by Paul S. Kemp
Cale looked at Sephris, then looked at the halfling and said, “Jak, let me have a moment.”
Surprised, Jak looked a question at him but nodded. Without a backward glance, he exited the library.
Before Cale could say anything, Sephris said, “You are a priest, aren’t you, Erevis? I could calculate the answer but I’m very tired and it would be easier if you would simply tell me.”
Cale nodded and asked, “How did you know?”
Sephris chuckled, “I can see the abhorrence on your face.”
Cale started to protest but Sephris held up his hand and shook his head.
“I’m all too familiar with it,” Sephris said. “You see in me what you fear you may become. Only another priest has that fear. Only priests are wise enough to fear, rather than covet, the gifts the gods may give.”
“The little man—Jak—is also a priest,” said Cale. “You didn’t see the same fear in him?”
Sephris waved his hand dismissively. “He is a seventeen. A seventeen is prime, evenly divisible by only itself and one, at least among whole numbers. Do you see? A seventeen is not divided in his soul. He is at peace because he already knows what he is. He is not becoming. He is what he is supposed to be. Do you want to know what number you are?”
Cale knew that whatever he was, he was not a prime number, but some number divisible by two. Cale’s soul and his loyalties were divided, and he knew it. Light and darkness warred in him, man and god, faith and independence.
“No,” he said, a bit more harshly than he had intended.
Sephris accepted that without a word.
Cale had planned to ask Sephris what he meant when he had called him the “First of Five,” but he decided then and there that he didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to plumb any deeper into Sephris’s thought processes. He did not want to plumb any deeper into his own nature. Except. …
“Was it worth it?” Cale asked. “Oghma’s gift?”
Had Mask granted Cale a “gift” of the sort that Oghma had bestowed on Sephris, Cale would have hated him for it.
Sephris nodded. He took Cale’s meaning.
“That is a fundamentally flawed question, Erevis. Do you know why?”
Cale shook his head.
“Because it implies a choice.”
Mentally, Cale rejected Sephris’s statement. He insisted on believing that at some point choice entered into the equation.
Cale said, “I’m not a determinist, Sephris.”
Sephris smiled softly. “Then let me answer you this way. Serving a god brings many rewards, but it also demands a price, always a price. The price I paid—“he sighed, a sound both contented and fatigued—“is simply more apparent to you than the price you have paid … and will pay.”
To that, Cale could think of nothing to say. He found that his hand was in his pocket, clutching his mask. He released it as if it was white hot.
Sephris leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and said nothing further. Cale took that as an invitation to leave.
“Thank you for your help, loremaster. If we get the other half of the sphere …”
Sephris smiled, though he still kept his eyes closed, and said, “Then we will speak again.”
Cale turned to go. The library didn’t appear as disorganized before.
When he laid his hand on the door handle, Sephris called to him, “One last piece of advice, Erevis. Listen carefully, for here is the key to understanding Fate.” He paused before he said, “Two and two are four.”
Cale gave a smile. If only it was that simple.
“I don’t believe in Fate, loremaster.”
Sephris opened his eyes then and said, “That is only because you cannot yet do the math.”
Outside, Jak didn’t ask Cale what transpired between he and Sephris. Instead, the halfling and Cale filled Riven in on events. The assassin took it in without a word.
Afterward, he said, “So the sphere tells the time that something will occur. But we don’t know what the something is and we don’t know where it will happen.”
Cale nodded. Almost involuntarily, all three glanced skyward, though no stars were visible in the daytime sky.
Jak took out his pipe and tamped it.
“But we can be sure it’s not good,” the halfling said.
At that, Riven scoffed. Cale suspected that the assassin didn’t care if what Vraggen sought from the sphere was good or otherwise. He only wanted to kill the wizard whose spell had made him afraid. Cale would just have to use that.
Jak struck a tindertwig and puffed on his pipe. The pipeweed’s aroma filled the overgrown yard.
“Cale,” Jak said, “we can’t give them the sphere.”
“Still thinking like a Harper, Fleet?” Riven asked with a sneer. “What do we care what this sphere signals? Worried about the innocent?”
Jak blew smoke in Riven’s direction. He started to frame a reply, but Cale’s hand on his shoulder cut him off.
“Little man, he’s just goading you,” Cale said. “It’s his way. Just leave it alone.”
Cale shot Riven a contemptuous glance.
“We can’t turn over the sphere,” Jak repeated. “They aren’t human, at least some of them aren’t, and we don’t know what they plan to do.” He shot a heated glare at Riven and added, “And burn him if he won’t think about innocents. Wearing a pin didn’t make me what I was, Drasek Riven, and resigning from the Network doesn’t change what you are.”
Riven only sneered.
Cale found that he too was concerned about innocent lives, and that realization pleased him. But there were more selfish reasons at work. He wanted to stop Azriim and Vraggen—kill them—for personal reasons. They had invaded Stormweather Towers, murdered guards, kidnapped Ren, and tried to incinerate he and Riven at the Stag. They had earned his wrath. For that, they would all die.
Cale patted Jak’s shoulder and said, “We’re not giving them the sphere, little man, or at least we’re not letting them keep it. We get Ren back safely and kill them all, under the leaves of the Elm. That solve your problem?”
“Solves mine,” Riven said, and he winked at Fleet.
Jak blew smoke rings at him and said, “You couldn’t solve two and two with an abacus, Zhent.”
Jak’s choice of words gave Cale gooseflesh.
“We’ve got a day,” Cale said. “Let’s get ready.”
CHAPTER 10
THE TWISTED ELM
Cale sat in the chair in their room at the Lizard, preparing for communion with his god. Jak and Riven were already asleep in their cots. Cale was to wake Riven before dawn, but doubted he would. He knew he would not be able to sleep that night.
No candle lit the room but Selûne’s light through the shutter slats cast silver lines on the floor. Cale waited. Though Selgaunt’s churches stopped tolling after the tenth hour, Cale knew intuitively when the midnight hour began. A benefit of serving the Lord of Shadows, he supposed.
He calmed himself, and cleared his mind. Time passed. When midnight arrived, a cloud passed before Selûne and cast the room in utter darkness. A sign from Mask.
The darkness mirrored Cale’s mood. Dark thoughts filled in his mind, violent, bloody thoughts. He reached out his consciousness to his god and requested spells that would harm his enemies. Mask answered. Cale’s mind filled with power, the power granted him by the Lord of Shadows.
At that moment, Riven began to toss in his sleep, muttering in the strange tongue Cale had heard him speak previously. For a fleeting instant, Cale thought he understood the words—an ancient tongue once used by worshipers of the Lord of Shadows in the deep of night—but the meaning danced just out of reach of his understanding before dispersing like smoke.
Jak’s voice, jarring in the dark, gave Cale a start.
“You all right, Cale?”
Riven’s muttering must have awakened the halfling. Jak was sitting up in his cot, looking at Riven.
“I’m fine, Jak,” Cale replied. “Go
back to sleep.”
The halfling nodded at Riven and said through a yawn, “What in the Nine Hells is he dreaming about?”
Cale didn’t answer.
“Probably don’t want to know anyway,” Jak said, chuckled, and lay back down to sleep.
Cale didn’t bother to wake Riven for his watch. Instead, he spent the night murdering the last of the butler in his soul. From then on, he wanted nothing in him but the killer.
A steady rain fell, soaking Cale’s cloak. The gray clouds turned the dusk of evening into the darkness of night. The surface of the Elzimmer churned in the downpour. Before them rose the High Bridge. Wide enough to accommodate three wagons abreast, the great span had stood for hundreds of years, withstanding countless battles and mage duels. The thick oak footings of the span rose from the river’s waters like the legs of giants. It looked as immovable as a mountain, but Cale knew better. The Uskevren had fought a battle there months before against the summoned horrors of Marance Talendar. The magic released during that combat had set the bridge to shaking and nearly brought it down.
Guard sheds stood at each end of the bridge, and a larger barracks complex sat in the center. Pitch torches sizzled in the wind and rain, the flames dancing as though to avoid the downpour. Just outside the near shed stood four Scepters, each armed with poleaxes and dressed in the green weathercloaks of the Scepters. They eyed Cale, Riven, and Jak suspiciously as the three approached. Cale knew the High Bridge guards to be notoriously difficult to bribe. He didn’t bother to try. Instead, he presented his Uskevren house badge and announced the three to be on Uskevren business. The bedraggled bridge guards let them pass without further inquiry.
The rain thumped a drumbeat on the wood beams. Probably due to the weather, Cale, Riven, and Jak were the only traffic on the bridge. The river flowed under their feet.
From the far side of the bridge, the Twisted Elm stood perhaps a half hour or so up the road. Ordinarily, Cale would have been able to see it from the bridge, but the rain and darkness made visibility poor. They stalked down the muddy road. The eighth hour approached.
“Near enough,” Cale said. “Let’s prepare.”
He took out his holy symbol, traced an invisible symbol in the air before him, and recited a prayer that would ward him against fire. He cast the same ward on Jak, but when he turned to Riven, the assassin held up a hand.
“Save it, Cale.”
Cale shook his head and insisted, “Take it. To the Hells with your professional pride. This is about getting the work done. Remember the fireball Vraggen used at the Stag?”
Riven hesitated.
“This will ward you against fire,” Cale said. He hesitated before adding, “It is a blessing from Mask.”
That last seemed to help convince the assassin. Riven nodded once and accepted the spell without another word. When Cale finished the incantation, Riven pulled his holy symbol out from beneath his cloak and wore it openly.
Still holding his mask, Cale continued his prayers, asking the Lord of Shadows to bless their efforts in the battle to come.
Jak too began to pray and cast: a ward against divinations and the half-drow’s mind-reading on each of them, a ward against detection on the half-sphere, a spell to protect each of them against lightning, and finally, a request for the Trickster’s own good fortune in the battle to come.
Afterward, the halfling looked up at Cale and said, “It’s as good a plan as any, Cale, but there’s no guarantee that they won’t see me, even invisible. A powerful caster may be able to penetrate my non-detection ward. And I still haven’t figured out how the half-drow saw me back in the alley.”
“There’s never any guarantees when steel is drawn, Fleet,” Riven said as he ran a thumb along each of his blade edges in turn. “Not ever.”
Cale looked the halfling in the eyes and tried to communicate an assurance he didn’t feel.
“They won’t see you,” Cale said. “Not this time.”
To that, Jak said nothing, but Cale could see he was still bothered. Cale kneeled down and looked him in the face.
“You all right with this?” Cale asked. “What you have to do?”
The plan required an invisible Jak to take down an unsuspecting target.
Jak looked sidelong at Riven before answering, “I’m all right.”
Cale held his gaze. “Little man, these whoresons killed nine guards when they attacked Stormweather, and they tried to kill me.”
“And me,” Riven said, though Cale doubted that helped convince Jak.
“The gods only know what they’ve done to Ren,” Cale continued. “They deserve worse than a sword in their back. They need to be put down, and pity should not cause you to hesitate even a heartbeat. Understood?”
Jak nodded—slowly, but Cale saw conviction in his green eyes.
Riven spit and sneered, “You’re wasting words, Cale. We already know Fleet doesn’t have any qualms about sticking steel in a man’s back. Do you, little man?”
They all knew the assassin was referencing that night when an invisible Jak had driven a short sword through Riven’s kidney.
“Keep your mouth shut, Riven,” Cale spat over his shoulder
Jak eyes narrowed but he laughed without mirth.
“No, he’s right, Cale,” the halfling said. “I won’t hesitate to put a blade in a back. In the backs of certain men, at least.” The halfling stared meaningfully at Riven. “I haven’t yet done it and regretted it. I haven’t yet stuck someone who didn’t deserve exactly what he got.”
Riven’s sneer deepened. He shot Jak an unfriendly wink.
Jak spat in Riven’s direction before turning back to Cale.
“I’m ready,” he said.
Cale smiled, thumped him on the shoulder, and said, “Then let’s do this.”
He reached into his belt pouch, removed his potion of flight, and handed it to Jak.
Before drinking it down, the halfling incanted the words to another prayer. When he finished, his body and gear faded from sight. Even the falling rain didn’t reveal his location.
“Our priority is Ren,” Cale said. “After that …”
“Anything goes,” Riven said, unsmiling.
From somewhere in the air above them—the potion must already have taken effect—Jak’s disembodied voice said, “My spell and the potion will only last a limited time. We ought to hurry.”
With deliberation, Cale put on the velvet mask that served as his holy symbol and drew his blade.
“Let’s move,” he said to Riven.
Before they had taken three strides, Jak’s voice sounded from just behind Riven, “Watch your back, Zhent. Never know if someone’s about to stick it.”
Riven’s one eye narrowed in anger and he muttered a soft curse. Cale couldn’t help but smile.
Jak hovered a dagger toss above Cale and Riven. He experimented a bit to get accustomed to the flight granted him by the potion. Thought controlled movement. If he willed himself forward, he flew forward; if he willed himself up or down, he moved up or down. And he could hover. The sensation felt … fun, and he would have enjoyed it if the situation had not been so dire. He drew his short sword and dagger.
“Space yourselves,” Cale said from below, his voice muffled by the mask he wore.
Jak nodded. It would not do for all of them to be caught by surprise in one of Vraggen’s spells. He distanced himself from his comrades, eight or nine paces ahead and a dagger toss above. Riven and Cale walked abreast, but fully five strides apart.
Cale held his long sword in one hand and the half-sphere in the other. Jak thought his friend looked sinister in the mask. He wondered why Cale had donned it.
Riven stalked down the road on Cale’s left, a magical saber in each hand. To Jak, the Zhent always looked dangerous. Working with Riven reminded Jak of something his father had said when Jak had brought a stray dog back to the burrow: We can’t keep it because it’s feral, and you never know when a feral animal will turn on you. You just a
lways know it will.
In truth, the thought of putting his blade in Riven’s back tempted him, but only for an instant. He would kill when necessary and deserved, but he was not a murderer.
In moments, though, he would come as close to murder as he cared to.
But they deserve it, he told himself, and he clutched his holy symbol. Cale had said as much and Jak believed it.
From below and behind, Cale said, “We go when you go, little man. Unless they force us to go sooner.”
“I hear you,” Jak said.
When Jak attacked, all of the Nine Hells would break loose.
“And don’t dally, Fleet,” Riven growled.
“Piss off,” Jak said, but was not sure the Zhent heard him.
They continued up the road. Jak considered scouting ahead, but decided against it—he couldn’t be sure that Vraggen and Azriim wouldn’t see through his invisibility, and he didn’t want to prematurely alert them. Instead, he stayed in position above Cale and Riven. The rain continued, soaking the ground. Soon blood would join it.
A long bowshot ahead, the Twisted Elm materialized out of the dusk. The huge, magisterial tree could not be missed. It dominated the otherwise flat plain. Its canopy was wide enough to shade a hamlet. Lines in the bark of its trunk spiraled up the bole in an unusual pattern that gave the tree its name. It looked like the threads of a giant carpenter’s screw, as though a god had reached down from the heavens and twisted the tree as it grew.
Below those stately eaves, Jak saw four figures. He could not make out features, but from their respective clothing, size, and bare weapons, Jak marked them as Vraggen, Dolgan, the easterner, and a woman. Probably the woman who had led the attack on Stormweather Towers. Behind them, perhaps ten strides farther up the road, stood two other figures: one bound and standing perfectly upright and rigid—an enspelled Ren, Jak figured—with the other, Azriim no doubt, guarding him with a bare long sword.
Jak quietly reported all that to Cale and Riven. Cale nodded. He and Riven picked up the their pace. Jak followed suit, going high and praying to the Trickster that any divination spells Vraggen or the half-drow might have in effect would not penetrate his non-detection spell.
