by Paul S. Kemp
“We must go,” Orsin said.
Vasen took Gerak by the arm. “She’s avenged, Gerak. Elle is avenged. Come on.”
The bone devil stood like a man but twice as tall, its nude body the color of old ivory, the flesh pulled so tight over it that it seemed composed of nothing but skin, sinew, and bone. Hate burned in eyes the black of the phlegm that polluted the floor. Fingers on its overlarge hands ended in black claws the length of a knife blade. The devil clacked them together, as if trying out a new toy.
Finally the double door behind gave way and a half-dozen spined devils and Sayeed burst through. All of them pulled up at the sight of the towering bone devil.
Sayeed’s emotionless, dead eyes went to the ripped pile of flesh gathered around the clawed feet of the devil, the face of the thin man still visible at the top of it, the eye sockets staring, the slack mouth open in a scream.
“Zeeahd?” Sayeed said, his blade limp at his side.
Orsin took hold of Vasen and Gerak, his grip like iron. “We have our path.” He nodded at the line of shadows that led from Weaveshear down the hall, away from the devils. “We must go. Right now.”
“This is freedom, Sayeed,” the devil said, his voice deep and gravely. “Freedom at last.”
Sayeed fell to his knees, staring at the devil. His expression went slack and Vasen saw something in him die. The spined devils abased themselves before their larger kin.
Vasen, Orsin, and Gerak turned and ran.
Before they’d taken five strides, he heard the bone devil say, “Kill them all.”
Vasen turned to see the spined devils tumble into the hall behind them, all spines and scales and teeth. They launched dozens of spines from their twisted forms, the quills lighting up as they flew.
He channeled Amaunator’s power through his shield and it blazed rosecolored light across the entire corridor. The quills hit the light and fell inert to the ground. Vasen turned back and ran on, following the twisting tendril of shadow put before him by Weaveshear.
The devils shrieked and gave chase, their claws clicking over the floors. Orsin plowed down the stair and through a set of doors, and Vasen slammed them shut behind them, hoping to delay the devils. He held Weaveshear before him, following the thread it offered. He had no idea where it would lead.
“It could be nothing!” he shouted to Orsin, indicating the thread of shadow that led them on.
“Follow it,” Orsin said. “Trust me! It’s happened before!”
Every corner they turned, every door they opened, Vasen feared encountering more devils, but the way remained clear. They burst through an outer door and into the northern courtyard, sprinting over the smooth flagstones and the shining sun symbol of Amaunator.
“The sword is leading us into the valley,” Gerak said. “We’ll be exposed in the woods. We should find a defensible spot and make a stand.”
“Always you want to make a stand,” Orsin said with a grin, pulling him along. “Keep moving!”
The devils burst through the doors behind them, caught sight of the three comrades, and loosed a hail of flaming spines. The missiles thudded into the walls, burning.
“Keep going!” Vasen said, and shoved Gerak forward. “Follow the line! Follow the line!”
They cleared the courtyard, the outbuildings and livestock pens, and sprinted into the pines. The devils pursued relentlessly. Vasen could hear them roaring and growling not only behind but off to either side.
Brennus stood before the tarnished scrying cube, his mind racing.
“Look, now?” the homunculi asked. One of the constructs was perched on each of his shoulders.
Brennus nodded. He raised a hand and shot a charge of power into the scrying cube, activating it. The tarnish on its silver surface flowed together to make dark clouds, revealing the shining metal surface beneath.
Shadows spun around him wildly, aping the wild beating of his heart. He took the rose holy symbol in one hand, took his mother’s necklace in the other, held them before him, the two pieces of jewelry crafted thousands of years apart, yet together forming another piece of the puzzle he’d long sought to solve.
He’d tried to scry the Abbey of the Rose hundreds of times and always failed. He had concluded that it was a myth. He knew better now. He’d tried to scry the son of Erevis Cale just as often, and also failed, and so concluded that Cale’s son was dead or out of reach. But now he knew better about that, too. Before those examples, the only other person or thing he’d been unable to scry had been Erevis Cale himself, and that was because Mask had shielded Cale from Brennus’s divinations. But Mask was dead, was he not? So who was shielding Cale’s son?
Everything had come together at just the right time. He thought Mask must have somehow been at the root of it. Brennus was probably helping the Lord of Shadows somehow, and that was fine with him. By helping Mask, he was, presumably, hurting Shar. And hurting Shar meant hurting Rivalen. And hurting Rivalen was all he cared about.
“Now for the test,” he murmured.
Possession of Cale’s son’s holy symbol would hopefully provide the focus he needed to pierce the wards, whatever their source.
His homunculi rubbed their hands together, reflecting his eagerness.
Holding the rose in his fingers, he held his hands above his head and incanted the words to one of his most powerful divinations. He focused the spell’s seeing eye on Cale’s son, on the Abbey of the Rose, and let power pour from him. Magic charged the shadows swirling around his body, veined them in red and orange, and they extended to the face of the scrying cube and joined with the churning black clouds of the tarnish.
The silver face of the cube took on depth, darkened, but showed him nothing. His spell reached across Sembia, feeling for the focus of the spell. Brennus continued to pour power into the spell until sweat soaked him, fell in rivulets down his face. He held the rose symbol so tightly in his palm that the edges bit into his flesh. The homunculi squeaked with fear and covered their eyes as ever more power gathered.
Dots of orange light formed on the surface of the cube, like stars in the deep. Controlling his exhilaration, he willed the scrying eye of the divination to move closer, realized that he was looking down from on high at a mountain valley. The orange lights were burning trees. Struggling to control a rush of emotion, he forced the eye of the spell downward so he could make out details. A river divided the valley. Tarns dotted it here and there. Ancient pines covered it in a blanket of green. Many of them burned, with fires blazing here and there throughout the woods. He saw movement among the trees all over the valley, but ignored it for now. Instead, he focused on the structures partially screened by the pines. Although dark, he recognized it as a temple or abbey.
“I have you,” he said.
He moved the scrying eye to the frenetic motion he saw among the burning pines. Perspective blurred as the eye whirled across the valley, focusing on three men pelting through the woods. One of them, tall, dark-skinned, and with darkness clinging to his flesh, had to be the scion of Cale. The others, a deva and a bow-armed human, were his companions. Spined devils bounded through the woods in pursuit of the men. A single bone devil plodded through the woods, too.
The devils meant that Mephistopheles was somehow involved. Not surprising given the Lord of Cania’s connection to Mask. Brennus could not let Cale’s son be killed or taken by agents of the Archfiend. Brennus needed the son, needed to know what he knew, what he was, and how he could use the son to harm Rivalen.
He studied the location with care, noted the details of the valley, the abbey, committed all of it to memory, and spoke aloud to his majordomo, Lhaaril. Latent spells in his abode projected his words to Lhaaril, wherever the majordomo might have been.
“Lhaaril, assemble a force of our trusted men and their mounts at the teleportation circle in the courtyard. This instant. No one else is to know.”
The reply came immediately. “Yes, Prince Brennus.”
Brennus considered returning to h
is chambers to arm himself with additional wands, but decided his spellcraft and the magic gear he carried would suffice. He pulled the darkness around him and stepped through it to an inner courtyard of his manse.
A single sheet of polished basalt paved the large, rectangular courtyard. The walls and spiked towers of the manse surrounded it on all sides. A large, thaumaturgic triangle was graven in the basalt, its grooves inlaid with tarnished silver. A servant stood near one end of the courtyard, holding the reins of Brennus’s veserab mount, already saddled. As he approached, the servant bowed and withdrew, and the veserab hissed a greeting through the fanged sphincter of its mouth. It pulled its wings in close as Brennus walked to its side and slid into the saddle.
Meanwhile, his men began to appear. Pockets of darkness formed here and there in the courtyard, and fully armed and armored Shadovar warriors, their faces hidden by ornate helms, materialized from the darkness atop their veserab mounts. In moments, a dozen men and their mounts filled the courtyard. The veserabs jostled and shrieked at each other.
Brennus heeled his mount and the veserab lurched on its wormlike body into the center of the thaumaturgic triangle. His men did the same.
“We travel to a valley in the Thunder Peaks,” Brennus announced. “The devils there are of no concern to you. There are three men, one who looks like a shade.”
The men looked at one another at that, their body language suggesting a question.
“He is not Shadovar. He travels with a deva and a human. I want all three of them alive.”
Forearms slammed into breastplates and with one voice, they said, “Your will, Prince Brennus.”
With that, Brennus began the teleportation ritual.
Chapter Twelve
Devils swarmed the woods. Vasen could hear them all around, lumbering through the brush, snarling.
“They’re trying to cut us off!” Vasen said. “Faster!”
“I can hardly see anything!” Gerak said, nearly tripping over a log. Vasen forgot that he and Orsin could see clearly in darkness and Gerak could not. He lit up his shield and the glow filled the forest. Shadows rose all around them. Vasen felt them knocking against his awareness, a sensation he’d never felt so strongly before. He stared at the sword in his fist, wondering.
Flaming spines flew, breaking his train of thought, and a devil bounded into their midst. It knocked Gerak to the ground and clamped its jaws down on his leg. He screamed, tried to roll out from under the creature while Vasen shouted and drove Weaveshear through the devil’s side, impaling it on the black blade. The devil reared back, snarling with pain. Orsin appeared to the devil’s right, his hands charged with dark energy. He slammed his fist into the creature’s open mouth and drove it out the top of the devil’s skull. The fiend collapsed in a heap, its shattered head leaking brains and ichor.
“All right?” Vasen asked Gerak, pulling him to his feet. More devils were closing.
“I’ll manage,” he said, wincing as he tested his leg. Before Vasen could say anything more, Gerak’s eyes went wide and he pushed Vasen to the side while bringing his bow to bear. A snarl sounded from behind and above and Vasen whirled in time to see a spined devil leaping down from one of the pines at Orsin. Gerak’s bow sang, and an arrow caught the fiend in mid-flight, sinking to the fletching in the devil’s throat. The creature hit the ground writhing, its squeals of pain a rasping wheeze through the hole in its throat. Gerak fired again, hit the devil in the chest, and the creature went still.
All around them, pines and undergrowth were catching fire from the devil’s spines. Growls and snarls sounded from all sides out in the woods. Once again Vasen felt the peculiar sensitivity to the shifting shadows around him. He felt their distance from him, their taste and texture. He felt them in much the same way he had come to feel his faith after he’d been called by Amaunator.
His god allowed him to draw on his faith, turn it into energy, and with it, serve the light. The shadows, too, were tools, and his blood allowed him to draw on them, use them, too, didn’t it? Hadn’t his father commanded the shadows?
He looked at his hands, saw the shadows leaking from his flesh, wrapping around Weaveshear. He felt the connection between the darkness in his flesh, the shadow he cast behind him from the light of his shield and the shadows all around them. Light and shadow were one, merged in him. He could move through them, if he wished. He knew he could.
“Vasen,” Orsin said. “Vasen, we must go.”
Vasen nodded.
“Too late,” Gerak said, and started planting arrows in the ground near him, within easy reach. “They’re all around. There’s nowhere to go.”
The woods blazed around them, the fires jumping from pine to pine. The air grew hotter with each moment. The scrub and beds of pine needles caught flame like tinder. Soon the entire wood would be ablaze. The devils slunk among the flames, a half-dozen maybe, the silhouettes of their fiendish forms moving among the trees and flames unharmed by the heat, their eyes glowing red in the flames. They moved with the slow certainty of predators, wolves who’d finally ringed their prey and brought it to heel.
“Then we fight here,” Orsin said, and dragged his staff on the ground, tracing a circle around him, delineating his own personal arena. “You get your stand, after all, Gerak. There’ll be other lives after this one, my friends. I hope we all meet again in one of them.”
Vasen glanced back at the abbey but couldn’t see it. It was lost to the smoke, fire, and the trees. With the Oracle dead and the abbey abandoned, the valley didn’t belong to the light anymore. It belonged to the shadows.
To the shadows.
His perception narrowed down to a single thing—the vein of shadow spun out for him by Weaveshear, a dark line drawn across reality, reaching back to the abbey, stretching forward through the flames, past the devils, and out farther into the woods, a tether between past and present, with this moment standing at the intersection. The blade was the line that connected him to his father and his father’s abilities.
He felt the tendril in his mind, felt its path as it wove through the woods, felt its end point.
He knew where it was leading them.
Gerak fired into the trees. Out in the dark, a devil screamed, but the rest continued to close. They were preparing for a rush. Orsin held his staff before him in both hands, his face serene, calm. The crash of a large form moving through the woods sounded from the direction of the abbey. The bone devil was coming. The gleeful shrieks and whines of the spined devils heralded the larger fiend’s arrival.
The heat from the fire was increasing as the flames spread. The sky glowed orange. Clouds of smoke poured into the air.
“Look!” Gerak said.
Above the space where the abbey would be, a glowing green line formed in the sky and widened until it formed a large rectangle in the air. A portal. Dark forms moved on the other side of it, growing larger, larger, until they burst forth through a magical door.
“Shadovar,” Gerak said. He took aim but it was too far for a shot.
A score of veserab-mounted Shadovar flew through the portal. The great, winged worms reared up when they materialized in the air, their wings beating rapidly. The riders tried to steady them. One of the Shadovar, backlit by the glowing portal, wore no armor and rode the largest of the veserabs. He looked down on the abbey, on the woods, his glowing eyes the color of polished steel.
Without warning a shower of flaming spines flew at the companions from all directions, dozens of them, a rain of fire. Most got caught up in the nearby trees and set them ablaze, but a score fell among the comrades. Vasen blocked most with his shield and the rest bounced off his armor, but Orsin and Gerak had no such protection, and both grunted with pain as spines pierced clothing and flesh.
“They’re coming,” Orsin said, plucking a flaming spine from his arms.
The devils were coming in a final rush. Their shrieks and growls reached a crescendo, and in the glow of the fire Vasen could see them bounding through the u
nderbrush and trees toward them. From the direction of the abbey he saw the looming shadow of the bone devil, striding like a colossus through the pines.
“Stand next to me,” Vasen said. “Now. No questions.”
Above them, the veserabs keened as the huge beasts winged over the flames. Vasen heard the Shadovar shouting to one another, pointing down at the devils, at the comrades. The steel-eyed Shadovar in the long robes swooped toward them. He extended a hand, and energy gathered in his palm.
Vasen reached out for the shadows as Gerak and Orsin came to his side.
“What are you doing?” Gerak asked.
Orsin must have known. “What he was born to do.”
When Vasen felt his mind take hold of the shadows, he drew them closer, deeper, darker. They swirled around him and his companions.
Vasen felt comfortable in the darkness, at home. The shadows dimmed the light of the world, but not the light of his faith. He could embrace both the heritage of his blood and the fact of his faith. He did not have to choose one or the other. He could have both.
The devils broke through the flaming trees. The Shadovar above discharged a black bolt of energy from his hand. Vasen touched each of his friends, stepped through the shadows, and took them from that place.
Frustration made Brennus white-knuckle the reins on his veserab. Ovith had led him to believe the son of Cale could not call upon any such powers. He cursed.
“Scour the woods!” he said to the riders who’d accompanied him. He spoke in a normal tone, but a spell put his voice in each of their ears. “Find them! Now!”
The heat and smoke rising from the burning forest made visibility poor. He wheeled his veserab over the woods, the river, the abbey. His riders did the same. Cale’s son would not be able to walk the shadows far. Not even a true shade could take them far.