by Paul S. Kemp
A striking woman with short blonde hair, a strong mouth, and crows’ feet around her intelligent eyes, she took them in and raised her eyebrows in question. Before she could speak, Brelgin bowed slightly, indicated Cale, and said in a whisper, “Priest Librarian Elaena, this is Erevis Cale.”
She set down her writing quill, rose with austere dignity, and nodded solemnly at Cale. “Well met, Mister Cale.”
“Priestess.”
“Priest, Mister Cale. Our titles are the same, irrespective of gender.”
Cale bowed. “Of course.”
Brelgin continued, “Forgive the intrusion during your study hours, Priest Librarian, but Mister Cale wishes to see Jak Fleet. He’s …” Brelgin cast a sidelong glance at Cale, “a friend.”
Surprised by Brelgin’s acknowledgment and soft tone, Cale gave him a grateful nod.
Priest Librarian Elaena smiled and looked right through Cale. “Of course he is.” She covered the inkpot she had been using, marked her place in her tome with a flat, silver rod, and started to walk off. “Follow me, gentlemen, we’ve moved him to a room usually used for transient brethren traveling through the city and staying for only a short while.” Cale and Brelgin followed.
Walking with a deliberateness that wasn’t quite grace, the priest librarian led them through a confusing maze of narrow, candlelit corridors and rooms. Books, scrolls, and tapestries abounded. The place seemed near to bursting with the written word. Cale would have loved to stop and look, but couldn’t for worry for his friend.
Elaena took them down a flight of spiral stairs until they reached what Cale took to be the residence hall of the temple. She walked to one of the paneled doors that lined the hall at intervals and knocked softly. After a moment, another tonsured acolyte opened the door and stuck his head out.
“Greetings, Aret,” the priest librarian said. “Only knowledge is lasting.”
“Greetings, Priest Librarian,” the acolyte responded. “Only learning is worthwhile.”
Apparently satisfied with the acolyte’s ritual response, the priest librarian indicated Cale and Brelgin. “They have come to see Mr. Fleet.”
Aret the acolyte, a slightly overweight young man with a soft face and softer eyes, nodded and stepped out of the room. “I’m afraid there hasn’t been much change,” he said to Brelgin.
The Harper leader nodded solemnly but otherwise made no reply.
“We’ll leave you alone,” announced the priest librarian. “Stay as long as you like. Come with me, Aret.”
With that, the priest turned and walked back down the hall, Aret in tow. Apprehensive, Cale walked into the room. Brelgin followed and closed the door behind them.
Covered in sweat-soaked sheets, Jak lay unconscious on a plain wooden bed and straw-filled mattress. Cale took a deep breath and approached the bed slowly. The little man’s ashen face looked drawn and thin. The Deneirrath must have been force feeding him bread and water, but little more. He looked to have lost considerable weight. His red hair lay pasted by sweat against his scalp and his breathing came in irregular, ragged heaves. The little man’s plight reminded Cale so much of Thazienne lying stricken in her bed at Stormweather that he had to steady himself with the headboard to avoid falling down.
“What happened to him?” Cale asked, though he already suspected the answer.
Brelgin stood beside him and looked down on the bed. “He stumbled into the safehouse a tenday ago, incoherent, babbling about the night with yellow eyes. Then he fell unconscious. He’s been like this ever since. The priest librarian says his body is whole. It’s his soul that’s wounded. They haven’t been able to do anything for him.”
Cale heard the genuine concern for Jak in Brelgin’s commanding voice. The tall Harper leader cared for the little man. He also heard in Brelgin’s description confirmation of his theory. Jak had been attacked by the demon, too.
“The night with yellow eyes, Brelgin,” Cale observed. “A wounded soul. That can only be the shadow demon. I’ve seen it. It has yellow eyes and it feeds on human souls.” He banished the image of those hate-filled, ochre orbs and turned to face the Harper leader. Cale tried to keep the self-righteousness out of his voice. “Looks like the demon is a Harper problem after all.”
Brelgin looked taken aback at that. His gaze went back and forth from Jak to Cale, his face flushed red. Abashed, he fumbled with an explanation.
“It’s not that I don’t want to help you, Cale. Really. I would if I could.” His voice lowered to an intense whisper and he unconsciously made helpless gestures with his hands. “But I’ve got only a handful of agents in the city.” He nodded knowingly when Cale shook his head and began to protest. “I know what the rumors say, Cale. I helped spread most of them. We need our rivals to think our numbers large, but the truth is I’ve got less than ten operators at my disposal.” He shook his head as though inwardly reaffirming his decision. “I just can’t risk them hunting a demon. This city has too many other problems.”
Cale considered that. He stared at Brelgin thoughtfully, took a new measure of the man who just had taken such a great risk by offering sensitive information to an outsider. “I understand,” Cale said after a moment, and gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. “We all do what we have to.”
Brelgin nodded but said nothing.
I’ll do it alone, then, Cale thought, and tried to ignore the nervous flutter that churned his stomach. He only now realized how much he had been counting on Jak’s assistance, and company. I would have welcomed your sense of humor, my friend, he thought with a smile.
He bent over the little man’s bed and wiped the sweat from his forehead. Despite the perspiration, Jak’s skin felt ice cold. Cale fluffed the feather pillow and pulled the coarse wool blanket up under the little man’s whiskered chin. There was nothing else he could do here.
This is one more debt I’m going to make you account for, Yrsillar, he vowed.
He stood, but placed a hand on Jak’s clammy forehead before leaving. “Get well, my friend.” With that, he turned to leave. Brelgin grabbed him gently by the bicep.
“What now?” asked the Harper leader.
Cale almost laughed aloud. “Now,” he replied grimly, “I’m going back to the guildhouse and collecting on a debt.”
“Alone?”
“Alone. I’ve got no one else.” And nothing more to lose, he thought.
He had a brief flash of hope when he thought Brelgin might change his mind and offer him Harper aid. After a brief inner struggle that Cale could see written on his stern face, the Harper leader merely nodded. He did not meet Cale’s eyes.
“Tymora favor you,” Brelgin said, obviously uncomfortable.
Cale chuckled mirthlessly. “I’ll be looking for the blessings of darker gods than Lady Luck, Brelgin. I appreciate the thought, though.” He turned and strode for the door.
A weak, hoarse voice stopped him.
“Cale.”
Jak! He whirled around to see the halfling’s eyes flutter open. Jak struggled to blink away a tenday of sleep from his eyes and focus on Cale.
“Little man!” Cale exclaimed.
“Fleet!” Brelgin shouted. Both rushed to Jak’s bedside.
Seeing the surprising sight of Brelgin standing beside Cale, Jak gave a weak smile. “The room doesn’t seem big enough for both of you at once.” His green eyes fixed laughingly on Cale. “You become a Harper while I was out?” He chuckled, but his laughter turned into a fit of wet coughing. Alarmed, Cale shoved Brelgin toward the door.
“Get the priest librarian, man!”
“Right,” the Harper leader agreed, and shot out of the room.
After the coughing fit had passed, Jak’s hand came out from under the blanket and fumbled for Cale’s wrist. The skin of his hand already felt warmer. “There was a shadow, Erevis,” he croaked. “It … t-t-touched m-me.” Jak began to shudder, uncontrollable trembles that shook his small body from head to toe.
“Easy Jak, easy.” Cale tucked the
blankets tighter about the halfling. He placed a comforting hand on Jak’s shoulder and waited for the shuddering fit to pass. When it did, Cale looked his friend in the face.
“I’ve seen the shadow too, Jak,” he said. “It attacked Stormweather last night. And it touched me too.”
He had been prepared to leave it at that, but Jak’s eyebrows rose with an unspoken question.
“It was bad,” Cale acknowledged with a nod and a sigh. “Right in the middle of a celebration. No weapons allowed, the house guard ill prepared, lots of drink. The demon came with a pack of ghouls and swarmed the house. Lots of people were killed …”
He trailed off, remembering. Jak squeezed his hand to bring him back to himself. “But none of the Uskevren, thankfully. Thazienne was hurt by the demon, like you. But she’s going to be all right. And so are you.” By saying it aloud, he hoped he made it more likely.
“Dark,” Jak breathed. “I’m sorry, Cale. I know how you feel about her.” He patted Cale’s hand sympathetically.
“I know where the demon is. I’m putting an end to it tonight.”
Jak’s tired eyes went wide at that, but before he could say anything, Brelgin and Priest Librarian Elaena ran into the room.
Surprised, Elaena stopped halfway to the bed. “The Scribe’s quill,” she oathed. “It truly is a miracle. Even the High Scrivener’s prayers have been unable to help. What did you do?” she asked Cale.
“Nothing,” he replied. Cale looked at his hand, the hand he had touched Jak with and wished him to be well. “Nothing …”
“A miracle then,” she said perfunctorily. Her hand went to the golden holy symbol of Deneir that hung about her neck. She caressed it lightly, mouthed a prayer under her breath, and approached the bed.
Stepping in front of Cale, she began immediately to fuss with Jak like a mother hen tending her chick—she felt his forehead, held his wrist, put her ear to his chest, pulled up his eyelid—
“Hey!”
Cale smiled. Jak would recover fine.
After a few more prods and protesting squeals, Priest Librarian Elaena stood, placed a finger to her lips, and cocked her head thoughtfully. “I can’t explain it,” she said with a smile. “But he is recovered. He still needs rest but—don’t sit up, young man,” she ordered Jak, who had kicked off the blankets and was trying to sit upright.
Stubborn as always, Jak ignored her and sat up. His green eyes found Cale. “I’m with you, Cale. When you go after this thing, I want to be with you.”
Cale started to deny him but stopped before the words reached his tongue. If their situation had been reversed—if he had been wounded but knew that Jak was going into danger alone—Cale would have made the same offer. That’s what friends did for one another. He would not diminish their relationship with a refusal. Besides, deep in his heart, he wanted Jak with him.
“I’m with you,” Jak insisted again.
Cale looked to Brelgin. The Harper leader did not meet his eye and kept his stern face expressionless. Cale looked back to Jak.
“All right,” he said with a grateful smile. “You’re with me.”
Instantly, he felt lighter. He would not have to face Yrsillar alone. Jak would stand with him.
Jak smiled and hopped to the floor. His legs wobbled but he steadied himself with the bed and kept his feet beneath him.
“Stop right there,” commanded Elaena in the stern tone of a person used to being obeyed. She shot a glare at Cale. “I will not allow him to leave here and go running about the city doing gods-only-knows with you. He is still not well.” She turned and pushed a protesting Jak back into the bed. “You still need rest, young man.”
“Priest—” Jak objected.
“Enough, woman,” Cale said firmly, and interposed himself between them. “Enough. He’s not a boy.”
“That’s right,” Jak piped.
Jak’s high-pitched, indignant tone brought a smile to both Cale and Elaena. “We’ll wait until tomorrow,” Cale assured her, “but we’ve got business after that. All right?”
She must have seen the resolve in his face. “All right,” she reluctantly agreed.
Brelgin, too, must have seen Cale’s resolve. Without a word, he walked from the room.
Now dressed in his street clothes and equipped with his gear, Jak stopped talking in order to shovel in more of the bread, cheese, and dried meat the Deneirrath acolytes had set before him on a small table. Famished, Cale helped himself to some of the board as well. Brelgin had considerately left them alone.
“You know,” Jak said around a mouthful of goat cheese, “I could use a spell to summon up a better meal than this.”
Cale shook his head while tearing into a piece of peppered jerky. “This is fine. Save your strength.”
Jak nodded agreement and continued to eat. When only crumbs remained, he eased back in his chair, pulled his pipe from a belt pouch, tamped, and lit up. Cale found the smell of the little man’s tobacco comfortingly familiar.
“Yrsillar,” Jak said thoughtfully. He pronounced the name as though it left a bad taste in his mouth. “And he’s in the Night Knife guildhouse? With another demon?”
Cale nodded and the little man let out a low whistle.
“It’ll be a hard go,” Jak said softly.
Cale nodded again. “Harder than you think, even.” He related to Jak the details of his experience in the warped guildhouse—the gore, the stink, the palpable evil that polluted the place like a vile fog.
“Dark,” Jak oathed, and blew out a smoke ring. “Dark.”
Though Jak tried to hide it, Cale saw the haunted look in his friend’s eyes. He knew what Jak was feeling—he too had felt the demon’s nauseating touch, he too had felt his soul come loose from its moorings and begin to drift. It was terrifying.
Jak blew out a smoke ring and looked him in the face. The little man wore a concerned expression. “They’re evil, Cale. Right? The ghouls, I mean. They used to be men, but now they’re just evil.”
To Cale, it sounded as though Jak were trying to convince himself. Cale had not bothered with the niceties of distinguishing good from evil. Yrsillar had hurt his family, had hurt him. As far as he was concerned, anything that got in the way was fair game. Still, he wanted to put his friend’s mind at ease. Jak did concern himself with distinguishing good from evil, and he needed to know that whatever they did in that guildhouse was right.
“They’re evil,” Cale said with an unequivocal nod. “And they aren’t men anymore. We’ll be doing them a favor.”
Jak gave a soft nod, then blew out another smoke ring.
“You sure you’re capable of this now?” Cale asked. “I’d understand if—”
“I’m in, Cale,” Jak reassured him. “I’m in.” He took a deep, thoughtful draw on his pipe. “But if we’re not moving on this until tomorrow, we should involve Brelgin. One day is enough time for him to gather some manpower. We’ve got some good operators in the organization, Cale. We could—”
Cale raised his hand to cut Jak off. “The Harpers aren’t helping.”
The little man’s chatter instantly stopped and his mouth hung open in disbelief. “What?”
“They’re not helping.”
“But it’s a demon!” Jak protested.
Cale found it odd to be defending Brelgin but did it nevertheless. “He knows it’s a demon. I told him everything I told you. I think he would help if he could, but the organization can’t spare the men or resources.”
“They’re sparing me!”
Cale smiled. “I think he knows that you’d come with me no matter what he said.”
“Damn right,” Jak said, and thumped his small fist against the table. He looked up at Cale with narrowed eyes. “What about the authorities?”
“No. This is between Yrsillar and me,” Cale grimly pronounced. “I’ll leave word for Brelgin as to the location of the guildhouse. If we fail, he can do whatever he sees fit.”
Jak nodded slowly. Thoughtful, he pulled fro
m his shirt pocket a platinum, jewel encrusted cloak pin and rubbed it between his fingers. “It was only chance that I was there that night. In the Soargyl manse, I mean.” He held up the cloak pin for Cale to see—it was in the shape of an eagle’s talon, with a single tourmaline inset. Cale’s mind appraised it automatically—one hundred fivestars, or thereabouts.
“This is what I went to get,” Jak said. “But what I took out of there was the memory of what that demon did to the Soargyls. Gods Cale, I’ll never forget his face while that thing ate his soul …” He fought off a round of the shudders and looked across the table. His green eyes burned with intensity. “We do this your way.”
Cale nodded, pleased that the little man understood. He considered telling Jak about Yrsillar’s reference to the other, but decided against it. If Mask was working through the two of them, then Cale and Jak would have to deal with it when the situation arose. There was no reason to burden Jak any further.
They sat in silence for a time. Cale picked at the crumbs of his dinner. Jak balanced his chair on its rear two legs, crossed his hands over his head, smoked his pipe, and studied the ceiling.
Abruptly, as though he had reached some sort of decision, the little man leaned forward, let the chair legs thump against the floor, and snuffed his pipe.
“Let’s get out of here, Erevis.” Without explanation, Jak rose and threw on his gray cloak.
Surprised, Cale did likewise. “Where to?”
“I don’t care, but I can’t stay here anymore.”
Cale asked no questions. He led Jak out of the room, through the residence hall, up the stairs, and back into the lending library. There, they found Brelgin and Priest Librarian Elaena seated at a desk, conversing softly. When they saw Jak, both looked up in surprise.
“Jak, I’m glad to see you up. What are you doing?” said Brelgin.
“Mister Cale,” accused the priest librarian, “you assured me he would remain bedridden until tomorrow.”
Before Cale could respond, Jak reached inside his cloak and removed something from an inner pocket. He set it down on the table with a smack.
