Paul Kemp: Shadowbred

My arms hang slackly, still holding the pickaxe, watching the world end.

"Let me out! Let me out!"

I see my choice clearly: To save the man, I must save the devil; to kill the devil, I must kill the man.

Where does my duty lie?

I do not know.

All men have a darkness in them, or so the devil had said.

I know the devil was a liar.

But I know that the devil had spoken truth. All men did have darkness. Some wore it in the form of horns. Some bore it invisibly as rot in their souls.

I can let myself die, but I cannot let the core die. Too much good lives in the core.

I make my decision, heft the pickaxe, stride to the wall. I strike it with all my might. Stink and cold boil out of the fissure. I strike again, again, again.

"Yes! Let me out!"

Riven and the sword-bearing Shadovar moved so rapidly Cale could scarcely follow. The Shadovar swung overhand; Riven sidestepped, slashed with his off-hand saber. The Shadovar spun a circle and unleashed a reverse slash at Riven's throat. Riven ducked under and landed both blades on the Shadovar's chest. The magic powering Riven's blades opened twin gashes in the Shadovar's armor. The shade warrior recoiled, surprise in his eyes.

"Rethinking it now?" Riven asked with a sneer.

"If all of me were here, this would be finished already," the shade said.

Cale didn't know what to make of that and didn't care. He shadow-stepped to the Shadovar's side and stabbed with Weaveshear. The blade sliced through the shade's armor and sank deep into flesh. Grunting, the shade slashed backhand at Cale with such speed that Cale could not avoid it. The steel opened a gash in his throat and the magic of the weapon froze his skin. Blood and ice sprayed and he staggered backward.

Riven leaped forward, slashed the Shadovar's sword arm, nearly severing it at the biceps, and kicked him off the edge of the tower.

"Cale?"

Cale's flesh worked to close the hole in his throat. He signaled with a hand that he was all right.

Behind Riven, the staff-carrying Shadovar completed an incantation and shot a bolt of black energy at Cale and Riven. Cale leaped to his feet and tackled Riven. The bolt missed them and both came up in a crouch as the energy melted a stinking hole into the spire's roof.

"If we stay, we die," Riven said to him.

"I know," Cale managed, his voice awkward from the throat wound.

There was nothing else for it. Cale wrapped himself and Riven in darkness and prepared to flee. A voice rang out in his head, so loud it drove him to his knees.

Let me out!

Riven clutched his ears, as did every other creature on the street. Cale recognized the voice, though its tone was different.

Mags! Show me where you are!

Magadon answered, Erevis? Erevis Cale? Are you here? Can you be real?

Now, Mags! Now!

A mental image formed in Cale's mind-a hemispherical chamber deep within Sakkors's floating mountain. Cale reached for the connection between where he stood and where he wanted to go.

At that moment Rivalen completed his spell and gestured at Cale with both hands. A wave of gray energy poured forth from Rivalen's hands and hit Cale's body, penetrated the magical protection of his flesh, and burst him from the inside. His skin ruptured and blood, tissue, veins, and arteries exploded from him in a stringy shower of gore. He tried to scream but choked on his own blood.

He fell to his knees in the wet mess, gagging, coughing, agonized. Woundshock was setting in. He was drifting, falling. Riven cursed and leaped to his side. Cale caught a flash of purple as Riven pulled a healing spell from his stone. Cale's vision cleared. The pain remained and his flesh struggled to regenerate the rest.

"Get us out of here, Cale," Riven said, looking up at the shade warriors. Behind Riven, Cale saw the greatsword-wielding Shadovar. The door to the spire's roof burst open and a column of snarling, muscular humanoids burst through. Their white fangs stood out starkly against their black skin. The lead creatures raised their blades, shrieked, and charged.

His face sticky with blood, his mind cloudy with pain, Cale let himself sink into the darkness. He rode the shadows to the place Magadon had shown him.

He and Riven appeared in a hemispherical chamber bathed in red light. The mammoth, glowing crystalline mythallar hovered unsupported in the center of the room. Whorls of orange and red flowed within the facets. Waves of magical energy poured forth from it with the regularity of a heartbeat.

Cale's ears throbbed with each pulse. The room vibrated with arcane power and ropes of shadow floated from Weaveshear toward the mythallar. The weapon pulsed in Cale's bloody hand in perfect time to the magical vibrations.

Cale's skin continued to close, pulling the exposed threads of his veins and arteries back into his flesh. Darkness swirled protectively around him, comforting him, sheltering him. Riven's hands darkened and he touched them to Cale. More healing energy flowed into him.

With Riven's aid, he stood.

Magadon stood under the mythallar, small and emaciated. He looked as if he had not eaten in days. He held his thin arms up so that his hands touched the crystal's surface. Black veins grew out of the mythallar and twined into Magadon's hands, forearms, and biceps. It looked as if the crystal were eating Magadon, one small bite at a time, beginning with his fingertips.

Magadon wore a vacant expression and his pupilless eyes showed no white; instead, they glowed red, the same red as the mythallar. The horns in his brow had grown a full finger's length since the last time Cale had seen him. The tattoo on his arm-a red hand shrouded in dark flames, the symbol of Magadon's father-stood out markedly against his pale skin.

"Get him free of it," Cale said to Riven. His voice was wet with gore.

Magadon cocked his head and said slowly, "Erevis?"

Cale gritted his teeth as his body painfully knit back together.

"We're here, Mags," Cale said, and nearly fell. "Riven and I are both here. Get him, Riven."

He knew Rivalen would be coming.

Riven moved warily under the huge crystal and put his hands on Magadon's shoulders. Riven was as gentle with Magadon as Cale had seen him with his dogs.

"It's part of him," Riven said, nodding at the Source's veins that grew into Magadon's flesh.

"Leave me," Magadon said, and grinned like a madman. He showed fangs for eyeteeth. "There's power here. And wonders. Leave me. I am content."

Cale remembered the kraken, its mind lost in the false world of the Source. He remembered Magadon had said to him once that contact with the Source exacted a price. He was seeing it firsthand.

Get me out, Magadon said in Cale's mind.

Cale tried to walk, found that his legs could support him, and moved to Riven's side. He threw aside his cloak, soaked as it was with blood.

"We pull him out or cut him out," Cale said.

"I will harm you if you try," Magadon said absently.

I will not allow it, but you must hurry, Magadon projected.

The shadows across the room started to deepen and churn.

"Pull him," Cale said in alarm, and whispered a healing spell to accelerate his recovery. Mask's healing energy warmed him, eased the pain.

Riven tried to pull Magadon free, failed. Cale assisted and the two Chosen of Mask tried to pull their friend free of his addiction.

The veins of the Source started to give way. Magadon screamed as the strings grew taught, ripped his flesh. Blood oozed from his arms. Cale watched glowing eyes form in the darkness across the chamber. Riven saw them, too. They pulled harder. Magadon groaned as a number of black veins, glistening with blood, snaked out of his skin, but Magadon did not come free. He dangled there, a macabre marionette.