said in her clear voice, and he would have beamed.
His memories of her were so clear. It seemed only a day since he had last spoken with her, not two millennia. For some reason, he associated her memory with sunlight. He was pleased she had not lived to flee to the Plane of Shadow with them. She had been too bright for it.
He did not understand his father, nor did he forgive him. Shar had demanded the sacrifice of his mother’s body. Now his father demanded that Brennus sacrifice his memory of her, poison it with inaction.
He could not do it. He would not.
He drew the darkness to him and pictured his makeshift quarters on Sakkors, now hovering over northern Sembia, and rode the shadows there.
Cale and Riven materialized at the edge of the storm. Rain poured from the pitch above, softening the ground, soaking their clothes, chilling their bones. Green lightning split the sky, cast the air in smears of vermillion and black. The wind gusted and swirled. Dead and dying vegetation covered the darkened plains before them. Trees shook in the wind, their twisted forms testament to the transformative powers of the Shadowstorm. The leading edge of the storm pulsed and lurched grotesquely as it shrouded the land.
The mental connection between Cale and Magadon flew open, startling him.
He is in there, Cale, Magadon said in his mind.
Cale nodded. He tried again to feel the correspondence between where he stood and the darkness within the Shadowstorm. The feeling was there, but it was distant, alien. The darkness in the storm was foreign to him. His inability to connect to it fully struck him oddly. It had been a long while since he had not been one with the darkness. It made him feel more himself.
“Ready?” Cale said to Riven.
The assassin fiddled with the teleportation ring on his finger. “We could use the ring, Cale. Go directly to Ordulin.”
Cale shook his head. “We do not know what we will find there. Things would get ugly if we appeared in the midst of a score of shadow giants.”
“Ugly for them,” Riven said.
“We can cover ground less rapidly by stepping from shadow to shadow, but we’ll at least see what we’re in for before appearing neck deep in it.”
Riven inclined his head. “That’s sense.”
“Let’s move,” Cale said.
“No need,” Riven replied.
The leading edge of the Shadowstorm lunged forward like a predator, covering them in its darkness. Sound deadened. Color faded. It was as if a veil had been drawn across the land, as if they had been submerged in murky water.
“The air is different than last time,” Riven said.
As if to make his point, the grass under their feet curled, browned, withered, and died. Trees and shrubs near them cracked and split as the Shadowstorm remade them into twisted, thorny versions of themselves.
Cale nodded. “It’s getting more powerful as it grows.”
The air in the Shadowstorm felt charged, powerful. The coolness seeped into Cale, pulled at his warmth, at his essence. They would need protective wards or they would soon be drained of warmth and strength.
“Hold a moment.”
He held his mask and intoned the words to a prayer of protection. When he finished, he touched a hand to himself then to Riven. He felt its effect instantly as the Shadowstorm released its hold on his essence.
“Better,” Riven said.
“It will last for a few hours,” Cale said. He followed with the words to a prayer that would ward him and Riven against the chill. When he completed the spell, he let the warmth of the magic flow into him, touched Riven’s arm, and did the same.
“Best be moving,” Riven said.
Cale nodded and chose a spot within the Shadowstorm at the limits of his vision, a rise under a deformed oak. He stepped through the darkness and they appeared under the oak. The gusting wind drove the rain so hard it felt like a hail of nails. Lightning lit the transformed landscape. Thunder rumbled.
“Which way?” Riven asked.
“East until we reach the Dawnpost road. We take it all the way to Ordulin.”
Riven nodded. “Which way is east?”
Magadon? Cale sent.
Cale?
We need to head east, but we can see nothing in the storm.
Cale felt a twinge in his mind, as if Magadon had pinched his brain.
Turn an arc, Magadon said. You will feel it as a pull.
Cale looked out across the Sembian plains, the sea of dead grass, the skeletal shapes of deformed trees. He pivoted his body, felt a pull at a certain point.