of Netheril. To that end, they were to leave the realm only mildly scarred by war.
The Shadowstorm would leave more than mild scars were it not stopped soon.
He puzzled only a little over the religious implications of the fact that two of Shar’s most powerful servants, Rivalen the Nightseer and Kesson Rel the Divine One, seemed at cross-purposes in Sembia’s fate. Brennus’s faith in Shar started and ended with nothing more than words, and those mostly to appease his father and Rivalen. Belief did not sink below the surface in him. Whatever conflict existed in the Sharran church, it was a matter for Rivalen to answer for himself. Though he would also answer to the Most High should he be unable to stop Kesson Rel.
Brennus put his mother’s necklace in an inner pocket, near his heart. A sudden sensory memory struck him—the smell of her dark hair. The shadows around him swirled. He recalled her laughter, the crisp, unrestrained sound of it. …
“Home now?” his homunculi said in unison, bringing him back to himself.
“Yes,” Brennus said. He pulled the darkness around him, pictured in his mind the circular divination chamber in his manse on Shade Enclave, and rode the shadows there.
He smiled when he felt the air change. Unlike the moist air of Selgaunt, rich with the tang of the sea, the cool air of the enclave bore the dense, aggressive aridity of the great desert over which the city flew, though it wouldn’t be a desert for much longer.
Ephemeral ribbons of shadow formed and dissolved in the murk, the welcome tenebrous air of home. A domed ceiling of dusky quartz soared over the circular chamber in which Brennus performed his most challenging divinations. Dim stars peered down through the quartz, diffident pinpoints of light that barely penetrated the haze.
“Home,” his homunculi said, their voices gleeful. They leaped from their shoulder perches and pelted across the polished floor of the chamber, sniffing at the floor and occasionally squealing with delight.
“Mouse turd,” one of them said, holding a tiny mouse pellet aloft like a trophy.
Brennus smiled and shook his head at their foolishness. He intoned the words to a sending spell and transmitted a message to his seneschal, Lhaaril.
I am returned to Shade Enclave for a short time to work my Art. In four hours I will take a meal.
Lhaaril returned, I will have it prepared. Welcome home, Prince Brennus.
Brennus gave the homunculi some time to frolic then walked to the center of the scrying chamber where stood a cube of tarnished silver, half again as tall as a man and positioned to take advantage of the invisible lines of magical force that veined the world. His homunculi, having completed their olfactory reunion with their home, climbed his robes and resumed their normal place atop his shoulders.
He held an open palm before one of the cube’s faces. His homunculi mimicked his movement, giggling. Shadows extended from his hand and brushed the cube. At their touch the silvery face took on depth. Black tarnish swirled slowly on its surface, a cloudy ocean of molten metal.
When the cube fully activated, Brennus began his inquiry. He cast one divination after another, scoured the past and the present, and the entire face of Faerûn. Shadows and sweat leaked from his flesh. He worked in silence and his homunculi soon grew bored and fell asleep on their perches, bookending his ears. Their snores did not affect his concentration.
Despite the comprehensiveness of his magic, Brennus’s spells resulted mostly in frustration. He learned nothing of Varra; she remained … absent. And he learned nothing of Erevis Cale, his activities or location. The power that warded him allowed him to slip the grasp of any attempted divination. Brennus suspected that Mask himself might cloak Cale.
Brennus did learn of the world from which Kesson Rel hailed, a cold world of which Brennus’s most powerful spells revealed little more than a name—Ephyras—and the promise of darkness as deep as the void. He pulled back before pushing his spells further. The hole felt too deep. He feared falling into it.
He turned his spells back to Faerûn and another series of divinations showed the swirling darkness of the Shadowstorm as it roiled across Sembia, deforming and transforming the life with which it came into contact. It grew in strength as it expanded. The currents of negative energy swirling invisibly in its midst could drain the life from a man in a matter of hours.
Within the storm, Brennus saw the ever growing army of