Paul Kemp: The Godborn

Riven glided across the room, his footsteps soundless, and Magadon could not think of a single word to say. Riven smiled through his goatee and extended his hand. Magadon hesitated, then took it. Shadows crawled off Riven and onto Magadon’s forearm.

“It’s good to see you again, Mags. I don’t have long. My being here puts you at risk.”

“At risk? From what? I don’t-”

Riven was already nodding. “I know you don’t. I know. And that’s as it must be. Mags, the Cycle of Night either succeeds or fails. And that’s up to us. Maybe.”

Magadon’s head was spinning. His thoughts were inchoate. “The Cycle of Night?”

Riven nodded, started pacing, dragging his fingertips over the tabletops as he moved, the shadows clinging to his form. “This is a shithole, Mags.”

“What?”

Riven chuckled. “I caught you by surprise here. Apologies. I need you to be ready when I call. I just. . need someone I can rely on. Can you do that?”

Magadon could not quite gather his runaway thoughts. He resisted the impulse to cough out another stupid question. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Riven looked almost sympathetic. “I know you don’t. But that’s good for now. I don’t even know what I’m talking about half the time because they’re not my words and only half my thoughts.”

Magadon blinked, confused.

Riven looked at him directly, his regard like a punch. “Can you be ready, Mags?”

“I. . don’t know.”

Riven nodded, as if he’d expected ambivalence. “Where’s your pack? Your bow and blade?”

Magadon started to find his conversational footing. “Behind the bar.”

“A barkeep,” Riven said, chuckling. “Not how I saw things going for you.”

“Not how I saw things going for me, either,” Magadon admitted with a shrug. “It’s been a hundred years, Riven. You show up, you talk about things as if I should know what they are, but I don’t and-”

“I found Cale’s son. Thirty years ago. I found him.”

The words stopped Magadon cold. “Found him where? He was alive thirty years ago? He’d have been over seventy years old.”

Riven shook his head. A pipe was in his hand, although Magadon had not seen him take it out. “You have a match?”

Magadon shook his head.

“Gods, Mags. You used to be prepared for anything.” He shook his head. “No matter.”

He put the pipe in his mouth and it lit. He inhaled, the glow of the bowl showing the pockmarks in his face, the vacancy where his left eye should have been. The smoke joined the shadows in curling around him.

“He’s not seventy,” Riven said. “He was newborn thirty years ago. It’s a long story.”

“How could he have been newborn thirty years ago? Cale would’ve been dead seventy years by then.”

A smile curled the corners of Riven’s mouth. “I told you it was a long story.” “I’ve nothing but time.”

Riven nodded, blew out a cloud of smoke. “But I don’t.”

“You’re telling me he’s still alive? The son?”

“He’s alive and he’s the key, Mags.”

Magadon shook his head, unable to make sense of things. “The key to what?”

“The key to fixing all this, undoing it, making it as it should have been, stopping Shar’s Cycle of Night. But it’ll have to happen in Ordulin.”

Magadon was still not following, although the mention of Ordulin turned Magadon’s mind to the Shadovar, to Rivalen Tanthul, Shar’s nightseer. Magadon had been captured and tortured by Rivalen and his brother, Brennus, long ago. “Rivalen and the Shadovar are involved?”

Riven nodded. “More than involved. Rivalen’s trying to complete the Cycle, and he’s clever, Mags, very clever. But maybe too clever this time. Your father’s involved in this, too, although he’s a bit player. And so are you. Or at least you are now.”

“My father?” The last time Magadon had seen his father, Mephistopheles, the archdevil had flayed his soul. He banished the memory.

“You all right?” Riven asked.

Magadon nodded. “Where’s Cale’s son?”

Riven’s eye looked past Magadon, to the east. “He’s out there in the dark. A light in darkness, is what they say. He’s safe, though.”

“You tell me where he is, I can go to him. Keep him safe.”

Riven shook his head. “No, you can’t. He’s where he’s supposed to be. Now he’s gotta come to me. Besides, I need you here.”

“For what?”

“I told you. To be ready when I call.”

“What does that even mean? You’re talking in circles.”

Riven grinned around his pipe stem. “I don’t know what it means yet. I’m figuring this out as we go. I just know I want you ready. I’ll need your help. Just like always, just like it was back before. . everything.”

“Like it was back before,” Magadon echoed. He pointed with his chin at the stew pot, still hanging over the embers. “Do you eat? Now that. . you are what you are? There’s a little stew there. Or an ale, maybe?”

“I eat,” Riven said, losing his smile. “But it’s not the same anymore. It’s like I can’t help but analyze instead of just enjoy it.” He shook his head. “It’s complicated.”

Magadon put a hand on Riven’s shoulder in sympathy, but Riven pushed it aside and cocked his head, as if he’d heard something, and a half-beat later a loud thud sounded from above, a powerful impact on the roof that cracked a crossbeam and shook the entire tavern. Dust and debris sprinkled down.

Magadon looked up. “What-?”

Another thud, the crossbeam cracked further, and the entire roof sagged.

“Shit,” Riven said, exhaling smoke. The pipe was already gone and he had his sabers in hand. Magadon had not even seen him draw them.

A heavy tread on the roof, creaking wood, a scrabbling on the roof tiles, as of blade or claw.

“They must’ve followed me,” Riven said, taking position beside Magadon, his body coiled, shadows swirling. “They must’ve been watching me in the Shadowfell somehow, waiting. Or maybe they’ve been here the whole time? See anything unusual recently?”

“What? No.”

Another thump, more splintering and dust, more tension.

Magadon drew on his store of mental energy, shaped it, formed it into a cocoon of transparent force that surrounded his body and would protect him as well as plate armor. He tightened his grip on the poker, looked up at the bowed roof.

“ Who followed you?” he whispered.

“Agents of your father,” Riven said, his voice low and edged.

“Devils, then.”

A crash and a sharp prolonged splintering as the roof gave way entirely. The main crossbeam hit the floor with a boom, in the process crushing a table and two chairs. Tiles and wood planks and two winged fiendish forms poured down through the hole. The devils hit the floor in a crouch, narrow eyes on Riven and Magadon, tridents clutched in clawed hands, membranous wings tucked behind their back.

The fiends-Magadon recognized them as malebranche-stood taller than even a very tall man. Thick muscles clotted in bunches under their gray, leathery skin. Each wore ornate vambraces and a pauldron over one shoulder. Two curved horns jutted from their brows, overlooking vaguely reptilian features. Their oversized mouths had a pronounced underbite, and a pair of tusks stabbed upward from their lower jaw.

“Shadows aren’t the same here as they are in the Shadowfell,” one of them said, its voice gravelly. The other grabbed a chair and hurled it at Riven. Riven ducked under it casually. The chair smashed against the hearth and splintered, spilling the stew pot.

“They’re about the same,” Riven said with a sneer.

The devils opened their mouths in a deep growl. Licks of flame danced between the tines of their tridents.