Paul S. Kemp - Erevis Cale 3 - Midnight's Mask

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lummeting from the tower, Cale perceived the

moment stretching. Air roared past his ears.

Shadows poured from his ﬂesh, no doubt trailing

after his fall like the tail of a comet.

Above him sounded the despondent, furious

wail of the Skulls and the crack of breaking

stone. The cavern was falling to pieces, smash-

ing the ruined Netherese city on the cavern ﬂoor.

Lightning and a baleful green beam split the air

beside him—ill-aimed spells from the Skulls.

Beside him, Magadon and Jak shouted as they

fell. He clutched each of their cloaks in one of

his hands. They clutched at him, whatever they

could grab. The shadows leaking from his ﬂesh

coalesced, enshrouded them.

The ﬂoor of the collapsing cavern rushed up to

CHAPTER 1

THE BEST LAID PLANS

6 • Paul S. Kemp

meet them. The moment was stretched to its limit; it was

ending. Cale had to act or die alongside his friends.

Cale felt the darkness around him the same way he felt

the air—a tangible sensation on his skin. Its touch was as

light and seductive as that of a lover. He always felt the

darkness now.

Opening his mind, he attuned himself to the cor-

respondence between the Prime Plane and the Plane of

Shadow, the link that lived in every shadow. He reached

for it, took it in his mental grasp and willed them all to

move from one plane to the other. At the same time, he

consciously dispelled the inertia of their fall.

Sound fell away. Darkness swallowed them. In the

span of a heartbeat they moved between worlds.

They found themselves lying face down on the cold,

damp stone of the Plane of Shadow. The Skulls were

gone; the ruins were gone. They were alone in the dark,

but alive.

The breath of his friends came in ragged gasps. The

slow drip of water sounded from somewhere. The air

smelled dank, pungent with some vague foulness.

Cale remained still for a moment as stabs of pain shot

through his body—the regenerative properties of his

shade ﬂesh closing the wounds Riven had inﬂicted on

him.

Riven.

Cale sat up, and as he did he remembered it all, or

thought he did. Riven’s betrayal had been planned, or at

least Cale thought it had. Unless he had dreamed it. . . .

Beside him, Magadon rolled over with a groan, still

breathing hard.

“Demon’s teeth,” the guide swore, and his voice echoed

loudly, jarring in the silence.

Beside Magadon, Jak sat up with a groan of his own.

He looked around blindly, eyes wide. “I can’t see a thing.

Cale?”

Cale had become so accustomed to his ability to see

Midnight’s Mask • 7

perfectly in darkness that he forgot that others could not.

The chamber was as dark as a devil’s heart, thick with the

black air of the Plane of Shadow.

“Here, little man,” he answered, and reached out a hand

to touch Jak’s shoulder. The halﬂing clutched his hand and

gave it a brief squeeze.

“I will get a light,” Magadon said. He unstrapped

his pack and searched for a sunrod. Cale remembered

that Magadon’s ﬁendish heritage allowed him to see in

the darkness, probably not as well as a shade, but well

enough.

Cale stood, wincing as the last of his wounds closed.

“Can the Skulls track us?” Magadon asked as he

searched his pack.

Cale had not considered that. “I don’t see how,” he said

after a moment’s thought. As far as he knew, his ability to

walk the shadows between worlds left no footprints.

The guide nodded, found the sunrod he sought within

his pack. He struck it on the chamber ﬂoor and the

alchemical substance on its tip ﬂared to life. He held

it aloft and lit the cavern—dimly. The darkness gave

ground only grudgingly.

Jak and Magadon blinked in the sudden illumination,

but Cale felt a part of him boil away in the sunrod’s light.

He refused to cover his eyes despite the sting. His shadow

hand, he was pleased to see, had not disappeared. Per-

haps only real sunlight could cause that.

“The Plane of Shadow,” Jak observed, eyeing their

surroundings. “But where this time? This is not where

we were before.”

A large natural cavern opened around them. Loose

stone and stalagmites covered the uneven ﬂoor. Irregu-

larly shaped holes in the walls opened onto tunnels

that led into darkness. An oily black substance clung in

patches to the stone. It shimmered in the sunrod’s light

like polished basalt. Water dripped from the stalactite-

dotted ceiling to fall into a dark pool in the center of the

8 • Paul S. Kemp

chamber. The pool was as black as jet. The air felt heavy

and still, threatening.

“Something akin to the Underdark but on the Plane

of Shadow, I would guess,” Magadon offered as he stood.

“Do not use the water to ﬁll your skins and do not touch

the walls. That’s some kind of lichen, but I’ve never seen

its like before.”

Jak nodded, his eyes thoughtful. He looked up at Cale.

“Are you are all right? The wounds, they’re healed?”

When Cale regarded him to answer, Jak recoiled

slightly but masked it quickly.

“Dark, but I cannot get used to the way your eyes look

here,” the little man said.

Cale felt himself ﬂush.

“I’m all right,” he said. He extended a hand and pulled

Jak to his feet. Cale put his ﬁngers through the hole Riven

had made in the front of his cloak and armor. He had simi-

lar holes in the back. The holes in his ﬂesh were closed.

“What about you two?”

Both Jak and Magadon were pale, exhausted, and

obviously wounded. Claw rakes had opened cloaks, rent

armor, and torn ﬂesh.

“I’m well enough,” Magadon said, and moved to the

edge of the pool. The guide knelt and stared at the water.

He dipped his ﬁngers, smelled them, and wiped them

clean on his breeches.

Jak said, “I am all right, too. We killed one of the

slaadi, Cale. The small one. The other one. . . .”

Magadon stood and ﬁnished for Jak. “In our hurry to

get to you, we left the other alive but enspelled. He may

have died in the cavern’s collapse.”

Cale doubted it, but kept his thought to himself.

“We should have killed him,” Jak said, and reached

into his belt pouch for his pipe. “Just to be sure.” He came

out with a wooden pipe, the one he had given to Riven,

the one Riven had thrown back at him atop the tower. He

must have picked it up before they ﬂed. He eyed it for a

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摘要：

lummetingfromthetower,Caleperceivedthemomentstretching.Airroaredpasthisears.Shadowspouredfromhisﬂesh,nodoubttrailingafterhisfalllikethetailofacomet.Abovehimsoundedthedespondent,furiouswailoftheSkullsandthecrackofbreakingstone.Thecavernwasfallingtopieces,smash-ingtheruinedNetheresecityonthecavernﬂoor...

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Paul S. Kemp - Erevis Cale 3 - Midnight's Mask

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