Shadowstorm (25 page)

Black horns, curled like a ram’s, sprouted from his bald head. His angular features showed no emotion as he unfolded membranous black wings and met Cale’s gaze. His eyes were as dark as holes.

Shadows boiled from Cale’s flesh. Weaveshear vibrated in his hand.

That is Kesson Rel? Magadon asked. That is him, Cale answered.

A wild-eyed female gnome stood at Kesson’s side, holding the hem of his leather cloak off the floor. Her long red hair stuck out in spikes. She shifted on her feet and eyed Cale, Riven, and Magadon with undisguised eagerness.

To Cale’s surprise, he felt nothing. Not awe, not fear, not anger. Kesson was just another mark that Cale had been hired to kill. His pay would be Magadon’s soul.

“Forward,” Murgan said. “Stand in the shadow of the Divine One.”

Esmor and Murgan ushered them in further and the rest of the giants crowded close. The humans standing amongst the giants—Cale guessed them to be priests of Shar—slithered through the crowd, encircling the three companions.

The trap would soon be sprung.

Silence fell in the chamber, save for the eager panting of the female gnome.

Cale let himself feel the darkness in the room, on the balcony. He drew it close to himself.

Ready yourselves, he said to his companions, and called to his mind the series of spells he would need to cast.

Kesson placed his palms on the balcony’s railing and looked down on the trio. His voice was as smooth as glass. “I wished to look upon you two, the servants of the Shadowlord in this age. This I have done.” He shook his head in feigned disappointment. “The Shadowlord has fallen far to choose

such as you. He must be desperate indeed.”

Riven spun his sabers. “Why don’t you come down here, and we’ll chat about that?”

Kesson smiled, showing fangs. The female gnome guffawed. The giants shifted on their feet. Cale could feel their eagerness.

“You have something I want,” Cale said. “Give it to me willingly and I will not kill you.”

Stand ready, Cale said to his companions. Riven, you have the gnome. Mags, light—and lots of it.

The giants laughed raucously. The gnome giggled uncontrollably. Kesson merely held his smile. “I think not.”

“The hard way, then,” Riven said. He spat on the symbol of Shar and ground it into the floor with his toe.

The giants murmured in anger. Huge hands went to huge hilts. They wanted only a command. Kesson’s eyes narrowed.

Almost, Cale said. Almost.

“Kill these pretenders,” Kesson said.

The moment the words left his mouth, the Sharrans incanted spells. The giants jerked their blades free of their scabbards and charged.

Now! Cale said.

He surrounded himself and his companions in darkness and rode it to the balcony. The gnome shrieked at their appearance and reached for the daggers at her belt. Kesson faced them, his face hot with anger, the words to a spell already on his lips.

A doorway off the balcony led into a large chamber beyond. Cale could not tell its function and did not care. Movement at the corner of his eye turned his head.

Hundreds of shadows peeled off the wall and swarmed toward them like a hail of arrows.

He called upon the darkness once more and pulled everyone on the balcony into the room beyond.

The moment they materialized, Riven drove both his sabers into the gnome’s back and out her abdomen. Blood sprayed and she hissed with pain, eyes wide. He jerked the

blades free and she fell to the ground, bleeding, dying.

A ball of light as bright as a noon sun formed above Magadon’s head and lit the chamber. The pursuing shadows shrieked and stopped.

The illumination stung Cale’s flesh, set his eyes to watering, and dissolved his shadow hand, but he hurriedly spoke the words to an abjuration.

Kesson, too, endured the light. He held out an arm to shield his eyes but continued to cast his own spell.

They stood in a long, wide hallway with rows of statues running its length on both sides. Like those on the ground floor, the statues depicted Shar. They looked stricken in the luminescence.

An elf woman with long dark hair and a shimmering blue robe stood on the far end of the hallway. She held a smooth, straight staff of black wood in her hand, and several wands hung from her belt. A bow was slung over her shoulder. Surprise stole whatever words she might have uttered.

Cale finished his spell before Kesson, and a circular line of silver energy expanded outward from him until it described the entire chamber.

The spell warded the room, making magical travel into and out impossible while Cale’s spell remained. Cale would not be able to shadowwalk out, but neither would Kesson, and none of his servants could shadowwalk or teleport in.

Everything you have, Cale told Riven and Magadon. And keep the light bright. I will seal the room.

Kesson finished his spell and spun a long finger in the air. Thousands of magical blades, each about as long as a dagger, formed a ring in the air around him and spun like a cyclone. They reached floor to ceiling and moved so fast they hummed. Cale could hardly distinguish one from another. They caught two of the statues within their orbit and stone chips flew until the force of the blades’ impacts toppled the images of Shar. They fell with a crash.

Green light flared around Magadon’s head and a bolt of white energy shot from his palm, through the wall of blades, and struck Kesson Rel in the chest.

Kesson grunted and the force of the energy drove him backward a step. The smell of burning flesh filled the air.

The elf recovered from her shock, shrieked in rage, and incanted a spell of her own. A ball of shadows coalesced in her hand and she flung it across the room at Magadon. It hit the floor at his feet and burst into a viscous glob of shadows as thick as tar. The substance covered Magadon to his knees and affixed him to the floor. It started to ooze up his body, covering him in the gook.

“Cale! Riven!” Magadon shouted.

Help him, Cale said to Riven.

Cale had only a moment before two score grants found their way into the chamber. Clutching his mask, he shouted the words to his next spell. When he pronounced the last couplet, the magic created smooth gray stone from the air and Cale mentally molded it into a hemisphere that covered the entire chamber. All doors were blocked.

Magadon’s light would hold off the shadows, and Cale’s wall of stone would hold off the giants. At least for a time.

“You will not leave here,” Kesson said. He incanted another spell, the words sharp and powerful, and pointed his finger at Riven.

“Die,” he pronounced.

A black ray went forth from his finger. Moving to help Magadon, Riven never saw it coming and it hit him in the back. His face went white and he fell to his knees, eyes wide, mouth open, gasping for breath.

“You will suffer for this,” the elf said, and leveled her staff at Cale. Blue lightning fired from the tip and tore across the chamber. Cale interposed Weaveshear, absorbed the lightning, and pointed the blade back at her.

The blade discharged the bolt and it hit her in the midsection,

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shattered her staff, and blew her backward against the wall. She fell to the ground, smoking from her clothes, the charred piece of her staff clutched in her hand.

Cale turned to look at Riven. Riven?

Cover your ears, Riven answered, as he climbed to his feet and uttered a single word of the Black Speech. With his one good hand wrapped around Weaveshear’s hilt, Cale could not effectively cover his ears. Cale’s ears rang and he felt a moment’s dizziness. Magadon shouted with pain, but the word disintegrated the black substance holding the mindmage to the floor.

Behind him, Cale heard the elf woman intoning a spell. He turned, saw her casting from her knees.

She is mine, Magadon said.

The elPs speech turned to slurred incoherence and her eyes widened. She screamed and clutched her head. Blood poured from her nose, her eyes, her ears.

Behind his wall of blades, Kesson held forth his hand and an arc of unholy energy went forth from it. It hit Cale, Riven, and Magadon and tore holes in their flesh, cracked bones, bruised organs. They screamed as one.

Cale endured the pain, quickly scanned his friends to ensure they were alive, then bounded forward and stuck Weaveshear into the whirling blades. He grunted with frustration when the blade did not absorb the spell and the impact of the spinning blades almost knocked Weaveshear from his hands.

Kesson chuckled, spoke the words to a spell. Cale answered with a spell of his own. They stared at one another through the blades as they cast.

Kesson finished first. Another wave of black energy went forth from his palm, bypassed Weaveshear, and rent Cale’s flesh. Gashes and sores opened on his arms, abdomen, and face, and blood poured from the holes. He stumbled over the words to his own spell, spat the final syllable, and summoned a column of flame that engulfed Kesson.

Riven appeared at Cale’s side, pale but breathing, bloody

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sabers in hand, and took him by the arm. The magical gem circling the assassin’s head flared and healing energy warmed Cale’s flesh and closed most of his wounds. Cale cast his own spell of healing and it mended the rest.

Kesson did the same, staring at them throughout. When he finished his spell, he looked whole again, and time was his ally. Cale had sealed out Kesson’s servant creatures and prevented Kesson himself from fleeing. But Kesson had sealed Cale and Riven out with a curtain of whirling blades.

Kesson said, “This will end only one way.”

His smile vanished as another energy bolt from Magadon slammed into his chest, charring his robe and skin.

“Give us what we came for!” Magadon shouted.

Kesson roared in answer and fired a bolt of yellow lightning from his hand. Magadon dodged too late and it struck him squarely in the side and spun him around like a child’s top. He screamed. His clothes caught fire and he fell to the floor. His arms spasmed grotesquely and inarticulate grunts escaped his mouth.

We cannot do anything from out here, Riven projected.

Cale agreed. See to Mags, then help as you can.

Riven looked a question at him but Cale did not bother to explain. He sped across the room to the elf, casting a spell on the way that filled him with divine power. By the time he reached the elf s side, he was stronger, and half again his normal size. He sent her bow and quiver skittering across the floor to Magadon, then picked her up—to his surprise, she was still alive, though insensate—and lifted her onto his shoulder.

A floor-shaking boom sounded against the stone wall Cale had summoned—the giants were coming.

He looked across the room, saw Riven using the shadows to heal Magadon, and made up his mind. He inhaled, steeled himself, and ran at the blade barrier full speed.

Kesson’s expression showed surprise, but he hurriedly moved through an incantation. He completed it before Cale closed the distance and a green beam as thick as an arm shot from his

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outstretched hand. Cale tried to sidestep it, stumbled, caught himself with a hand on the floor, but dropped Weaveshear. The beam would have hit him in the side, but instead hit the elf on her arm. The limb disintegrated into dust and the pain brought her around enough to utter a scream. Cale did not slow to recover his blade. The elf, perhaps sensing his intent, squirmed in his grasp, shouted at him to stop.

Cale used her body as he would a tower shield. He positioned her against him so that her body faced the spinning blades. They both screamed as he leaped through the blizzard of whirling steel.

Dozens of slashes rent his flesh, pierced his body, knocked him sideways. Her slight frame vibrated from the multitude of impacts she suffered. Blood sprayed them both. His own, hers, he could not tell.

They fell to the floor within the whirling wall of blades. Blood soaked the tatters of his clothes and flesh. He cast the elf to the floor beside him. She was little more than a pile of bloody rags and torn flesh.

He climbed to his feet, and Kesson was upon him. The Divine One clutched Cale’s wrists and whispered dark words of power. Unholy energy poured into Cale’s body, lighting him on fire with pain. Cale screamed, used his greater strength to hold Kesson’s arms out wide, and kicked him in the chest. Bones cracked and the Divine One staggered backward.

Cale could not follow up. He sagged, barely able to stand. He quickly intoned a prayer of healing, the most powerful he knew, and winced as the spell knitted shut the scores of wounds in his flesh.

Kesson, too, incanted a spell. When he finished, he, like Cale, stood at half again his size.

“Shar’s power is the greater, First of Mask.”

“We will see,” said Cale, and charged.

Kesson spoke a single word of such power that it stopped Cale in his steps and left him reeling. He tried to step forward, fell

to one knee. The room spun. He could not get his bearings. He put his hand down to prevent from falling on his face. He knew he was vulnerable but he could not cause his body to answer his commands.

Kesson stepped forward and took him by the throat. Cale’s eyes focused enough that he could see into Kesson’s black eyes. He saw madness there.

The Divine One snarled and put a claw-tipped finger to Cale’s forehead. There, he carved a bloody symbol into his flesh.

“Pain,” Kesson said, and at the pronouncement, every nerve in Cale’s body flared with agony.

He shrieked with pain, fell to the floor, and writhed. Every beat of his heart sent agony along his veins. Each time he drew breath, razors sliced his lungs. He heard a voice in his head but it demanded too much.

Get up! Get up, Cale!

His skin felt as if it were aflame. Kesson stood over him, brandished his metallic holy symbol of Shar, and uttered the words to a spell.

Cale welcomed it. He wanted to die, for the pain to end.

I will take some of it, Cale, projected Magadon.

Cale felt an itch behind his eyes and the pain diminished. Outside the barrier of blades, he heard Magadon wail with the pain he had taken from Cale. Cale tried to focus, tried to stand.