by Paul S. Kemp
Realms of War
( Anthologies - 12 )
Paul S. Kemp
Lisa Smedman
Susan J. Morris
Bruce R. Cordell
Ed Greenwood
Jess Lebow
Mark Sehestedt
Elaine Cunningham
Mel Odom
Jaleigh Johnson
R.A. Salvatore
Richard Lee Byers
Paul S. Kemp, Lisa Smedman, Susan J. Morris, Bruce R. Cordell,Ed Greenwood, Jess Lebow,Mark Sehestedt, Elaine Cunningham,Mel Odom, Jaleigh Johnson, R.A. Salvatore, Richard Lee Byers
Realms of War
Contents
CONTINUUM
Paul S. Kemp
WEASEL'S RUN
Lisa Smedman
THE LAST PALADIN OF ILMATER
Susan J. Morris
BLACK ARROW
Bruce R. Cordell
TOO MANY PRINCES
Ed Greenwood
THE SIEGE OF ZERITH HOLD
Jess Lebow
MERCY'S REWARD
Mark Sehestedt
REDEMPTION
Elaine Cunningham
CHANGING TIDES
Mel Odom
CHASE THE DARK
Jaleigh Johnson
BONES AND STONES
R.A. Salvatore
SECOND CHANCE
Richard Lee Byers
CONTINUUM
Paul S. Kemp
The Year of Seven Tines (-365 DR)
Rivalen stood beside his mother at the edge of a forest meadow filled with violet flowers, deep in the wooded realm that once was the abode of the Arnothoi elves. The wind, bearing the woody, floral fragrance of late spring, stirred the leaves to whispers. Twilight painted the meadow with golden light.
A false face masked Rivalen's intentions. Only his hands spoke truth. In his left fist he cupped the smooth black disc that served as his secret holy symbol of Shar. In his right hand, hidden under his cloak, he held the cool, wire-wrapped hilt of a poisoned dagger.
The patch of avenorani flowers, deep violet petals surrounding the black core of the stigma, stretched out before them. The fading light turned them into an iridescent violet sea. A breeze caused the flowers to sway as one. They undulated like waves and cast a cloud of sparkling pollen into the twilight air. The silver motes tinkled like faint bells as they rained down.
"It is wondrous, Rivalen," his mother said. She placed her hand on his arm. "Your father will be so pleased when I bring him here."
"Yes," Rivalen said, though he knew his father would never see the meadow.
His father, Telemont Tanthul, the most powerful arcanist in Shade Enclave, had taken an interest in botany in recent years. Rivalen had lured his mother to the meadow in secret, with the promise of a unique gift to commemorate his father's imminent ascendance to the office of Most High, ruler of Shade Enclave.
His mother walked ahead of him, into the patch, amid the pollen, letting her fingertips graze the tops of the flowers. They shivered under her touch and sent more pollen into the air. The meadow looked otherworldly, a fey land of silver rain, tinkling bells, and murder.
Rivalen stared at her back, at the space between her shoulder blades. His grip on the dagger tightened. He tensed as he thought of lunging at her, of driving the blade into her pale flesh, but he hesitated and the moment passed.
She turned and smiled at him. She did not suspect his motives.
He had taken precautions to ensure his crime would not be discovered. He had transported them to the meadow from Shade Enclave, utilizing the Shadow Weave revealed to him by Shar. After the murder he would move his moth shy;er's corpse back to the enclave. The poison that stained his dagger, painstakingly crafted by his own hand in the quiet of his own manse, would leave no trace on her body and would make revivification impossible. After he healed his mother's flesh of the dagger's bite, it would appear that she had died in her sleep. Only Rivalen and Shar would know the truth. It would be Rivalen's Own Secret, and he would bear its weight.
His goddess had ordered the matricide in a vision. He did not know Shar's purpose and dared not inquire. The Goddess of Loss kept her own secrets and promised Rivalen nothing.
He licked his lips and tried to slow his heart. The hair on his arms stood on end. He told himself it was the magic in the air.
His mother turned a circle, still graceful and strong even in her middle years, even after birthing twelve children. She drew a deep breath of magic-infused air and laughed. Silver motes coated her embroidered velvet cloak, her dark hair, her pale flesh.
"The pollen tickles my nose."
He smiled, another false gesture on a day of falseness.
She gestured him to join her. "Come, Rivalen. You'd stand in the shadows of the trees when this beckons? Come out of the darkness. Come."
He did not move. He preferred the darkness.
"I could lie here and sleep under the stars like an elf," she said, her wistful expression that of the young mother he remembered from his youth. "Your father will marvel." She looked away and smiled distantly, as if imagining the pleasure the meadow would bring his father. "The elves say that if you inhale enough pollen while standing in a field of avenorani, your wishes will come true. Your father scoffs at such tales but standing here now, I believe it to be so."
His father was right to scoff. The Art of the elves had only enhanced the beauty and heartiness of the flowers, not granted them the power to grant wishes. The blooms flourished even in winter, changed color with the seasons, chimed in the rain, but nothing more.
"A legend," he said.
Her expression fell, and she eyed him with concern. "You are far too serious for so young a man. Have I raised so somber a son?"
"My studies require seriousness, Mother."
"So they do," she acknowledged with a nod. "Your father drives you. But do not be so driven that the joy of life passes you by."
He let his face offer the lie of another smile. Shar taught him that joy was fleeting, that love was a lie. "Do not worry for me, Mother."
She turned from him, and he began the murder.
He whispered the words to a powerful abjuration that nullified all magic out to a distance of five paces from his person. The wards and alarms that protected his mother would not operate within the area of his spell.
His mother seemed not to notice, but the tinkling of the pollen fell silent when he completed the incantation, as if the flowers had grown sullen.
"I have never seen so many," she said, looking out over the field of flowers. "Do you think the elves know of this meadow?"
"The arnothoi moved west," he said, tensing. "The meadow is long forgotten. We are alone here."
Possibly she heard something unusual in his tone. Possibly she noticed the silence of the flowers at last. She turned back and looked at him strangely.
"Are you all right?" she asked. "You look pale."
For a moment Rivalen could not speak. He stared at her while his heartbeat drummed in his ears and his mouth went dry.
Concern creased the skin around his mother's eyes and furrowed her brow. "Rivalen?"
She took a step toward him.
His hand tightened on the dagger hilt under his cloak. He swallowed.
"Rivalen?"
She neared him, one hand outstretched. His breath came fast. He readied himself.
She stopped two paces from him, and her expression changed, hardened.
She knew
.
"Rivalen," she said, and the word was not a question.
He jerked the dagger free and lunged at her, blade held before him.
Her reflexes surprised him. She sidestepped his attack and kicked him in the knee, wrenching it. He shouted with pain and waved the dagger at her as he fell. He felt the blade bite flesh, heard his mother curse. He fell amid the flowers, amid a shower of silver pollen. He rolled over and looked up, the dagger held defensively before him.
His mother stood over him, a short blade already in her right hand. She held her left hand to the shallow gash that his blade had put in her hip. Her eyes looked as cold as those of his goddess when Shar had come to him in dreams. Her lower lip trembled. He did not understand why.
"I killed fifty men before you uttered your first squall and you think to take me unaware with that?" She nodded at the dagger. "Are you enspelled? Mad? What are you doing?"
Rivalen looked at the dagger in his fist, the black poison on its blade, the smear of his mother's red blood. "Murdering you," he answered, and started to stand.
She snarled and stepped toward him, blade ready, but staggered. Her eyes widened and she wobbled.
"Poison," she said, and slurred the word. "But…"
"None of your protective wards are functioning."
She swayed, backed up a step.
"Nor your alarm spells," Rivalen said, on his feet. "Nor the contingency spells placed on you by my father."
She tried to back off another step, but the poison had stolen her coordination. She fell amid the flowers and sent up a cloud of silver.
He stepped near her, stood over her, held his holy symbol for her to see.
She stared up at him through eyes turning glassy. "Why, Rivalen?"
"Because love is a lie. Only hate endures."
Shock widened her eyes. "I am your mother."
"Only of my flesh," he said. "Not of my soul."
Tears showed at the corners of her eyes.
"Your bitterness is sweet to the Lady, Mother."
He kneeled beside her to watch her die. The tinkling flowers sang a funeral dirge.
She swallowed rapidly, reflexively. Her breathing was shallow. Her fingers worked, clawed at the ground, and reached for him.
"Hold my… hand, Rivalen," she said in a whispered gasp.
He did not reach for her, merely stared into her wan face. "We all die alone, Mother."
She closed her eyes, and the tears leaked down her cheeks.
"Your father will learn of this."
"No. This will be known only to us. And to Shar."
To that, she said nothing. She stared at him for a moment, then closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.
When her intentions registered, he smiled.
"What did you wish for, Mother?"
She opened her eyes and the hurt in her gaze was gone, replaced by anger. "To be the instrument of your downfall."
He stood. "Good night, Mother. I answer to another mistress now."
She gagged, tried to speak, but failed. Her eyes turned distant. She stared up at the twilight sky, and he saw the awareness melt out of her eyes.
Looking upon her corpse, he felt nothing-emptiness, a hole. He ran his fingertips over the edge of his holy symbol and supposed that was point.
Rivalen.
He looked around the avenorani patch, and noticed for the first time that many of the flowers were wilted, dead. How had he not noticed before?
Rivalen.
His mother was calling him from the next world.
Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms (1374 DR)
Rivalen.
Brennus's mental voice, communicated to Rivalen through the magical rings each wore, pulled Rivalen from sleep. He sat up in his bed, still groggy, haunted by tinkling bells, the smell of flowers, and the dead eyes of his mother.
Brennus?
A pause, then, Are you well? You sound different.
Shadows churned around Rivalen. Moonlight leaked through the shutter slats of his room. He ran a hand through his black hair, tried to dislodge from his mind the dream of his mother, the memory of matricide.
I am well, he said. What is it?
Erevis Cale has a woman.
Rivalen grew alert. A woman? A wife?
No, Brennus answered. But a woman he cares for. I am unable to scry Cale, but he may return to her.
Where is she?
She lives alone in a cottage northwest of Ordulin.
The shadows around Rivalen spun, coiled as he considered possible courses. Watch her.
Just watch?
Yes. If Cale appears, inform me immediately.
Very well. Rivalen, she is pregnant.
With his child?
Yes. But she does not know it yet.
Rivalen blinked. How do you know it, then?
His brother spoke in the self-satisfied tone of one who has mastered his Art. Brennus was a diviner without peer. Discovering things is my gift, he said.
The magical connection ended.
Rivalen tried to turn his mind to Erevis Cale, to the events in Selgaunt, to his plans for all of Sembia, but the thoughts of his mother dominated his mind.
He had healed the dagger wound in her flesh, magically concealed his involvement with the murder, and returned the body to her bed in Shade Enclave. As expected, his father had despaired upon finding his beloved dead.
His despair, however, had quickly turned to rage. Rivalen's mother's body had been found without the inscribed platinum and jacinth necklace Telemont had given her the night of her death. He had put it upon her himself.
Suspicious of his wife's death and his inability to have her revivified, Telemont had obsessed over the missing necklace, had sought it for years. He knew for certain that it must have been taken, that she must have been murdered. He had driven Brennus to focus his magical studies on divinations to assist him in finding the culpable party.
Rivalen had lived in terror of his father's wrath and his brother's skill for years. But even Brennus's divinations proved unable to locate his mother's necklace or learn of Rivalen's involvement.
Shar had protected her priest.
Often Rivalen had returned to the scene of his crime in secret, had scoured the area for the necklace, but found nothing. He told himself that a servant had found the body and stolen the necklace before announcing the news to the rest of the staff.
The death of his wife drove a spike of bitterness into the soul of Telemont. The loss of his beloved drove him, at Rivalen's urging, to the worship of the Lady of Loss. Rivalen marveled at the subtlety of the Lady's plan, still did, though he wondered why his mother had returned to haunt his dreams just then. He had not dreamed of her in centuries.
"Why trouble my sleep now, Lady?" Rivalen asked Shar.
After all, the moment of her triumph, and his, was nearly at hand.
A distant rumble pulled Varra from dreams of shadows. She opened her eyes and rolled over in the bed. Save for the soft glow of starlight, darkness shrouded the cottage.
The air felt strange, gauzy against her skin, wet in her lungs. The empty space in the bed beside her-the place where Erevis should have been-looked like a hole.
Blinking away sleep, she saw a figure of shadow standing in the far corner of the room. Surprise stole her voice. Her heart hammered.
"Erevis?"
She lurched out of bed, and the abrupt movement caused the room to spin, to close in on her. Her stomach turned. She reached frantically for the chamberpot on the floor, put her head over it, and vomited.
When she looked up again, the figure was gone and she realized that sleepiness and the darkness had summoned a phantom of her hopes. Erevis was not with her. She was alone.
Pulling the blanket around her shoulders, she walked to the shuttered window. Pre-dawn light leaked through them, ghostly, pale.
Thunder rumbled again, but Varra knew the sky to make a poor prophet. Thunder rarely brought rain. Her garden was parched under the ungenerous
sky.
The rumble continued, took an odd pitch, rose, fell. She pushed open the shutters and looked out on the meadow, the elm, her vegetable garden, the wildflowers, the rough chairs Erevis had crafted from dead wood, the chairs in which they had sat when they said good-bye.
The western sky was clear. Dawn lightened it to gray. But the lingering darkness felt odd, unwilling to depart, and the plants in the meadow looked hunched, braced against the coming storm.
The roll of thunder continued, and it settled on her that she was not hearing thunder.
Barefoot, she hurried out the door and into the meadow. She turned a circle under the sky, scanned it for the storm, for the source of the sound. When she looked south and saw the sky, she gasped.
Clouds as black as a pool of ink marred the southern horizon. They churned, swirled, and roiled purposefully, like living things. Veins of green lightning lit them from time to time. The bank of clouds expanded incrementally as she watched, devour shy;ing more and more of the pre-dawn sky. She stared, agape, unable to process what she was seeing. It was not natural. It was no storm. It was her nightmare made real. Shadows had swal shy;lowed the man she loved. Soon they would swallow the world.
Clouds of birds thronged the sky, riding the wind northward. Movement from the edge of the meadow drew her gaze, and a dozen animals streaked out of the trees, boiled around her, and through the meadow-bounding deer, chittering squirrels, a raccoon. She had no time to respond and froze as they flowed around and past her.
Looking at the sky, a primal part of her understood that the animals had it right. She must run, too. Everyone must. The storm was coming, and to be caught in it was to die.
Fear freed her to act. She ran back to the cottage and pulled a large sack from among her things. She filled it with turnips, carrots, string beans, and potatoes from her garden, nuts and wild pears from the forest. She had little meat, only a fistful of jerky. She threw on her cloak, pulled on her boots, rolled a blanket into a ball, and headed out the door.
Water. She'd forgotten water. She dashed back inside the cottage, located a water skin, and filled it from one of the buckets she had drawn the night before from the drying creek nearby.