back to himself.
“Look there,” the assassin said, and pointed with his chin at a small item sitting atop the altar—a tarnished chalice of silvery metal. Thin streams of shadows leaked from its contents, circled its rim.
The shadows leaking from Cale and Rivalen mirrored those emerging from the chalice.
“Is that it?” Riven asked. “It’s just sitting here waiting for us?”
“There is no one else on this world to bother it,” Rivalen said, his voice soft. “And Shar’s temple will not fall until the world ends.”
“Mask’s temple,” Riven corrected, and Rivalen smiled.
“Come,” the shade prince said, and started forward.
Enshrouded on Sakkors in shadows and dark thoughts, Brennus felt the ring on his finger open the magical connection between himself and Rivalen.
Brennus, his brother said. We have gained the temple but this world will soon end. Is there anything I must do to prepare for the freeing of the divinity in Kesson?
Brennus stared at the amethyst and silver ring, his anger and the shadows around him seething. He wanted to tear the ring from his finger, never hear his brother’s voice again.
Brennus?
Take the chalice, Brennus said. I am still determining the rest.
Rivalen’s irritation was palpable. Determine it faster. We will face Kesson upon our return.
Then delay the confrontation, Brother, Brennus said, and said that last as if it were a curse. Lie if you must. Dissembling is one of your strengths.
What did you say?
Brennus had overstepped. I am overtaxed, Rivalen. Listen to me. The sequence of spells you will need to cast upon the release of the divine power is nuanced. But you will need the chalice as a focus. Take it from the temple and keep it with you. I will contact you again when I am certain of the rest.
He broke off mental contact before Rivalen could respond. He stared at his mother’s necklace, into the face of the complicity he would feel if he did nothing to avenge her murder.
But doing something meant disobeying his father, perhaps sacrificing the possibility of a new Empire of Netheril.
He cursed, and slammed his fist on the table.
Cale, Riven, and Rivalen approached the altar in reverent silence. Outside, Ephyras quaked under Shar’s onslaught and the moaning of the specters rose above the whistle of the wind.
The chalice—beaten, tarnished silver chased with tiny black gems that spiraled around its stem—sat atop a black altar cloth. Thin ribbons of shadow curled from its rim. The three men stared at it for a long moment.
“Such a small thing,” Riven said, sheathing his blades.
But Cale saw into it, through it. The chalice was simply the doorway, a drink but a symbol. He placed Weaveshear in its scabbard, stepped forward, and reached for the chalice.
Riven grabbed his hand, staring a hole into his face. “Are you certain?”
“It is the only way,” Rivalen said from behind them.
Cale nodded and Riven released him. Cale was walking in the steps of Kesson Rel, he knew, trailing him like a shadow. He put his hand, his shadow hand, on the chalice and found it cold, the cold of a grave. A jolt went through him, a charge from head to toe. He lifted it and discovered it weighed much more than it should.
Riven and Rivalen, perhaps involuntarily, crowded close. The shadows around Rivalen mixed with those around Cale, those of the chalice. Riven stood in the midst of their collective darkness.
Cradling the chalice in both hands, Cale held it close and looked within.
An oily, glistening liquid filled it to perhaps a quarter of the way. But Cale knew the chalice’s depths went on forever, that the substance within, and the power it embodied, extended much deeper than the shallow depths of the cup. The darkness in the chalice reached back through time and worlds to the creation of the multiverse. He was looking upon the power of a god, the primal stuff of creation. Shadows leaked from it, and him, in languid ribbons.
The moans of the specters grew louder outside, the wail of the wind more pronounced. Ephyras continued to die, its corpse falling into oblivion. Its death throes rocked the temple, shook dust from the walls. Cracks like veins formed in the floor, spreading from wall to wall.
“Drink!” Rivalen said. “The end is coming.”
Pieces of the dome cracked, broke, and fell in a rain of crystal to the floor. Riven and Rivalen shielded themselves with their cloaks. Cale stood in the midst of the ruin, untouched, transfixed by the chalice. The wind screamed through the openings in the dome, carrying with it