The temperature in the room dropped noticeably. Elyril could see her breath when she exhaled.
Volumvax touched the back of her head-he was not flesh, she realized, but shadow-and the touch filled her with such terror that it nearly stopped her heart.
Mask? The servants of the Shadowlord are afoot?
Elyril could not breathe, could not speak. An ache in her mind turned to a stab of pain, transformed to a flash of agony. She thought her eyes must pop out of her head. She screamed, but dared not look up.
Speak now, Dark Sister, or your heart stops after its next heat.
Her mouth was too dry. She nodded, tried to swallow.
Give me their names.
She nodded her head, gulped, croaked, "Erevis Cale and Drasek Riven, Lord Sciagraph."
Volumvax withdrew his touch and Elyril gasped with relief, sagged.
Time is short, priestess. Obtain the rest of the book. When it is whole, perform the ritual and summon the storm…
Elyril almost looked up but caught herself just in time. "Lord Sciagraph, I do not know how to find the rest of the book."
The Nightseer holds it, though he knows not what he holds.
Elyril did not process the words immediately. "The… Nightseer?"
It was I who arranged to put it into his hands through one of his underlings.
Elyril was unsurprised that Volumvax had kept the secret of the book from her. Such was the habit of Shar's inscrutable nature. She was pleased, however, that the Nightseer possessed it in ignorance.
Before Elyril could ask anything more, Volumvax's manifestation ended.
Too weak to stand, Elyril crawled back into her chair, her mind racing.
She thought it strange that the Lord Sciagraph had shown such anger at the mention of Mask. She thought it strange, too, that Shar and Volumvax seemed to be acting without the full knowledge of the other's activities. Did the Lord Sciagraph keep secrets even from the Lady of Loss? No. It was blasphemy.
Elyril put it from her mind and turned her thoughts to how she would obtain the rest of the book from the Nightseer.
Kefil said to her, You are imagining all of this. It was a dream.
"You lie," Elyril said, and held the book tightly against her body.
Rivalen returned to the darkness of his quarters and sat in a large armchair. Matters had progressed well with the Hulorn. Rivalen felt he could turn Tamlin to Shar whenever he wished. The boy's ambition ruled his morality. Rivalen liked that about him.
Cradling his holy symbol in his hands, he whispered the words to a spell that would allow him to send a short message to the Most High. When he felt the magical energy gather around him, he uttered the sending. "The Hulorn's trust has been earned and Selgaunt is ours when we wish. War in Sembia is inevitable."
The magic carried his words across Faerun, into the ears of the Most High. Rivalen awaited a response and it came quickly. He felt it as a buzzing in his ears followed by the whispered words of his father.
Perhaps the non-Shadovar who know you to have created this war should be dealt with?
Rivalen nodded. His own thoughts mirrored those of the Most High. He wanted the Hulorn to regard the Shadovar as saviors of his cause, not instigators of the war. Rivalen had taken care to ensure that only two non-Shadovar knew of Shar's involvement in starting the conflict-Elyril Hraven and Vees Talendar. He would be direct with Elyril. For Vees, he planned something unique. It did not please him to ponder the killing of a Dark Sister and Brother, but he would do it nevertheless.
The Most High continued, his voice harder. You have done well, Rivalen. Your mother would take pride in your accomplishments.
The words pulled Rivalen to his feet. The magical sending ended.
Shadows swirled around him, reflecting his concern. Jumbled thoughts careened around in his mind. The Most High's words echoed through his brain.
What had the Most High meant? He had never before mentioned Alashar in such a manner. Did the Most High know, or even suspect, that Rivalen had murdered Alashar at Shar's command? How could he have learned it? Rivalen had revealed the secret to no one. Only he and Shar knew it.
Rivalen replayed in his mind countless conversations he'd had with his father over the centuries, scouring them for hints. He remembered nothing that alarmed him and tried to put his mind at ease. His father could not have known. If he had, he would have killed Rivalen long ago. Unless…
Unless Shar herself had informed the Most High and at the same time commanded him to take no vengeance. Perhaps the Most High's Own Secret was that he knew the truth of Alashar's murder. For centuries he could have been looking upon Rivalen not as a son, but as the murderer of his beloved, his need for revenge held in check only by Shar's interdiction.
Rivalen tried to dismiss the thoughts as blasphemous. He reminded himself that he knew nothing for certain and wondered if he were not imagining threats. He had seen it often among Sharrans. A faith so reliant on secrets sometimes bred among the faithful mistrust and wild imaginings that bordered on madness. Still, his theory rang true to him.
"Why?" Rivalen asked the darkness. "Why betray your most powerful instrument?"
Shar gave him no answers. She never did.
But Rivalen saw an answer.
Shar wanted a wedge between the Most High and Rivalen. She had betrayed Rivalen to bring him closer to her. She wanted Rivalen beholden to her, wanted him to choose his faith over his city and his family, the same way Rivalen wanted the Hulorn beholden to him.
"I chose faith over family the day I murdered my mother, Lady."
The darkness held its silence, and its secrets.
Thoughtful, Rivalen removed an exquisitely crafted miniature chest from an inner pocket. Concentrating on it, he triggered its magic, and its mate, a full-sized chest exactly alike in appearance to the miniature, appeared on the floor at his feet.
He spoke the sequence of command words that discharged the protective wards he maintained on the chest, and used a minor spell to open its lock. He lifted the lid.
Coils of shadow leaked from the opening, carrying indecipherable whispers into the air. Within the chest lay The Leaves of One Night. He had taken to carrying it with him, rather than leaving it in the vault of the temple in Shade Enclave. It seemed right to have it near him.
He placed his hand atop the book's black cover, felt its coolness, felt the characters written on it shifting under his touch. He intoned a prayer to Shar and the book whispered in his mind.
He resolved that he would no longer secrete it on the ethereal plane. He wanted it closer to him, wanted Shar's words nearer his ears. The chest and the book would remain warded in his quarters or on his person. If Shar had something to say to him through the book, he wanted it close enough to him that he would hear.
CHAPTER SEVEN
21 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms
Cale, Riven, and Magadon materialized not at the center of the cemetery, as Cale had intended, but at its edge, just outside the low, crumbling stone wall that described its perimeter. Black moss clung to the wall and the still, damp air stank of old rot.
Within the wall, darkness gathered as thick as fog. Even with his shadesight, Cale could see only twenty paces through the miasma. In the distance he could just make out the dim, diffuse green glow of the gate. The distorting swirl of darkness and shadows made it appear leagues away. The flash flared and died, flared and died, like a heartbeat.
A city of crumbling gravestones, crypts, and mausoleums stood between them and the gate. Grass and weeds overgrew it all.
"There must be some kind of ward," Cale said, to explain why they had not materialized near the gate. Strangely, he felt little correspondence with the darkness inside the cemetery. He felt only the shadows and darkness very near him. He understood why. The cemetery's shadows belonged to another.