Paul Kemp - Shadowbred

Help me, a voice said.

Cale could not tell if the request was a plea for rescue or an invitation to assist with punishing the damned.

Help me, Erevis, said the voice.

Cale recognized it then.

Magadon?

Before Magadon could answer, something dark and large and terrible entered the dreamscape. The glowing sky dimmed. Damned and devil alike cowered as a shadow fell over the land.

Father, Magadon's mental voice said, and Cale felt the presence of an entity as ancient as the multiverse. The power of it stripped him to his core. He wanted to run, to hide, but there was nowhere for him to go. He knew the entity's name. It was none other than Mephistopheles, Magadon's father.

He is mine, the arch devil said, and his voice made Cale's ears bleed.

Cale awoke to Varra shaking him. He opened his eyes to find shadows pouring from his flesh, swarming the bed. Varra was shrouded in darkness, screaming his name.

"Erevis! Erevis!"

Cale's heart pulsed in his ears. Sweat soaked him. His head was pounding, far behind his eyes. He seized Varra by her wrists and willed the shadows to subside.

"I'm all right, Varra. It was a dream. A bad dream."

But he was not sure that was all it was.

Varra stared down at him, tears in her eyes, concern on her face. "Gods," she said.

"I am all right," he assured her.

She blew out a breath, stared at him a moment, and lowered her head onto his chest. He put his arms around her, hoping she would not hear the hammering of his heart, and he inhaled the smell of her hair. It calmed him.

The cottage was dark. It was still night, perhaps a few hours after midnight.

"You were calling in your sleep, tossing about," she said. "The room went black with shadows. I was frightened. I shook you and shook you, but you wouldn't awaken."

Cale stroked her hair absently, his mind still on the dream. His sleep had been troubled for over a tenday. Again and again he dreamed of suffering souls, but none of the previous dreams had approached the intensity of the last.

"Varra, I think one of my friends may be in trouble."

Varra did not hear him, or did not acknowledge hearing him. She said, "You kept saying the same things over and over again, shouting them."

Cale tried not to ask, but could not help himself. "What did I say?

"You shouted about a storm coming, about the Hells, and you kept repeating 'two and two are four, two and two are four.' Does that mean something to you?"

Cale felt chill. Shadows played over his flesh. "Yes. No. I mean, I am not certain."

"Your skin is gooseflesh." She ran her hand across his chest. Shadows wove around her fingers.

He stroked her hair. "It is nothing, Varra. Just a dream."

She nodded and asked no more questions.

Cale stared up at the ceiling beams and pondered the dream, the words he spoke in his sleep. The phrase, 'two and two are four' came from Sephris Dwendon, the mad seer of Oghma. Sephris meant by it that there was no escaping fate.

Cale decided that he had to find Magadon. His friend was in trouble. The dreams were some kind of vision, some kind of plea. Magadon needed his help.

His mind made up, Cale waited for Varra to fall back to sleep. When she did, he stole out of bed and silently gathered his clothing, his boots, and his blades, and shadowstepped outside to the meadow. As he dressed, he pictured Starmantle in his mind, the city Magadon called home. He imagined the row of temples that stared down on the dirty, vice-infested trading hub. He pictured the rickety wooden docks teeming with goods and workers, the streets thronged with wagons and carts.

When he had a clear mental image, he surrounded himself in shadows and used them to leap across Faerun. He traveled leagues in the blink of an eye, leaving Varra and the cottage far behind.

He appeared in a dark alley in Starmantle, his arrival unnoticed by any save a mangy dog. The scruffy pup growled at his sudden appearance and slinked off, tail between his legs.

Cale wasted no time. He prowled the taverns, festhalls, inns, and docks. Sometimes he moved invisibly among the crowds and tables, listening. Sometimes he used coin to pry tongues loose. Other times he used threats to get what he wanted.

All manner of beings filled the establishments in Starmantle. The city aspired to become a great trading center, and so held its gates open to all. Cale questioned not only men, elves, and dwarves, but also towering gnolls, hairy bugbear mercenaries, tusked half orcs, and squeaky-voiced goblin laborers. For the first time in months, he felt like himself, felt like he was doing what he was supposed to do. He met with no success the first night, but his dreams continued, so he returned to do the same, night after night.

He traveled the unnamed drinking holes that festered in the dark places along the docks, ventured into secret drug dens hidden in dank cellars near the city walls, visited the brothels where women and men went for coppers and all manner of tastes were indulged.

And there, as he scraped the bottom of Starmantle's underworld, he picked up Magadon's trail. He heard tell of Magadon as a drunk, a misthead, a babbling madman, or all three.

Cale's worry for his friend grew. The Magadon that Cale had known had demonstrated no weakness for such vices. But that had been before Magadon had melded with the Source. Cale knew that Magadon's contact with the Source had changed the mind mage. But he'd had no inkling of how much.

He followed Magadon's trail to Teziir, and there learned to his relief that his friend-apparently clear headed-had taken work as a guide for the wagons of the Three Diamond Trading Coster. Cale followed that trail from Teziir back to Starmantle. There, he tracked down an overweight merchant named Grathan, the master of the caravan with which Magadon had taken employment. Cale arranged a meeting.

They met across a cracked wooden table in the Buxom Mermaid, one of the few quality inns located in Starmantle's Dock Ward. Cale took the merchant's measure as he sat down. Grathan wore tailored breeches, a dyed shirt, a green jacket, and a threadbare overcloak that had seen much travel. The few pieces of jewelry he wore were of modest quality. Cale concluded that he was well off, but not rich. He wore a gentleman's rapier at his hip, but Cale doubted it saw much use. The man had no hardness in his eyes.

"Thank you for coming, Master Grathan," Cale said. With conscious effort, he kept shadowstuff from leaking from his flesh.

"What is this about, now?" Grathan said. "Are you interested in my goods?"

Cale casually surveyed the inn. He spotted the merchant's guards with little difficulty-two burly sellswords in chain mail vests on opposite sides of the common room, both trying too hard to avoid looking at Cale's table.

"No," Cale said. "But I will compensate you for your time. You headed a Three Diamond Coster out of Teziir?"

"Yes," Grathan said, nodding.

"I am looking for the guide you used. Unusual eyes?"

The moment Cale described Magadon, Grathan wilted and sank into himself. Cale saw the fear behind his puffy eyes.

"You know who I mean," Cale said softly. "I can see it in your face. Where is he?"

Despite his efforts, shadows spiraled from Cale's flesh.

Grathan saw the shadows and his eyes went wide. He scooted back his chair and started to stand.

"I have nothing more to say to you-"

Cale jumped up, grabbed him by the shirt, and pulled him bodily across the table. More shadows spun from him.

"Unhand me, sir!"

Cale nodded at Grathan's guards, who were starting toward the table, hands on daggers. Other patrons stared at Cale in alarm, though none rose to intervene.

"Call them off or I will kill you right now," Cale said, and left no doubt from his tone that he meant what he said. Darkness swirled around them both. "No one can stop me and I will be gone from here before you finish bleeding."