Free Shadowstorm by Kemp Paul S Page A

the movement too fast for the denial to be true. “No. I am just… pleased to see you whole.” “I am far from that, Cale.”
    Magadon’s words took Cale aback. “You have never called me ‘Cale.’ “
    Magadon shrugged and looked away. “No? It seems right.” Cale and Riven shared a look and Cale noticed Riven’s beard—it had grown substantially since they had left Cania. “Your beard,” Cale said. “And yours,” Riven said.
    Cale ran his hand over his face and felt several days’ growth on his cheeks.
    “What happened?”
    “Time distortion as we moved through planes,” Magadon said.
    “So what happened to the time?” Riven asked.
    “Lost to us,” Magadon said. “The same as … other things.” He kneeled into the fog and used the black water of the swamp to wash the filth and blood from his flesh. Demon scales, as red as pox, showed in irregular patches on his exposed skin. The tattoo on his bicep, the mark of his father, was stark on his otherwise pale skin. The scars that once had marred it were gone. Magadon touched his horns thoughtfully, frowning.
    Riven looked across the fog at Cale. “Why here?”
    Cale heard an accusation behind the question. “Because what I promised him is here. Or at least the trail is. It must be.”
    Riven touched the holy symbol at his throat and walked to Cale’s side.
    “He said you had promised it to another, that Mask would be displeased. What have you done, Cale?”
    Cale looked past Riven to Magadon. “What I had to. You’d have done the same.”
    Riven studied his face and his gaze flitted for a moment to Magadon. “Maybe.”
    Magadon stood. “I am here. Do not speak of me as if I am not.” The mindmage, clean of blood, approached them and offered Riven the dagger the assassin had given him on Cania.
    “Keep it,” Riven said.
    “I have a weapon,” Magadon said.
    “So you said,” answered Riven. “Keep it anyway.”
    Magadon shrugged, tucked the blade into his belt. He looked up into Cale’s face. “What did my father mean when he said you had promised it to another? To whom? I, at least, should know.”
    Cale stared into his friend’s pain-haunted white eyes, more certain than ever that he had done the right thing. “You both should know. And you will. But it is a long tale and this hardly seems the place for telling it. Let’s put some solid ground under our feet and get our bearings. Then I’ll tell you both everything. Well enough?”
    Riven looked skeptical.
    “Everything,” Cale emphasized.
    “Well enough, then,” Riven said.
    Magadon turned a circle, examined the lay of the land. Stinking water, tangles of trees, and patches of jagged reeds surrounded them. The fog-shrouded air muffled sound.
    “Place feels familiar,” Riven observed.
    Cale had been thinking the same thing. It hit him, then, but Magadon said it first. “It appears my father is not without a sense of humor. This is the same swamp where we first encountered Furlinastis.”
    Cale and Riven cursed. They had faced Furlinastis the shadow dragon once before. Cale had wounded him, but they had lived only because the dragon, citing a promise made long ago, had spared them. But he had promised, too, that he would kill them should they return to the swamp.
    Something thudded against Cale’s boot under the water, giving him a start. He stabbed down into the murk with Weaveshear but hit nothing. Tension gripped him.
    He started to speak, but an ominous hush fell. The swamp stilled. The chorus of insects ceased. The howling creatures retreated to their murky dens and fell silent. The air above them emptied of the flying creatures.
    “Dark,” Riven said. “Dark and empty.” The assassin held his blades and turned a circle.
    Cale did the same. Shadows leaked from Weaveshear.
    “He is coming,” Magadon said, his voice strangely flat. “Now.”
    Shadows poured from Cale’s flesh. He molded them with his mind into shadowy duplicates of himself that mirrored his