Shadowbred (36 page)

Tamlin, perhaps too tired to argue, merely took another gulp of wine. Cale stared at him, trying to frame in his mind what he wanted to say. Tamlin anticipated his words. “Do not bother to try to dissuade me, Mister Cale. My mind is made up.”

Cale started to speak but Tamlin interrupred him.

“Do you not see what will happen here? If we do not get assistance, Mirabeta’s forces will take the city. We are too few. We will die. Perhaps not you, since you can vanish into the shadows, but I, and the rest of the Old Chauncel. And all for what? So she can hold power? I did not ask to stand in her way.”

Tamlin’s words surprised Cale. They sounded as timid and self-absorbed as something he might have said years ago.

“We do not always get what we ask,” Cale said. “And this is not about you, Tamlin. This is about the city, about Sembia.”

About Magadon, he thought, but did not say.

“No!” Tamlin said, and slammed his hand on the table. Wine sloshed over the brim of his goblet and stained the tabletop crimson.

“This is about me, because
will hang if we are taken. Not you. Me. Do you understand?”p>

Cale stared at Tamlin. He could see the younger man was in deep water and unable to swim. “I understand too well. You are afraid.”

The words caused Tamlin to redden but he nodded. “Yes, very well, I am afraid. I do not want to die.” He looked at Cale, anger in his eyes. “But you are not afraid, are you? No, of course not. The fearless Mister Cale, the competent Mister Cale, the Mister Cale my father always respected and loved more than his own son, the Mister Cale who vows to pull a man out of the Hole of Yhaunn.”

Cale heard years of resentment bubbling up in Tamlin’s tone. He took a deep breath and spoke calmly. “You are fatigued, my lord. You should rest now. Things will appear different in the sun.”

Tamlin rubbed his temples. “I am going to meet with the Shadovar, Mister Cale. If they offer military assistance, I will give them whatever trade concessions they wish.”

“You should not. They are not to be trusted. Vees Talendar is not to be trusted.”

“Why should I not trust the Shadovar?” Tamlin said, with rising anger in his voice. “Because some of them are shades? So are you. Because they use shadow magic? So do you.”

Cale drew himself up and said, “The difference, Tamlin, is that I serve you and by extension, the city. They do not.”

“Do you?” Tamlin snapped. “Do you, really?”

Cale held his anger in check but the shadows leaking from his skin betrayed him. “I will return with Endren Corrinthal. Do what you will with the Shadovar. If you need me in the meanwhile, reach me via magical sending, as you did before. And understand something, Lord Uskevren. I have been afraid, for myself, for my friends, for my family. But I do not let it overwhelm me or cloud my judgment.”

Tamlin seethed and waved Cale out.

Cale turned and left the parlor, left Tamlin, and after gathering his gear, left Stormweather Towers.

ŚŠŚ<§>Ś

My boat cracked on the rocks … how long ago? I do not know. It could have been months. It feels like months. I know only that I must keep moving toward the wall. The fears are behind me, hard on my heels. My use of the river has opened some distance but not enough. I can feel them behind me in the woods, stalking me.

Sweating, gasping, covered in dirt, I dash through the forest. Limbs slap my face. Welts cover my exposed skin. I trip repeatedly but rise each time and run onward. The smell of brimstone is so intense that I cannot escape it, but I have become inured to the stink. I notice it, but it no longer bothers my lungs.

Behind me, the fears howl, one, another, another. They are unrelenting.

I scramble up a tree-lined slope… and stop in my steps.

An open, grass-covered plain stretches before me for maybe a fifth of a league. It ends at the wall. I did not know I was so close.

The dark edifice rises from the plain and stretches to the sky.

Thin cracks line its face. Black smoke leaks from them. To my surprise, ice rimes the cracks.

Abutting the wall, at its base, is a small stone structure. It looks much as I imagine the cell in which I awakened must have looked. Like the wall, it is composed of dark stone. It features only a single, windowless door.

If the door is not barred, the cell will offer shelter from the fears and a place from which I can work to breach the wall.

And I will breach it. That is my task.

The fears howl again, right behind me. I can hear them crashing through rhe undergrowth, chuffing, slobbering. I have no choice. I take a deep breath and sprint onto the plain.

Before I have taken twenty strides, the fears howl and burst from the rreeline behind me. I spare only a single glance backward and wish immediately that I had not.

Hundreds of black forms bound and roil over the grass behind me. They are closing.

10 Uktar, the Year of Lightning Storms

Cale bade the house guards at the gate goodeve, strode down the walkway, and stepped out onto the darkness of Rauncel’s Ride. Street torches pasted shadows over the cobbles, the sides of buildings. A few wagons rumbled up the streets and dozens of pedestrians walked the avenue. All of them wore worry on their faces. There was barely enough food to prevent starvation through the winter, and spring would bring war.

Cale adjusted his pack. He checked his weapons and his mask, and thanked Mask again for the spells that filled his mind. He walked the street until he found a deserted alley. It stank, of course, as all alleys did these days. Despite his grim mood, he smiled, thinking of Mask’s request to him that he cease appearing and disappearing from alleys.

“Old habits are slow to die,” he said, and pulled the

darkness about him. He imagined the Wayrock in his mind—a rocky, gull-covered isle jutting from the blue expanse of the Innet Sea, with the temple that Mask had stolen from Cyric pointing up from its center.

Cale had not returned to the Wayrock since killing the Sojourner, since Jak had died. He knew he would find Riven there, serving Mask, and he would also find Jak’s grave. He had not helped bury his friend—the pain had been too sharp, then—and he regretted it. He had never said goodbye, not really.

Remembering the halfling, how he had felt, cold and lifeless in Cale’s arms, sent a swell of emotion through Cale like a fist in his throat. He beat back the tears and reached down to touch the pipe in his belt pouch—Jak’s pipe. For a moment, the smell of pipeweed was so powerful that Cale could have sworn Jak was standing beside him.

But it was only a phantom, a memory, and it vanished with the breeze. Cale tried to send his grief with it. He had work to get done.

He reached out to make a connection between the night in Selgaunt and the night at the Wayrock, found it, and moved across the Inner Sea in a moment.

He appeared near the center of the island, just outside the tower. The surf murmured in the distance. The smell of fish and sea salt spiced the air.

The spire, a gray stone cylinder unmarred by windows, looked much the same as the last time he had seen it, when it had channeled enough magical power to pull one of Selune’s tears from the Outer Darkness. The drawbridge was lowered and the open archway leered. Torches burned on either side of the entry and the flames danced in the wind. Cale saw no guards. Mask’s temple appeared abandoned.

A figure materialized out of the darkness of the archway. Cale recognized Riven from his stature and stance, from the two sabers that hung from his weapon belt. He wore a black cloak rather than his usual crimson.

He did not bother to hail Riven and Riven did not bother to hail

him. Cale started up the drawbridge; Riven started down. Cale was Mask’s First; Riven was Mask’s Second. They met in the middle, cloaked in the night.

“He told me you were coming,” Riven said. “I have been waiting.”

Like the tower, Riven looked much the same as the last time Cale had seen him—short, muscular, and precise. He wore his long black hair pulled back and tied. The scarred hole of his right eye looked like a pit in the swarthy skin of his face. The signature sneer and stained teeth nested in a black goatee. He wore a black disc on a chain around his throat—a symbol of Mask.

Cale did not waste time with niceties. “I need help, Riven.”

Riven cocked an eyebrow over his empty socket. “What kind ofhelp?”

“I need to pull a man out of the Hole of Yhaunn.” Riven scoffed until he saw that Cale was serious. “You came here for that? No one comes out of the Hole, Cale.” “He must, and soon.” Riven raised his eyebrows to ask why. “Long tale,” Cale said. “There is much at stake.” “For who?” Riven asked. “For Mask. For Magadon.”

Both struck bone. Riven’s eye narrowed. “Magadon’s in the Hole?”

“No. Magadon’s missing.” “Missing?”

Cale hesitated, then dived in. “Have you… dreamed of him?”

Riven’s eye widened and he nodded slowly. “A blizzard of ice, devils. He’s falling. They stopped, though. A while back.”

“For me, too,” Cale said, nodding, though Cale had dreamed of flames, not ice. “But it’s all related somehow: the dreams, the Hole, Mask.” He stared into Riven’s face. “I need your help, Riven.”

“You are the First,” Riven said, and the words surprised Cale, for he heard no envy in them. Riven stroked his goatee. “The Hole is dead to magic. Spells do not work there. Magical weapons or toys. Nothing.”

Cale had not known. The fact complicated matters. “Nothing works?”

“Nothing,” Riven answered. “When I was with the Zhents—just starting out—they considered trying to get a man out of there but called it off. They thought it impossible. It’s not the guards. There aren’t that many. It’s that it’s in a city, with only one way in and out, and no way to use magic.”

“Nothing is impossible.”

“True,” Riven said. “But it can’t help but be ugly.” “That’s why I need you,” Cale said. Riven smiled at that. “We’ll need to be fast.” “Speed is critical,” Cale said, nodding. “We take a guard and force him to tell us where our man is. We get him and get out.” Riven looked him in the face. “Who’s the target?” “A Sembian nobleman. Endren Corrinthal.” Riven’s face showed no recognition.

“Ordulin is making an armed play for all of Sembia. It’s all lies, but Selgaunt and Saerb are the falls. Endren would rally some of the neutrals to Selgaunt and Saerb.”

“Civil war in Sembia,” Riven said, shaking his head. “Coin counters at war. They’re in for some hard lessons.” He looked at Cale. “I’ll do this because you’re the First and because you believe it ties back to Magadon. I care nothing for a Sembian civil war.”

“Well enough,” Cale said. He would get no better from Riven.

“When do we move?” Riven asked.

Cale considered. “Tomorrow night. Do you know the layout from your Zhent days? The number of guards?”

Riven shook his head. “I wasn’t part of the Zhents’ planning. Just muscle, then.”

“Then we go in blind and improvise,” Cale said.

“So we do,” Riven said. He offered his hand. Cale was surprised, but took it. They had said goodbye with the same gesture after Jak’s death.

“Welcome back,” Riven said, and the words sounded almost exactly like those Mask had whispered in Cale’s ear before the battle with Malkur Forrin’s mercenaries.

“Almost there, now,” Cale said softly, echoing Mask’s words. “What did you say?” Riven asked.

“Nothing. It’s good to be back,” Cale said, and meant it. He had come to rely on Riven, his Second, and Riven had not let him down.

Riven gazed into the night, licked his lips. “There are some things you need to see. Things have happened since you were last here.”

Riven was rarely cryptic and his words raised Cale’s curiosity. “Such as?”

“Follow me,” Riven said.

They turned and walked up the drawbridge side by side. Before they reached the tower’s archway, two short-haired hounds darted out of the tower and dashed toward them. Both had birder in them, judging from their ears and black and brown spots.

“My girls,” Riven said by way of explanation. His voice held a surprising softness.

Cale kneeled as the canines rushed toward them. Riven halfheartedly ordered the dogs to heel and neither even slowed.

Cale held out his shadowhand to the dogs. They sniffed it suspiciously, whined, and backed off, but Cale persisted and the larger came back again to tentatively sniff, and the smaller followed suit. Moving slowly, Cale rubbed the larger one on her muzzle, the smaller on her flanks.

That did it. Tails wagged and they licked his fingers. Cale gave them a final pat.

“They’re good dogs,” he said, standing. “Loyal,” Riven answered quietly.

“A good quality,” Cale said, not necessarily meaning the dogs. “That’s truth,” Riven said.

Tongues lolling, the dogs bounced from Cale to Riven, and the assassin stroked each of their heads in turn. They licked his hand and both fell over and showed their bellies. Riven scratched each. Cale found the scene entirely incongruous. Until then, he had never seen Riven gentle with anything.

“I never understood your fondness for dogs,” Cale said good-naturedly.

“And I never understood your fondness for Jak Fleet,” Riven said as he stood.

Anger chased Cale’s smile and hot words formed on his lips. He started to speak but Riven shook his head, held up his hand, and cut him off.

“That’s a lie. I did understand it. Fleet and I… reached an understanding before the end. I’m sorry for those words, Cale. Old habirs return when I see you.”

“Old habits are slow to die,” Cale said, echoing the words he had spoken to Mask moments before.

“Go on,” Riven said to the dogs, and gestured at the archway. The dogs turned and darted inside, tails wagging. Riven watched them go, then turned to Cale.

“Let’s say we end all this, beginning now.”

“End what?”

“The posturing,” Riven said, making a frustrated gesture. “All of it. We’ve been through too much, Cale. You are Mask’s First and I am his Second, and that’s the end of it.”

Cale managed a nod through his surprise. They hadbccn through too much. “Well enough,” he said. “We are past it. Starting now.”