No, Avnon thought; shaking his head. His visions had shown no such divine displeasure, and he and all of the other priests-aspirants, initiates, and members of the conclave alike-still could call upon the Shadow God for spells. Their god had not abandoned them.
Not now, he thought, not ever.
Kesson Rel had dared drink from the Chalice. As punishment, the Shadow God had marked him an apostate by transforming his flesh. But the god's purpose was inscrutable to Avnon. Perhaps the god wanted to test the temple priests by seemingto favor Kesson for a season. Perhaps he wanted to determine which of them was the stronger: Avnon and the orthodoxy, or Kesson Rel the heretic.
Of course, Avnon already knew the answer. None of the temple's priests could stand against the theurge. Kesson had been the First among them, and after his blasphemy, Avnon had stepped into the theurge's sandals only with reluctance. Avnon was but a simple priest. Kesson commanded both arcane and divine magic, with a skill and power unmatched by any. Even collectively, the entire conclave could not defeat the theurge. Nor could they defeat the dragon that Kesson had recruited to do his bidding. The huge reptile came 'daily' to collect the tithe of flesh that Kesson took as recompense for his excommunication. Avnon had no doubt that each priest so taken died horribly, and that Kesson Rel gloated over the kills.
Why did the Shadow God permit it? Avnon wondered. He had no answer. His faith was failing. Would they all die there, on the barren plains of a dim, shadowy hell? So it appeared.
The conclave had attempted to open a portal back to their own world, but it appeared that Kesson Rel had anchored them to the Plane of Shadow when he moved the temple there. The conclave also had discussed fleeing the temple, spreading out and taking their chances on the gloomy plains. But none had been able to get farther than two hundred paces in any direction before bumping up against an invisible force that forbade further travel. The theurge had bound them fully and completely to that single world, to that single temple, on a clump of dark ground as wide as a long crossbow shot. They were penned animals awaiting their turn at the slaughter. The theurge meant to see them all dead, Avnon knew, and he wanted them to die with terror and faithlessness in their hearts.
At first Avnon and his fellow demarchs had tried to resist the dragon's assault with force of arms and spells. But their incantations and weapons bounced harmlessly off the creature's scales. The dragon had taken care not to kill anyone, but the priests had been and remained powerless to stop the creature. Terror went before it in a wave so powerful that even the most senior of the priests cowered at the dragon's approach.
Each day, the unstoppable reptile left the temple with a single priest grasped in its claws, and over time the demarchs had learned helplessness. Their faith was not failing; it had already failed. Avnon saw it in their eyes. If it had not been ingrained in them by their oaths, Avnon thought his fellow priests might have taken their own lives rather than endure the agony of watching death inevitably approach. But watch they did, and each awaited the daily return of the reptile and its dire pronouncement. They had not attempted to understand the dragon's speech. They understood enough. The reptile spoke the name of Kesson Rel, and the name of the doomed.
Thirty-five already had been claimed. The next day, the dragon would come for the thirty-sixth. After that, only the conclave would remain.
Kesson had saved the choicest morsels for last.
Avnon sat in the solitude of his meditation cell. His fellow priests had went to do as they would as they waited for death. Some slept, some prayed, some milled aimlessly about. Unprepared to surrender, unwilling to believe that the Shadow God would leave them helpless before the theurge, Avnon sought a vision. He was the Seer of the Demarch Conclave and his faith could not be shaken, even by recent events. Surely the Shadow God would provide a means to save at least some of his faithful.
Avnon sent his consciousness inward, found his center, and made his mind an open vessel.
With a suddenness that caused his body to spasm, he began to see.
Wings beat in the dark, reptilian scales sprouted mouths lined with teeth, Kesson Rel railed in the shadows, souls floated free in a swamp. He sensed motion, and knew he was seeing time and worlds pass him by. There, in another time, he saw the swamp again, bigger, darker. In it stood two men, a tall, bald man with flesh like Kesson Rel who held in one hand a blade of black steel that leaked shadows, and a smaller, one-eyed man who wielded twin blades. Avnon sensed that, like him, they too served the Shadow God. Together, they faced a dragon-the dragon-but the huge reptile was swathed not only in shadows but in…
Avnon came out of the vision in a startled rush. Sweat covered his clammy skin. His breath came hard. He understood then the purpose of his god, and it frightened him.
Kesson Rel was not a heretic. Nor were the priests of the Hall of Shadows. Both served the Shadow God, and as Avnon had thought, the god wanted to determine which of his servants was the stronger. But the determination was not between Kesson Rel and the demarchs of the temple. It was between Kesson Rel and the two men Avnon had seen in his vision.
Avnon and his fellow demarchs were to play a role in setting up that contest. They were one more challenge for Kesson Rel to face. They were allies of the two men in the vision. He felt stunned by the realization and its implications. For a fleeting moment, but only a moment, he felt betrayed by his god.
And yet he remembered the image of the enshrouded dragon.
With a sigh, he accepted his fate. Men of faith must always suffer, and many men had suffered worse than he would. Besides, he found it distantly satisfying to think that he could die in service to his god's plan. He could die to live.
For the time being, he needed to speak with his fellow priests, to convince them of what they must do. They would not like what he was going to demand but they would do it anyway. He was the First Demarch of the Conclave, and it was the only way.
After he spoke with his fellows, he would need to speak to the dragon.
Below, Furlinastis saw the temple. It sat alone in the barren plains, a rectangle of black-veined marble slabs and fluted columns. As he swooped a wide circle through the dark sky, the few humans outside the temple scurried inside, terrified.
Furlinastis took scant pleasure in their fear. His anger at his bondage denied him even that. For the thirty- sixth time, he ground his fangs against each other and struggled against the soul spell that bound him. For the thirty-sixth time, he failed to overcome the compulsion. The small piece of Kesson Rel's being that infected his soul forced him to obey his charge.
He roared in futile rage as he spiraled downward toward the temple. Still fighting, still failing, he alit and sank his claws into the marble stairs, threw open the huge bronze doors, and spoke his pronouncement into the darkened doorway:
'Kesson Rel sends you greetings, and death. I am sent to retrieve one of your number. Send forth Lorm Diivar. He is the next to die.'
The temple was quiet. Furlinastis waited, gouging his claws into the marble of the temple's stairway.
After a time, not one but two priests emerged. Both wore the black masks symbolic of their faith. Furlinastis smelled the fear on both of them. They had not come to fight. The elder of the two held an arm around the younger and spoke soothingly to him. Pale and weak, the young priest looked up at the dragon.
The power of Kesson Rel's soulbinding allowed Furlinastis to know that the younger of the priests was Lorm Diivar. He extended a foreclaw.
The older priest stepped before younger and said, 'My name is Avnon Des the Seer, First Demarch of the Conclave. What is your name, dragon? Are you bound?'
Furlinastis cocked his head. The priests of the temple had never before attempted to communicate with him. He started to answer but the soul magic compelled him to be about his task. He brushed aside the elderly priest and caught Lorm Diivar up.
The young priest went limp in his grasp. Perhaps he was praying. Furlinastis could not tell.
'Maintain your faith, aspirant,' the elderly priest called up to Lorm. 'Your death is not in vain, nor is our exile here.'
Lorm made no reply that Furlinastis could see. He prepared to take wing.
'I see the soul of Kesson Rel on you, dragon,' said the elderly priest. 'If you would be free of it, the name you pronounce tomorrow must be mine. Do you understand?'
Furlinastis could not reply, though the priest's words struck him like arrows. Free! He leaped into the air and spread his wings. The elderly priest's voice haunted his flight.
