Mistress of the Night - Don Bassingthwaite [43]
Clarity filled his mind, a perfect void from which he saw everything around him. Shar was with him. The Lady of Loss was ready to guide his hands, to inspire him with certainty like night itself.
The clarity only lasted a moment, but Keph knew it would linger on in his heart. He looked up at Variance.
"I did it," he gasped. "I called on Shar." He sucked in another breath and elation burst inside of him. "I cast a spell!" Variance reached down a hand to help him up, but he just grabbed it and kissed her fingers. "Thank you!"
"Don't thank me," said Variance. "Thank the Dark Goddess."
The priestess was smiling, however. She twisted her hand, reversing the grip, and pulled Keph to his feet with surprising strength.
The shadows she had summoned dispersed. The cultists surrounded them. They were staring in awe-at him, Keph realized. Shar's newest devotee had suddenly surpassed them all.
Bolan was staring as well, though not in awe. His eyes were dark, cold pits in his flawless face. Keph flinched back from his anger, but Variance met the priest's gaze boldly.
"Have respect, Bolan," she said. "You may be looking at your successor."
Bolan's face didn't move, but he managed to turn his response into a sneer. "A tiny magic, Keph. Do you think it will be enough to save you when a Selunite werewolf goes for your throat?"
There was more than disdain in his voice, though. Maybe it was some lingering touch of clarity, but Keph was certain that he heard a trace of fear as well.
He laughed.
A shadow flickered over Bolan's face and he whirled away. Variance's hand tightened on Keph's.
"Don't mock him," she said. "He's right. An orison is nothing."
"No," said Keph, "it's everything." He bowed deeply to her. "Ask me anything, Variance, and I would do it. That's the debt I owe you."
His heart and soul were alive, burning with a fierce, dark joy. Maybe it had been only an orison, but it meant that Strasus was wrong. He had magic.
CHAPTER 6
Your lies have given the boy confidence," Bolan observed.
Variance turned from watching the tunnel down which Keph and the other cultists had departed. Keph was laughing and joking with the cultists he knew, the ones Jarull had introduced him to. The energy within the young man was raw. He would do something dark that night and call it an honor to Shar. She felt a certain pride.
"Which bothers you more, Bolan?" she asked. "His confidence or my lies?
"His confidence," the alchemist said promptly. "It's unseemly. Shar teaches hopelessness and desperation. 'Never follow hope or turn to success, for such things are doomed. Do not strive to better yourself or plan for the future, for the future shall be bleak.'"
Variance looked down at the squat man and said, "That self-defeating dogma is suitable for devotees, but not for priests. If we didn't seek to better ourselves, of what service would we be to Shar? If we can't hope for success, why bother trying?"
Bolan's face betrayed nothing.
"Your lies, then," he said after a moment.
"If lies truly bother you, you have no business being a priest."
Variance walked back toward the altar Bolan had constructed. For a makeshift temple, his creation was actually respectable. The darkness of Shar was true in him.
"It's not the lies as such that bother me," Bolan said as he stomped after her. "His faith is hollow." "His faith is real, Bolan."
"He spoke no oath. You should at least have allowed me that!" He caught her arm, turned her around, looked her in the eye, and said, "And he cast no spell. That was your doing. I could sense it. He can no more work divine magic than he can arcane."
Variance shrugged. "I wasn't lying when I said his will was strong. With time, maybe he could enter Shar's priesthood. But for now-" she gave the stunted man the faintest of smiles-"he is unmarked. Keph is with Shar, but not o/Shar. He can do things we can't, yet we have a hold over