“You shine, Dawnsword. Despite your shadows. Remember that. I wish you could have known my husband. He was a good man. Like you.”
Her words touched him. He bent, took her face in his hands, and kissed her brow. “Thank you, Elora.”
“I’m glad that we met,” she said.
“As am I.”
“I won’t forget you,” she said.
“Nor I, you,” he said, then mussed Noll’s hair. “Nor you. Take care of your mother.”
“I will, goodsir.”
With that, he walked back to Orsin and Gerak. “Let’s go.”
Before they started off, Orsin used his staff to draw an arcing line in the dirt before their feet.
“What’s that?” Gerak said. “A horizon?”
“Of sorts,” Orsin said, and they stepped over the line.
“Dawn or dusk?” Gerak asked.
“We’ll soon see,” Orsin answered, and they set off.
When they had gone about a spear’s cast, Vasen turned to look back at the pilgrims. They were gearing up to go, but Byrne stood apart from them. He raised his hand in a farewell. Vasen answered in kind and turned away.
They moved as rapidly as they could, but Elle’s litter necessarily slowed them.
“We’re not moving fast enough,” Gerak said, wiping sweat from his brow. “But we’re not leaving her, Vasen.”
Vasen said, “Of course we’re not.”
“How far is the abbey?” Gerak asked.
“Two days’ hard walk,” Vasen said. “Three at this pace.”
Gerak looked down at his wife, pale on the litter. “She’s with child. Did I already tell you that? We’d had trouble conceiving. She was so happy when she learned. . . ”
“I’ll take the litter for a while,” Orsin said.
“By yourself?” Vasen asked.
“Aye,” Orsin said. Gerak walked beside the litter, his fingertips brushing Elle’s arm.
Vasen understood what had happened and knew that Orsin did, too.
Gerak was taking the first steps in saying goodbye to his wife and their child.
The Sembian plains looked the same in all directions—whipgrass with the occasional woods or forest—so Vasen dared not deviate from the course he knew. Using the landmarks he’d been following for years, he retraced the route he’d used to bring the pilgrims to Fairelm. The three men alternated carrying Elle hourly, although Orsin took extra shifts. The deva’s endurance was otherworldly. Gerak and Vasen ended their turns sweating and gasping. Orsin ended his with a shrug and a smile.
While pulling Elle late in the day, Vasen noticed movement under the blanket that covered her.
“Watch out!” he said, and set her down, drew his blade, and threw back the blanket.
“Oh, gods,” Gerak said.
Her legs had swollen to twice their normal size. A mesh of pulsing black veins lined them. Her abdomen swelled and roiled, as if something were moving within her. Gerak fell to his knees beside her and took her hand in his, held it to his brow. He did not sob and Vasen found this quite ominous.
“Is there anything you can do for her?” Gerak asked over his shoulder. There was no hope in his tone.
“I don’t think so.” Vasen kneeled beside Gerak and spoke in a low tone. “I’m sorry.”
Sobs finally overcame Gerak’s resistance. “Is she in pain, do you think?”
“I think not, no.”
Gerak nodded, re-covered her with the blanket, and stood. “We keep going.”
“Yes,” Vasen said, his own eyes welling. “We keep going. We don’t quit.”
Over the next several hours, Elle’s body continued to change. Her skin darkened, then coarsened. Scales and spines formed here and there on her flesh. Her body stretched, thickened. Her hair fell out in clumps. Vasen did not care to contemplate what might have been happening with the child she carried. He prayed it had died.
Throughout, the three men walked along in silence, none of them daring to say what needed said.
Night fell and the plains turned to pitch, but the three kept moving. The clouds masked the stars, and Vasen could determine the rough location of Selûne only because her light put a yellow smear in the sky. Gerak stumbled often in the dark, cursing, his breath a rasp.
After a time, fatigue made Vasen’s mind fuzzy and he could barely stand. Gerak’s breathing came in heaves. Even Orsin leaned on his staff, and his cheer was forced.
“We have to rest,” Vasen said, and no one argued.
Orsin lowered Elle’s litter to the ground and dragged his staff in a circle around the campsite. Gerak gathered kindling, dug a fire pit to hide the flames, struck flint to steel, and soon had a small blaze. It would not be visible in the gloom beyond a dagger toss. He pulled Elle’s litter near to it. She looked monstrous in the firelight, the shadows playing over her deformities, her bloated body.
They ate the dried meat and bread from Vasen’s pack. Gerak tried to feed Elle but she would eat nothing. He dribbled water into her deformed mouth, laid his bedroll on the ground beside her, and tried to sleep. His expression throughout seemed empty.
Vasen sat before the fire and stared across the flames at Gerak and Elle for a long while. Orsin sat across from him, so still Vasen thought he might have been asleep. But he was not, and after a while he removed a small flute from the satchel he carried and began to play, a quiet, uncomplicated melody that reminded Vasen of clouds.
“I didn’t know you played music,” Vasen said.
“I don’t do it often,” Orsin said. “Only when I’m sad.”
Vasen’s eyes grew heavy. He leaned back and floated on the notes of Orsin’s tune.
“I’m glad you accompanied me back,” he said to the deva.
“We’ve journeyed together often, Vasen Cale. In another age, we walked side by side into the volcanic den of Herastaphan the Dragon Sage, although we bore other names, then.”
Vasen did not know if he believed Orsin, but he found the thought comforting.
“Spirits are not reborn, Orsin,” Vasen said. “Spirits pass on to the immortal realms.”
“What do you know of reincarnation, Vasen Cale?”
“Reincarnation?” Vasen chuckled. “I’ll say I have little familiarity with it.”
“Maybe not so little as you think. We have battled together before, you and I. Often.”
Vasen slurred his words as sleep came. “I think we will again. Soon.”
Screams jerked Vasen from sleep. He lurched to his feet, heart racing, blade in hand. Adrenaline cleared his mind. Orsin was already on his feet, staff in hand. Gerak, too, was standing, staring down at Elle, his face stricken.
She was screaming.
The sound reminded Vasen of a trapped animal, equal parts terror and pain. Strangely, her body did not move at all. She simply opened her mouth and wailed, the rest of her as still as stone. Her eyes were open, but vacant and bloodshot.
Gerak did not so much as glance at Orsin and Vasen. He kneeled beside his wife and placed two fingers over her lips.
“Hush, Sweets. Everything is fine. Hush, now. Hush.”
Vasen did not know if Elle was responding to Gerak, but her screams lost volume, turned to a pathetic, hoarse wail, then stopped altogether. Her mouth and eyes remained open.
“Shh,” Gerak said. “Shh.”
During the night, Elle’s teeth had lengthened and turned black. A dark ichor crusted at the corner of her eyes. Her chest rose and fell with the rapidity of a rabid animal.
Gerak put his head on Elle’s breast and sobbed like a child. Vasen clenched his fists with frustration, helpless to do anything. Orsin looked on, his hands wrapped not on his staff but his flute.
The fire had burned down to embers. Vasen figured they had been asleep a few hours. He hoped Elle’s screams did not attract any predators.
After a time, Gerak recovered himself enough to lean in close and whisper into Elle’s ear. She gave no sign she had heard. Gerak stood, wiped the tears and snot
from his face, and looked at Vasen.
“We’re a day from the Oracle? Gerak asked.
Vasen nodded.
Gerak sagged for a moment, but picked himself up straight. “I need to cut my hair.”
Vasen did not understand. His expression must have shown as much.
“It’s too long,” Gerak said.
Vasen still did not understand. “Gerak. . . ”
Gerak withdrew a small skinning knife from a pouch at his belt and stood over his wife. He stared down at her, his eyes vacant. The knife hung loose in his hand.
“I’ll cut it the way you like it, Sweets. Just the way you like it.”
With that, he took his dark hair in his hand and began to slice it off in uneven clumps. His face was blotchy, his eyes wet, but he tried to smile for Elle as he worked.
Vasen watched the hair fall to earth and felt as if he were watching a murder. He glanced at Orsin, who looked as confused as Vasen.
By the time Gerak finished, his hands were shaking. He stood before his wife and posed as he might for a portrait.
“See, Sweets? Just as you like it.”
Still shaking, his breath coming hard and fast, he kneeled beside her. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. Then he whispered in her ear while he placed the blade of the knife against her throat.
Realization dawned. Shadows swirled around Vasen. He started forward, stopped, dared not speak.
Tears finally broke through Gerak’s resolve and began to fall.
“I love you, Elle,” he said, and slit her throat.
The blood poured out of her throat, not red, but black and stinking of decay. Elle did not move.
“I love you,” Gerak said, as the blood flowed. “I love you.”
In the last moments, fading pulses of blood oozed from the gash in her throat. Gerak stood and closed her eyes with his hand. His eyes were open but Vasen could see that he saw nothing. The light had gone out of him. He turned, dropped the knife, and walked away from the campsite.
“Gerak,” Vasen called.
Gerak slowed but did not turn.
“Can you . . . see to her?” Gerak called back. “I can’t. I can’t, Vasen.”
“I . . . of course,” Vasen said.
Gerak nodded and walked off. Sembia’s darkness swallowed him. “He should not be out there alone,” Orsin said to Vasen.
“He’s alone wherever he is,” Vasen said.
“He is now,” Orsin said. He scribed a line in the ground, circling Elle’s body. “An end,” Vasen asked.
“A sad one,” Orsin acknowledged.
“Will you help me with her?”
“Of course.”
Out in the darkness, they heard Gerak begin to wail, prolonged gasps of hopelessness and despair and anger that haunted Vasen while he and Orsin gathered wood for Elle’s pyre. They stacked it away from the campsite, and when they had enough, they lifted Elle’s body atop it and used embers from the fire to ignite it. The wood caught quickly. Thick black smoke curled into the sky and was lost among Sembia’s dark shroud.
The two men stood in the light of the fire paying their respect to a woman they’d never known, to a child who would never be born. Vasen offered a prayer, although the words seemed too small for the occasion. Orsin played his flute.
In time Gerak emerged from the plains. He stood beside them in the fire’s light. They all three watched Elle’s body burn.
“Dawn and light follow the darkest night,” Vasen said to Gerak.
“I’m not one of your faithful,” Gerak said. “Spare me platitudes. Light and darkness have been gone from this realm for a long time, and now both are gone from my life.”
“I’m sorry,” Vasen said.
“I know,” Gerak said, more softly, his head hanging. “You have my gratitude for trying to save her.”
Vasen said nothing, simply stood beside Gerak.
“I brought food,” Gerak said. He held up two coneys he must have taken while out on the plains.
“First we have to move,” Vasen said. “The pyre may attract attention.”
They broke camp and moved off into the night. After about two hours, Vasen called a halt. In silence, Gerak made another small fire in a pit, expertly gutted the coneys, stuck them with makeshift spits, and soon had them roasting. While they ate, Orsin spoke of his belief in past lives, that people close to one another meet again and again through time.
“Then . . . I could see Elle again?” Gerak asked. “In another life?”
“Yes,” Orsin said. “Strong bonds stretch across many lives.” His eyes went to Vasen.
“Would I know her?” Gerak asked. “Would she know me?”
Orsin smiled, walked around the fire, pulled Gerak close and kissed the top of his head. “I think you would, Gerak of Fairelm. Hold to that hope. But for now we walk this world, we three. Together. Yes?”
Gerak stared into the fire. “Yes.”
After Orsin retook his seat, Gerak said, “I need to kill the men who did this.”
“Yes,” Vasen answered. “Yes, you do.”
Riven sat cross-legged on the floor, his sabers unsheathed and resting across his legs. His girls sat beside him, the warmth of their bodies a comfort. Again and again he replayed in his mind all that he knew, all that he thought he knew, and still he felt as if he’d didn’t know enough, that he was missing something.
But it was too late for second-guessing. Everything was in motion. Either he’d played matters correctly or he’d doomed them all.
He felt the shadows around him, the shadows in the plains outside that extended for miles. He felt the undead native to the Shadowfell, shadows and wraiths and specters and ghosts in the thousands, lurking in the darkness around the citadel. They, too, knew what was coming.
His girls sensed it at the same time he did. He felt the portals come into existence on the plains below the citadel, scores of them, each a flash of pressure in his mind. He felt his enemies step through and assemble in the plains in their multitudes.
Mephistopheles had finally lost the battle with his impatience. Or maybe Asmodeus had finally grown impatient with Mephistopheles, forcing the Lord of the Eighth’s hand.
His girls stood up, hackles raised, and offered growls from deep in their chests. He patted them both as he stood.
“It’ll be fine, girls,” he said, and hoped he was right. “You’re both staying inside, though.”
They licked his hands, whined with concern.
“Get a move on, Vasen Cale,” he muttered.
Outside, the blare of horns rang out over the plains, hundreds of them, followed by the combined shout of thousands of devils, the collective roar like a roll of thunder. His dogs howled in answer, crowded close to him. The horns blew a second blast, a third, as the armies of Mephistopheles arranged themselves to face him and his forces.
“Damn you and your horns,” he said and walked to the nearest window to look out on what had come.
Telemont leaned on his magical staff and looked out the glassteel window of his tower library. The shadow-fogged air allowed only filtered starlight through its canopy, but Telemont could see well enough. The city of Shade extended before him, the dense jumble of its towers and domes and tiled roofs blanketed in night. It was his city, and he’d fought and schemed for centuries to preserve it and its people, along the way compromising . . . many things.
“Something’s changed, Hadrhune,” he said. “The world shifts under my feet.”
Behind him, his most trusted counselor cleared his throat. “Most High?”
Telemont gestured with one hand, the shadows from his skin forming a wake behind the movement. “There’s power in the air, odd stirrings in the currents of the world. It’s troubled me for months. The gods are maneuvering, to what end I don’t know.”
“Most High, that’s why—”
Telemont nodded impatiently. “Yes, yes, that’s why I collect the Chosen. I search for them and when I find them I put them in cages, question
them while I try to read the story of the changing world. And yet the question remains, and I still have no answers.”
“Most High, Prince Brennus, with his unmatched skill in divination, could—”
Telemont’s irritated gesture put a knife through the rest of Hadrhune’s sentence, and it died in silence.
“Prince Brennus,” Telemont said. “Is . . . unfocused of late.”
He watched a patrol of veserab-mounted Shadovar knights cut through the shrouded air above the city, the undulating flight of the serpentine veserabs swirling the shadowed air with each beat of their membranous wings.
“Perhaps you should put this mystery from your mind, Most High? All of the Chosen we’ve captured can be killed within an hour. You need only give the word and I can inform the camp commanders—”
“To kill them now would be premature. Many of them don’t even know what they are. Those who do don’t understand what role they’re to play. No, we keep them alive for the moment and learn what we can. Matters must clarify eventually.”
“Most High, if I may be forward . . . ”
Hadrhune paused, awaiting Telemont’s permission for candor.
“Continue,” Telemont said.
“Is it possible that the focus on the Chosen distracts from more worldly matters? The battle for the Dales goes well, but Cormyr and Myth Drannor must still be dealt with.”
“Oh, war with Cormyr and the elves is coming,” Telemont said. “Yder clamors for it. Our forces are prepared for them, but the Dales need to be pacified completely first. But this matter of the gods and the Chosen, this is something else, something . . . bigger. I need to understand it before events outrun me.”
“Shall I state the obvious, Most High?”
Telemont said nothing, but he knew what was coming.
“There is one Chosen you have not imprisoned or questioned.”
“Rivalen,” Telemont said, and a cloud of shadows swirled around him.
“Yes,” Hadrhune said, his velvety voice treading carefully. “You sent for him, but he did not respond. Yet.”