Paul Kemp - Shadowrealm

"Grandpapa."

Endren appeared behind him and his reassuring hand on Elden's shoulder seemed to steady the boy. Endren, dressed in mail and with a blade at his belt, nodded at Cale and Riven, crouched, and said something in Elden's ear. The boy visibly relaxed.

"The healers have done well by my son," Abelar said, waving to Elden. He smiled at his boy, though the fate of Ordulin still haunted his eyes. He took Cale and Riven each by the shoulder and turned them around. "Come."

They started up the rise and Elden's eyes grew wider at Cale and Riven's approach. He looked like he might bolt, but Endren kept a hand on his back and the boy held his ground. Father and son both had nerve, it seemed.

"These are the men who brought you back to us, Elden," Endren said, loud enough for them all to hear.

"My knows," Elden said. He slid behind his grandfather and peeked out from behind his legs like an archer through an arrow slit.

They gained the rise. Cale and Riven nodded a greeting at Endren, at Elden. The boy avoided eye contact.

"It rain again soon, Papa," Elden said to Abelar, avoiding eye contact with Cale and Riven. "Hurry to tent. Hurry."

"First, a dragon grab," Abelar said. He knelt, arms out, and the expression he had carried when looking at the lake-the look of having lost something-disappeared entirely. Instead, he looked like a man who had found something.

Elden smiled and braved his uncertainty. He charged Abelar and leaped into his embrace. Abelar roared like a dragon, nuzzled the boy's neck, and Elden giggled uncontrollably.

Cale could not help it. He chuckled, too. The boys laugh was as contagious as plague. Even Riven smiled.

Abelar stood, his son under one arm.

"Elden, these are Papa's friends, Erevis and Riven. Do you remember them?"

The boy didn't look at them. He pointed at the sky. "It going rain."

"These are the men that saved you," Abelar said to him. "They returned you to me."

A cloud passed over Elden's face, a personal Shadowstorm. He put his cheek on Abelar's shoulder.

"Rain, Papa."

"It's all right," Cale said to Elden, to Abelar. He could imagine how he must appear to some children. He would not have made much of a father.

Abelar kissed his son and placed him in the ground. "Grandpapa will take you back to the tent. I need to speak to Erevis and Riven. I will be along soon."

Elden nodded and hugged his father again. He turned and actually looked at Cale and Riven, studying them. The peculiar vacancy of his other features contrasted markedly with his eyes, which looked as sharp as daggers.

"Tank you," the boy said.

Cale kneeled down, forced the shadows leaking from his flesh to subside. "You are welcome, Elden."

"Watch this, boy," Riven said.

The assassin produced four small, painted wooden balls from a belt pouch.

Elden eyed them with curiosity. "What you do?"

"Watch," Riven said. He tossed them into the air one after another and juggled them with facility.

Elden grinned and clapped with delight. "Him juggle!"

Cale thought that of all the sights he had seen in his life, none had been as incongruous as Riven entertaining a child by juggling painted balls. Riven caught the balls one after another, finished with a flourish, and held them out to Elden.

"These are for you. Practice when you have time. Next time I see you, you can show me what you have learned."

Elden, still smiling, took the painted wooden balls, his reticence around Riven forgotten.

"Run and play with Grandpapa," said Abelar. "I will be along."

"Come, Elden," said Endren.

"Tank you," Elden said to Riven, who smiled in return.

To Endren, Abelar said, "They have brought news. I will share it with you later."

Endren nodded and he and Elden walked off, the boy tossing and dropping the balls as he went.

"You spend time with a troupe in a fair?" Cale asked Riven, smiling.

"Something like that. In Skullport. Long time ago." Riven spit, looked away.

Cale lost his smile. "Sorry, Riven. I didn't mean-"

"As I said, long time ago, Cale. No harm in your words. I carried those around… Hells, I don't know why I carried those around." He reached into another pouch. "I need a smoke."

While Riven found, tamped, and lit his pipe, Cale told Abelar what they knew. As he spoke, droplets of the rain Elden had prophesized started to fall, as thick and heavy as footsteps on the leaves, the trees, the surface of the lake. They took shelter under the canopy of an elm and Cale told Abelar of the Shadowstorm, of Kesson Rel, of Selgaunt's alliance with the Shadovar, of Rivalen Tanthul, servant of Shar.

"Shar is everywhere in this," Abelar said, and his gaze went back to the surface of the lake. He looked uncertain.

"Not everywhere," Riven said, and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

The three stood under the elm, isolated from the rest of the camp in a bubble formed of the sky's tears.

"You are part of this now," Cale asked Abelar. "Do you want to hear it all?"

Abelar didn't look at Cale. He looked out at the lake, the surface boiling in the rain, and nodded.

Cale told him of lost Elgrin Fau, the dead who haunted it, and his promise to them. He told him of their role in freeing Kesson Rel, of Furlinastis, and of Magadon and Mephistopheles.

When he finished, Abelar shook his head. "You have done a lot of good."

Riven chuckled and blew out smoke.

Cale said, "No. We've done what we had to do."

"I understand that," Abelar said. He looked Cale in the face, cleared his throat. "What turned you to your god, Erevis?"

The question took Cale aback; he struggled for an answer, felt Riven's eyes on him, too. "No one thing, I suppose. It's been a process, gradual, like it… unfolded."

"Like the events of your entire life had been arranged beforehand to bring you to faith," Abelar said, nodding.

"Yes."

Abelar turned away. "Strange that one moment, one thing, can entirely undo a choice born in a multitude of moments across a lifetime. Is it not?"

Riven answered before Cale. "You've got to live with yourself before you have to live with your faith, Abelar. Your son needed to be avenged. There's nothing more to it. You made the right choice." Riven looked at both Cale and Abelar and spoke slowly. "You made the right choice."

"I made the only choice," Abelar said, and shook his head. "And there is the problem."

Riven blew a cloud of smoke. "Not the way I see it."

Abelar turned back to them, smiling through his pain. "But then you've only one eye."

Riven smiled around his pipe but his tone was serious. "And you've only one son. Remember that."

Abelar lost his smile. He glanced back at the lake, the surface vibrating under the onslaught of rain. He looked back to Riven and said, "Truth."

Cale realized that Abelar was not broken, or cracked. He was torn. Like Magadon between devil and fiend. Like Cale between past and present, human and… inhuman.

"What will you do now?" Cale asked.

"Stay with my son. See these people to safety. What will you do?"

Riven chuckled and extinguished his pipe.

Cale said, "Go kill a god."

Brennus stood before the thaumaturgic triangle, incanting the summoning. Shadows and arcane power whirled slow spirals around him, around the room. The thrum of gathering energy formed the dark seed over the triangle, expanded into a window on the Hells. Screams and stink poured through the opening. Brennus called the name of the archfiend over the tumult and his voice boomed across the planes.

Mephistopheles answered. The shadow of his muscular, winged form appeared in the planar window. Brennus gagged at the charnel reek. The power peaked and Mephistopheles manifested within the circle. His white eyes fixed on Brennus, narrowed. Unholy power rippled from his glowing red flesh.