by Paul S. Kemp
“Can you walk?” Cale asked softly.
It didn’t please him, but he had to send Ren back to the city alone. This business was far from over.
Ren looked up from his hand and met Cale’s gaze, obviously disconcerted by the mask Cale wore.
“Yes, Mister Cale.”
Cale nodded, gave him a gentle shake, and said, “Good man. Listen to me. We can’t take you back to Selgaunt and it’s dangerous for you to remain here with us. Can you make it back alone? Now?”
For a moment, Ren looked as though all of Toril lay on his back, but he rallied quickly. He stood up straight and gave Cale a nod. His severed fingers made him wince.
Cale thumped him on the shoulder and said, “Good. Go directly to Stormweather. Tell Tam—Tell Lord Uskevren what happened to you, what you saw.” Cale debated what else to say. “Also tell him that I now have the entire sphere and that there’s no further danger to the House. But also tell him the task is not yet done and that I have to see it through. Do you understand?”
“Understood,” Ren answered. He released his wounded hand and held out his other.
Cale clasped it.
“Thank you, Mister Cale.” He looked beyond Cale to Riven and Jak and added, “All of you.”
Cale could say nothing. He didn’t feel as though he deserved thanks.
With a final nod, the young guardsman turned and trudged off into the night.
Cale watched him go. He thought Ren would be all right. At least, he hoped so.
He turned to Jak, who sat on the wet grass nearby, his blades lying beside him. The halfling had a cut above his eye where Azriim’s long sword must have nicked him. He still looked a little dazed.
“Trickster’s toes, Cale,” Jak said, shaking his head and forcing a crooked grin, “that was near one.”
Cale nodded and tried to return the grin; he couldn’t.
The sphere lay in the grass near Jak. Cale walked over to it, kneeled down and picked it up. To his surprise, he saw that the two halves had somehow fused back together. Only a thin seam around the center, like a scar, evidenced its former split. He studied it for a moment before placing it in his pack.
“All this for that,” Jak said.
Cale nodded. He turned to Jak and extended a hand.
“You gonna stay on your arse the rest of the night or find your feet?” Cale joked.
Jak smiled, took Cale’s hand, and pulled himself to his feet.
Cale put a hand on his shoulder and asked, “You all right, little man?”
“I’m all right,” Jak said, but Cale thought he sounded shaken. “How’s Ren?”
Jak indicated the direction Ren had walked, but the night and rain had already swallowed the guard’s silhouette.
“I don’t know,” Cale replied. “He’ll be all right eventually.”
Jak nodded. He kneeled and picked up his weapons. As he did, he looked sidelong to Riven, who was tending the shallow wounds he had received.
“Riven,” Jak said, and Cale could see the halfling was embarrassed. “I owe you.”
To Cale’s surprise, Riven didn’t offer his sneer, didn’t even look at the halfling.
“You owe me nothing, Fleet,” Riven said as he began to rifle the easterner’s cloak. He threw coins to the ground, but when he located the bronze teleportation rod, he examined it for a moment before putting it in a pocket of his own. “I’ve got one rule when blades are drawn—my side walks away. Everyone else—“he thumped a fist into the easterner’s chest—“you leave bleeding in the dirt. It’s that simple.”
“Understood,” Jak said. “And that’s mutual.” The halfling looked at Cale. “Take off that mask, eh? You’re both starting to make me nervous.”
Cale had almost forgotten that he had it on. He had fought with it on only once before. Wearing it made him feel anonymous, as though he had moral permission to kill. He didn’t care for the feeling. He took off the mask, put it in his vest, and patted Jak on the shoulder. For an instant, he wondered what kind of man he would have become had he not met Jak Fleet. The halfling was his conscience, he knew. Jak had softened the edges of his nature almost as much as had Thazienne.
“I don’t think Vraggen’s dead,” Jak said. “I hurt him bad, but not bad enough.”
Cale nodded. He didn’t think Vraggen was dead either.
“We’ll find him again, little man,” Cale said. “But first we get the sphere back to Sephris. He can tell us when Vraggen plans to do whatever it is that he plans to do. We’ll just have to find out the where and the what some other way.”
Jak nodded. He reached for his pipe, remembered that it was raining, and let his hand fall to his side.
“Did you see the woman start to change?” the halfling asked. “There at the end?”
Cale nodded.
“What are these things?” Jak asked. “Not just shapeshifters, and that’s certain.”
Cale had no answer, but he knew that whatever the woman was in her natural form, it was big, with jaws large enough to eat a meat shank in a single bite.
“Look at this,” Riven said, and Cale and Jak turned.
Riven had his ear to the easterner’s mouth.
“This one’s still breathing,” he said. He stepped back and eyed the chest wounds he had given the easterner. “The wounds are already closing.” Riven gave Jak a frown, then looked a question at Cale. “We passed an abandoned barn about halfway between here and the High Bridge. Did you see it?”
Cale took Riven’s meaning right away and said, “I did.”
Cale watched the halfling and waited for the import of Riven’s comment to settle in. It didn’t take long.
Jak’s eyes went wide. He grabbed Cale’s hand.
“You’re not—Cale, we can’t. No.”
“Jak …”
Jak shook his head emphatically. “No.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “You’re talking about torture, Erevis. That’s not us.”
Cale shook his head.
“I’m talking about interrogation,” he said, but the words sounded insincere even to himself.
Jak scoffed, put his back to Riven, and said in a low hiss, “I’ve seen the result of Zhent interrogations, Cale. That one—” he indicated the easterner with his thumb—“might even be human. He didn’t change. We don’t know.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “No. I won’t do it.”
“I’m not asking you to do it.”
Jak looked up into Cale’s face and said, “Yes you are, Cale. Don’t try to dodge it that way. Asking me to stand by is the same as asking me to sanction it. Don’t.”
Cale hesitated but only for a moment. They had little choice.
He kneeled down to look Jak in the eyes. He could feel Riven’s gaze heavy on him.
“We need to know what they plan to do with the sphere, little man, and where they plan to do it. I’ll try not to let it come to that.”
“Try?”
Cale sighed and said, “You said yourself that innocent lives may be at stake.” While that was true, innocent lives factored into Cale’s thinking only partially. He wanted payback, pure and true. He took Jak by the shoulders. “Listen, now. Sometimes good people have to do hard things. This is one of those times, Jak. If good people won’t do the hard things, evil people will always win, because evil people will do anything.”
Jak shook his head. His green eyes were troubled.
“So we do evil to stop evil?” the halfling asked. “That’s what you’re saying, you know.”
Cale nodded slowly and replied, “If you like, but what I mean to say is that we must be pragmatic, Jak. And pragmatism is a merciless bitch. We can stand on principle and accomplish nothing, or we can grit our teeth and do what needs to be done.”
He stood up, took a step back, and waited for Jak to decide.
“I’ll try not to let it come to that,” Cale repeated, and meant it.
Jak looked forlorn, and Cale wondered what his friendship with Jak was doing to the halfling. Jak p
ulled Cale up. Cale worried that he was dragging Jak down.
The halfling eyed Cale, looked at Riven, rubbed the back of his neck. Finally, he nodded.
“I hear what you’re saying. Innocents are at stake. I know it.” He looked at Cale sharply and added, “But I can’t be near it, Cale.”
“I know,” Cale said, and he felt dirty.
He turned away but Jak grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back around. His green eyes burned with intensity.
“Don’t lose yourself in this Erevis. Don’t turn into Drasek Riven. You’re not that man anymore.”
That gave Cale a start. How many times had he told himself those very words?
He looked down at Jak and said, “I know. I won’t.” He put a hand on the halfling’s shoulder. “This is just me learning to do the math.”
“What?”
Cale smiled softly. Jak couldn’t understand because he hadn’t heard Sephris’s words.
“Nothing,” said Cale. “Forget it.” He turned to look at Riven, who had already begun to bind the easterner. “Let’s get him to that barn.”
Riven nodded and grinned a mouthful of stained teeth. He stepped close to the easterner and looked him in the face, nose to nose.
“I told you we’d get that dance, prig. And I don’t care if you’re human or not. You know why?”
The easterner, of course, said nothing.
Riven’s gaze was dark, his voice low. “Because everything feels pain.”
The dilapidated barn sat a bowshot off the road, at the edge of an overgrown field. The farmers must have farmed out the soil and moved to better lands years before. To Jak, the decrepit building looked sinister, but perhaps that was because he knew what was about to happen within.
The rain had picked up. Riven and Cale carried the bound easterner between them. They had gagged him and wrapped him in so much rope and cord that even if he could change his shape, he could be killed easily before he could complete any metamorphosis.
As they neared the barn, the easterner, free of the immobilizing effect of Cale’s spell, began to struggle against his bonds. He must have deduced what was coming, must have seen it in Riven’s cold eye. Riven cuffed him a few times in the face—hard enough to split a lip.
“It only gets worse after this,” the assassin promised, his voice as hard as stone. “You’ll have a chance—one chance, when we get in there—to tell us what we want to know. After that. …”
He stared and let the threat dangle. The easterner glared hate. Riven sneered.
Cale grabbed the easterner by his hair and said, “Anything about you starts to change, and I start cutting off limbs. Hands, then arms. I’ll get creative after that.”
Jak figured Cale was acting but still felt nauseated.
“I’ll wait out here and keep watch,” he said.
“Suit yourself,” Riven said.
Cale nodded at him and said, “Stay alert. I don’t think they’ll be back, but we can’t be sure.”
Jak nodded, feeling numb while he watched Riven and Cale carry the struggling easterner into the barn. He thought Riven might actually have been whistling. He hoped it was an affectation to unnerve the easterner, but Trickster’s Toes if he could be sure.
Cale struck a tindertwig, shot Jak one more glance, and pulled the doors shut behind them.
Jak moved away a bit and sat atop an overturned feeding trough, careless of the rain. He tried not to think about what might occur only a short distance away.
He prayed that Cale could get the information without resorting to torture. In his minds’ eye, he imagined the screams. Chills ran along his spine. The rain did nothing to wash away the filth he felt clinging to his soul.
From within the barn, he heard voices. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to abide.
“Sometimes good people have to do hard things,” he muttered. “Sometimes good people …”
A few rusty farm implements and barrels lay strewn about the otherwise empty room of the farmhouse. Riven propped the bound easterner on a barrel in the exact center of the room. Exposed. Vulnerable.
Cale stared holes into the man.
Riven pulled another barrel over and placed it in front of the easterner. The assassin pulled a black leather bag from somewhere. Looking at the easterner meaningfully, he began to remove the contents—blades, wedges, nails, tongs, a poker, a hammer—and placed them atop the barrel. The easterner’s eyes went as wide as coins.
Seeing those tools made Cale’s legs go weak. To Riven, he said in Amnish, “That’s not the play, Riven.”
The assassin smiled evilly, as though Cale had suggested a use for the implements.
“We’ll see. How do you want to go at him?”
“Ask and answer,” Cale replied. “I’ll ask.”
Riven gave a nod, picked up one of the blades, and ran his thumb along its edge.
“I’ll answer,” the assassin said.
He glared at the easterner with ice in his eyes and a razor in his hand.
Cale could see the fear in the easterner’s face, though he tried to hide it.
Riven walked around the easterner, out of his sight. Cale could imagine the fear that must have instilled. The man tried to squirm around, but his binding held him fast.
Cale looked into the easterner’s face.
“I don’t know what you are,” he said.
Riven was suddenly at the man’s side, whispering in his ear, “Doesn’t matter.”
“I only know the situation you’re in,” Cale continued.
Riven let the razor play along the easterner’s face, just below his eye.
“And it ain’t good,” he said with a smile.
Cale paced in front of the man, keeping his voice cordial. “You can heal, we know that.” He stopped pacing, as though a thought had just occurred to him, and he looked into the easterner’s face. “Do you know what that means?”
Cale could see from his expression that he did.
“It means we can cut you,” Riven said. “And cut you, and cut you, and you won’t die.” He nicked the easterner’s face below his eye. The man winced, but bled only for a heartbeat before the wound closed. “Not ever.”
Cale had to turn to keep the disgust from his face. He could see that Riven was enjoying it, and he knew what would happen if he turned Riven loose on the man. He didn’t know if he could allow that. He prayed that he would not have to make the decision. For the time being, though, he had to play it out.
“You know who we are, so you know what we’ll do,” said Cale. “There will be no end to the pain until you tell us what we want to know.”
Riven reached out, and took another tool from atop the barrel. The easterner’s eyes followed his every move.
“Flay,” he whispered into the easterner’s ear. He put that tool back and chose a saw-edged blade. “Slice.” He picked up a pair of tongs. “Rip.”
Cale let the easterner’s imagination work, let him feel Riven’s presence beside him. The room smelled of fear. He decided that the time was right to make himself the easterner’s friend, the only thing standing between him and a madman with a knife.
“I’ve seen him work before,” Cale said apologetically, indicating Riven. “If you won’t talk to me … then you’ll have to talk to him.”
Riven grinned, circled the easterner the way a vulture circles a dying man.
Moving methodically, staring at the easterner throughout, Cale removed his mask from his cloak and donned it.
Outside, thunder rolled.
Cale spoke the words to a spell that would allow no lie to be spoken within the room.
“If you attempt to lie,” he said. “I will know.”
The easterner strained against his bonds. Riven, behind him, took his head between his hands and squeezed. The easterner froze. Riven looked to Cale expectantly.
Cale cast a second spell, one that would magnify the fear the easterner already felt. The instant Cale voiced the final syllable, the easterner’s eyes
went wide and began to dart around. Cale advanced on him. The man grunted, nearly fell over in his terror. Caught between Cale and Riven, he put his chin in his chest, moaned, and began to rock.
Cale hoped that he was coherent enough to answer. He felt uncomfortable putting the man into a state of terror but figured it was better than turning him over to Riven.
“You will have only one chance to answer my questions. Do you understand?”
The easterner grunted acquiescence around his gag.
“Remove his gag,” Cale said.
Riven did, but said, “Say a word that even suggests a spell, and I take your tongue.”
Cale knew that Riven meant what he said. His spell would not allow a lie to be spoken.
Cale stood over the easterner and asked, “What is the sphere?”
“I don’t know,” the easterner blathered. “I don’t know.”
Riven cuffed him in the head and asked, “Why does the mage want it?”
“To transform himself.”
“Into what?” asked Cale. “How?”
“A shade,” the man said. “By binding with the shadowstuff at the Fane of Shadows … Shar’s temple.”
Cale and Riven shared a look. Cale had never heard of the Fane of Shadows.
“Where is this Fane?” Cale asked.
Terror kept the easterner’s tongue loose. “At the Lightless Lake, in the Gulthmere, not far from Starmantle.”
Cale did not know the Lightless Lake, but he knew of the Gulthmere—a brooding, ancient forest on the Dragon Coast.
“Why does he wish to become a shade?”
The easterner looked at him as though he was stupid, even through the fear.
To make himself ageless,” the man explained, “immune to disease, able to regenerate wounds. Why else?”
Cale understood. Vraggen was prepared to trade his humanity for power. It didn’t surprise Cale. He had seen men behave as less than humans for much less than immortality. For the moment, he put it out of his mind, kneeled down, and stared the easterner in the eyes.
Cale asked, “What are you?”
The question hung in the air. The easterner’s mouth twisted, he bit down on his tongue so hard it bled. He shook his head, sweating, breathing heavily.
