Paul Kemp - Shadowstorm

Tamlin picked up the wine goblet and drank it empty in a single gulp. He refilled it, his mind racing. Everything Rivalen said made sense. Anger and shame warmed Tamlin's cheeks. He had been played for a fool. He thought of how disappointed his father would have been with him, how smug Erevis Cale would have been, and his anger grew. He looked to Rivalen.

"These are accusations. I need proof before I authorize steps."

Rivalen crossed the room and stared down at Tamlin. "I will give you proof. This moment. Stay near me and remain silent."

The darkness deepened around them until Tamlin could not see. His stomach fluttered as the shadows moved them elsewhere. He heard a voice, Vees's voice, chanting as the darkness parted.

"Love is a lie," Vees said. "Only hate endures. Light is blinding. Only in darkness do we see clearly."

Rivalen and Tamlin stood in the back of a vaulted, windowless chamber. Wooden pews arranged before them faced a black altar draped with a purple and black altar cloth. Vees Talendar, dressed in black robes, knelt before the altar, chanting. He held in his hands a black disc ringed in purple-Shar's symbol.

Coming face to face with Vees's treachery lit Tamlin's anger. He exhaled in a hiss.

Vees stopped chanting of a sudden and started to rise and turn.

Rivalen surrounded them in darkness and whisked them back to the study in Stormweathet Tower. When the shadows parted, Tamlin slammed a fist on the side table. The impact tipped his wine goblet and the red fluid pooled on the table and dripped to the floor.

Vees had lied to him, betrayed him, betrayed the city.

"He must be held to account," Tamlin said.

"He must be punished," Rivalen said, and the shadows about him swirled.

"I will have him arrested."

Rivalen put a hand on his shoulder. The strength in the Prince's hand surprised Tamlin. The shadows around Rivalen churned, touched Tamlin.

"He is a heretic. I would ask that you allow me to see him punished in accordance with church doctrine."

"What does doctrine demand?" Tamlin asked, though he knew the answer.

Rivalen did not blanch. "Death."

Tamlin stared into Rivalen's golden eyes. His breath came short and shallow. He hesitated, then remembered Rivalen's words-Squeamishness is seldom rewarded in war. His heart raced but his anger burned.

"His family will not stand for it."

The shadows around Rivalen roiled and he took on a sly look. "Vees Talendar died in combat with the Saerloonian army. I saw it. His body was crushed nearly beyond recognition in the rubble of the wall. He will be buried in a mass grave with the others who fell, assuming his body can be recovered at all."

Tamlin looked into Rivalen's eyes and considered. If Vees had been in seclusion since the battle began, as it appeared he had, the claim could hold up. And if it did not, the threat of revealing a Talendar son as a heretical Sharran would keep a scandal from erupting. He took a deep breath, nodded. "I saw the same thing."

Rivalen did not smile, but his eyes showed approval. "You have grown in our time together."

Tamlin nodded, pleased with Rivalen's praise. He had grown.

"I wonder," Rivalen said softly, "whether you are willing to take the final steps?"

Tamlin looked up, a question in his eyes.

"You have seen what Shar offers and have expressed a desire to know more. I have seen in your face that you wish, even, to become one of us?" Rivalen held up his hands and the shadows swirled around his flesh.

Tamlin did not bother to deny it. He had seen shades do what ordinary men could never hope to do.

"All of that is possible," Rivalen said. "But you must demonstrate your commitment to Shar, to me, to yourself. May I be candid?"

Tamlin tried to speak but his mouth was dry. He nodded.

"Too long you have tried to do things halfway, to compromise, to equivocate, to hedge. This, perhaps, is a lesson you learned from your father. I understand well a father's effect on his son."

Tamlin did not respond, but knew that Rivalen was correct. Thamalon had always been a negotiator, a conciliator. Tamlin, too, had always sought a middle path. It had been easiest.

Rivalen continued. "Shar will not stand for such and neither will I. A new world was born today, Tamlin. Your decision here, now, will determine what role you have in it."

Tamlin thought of his mother, his sister, his father, brother, Cale. They would never understand what he had seen, faced, been through. But he decided that he did not need them to. And that decision freed him, for the first time in his life.

"You know my mind, Prince. You know what I want."

Rivalen smiled, showing his fangs. "Then it falls to you to administer punishment to Vees Talendar. In so doing, you will help me reclaim the temple he has desecrated with his heresy. In so doing, you will earn the favor of the Lady of Loss. Are you prepared to do this?"

Tamlin felt mildly lightheaded. He tried to swallow but could not. He was sweating. He felt as if he were standing at the edge of a cliff. Rivalen's eyes burned into him. He thought of all the times he had stood in the study, facing not a Prince of Shade but the disapproving eyes of his father. He thought of the times he had overheard his father confiding to Erevis Cale his disappointment with Tamlin.

He was done trying to satisfy others. He would satisfy himself. He looked from the top of the cliff, eyes open, and stepped off.

"No more compromises, Prince," he said.

Rivalen nodded. "Have you ever taken a man's life before?"

Tamlin cleared his throat. "Yes. But not like this."

Rivalen nodded. "There is no shame in that. Ready yourself. I will prepare matters."

Rivalen returned to his quarters, pleased. He saw potential in Tamlin and hoped the boy would not fail him. He would regard it as unfortunate if he needed to kill him.

He sat on the lush divan before the fireplace. The ambient light of the city's streets filtered in through the windows. Long shadows stretched across the chamber. The darkness embraced him.

On the floor near the divan sat the warded chest that held The Leaves of One Night. Rivalen had turned the chest invisible, but his magically enhanced vision saw invisible objects as clearly as visible ones. He pulled the chest before him, spoke the series of passwords that allowed him to bypass the wards, and opened the lid.

Tendrils of shadows snaked into the air. Sussurant, indecipherable whispers filled the chamber for a moment.

Within the chest lay the holy book. Rivalen intoned another series of passwords, reached within, and withdrew it. The moment he touched it, a cacophony of voices sounded in his mind, whispers, shouts, screams, mutterings. He knew they pronounced secrets from ages past, present, and future, but he could not make sense of the words.

The silver characters on the book's frigid cover shifted under his touch, squirmed like worms beneath his fingertips. He held the book on his lap for a time, running his fingers over the pages and losing himself in its utterings. Variance had once told him that listening to the voices too long made the listener mad. Rivalen knew better. Listening to the voices made the hearer wise.

His mind drifted, floated. He thought of the mother he had murdered, his coin collection, his father, his brothers, he thought of the centuries he had spent in darkness. He considered the role of the goddess in his life and saw that the thread of her plots sewed together every moment of his existence from birth to present. It was her voice that spoke to him through the book. He could not understand the divine tongue in which she spoke, but he knew it spoke of a plan to return existence to the perfect, unmarred nothingness of pre-creation.

He focused on the present, on the role he had played and would play in effecting his goddess's will. Events had transpired much as he had hoped. He had only a single frayed end to burn off.