voice speaks. It is my father's voice.

"Cale cannot kill Kesson Rel. He has already failed once."

I shake my head, trying to dislodge despair. "He will try again and succeed. I have seen him do things that no ordinary man could do. He will keep his promise."

My father chuckles. "His promises are shit. He promised his god to return his divinity. He promised the same thing to me. He will say anything, yet he means nothing. Now he allies with Rivalen Tanthul, who tortured you. You cannot trust him. You must save yourself."

I hear my own thoughts in the words and protest. "You lie."

"No. You lie. To yourself. Soon the Shadowwalkers will leave the Wayrock. They intend to leave you here. No one will ever return for you. They wish you to die, alone on this island as you are in your head. It is Cale's doing."

The words strike at my fears. I lean forward, start to speak, lose my footing, and nearly fall into the hole. I jerk myself back, heart racing, breathing rapidly.

The veins that line the hole are pulsing.

"Be mindful," says my father. "You are starting to slip."

He laughs. I curse. Staring into the abyss, I realize that Cale cannot save me. He does not want to save me. I must save myself.

"You want revenge on those who damaged you-"

"You damaged me!"

"The Source offers everything you want."

The ache for the Source's comfort wells up in me, accompanied by the beginnings of a plot. I hear a sound at the bottom of the hole, as if something ancient has stirred to life after sleeping for ages. I lean over the edge. Something is moving down here, deep in the darkness.

I lean too far, scream as I fall. My father's laughter rings off the walls as I plummet.