by Paul S. Kemp
She looked up at him and he could see tears pooling in her eyes.
His legs went wobbly. He held his breath.
“She said … that before you went to find the shadow demon …”
She trailed off and looked away, blinking. It took her a moment to recover.
“She said you left me a note.”
His mouth went dry. He reached for his reading chair, to steady himself.
Shamur had found the note; Thazienne had never seen it.
He could not form words.
“She told me what it said.”
He felt his whole body flush red. His eyes found the floor. For a fleeting, wonderful moment, he thought she might throw herself into his arms. She didn’t.
“And?” he said.
She spoke softly, but Cale heard the firmness behind her tone. She had already had this discussion in her mind, tens of times probably.
“And? Gods, Erevis. What did you think would happen? We had a special relationship, but—Did you think I’d read that note and swoon? Did you expect me to fall into your arms at the power of your words? Did you—?”
“I don’t know,” he cut in. “I wanted you to know, that was all. Damn it!” He clenched his fist at his side. “What I expected was to die! Nine Hells, woman, I went after that thing because of what it did to you!”
The moment the words came out of his mouth, he regretted them. It shamed him to have stooped so low.
Her face reddened, and her forehead creased with anger. She strode forward into the room, right up to him, and looked into his face.
“How dare you even suggest that, Cale. Do you think I’m obligated to you for that somehow? You do, don’t you?”
He didn’t answer. Mostly, he thought the answer was “no.” But at least some small part of him thought the answer was “yes.” She saw the hesitation in his eyes and smacked him. Hard.
“I’m not a treasure to be won, you bastard.” She put a finger on his chest. “Besides, you didn’t go after that thing because of me. You went after it because it hurt you. Make no mistake about it. It may have hurt you by hurting me, but it was you—you—it hurt. Don’t ennoble your motivations by cloaking your need for vengeance with …”
She stopped before saying “love,” but Cale knew what she meant. The word hung between them, suspended in the silence, heavier than her perfume.
Cale did love her. He still loved her, despite it all. But now her presence only hurt him, and that hurt came out of him as anger, no matter how much he wished it didn’t.
She went on, merciless, just as he had always told her to be: “You don’t know what to do with yourself if you’re not killing things, Cale. I know what you are. I heard how you fought that demon. How could you ever have thought—”
He didn’t realize what he was doing until he had already grabbed her by the shoulders and started to fling her away. He stopped himself before throwing her to the ground.
Shocked, he looked at his hands as if they didn’t belong to him. She stared into his face, wide-eyed. He released her as though she were white-hot. His gaze found the floor, and tears formed in his eyes. He wanted to pull her to him and whisper an apology into her hair, but he felt paralyzed.
She had always brought out the best in him, and he had allowed her to see the worst. Shame and anger burned in him, shame that he had dared put his hands on her and anger at her words, which hit too close to his own thoughts. She thought he was a killer. She might as well have stabbed him in the gut and split him down the middle.
Silence sat heavy in the room for heartbeats that felt like hours. When at last he looked into her face again, the face of the woman he loved, he saw that it too was red with shame. She knew she had hurt him. Like him, she had done something she regretted. And both of them knew that what they had done and said could never be taken back.
“Leave, Tazi,” he said.
“I’m sorry, Erevis,”
She reached out a hand. He dared not take it.
“Me too,” he said. “Gods, me too. Now leave. Please.”
Tears welled in her eyes. She cradled her hands to her chest. He had to look away. He felt her eyes on him but neither said anything. After a few moments, she turned and hurried from the room. The slam of the door echoed in his brain. He realized then that the last touch they would share would be his hands on her in anger. In that instant, he hated himself.
After a time, he wiped the tears from his eyes and sagged onto the corner of the bed. Only then did he realize how badly he was shaking. He had killed men without allowing his heartbeat to accelerate, but arguing with Thazienne had left him a trembling idiot with no self-control.
An eternity later, a knock at his door brought him back to himself.
For a wonderful, hopeful moment, he thought it might be Thazienne returning. But he knew it could not be—the knock was too forceful, too casual. He rose from the bed and composed himself. The knock repeated.
“Mister Cale?” Cora’s voice sounded from the hall.
“Yes, Cora. Come in.”
The young maid opened the door. Her eyes went wide when she saw his clothing and weapons. She had not been on staff when he had fought the demon in the great hall. She did not know that he was … what he was. He did not bother to explain.
She held in her hand a letter sealed with a dollop of dyed beeswax. She seemed to have forgotten her business.
“Cora, is that for me?” he asked, indicating the letter.
“Huh? Oh, yes. Yes, Mister Cale.” She approached him cautiously, as though he was a dangerous animal, and she held out the letter. “This arrived by messenger less than a quarter hour ago. Your door was closed so I—”
“That’s fine, Cora. Thank you for your consideration.” He took the letter and said, “That will be all.”
She fled the room without another word. Cale shut the door behind her, sat in his reading chair, and examined the letter. The wax was marked with the general seal of a licensed scribe-for-hire. He cracked it and unfolded the parchment. The letter contained only seven words:
Usual place. Tonight near midnight. Important. Riven.
Cale stared at the words without understanding their meaning. His exchange with Thazienne still preoccupied his mind. He replayed it again and again. His face still stung from where she had slapped him. His heart still stung from what he had done.
It took a few moments for the import of the letter to register.
Riven wanted a meet at the Black Stag. Why? Though the Zhents were in the midst of an internal religious war—Cale knew that the Scepters were pulling Zhent corpses from the bay almost daily; mostly Cyricists—Riven had left the Network months before. He would not be involved in that. What then?
He shook his head. He could not reason clearly. His mind seemed unable to focus on anything but Thazienne … the look of shock on her face when he had put his hands on her, the sound of her voice when she had called him a killer.
Tired to his bones, Cale refolded the letter and placed it in a pocket—a letter written by one killer to another. He looked around, at the door through which Tazi had exited his room, at the door through which she had exited his life.
There’s nothing more for me here, he thought.
Whatever Riven wanted, there was only one way to find out. And it could not be worse than being in Stormweather Towers.
He threw on his cloak and walked out the door. At least he had somewhere to go.
CHAPTER 4
THE BLACK STAG
Cale exited Stormweather Towers through one of the manse’s less-trafficked side doors. With the family at table and most of the staff occupied with dinner preparations, he managed to exit the house unseen by anyone. That was just as well. He had already said his good-byes.
He walked a flagstone path through one of the manse’s many gardens to the small gatehouse in the wall facing Rauncel’s Ride. The two house guards on duty there, Velorn and Del, seemed surprised to see him. He reassured them that all was wel
l, explained that he wanted to leave quietly, and bade them farewell. They understood. They opened the narrow wrought iron gate and reminded him to keep his blade sharp—an old military farewell.
When he reached the street, he did not look back. He dared not. He feared he would lose his resolve.
A brisk spring breeze blew from the direction of Selgaunt Bay. Even at a distance, Cale could taste the subtle salt tang in the air. The sun had nearly set and the city’s linkboys had already done their work. Rauncel’s Ride glowed orange in the light of the tall, charcoal-burning street torches. Carriages and pedestrians peppered the street, going about their evening business. No one paid him any heed, just another evening traveler about his affairs. He fell into step among them and wandered the streets until well into the night. Only after he had walked for hours did he realize that he had forgotten to take the sphere from the parlor. Dark! His parting with Thazienne had left him distracted.
He told himself that it didn’t matter. He didn’t need a token to remind him of Thamalon. He would always remember the Old Owl.
From Temple Avenue, the bells of the House of Song and the gongs of the Palace of Holy Festivals sounded eleven bells. Time to move. He headed south for the Stag.
Fewer and fewer torches lit the streets as Cale moved into the rental warehouse district. There, adventurers, cutthroats, and seedy merchants ruled the packed-earth avenues. Prostitutes stood on corners, opportunistic muggers and pickpockets lingered at alley mouths, and purveyors of drugs went quietly about their illicit business. As much coin moved through Selgaunt’s underground economy as through the coffers of the legitimate trading costers, and everyone knew it. The late Hulorn and his Scepters had made no effort to stop the trade in drugs and flesh so long as the associated violence was kept largely out of sight. In Sembia, the economy of vice was respected nearly as much as trade in Chultan spices. Business is business was the canon of the Selgauntan trader, whether pimp or coppersmith.
Passersby traveled in the safety of pairs and trios. Hired muscle sometimes accompanied the wealthy. The poor traveled without bodyguards but had little worth stealing. Out of professional habit, Cale kept an alert eye on everything and everyone around him, though not out of fear. He was not the prey, but the predator. The thieves and pimps must have recognized that, because none challenged him, and few held his gaze for long.
Ahead, he saw the Stag, a ramshackle two-story building at the corner of two narrow avenues. The wooden structure leaned noticeably, as though itself as drunk as its patrons. The open shutters, their black paint long since flaked away to near nothingness, hung crookedly from the window frames. Smoke, laughter and a fairly steady stream of profanity boiled out of the windows and into the spring air.
On the street outside the Stag, a thin stream of traffic filed past: carts, horses, carriages, pedestrians. Cale lingered for a time in the darkness of an unoccupied alley, observing. Though he felt a strange connection to Riven—perhaps only empathy for another of Mask’s pawns—he was not foolish enough to trust the assassin fully. Riven could have decided to try an ambush for his own reasons. After waiting for a time, Cale saw nothing that gave him cause for alarm. He exited the alley and walked for the Stag’s front door.
He pushed it open and stepped inside. As usual, the Stag stank of sweat, smoke, and stale vomit. Blueleaf, an herbal incense, burned in a tin dish behind the bar but did little to obviate the smell. The haze of smoke hovering near the ceiling stung his eyes.
A crowd thronged the Stag, as thick as the dock market at noon—typical for the time of year. Adventurers of every stripe streamed into Sembia in the early spring, all of them looking to make quick coin, convinced that riches lay in their future. Most ended up taking work as mere caravan guards, just to keep enough ravens in their pockets to buy a few days of food and lodging. But Tymora always smiled on a lucky few. Those managed to make a fortune and a name. Bards later sang ballads of their victories, and more and more returned each spring, certain they would find similar success.
The Heartlands suffered no shortage of fools, Cale thought.
While he stood in the Stag’s doorway, appraising eyes took him in, apparently saw nothing of interest, and looked away. Conversation hummed.
The Stag’s owner coated the planked floor in wood chips to ease the clean-up of the inevitable blood and puke that accompanied the influx of adventurers. The serving girls hired on for the season weaved through the crowd with tankards and platters held high.
Cale pushed his way in and scanned the tables for Riven. Because Cale stood a head taller than most of the patrons, he spotted the assassin at once. Riven sat alone at a small table in a dark corner near the bar. As usual, Riven wore his scarlet cloak, his twin sabers, and an unhappy scowl. Though the Stag was overflowing with sellswords, no one lingered within arms’ reach of Riven. Even adventurers, an imprudent lot in general, could see the promise of violence in Riven’s one good eye.
The assassin noticed Cale too. He raised his tankard to draw Cale’s attention. Cale nodded and began to pick his way through the crowd.
A man stepped from the crowed to Cale’s right and bumped him—hard. In one motion, Cale’s hand first found his coin purse—he still had it—then moved for his blade. He stopped himself just before he reached the hilt.
“Mind your manners, dolt,” said the man.
The half-elf—the half-drow, Cale corrected himself, to judge from the long pale hair, narrow cheeks, and dusky complexion—had an unusual accent that Cale could not quite place. The fool stared a challenge into Cale’s face. Though dressed in the expensive silk finery of a noble fop, the half-drow’s features had a hardness Cale did not miss. His reckless smile and mismatched eyes, one the palest blue, one a deep brown or black, gave him an unbalanced look. His slim hands hovered near the steel that hung from his belt. Cale took in the hilt with a glance: well worn from much use.
Ordinarily, Cale would have ignored a fool like that, but his parting with Thazienne had left him in a foul mood. He grabbed two fistfuls of silk shirt, lifted the half-drow off his feet, and pulled him nose to nose. A few faces turned their way, but only a few. The Stag’s patrons saw fights and violence most every night. A confrontation didn’t get interesting until steel was drawn.
“And you mind your tongue, irinal,” Cale spat into the half-drow’s face.
He’d deliberately chosen to insult the half-drow with a word that surface elves used to refer to the drow. It meant “forsaken,” and the drow were notorious for their dislike of the term.
Surprisingly though, the half-drow showed no anger. His expression didn’t even indicate that he understood the word. Instead, he stared Cale in the face with crazed eyes, smiling hard. His hand moved to his sword hilt but he did not attempt to draw.
“If that blade comes a fingerwidth out of its scabbard, I’ll split you right here,” Cale promised.
The half-drow held his smile and said, “If you’ve ripped my shirt, I’ll have first your tongue, then your heart.”
Cale’s knuckles whitened, and for an instant he considered tearing the half-drow’s shirt intentionally, but thought better of it. The fool was likely just an adventurer with too much bravado and too little sense. Cale had seen his type before. Hells, Cale had killed his type before. But that night, he would let it pass. He had business with Riven.
“I don’t have time to waste with you, irinal,” said Cale. “Consider yourself fortunate.”
He tossed the half-drow aside.
To his credit, the half-drow showed some agility by managing to keep his feet and avoid bumping other patrons. He did not look up at Cale, but examined his shirt with exaggerated care.
Cale put the incident out of his mind and began walking toward Riven’s table.
Before he had taken five strides, above the thrum of the crowd he heard the half-drow call after him, “It’s not ripped after all. Wrinkled though. Consider yourself fortunate … Cale.”
That stopped Cale cold. He spun around—
—and somehow the half-drow had vanished into the Stag’s crowd. Cale went after him a few steps, pushing a few patrons out of his way while scanning the crowd. He did not see the half-drow.
The hairs on the nape of Cale’s neck rose. How had he vanished so quickly? More importantly, how did he know Cale’s name? Cale was certain he’d never seen the man before. He would have remembered a half-drow. And he had been careful to keep a low profile in Selgaunt’s underworld. The last thing he wanted was a reputation. One of Riven’s men, maybe?
Maybe. He turned and headed for Riven’s table.
The assassin greeted him with his signature sneer. To Cale’s surprise, he saw that Riven wore a featureless black disc, perhaps of carved onyx, on a silver chain around his neck. A holy symbol of Mask? That tangible evidence of Riven’s and Cale’s service to the same god made Cale feel soiled.
Riven noticed Cale’s gaze and his sneer deepened. He held the disk from his neck for Cale to see.
“Maybe it’s exactly what you think, Cale. That make you uncomfortable?”
Cale stared in Riven’s good eye and said, “No, but I’ll wager it makes you uncomfortable.” He pulled out a chair and sat. “I guess even Mask has lepers among the faithful.”
Riven grunted an insincere laugh, took a pull on his tankard, and nodded at a spot behind Cale.
“I saw that bit with the half-elf,” he said. “You stooping to picking fights with the itchies now?”
Professional assassins often referred to adventurers as “itchies”—as in, itching to prove themselves, itching for a fight.
Cale knew then that the half-drow was not one of Riven’s men. That alarmed him.
“He’s not one of yours.”
Riven scoffed. He’d interpreted Cale’s observation as a question.
“Are you jesting?” Riven said. “A little drip of piss like that? I’d as soon work with your boy Fleet.”
He took another quaff of his beer.
Cale ignored Riven’s barb at the halfling. Jak had once stabbed Riven in the back and the assassin had never forgotten—or forgiven.
