Shadowrealm - By Paul S. Kemp Page 0,111

he had placed on the map of Sembia, the black line of sword-armed pawns denoting the leading edge of the Shadowstorm.

He didn’t know if the prince had succeeded in stopping Kesson Rel. He didn’t know of Mister Cale’s fate, of the Saerbians.

Impatience turned him fidgety. He paced the room, drank a chalice of wine, paced more, drank more, and still the prince did not come.

The glowballs in the room caused the chess pieces to cast shadows on the map. The pawns painted miniature shades across the whole of Sembia. Thamalon stopped pacing, stared at them, imagined himself able to step though darkness, to travel between worlds, to live forever.

He wanted what he had been promised, and wanted it badly. First things firstly, Rivalen had said, and Thamalon had accepted that, but the time had come. Thamalon rang for his chamberlain.

Thriistin’s thin body and thin hair appeared in the doorway. His coat and collared shirt, as always, appeared freshly donned.

“Hulorn?”

“You have sent for Prince Rivalen?”

“Two runners, my lord. He is not in his quarters.”

Thamalon stared at the map, at the shades, his fists clenched.

“Bring a carriage around.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Thamalon didn’t bother with Rivalen’s quarters. Instead, he instructed the driver to take him to Temple Avenue. The hunched teamster grunted an acknowledgment and snapped the reins.

The carriage rattled along Selgaunt’s cobblestone streets and Thamalon took pride in the crowded thoroughfares, the bustle of commerce, the absence of food lines. His city was well-protected and well-fed, having weathered a war and a famine and emerged the stronger. Under his rule, all of Sembia would do the same.

The populace recognized his lacquered carriage and Thamalon returned salutes and waves as he went. He was the Hulorn and the people loved their Hulorn.

Squads of Scepters patrolled the streets afoot. Two or three Shadovar soldiers bolstered the ranks of each squad, their ornate armor an odd anachronism even on the diverse, cosmopolitan streets of Selgaunt. Thamalon realized that he had come to take the presence of the Shadovar for granted. The people had, too. He imagined that no one would think twice of it when Sakkors reappeared in the sky over Selgaunt.

The teamster shouted to his team and the carriage turned onto Temple Avenue. Thamalon leaned out of the window.

Few worshipers strode the avenue’s walkways and no other carriages rode its cobblestones. The clatter of the carriage’s passage disturbed the starlings that perched in the nooks of the statues and fountains. A cloud of them took wing as the carriage approached and Thamalon ducked back inside to avoid the rain of their droppings. The driver, with no roof to shield him, cursed the birds for fouling his coat.

As they moved down the avenue, they passed one dark, abandoned temple after another, the stone corpses of dead faiths. Stairs and halls once filled with worshipers stood as fallow and empty as had Sembia’s once drought-stricken fields.

Soon Thamalon would formally outlaw all worship but that of Shar. Anything of value within the abandoned temples would be taken and placed in the city’s treasury. He would order the temples torn down and use their stone to repair damage done during the war, a fitting use for the temples of traitors.

“Stop before the House of Night,” he said to the driver, who nodded.

The temple of Shar squatted on its plot, all sharp angles and hard, gray stone. A single tower rose from the center of the two story temple, a digit pointing an accusation at Selûne. Only a few windows dotted its facade, and those the color of smoke or deep purple.

Once, Vees Talendar had tried to disguise it as a temple of Siamorphe, but all pretense had been shed. The black, lacquered double doors, standing open, prominently featured Shar’s symbol—a featureless black disc ringed in purple. A large amethyst decorated the keystone of the doors’ arch. In coming months, Thamalon would engage laborers to appropriately adorn the rest of the temple’s exterior.

Without waiting for the driver to open his door, Thamalon let himself out and walked up the stone stairs to the doorway of the temple. He could not see within. Impenetrable magical darkness cloaked the entry foyer just beyond the doors, symbolically separating the church from the outside world. A congregant was forced to take his first steps into the temple blind, a moment of vulnerability to remind them of Shar’s power. Within the darkness, the congregant was to confess a secret to the Lady.

Thamalon stepped out of the late afternoon sun and entered the darkness. Whispers plagued

readonlinefreenovel.com Copyright 2016 - 2024