Erik de Bie - Downshadow

Kalen seized the thief s fallen rapier. He coughed, opened his helm halfway to spit blood, then sealed his mask. He strode on.

"Wait!" Kneeling, Talantress caught his hand and held him back.

Calmly, Kalen snaked his hand around and unbuckled his gauntlet. It came free, and Talantress hit herself in the chest with it and fell on her overprivileged rump.

"Wait!" Talantress cried from the ground. "Come back right this breath!"

He continued his run, hobbling a bit more slowly after the punishment he'd sndured. Young Lady Roaringhorn got up and gave chase, but he paid her no mind. He plunged into the mists, following Myrin's voice and the green glow.

The fog swelled thicker than before, but Kalen pressed on. He was nearing the source, he realized, but he quickly lost his bearing and swam, blind. His body was aching, his lungs heaving, and his heart raced to put him down. He clutched his left arm, which was in agony. He felt as if the half-ore were sitting on his chest.

"Not yet, Eye of Justice," he hissed through clenched teeth. "Not yet."

He channeled healing into himself, praying that he had proven himself once more worthy, but no power came. He gritted his teeth and pressed on.

Kalen stumbled through an empty, gray-black world. Mist swirled around him.

"Myrin!" he choked. He felt that he would fall at any breath. "Kalen," came her voice, leading him forward. "Kalen…" He staggered ahead, stolen rapier ready for any attack, but found only mist.

"Show yourself!" he challenged. "Cowards!" As though in response, the mist parted, and Kalen saw a woman from whose cupped hands the mist flowed. A green glow suffused her fingers-magic. Beside her stood a thief who looked more terrified than anything else, and in his arms was a limp girl in a red dress.

"Something's countering my casting," the woman murmured in a deep, rasping voice that didn't match her slim body. She seemed an ordinary human woman, but the voice was that of a beast. "It's the girl. Somehow, even dazed, she's-"

"Then we stop her!" The thief drew a hooked dagger and raised it over Myrin.

"No, you fool!" the woman roared.

Kalen ran forward and stabbed the thief through the chest. Stunned, the man looked down at the blade, then at a panting, heaving Kalen. He toppled, loosing Myrin as he went.

Kalen dived to catch her. She weighed little in his arms and he cradled her tightly.

An arcane word, in a voice like a grinding gravestone, stole his attention. He looked up at the woman to see her gloved, clawlike hand reaching for his face. A finger touched his brow.

Power seized him-cruel power that sucked the life out of his limbs. Lightning arced through Kalen, lashing every strerch of bone and sinew, stealing the strength from his muscles. He fell ro his knees.

"Well," the woman said in her corpselike voice. "This is what happens, Sir Fool, when you cross wills with the most powerful wizard in Waterdeep."

She raised her hands and began to chant a spell that Kalen could only imagine would be his doom. Flames and shadow flickered around her hands, like the fires of the Nine Hells.

And so it ends, he thought.

His eyes blurred and he sank toward peaceful sleep. Myrin's eyes opened and blue lighr flooded the alley.

In the strange flash of light, Myrin saw Kalen first, kneeling and helpless, and then the woman-the dead woman wearing the false face-looming over him.

"No," she said in a voice she hardly recognized as her own. She lunged forward and grasped Avaereene by the arm, trying anything she could to stop the slaying magic. She wanted to steal the magic away, rip it from Avaereene so it could not touch Kalen. And she did exactly that.

The fires darting around Avaereene's fingers faded, flowing instead into Myrin's hands, which lit with fierce blue light. The wizard opened her mouth and stammered.

Oblivious to what she was doing, lashing blindly, Myrin struck Avaereene with her will. A flash of brilliant red and black flame erupted, and the woman slammed backward against the wall with a chorus of crackles and snaps. Bricks cracked and turned inward.

Myrin stared down at her hands, horrified and awed. Blue runes spread down her forearms, almost covering her skin. Power electric filled Myrin's body, making her shiver and shake. The fog boiled away around her, evaporating in the heat coming off her body.

"Damn you!" Avaereene hissed in a voice from beyond the grave. "You do not know what you do, child. This is my own power! How are you-?"

"Shut up!" Myrin shrieked. The stolen magic punched Avaereene in the chest, shaking the building behind her. Holes burst in the wall, and Myrin saw into the common room of a tavern through the cracks.

Avaereene hardly seemed hurt by the blow, but her eyes went wide. Then they turned blood red and began to leak sanguine tears.

"How are you doing this?" she roared in frustration. "You're just a child!"

Myrin merely pointed her hands, loosing bright, hungry flames like nothing she had ever seen or imagined to tear at Avaereene. The wizard screamed in agony and fear. Her skin shivered, then began to bubble and boil. Around her, the bricks glowed red, sizzled, and shook as though caught between an anvil and a smith's hammer. Her black cloak and gown started to smolder and unravel, and soon she was naked. Her entire body quaked and rotted before Myrin's eyes, but the wizard could not scream against the pressure of Myrin's spell. Her eyes were livid and terror filled.

A smile spread across Myrin's face and a thought came unbidden- a thought in her voice but not hers: this will teach her.

Then Myrin heard a new sound: a gagging, rasping sound from the ground at her side. She looked down and saw Kalen coughing and retching. He tore open his helm, and she saw him vomit blood onto the cobblestones. "Muh-Myrin… stuh-stop…"

He looked up at her and she gasped. His skin shivered like Avaereene's, and his eyes were shot through with red. Tears of blood leaked onto his face.

Myrin looked around and saw others gagging and retching-folk inside the tavern, and some who had come forth to watch or help. Gods-what was she doing?

The force holding Avaereene against the wall lessened, and the old woman sucked air into her lungs. She looked down at her withered hands, then touched her face. She screamed.

Myrin turned and clapped a hand to her mouth, shocked. Gone were the beautiful face and body-they had rotted into a withered corpse. Worse, her form had been crushed against the tavern with such force that she had somehow melded with the building's skin. Bricks grew out of her like massive, chunky warts. The red eyes that glared out were not dead, nor were they alive. Myrin recognized the woman's true body, that she was-Myrin didn't know where the word came from-a lich. An undead horror.

"My face! My body!" Avaereene shrieked. "You will die for this, girl!" #

The wizard's form had been a magic-wrought falsehood-the corpse embedded in the wall revealed the truth. Myrin's magic had undone years, perhaps decades of delicate spellwork that had achieved the beauty the lich wanted for herself. Complex castings, suid probably painful.

Avaereene barked a sharp word. Myrin recoiled, but it was no attack. Hissing in pain and anger, the lich vanished, taking part of the wall with her-and leaving aught of herself too.

With a sick cry, Myrin closed her eyes and fists. She willed the magic to vanish.

It didn't.

Dark fire rolled out of her, uncontrolled. Myrin screamed for ir to stop, but it was alive in its own righr. It danced around her, gleefully consuming whatever it touched.

She could not stop it.

"Myrin," came a voice, cutting through the chaos.

It was Kalen, his form blurring as though it fought to maintain consistency. His gauntleted hand grasped her tightly-strange, that the right hand had a gauntlet and the left hand was bare, she reached for his bared hand, but she remembered what her touch had done to the lich. She drew back, horrified.