"More gates," Magadon said, and nodded behind them at the curtain they had stepped through. "This one comes from Elgrin Fau. What of the others, I wonder?"
"Some kind of nexus," Cale said.
"A planar crossroads," Magadon said, nodding. "But to what purpose?"
Riven oathed softly and pointed a blade at the sky.
Cale looked up to see dark clouds streaking by so rapidly that they looked smeared across the sky. Lightning ripped the heavens, a sudden storm of bolts that flashed so fast and frequently that the entire sky looked veined with them. It made Cale dizzy to look upon it.
As fast as it had started, it ceased.
"What in the Nine Hells?" Riven asked, blinking from the flashes.
Magadon squinted up at the sky. "Clouds streaking past. An entire lightning storm in a heartbeat." He looked at Cale and Riven, thoughtful. "Time is passing differently here relative to the outside."
"But where exactly is 'here'?" Cale said,
"Doesn't matter," Riven said. "We're not staying for a visit. We find Kesson Rel, kill him, get clear."
Before Cale could respond, a bass voice from their left said, "If that is your intent, then you are tardy. Kesson Rel has been dead these thousands of years. Well, thousands of years as time passes outside the Calyx."
Out of the gloom of the walkway to their left stepped an enormous form. The towering, gray-skinned giant looked like a man but stood three times Cale's height. Black eyes looked out from a gaunt, craggy face that could have been carved from stone. Long white hair contrasted with the shadows that clung to his form. Disproportionately long arms dangled almost to the giant's knees. He wore no armor, but his gray flesh looked hard enough to turn a blade. The hilt of a sword stuck out over his shoulder. A leather bag that could have contained a man hung from his side.
Cale and Riven backed up a step but held their blades at the ready. The giant's eyes lingered over Weaveshear.
"Your weapons are unnecessary," the giant said.
"We will see," Riven answered, and slowly spun his sabers.
"Name yourself," Cale demanded.
The giant inclined his head. "I am Esmor. And you are the Right and Left hands of the Shadowlord. This place is the Adumbral Calyx. The Divine One rules here, not Kesson Rel. I will take you to him and he will explain matters."
Cale had never heard of the Divine One or the Adumbral Calyx.
Before Cale could respond, another giant stepped out of the gloom to their right. The damned creatures walked the shadows as easily as Cale. The newcomer looked similar to Esmor in appearance, except that his pate was bald.
"I've got left," Cale said to Riven, and kept his face to Esmor.
"I've got right," Riven said, and took position before the other giant.
Esmor nodded at the second giant. "This is Murgan."
"Greetings, Right and Left," Murgan said.
Esmor said, "Murgan will accompany us to the spire."
Magadon's black-streaked mindblade flared into existence. The giants blinked in the sudden flash of yellow light.
"We have not yet agreed to go anywhere with you," Magadon said.
A flash of anger showed in Esmor's black eyes but he reined it in quickly. Cale did not like the look of it.
"But you must," Esmor said. "The Divine One wishes you brought to him."
Cale kept Weaveshear at the ready. Darkness leaked from its tip. "You named us the Right and Left. How did you know that?"
The giant adopted an affected smile. Everything about the creature was false.
"The Divine One knows many things," he answered.
Cale looked to Riven, to Magadon, back to the giant. "Take us to him."
Esmor looked at Murgan and something passed between them. Both seemed pleased. Murgan brandished a thin shaft of black crystal and pointed it at the tower. A thin ray of darkness shot from the wand, hit the tower near a large doorway, and stuck to it. The ray broadened and thickened until a flat expanse of shadow stretched from the walkway to the tower, forming a bridge.
"Move quickly," Esmor said, and stepped onto the span.
Cale, Riven, and Magadon followed, blades still at the ready. Murgan brought up the rear and boxed them in. Cale looked back to see the bridge disappearing behind them as they moved along it. There would be no retreat.
Other bridges formed suddenly, extending from the other platforms of the octagon to the spire. More giants walked across them. The creatures seemed to have been stationed at the other platforms.
The giants had been waiting for them, Cale realized. He hurriedly signaled Riven in handcant. The giant lies.
Riven shot back, Agreed. This is an ambush.
Cale felt a familiar tingle under his scalp-Magadon's mind link. The connection opened and Magadon said, I do not trust them.
He is a liar, Cale said. And this is a trap. They were waiting for us at the gates. Look at them all. They knew we were coming but not where we were coming from.
How do we play it? Riven asked.
Cale shook his head. He did not have enough information.
The carrion birds are gathering, Riven said, nodding at the sky, at the gathering cloud of shadows that swooped and wheeled above them, red eyes burning. Hundreds more wheeled around the spire.
Mags, can you get inside Esmor's head without him knowing?
Surface thoughts, Magadon said. Any deeper and he will know.
Do it, Cale said. He needed to know more about their situation.
He could sense even this, Magadon said.
They were halfway to the spire. The basin glimmered below them. Undead shadows whirled above. The roiling black pit under the spire continued to birth its abominations.
Do it anyway, Cale said, and readied himself for things to get ugly. Beside him, Riven tensed. Cale felt a slight pressure in his head, indicating that the mindlink had gone quiescent.
Magadon did not break stride, merely closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment. Esmor scratched at his ear but otherwise showed no sign that he sensed the mental intrusion.
Cale felt the tingle of the reactivated mindlink.
The Divine One is Kesson Rel, Magadon said. And he plans to ambush us within the tower.
Elyril awakened, still groggy from minddust, to an irritating tickle on her ring finger. She lay in dim lanternlight in her room in Yhaunn. Kefil snored on the floor at the side of her bed. The book brought her by Shar's agent lay beside her and her hand rested on it protectively. The fire in the hearth had burned down to embers. She sat up and hung her legs off the bed. Her head felt as if it had been beaten by maces.
Nightseer?
Dark Sister, Rivalen answered.
Elyril shook her head to clear it. I was sleeping, Nightseer. I-
I know, Dark Sister.
His words and tone snapped Elyril to clarity. How could he have known she was sleeping?
You have well served the Lady of Loss, Rivalen said. War is now inevitable in Sembia.
The Nightseer's praise left her unmoved. She served him only until she could wrest from him the remainder of the book to be made whole. Then, she would usher in the Shadowstorm and serve Shar beside the Divine One. Then, the Nightseer would bend his knee to her. She smiled, reached back, and ran her fingertips over the book.
The Shadowstorm, too, is inevitable, Nightseer.
It is, Rivalen agreed. Your work is done now.
Elyril cocked her head, puzzled by the comment. Nightseer?
You know the provenance of the war, Dark Sister. That secret must be kept.
She sat up straight, troubled. I will keep it, Nightseer.
I know.
The tickle on Elyril's finger turned to a twinge, an ache, a sting. She exclaimed, jumped to her feet, and pulled at the ring. She could not so much as turn it. It felt grafted to the bone of her finger. Her heart raced.