Shadowstorm by Kemp Paul S

that Talendar must have rehearsed an answer to the question a hundred times, but the rehearsed answer was a lie, and Talendar dared not speak it.
    “Speak now or you will die for holding your silence,” Rivalen commanded.
    Talendar bowed his head. He closed his eyes and winced as he spoke. “I wished to keep a secret from you, Nightseer. That is the reason. It was petty. I see that now. I—”
    “Turn around,” Rivalen ordered him.
    Talendar looked up sharply, his face pale. He licked his lips. “Nightseer, I apologize if—”
    “Turn around.”
    Talendar stared into Rivalen’s face, blinked, nodded, and slowly turned around. His body was as tense as a bowstring. The sound of his rapid breathing echoed off the stone walls of the hall. He stood hunched, awaiting his fate.
    For a moment Rivalen let him wonder what doom awaited him. He put a shadow-shrouded hand on the back of Talendar’s neck. The nobleman gave a start at the touch. Darkness streamed from Rivalen’s hand, wrapped around Talendar’s throat.
    “Nightseer, please,” Talendar said, his voice quaking.
    Rivalen caused the tendrils to tighten around Talendar’s throat. The nobleman gagged, grasped at them, but could not loosen their grip. Rivalen tightened them further and said, “The Lady smiles on secrets well kept, Dark Brother. But this was not such. Next time, consider well what you tell and what you do not… and why.”
    Rivalen would not kill Talendar—yet. He dispelled the shadowy tendrils and Talendar fell to the floor, coughing and gasping for air.
    “Forgive me, Nightseer,” he croaked.
    “Look upon that altar, Dark Brother. If you are guilty of another such lapse, I will see you laid across it and opened. You will enter Shar’s realm nor as her servant, but as her sacrifice.”
    Talendar, on all fours, stared at the altar and began to shake. In a quavering voice, he said, “Love is a lie. Only hate endures. Light is blinding…”
    Rivalen turned himself invisible and rode the shadows out of the temple to an alley on Temple Avenue. He appeared near a crowd of refugees—two couples with their children—huddled for warmth around a burning brazier.
    He moved past them and onto the avenue. Glowballs and burning braziers lit the street. The stars glowed between the notches of the towers, spires, chapels, and shrines of Selgaunt’s many gods. He noted each of them in turn—Leira, Milil, Sune, Oghma, Tymora, a handful of others.
    “All is fleeting,” he said to them.

CHAPTER FOUR
    18 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms
    Cale, Riven, and Magadon materialized on a grassy knoll in a light rain. Riven put his hands on his knees and coughed black phlegm until Cale thought the assassin would surely vomit. Magadon, looking like he might fall over at any moment, sagged to the ground. Cale, too, felt the life-draining effect of Furlinastiss breath. His breathing was ragged; he felt as if his chest were in a vise.
    “Are you all right?” he asked them. Riven nodded between coughs. Magadon took a deep breath and looked to Cale. “I am well.”
    They stood atop a low hill dotted with shrubs and a twisted tree that looked like a gallows. The ruins of the once grand city of Elgrin Fau crouched in the deeper darkness of the valley below.
    Creepers, stunted shrubs, and twisted trees overgrew the city’s ancient streets. The weathered hulks of stone buildings—once shops, residences, and temples—stood in silent rows like gravestones. Piles of rubble dotted the ruins here and there. Tall statues, worn featureless by the eons, stood sentinel over the silence.
    Even in death the city felt magisterial, with its grand arches, carved columns, and broad, pavestone plazas. Cale wished he could have seen it under the sun, filled with life.
    The temple of the Seekers of the Sun, its dome still intact, rose futilely into the darkness. After Kesson Rel had banished Elgrin Fau to the Plane of Shadow, the worshipers there had never again seen the sun. The followers