"Did you do something to it?" asked the second voice.
Magadon almost laughed, as if he could do something to the Source.
The second voice said, "It was attacked. You were here when it happened. I have determined that much. Answer my question. If you lie to me, I will know."
Magadon closed his eyes, tried to convince himself he was dreaming, lost in a drug haze in some smoky basement den in Starmantle.
"Speak," commanded Rivalen.
He was not dreaming.
"Not attacked," he said. "Tapped. An artifact tapped it, drew on its power to serve the wizard who created the Rain of Fire."
"A wizard created the Rain of Fire?" the second voice said, astonishment in his tone.
Magadon nodded. "Yes. He was from… somewhere else. He used the power in the Source to empower his spell."
"Remarkable," the second voice said.
Magadon realized that he had said too much. He did not want his captors to know of the tower on the Wayrock. Riven might still be there.
"The wizard is dead," he added. "I saw his body, broken and burned to ash by the sun. The artifact he used to tap the Source is also destroyed."
"He is speaking truth," the second voice said, presumably to Rivalen.
Silence followed for a time, as if his two captors were silently conferring. Finally, Rivalen said, "We need you to awaken the Source, Magadon. Only a mind mage can do it. Only you can do it."
Magadon closed his eyes and shook his head.
"I am sorry, then," Rivalen said, and incanted the words to a spell.
Magadon gripped the arms of the chair, braced himself to resist whatever spell Rivalen would cast.
"Help us, Magadon," Rivalen said.
There was magic in Rivalen's voice, power. Magadon could feel it pulling at his will. He fought it.
"No."
"You must. Awaken it for us, Magadon."
Magadon gritted his teeth while Rivalen's bidding wormed its way into his mind. He strained against his bonds, felt them give slightly. His heart pounded hard in his chest.
"It… will… kill… me!" he shouted.
"Careful, brother," cautioned the second voice.
"You must do it, nevertheless," commanded Rivalen. "Awaken it for us, Magadon."
Magadon flailed like a mad thing against his bonds. Rivalen's spell reverberated through his mind, the words like hammer blows. Rivalen's voice soaked his will.
Magadon was weakening.
The words rang in his ears, sank under his skin. He felt himself losing, thinking of how much easier it would be if he simply submitted.
"No! No!"
"Almost," said the second voice.
"You wish to do it," said Rivalen. "I can see it in your eyes. Surrender to it, Magadon. End the pain."
Rivalen's words sounded so much like those spoken by Magadon's archdevil father in his dreams that they shook Magadon to his core. He gritted his teeth so hard he bit his tongue. The sharp flash of pain and the taste of blood brought him an instant of clarity, of freedom. A sliver of mental energy slipped through the power-dampening shroud and made itself available to him. Magadon grabbed onto it like a lifeline and did the only thing he could think of to save himself.
Vermilion light haloed his head, penetrating even the ink of the shroud. His captors shouted. He felt hands upon him.
Magadon grinned even as the pain came. He felt as if he were breaking apart. He screamed as he splintered.
CHAPTER FOUR
10 Marpenoth, the Year of Lightning Storms
Cale dreamed of Magadon, though his friend's voice sounded like Aril's, the halfling boy whom Cale had saved almost two tendays earlier. Cale watched, frozen, as Magadon slipped into a dark void, screaming for help. Cale forced himself from his paralysis, shadowstepped to the edge of the void, dived for Magadon's outstretched hand, and barely caught it. He seized a firm grip, then saw that Magadon's fingernails had turned to black claws, and that his eyes, ordinarily colorless but for the black pupils, were golden.
Startled, he lost his grip. Magadon disappeared into the shadows, screaming. Cale shouted after him, "Mask! Mask!"
But there was no answer. Magadon was gone.
The roll of distant thunder woke him. He lay on his back in bed, heart racing, and stared up at the log crossbeams of the cottage, barely visible in the dark. The dream had set his heart to racing. He had called Magadon by the name of his god. The realization unsettled him.
Mags? he projected, tentatively. As a mind mage, Magadon had easily contacted Cale through dreams before.
No response. Just a dream, then. He exhaled slowly and calmed himself. The deep of night surrounded him. He found comfort in the darkness. A distant lightning flash lit the room and pasted shadows on the walls. Cale sensed every one of them, knew every one of them for the instant of their existence.
Midnight was near, he knew. The Chosen of Mask always knew when the Shadowlord's holy hour approached.
He had been asleep only an hour, perhaps two. He had not even bothered to change his clothing before getting into bed. The stink of another night's travels, another night's killings, clung to his clothes.
Varra lay beside him, warm, soft, human. Her even breathing steadied his jumbled mind. He often lay awake through the night and listened to her breathe, watched the rise and fall of her breast. Since his transformation into a shade, he needed less and less sleep. But he always needed warmth; he always needed someone near him to remind him that he was still human, at least in part.
He drew the night about him and moved his body instantly across the room into the darkness near the shuttered window. Varra stirred slightly at his sudden absence but did not awaken.
Thunder rumbled again in the distance, the deep-chested growl of a beast. A storm was coming-a big one. It had been a long while since they had seen rain.
In silence, Cale lifted the latch on the window shutters and gently pushed them open. Moonlight spilled into the cottage. Its touch nettled Cale's flesh. Tendrils of darkness swirled protectively across his skin.
A cloud bank loomed in the distance, bearing toward the cottage, devouring the stars as it came. Lightning split the sky, and its afterglow limned the clouds with a purple cast. Cale thought it ominous. Thunder quickly followed and Cale fancied the thunder had a voice.
Everything dies, it rumbled.
He searched the sky for Selune and found her hanging low in a half-circle over the top of the forest, trailing the glowing cascade of her Tears. Cale could not look at the Tears without thinking of Jak.
Just about a year ago, he had seen the most powerful wizard he'd ever known pull one of the Tears from the Outer Darkness and use it to eclipse the sun. In the end, the wizard's reasons for doing so had been small ones, human ones, though the wizard had been far from human. Cale almost admired him for his reasons. But the admiration had not kept Cale from killing him, because the wizard's small reasons had led to the death of Cale's best friend.
Thunder rolled, soft, threatening, and mocking. Everything dies.
The memory of those days darkened Cale's already somber mood. The night answered his emotions and the air around him swirled with black tendrils. Behind him, Varra turned in her sleep.
"I still blame you," he whispered to Mask.
When he looked back on the events involving the wizard, Cale saw the Shadowlord's manipulation in all of it. Through his scheming, Mask had managed to steal an entire temple of Cyric. The whole plot had been little more than divine burglary, petty theft. And it had cost Cale his humanity and Jak his life. Cale could not forgive Mask for exacting so high a price.
Before Jak had died, Cale promised his friend that he would try to be a hero. He had saved Aril and the halfling village, had done similar deeds throughout upcountry Sembia for months. But it did not feel like enough; he did not feel like himself. He missed his friends, missed… something he could not articulate.