The Godborn

Chapter Fifteen

Abruptly the sound emitted from Shar’s eye changed pitch to a hungry whine. Vasen continued to recite the words of The Leaves of One Night. He spoke the words only slowly-he was resisting Rivalen’s compulsion-but the spell forced him to speak the unspeakable, them clearly, loudly.

Rivalen cocked his head, as if listening for something far off. “Here they come at last,” he said, and faded into the shadows. A churning cloud of deep shadow formed in the plaza, sparking with energy, and out of it tumbled Riven and Mephistopheles. Shadows and baleful energy swirled around devil and man. They gripped each other by the hands, shadows and unholy power sizzling between their palms as they struggled.

Mephistopheles roared, beat his wings, and shoved Riven back, the effort raising veins and sinew in the black skin of his chest and arms. Riven stumbled backward. Mephistopheles extended his arms and shot a column of swirling hellfire from his palms. It burned through the shadows that protected Riven, slammed into his chest, and drove him backward, his cloak and flesh charring. Riven rolled out of the path of flames, grimacing against the pain, and put a hand to his temple.

“Riven!” Cale shouted, and started to draw the shadows around him.

Riven looked at him sharply and Cale felt the weight of his gaze, the power in his regard.

“Stay where you are!” Riven barked.

Mephistopheles saw Cale, too, and turned to face him. “Cale! How did you escape my realm?”

Rivalen emerged from the darkness near Vasen, near Shar’s eye, his hands at his sides, leaking power. “And now we’re all here and the end is come.”

“So you say,” Riven said. “But-”

Appendages shot like striking asps from Shar’s eye, long ropes of darkness that squirmed forth and grabbed Riven and Mephistopheles, coiling around them, cutting off Riven’s words.

“No!” Mephistopheles roared, before one of the appendages shot into his open mouth and down his throat, gagging him.

More and more appendages squirmed forth from the now-shrieking eye, wrapping around the two gods, cocooning them in Shar’s darkness. Mephistopheles writhed and fought, dark energy flaring from his exposed flesh. Riven did not struggle, and soon both were entirely covered.

Immediately the thick twist of appendages that led back to Shar’s eye began to pulse, like a gulping throat. And with each gulp Shar’s eye grew incrementally larger. With each gulp, the power of the empty being that lived behind the eye grew.

“And so dies the herald,” said Rivalen.

Cale understood immediately what was happening. Shar was coming. She was consuming their divinity, and when she ate it all, she would emerge and devour the world. And it had started with Vasen reading The Leaves of One Night. He had to stop it and he saw only one way. He had to kill the man on whom the Leaves were written. He prepared to step through the shadows, but before he did, he felt a familiar itch behind his eyes. Magadon’s mental voice, strained, sounded in his head.

Erevis?

Cale could hardly believe what he was hearing. He put his back against the statue’s pedestal, sank down and into the shadows. Mags? Mags?

Erevis, it’s so good to hear-

Later, Mags. Where are you?

Almost to Ordulin. I’m with the Source on Sakkors.

The Source!

Erevis, I have to mind link Riven to you, to us. I want you to prepare yourself.

For what?

This.

Cale felt the connection open between him and a god. Agonizing pain coursed through Cale. His body felt as though it were on fire. He was feeling what Riven was feeling, tiny bits of himself getting chewed off by Shar’s maw.

Cale might have screamed. Or he might have just been experiencing Riven’s screams.

Behind the pain, he sensed the sweep of Riven’s mind stretching across time and worlds, the understanding so vast and deep that Cale recoiled. And behind that, he felt the hopeful voices of the faithful pleading with Riven for a sign, the burden all gods carried.

The. . book, Riven projected. Her weakness. . in. . the book.

There is no weakness in the damned book!

Has. . to. . be. Find it. . or we all. . die.

The mind link with Riven closed.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Cale said.

Rivalen’s deep voice rang out. “This is over now, Cale. Are you bitter? Do you see now the fool Shar has made of you and your ridiculous god?”

“Shut up,” Cale whispered. To Magadon, he projected, Mags, I need you to link me with my son.

Let me see through your eyes.

Cale looked at Vasen and felt Magadon’s consciousness settle into his vision. A deeper itch behind the eye, a short, sharp pain in his left temple. The connection between them opened.

Vasen? Cale said.

No response. Cale felt waves of resistance, self-loathing, rage, but still Vasen read the words and still Shar fed.

Listen to me, Vasen. You have to find the moment of weakness in the book. It’s there.

Still no response.

Think of everything you’ve seen, everything you’ve heard and done. It’s there, Vasen. Mask had a plan. He set all this up. He’s a better schemer than Shar could ever hope to be. It’s there somewhere. You just have to see it.

Still nothing.

It’s there, Vasen. You’ll find it. I have faith in you.

Rivalen emerged from the shadows before Cale, powerful, dark.

Cale lurched to his feet, stabbed with Weaveshear, but Riven sidestepped the blow, grabbed Cale by the cloak, and slammed him against the pedestal. Ribs snapped and Cale gasped with pain.

“You can’t hide from me, Cale. The darkness here belongs to me.”

He slammed Cale again into the pedestal, causing ribs to grind against ribs, opening his skull. Cale saw sparks; his vision blurred. The shadowstuff in his veins worked to heal the damage, but he was still barely holding onto consciousness.

Cale? Magadon projected. Cale, I’m almost there. But the Source is dying. .

Cale did not respond to Magadon. Instead, he spoke to his son.

Faith, Vasen. I have faith. Write the story. Write it.

Rivalen slammed him once more into the stone pedestal. Agony, and all went dark.

Write the story. Faith.

Vasen’s mouth formed the words he read on the poor, trapped man who hunched before him. Hateful words. Dire words. Words of death. Words that should never be uttered. Words that promised an end to everything. And yet he could not stop his lips from forming them, his voice from speaking them.

Faith.

There was no moment of weakness written in the book. There were only words that described Shar’s imminent victory, her incarnation, her feast on the world and everyone in it.

He looked between the words, sought to discern a code, a hidden text. He saw nothing and despaired. And he knew his despair was a betrayal, that Shar fed on his despair as she fed on everything.

He grabbed onto his father’s words, pulled them close.

Think of everything you’ve seen, everything you’ve heard and done. It’s there, Vasen. Mask had a plan. He set all this up. It’s there somewhere. You just have to see it.

His voice, compelled by the nightseer’s spell, continued to utter blasphemies of its own accord, but his mind was his own. He pored over his past, things Derreg had said, things the dead of the pass had said, things the Oracle had said.

The Oracle. Faith. Write the story.

For men like us, Vasen, faith is a quill. With it, we write the story of our lives.

The story of our lives.

He thought of Orsin, prone beside him, maybe dead, thought of the spirals and whorls and lines that decorated the deva’s skin.

The story of Orsin’s life, scribed on his flesh.

A man writes his story in the book of the world.

And in that moment Vasen understood. Shar’s moment of weakness wasn’t written in The Leaves of One Night, because Vasen wasn’t supposed to read it. He was supposed to write it, and his faith, a faith of light and hope and courage, was the quill.

The light is in you, Vasen. Brighter than in the rest of us because it fights the darkness in you.

He smiled and stumbled over one of the words written on the flesh of the man before him. Rivalen’s spell dragged another word out of him, another, and then no more.

With painful slowness, Vasen dragged a finger across the ground before him, scoring the dirt and dust with a line. A new beginning.

He reached down within himself, the core of his being, the light of his soul, to the faith that had sustained him for his entire life, the faith that allowed him to live under a sky that never saw the sun.

“A. . light. . in. . darkness,” he said.

Cale! Cale!

Magadon’s mental voice returned him to consciousness.

I’m almost there. The Source is dying, Cale. When it does, Sakkors will fall. Rivalen held Cale aloft by his cloak, near Shar’s eye, near the pulsing black tentacles vomited forth by Shar’s eye.

But something had changed.

Vasen was no longer speaking the words of The Leaves of One Night. And the eager, satisfied roar that had come from Shar’s eye had changed to a plaintive whine.

“What is this?” Rivalen said, the shadows swirling around him. He shouted at Vasen, his voice full of power. “Read! Read it!”

“A. . light. . in. . darkness,” Vasen said.

Rivalen stalked toward Vasen, dragging Cale, Shar’s whines filling the air.

“What did you say?”

“From ends, beginnings, from darkness, light, from tragedy, triumph,” Vasen said. “Night gives way to. . dawn. Stand in the purifying light of Amaunator who was Lathander.”

As he spoke, his skin grew luminous, great brighter, brighter.

“Stand. . in. . it.”

The sound from Shar’s eye rose to a shriek. Vasen’s light burned the shadows from around Rivalen and Cale. Rivalen dropped Cale and staggered back, shielding his eyes. Cale blinked, his eyes watering.

Vasen burned brighter, brighter, a sun in the night of the Ordulin Maelstrom. Rivalen gave a pained shout. Shar’s appendages writhed in the light, began to smoke and disintegrate, releasing Riven and Mephistopheles.

Vasen’s light burned brighter, blinding.

Squinting, Cale saw that the flesh of the man hunched before the eye was clear of Shar’s words. His son had erased The Leaves of One Night.

The hunched figure suddenly lurched up, opened his mouth, and vomited forth the pages of the Leaves that had been forced down his throat. Each page burned to ash when it touched the light emanating from Vasen. After he’d expelled the book from his mouth, the man sighed and fell face forward onto the plaza, dead.

Beside Vasen, Gerak groaned and stirred.

Cale moved to assist him, shielding his eyes from the light.

“All right?” Cale asked him.

Gerak nodded, his expression dazed, blinking in the glare.

Behind Cale, Rivalen, Riven, and Mephistopheles all screamed as one. Cale turned and watched Vasen’s light push the divinity from them and cast it as long shadows on the ground behind them. All three stood on their tiptoes, backs arched, mouths open in silent screams.

Magadon’s voice sounded in Cale’s head. What’s happening? What’s that light, Cale? It’s beautiful.

Cale stared at Vasen. It’s my son, Mags. It’s my son.

“Cut them apart,” Vasen said. “With Weaveshear. Cut them, Erevis.”

Cale sprinted across the plaza and picked up his weapon. It bled shadows, but Vasen’s light consumed them as rapidly as the blade could birth them. He went first to Riven.

The shadow of divine power extended behind the assassin, attached to him at the heels. Cale raised Weaveshear high and chopped down, severing the connection between the man and the god. The blade smoked and pitted but did its work. Riven sighed and sagged to his knees.

Free of its connection to Riven, the divine power, the shadow, slid across the plaza, formed an arc, a dark line scribed on ground lit in the blazing light of Cale’s son.

“Are you all right?” Cale asked him.

Riven, pale, breathing hard, could only nod.

“Hurry!” Vasen said.

Cale went next to Mephistopheles, then to Rivalen, severing both from their godhood. Weaveshear was brittle by the time Cale cut Rivalen’s divinity from him.

“No!” Rivalen said.

“Yes,” Cale said, and kicked him hard to the ground. The Shadovar hit the plaza face first and Cale heard teeth scrape stone.

The shadows of divine power Cale had cut from Rivalen and the archfiend slid across the plaza as had Riven’s, elongated into arcs, joined themselves to one another, forming a black circle on the stone-Mask’s symbol.

Shar’s eyes spun and whirled, whined for the power it craved, the power that would allow her to incarnate and feed. All that stood between the eye and the power was the light of Vasen Cale.

“What now?” Cale shouted to his son.

“Someone has to take it!” Vasen shouted. “The Herald has to incarnate! I can’t keep this up, and if the light goes, she’ll devour it all and then. . ”

He didn’t need to say anything more. Cale understood. That was why he’d been brought back, why Mask had seen to it that he lived when he should have died.

Mephistopheles must have understood, too, for he rose to all fours and crawled for the divinity.

Cale bounded toward the archfiend, but before he reached him the wounded, weakened archfiend suddenly sprouted an arrow from his side. The shaft sunk to the fletching and he groaned.

“That’s for Fairelm,” Gerak shouted.

The bowman stood beside Vasen, another arrow already nocked and drawn.

Before Mephistopheles could take another crawling step, Gerak shot him again. Again the devil wailed.

“For Elle,” Gerak said.

Still Mephistopheles did not fall. Spitting blood from between his gritted fangs, he crawled for the divine essence.

“And this one for me,” Gerak said, shooting a third arrow that took the fiend in the throat.

Mephistopheles gagged, got up on his knees, back arched, spattering the plaza with his black ichor.

Cale seized the opportunity. He shadowstepped into the darkness behind the fiend.

“I owe you something, too,” he said, and drove Weaveshear through Mephistopheles’s back and out his chest. Gore poured forth.

“That’s a century overdue,” Cale said and twisted the blade. The weapon snapped in his grasp, leaving a long shard in the archdevil.

Mephistopheles, trying to push his innards back into the holes in his flesh, gagging on his own fluids, tried to speak, managed only to gurgle, then dematerialized, a piece of Weaveshear still stuck in him.

Cale cursed at the archfiend’s escape. He looked across the plaza and shared a nod with Gerak.

Standing in the light of his son’s faith, his own faith gone, Cale stared at the three shadows painting a circle on the stone of the plaza. His own, normal shadow stretched out before him, almost touching them.

“I’m failing, father,” Vasen said, and his light began to dim.

Shar’s eye continued its hungry hum, its rapid rotations, its eager seething.

Cale needed only to take a step forward, let his shadow touch the divine shadows, and. .

A hand on his shoulder pulled him around: Riven.

He stared into the pockmarked face of his friend, now just a man, the scarred, empty eye-socket, the scraggly beard.

“I’ll do it,” Riven said.

“Riven. . ”

“Stay a man, Cale.” Riven looked down, shook his head. “You were in my head. You. . saw. Godhood makes you into a bastard, and I ought to know. It’s too late for me on that score.”

Cale shook his head. “No, I should-”

“Cale, you’ve got your son, your life, go live it.”

Cale stared into Riven’s eye a long while, finally nodded.

They embraced like the long-lost brothers they were.

“Been a long road,” Cale said.

“Truth,” Riven said. “Odd one, yeah?”

“Odd one,” Cale agreed.

Riven thumped Cale on the shoulder and stepped past him. For a moment his shadow stretched out next to Cale’s. Then he stepped forward into the circle scribed in darkness on the stone. Riven’s shadow bisected the arc.

The circle began to spin, to shrink, closing in on Riven. He gasped, threw his head back, and shouted, his voice like thunder. Despite Vasen’s light, shadows leaked from Riven’s skin, swirled around him, embraced him. The spinning circle of power tightened and Riven seemed to grow larger, more present, the shadows swirling around him denser.

And as divinity flooded Riven, enlarged him, Shar’s eye shrank correspondingly. The rotations of the eye slowed as it shrank; the screams more plaintive until fading entirely.

And then it was over.

Vasen’s light faded and Riven, fully divine, stood in the plaza shrouded in a cloud of shadow. He looked out at Cale, the hole of his eye seeming to stretch back through time and place.

“You’re still terrible at making plans,” Cale said, a half smile on his lips. “And I’ll be thrice-damned before I pray to you.”

Riven, or Mask, turned and looked at him. “I’d be disappointed if it were otherwise.”

The darkness drew tight around Riven. He merged with it and was gone, gone to where gods go.

Cale blew out a heavy sigh, turned, and hurried to Vasen’s side. He and Gerak helped Vasen to stand.

“You did it,” Cale said, pulling him close.

Vasen nodded, his face drawn. He leaned on Cale. “We all did it.”

“What exactly did we do?” Gerak asked, looking around.

Vasen shook his head, kneeled beside Orsin, placed his hands on him, and uttered a prayer to Amaunator.

Cale expected to see Vasen’s hands glow with healing energy, but nothing happened. Vasen hung his head.

“What’s wrong?” Cale said, shadows spinning around him.

“That was the price,” Vasen said, his voice cracking. “It burned it out of me.”

“Burned what?”

“The calling, the connection.” Vasen made a helpless gesture with his hands. “I don’t know, but it’s gone.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Cale said. “It’s still there.”

“I don’t feel it,” Vasen said.

“You will,” Cale answered.

Vasen shook his head, looked down at Orsin. He tapped the shadowalker’s cheeks, shook him gently. “Orsin. Orsin.”

The shadowalker opened his eyes.

“You all right?” Vasen asked.

“I. . think so,” Orsin said. “Is it over?”

“It’s over,” Cale said, and he and Vasen pulled Orsin to his feet.

“Where’s Riven?” Orsin asked.

Cale half smiled, the shadows swirling around him. “Riven is. . gone. He’s Mask. Or Mask is Riven. I don’t know.”

Orsin clutched his holy symbol, murmured a prayer to the Shadowlord.

Cale, Magadon said. I’m not going to make it there. The Source is almost gone. Sakkors is coming down.

It’s all right, Mags. You did enough. Get out of there. It’s over.

But it wasn’t over.

A moan from behind turned them all around. Rivalen stood on wobbly legs, the nightseer no longer a god, but just a man. His golden eyes looked at the tiny, withered, shrunken distortion that was all that remained of Shar’s eye.

“It can’t be,” he said.

It struck Cale then. No shadows spun around Rivalen. Vasen’s light had stripped him of them, at least for a time.

Gerak nocked and drew. Orsin assumed a fighting stance and shadows formed around his fist. Vasen and Cale stalked toward Rivalen, Cale holding the jagged remainder of Weaveshear.

Brennus is coming for Rivalen, Erevis, Magadon projected. Don’t interfere.

What?

Magadon didn’t respond but Cale took him at his word. He held up a hand to stop Gerak from firing.

“I’m still the nightseer,” Rivalen said, glaring at them with his golden eyes.

The shadows darkened around Rivalen and a second Shadovar stepped from the shadows and took Rivalen. He was shorter, slighter of build, with steel-colored eyes.

“No. You’re a murderer. And you belong to me.”

“Brennus!” Rivalen said.

The shadows swirled and both of them were gone.

The Source was barely cognizant of Magadon. Its light was almost out. They were somewhere within the Maelstrom, over Ordulin. When the Source was gone entirely, the city would plummet from the sky.

I have to go now, Magadon said. Thank you for everything. Rest well, my lovely.

The Source did not perceive him.

Magadon sent the Source feelings of comfort, of affection, drew on its power for the last time, and transported himself to the plaza he’d seen through Cale’s eyes.

“Mags!”

The half-fiend had let his hair and horns grow long. His asp eyes, white but for the pupils, crinkled in a grin.

“Erevis!”

They embraced.

“You let your hair grow,” Cale said to him.

Mags eyed Cale’s bald pate. “You did not. And we need to go. Right now.”

“Aye,” Cale said.

Past Mags, through the shadowed sky, Cale saw the mountain of Sakkors plummeting earthward. Ordulin would be pulverized.

Orsin dragged his staff on the ground, scribing a line on the plaza’s stone. “A new beginning,” he said.

Cale nodded. “Let’s go see what it brings.”

He drew the shadows of maelstrom around all of them, and took them from there.

Brennus stood behind Rivalen, holding his brother’s arms against his sides. He had his mother’s necklace in his hand, too, pressing it hard into Rivalen’s flesh. Both of them looked up at Sakkors as it fell toward them. Rivalen struggled, but he’d been weakened too much. He could not shake Brennus’s grip.

Brennus put his lips to Rivalen’s ear. “We raised Sakkors from the sea, you and I. And now we’ll stand under it as it falls. Think of mother as you die, Rivalen. She was the instrument of your downfall.”

“Don’t, Brennus. Don’t.”

Brennus smiled as Sakkors fell. Shadows swirled around him. “It’s done,” Brennus said. “Your bitterness is sweet. . to me.” Rivalen shouted defiance as the mountain crashed down on them. Brennus only grinned.