Paul Kemp - Shadowrealm

I sense recognition from the Source. It knows me, and I it. We are old friends.

Shadows clot the air on the far side of the hemisphere, expand, and expel four Shadovar warriors cloaked in darkness and bristling with steel. They shout at me, point at me with their crystalline blades, and charge across the chamber.

I use what the Source has provided to reach into their brains. They feel the pinch of my mental fingers on the root of their minds, drop their weapons, and fall to the floor. I navigate the swirl of their pain and fear, and locate the unconscious mental mechanism that commands their hearts to beat.

I turn the mechanism off. As one they gasp, clutch their chests, die.

I know more Shadovar will come unless I prevent them.

I tap the well of power in my head, charge the walls of the chamber with a feedback matrix of mentally constructed corridors and walls, a labyrinth of the mind. Anyone attempting to transport into the chamber will find their physical form unmoved and their mind locked in an unending mental maze of their own making.

Alone and secure, I walk under the Source, formalize our mental connection. It welcomes me. I look up into the crystal and lose myself in its depths. Deep within the red sea of its form, flickers of light flash truths. I am already drifting. The pulsing in the Source increases. Perhaps it is addicted to me, as I am to it.

Rivalen rose into the air to face his trial. Hope did not pollute his spirit. Protective wards and contingency spells did not shield his person. He would rely on the Lady of Loss for his protection and he would prevail as her servant or he would die as her heretic. He took his holy symbol in his left hand, watched as the dragon closed its jaws over Kesson's form and Kesson, as insubstantial as a shadow, passed through and out the top of the dragon's head.

Furlinastis crashed into Cale and Riven and both men tumbled earthward, trailing shadows like dark comets. The dragon reared up, beat his wings, pulled up, turned his long neck to look back upon Kesson.

Dark energies burned on both of Kesson's fists. He pointed his right hand at the dragon.

The earth and sky alternated rapidly in Cale's vision as he and Riven spun uncontrollably toward the ground. He glimpsed Furlinastis, heard his roar, and used the shadows around him and Riven to transport both of them atop the dragon.

They appeared in time to hear Kesson Rel pronounce an arcane word and point his right hand at the dragon. Furlinastis tried to veer as he breathed a blast of life draining energy onto Kesson Rel.

Kesson stood in the midst of the killing breath, unharmed, and a churning mass of dark energy streaked through with crimson went forth from his hand, struck the dragon's wing, and in an instant, withered it to a nub.

Furlinastis roared, flapped his withered wing futilely, as he, Cale, and Riven spiraled toward the earth. Cale shouted the words to a healing spell as they fell, channelled the energy into the dragon, but it was not enough to repair the lost wing.

Rivalen recalled his own fight with the green dragon outside the walls of Selgaunt. He'd learned a lesson in that combat, one he intended to teach to Kesson.

A cluster of shadows streaked out of the sky toward him, arms outstretched, mouths open and shrieking hate. He held his holy symbol in hand, channeled Shar's power, and reduced them all to wails and vapor.

His eyes still on Kesson Rel, he traced a circle in the air with his holy symbol, spoke a long prayer, and reserved only the final, triggering word.

Furlinastis spun wildly through the air and flapped his one wing frantically, but it only caused him to spin more rapidly. Cale and Riven held onto each other, onto the dragon's neck ridge, and watched the ground get closer and closer. Furlinastis roared with pain and frustration.

Shadows and wraiths whirled past them, brief flashes of red eyes and black forms. The air was thick with the vile vapor of their destruction. By chance, Furlinastis passed through some of the undead, as did Cale and Riven, and cold leaked into his bones.

"Leave him, Cale!" Riven shouted.

But Furlinastis's uncontrolled descent was taking them toward the battlefield where the Lathanderians, many of them aglow with rosy light, fought an army of shadow giants.

"I can't," he said. "Look! Steer clear of them, dragon!"

But Furlinastis, lost in rage and pain, showed no sign of having heard Cale's words and his mountainous form plummeted toward the battle.

With nothing else for it, Cale tried to shadowstep himself, Riven, and the dragon to ground. He deepened the darkness around them, tried to eliminate their momentum while at the same time moving them safely down to the plains.

He felt the lurch of movement but they did not materialize on the plains. They appeared in mid-air, slowed not stopped, and immediately began falling at full speed again.

Cale cursed, tried again, but had the same result. He was stepping them down toward the ground, but doing little to change the dragon's trajectory or speed.

Rivalen stepped from the darkness around him to the darkness around Kesson Rel. Kesson grunted with surprise, but recovered quickly. He reached for Rivalen with his left hand, still charged with energy, still incorporeal. His hand passed through Rivalen's forearm, the energy discharged, and agony lit Rivalen. He felt his arm withering from the shoulder down, disintegrating into desiccated flesh and hollowed-out bones.

Enduring the pain, he spoke the trigger word to the spell he had prepared and a field of anti-magic surrounded him, surrounded Kesson.

All of Rivalen's magic items went inert. All of the spells affecting both of them ceased functioning. Kesson turned corporeal. Rivalen grabbed Kesson's wrist with his one good hand and they fell together, leaking shadows.

Rivalen squeezed Kesson's wrist with all of his shadow borne strength, with enough force to snap the bones of ordinary men. But Kesson's bones did not snap, and he matched Rivalen's strength with his own.

"We will see who is the stronger," Rivalen hissed into his face as they flipped and tumbled earthward.

Flapping his wings, Kesson tried to right himself, but Rivalen's weight made it impossible.

Regg deflected a giant's slash with his shield, slipped on the wet grass, but managed to drive his blade into the huge creature's thigh. It roared, grunted, fell. Regaining his balance, Regg beat back an awkward thrust of the giant's sword and drove his blade into the creature's throat. It gurgled as he withdrew the blade, and it fell face down on the plains.

All around him men and women shouted, cried out in pain, roared. Light from Roen's priests kept the field awash in a rosy hue, preventing the giants from using the darkness to their advantage.

A roar from above drew his attention. He looked up to see Furlinastis tumbling like a falling star toward the battle.

The wyrm's form filled the sky, a cloud of scales and shadows. Uncontrolled and roaring, the enormous creature was plummeting straight for the field where Regg's company fought the shadow giants. It winked in and out as it fell, tracing an irregular line through the sky.

Regg unleashed a flurry of blows on the giant attacking Trewe, managed in his fury to drive the large creature backward.

"Sound the retreat, Trewe! Now! Now!"

Trewe sounded a blast but it was too late.

Cale grabbed Riven and shadowstepped off Furlinastis's back the moment before the dragon hit the earth. They materialized off to the side of the battlefield and watched the dragon hit.

Men and giants saw the falling dragon, shouted, scrambled to get clear as the wyrm crashed to earth, causing the ground to shake as much as had Kesson Rel's earthquake, crushing men and giants, cutting a chasm in the plain and pushing huge, wet chunks of soil, grass, and trees before his huge form. Bones, metal, and scales shattered under the impact.