by Paul S. Kemp
Riven offered his own sneer in return.
Cale doubted that it was that simple. Still, Magadon had not yet led them astray; he knew he could trust the guide and his judgment.
“You mentioned a guardian?” he said.
“Indeed. The fey keep the Crossroads, and each Crossroad has a single guardian. We’ll have to bargain our way past. Sometimes the guardians are … temperamental.”
“What in the Nine Hells does that mean?” Jak asked.
“You’ll see,” Magadon replied.
Cale took his cloak from the peg on which it hung and said, “I can only teleport us at night. Gather your gear. We leave as soon as we’re equipped.”
“Can you teleport with a boat too?” the guide asked Cale. “We’ll need a boat. Big enough for the four of us.”
Cale nodded.
“A boat?” Jak asked.
Magadon grinned, a feral smile, and said, “You’ll see.”
“You say that a lot,” Jak said.
Cale looked to Jak and said, “Little man, can you get us a boat at this hour?”
Jak exhaled a cloud of smoke, snapped his fingers, and snuffed his pipe.
“Easy. You’ll see,” he said, smiling at Mags. “Meet me at the docks in a half hour.”
RUNNING THE RIVER
Even by night, Starmantle’s harbor bustled with activity. Laborers and ships’ crews—some composed of humans, some not—unloaded crates of cargo by torchlight and glowball and stacked them high. Cale could imagine the illicit contents of many of the crates. Starmantle traded in vice as much as legitimate goods, the same as any other city of the Inner Sea.
The shouts of the sailors carried along the shore through the salt-tinged night air. Laughter, smoke, torchlight, and shouts carried from the open windows of the many dockside taverns. Pedestrians walked the wharves in small groups: revelers, sailors, whores, pimps, and worse.
Cale felt at home there in the night, surrounded by sin.
He stood with Jak, Riven, and Magadon on the rocky shore of an out-of-the-way inlet, down the shoreline and east of Starmantle’s main harbor. Small wooden piers and docks, large enough only for small fishing craft, dotted the shoreline there. Jak led them to one such pier, a rickety wooden construct that extended a long dagger toss into the bay. There, tethered with thick hemp rope, several small rowboats floated in the gently lapping water.
The breeze off the sea smelled fresh and clean. As he had when he’d been aboard Foamrider, Cale felt the water pull at his spirit.
“That’s it,” Jak said and gestured at one of the rowboats near them, “on the left side of the dock.”
Cale eyed the boat doubtfully. Even with his limited exposure to the sea, he could see it was a creaky tub, with rusty fittings, splintering oars, and no less than ten seasons of wear on its hull. Worn fishing nets lay piled aft. A coiled rope affixed to a rusty anchor lay fore. On the positive side, the boat was big enough that they could all fit in it. It also appeared to float … sort of.
“Did you pay for that, Fleet?” Riven asked.
“Of course I paid for it, Zhent. If Cale wanted it stolen, he’d have asked you to get it.”
Riven gave a hard smile and replied, “No. He would have asked me to do it if he wanted the owner dead and the boat burned to ash. And after selling you that, the owner deserves no less.”
“It floats,” Jak grumbled. “Now let’s just get in the damned thing.”
“I’ll row,” Magadon said.
They all walked down the wood-planked pier. Jak lowered himself into the small boat and took a seat on the rear bench. Still sneering, Riven hopped into the boat and sat beside the halfling. Jak scooted away from him and looked in the opposite direction.
Before getting in, Cale asked Magadon, “Are you sure this is going to do? We’re not going to be on the open sea, are we?”
“This will do,” replied the guide. He nodded for Cale to get in. “And we won’t be on the sea at all.”
Cale nodded, climbed into the boat, and sat fore. Magadon, after unmooring the small craft from the pier, came last and sat on the middle bench, facing aft toward Jak and Riven.
The guide took the oars and over his back, Magadon said to Cale, “Allow me to get a feel for it before you … move us.”
Cale replied, “You say when you’re ready.”
As Magadon rowed them out into the bay, Cale looked up into the clear night sky, alit with stars. The starlight reflected off the surface of the water, reminding him of the basin he had used to track Azriim to Skullport, of the starsphere that he still carried in his pack. The transformation of his soul had begun with the stars, he knew, had been foreordained thousands of years earlier when the makers of the starsphere had captured in magical crystal the periodic appearances in Faerûn of the Fane of Shadows.
Somehow, he thought that everything would end with the stars too.
Two and two are four, he thought, and let his fingertips crease the water.
The oars thumped in their settings as Magadon rowed them out a bowshot and turned the boat sharply hither and yon, finally spinning it in a tight circle.
“Well enough,” the guide said, seemingly comfortable with the boat. “This is the best we have, so we’ll make do. Are you ready, Erevis?”
Cale pulled his gaze from the sky and nodded.
Magadon reached back and gripped Cale’s forearm.
“Be at ease,” he said, and Cale felt Magadon’s mind reach for his. “This is where we need to go.”
Motes of silver light formed before Magadon’s eyes, flared, and floated over to surround Cale’s head. In his mind’s eye, Cale saw the image Magadon had transmitted, as clear a “memory” as if Cale had seen it himself: a wild river—the Wet River—racing northward from a long lake, coursing through a jagged canyon, and finally spilling over a high cliff to empty itself, in a torrent of foam and violence, into the Dragonmere.
Towering maples lined the river’s winding course, ancient watchmen guarding the waterway and giving the river the appearance of a processional. There was no sign of human habitation. The area looked untouched and untraveled, pristine.
The silver motes winked out but the memory of the place remained fixed in Cale’s mind.
How strange the mind works, Cale thought.
He caught an inkling of something that had happened back on the Plane of Shadow. But before he could recall it, it dissipated like a puff of smoke.
“Can you see it?” Magadon asked.
“I can,” Cale replied. “How did you do it?”
Magadon said, “Simple really. I transferred a memory of something that I had seen to you, as though you had seen it. That can go both ways. I can use a modified mindlink to take something that you’ve seen, or even to see through your eyes.”
“That’s why no one likes you, Mags,” Riven said.
Cale gave a half smile, feeling a strange sense of having done that all before.
“Didn’t you already tell me that?” he asked Magadon.
The guide looked at him curiously, started to speak, stopped, then said, “I don’t … I don’t think so.”
Cale shook his head, meanwhile storing what Magadon had told him in the back of his mind.
“Ready yourselves,” he said to all of them.
With an exercise of will, Cale drew the shadows about the boat until darkness cloaked them like a shroud.
“I can’t see,” Jak said, and his voice was small in the darkness.
Cale pictured the location in his mind and transported them from the darkness of Starmantle’s bay to the darkness of the Wet River canyon. He didn’t feel any sensation of motion, though he heard Jak gasp.
When he let the shadows begin to dissipate, it was plain that they were elsewhere. Sound filled their ears: the slow croak of frogs, the chirps of crickets and cicadas, and the steady rush of the river. Maples loomed over them, blotting out the stars. Behind the maples rose the steep, boulder-strewn sides of a rocky canyon. The boat wa
s moving, careening sideways in a moderate current.
“Help me get it to shore!” Magadon shouted. “The current gets fast very quickly.”
While the guide skillfully plied the oars, Cale, Jak, and Riven used their hands to help paddle. Together, they pulled the craft out of the current and steered it into the shallows. There, Magadon hopped out and pulled the craft onto a stony beach.
Breathing hard, they all exited the boat and sank to the ground.
When he’d caught his breath, Magadon said to Cale, “We covered over twenty leagues in a heartbeat. Well done.”
Cale caught Riven’s frown, but chose to ignore it.
“We’ll camp here,” Magadon said, indicating a knoll under the leaves of a maple. “With the dawn, we start downriver for the Dragon’s Jaws.”
Jak and Riven stared at the guide.
“The falls are called the Dragon’s Jaws,” Magadon explained. He cocked his head. “If you listen with care, you can hear them even from here.”
With his darkness-enhanced senses, Cale could hear them quite clearly. In the distance sounded the dull roar and boom of thundering water. In his mind’s eye, he could see the falls: a raging river cutting a jagged gash in the wall of a high cliff. The gash looked vaguely like jaws snapping shut.
Magadon looked at Riven and Jak and said, “The falls at the Jaws descend two bowshots or more before crashing into the Dragonmere. The mist is as thick as an autumn fog; the roar as loud as the bellows of a hundred ogres. It’s wondrous to see.”
“Wondrous?” Jak said, while he stuffed his pipe. “Trickster’s toes! Two bowshots is a long drop, Magadon.”
Riven said nothing.
“The Jaws are the location of the Crossroad,” the guide said. “More precisely, the Jaws are the Crossroad.”
When Cale and Jak looked a question at him, Magadon said, “You’ll see tomorrow. Save your questions until then. I need to prepare tonight.”
Since Magadon seemed disinclined to speak further about it, Cale let it drop.
After they had pitched their tents and Magadon had gotten a campfire going, Cale volunteered to take the first watch. He would need to pray to the Shadowlord at midnight anyway.
“There is no need for that here,” Magadon said, and nodded up at the maples. “This place is already being watched.”
Cale followed Magadon’s glance to the canopy above. He saw nothing there and heard only the wind through the leaves, the rush of the river, and the distant boom of the Dragon’s Jaws. Still, he took the guide at his word, shrugged, and lay down to sleep.
He awakened at midnight, as always. Sitting up from his bedroll, he saw Magadon sitting near the river, keeping vigil and whispering to its waters. The guide’s words were lost to the rush of the current and the song of the crickets.
Cale looked to the other side of the fire and saw that Riven was not in his tent. He sat up fully and scanned the campsite. His vision allowed him to see clearly in the darkness and he spotted Riven right away. The assassin sat in the deeper darkness against the bole of one of the maples. He had his legs partially drawn up and rested the back of his palms on his knees. His eyes were closed.
He was praying, Cale realized, and the understanding made him uncomfortable.
With effort, he put it out of his mind. So as not to disturb either Magadon or Riven, Cale quietly donned his mask and prayed to the Shadowlord. His patron answered; power filled his brain, the words to prayers that would unlock magic.
Afterward, he lay back down to sleep. By then, Riven was back in his bedroll, sleeping.
Magadon awakened him just as the false dawn began to lighten the sky above the canyon. Together, they roused Jak and Riven. Jak lit his pipe; Riven’s coughs sounded loud off the canyon’s rocks.
While they gathered their gear, Magadon explained the situation: “The guardian is a river fey, and will only appear if we brave the current near the Jaws while the sun is rising. I had hoped to win his favor last night. He did not answer, but we shall soon see if I succeeded.”
“Near the Jaws,” Jak muttered, and lost his pipe from between his teeth. “Dark,” he said, retrieving it and dusting the dirt from the stem.
“You’re right to be concerned,” the guide said. “Once in that current, there is no getting out. We must convince the guardian to allow us passage, or we’ll go over the falls.”
Between his coughs, Riven managed a hard laugh. Cale and Jak shared a look.
“How do we do that?” Cale asked, his voice and mood serious.
Magadon shrugged, and as he finished loading his pack he said, “Fey are fickle. Some days, one thing will work, someday another. But something will work. We need only find what it is.”
Cale wondered if he should reconsider his decision not to transport them all directly to Skullport.
Magadon must have sensed his hesitation.
“All we can do is try, Erevis.”
“Try and die,” Riven said, as he pulled on his pack.
“Maybe,” Magadon acknowledged.
Jak pocketed his pipe and threw his pack in the boat.
“You’ve got nothing better, Zhent,” the halfling said to Riven. “I trust Magadon’s judgment.”
Riven glared at Jak then turned back to the guide.
“How often have you made this passage, Mags?” he asked.
Magadon hesitated a moment then answered, “Once.”
“Still trust his judgment, Fleet?” said Riven, laughing.
Jak looked concerned but said nothing.
“Can you do it, Magadon?” Cale asked, looking the guide in the eyes.
Magadon’s brow furrowed and he said, “It will take all of us. But yes, I think so.”
That was good enough for Cale.
“Then let’s go,” he said, and thumped Magadon on the shoulder.
They piled into the boat and Magadon pushed them off. After climbing in and taking his seat on the middle bench, he linked their minds.
This way, he projected, we can communicate unheard by the fey.
Just as the current seized them and sent them speeding down the river, Magadon looked meaningfully at Riven and Cale.
“Violence and threats cannot avail us with the guardian,” said the guide, “so do not offer any. Provide it with what it asks, and it will grant us passage.”
Cale and Riven acknowledged Magadon’s words with a nod. As the sun’s light began to peek over the canyon and brighten the sky, Cale resisted the urge to draw up his cloak hood. His skin stung, but he endured. His hand vanished and he drew the sleeve of his cloak over the stump. He would abide the light, though he knew that the sun would prevent him from using any of the abilities granted him by his transformation. If they went over the Dragon’s Jaws, he would not be able to save them from drowning. But he would face death with his friends, in the sun, unhooded, and with open eyes.
Currents of nervousness and anticipation traveled along the telepathic lines that connected them. None were sure that it would work.
Nothing for it now, Cale thought, and held on.
The current accelerated rapidly and sent them hurtling down the river. Magadon used the oars not for propulsion but to help steer the boat, since it had no tiller. While he worked, he began to sing in a language that Cale had never before heard, but that somehow stirred him, calling to mind moonlit nights, forested glades, and quiet revelry. The guide’s voice was a mellow baritone, and the song used the river’s rush as a counterpoint to its melody.
Cale looked to the back of the boat, to Riven. The assassin clutched the side of the vessel with one hand and the bench he shared with Jak in the other. Dark circles painted the skin under his eyes.
In a mental voice only Riven could hear, Cale projected, Dreams?
Riven looked up sharply, furrowed his brow, and shook his head.
No. I haven’t dreamed since we came back from the Plane of Shadow.
Cale considered that as the boat scraped against a rock and began to pick up still m
ore speed. Magadon continued to sing the song of summoning, even as his mental voice cursed the rocks and current.
Perhaps he’s through with you? Cale said to Riven, but doubted it.
Riven knew whom Cale meant by “he.” The assassin’s eye narrowed and fixed on Cale.
I don’t want him to be through with me, First of Five.
Cale heard the venom in Riven’s mental voice and understood the feelings well. He had seen them in Riven before. When both Cale and Riven had served the Righteous Man in the Night Knives, Riven had been second to Cale. And in serving Mask, Riven was second again. Cale knew that a man in that position might do anything, might give anything. He recalled the assassin’s prayers of the night before and wondered what Riven had asked of Mask, and what the Shadowlord had given and taken. For reasons he could not explain, Cale felt pity for Riven. The assassin was as caught up in the schemes of the Shadowlord as Cale, but he had no one to keep him grounded. Riven didn’t have someone like Jak. Cale decided that he would try to give the assassin some ballast.
Listen to me, Riven, Cale said, in as brotherly a tone as he could muster. You give yourself over fully to Mask and you’ll be stepping off a cliff bigger than anything we’ll be seeing today. Keep yourself.
Riven answered with only a frown and a turned head.
Cale stared at him for a moment then shook his head. He had done what he could.
Magadon ceased his singing and Cale noticed for the first time that another voice had taken up the tune, a wondrous voice, an otherworldly, sing-song tenor. Cale scanned the churning river ahead and behind but could not see a source; it appeared to come from the rush of the waves itself. The words and the voice sent a charge of energy through Cale and he had to force himself to not stand in the boat. Where Magadon’s version of the song had called to mind a majestic forest under the stars, the same words, sung in a different voice, had come to evoke an image of roaring waves, leaping fish, and the thrill of the hunt.
Remain still and non-threatening, Magadon projected to them, then he called aloud, “We hear your song, guardian, and beseech you to show yourself.”
