Part 7 (1/2)

Elyril considered it but decided that she did not want blood in her chamber. She could chop him up and feed him to the dogs later.

Devour his shadow, she answered.

The mastiff seized the boy's shadow from the floor, shook it, and devoured it as it screamed. The boy never made a sound, never moved. Kefil finished his repast and let out a satisfied grunt. He sank to the floor beside the boy.

”What is your name?” Elyril asked the slave at last, keeping her voice level. She liked to know the names of those she would sacrifice to Shar.

”Mard, Mistress,” the boy said, and she could hear the beginnings of tears in his voice.

”Mard,” she said. She let the word hang between them for a long, delicious moment before deciding to end the game. ”Mard, do not get your tears on my sheets. Begone from me. Alert one of the kennel boys that Kefil requires a walk.”

Mard stared at her for a moment, as if unsure what she had said.

”This instant,” she ordered.

”Thank you, Mistress,” he said, and fled the room.

She watched him go, thinking how pleasant it would be to hear him scream as he died.

Kefil belched, sated on shadows.

[image]

In the darkened chambers of his mansion in Shade Enclave, Rivalen stared at his coin collection and let the ache in his temples subside. He always found mental contact with Elyril uncomfortable. Her minddust madness polluted the connection and made his head throb, and it had grown worse over the years. Still, she was a useful tool to him as he prepared to bring his plan to fruition. The most high wanted a new Netherese empire. His G.o.ddess wanted the Shadowstorm. Rivalen knew that the two goals were compatible. He would use the one to bring about the other. And a Sembian civil war would be the means.

Over the centuries, Rivalen had spent much intellectual energy finding ways to make the requirements of his faith compatible with his duty to his city, his people, and his father. So far, he had been successful, but Hadrhune's words made him worry that the day would arrive when he would not.

Rivalen did not know the entirety of the Lady's plan-such was the nature of Shar's faith. Through the years, Shar had revealed to Rivalen only bits at a time. But Rivalen had faith that she would reveal to him what he needed to know when he needed to know it, and that she would reward his successes. While he dared not hope to be Shar's Chosen, after experiencing firsthand the power of Mystra's Chosen, he had allowed himself to ... consider the possibility.

He dismissed such thoughts as unproductive and continued with his sendings. He activated the magic of his sending ring and thought of another of his Sembian agents, the Sharran dark brother in Selgaunt. The familiar tingle of the magic tickled his scalp. He sensed the channel opening.

Prince Rivalen, answered the dark brother, an heir to a wealthy Sembian family.

Rivalen knew him to be an effective servant of the Lady, posing as a rich dilettante.

Is all prepared? Rivalen asked. Rivalen asked.

As well as it can be. Construction proceeds apace. None suspect the truth.

See that it is complete within the next three months, Rivalen said. There will be still more for you to do afterward There will be still more for you to do afterward.

The night shroud you, Nightseer.

And you, Rivalen answered, and terminated the magical connection.

Rivalen went on to contact the leaders of each Sharran cell in Sembia, over two dozen of them. Each wore a sending ring paired to his master ring, though none knew the other powers of the rings. To each, he gave a variation of the same message: Be prepared. The Shadowstorm is brewing Be prepared. The Shadowstorm is brewing.

None asked him questions, for they all knew they would receive no answers.

Prior to Rivalen's involvement, the Sharran cells in the heartlands had operated independently, mostly ignorant of each other. But after Variance, at Rivalen's command, had recovered The Leaves of One Night The Leaves of One Night, Shar had revealed to him the ident.i.ties of the leaders of the cells. One by one, he and Variance had contacted the cells and brought them all under his leaders.h.i.+p, until finally Rivalen commanded the grandest conspiracy in Faerun. A small army of Sharrans lurked beneath the veneer of Sembian society, eating away at the core.

His sendings complete, Rivalen relaxed by sipping tea and examining his coin collection. He stored his coins in a large case of magically hardened gla.s.s, each piece placed in a black velvet setting. He had an electrum falcon from the year of Cormyr's founding, one-hundred-year-old gold belbolts from Chessenta, a cursed copper fandar from Amn that caused the bearer's business decisions to go poorly, a magical platinum Calis.h.i.+te kilarch that returned to its spender thrice, and a host of other coins, both magical and mundane, from all across Faerun, from almost all eras of its history. He looked to the empty place in his collection where he had kept his Sakkoran thurhn thurhn. The hole in his collection reminded him of the magnitude of his tasks. He had many holes to fill in the coming years.

He finished his tea and turned his mind to the first of his holes-the problem of awakening the sentience in Sakkor's mythallar. He would need Brennus's divinations to find the mind mage.

CHAPTER THREE

30 Eleint, the Year of Lightning Storms.

The sight of the oak brought a smile to Magadon's face. He had pa.s.sed the soaring old tree many times in his journeys to and from Starmantle, though it had been almost a year since he had seen it last. It looked almost exactly as he remembered it-a lone soldier standing sentry over an expanse of knee-high whip gra.s.s. Other trees dotted the plain here and there, but none were as large as the oak. He was their general.

Magadon ignored the chatter from the camp behind him and ran his fingertips over the tree's bole. The deep ridges of the bark and the size of the bole put the tree's age somewhere between seventy and eighty winters-a grand old man. A few tumors bulged here and there from the trunk, and the crotch showed a ragged scar from a recent lightning strike, but Magadon thought the tree hale. The world had thrown another year at it, and there it stood.

Magadon figured there was a lesson in that. Too bad he had not learned it sooner. Magadon had not had the oak's strength. The last year had broken him.

”Or bent me, at least,” he murmured.

The oak's leaves were changing from green to autumn red. They looked beautiful even at night, especially at night, framed against the starry sky and glinting in the silver moonlight of the newly risen crescent of Selune and her Tears.

Magadon flattened his palm against the oak. He had missed the tree, or he had missed ... the part of his life it represented.

But he was reclaiming that part of his life, reclaiming himself.

Droppings at the base of the tree caught his eye. He knelt to examine them, and recognized racc.o.o.n pellets. He stood, smiling. Things were coming back to him. He had not forgotten his woodlore.

A soft skitter sounded up in the tree. Magadon looked up and found two pairs of masked eyes peeking down at him-a mother racc.o.o.n and one of her young. He would not have seen the creatures but for the nightvision granted him by his fiendish blood.

”You've picked a good home, mother,” he said to the larger racc.o.o.n.

Mother and baby c.o.c.ked their heads to the side, chittered, and ducked back into their hidden den.

Magadon patted the tree's trunk.

”Can you bear some more company, old man? I promise you will find me an easy guest.”

The oak kept its own counsel, so Magadon unslung his pack-stuffed full with gear, as always-and sat with his back against the trunk, facing the camp. The campfire was going strong, and merchants and men-at-arms sat around it on barrels, crates, and logs, talking, drinking, laughing.

Magadon stretched out his legs, interlaced his fingers behind his neck, and blew out a sigh. The oak felt good at his back. His friend Nestor had once said, ”There's naught steadier than an old oak.” Magadon knew it to be true. And he knew there was much to be said for steadiness.

He hoisted his waterskin in remembrance of Nestor and took a long drink. Thinking of Nestor and his death brought back a wash of memories, some good-of Erevis, Riven, and Jak-and some bad-of the Sojourner, the slaads, the Weave Tap, and ... the Source.

Recalling the Source made him squirm. He cleared his throat and tried to forget what it had shown him, what he had known, what he had been, for those few moments of contact. But memories were stubborn things.

He unclenched his hands from behind his neck and held them before his face. A tremor shook them, softly at first, but growing stronger. He knew what was coming. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and waited. He had seen the same shaking in minddust addicts who had gone too long without their snuff.

The need came on him, the hunger. A tic caused his right eye to twitch.