by Paul S. Kemp
He watched as they ran circles around the room, barking, nipping playfully at each other, licking him, tackling each other. They were friends, inasmuch as dogs could be friends.
“Friends,” he said softly, and pondered.
The bearded priest who had called down from the top of the stairs awaited them just outside the temple’s double doors.
“Welcome to the Sanctum,” he said to Cale, Magadon, and Jak, though the hardness of his voice belied his words.
Engraved characters from a dozen or more Faerûnian alphabets covered the verdigris-stained copper double doors of the Sanctum of the Scroll. Cut into the smooth stone lintel above the doors was a phrase in the common tongue that captured the pith of Oghma’s doctrine: Strength can move only mountains. Ideas can shake worlds.
Magadon nudged Cale, nodded at the inscription, and said, “Can you mark that?”
Cale nodded, read it for the guide.
“True, that,” Magadon said, as they entered the temple.
The double doors opened directly onto a small foyer beyond which stood the worship hall itself. Cale welcomed the shelter from the late afternoon sun. Once within the foyer, the priests uttered a short invocation and removed the masks they wore.
Within the worship hall, small wooden desks stood in a circle around a lectern on a raised dais. Acolytes in unadorned black vests sat at a third or so of the desks, copying manuscripts, scrolls, even entire books. They did not look up from their work. Wooden shelves taller than Cale and stuffed with sheaves of parchment and scrolls covered much of the walls. A small dome composed entirely of glass capped the ceiling. Sunlight poured in through it. Several doors led out of the worship hall.
Cale knew the services in Oghma’s temple were often as much a classroom lesson as a sermon. The priesthood frequently offered lectures on subjects as broad as the history of the Creator Races and planar mechanics, and as narrow as brick making, leather working, and literacy. Oghmanytes served Oghma the Binder by encouraging creative thought and disseminating knowledge and ideas. Cale wondered if they maintained a lending library, like the Temple of Deneir.
“I will inform High Loremaster Yannathar of our visitors,” the middle-aged priest with the beard said to Sephris.
“Of course you will, Hrin,” Sephris said dismissively. “Tell him also what you suspect, for it is truth—these are the men who were indirectly responsible for my death. Tell the High Loremaster that they, like Undryl Yannathar himself, questioned my spirit after my body’s death. But unlike him, they at least had the good grace to let me sleep again after they’d had their answers.”
Hrin flushed at that. Sephris continued. “Tell him, too, that I am in no danger from them, or at least no more than the entirety of this realm is in danger from them.”
Cale flushed at that. Sephris went on. “And tell him finally that I am tired but that I serve the Binder and this temple still. Do you understand all that I just said?”
Hrin nodded curtly. He and his fellow priests stood around for a moment, embarrassed.
“His heart will fail him in five hundred thirty-two days,” Sephris muttered as he watched Hrin walk away. He came back to himself and said to Cale and his comrades, “Follow me.”
The loremaster led them away from the priests, into the worship hall, and through one of several doors that lined the walls. He did not speak as they went. They walked dim, windowless corridors lined with framed maps until they came to a small conference room. A large slate hung from one of the walls and five chairs sat around a rectangular table set before it. A shelf against one wall held sheaves of papers and bound scrolls. Sunlight leaked through a small window to provide light. Cale avoided the beams.
“Sit,” Sephris ordered, and they did. The loremaster did not sit; instead, he went to the slate on the wall, took a piece of chalk in his hand, looked at it, and … closed his fist over it without writing anything. He turned to the table and looked at Jak, at Magadon, at Cale. His eyes were not friendly.
“Darkness follows you three with the certainty that night follows day. A storm dogs you all. Do you sense it?”
“You do not even know me, priest,” Magadon said.
Sephris laughed, a barking, derisive sound. “No. But I know of you.”
“You are mistaken,” Magadon said.
Sephris grinned evilly and said, “Would you like a number, Magadon devilspawn? There are Nine Hells. Your father rules—”
“You close your mouth,” Magadon said, flushing red. He rose from his chair, his pale eyes ablaze. The guide’s hands were fists.
Cale put a hand on Magadon’s arm to calm him.
“Who is he, to speak of me?” Magadon said angrily to Cale, but sat back down at Cale’s and Jak’s urging.
“I am a dutiful servant of my god, devilspawn,” Sephris said, his tone bitter. “Nothing more. But nothing less. You have come, so you must listen.”
“What have they done to you, Sephris?” asked Jak. “You are … bitter.”
“They’ve done naught but what you did, Jak Fleet,” Sephris answered. “Use me for your own ends, as you hope to now.”
Cale understood it then, and the words came out before he could stop them.
“You did not want to come back.”
Sephris stared at Cale for a moment, then slammed the chalk against the slate so hard it splintered in his grasp.
“Of course I did not want to come back! Bitter?” He glared at the little man. “I have every right to be bitter, Jak Fleet. What once was a gift is now a curse. My mind is filled with numbers and formulae, whether I am awake or asleep. The seven words you just spoke, the number of buttons on your tunic, the number of steps it takes me to reach the market, the number of worshipers in the hall, the number of priests in this … prison.” He looked at the three companions. “Numbers haunt me. Answers torment me. Do you see, mindmage?” he spat at Magadon. “That is who I am and why I speak to you of your lineage. I know. There is no rest for me except in death, and even that is denied me.”
Sephris stopped, took a deep breath, and gathered himself.
Jak and Magadon stared at him, too dumbfounded to speak.
“But my wants in this matter are secondary, First of Five,” Sephris said softly to Cale. “And two and two are and always shall be four. What is, is.”
Cale could think of nothing to say. Sephris had allowed himself to return from the dead when his high priest had called because he had thought it his duty as a priest, as a Chosen. The latter realization made Cale squirm in his chair. But he reminded himself that he had made no promises to the Shadowlord.
Sephris smiled at him, then asked in a conspiratorial tone, “You see it, don’t you?” The smile was not friendly. “It is an ugly truth, what we bear. What you will bear is uglier than most. Prepare yourself.”
Cale decided to let the reference to “we” pass. Instead, he said, “You know why we’ve come, Sephris. Tell us what we want to know and we will leave you be.”
Sephris replied, “Of course I know why you’ve come. Do you?”
Cale shook his head. “I do not understand.”
“You are a variable in a larger equation. I am looking through you, through all of you, trying to solve for the darkness behind you.” After a pause, he added, “In all permutations one thing always occurs: Many will die because of you, First of Five.”
Cale’s skin went gooseflesh. He could not look at Magadon or Jak, not then.
“You do not know that,” he said to Sephris, and his words sounded empty even to him.
“Do I not?” asked the loremaster.
“Then help us,” Jak said to Sephris. “We don’t want that to happen.”
“Wants are secondary,” Sephris said with a nasty smirk.
Cale could take no more of Sephris’s self-pity and deliberate obfuscation. He stared daggers at the loremaster.
“Help me stop it, old fool. If knowledge is your curse, then tell me what you know. If there are permutations, then we can c
ontrol outcomes. Stop the cryptic clues and tell me what I need to know.”
“Being cryptic is my lot,” Sephris answered in an infuriatingly calm tone. “Have you not noticed? And control is an illusion. Is that how you sleep, First?”
Cale ground his teeth and barely contained an expletive. Shadows poured from his flesh. The room dimmed.
“And so it begins,” Sephris said softly.
The door to the conference chamber flew open and Veen appeared, backed by three more priests. The Oghmanytes must have been scrying the chamber or watching through a peephole.
“Is all well, Chosen One?” Veen asked.
Sephris chuckled, waved a hand, and said, “As well as it gets, Veen. Begone.”
Veen eyed each of the three comrades.
“Do not tax the loremaster with your questions. We will be nearby.” He closed the door.
Cale’s anger went out the door with Veen. He just felt … tired. He sensed a doom overtaking him and he was too fatigued to outrun it.
“Let’s leave here,” Magadon said to him. “This is futile. And he is mad.”
“You won’t help us, Sephris?” Jak said, obviously hurt.
Sephris glared at Jak. “Jak Fleet. My friend. A seventeen going on a two. Of course I will help you.” He looked up to the ceiling and said in a loud voice, “For I am a dutiful servant of the Binder!”
“We don’t need your help,” Cale said, and stood. “And I don’t want it.”
Sephris chuckled. “As I said: Wants are secondary.”
Cale moved for the door, shepherding Magadon and Jak along. He’d had enough.
Behind them, Sephris spoke in a low tone without inflection. “More than two thousand years ago, the cities of Netheril floated through the sky on flattened mountain-tops. You three seek one of those—Sakkors, on which sat the Eldritch Temple of Mystryl.”
Cale froze but did not turn. Sephris continued. “Exactly one thousand, seven hundred twelve years ago magic failed, and Sakkors fell from the sky. The waves swallowed it and there it lies still, buried under the Inner Sea, sixty leagues from Selgaunt Bay. The fourth of your number, the Second of Mask, will take a ship to find it. And when he finds it, and you find him, you will summon the thunderhead. The storm will follow.”
Cale struggled with the notion of asking Sephris for more information but decided against it.
“Goodbye, loremaster,” he said over his shoulder, and opened the door.
“Sakkors is only the beginning,” Sephris said as Cale and his comrades walked out and pulled closed the door.
Sephris shouted from behind it. “Sacrifices must sometimes be made, First of Five! Remember that, when the darkness comes and all of this is gone!”
Cale stood in the hall for a moment, leaning on the door, dizzy. He gathered himself and shared a look with Jak. The little man looked like he wanted to say something but held his tongue. They walked the maze of corridors in silence until they reached the worship hall.
Hrin waited for them there. Jak saw the bearded priest and his expression hardened.
“Give me a moment,” the little man said and stalked up to the priest. Cale and Magadon followed a few paces behind.
Jak poked a finger into Hrin’s stomach and said, “You are a wretched bunch of prigs. Look at what you’ve done to him. He was at peace, finally. And now….”
Acolytes looked up from their desks with alarmed gazes. Doors opened and several more mace-armed priests entered the worship hall.
Hrin gave no ground. His eyes went past Jak, to Cale, to the corridor out of which they had just exited, back to Jak.
“The Chosen One is an asset of the church, halfling. His death was premature, thanks to you. Only the willing can return. He could have refused the call.”
“That’s a dungpile,” Jak spat, eliciting raised eyebrows and shocked looks from the acolytes at the desks. “He came back because he felt it was his duty. And you all knew he would. If you really had regarded him as highly as you say, you never would have asked.”
Hrin’s brow furrowed with anger and his lips formed a tight line behind his beard. “Get out. Or I’ll have you escorted out forcibly.”
Cale stepped forward and said, “I doubt that very much.”
The priest regarded Cale coolly. “Do you, servant of Mask?”
Several underpriests stood at a distance, hands on mace hafts, angry scowls on their faces. Jak, too, looked ready to do battle on the spot.
Cale’s sword hand twitched. The light in the worship hall dimmed.
“Let’s move on, Jak,” Magadon said, pulling Jak and Cale away. “Erevis, come on.”
Jak allowed himself to be led away. Cale shook off Magadon’s hand and followed, eyeing Hrin all the while.
“It stinks in here anyway,” Jak said over his shoulder.
“Do not return here,” called Hrin. “Not ever.”
None of the three companions replied. They pushed their way through a group of priests near the door and exited the temple.
When they descended the stairs and reached the street, Jak continued to fume.
“Can you believe they did that to him? Organized religion.” He turned and spat on the church stairs and several passersby went wide-eyed.
“Would you want that?” the little man asked, turning to Cale. “I wouldn’t. When I am dead, I want to stay that way.”
“I hear you, little man,” Cale said. Cale had put Hrin out of his mind and was parsing Sephris’s words and the dire predictions the loremaster had made. Thousands would die, he had said.
Because of Cale.
For a time, the three wandered in silence. No one seemed to know what to say. Finally, Magadon asked, “Do you believe what he said?”
Cale did not lie. “Yes. You heard him, Mags. He knows things. He was angry, embittered, but I think he spoke truth.”
Magadon nodded, considered. “But do you believe all of what he said?”
Jak asked, “You mean the darkness, the storm, and such?”
Magadon nodded.
Cale could only nod. “He has never been wrong. But that was vague enough that it could mean anything. It does not change what we are going to do.”
“It doesn’t?” Magadon asked.
“It doesn’t,” Cale affirmed. “It can’t, Mags. It’s madness to walk that path.”
Magadon stared at him for a time, nodded, then said, “Well enough. So what now? We know where the slaadi are going and we know it’s somewhere off the coast of Selgaunt, apparently at the bottom of the Inner Sea. That does us small service.”
Cale was glad to move the conversation away from Sephris’s prophecies. He said, “We need to locate Riven before he takes ship.”
“How?” Jak asked.
“Sakkors is somewhere off the coast of Selgaunt,” Cale answered, thinking aloud. “Sephris said that Riven would take a ship.”
Jak started to say something but stopped when realization dawned. “You don’t think he’d take a ship out of Selgaunt?”
“It makes sense,” Cale said. “Riven knows the city. So do the slaadi.”
“It is one of the ports nearest to their destination,” Magadon added.
Cale said, “And if we can find their ship….”
“Then we can find them,” Jak finished. “We can finish this before it ever starts. That’s a lot of ships to check.”
Cale nodded. Selgaunt was one of the busiest ports on the Inner Sea, and countless contraband runners docked in secret harbors along the coast outside of the city to avoid the harbormaster’s taxes. Still, it was a place to start. He said, “Let’s take a room down in the Dock District and put out some feelers.”
After securing the services of Dolphin’s Coffer, Azriim and Dolgan indulged in some spirits at a nearby pub. As dusk fell, they lurked in the shadows of an alley near the wharves and watched Demon Binder. From time to time, Dolgan had to dissuade a prostitute and her customer from coupling against the alley wall, but otherwise the slaadi encounte
red no one. They spied on the ship for hours in silence, learning what they needed.
Several members of the crew left the ship for the dockside taverns, but the captain, first mate, and a sizeable contingent of the crew—hard looking seamen, all—remained aboard and armed at all times. Crewmen eyed passersby with suspicion. A simple system of whistles and hand signs alerted the captain or first mate any time the harbormaster, his undermasters, or any of the Scepters approached. Azriim took that behavior as confirmation that the ship had slaves in its hold.
After a time, the slaadi called upon their new abilities granted by their partial transformation into gray slaadi, and willed themselves invisible and airborne. Each could see the other, of course, since slaadi innately saw invisible objects, but they were completely invisible to all others. Azriim enjoyed the sensation of flying. He found that flight was effortless, and speed and direction answered to his mental urgings. He could even hover.
Unseen, they flew over the ship, watching, listening, telepathically exchanging the names of crewmen and the layout of the ship. Captain Kauzin ruled Demon Binder, and his first mate was called Greel, though the crew often called him by a nickname, Hack, no doubt earned in combat. Azriim studied the captain’s appearance and mannerisms with care. The human tended to bark orders, laughed rarely but sharply, and walked with a stiff, gingerly step that bespoke an old back injury. Dolgan studied the first mate with the same intensity. They did not set foot on the deck, in the forecastle, or below decks, for fear of being noticed or triggering a magical alarm.
The slaadi patiently watched until the sky darkened and the stars shone down on the bay. Both Azriim and Dolgan could see well in the dark and continued to watch for a while longer. By the time a distant bell tower sounded the eighth hour, the slaadi knew Demon Binder and its crew well enough to maintain their planned charade.
I believe I have him now, projected Azriim. They should be returning to their quarters soon.
I am ready also, answered Dolgan, hovering in the air beside him.
They watched until the captain and mate disappeared into the forecastle, which held their quarters.
