Enduring the pain, he spoke the trigger word to the spell he had prepared and a field of anti-magic surrounded him, surrounded Kesson.
All of Rivalen's magic items went inert. All of the spells affecting both of them ceased functioning. Kesson turned corporeal. Rivalen grabbed Kesson's wrist with his one good hand and they fell together, leaking shadows.
Rivalen squeezed Kesson's wrist with all of his shadow borne strength, with enough force to snap the bones of ordinary men. But Kesson's bones did not snap, and he matched Rivalen's strength with his own.
"We will see who is the stronger," Rivalen hissed into his face as they flipped and tumbled earthward.
Flapping his wings, Kesson tried to right himself, but Rivalen's weight made it impossible.
Regg deflected a giant's slash with his shield, slipped on the wet grass, but managed to drive his blade into the huge creature's thigh. It roared, grunted, fell. Regaining his balance, Regg beat back an awkward thrust of the giant's sword and drove his blade into the creature's throat. It gurgled as he withdrew the blade, and it fell face down on the plains.
All around him men and women shouted, cried out in pain, roared. Light from Roen's priests kept the field awash in a rosy hue, preventing the giants from using the darkness to their advantage.
A roar from above drew his attention. He looked up to see Furlinastis tumbling like a falling star toward the battle.
The wyrm's form filled the sky, a cloud of scales and shadows. Uncontrolled and roaring, the enormous creature was plummeting straight for the field where Regg's company fought the shadow giants. It winked in and out as it fell, tracing an irregular line through the sky.
Regg unleashed a flurry of blows on the giant attacking Trewe, managed in his fury to drive the large creature backward.
"Sound the retreat, Trewe! Now! Now!"
Trewe sounded a blast but it was too late.
Cale grabbed Riven and shadowstepped off Furlinastis's back the moment before the dragon hit the earth. They materialized off to the side of the battlefield and watched the dragon hit.
Men and giants saw the falling dragon, shouted, scrambled to get clear as the wyrm crashed to earth, causing the ground to shake as much as had Kesson Rel's earthquake, crushing men and giants, cutting a chasm in the plain and pushing huge, wet chunks of soil, grass, and trees before his huge form. Bones, metal, and scales shattered under the impact.
Kesson and Rivalen, clasping one another, twisted and tumbled earthward. Rivalen, with only one arm and surrounded by a field of anti-magic, could do nothing but hold on. Kesson shouted the lengthy incantation to a spell that could disjoin the anti-magic field, the only spell that could affect it, while with his free hand he tore at Rivalen's face with nails like claws.
Rivalen endured the pain, felt blood flow warm and sticky over his cheeks and jaw, and tried to maneuver Kesson underneath him. But there was no way to control their fall.
Through gritted teeth, he answered Kesson's disjunction by reciting one of the Thirteen Truths, spraying Kesson with the blood leaking into his mouth.
"Only hate endures."
They slammed into the ground before Kesson completed his spell.
Agony exploded in Rivalen as bones shattered, as ribs spiked organs, but he smiled through the pain-until he realized that Kesson, despite the fall, despite the damage he must have suffered, had not lost the thread of his spell.
Black veins form on the surface of the Source, ooze forth from its orange flesh. Eventually their ends detach from the Source and hang loose below it. I reach up, take them in my hand. They are warm, pulsing. I scream as they burrow into the flesh of my hands and forearms, but the pain vanishes quickly.
The Source's energy flows into me unadulterated and I scream with pleasure.
Cale and Riven watched the dragon bury men and giants under the mountain of its form. Furlinastis roared with pain. Cale presumed that the force of his impact had caused many of the weapons borne by the men and giants crushed beneath him to penetrate his scales. Shadows swirled around the dragon. Dirt and soil formed a hillock in front of him by the time his body came to stop.
Cale saw Regg shouting orders, ordering his men and women to realign. Shadows churned around the surviving giants as they too tried to regroup. The shadowwalkers appeared amongst the Lathanderians, clots of darkness amidst their light.
Furlinastis lurched to his feet. Corpses and weapons impressed into his body dangled from the scales of his chest and abdomen. Blood leaked from a score of wounds, poured around a giant's sword that had been buried to its hilt in his chest. He extended his neck and roared his rage into the sky. He turned to face the giants. The Lathanderians rallied to either side of him.
"Where is Kesson Rel?" Riven said.
Before Cale could answer, a surge of unadulterated pleasure ran through him. He gasped, stopped, sought its source, found it in his mental connection with Magadon.
Mags? What happened? Where are you?
It is wonderful, Erevis, Magadon said, and his mental voice sounded as if it were floating. Power leaked into Cale's brain, images, memories, knowledge.
Cale shook his head to clear it, cursed.
"What is it?" Riven asked.
"Mags is at the Source. He's in Sakkors."
"What? How?"
Cale shook his head, blinking as his eyes started to water, as the tone of Magadon's mental impressions grew harsher. He grabbed his head in his hands, tried to hold it together.
Mags, get away from the Source. Don't do it. Don't.
When Magadon spoke again, his mental voice sounded deeper, harsh as a rasp. Don't? You fear the power I hold. You are a liar and a betrayer.
Cale endured the mental storm in his brain and said to Riven, "We have to get to him. He'll be lost."
"He's been lost a long time already," Riven said.
Cale glared at the assassin. "He's half a man. I'm not leaving him. If he were whole…"
He winced as more and more mental energy poured into his mind. Magadon was awash in power and enough of it was leaking through their mental connection that it made the veins in Cale's temple throb.
"He cannot be whole unless we kill Kesson," Riven said. "That first, then we help Mags. Otherwise you, me, and everyone else here dies. Then Sembia. Then the rest. You know it, Cale. You saw Ephyras."
Cale knew Riven was right, but he feared that Magadon, in his mentally wounded state, would be irretrievable if they didn't get to him soon. Meanwhile, the emptiness within him beckoned, expanded, opened wider, ate at him. Riven must have been feeling the same thing. They had to kill Kesson Rel or die.
"There," Riven said, and pointed across the plain, where they saw Rivalen and Kesson rise on shaky legs and face off.
Hang on, Mags.
The Source awakens fully, then awakens me fully. The hole in me is filled, the emptiness bridged. My mind is magnified. My power is amplified. Knowledge fills me. I swim in the warmth of the Source's mind, my mind one with it, my will one with it.