Paul Kemp - Shadowbred

Midnight approached and with it came temptation. He could pray to Mask for a spell of divination, use it to locate Magadon. A simple prayer, used one time and never again. He looked at his hands, at the ribbons of shadow that dangled from his fingertips.

He fought the impulse. Magadon would not want him to do it.

He whispered an expletive at Mask and sat in his familiar chair under the elm, surrounded by the night, one with the dark. Crickets chirped. The nightjar cooed. A soft wind stirred the trees.

He withdrew Jak's pipe, the pipe he had smoked at midnight for the last year or more, the pipe with which he defied Mask. Holding it by the handle, he eyed it.

For the first time, he put it aside unused.

Midnight arrived and Cale cursed Mask again but could not bring himself to smoke. He felt the pull of his god. He resisted, but not for long.

He could not let Magadon suffer due to his own stubbornness. He snatched darkness from the air and carefully formed it with shaking fingers into a mask of shadow, which he placed over his face. The shadows clung to his skin.

He reached out to his god and prayed. He asked for only a single spell, something that would help him locate Magadon.

Mask answered immediately, and Cale could not deny the rush he felt when he connected with his god. He felt a charge in his mind as the power to cast the spell embedded there. Mask tried to give him more power, to draw Cale back fully, but Cale cut off the connection despite the comfort it brought him. He wanted no more than necessary from the Shadowlord.

Heart racing, breath coming fast, Cale wiped his palm through the air and smeared the darkness into a black rectangle that hovered before him. Ready, he murmured the words to the divination Mask had provided. As the spell took effect, Cale picture Magadon in his mind and spoke his name aloud. The magic went out in search of his friend.

Swirls of pitch formed on the lens's surface. Cale powered the spell with his will and again pronounced Magadon's name.

The lens remained dark. Cale tried again and still the spell revealed nothing. He poured all of his desire into the magic, but still it showed nothing.

Cale let the magic dissipate, disappointed and worried. Wherever Magadon was, Cale's scrying magic could not reach him. For the moment, there was nothing else to be done. He removed the mask of shadow from his face and dispersed it.

"Nothing has changed between us," he said to Mask, but he heard the lie in his words. Something had changed. Cale had opened a door he had closed over a year ago, and he liked what he found on the other side. Shutting it again would be difficult.

For the next few hours he sat under the tree and watched the sky, trying to decide his next course. He watched stars rise and set. Hours passed and still he came to no decision.

Dawn was only a few hours away when a tickle started in his ears, then increased to a buzzing. Hope rose in him and Cale rode it out of his chair and onto his feet.

Magadon? Mags?

The buzzing in his ears intensified and Cale did not feel the telltale sensation of mental contact. Instead, he realized the tingle was the touch of an ordinary spell. His hope turned to alarm and the names of several enemies he had left alive throughout the years ran through his brain. Darkness leaked defensively from his pores. He reached to his belt for Weaveshear but realized he had left the weapon in its scabbard back in the cottage. He cursed.

The buzzing grew louder, but it slowed. He recognized it as a voice speaking rapidly, a sending. The buzz continually slowed until it matched the speed of a normal voice. When Cale heard it, he had trouble breathing. He had not heard it in a long while.

Mundane means of contacting you failed, said Tamlin Uskevren, the son of his former lord. I need help. If you still love my mother, sister, the memory of my father, return to Stormweather immediately.

Cale's surprise at hearing from Tamlin caused his thoughts to bounce around like crazed bees. A thousand questions coursed through his mind, a thousand memories: of Tazi, of Shamur, of Thamalon, and of Stormweather Towers. A surge of emotion ripped through him, a feeling like he'd known while searching the Dragon Coast for Magadon. He recognized it for what it was: the feeling that things were right.

He started to reply to the spell, to ask for some time to consider, but realized that it was nothing more than a one-way sending that did not allow for a reply. For all he knew, Tamlin could have cast it a tenday earlier. The magic could have been seeking Cale for days. Whatever crisis had caused Tamlin to seek him out may already have become more acute, or passed entirely.

He had met his god and his past in the same night. Sephris Dwendon's words bounced around his brain. Two and two are four.

He looked to the cottage where Varra was sleeping, and guilt squeezed his stomach. He chided himself for bringing her there. While he had never misled her with words, he knew his actions had given her a false impression. She assumed he would stay with her in the cottage. But he knew that he could not. A cottage in the forest was not where he belonged. Helping his friends, helping his family, that was where he belonged.

Cale considered the implication of the sending. Tamlin had to be desperate to reach out to him. Cale and Tamlin had disagreed often, mostly over the young man's dissolute lifestyle. And while Cale had seen Tamlin change for the better in the months before Cale had left Stormweather Towers, their relationship had never been warm.

Cale looked up at the sky and imagined how it would feel to see the Uskevren again. He realized then that he had already made up his mind. At the moment, he could do nothing more to find Magadon, and Magadon would have told him to go help his family. He would leave at once. And after he had put matters with the Uskevren to right, he would return to the search for Magadon.

He looked back at the cottage and saw Varra at the open window. The sight of her made his heart race. She ducked out of sight and soon a light flared in the cottage. She emerged carrying a small clay lamp. She wore only her night dress and the wind stirred her dark hair. The image reminded Cale eerily of the spirits that he, Jak, Magadon, and Riven had seen on the Plane of Shadow, moving through the ruins of Elgrin Fau-the Seekers of the Sun.

Varra hurried over to the elm. He stood as she approached.

"Did I awaken you?" he asked.

"No," she said. "Not you. Are you all right?"

He nodded, positioned the other wooden chair beside his. She sat and so did he. He saw little good to come from equivocating.

"I received a message."

She looked at him, puzzled. "A message? Tonight? How?"

He cleared his throat. "A spell, from the son of a very old friend."

Varra looked only mildly surprised that Cale had received a magical sending in the dark of night.

"The friend you have been seeking?"

"No. Another."

She stared into the woods. So did he. The distance between them was much greater than that between the chairs.

"What did it say, this message?" she asked.

"It asked for my help," Cale answered.

She nodded. Silence sat heavy between them. Cale wrestled with how to tell her he had to leave. Before he could say it, she asked, "Why don't you share with me, Erevis?"

The question took him off guard. "What do you mean?"

"I mean…" she trailed off, searching for words. "Each night when you leave the meadow and do… whatever you do, I lay awake, terrified that you won't come back. Did you know that? You have never told me where you go, what you do."

Cale looked at his hands. "I didn't… I thought you were sleeping. And you do not want to know."

She looked at him. "Yes, I do. I see the bloodstains on your clothes. You try to wash them off in the brook but I see them. I've asked no questions about it, about anything, but…"