Shadowrealm - By Paul S. Kemp Page 0,52

stone knifed into him.

He pulled Riven to his feet, the shadows around him swirling, and ran for the building.

I cannot let you leave, Cale, Magadon said. Cale felt a tingle in his limbs, suddenly felt separate from them.

Before he reached the building, Magadon stopped him, turned him around.

Fight, Cale. Gods damn you to the Hells. There may not be another chance. And I am out of time.

Riven grabbed Cale by the shoulder. “What are you doing? Come on!”

“It’s Mags,” Cale said through gritted teeth, and his body tried to shake free of Riven’s grasp.

Riven cursed, kicked Cale behind his knee, knocked him down, and dragged him toward the nearby building.

“Let him go, Mags!” Riven shouted.

Stop, Mags, Cale said. Stop. We will try again.

He fought against Magadon’s control, but the mindmage’s hold was too strong.

Mags, if you don’t release me, Riven and I will die here, now.

“Walls won’t stop the shadows,” Riven said, and plucked pieces of rock from the flesh of his face.

Help me, Erevis, Magadon said, and freed Cale’s body.

I will, Cale said, but the connection went dormant and he was not sure that Magadon heard him.

He put it out of his mind and worked to get around Kesson’s binding spell again.

The building started to shake. Beams of wood and slabs of rock fell from the ceiling.

“Cale,” Riven said.

Outside, the keening of the shadows grew louder. Through an opening in the building’s front, they saw a multitude of red eyes in a cloud of black forms.

“Cale!”

The ceiling groaned, and started to fall.

Cale again slipped Kesson’s binding spell and the green glow flashed out for a moment. Once more Cale pictured the spot on the Dawnpost and rode the shadows away.

CHAPTER NINE

4 Nightal, the Year of Lightning Storms

They materialized not along the Dawnpost but somewhere in the Shadowstorm. The echo of Magadon’s rage and despair rang in Cale’s mind like a temple bell. Rain thudded into their cloaks. Thunder rumbled. Flashes of green lightning illuminated the twisted landscape in ghastly glimpses. The Shadowstorm pawed at their unprotected souls, drained away their essence. Cale hurriedly intoned the words to the protective wards that shielded them from the life draining energy of the storm, touched a hand to himself, to Riven, and replaced what Kesson Rel had stolen.

“Dark and empty,” Riven cursed. Smoke still rose from his charred armor. Blisters dotted the exposed skin of his seared arms and face. Slivers of rock were still embedded in the flesh of his cheeks and brow.

Cale shared the sentiment. The faint green glow of Kesson’s spell flashed in and out, warring with the shadows that cloaked him. His regenerative flesh collected the darkness around him and filled his wounds with it. He winced as burns healed, gashes closed.

You failed me, Cale, Magadon said in his mind, and the calm pronouncement hit him as hard as a maul.

Cale was too tired to argue.

Moving gingerly, Riven spun a hand in the air, wrapped his fingers in shadows, and patted them into his wounds, the way he might a healing loam. The magic pulled the slivers of stone from his flesh, healed some of his blisters, but did not heal his wounds entirely. Cale placed his palms on him and intoned a healing spell to Mask. The assassin breathed easier, and nodded thanks.

“Where are we?” Riven asked, looking around.

Cale shook his head. “Not where I intended. This—” he indicated the intermittently flashing green glow around him—“interferes with my abilities even when I’m able to slip it.”

Riven paced a circle, his hands on the hilts of his sabers. “He’s more powerful than the Sojourner.”

“Maybe,” Cale said.

Riven stared into Cale’s face, a look in his eyes, then he resumed pacing.

“Something you want to say?” Cale asked.

Riven stopped pacing and looked off into the darkness. “I don’t know, Cale. I don’t.”

The sense of Riven’s sentence echoed in Cale’s head: I don’t know if we can stop Kesson Rel.

“There has to be a way,” Cale said.

Oathbreaking bastard, Magadon said in his mind.

Cale shook his head, as if he could shake Magadon loose from his thoughts. In handcant, he said to Riven, Mags is almost gone.

Riven stared at Cale a long while before he signaled back, Then we keep our promise to him.

“No.” Cale shook his head. “No.”

“You see another way?” Riven asked, then signed, He almost killed us both.

They stared at each other through the rain, the funeral of their friend suspended in the dark between them.

What are you discussing? Magadon asked.

It’s a mercy killing, Riven signed.

Cale signed back, his gestures