by Paul S. Kemp
I accept, you bastard, he thought with a half-smile. I accept.
He lay still and let his emotions run their course. After a few moments, he recovered himself enough to climb unsteadily to his feet. Jak needed him.
He staggered along the aisle, past the body of the Righteous Man. The guildmaster’s abdomen gaped from where Cale had slashed it open. The rest of the body looked shrunken and dried out, sucked empty. The felt mask lay on the floor beside it. Cale stooped to retrieve it.
“Caaale,” the Righteous Man croaked.
Startled, Cale jerked back.
“Cale …” A thin arm tried to move, failed, and instead a bony finger beckoned.
After a moment’s hesitation, Cale moved forward and knelt beside his former guildmaster. “I’m here.”
The Righteous Man’s eyes fluttered open. Cale gave a start—the sockets sat empty, mere pink holes in his sunken, wrinkled face.
Cale resisted the impulse to touch him, to give him comfort. He felt no affection for the guildmaster, only a distant anger. “What happened? How—”
“You’re the Champion,” the Righteous Man whispered.
“I am,” Cale acknowledged. With his good hand, he picked up the felt mask and placed it in his pocket. “I am.” There was nothing more to be said. Jak needed him. He started to rise, but the Righteous Man gripped him by the forearm with surprising strength.
“Wait, Erevis,” he wheezed.
The Righteous Man’s touch was dry and cold.
“I’m not afraid to die. I’m at peace with the Shadowlord now. I see his plan.” He coughed a bloody foam onto his chin. “But I want to be at peace with you, Erevis, Champion.” Another round of coughing. He pulled Cale closer. “I didn’t mean for Yrsillar to go free.…”
Cale waited another moment but the guildmaster said nothing more. Cale gave him what absolution he could; no one should die with guilt on their soul. “I know,” he said, disengaged his hand, and started to rise.
The Righteous Man jerked to consciousness, coughed, beckoned Cale closer. “No, that’s not what I meant. I didn’t free him.…”
Cale stiffened at that. If the Righteous Man hadn’t freed Yrsillar, then who?
The guildmaster struggled to say something. A word hung on his blood-flecked lips. Cale leaned forward, clutched the guildmaster’s tattered robe with his good hand—
“Riven,” the Righteous Man softly hissed. “Riven and the Zhentarim set Yrsillar free.”
Cale knelt over Jak, probed his jaw with gentle fingers. Not broken, though the little man had lost several teeth. His cheeks had swollen enough to distort his face. His head would be fuzzy for hours.
“Jak,” he called, and gently nudged his friend. “Jak.”
After a few moments, the little man’s eyes fluttered open, focused blearily on Cale.
“Cale?”
Cale smiled. “Yrsillar’s gone. We won, my friend.”
Despite his words, he didn’t feel like he had won. He felt little more than tired and angry at Riven and the Zhentarim.
“Gone.” Jak’s small hand found Cale’s arm and squeezed. The little man sighed and closed his eyes. “How?”
Cale quickly related the story of the combat, of the mask and Yrsillar’s banishment. Afterwards, he looked at the mask he held in his hand. “I’m his Champion, it seems.”
Jak regarded the mask for a moment, looked into Cale’s eyes, and nodded knowingly. “You’re his Champion. But you’re still your own man, Erevis.” He chuckled and said, “That’s probably why he chose you in the first place.”
“I am still my own man,” Cale affirmed. He knew now that he could have his faith and his individuality. Smiling, he used his good hand to help the little man to sit upright. Careful not to jolt his broken wrist, he took his waterskin from his pack and offered it to his friend.
Jak took a sip, swished it around in his mouth, and spat blood. Afterward, he eyed Cale shrewdly. “Can you cast spells?”
Surprisingly, Cale did not find the question alarming. “I don’t know. How would I know?”
Jak took another gulp from the waterskin. He swallowed this one down. “You just know.”
Cale considered the mask. My holy symbol, he reminded himself. He didn’t feel any different—certainly didn’t feel like a priest, or a Champion. “Then I don’t think so. No, I can’t.”
“Try it,” Jak said.
“How in the name of the gods do I try it? I’ve never cast a spell before.”
Jak looked at him as though he were a dolt. “Dark, Cale, you’re not a mage. You don’t need years of training. It’s a divine gift. You will it to happen.”
“Will it? That’s it?”
“You will it,” Jak said with a nod and a pained wince, “then pray to your god to realize your will.”
Cale was incredulous. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Jak replied. “Now try it.”
Though he felt an idiot, Cale held the mask in his hand, closed his eyes, and willed his wrist healed.
Nothing happened.
“You have to pray,” Jak said. “You can do it silently if you need to.”
Cale saw Jak’s smirk but chose to ignore it. He calmed himself and for the second time that day, prayed silently to Mask, this time for the power to heal. At first nothing happened, but then his consciousness flew open. A dam had burst in his brain.
“Dark,” he whispered, awed. A warmth filled him, a presence joined with him and made its will his own. He knew then the feeling of serving something greater than himself, knew then the transcendence of the divine.
His wrist began to tingle. Suddenly, bones and tendons knit back together. The pain ceased. He opened his eyes, held his hand before his face, and rotated his wrist—no pain. The pain in his back and chest, too, had vanished. He had healed. The realization humbled and exhilarated him.
“You’re still your own man,” Jak reassured him.
“I know,” he replied. Mask had made no demands. Cale would have done everything he had done with or without Mask’s involvement. A convergence of the mortal and divine interests, Jak had called it.
So be it, he thought. Touching Jak, he prayed, and willed his best friend healed. The swelling in the little man’s face diminished until it had all but vanished. Jak’s bruises disappeared. His color returned and he shot Cale a grateful smile.
“This is going to be an interesting time, Cale,” he said, and rose to his feet.
“Indeed,” Cale replied. He gently tucked his holy symbol into his pocket.
Jak’s smile fell when he looked around the shrine—ghoul corpses, charred pews, the stink of death. His eyes lingered long on the corpse of the Righteous Man.
“I guess you’re finally out of the guild.”
“I am,” Cale replied. He had, however, entered into a brotherhood of a different sort.
“And I’m out of the Harpers.”
“You are.”
“So what now?”
Cale too looked around the shrine. The whole guildhouse had become a slaughter-pen, an abomination to man and god.
“We burn it,” he said. “Gut the entire place. The sewer entrance too. There’s oil in a storeroom upstairs.”
They spent the next hour soaking the basement in lantern oil. Cale had seen many such fires set by Night Mask arsonists back in Westgate—he knew how to ensure a good burn. Afterward, he threw a torch on the kindling point. The fire would gut the basement before the flames were even visible from the street outside. And by then, the building would be lost. Selgaunt’s fire-crews would spend their energy preventing the flames from spreading to the buildings nearby. The Night Knife guildhouse was dead. The Night Knife guild was dead, and Cale had been reborn.
Side by side the two friends walked upstairs, from the darkness and toward the light.
“I can’t believe it’s over,” Jak said. The smell of smoke was already strong in the air.
“It isn’t,” Cale said, and left it at tha
t. This end was only a beginning—his whole life had changed in the course of only two days. He now had to return to Stormweather and face Thamalon with the truth, the whole truth, no more lying. He had to face Thazienne, who by now must have read his note and learned his feelings for her. His life would be different from now on, harder in some ways, but at least he’d be able to face himself.
“We never did find out who Yrsillar meant by ‘the other,’ ” Jak observed, as they emerged onto the street.
Cale nodded. His mind had already turned to his next task—Riven had set this entire nightmare into motion.
CHAPTER 12
THE END OF THE BEGINNING
Riven rose and dressed in silence. Behind him on the feather bed, Iris lay amidst a sea of sweat-soaked sheets, still breathing heavily. Her dark hair pooled on the pillows. Small but nicely proportioned, her shapely legs stuck tantalizingly out of the blankets. The soft candlelight highlighted the curve of her thigh, the smoothness of her skin. He felt the stirrings of arousal again but sublimated them—he had too much on his mind to spend all night with a whore.
The Night Knife guildhouse had burned to the ground two nights ago. There had been rumors about peculiar remains found in the charred ruins, but he didn’t know whether Yrsillar and the shadow demons had been caught within the flames or had used the arson as cover to hide themselves. As usual, Malix, who finally had returned from Zhentil Keep yesterday, could offer no insight. Riven had come within a bladewidth of splitting that self-satisfied dolt on the spot. Malix had foreseen nothing, and his plan to let Yrsillar slay the Zhentarim’s enemies—while it had wiped out the Night Knives—had gone very bad very fast.
In typical fashion, it would fall to Riven to pick up the pieces. The aftermath of this misadventure would cause unrest in the underworld. The various gangs would be scrambling for position. The Zhentarim had lost so many men—including Verdrinal, Riven thought with a satisfied sneer. It was far from certain that the Zhentarim would come out of this better off than they had come in.
This might be the time to get out, he thought. With the Zhentarim as weak as they now were in Selgaunt, old grudges would resurface. Carrying the black and gold badge of the Network might be the quickest way to a bloody end—
Iris interrupted his thinking with a giggle.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing,” she playfully replied in her lilting, singsong voice. “The smoke from the candle made a mask around your face. You looked like a bandit just now.”
Riven waved the black smoke from his eyes and grunted at her foolishness.
“Come back to bed,” she pleaded. He found the offer tempting, but resisted.
“No, I’ve got things to do yet.”
She writhed around on the bed with an exaggerated sigh.
He ignored her, grunted a goodbye, pulled on his scarlet cloak, and strode from her flat.
Due to the late hour and bitter cold, Ironmongers Lane stood empty and dark. All but one of the street torches had been extinguished by the wind and the city’s linkboys didn’t concern themselves with relighting the lamps on back streets.
Thoughtful, Riven crunched through the ankle deep snow.
For the next month or so, he would have to keep an eye on Malix. With Verdrinal dead, Malix likely would try to pass responsibility for this operation to Riven. He might even try to kill him and attribute blame posthumously. He thought again about getting out.
Movement a block ahead drew his attention. Out of habit, he backed into the shadows of a nearby building and peered up the street.
A short, cloaked form was staggering down the street. A drunk halfling, he recognized. Not especially unusual at this hour. A feathered cap—
Recognition dawned and he exhaled a cloud of frozen mist sharply. Fleet. Riven could count the number of halflings in Selgaunt on both hands, and only one of them dressed like a peacock even in the depth of winter. Jak Fleet.
He snarled silently and his hand drifted to his back. He still bore a scar from the backstab that little whoreson had dealt him a month ago. Malix had forbidden him to hunt Fleet down for fear of Harper retaliation, if Riven even had been able to find the little puke. Fleet went underground as well as anyone.
But now here he was—drunk and alone. If Riven had worshiped a god, he would have thanked him for this.
Time for payback, he thought as he stepped from the shadows and silently trailed after the halfling. He drew both his enchanted sabers.
Fleet turned right on Larawkan Lane and headed east, toward the Warehouse District. Still staggering, the little bastard hummed as he walked.
You’re sloppy, little whelp, he thought. And it’s going to cost you.
Gradually, he closed in, careful to maintain silence. Fleet had no permanent residence in the city. That’s what made him so hard to locate. Riven assumed he was making for a Harper safehouse. The Zhentarim knew the Harpers kept at least one safehouse in the Warehouse District, but they didn’t know where. At the moment, Riven wasn’t concerned with finding that out. He wanted Fleet’s blood, not his hideout.
The wind picked up, whipping Riven’s cloak behind him. Fleet lost his hat and turned to retrieve it.
Riven ducked into the darkness, held his breath, and didn’t move.
Fleet skipped clumsily after his hat, at last caught it, tucked it under his armpit, and headed back off toward the brick towers of the Warehouse District. He showed no sign of noticing Riven.
Riven emerged from hiding and followed.
Fleet moved deeper into the district. Silently, Riven closed to within twenty paces. He felt the thrill the hunter feels as he closes on his prey.
Near Drover’s Square, Fleet looked both ways and ducked down an alley.
Drover’s Square was the place Fleet had given Riven his scar. Appropriate that he die here, Riven thought.
He followed the halfling down the dark alley, using carts and refuse heaps as cover. Ahead, Fleet continued to weave uncertainly. He stopped periodically, confused, and muttered to himself. With the acoustics better in the alley than in the windswept street, Riven could make out his words.
“… thish hash a back door?” He giggled in that annoyingly high-pitched halfling way. “No? Darksh.”
The halfling trekked on. Ahead, Riven saw the alley hit a dead end. Too drunk to realize it, the halfling walked forward. The prey was trapped. Sneering, Riven let his foot scrape the street. Fleet froze, but didn’t turn.
Riven stepped from the darkness and walked forward. “Jak Fleet, I’ve been looking for you.”
The halfling whirled in alarm. Riven put on his most contemptuous sneer, expecting to see Fleet wide-eyed with fear. Instead, the halfling wore a sneer of his own and spoke without slurring.
“And we’ve been looking for you, Drasek Riven.”
We?
Too late he caught motion out of the corner of his eye. Ambush! Riven whirled to see a tall, bald specter slide from the shadows and cut off his retreat. Cale! The towering bastard held a long sword in one hand and a piece of black cloth in the other.
“Cale!”
Fleet giggled.
Riven’s lips peeled back in a hateful snarl. Quickly, he got his back against the alley wall and lowered into a fighting crouch. He could take both of them in a straight fight.
“Come on, then,” he challenged. He whirled his enchanted sabers before him with easy grace. He’d give these whelps more than they could handle.
“You’re an idiot, Riven,” Fleet said.
Riven glared at him, but watched Cale—the more dangerous opponent—out of the corner of his eye.
Cale kept his distance. He regarded Riven with an expression as cold as the air. Riven had never seen such an expression on Cale’s face before. He looked not merely angry, but … hateful. The expression made him nervous.
“Come on, Cale,” he said again, to hide his discomfiture. “This has been a long time coming.”
“Long time coming is right,” Cale hissed
. He lowered his blade, rubbed the piece of black cloth between his fingers like a talisman, and stared into Riven’s face. “You were responsible for freeing the demon.”
He stated it as a fact, not a question. Riven saw no point in denying it. “Correct. So?” He sneered. “Part of the game, Cale. Business. That upset you? You miss the guild? Nine Hells, I did you a favor.”
Cale’s eyes narrowed. “Business, is it?” he whispered, soft and angry. “Part of the game? So is this, then.”
With that, he closed his eyes and began softly to incant—incant!—as though he could cast spells.
Dumbstruck with disbelief, it took Riven a moment to realize what Cale was doing. Casting a spell? Cale? When he finally recovered himself enough, he lunged forward with both blades and tried to disrupt the spell.
He was too late. Before he had taken two strides, Cale had already finished. A spark shower erupted in Riven’s brain. On the instant, his body froze, immobile.
He couldn’t move his head, couldn’t even blink, but he could see into Cale’s narrowed eyes.
How in all the levels of the Abyss can Cale cast spells?
Cale folded the piece of cloth—a mask, Riven saw, and thought of Iris’s words—then placed it in his pocket. He looked to Fleet and said, “Nice work, little man,” then turned back to Riven. The look in his eyes would have made Riven turn and run, if he could have moved.
Cale walked up and stood nose to nose, stared into Riven’s eye. “Do you have any idea of the damage you’ve caused?” he hissed.
Riven could do nothing but breathe. Of course he knew the damage he had caused; causing damage had been the point. “Of course you don’t,” Cale went on. “You’re nothing more than a Zhentarim lackey.”
Riven bristled inwardly. Lackey!
Quick as a striking snake, Cale gripped him by the throat, turned his head, and put the long sword beside his throat. Cale’s voice rose as his anger escaped his control. “A lackey and nothing more. And no one cares whether a lackey lives or dies.”
Here it comes, Riven thought, the sharp flash of pain as iron ran across his throat.
But it didn’t. Cale got himself back under control. A fact that alarmed Riven all the more.
