Paul Kemp - Shadowrealm

"Such a small thing," Riven said, sheathing his blades.

But Cale saw into it, through it. The chalice was simply the doorway, a drink but a symbol. He placed Weaveshear in its scabbard, stepped forward, and reached for the chalice.

Riven grabbed his hand, staring a hole into his face. "Are you certain?"

"It is the only way," Rivalen said from behind them.

Cale nodded and Riven released him. Cale was walking in the steps of Kesson Rel, he knew, trailing him like a shadow. He put his hand, his shadow hand, on the chalice and found it cold, the cold of a grave. A jolt went through him, a charge from head to toe. He lifted it and discovered it weighed much more than it should.

Riven and Rivalen, perhaps involuntarily, crowded close. The shadows around Rivalen mixed with those around Cale, those of the chalice. Riven stood in the midst of their collective darkness.

Cradling the chalice in both hands, Cale held it close and looked within.

An oily, glistening liquid filled it to perhaps a quarter of the way. But Cale knew the chalice's depths went on forever, that the substance within, and the power it embodied, extended much deeper than the shallow depths of the cup. The darkness in the chalice reached back through time and worlds to the creation of the multiverse. He was looking upon the power of a god, the primal stuff of creation. Shadows leaked from it, and him, in languid ribbons.

The moans of the specters grew louder outside, the wail of the wind more pronounced. Ephyras continued to die, its corpse falling into oblivion. Its death throes rocked the temple, shook dust from the walls. Cracks like veins formed in the floor, spreading from wall to wall.

"Drink!" Rivalen said. "The end is coming."

Pieces of the dome cracked, broke, and fell in a rain of crystal to the floor. Riven and Rivalen shielded themselves with their cloaks. Cale stood in the midst of the ruin, untouched, transfixed by the chalice. The wind screamed through the openings in the dome, carrying with it the hateful, desperate moans of the specters. Dust and darkness swirled.

"Cale?" Riven asked.

"If this goes wrong," Cale said to Riven, and nodded at Rivalen. "Kill him."

With that, he lifted the chalice, let the cool, greasy liquid touch his lips, and drank.

Brennus lived in the space between the betrayal of his mother and the betrayal of his father. He could not long hold that ground. Either he honored his mother's memory by exacting payment from her murderer, or he did as his father instructed.

He didn't know if he could live with himself if he did nothing to avenge his mother.

But if he acted, Sembia could be lost and his father would kill him.

He ran his fingertips over his mother's necklace, the necklace that had been brought to him as if by providence. He recalled the moments he had shared with her, the joy. He had experienced little of either since her death.

He made up his mind, nodded to himself, and activated the communication ring.

Rivalen, when Kesson Rel is dead, the divine power in him will flow to the empty vessel, Kesson's successor, the Chosen of Mask who drank from the chalice. Here are the sequence of spells you must cast, using the chalice as a focus, to take that essence for yourself.

He recited a series of incantations and abjurations.

Thank you, Brennus, Rivalen returned. You have done well.

Brennus cut off the magic of the ring. The darkness around him deepened.

He had just murdered his brother. The spells he had named for Rivalen would not capture Kesson's divine power for Rivalen. They would cause the power to consume him.

He put his elbows on the table and his face in his hands. He didn't know how long he sat there before a tug on his cloak caused him to look up.

His homunculi sat on the table near him, the leathery skin of their brows creased with worry.

"Master sad?" one asked.

Brennus inhaled, sat up. The darkness around him was a shroud. "No."

Both of them smiled and held out their hands. "Treat, then?"

He smiled tiredly, took two paper-wrapped sweetmeats from his cloak, and handed them to his creations. They squealed with delight and ate with vigor.

His mother would have laughed. She would have said, That is quite a family you have, Brennus.

Indeed it was.

Power entered Cale, wormed its way through him completely, hollowed him out. In an instant he lost whatever humanity remained in him and became a shell, the temple at the edge of nothing made flesh, intact but empty.

And as much in danger of crumbling.

He dropped the chalice and fell to his knees. His scream mingled with that of the wind and the specters. The hole yawned in him, an emptiness that needed filled. His mind spun. Jumbled thoughts ricocheted around his brain.

He struggled to get his intellect around what had happened, what was happening. The chalice did not contain divinity. It contained revelation, realization, the possibility of divinity that skulked about in the silence of the human soul. But the possibility was so large, so consuming, that a mortal form awakened to it could not long bear the truth before it simply disincorporated.

Unless it realized its potential.

Shadows whirled around him, angry appendages of darkness lashing out at the world. He threw his head back in another scream and saw that the entire dome of the temple had not collapsed. A small portion remained intact-the black image of Shar, the Lady of Loss, looked down on him.

His scream died. His humanity died. And Riven was at his side.

"Are you all right?"

Cale clutched at Riven and shook his head. "No."

"What happened?"

"It gave me nothing," Cale said. "It just… prepared me to receive the power."

Riven cursed and looked back at Rivalen. "There's no weapon here!"

He started to rise, his hand on a saber.

Cale stayed Riven's hand, shaking his head. "This is not his fault."

Rivalen leaned forward, his eyes aglow, his brow furrowed. "What do you feel?"

"Empty," Cale said, and leaned on Riven as he stood. He felt heavy, thick, weighed down by what he might become. "We need to get to Kesson. We can separate him from the divinity, take it back."

"But we have to kill him to get it, Cale," Riven said. "We faced him already. You saw-"

"You did not have me with you, then," Rivalen said.

"Who are you again?" Riven spat at the Shadovar.

"We have to find a way," Cale said. "If we cannot kill him, and soon, this will kill me."

Riven cursed again.

"The Saerbians pass over the river," Cale said to Rivalen. "We have to help you now. You do not need hostages. Let them go."

Another tremor shook the temple. The far wall cracked, crumbled, collapsed.

"Let them go," Cale said again.

Rivalen eyed him, nodded, and specters poured in through the walls, the collapsed dome, all of them with arms outstretched, their translucent faces twisted by desperation.

Cale understood their language and read their lips.

Help us, they said, but the words only came out as moans.

"I cannot," Cale said. They were dead, along with their world.

Rivalen grabbed the chalice, whispered a word, and it vanished into his palm. He reached out and started to pull the shadows around them.

Above, another tremor shook the temple and the image of Shar in the dome broke loose, fell intact toward the floor, toward Cale. She would crush him, them.

The darkness grew deep and Cale felt the lurch of movement between worlds.

They materialized in the depths of the Shadowstorm, on the shore of Lake Veladon.

The storm bore down on the refugees. Abelar decided to take it as truth that Regg and the company had slowed it, that their sacrifice had given it pause. He stared at the darkness a long while, tried to pierce its veil through sheer force of will. He sought any sign of his company-a flash of light, the distant clarion of Trewe's trumpet-but he saw only the storm, heard only the rain and thunder.