The flames from the fire behind her cast malformed shadows on the pale plaster wall opposite. The minddust darkened them, sharpened their lines. Elyril watched them dance and spin and tried to understand their truth.
What do they say? projected Kefil.
The enormous mastiff lay curled beside her, a mountain of black fur, muscle, and teeth.
They keep their secrets, she answered. Silence, now, Kefil.
Kefil sighed, licked her hand, and shifted position.
Elyril watched faces and shapes form and dissipate in the chaos on the wall. She willed them to speak, to give her wisdom. She wished to know the secret of the sign and the book to be made whole. She held her arms aloft, stirring the shadows, and whispered, "In the darkness of the night, we hear the whisper of the void."
Her words set the images to roiling. Dozens of faces formed momentarily in the darkness and leered at her from the wall. They said nothing, offered her no secrets, and her frustration grew. She shifted her position to change her perspective. Kefil groaned and rolled over on his back. Elyril inhaled another pinch of minddust and lit her senses on fire.
The wall darkened and the faces withdrew. Stillness ruled the room. She was alone in the darkness. The air thickened. She saw her heart beating in her shadow.
A diabolical face appeared on the wall and lunged out of the plaster to hang in the air before her-a devil sent her by Shar, or Volumvax. Horns jutted from the brow to shadow the malevolent eyes.
Elyril recoiled in surprise but recovered herself quickly.
"Speak," she ordered the image. "Where is the book to be made whole?"
The fiend licked its lips, mockingly smiled a mouthful of fangs, and spoke to her in a tongue that she could not understand, but with such power that the words nauseated her.
She knew there was truth in the speech, if she could only understand. She needed more minddust.
She reached for her tin of drugs, took a pinch between her fingers, and inhaled, but the face withdrew into the wall, smirking. She clenched her fists in anger.
"I do not understand!"
Her voice took physical form and bounced off the walls and around the room.
"… not understand… not understand…"
Kefil raised his head and looked around the room. To whom do you speak? The fire is long dead. There are no shadows on the wall.
"What? You lie."
But he did not. The fire behind her was dead. She was alone in the darkness. How long had she been sitting so? How could there have been shadows without the fire?
Kefil stood, sighed, and stretched. What is it you wish to understand, Mistress?
Elyril pulled a nearby wool blanket about her. The minddust made her skin sensitive and the blanket chafed. She threw it aside.
"The location of the book to be made whole. The nature of the sign."
So that you may free the Divine One?
Elyril smiled and nodded. "So that I may sit at his side as the Shadowstorm darkens the world."
Kefil scratched his ear with a hind leg. Perhaps you will never know the location of the book or the nature of the sign. Perhaps Shar will keep this secret from you always. Perhaps not knowing will drive you mad.
Elyril glared at the mastiff.
"And perhaps I shall make a rug from your pelt."
Kefil said nothing more.
Elyril spent the rest of the night praying and trying to wrest information from the darkness. But Shar held her secrets, and the truth of events lay just beyond Elyril's reach.
CHAPTER TWO
15 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms
The slim stone towers and high walls of the Abbey of Dawn perched atop a rise in southeastern Sembia, not far from the coast of the Dragon Sea. The three tapered spires of the abbey's east-facing chapel gave the impression of reaching for the heavens, of something about to take flight. The polished limestone walls and accents of rose-colored stone glittered in dawn's light. A pear orchard and a patchwork of barley and vegetable fields stood within the shadow of the walls-the harvest had already been brought in-and beyond that lay only the whipgrass of the plains, clusters of yellow and purple wildflowers, and copses of larch and ash. The winding wagon path that meandered through the plains from Rauthauvyr's Road to the north was barely visible in the swaying grass. Few used the path. The abbey served as a cloister for servants of Lathander and was almost entirely self-sufficient. Most who came spent years there.
As an adolescent, Abelar had worked the barley and turnip fields, carted bushels of pears from the orchard to the abbey, drawn water from the wells. The work had taught him the value and nobility in a day's hard labor.
As a man, he had stood watch on the abbey's walls and rode forth with his fellows of the Order of the Aster to do battle against darkness. His time in the Order had taught him the value of strong steel and courageous men and women.
But those days seemed far in the past. He had been away from the abbey for months. Schism had rent Lathander's church, had taken root in the abbey, and Abelar had been declared unwelcome. It saddened him that the abbey at which he had sworn his life to Lathander had become a kiln where heresy was hardened and the Morninglord's faith weakened.
"Abelar?"
Abelar's mind returned to the present. He sat atop his mare, Swiftdawn, amid the whispering grass, perhaps half a league from the abbey. The wagon path stretched before him. The rising sun warmed his cheek.
"You spoke?" Abelar asked Regg, who sat beside him on his roan mare, Firstlight.
"I asked if you were certain of this course," Regg said.
Road dust covered Regg's cloak and plate armor, and several days' growth of beard covered his cheeks. Regg eyed the abbey the way he might a skittish colt. Like Abelar, Regg also served Lathander, but he had not taken rites at the Abbey of Dawn.
Abelar nodded. "I am certain."
Regg's mare, sweaty and road weary, turned a circle and snorted in the cool air. Abelar's mare, too, snorted. Perhaps they smelled a wolf in the wind. Abelar stroked Swiftdawn's neck and whickered. She tossed her head but calmed.
Abelar and Regg had left the rest of the men in a village to the northwest and journeyed to the abbey alone. Abelar had been concerned that his appearance at the head of an armed force would be misconstrued. He had come to mend the rift as best he could. He needed to persuade with words, not weapons.
"Swiftdawn and Firstlight do not share your resolve," Regg said, patting his nervous mare.
"Our brethren are within that abbey, Regg."
Regg stilled Firstlight and scoffed. "Brethren? They are Risen Sun heretics. They look for their so-called Deliverance while the world collapses around them. What have they done since Mirabeta took power? Even Morninglord Duskroon in Ordulin sits idle. His silence ratifies Mirabeta's claims to power. I hardly recognize our faith, Abelar. Those who lead it are fools."
Abelar shook his head. "Lathander leads it, Regg. But some who follow have lost their way. They are misguided, but not fools. They will heed us. They will see the light."
He hoped that saying the words would make them so. The Risen Sun heresy had originated months ago and spread like a wildfire among many of Lathander's clergy, including those at the abbey. The heretics asserted that the Deliverance, an event in which the Morninglord would remake himself as the ancient sun god Amaunator, was imminent. The heretics so focused on gaining new converts and preparing the way for the Deliverance, which they presumed would not only remake Lathander but also usher in a new era of worship and hope, that they lost sight of the church's duty to Faerun. They wanted Lathander to change the world for them, rather than changing it themselves in Lathander's name.