Shadowstorm_ The Twilight War Part 16

The darkness held its silence, and its secrets.

Thoughtful, Rivalen removed an exquisitely crafted miniature chest from an inner pocket. Concentrating on it, he triggered its magic, and its mate, a full-sized chest exactly alike in appearance to the miniature, appeared on the floor at his feet.

He spoke the sequence of command words that discharged the protective wards he maintained on the chest, and used a minor spell to open its lock. He lifted the lid.

Coils of shadow leaked from the opening, carrying indecipherable whispers into the air. Within the chest lay The Leaves of One Night The Leaves of One Night. He had taken to carrying it with him, rather than leaving it in the vault of the temple in Shade Enclave. It seemed right to have it near him.

He placed his hand atop the book's black cover, felt its coolness, felt the characters written on it shifting under his touch. He intoned a prayer to Shar and the book whispered in his mind.

He resolved that he would no longer secrete it on the ethereal plane. He wanted it closer to him, wanted Shar's words nearer his ears. The chest and the book would remain warded in his quarters or on his person. If Shar had something to say to him through the book, he wanted it close enough to him that he would hear.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

21 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms Cale, Riven, and Magadon materialized not at the center of the cemetery, as Cale had intended, but at its edge, just outside the low, crumbling stone wall that described its perimeter. Black moss clung to the wall and the still, damp air stank of old rot.

Within the wall, darkness gathered as thick as fog. Even with his shadesight, Cale could see only twenty paces through the miasma. In the distance he could just make out the dim, diffuse green glow of the gate. The distorting swirl of darkness and shadows made it appear leagues away. The flash flared and died, flared and died, like a heartbeat.

A city of crumbling gravestones, crypts, and mausoleums stood between them and the gate. Gra.s.s and weeds overgrew it all.

"There must be some kind of ward," Cale said, to explain why they had not materialized near the gate. Strangely, he felt little correspondence with the darkness inside the cemetery. He felt only the shadows and darkness very near him. He understood why. The cemetery's shadows belonged to another.

"We go afoot," he said.

Magadon looked out over the cemetery. The gate flashed again.

"That's a lot of ground to cover," the mindmage said. "And a lot of wraiths," Riven added.

"It is," Cale answered to both of them. He intoned a prayer to Mask that would shield him and his companions from the soul-draining power of the undead creatures. He touched himself, Magadon, and Riven in turn.

"If they come, this will preserve our souls, but the cold of their touch will still steal your warmth. We stay together at all costs."

Riven, evidently resigned to their course, said, "We move fast and straight. Right for the gate."

They all shared a look, nodded.

Cale vaulted the wall and dropped into the cemetery's deeper darkness. The air closed in around him. It felt thick in his lungs, oily on his skin. His breathing sounded loud in his ears, while everything else sounded far away and m.u.f.fled.

Small gravestones worn smooth by time dotted the gra.s.s at his feet. Ghostly structures-crypts and mausoleums-lurked at the edge of his sight.

Riven and Magadon dropped to the ground beside him.

"The darkness is different in here," Magadon said, and waved his hand in the air. "Like cobwebs."

"d.a.m.ned air is like a vise," Riven said. He cleared his throat and spit. "Tastes foul."

Cale nodded. The darkweaver spun strands of shadows the way a spider did a web. Cale imagined the creature lurking at the center of its shadowy net, waiting, feeling the vibrations in the shadows caused by their approach.

"Let's move," Riven said.

"This way," Cale said, and led them deeper into the city of graves.

He moved as fast as he dared in the darkness. The air grew colder with each step they took. Tombs surrounded them on all sides, foreboding and ominous. The air resisted Cale's movements slightly, as if he were walking into a light wind, as if it were pawing at him.

"It's too G.o.dd.a.m.ned quiet," Riven said softly, and the darkness made his words a whisper.

A hiss sounded from out in the darkness before them. They halted their advance.

"It knows we're here," Riven said.

"That it does," Cale said softly. "Mags, some light."

Magadon nodded, concentrated, and a soft yellow light haloed his head for a moment. A ball of white luminescence formed over him and moved with him. The darkness squirmed away from it like a living thing. The light-dimming already under the unrelenting shadows-revealed the gossamer-thin filaments that veined the air.

A m.u.f.fled, haunting moan sounded, seemingly from deep under their feet. Another answered from their right. Another came from their left. Soon the moans carried from all directions, a chorus of hate sung by Elgrin Fau's doomed citizens, all of them transformed by Kesson Rel's foul magic into wraiths.

The sound of their pain and malice curdled Cale's flesh. The air grew so chill that his teeth chattered. Riven cursed, turned a circle, and twirled his blades. Shadows bled from Weaveshear, spiraled around Cale.

Magadon focused his gaze on his palm and manifested his mindblade.

"Keep moving," Cale said, and strode quickly through the gravestones.

Magadon and Riven flanked him. Their breath came hard. Despite the cold, sweat slicked Cale. There was no end to the graves, no sign of the gate. The thrice-d.a.m.ned thing had stopped flashing, or the darkweaver had draped it in darkness. Cale had no way to know how close they were to the portal. And they had awakened the dead. They were moving blindly.

"Stop," he said. "Stop for a moment."

He needed to get his bearings. He had lost his sense of direction. The frozen air turned his breath to mist. The shadowstrands were everywhere. He could determine nothing. They might easily be walking in a circle.

The wraiths' moans fell silent. Cale found it more ominous than comforting.

"What is it?" Riven asked, his voice as tight as a bowstring.

Cale shook his head. "I don't know where we are. I don't see the gate."

Magadon did not hesitate. "That way," he said, and pointed over Cale's shoulder. "You had it right."

Cale and Riven shared a look. Magadon caught its import.

"I said I was with you. That way. Trust me."

Cale nodded, apologized with his eyes to Magadon for his mistrust.

They took ten strides and all at once the wraiths issued forth from the surrounding tombs like a flock of crows. Black ghostly forms, only vaguely recognizable as humanoid, rose out of the ground, out of the crypts, out of the mausoleums. There were hundreds of them, thousands. Emberlike eyes glared out of the holes of their faces. Moans and whispers filled the air. Cale heard words in the whispers but could not make them out.

"Cale?" Riven asked, eyeing the approaching wraiths.

Cale said, "Stay close to me and keep moving. Mags, the more light the better."

Magadon's brow furrowed and the ball of light hovering above his head flared. The wraiths moaned in answer, swirled in agitation. From somewhere off in the darkness, the darkweaver answered the wails of the wraiths with a hiss.

"Move," Cale said. He held forth his mask and let the Shadowlord's power flow through it and surround them.

Riven and Magadon closed ranks with him and they moved in lockstep in the direction of the gate. The wraiths closed on them, swirled around the edge of Cale's power, glared at them from outside the radius of Magadon's light. The creatures engulfed them like an unholy fog. Cale could not see where they were going.

"Mags?"

"Still this way, Cale," Magadon answered.

"Back to your rest!" Cale shouted at the wraiths, and pushed more power through his holy symbol. Divine energy flowed through him and into the air. It crashed into the wraiths, cutting a tunnel through the swarm. Moans chorused in Cale's ears.

Cale, Magadon, and Riven pushed through the opening. But there were so many. They pressed against Cale's power. The strain was draining him. Magadon's light was dimming. They would not be able to shield themselves for much longer, and when the barrier collapsed ...

Dark hands reached up out of the cold earth and clutched at them. Riven and Cale saw them and jumped aside but Magadon was too slow. The mindmage gasped at the touch of the undead and his light dimmed further.

The wraiths took advantage and swarmed forward in a black tide. Cale braced himself and channeled divine power through Weaveshear and his mask.

"Away!"

But the wraiths did not slow. Moans sounded from all around. Black hands reached for them from all sides. Red eyes surged forward.

Cale shouted as the black tide broke on them. He took Weaveshear in two hands and tore through one, two, three wraiths. They moaned as parts of their forms boiled away in foul-smelling black smoke. Cale barely felt any resistance as he cut through the incorporeal creatures. Riven twirled, spun, ducked, his blades whirling and whistling through the wraiths' forms. Magadon stabbed his mindblade downward into the earth at the creature that had attacked him. Oily dark smoke and a moan rose from the sod.

The wraiths were a black blizzard, their forms swarming around them, grasping, shrieking. Ghostly hands reached through Cale's clothing, armor, and body to clutch at his heart. The cold caused him to gasp, slowed him. Many of the wraiths simply flew through the companions, one after another, the unearthly chill of their forms taking its toll on flesh before they darted away.

Cale, Riven, and Magadon's blades slashed and cut but the tide of wraiths was unending. Magadon's mindblade slashed through the torso of a wraith, stabbed another through the torso, but two of the creatures penetrated his guard and reached into his chest. He screamed and fell to his knees as one, another, and another wraith flowed through him. His scream died; his mouth hung open, frozen. His mindblade fell from his hand and dissipated.

Cale drove back a handful of wraiths with a series of furious slashes, then bounded to Magadon's side. He sliced Weaveshear through a wraith as it emerged from Magadon's body and the creature dissolved into black fumes and a fading moan. He held the blade over his head and summoned as much divine power as he could. Shadows gushed from the blade and his voice boomed over the battle.

"Away, dead of Elgrin Fau! Our quarrel is not with you but with Kesson Rel! Away!"

Power veined the shadows leaking from the blade and the wraiths writhed, recoiled, and withdrew. They hovered at a distance, ringing Cale, Riven, and Magadon in a wall of black forms and burning eyes. Whispers replaced the wraiths' moans.

Riven helped Magadon to his feet and steadied him. The a.s.sa.s.sin drew darkness from the air with his fingertips, charged his hands with its power, and placed them on Magadon. Magadon's face regained its color and he visibly strengthened. Riven thumped him on the shoulder and relaxed his grip on his companion.

"Cale?" Riven asked, eyeing the wraiths.

The creatures hovered motionless, regarding them, whispering.

Cale shook his head but held Weaveshear at the ready. He did not know what to make of their strange pause. He did not think he was holding them at bay; he did not feel them challenging his power. The wraiths' whispers sounded like falling rain.

"What are they saying?" Magadon asked.

Despite his facility with several languages, Cale did not understand the wraiths. Struck with an idea, he hurriedly intoned the words to a prayer that allowed him to understand and speak the tongue of any creature. As he uttered the final syllable, the cloud of wraiths fell silent and parted.

Through the gap flew four wraiths, each as large as three of the lesser wraiths. The fell creatures flew toward the companions. Dread and cold went before them.

"Big b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," Riven said, and spun his blades.

Cale had never seen them before, but he knew their ident.i.ty nevertheless. He remembered as if he had learned it in a dream: The Silver Lords of Elgrin Fau.

"Hold your ground," he said to Riven and Magadon, as if they had any other choice.

The wraiths floated forward until they hung in the air face-to-face with the companions. Their black misty forms towered over Cale. Their red eyes smoldered. They had the vague forms of men, but each was as large as an ogre.

"Lord," Cale said in their language.

Riven and Magadon looked at him sidelong.

One of the wraiths whispered, "You have spoken the name of the d.a.m.ned."

Another whispered, "You name him as enemy."

Cale knew they meant Kesson Rel. He nodded. "I am sworn to kill him and take from him what he stole from the Shadowlord."

The cloud of wraiths around them burst into urgent whispers. Cale caught only snippets: "Avnon Des," "the Chalice of Night," "the Conclave," "the Hall of Shadows."

The larger wraiths looked sharply upon the lesser and silence fell.

"You have walked this ground before," the wraith said. "Name yourselves."

Another of the large creatures reached out an insubstantial hand toward Riven. The a.s.sa.s.sin tensed and readied his blades.

"Hold," Cale said tightly.

"Him or me?" Riven asked, blades still ready.

Cale smiled despite the tension of the moment. "Both."

Riven held and the wraith stopped before touching him. Its ghostly fingers hovered near the holy symbol that hung on a chain about his neck, then withdrew.

Cale held up his mask. "I am the Right Hand of the Shadowlord." He nodded at Riven. "And he is the Left."

"A servant of the Shadowlord murdered this city."

The horde of smaller wraiths broke into a chorus of whispers. Cale heard the building hostility. He nodded.

"Now it is to be set right. Let us pa.s.s."

"Nothing can set it right," the Silver Lord hissed, and the cloud of wraiths crept in closer.

Cale inclined his head, conceding the point. "No. But Kesson Rel can be made to pay."