Shadowrealm - By Paul S. Kemp Page 0,41
his rivals, Mephistopheles’s eyes narrowed. His flesh brightened to crimson and smoke exited his nostrils.
“Very well, shadeling. It can be done.”
“Tell me how.”
Brennus listened with interest as Mephistopheles told them the series of spells and the focus necessary to do what they intended. They would have little time once Kesson Rel was dead.
Afterward, Telemont nodded, and backed away. “My thanks, Lord of Cania. You are free.”
The Most High gestured and the shackles opened, though the chains remained near Mephistopheles, ready to re-bind him should he do ought but leave. Power sizzled in the air around the archfiend. The shadows in the room darkened.
The archfiend began to fade. Before he did, he pointed a finger at Brennus.
“You wish to know the name of he who murdered your mother?”
“My Lord!” Hadrhune said, stepping forward.
Telemont gestured as if to cast a spell but did not complete it in time.
“Your brother,” Mephistopheles said. “Rivalen Tanthul murdered your mother to seal a pact with Shar.”
With that, the archfiend vanished in a cloud of smoke and brimstone.
Silence expanded to fill the room. The dead or nearly dead archwizard made wet sounds.
Jumbled thoughts bounced around inside Brennus’s skull. The shadows around him whirled and spun in response. He grabbed hold of the thought that Mephistopheles was a liar, that he had, in fact, lied. But the archfiend would also know that Brennus could use his spells to determine the truth of the claim.
Why lie, then?
Hadrhune breezed past Brennus to Telemont. “He says nothing out of pique, my lord. He plans to seize the power, too. This complicates matters.”
Telemont nodded. “It does. But we must trust in the Lady, Hadrhune. Events will be what they will be.”
Brennus could not understand his father’s indifference to the fiend’s words.
“Did you hear his accusation, Most High?”
Telemont shared a look with Hadrhune, with his archwizards. The latter bowed and vanished into the shadows after teleporting the gore of their fellow from the room.
The Most High and Hadrhune turned to face Brennus and their somber expressions told Brennus all he needed to know.
It was true. Rivalen had murdered his mother.
And his father had known.
“You knew?”
The Most High looked away and Brennus flew at his father. Hadrhune interposed himself but Telemont moved him aside with a hand. Brennus grabbed his father by the cloak, shook him, stared into the thin, dark face. The light of his platinum eyes did nothing to illuminate the blackness in the hollows of his cheeks, the circles under his eyes.
“You knew and did nothing? For how long? For how long?”
The tears wetting Brennus’s face embarrassed him but he could not stop their flow. The betrayal drained him of strength. He released his father.
Hadrhune said, “The Most High learned of it long after—”
“I asked you nothing, lackey!” Brennus spat. “This is a family matter.”
Hadrhune’s eyes flashed but he inclined his head and took a step back.
Telemont put a thin hand on Brennus’s arm. “Shar revealed it to me more than a century after the enclave fled Karsus’s Folly for the Plane of Shadow.”
“Shar?”
Telemont nodded. “And in doing so she forbade my punishing him.” He shook his head. The darkness around him roiled like boiling water. “But I do not know if I would have even if she had allowed it. By then, Rivalen had proven himself invaluable to me, to us. He headed her church and her church preserved our people in those darkest of days in the Plane of Shadow. We owe him much, Brennus.”
Brennus remembered well the war with the malaugrym, the constant challenges facing the enclave after the Fall. But none of it justified what his father had done.
“To the Hells with her church, her faith. She is the reason my mother is dead.”
“She saved our city and people when the other enclaves fell from the sky. Through her a new Netheril will be born on Faerûn. Matters are … complicated, Brennus.”
“Complicated? Complicated? My mother is dead. Your wife.”
Anger fired Telamont’s eyes and Brennus knew he had gone too far. Telemont grabbed Brennus, shook him with a strength that should not have been contained in his thin body.
“I know the price I pay for this, boy! Do not think to lecture me on grief! You are a child in such matters!”
Brennus stared into his father’s face, his mouth open but wordless.
Telemont released him, regained control. “Forgive me, Brennus.”
Brennus knew he would not. He tried to understand, but could not. “Rivalen should be made to pay.”
The shadows around Telemont churned. “He will.”
“How? You would allow him to become