Shadowbred

  Tamlin rubbed his temples. “I am going to meet with the Shadovar, Mister Cale. If they offer military assistance, I will give them whatever trade concessions they wish.”

  “You should not. They are not to be trusted. Vees Talendar is not to be trusted.”

  “Why should I not trust the Shadovar?” Tamlin said, with rising anger in his voice. “Because some of them are shades? So are you. Because they use shadow magic? So do you.”

  Cale drew himself up and said, “The difference, Tamlin, is that I serve you and by extension, the city. They do not.”

  “Do you?” Tamlin snapped. “Do you, really?”

  Cale held his anger in check but the shadows leaking from his skin betrayed him. “I will return with Endren Corrinthal. Do what you will with the Shadovar. If you need me in the meanwhile, reach me via magical sending, as you did before. And understand something, Lord Uskevren. I have been afraid, for myself, for my friends, for my family. But I do not let it overwhelm me or cloud my judgment.”

  Tamlin seethed and waved Cale out.

  Cale turned and left the parlor, left Tamlin, and after gathering his gear, left Stormweather Towers.

  My boat cracked on the rocks … how long ago? I do not know. It could have been months. It feels like months. I know only that I must keep moving toward the wall. The fears are behind me, hard on my heels. My use of the river has opened some distance but not enough. I can feel them behind me in the woods, stalking me.

  Sweating, gasping, covered in dirt, I dash through the forest. Limbs slap my face. Welts cover my exposed skin. I trip repeatedly but rise each time and run onward. The smell of brimstone is so intense that I cannot escape it, but I have become inured to the stink. I notice it, but it no longer bothers my lungs.

  Behind me, the fears howl, one, another, another. They are unrelenting.

  I scramble up a tree-lined slope … and stop in my steps.

  An open, grass-covered plain stretches before me for maybe a fifth of a league. It ends at the wall. I did not know I was so close.

  The dark edifice rises from the plain and stretches to the sky. Thin cracks line its face. Black smoke leaks from them. To my surprise, ice rimes the cracks.

  Abutting the wall, at its base, is a small stone structure. It looks much as I imagine the cell in which I awakened must have looked. Like the wall, it is composed of dark stone. It features only a single, windowless door.

  If the door is not barred, the cell will offer shelter from the fears and a place from which I can work to breach the wall.

  And I will breach it. That is my task.

  The fears howl again, right behind me. I can hear them crashing through the undergrowth, chuffing, slobbering. I have no choice. I take a deep breath and sprint onto the plain.

  Before I have taken twenty strides, the fears howl and burst from the treeline behind me. I spare only a single glance backward and wish immediately that I had not.

  Hundreds of black forms bound and roil over the grass behind me. They are closing.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  10 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms

  Cale bade the house guards at the gate goodeve, strode down the walkway, and stepped out onto the darkness of Rauncel’s Ride. Street torches pasted shadows over the cobbles, the sides of buildings. A few wagons rumbled up the streets and dozens of pedestrians walked the avenue. All of them wore worry on their faces. There was barely enough food to prevent starvation through the winter, and spring would bring war.

  Cale adjusted his pack. He checked his weapons and his mask, and thanked Mask again for the spells that filled his mind. He walked the street until he found a deserted alley. It stank, of course, as all alleys did these days. Despite his grim mood, he smiled, thinking of Mask’s request to him that he cease appearing and disappearing from alleys.

  “Old habits are slow to die,” he said, and pulled the darkness about him. He imagined the Wayrock in his mind—a rocky, gull-covered isle jutting from the blue expanse of the Inner Sea, with the temple that Mask had stolen from Cyric pointing up from its center.

  Cale had not returned to the Wayrock since killing the Sojourner, since Jak had died. He knew he would find Riven there, serving Mask, and he would also find Jak’s grave. He had not helped bury his friend—the pain had been too sharp, then—and he regretted it. He had never said good-bye, not really.

  Remembering the halfling, how he had felt, cold and lifeless in Cale’s arms, sent a swell of emotion through Cale like a fist in his throat. He beat back the tears and reached down to touch the pipe in his belt pouch—Jak’s pipe. For a moment, the smell of pipeweed was so powerful that Cale could have sworn Jak was standing beside him.

  But it was only a phantom, a memory, and it vanished with the breeze. Cale tried to send his grief with it. He had work to get done.

  He reached out to make a connection between the night in Selgaunt and the night at the Wayrock, found it, and moved across the Inner Sea in a moment.

  He appeared near the center of the island, just outside the tower. The surf murmured in the distance. The smell of fish and sea salt spiced the air.

  The spire, a gray stone cylinder unmarred by windows, looked much the same as the last time he had seen it, when it had channeled enough magical power to pull one of Selûne’s tears from the Outer Darkness. The drawbridge was lowered and the open archway leered. Torches burned on either side of the entry and the flames danced in the wind. Cale saw no guards. Mask’s temple appeared abandoned.

  A figure materialized out of the darkness of the archway. Cale recognized Riven from his stature and stance, from the two sabers that hung from his weapon belt. He wore a black cloak rather than his usual crimson.

  He did not bother to hail Riven and Riven did not bother to hail him. Cale started up the drawbridge; Riven started down. Cale was Mask’s First; Riven was Mask’s Second. They met in the middle, cloaked in the night.

  “He told me you were coming,” Riven said. “I have been waiting.”

  Like the tower, Riven looked much the same as the last time Cale had seen him—short, muscular, and precise. He wore his long black hair pulled back and tied. The scarred hole of his right eye looked like a pit in the swarthy skin of his face. The signature sneer and stained teeth nested in a black goatee. He wore a black disc on a chain around his throat—a symbol of Mask.

  Cale did not waste time with niceties. “I need help, Riven.”

  Riven cocked an eyebrow over his empty socket. “What kind of help?”

  “I need to pull a man out of the Hole of Yhaunn.”

  Riven scoffed until he saw that Cale was serious. “You came here for that? No one comes out of the Hole, Cale.”

  “He must, and soon.”

  Riven raised his eyebrows to ask why.

  “Long tale,” Cale said. “There is much at stake.”

  “For who?” Riven asked.

  “For Mask. For Magadon.”

  Both struck bone. Riven’s eye narrowed. “Magadon’s in the Hole?”

  “No. Magadon’s missing.”

  “Missing?”

  Cale hesitated, then dived in. “Have you … dreamed of him?”

  Riven’s eye widened and he nodded slowly. “A blizzard of ice, devils. He’s falling. They stopped, though. A while back.”

  “For me, too,” Cale said, nodding, though Cale had dreamed of flames, not ice. “But it’s all related somehow: the dreams, the Hole, Mask.” He stared into Riven’s face. “I need your help, Riven.”

  “You are the First,” Riven said, and the words surprised Cale, for he heard no envy in them. Riven stroked his goatee. “The Hole is dead to magic. Spells do not work there. Magical weapons or toys. Nothing.”

  Cale had not known. The fact complicated matters. “Nothing works?”

  “Nothing,” Riven answered. “When I was with the Zhents—just starting out—they considered trying to get a man out of there but called it off. They thought it impossible. It’s not the guards. There aren’
t that many. It’s that it’s in a city, with only one way in and out, and no way to use magic.”

  “Nothing is impossible.”

  “True,” Riven said. “But it can’t help but be ugly.”

  “That’s why I need you,” Cale said.

  Riven smiled at that. “We’ll need to be fast.”

  “Speed is critical,” Cale said, nodding. “We take a guard and force him to tell us where our man is. We get him and get out.”

  Riven looked him in the face. “Who’s the target?”

  “A Sembian nobleman. Endren Corrinthal.”

  Riven’s face showed no recognition.

  “Ordulin is making an armed play for all of Sembia. It’s all lies, but Selgaunt and Saerb are the falls. Endren would rally some of the neutrals to Selgaunt and Saerb.”

  “Civil war in Sembia,” Riven said, shaking his head. “Coin counters at war. They’re in for some hard lessons.” He looked at Cale. “I’ll do this because you’re the First and because you believe it ties back to Magadon. I care nothing for a Sembian civil war.”

  “Well enough,” Cale said. He would get no better from Riven.

  “When do we move?” Riven asked.

  Cale considered. “Tomorrow night. Do you know the layout from your Zhent days? The number of guards?”

  Riven shook his head. “I wasn’t part of the Zhents’ planning. Just muscle, then.”

  “Then we go in blind and improvise,” Cale said.

  “So we do,” Riven said. He offered his hand. Cale was surprised, but took it. They had said good-bye with the same gesture after Jak’s death.

  “Welcome back,” Riven said, and the words sounded almost exactly like those Mask had whispered in Cale’s ear before the battle with Malkur Forrin’s mercenaries.

  “Almost there, now,” Cale said softly, echoing Mask’s words.

  “What did you say?” Riven asked.

  “Nothing. It’s good to be back,” Cale said, and meant it. He had come to rely on Riven, his Second, and Riven had not let him down.

  Riven gazed into the night, licked his lips. “There are some things you need to see. Things have happened since you were last here.”

  Riven was rarely cryptic and his words raised Cale’s curiosity. “Such as?”

  “Follow me,” Riven said.

  They turned and walked up the drawbridge side by side. Before they reached the tower’s archway, two short-haired hounds darted out of the tower and dashed toward them. Both had birder in them, judging from their ears and black and brown spots.

  “My girls,” Riven said by way of explanation. His voice held a surprising softness.

  Cale kneeled as the canines rushed toward them. Riven halfheartedly ordered the dogs to heel and neither even slowed.

  Cale held out his shadowhand to the dogs. They sniffed it suspiciously, whined, and backed off, but Cale persisted and the larger came back again to tentatively sniff, and the smaller followed suit. Moving slowly, Cale rubbed the larger one on her muzzle, the smaller on her flanks.

  That did it. Tails wagged and they licked his fingers. Cale gave them a final pat.

  “They’re good dogs,” he said, standing.

  “Loyal,” Riven answered quietly.

  “A good quality,” Cale said, not necessarily meaning the dogs.

  “That’s truth,” Riven said.

  Tongues lolling, the dogs bounced from Cale to Riven, and the assassin stroked each of their heads in turn. They licked his hand and both fell over and showed their bellies. Riven scratched each. Cale found the scene entirely incongruous. Until then, he had never seen Riven gentle with anything.

  “I never understood your fondness for dogs,” Cale said good-naturedly.

  “And I never understood your fondness for Jak Fleet,” Riven said as he stood.

  Anger chased Cale’s smile and hot words formed on his lips. He started to speak but Riven shook his head, held up his hand, and cut him off.

  “That’s a lie. I did understand it. Fleet and I … reached an understanding before the end. I’m sorry for those words, Cale. Old habits return when I see you.”

  “Old habits are slow to die,” Cale said, echoing the words he had spoken to Mask moments before.

  “Go on,” Riven said to the dogs, and gestured at the archway. The dogs turned and darted inside, tails wagging. Riven watched them go, then turned to Cale.

  “Let’s say we end all this, beginning now.”

  “End what?”

  “The posturing,” Riven said, making a frustrated gesture. “All of it. We’ve been through too much, Cale. You are Mask’s First and I am his Second, and that’s the end of it.”

  Cale managed a nod through his surprise. They had been through too much. “Well enough,” he said. “We are past it. Starting now.”

  Riven stared at him, nodded, and they walked up the drawbridge.

  “I presume we’ll hit the Hole after midnight?” Riven asked.

  Cale nodded. “Well after.”

  Guards would be not only fewer, but tired in the small hours. Cale had killed many men during the sleepy hours before dawn. He knew Riven had done the same.

  They strode through towering iron doors and into the temple’s foyer. The dogs were gone. The bare entryway appeared exactly as it had when Cale had last seen it. A pair of wooden double doors stood opposite them, with a wide stairway beyond it leading up into darkness.

  “I had thought to fit the place out,” Riven said by way of explanation. “Transform it into a temple for Mask. I thought that was what he wanted.”

  Cale knew that guessing at what Mask wanted was a fool’s game. “But it wasn’t?”

  Riven shook his head. “I don’t think stealing this place was about getting a new temple. Or at least it was only partially about that.” He looked at Cale sidelong and said, “I think it was about us.”

  They walked through the double doors and started to climb the wide stone stairway beyond.

  “Us? What makes you think that?” Cale asked.

  “They do,” Riven said, and nodded at the top of the stairs.

  Cale stopped in his steps.

  At the top of the stairs stood seven men clad in darkness. Long dark hair hung loose around clean-shaven brown faces. At first Cale thought each wore a mask over the top half of his face but he realized it was a tattoo of a mask. The dark eyes looking out of the tattoos featured the eyefolds typical of those from the far east.

  All wore gray cloaks, gray breeches, and soft leather shoes. None wore weapons, but all showed battle scars on their hands and forearms. Torchlight from the hall behind them backlit their silhouettes.

  “They said a vision brought them here,” Riven said.

  “A vision?” Cale walked up the rest of the steps, Riven beside him, until he stood face to face with the foremost of the seven men, whom Cale took to be the leader. The man, smaller and less muscular than Riven, gave a nod and the others bowed slightly. All seven regarded Cale with open curiosity, though they said nothing.

  “What kind of vision?” Cale asked the leader.

  The man said nothing, merely studied Cale’s eyes, the shadows that leaked from his skin, the darkness that flowed around him like fog.

  “I asked you a question,” Cale said.

  “They arrived two months after you left,” Riven explained. “They almost never speak, but I know they call themselves shadowwalkers. They may not be shades, but I have seen them move and they are damned close.”

  “What are they doing here?” Cale asked Riven, though he continued to eye the shadowwalkers.

  “‘Waiting,’ is all they would say.”

  “Waiting?” Cale asked. He stared into the leader’s dark eyes. “For what?”

  “They won’t answer you, Cale. They’re just here … waiting. And they won’t help us with Yhaunn. I have tried to enlist them before. Whatever they are waiting for, it hasn’t happened yet.”

  “And you think it has to do with us?”

  ?
??With you.”

  Cale turned to him. “Me?”

  “They aren’t priests,” Riven said, nodding at the shadowwalkers. He pulled the tie out of his hair and let it fall down his shoulders. “Hells, I don’t know what they are. But they serve priests, or they did. They’re from Telflamm, Cale. Mask has a large temple there, a large following. When they arrived, they said the Shadowlord had stopped answering the prayers of the priests. When they learned of that, they had the vision that led them here. They say they follow the Twilight Path.”

  Shadows leaked from Cale’s skin as the implications of Riven’s story settled on him. Mask had not stopped answering his prayers. Mask had chatted with him in an alley, or at least he thought so.

  He looked at Riven and said, “Sometimes gods do not answer the prayers of even their priests.”

  Riven shook his head. “This is not one wayward priest. They said none of their priests received spells. None.”

  Cale shook his head, his mind spinning. What if he was the only priest to whom Mask spoke?

  “What about you?” Riven asked, his voice quiet. “Does he still grant you spells?”

  Cale hesitated, turned back to look at the shadowwalkers.

  They were gone.

  “I told you they were good,” Riven explained. “What about it, Cale? Does he still grant you spells?”

  Cale answered Riven with a question of his own. “What about you? Can you still heal with your touch? Does he still grant you that?”

  Riven nodded. “That … and the rest.”

  Riven’s candor surprised Cale. The assassin had been surprising him since Cale had appeared on the island. Cale decided to be honest.

  “Yes, I can still cast spells. Though I went a long while without praying.”

  Riven’s face showed first relief, then a question. “Why a long while?”

  Cale could hardly believe Riven was asking the question. “Why? Because Jak is dead. Because I’m … this.” He held out his arm and let the shadows spiral around his flesh. “Because he did it all so he could steal a thrice-damned temple.”

  Riven’s face remained calm.

  “I told you this was not about the temple. There’s more to it.”