Dawn of Night

by Paul S. Kemp

  “White water,” Jak shouted over the singing from his bench in the rear, pointing past Cale to the river ahead. Magadon cringed at the halfling’s shout and the guardian’s song faltered.

  No shouting, the guide admonished.

  Cale turned to see rapids around the next bend in the river. Rocks poked through the river’s surface, causing swirls, little whirlpools, and foam. The water roared around them, roiling and splashing. A host of small cascades awaited them ahead, culminating in the distance in the torrent that spilled over the Dragon’s Jaws. Cale dug his fingertips into the gunwales and tried to keep from spilling over the side as the boat began to lurch.

  “We humbly request your presence, Guardian,” Magadon said.

  “I’ve been here all along, woodsman,” said a voice from beside the boat, “at least for those with eyes to see. And please do not shout on my river, half-a-man.”

  Cale looked to the side of the boat and his breath caught. Rising halfway out of the roiling water to swim beside the boat was the guardian fey. Though roughly humanoid in stature—at least from the waist up—it looked to be composed of the river water itself. In its shimmering, liquid shape, Cale could make out the watery outline of long, unkept hair, laughing eyes, and a smiling mouth. Though Cale could see no means of propulsion—the creature appeared to have no body below its manifested torso—the fey darted around the boat, gliding through the water with the ease and rapidity of a hummingbird in the air. The creature looked each of them over; an appraising glance. It lingered longest near the bow, eyeing Cale.

  What’s happening? Cale asked Magadon.

  Do nothing, replied the woodsman, and grunted as he managed the boat through the increasingly powerful current. It is observing.

  At last, the fey again took up station beside Magadon.

  “You keep unusual company, woodsman,” the fey said. “And sing out of tune. And confuse many of the lyrics. And befoul the Sylvan tongue. I am deeply offended.”

  The fey crossed his arms over his chest and looked away, still somehow keeping pace with the boat as it careened along in the current.

  Keeping one eye on the rapids and one eye on the river fey, Magadon said, “I am but a simple guide, as you suggest. Forgive my mistreatment of your tongue.”

  He pulled the oars hard back as the boat tumbled down a small cascade. Cale’s stomach raced up his throat.

  “We’ve come to petition you for access to the Crossroads,” Magadon said, struggling to keep his tone even. “We wish to journey to Skullport.”

  The fey’s gaze darkened. It looked at Cale doubtfully.

  “You seek the Sargauth then,” it said. “Dark waters, those.”

  More rocks, Mags, Cale projected. Big ones.

  Ahead, the river accelerated. The water boiled around huge, jagged rocks.

  I see them, the guide projected back. Hold on tight.

  The fey watched with amusement as Magadon tried to steer the boat away from the rocks.

  “Beware now,” the fey said and giggled, the sound like rain tinkling on metal.

  The creature’s body slammed into a rock, exploding into a shower of drops and mist, then instantly reformed on the other side, still grinning.

  After passing the rocks, the full force of rapids seized them. Cale felt as if a hand had taken hold of the keel of the boat and thrown it forward. Foam churned, water roiled, and the boat thumped again and again against more rocks hidden just below the surface. Cale’s teeth rattled in his head and his cloak was sodden. Throughout, the fey somehow swam along beside them, just out of arm’s reach, smiling benignly.

  “The Sargauth,” Magadon said, breathing hard and trying to keep the boat from breaking into pieces. “Yes. Will you grant us passage?”

  The boat slammed so hard into a rock that Cale thought for certain they had staved a side. The craft spun off the stone and rotated ninety degrees. Magadon righted them with effort. A dip, another. Water swamped the bow. Cale was soaked. The boat hit another rock, tumbled down another cascade. From the rear, Jak shouted, bounced high in the air, and would have gone overboard but for Riven’s reflexes. The assassin grabbed the halfling by the cloak and yanked him back into the boat.

  “Hang on godsdamnit, Fleet!” the assassin said.

  Over the roar of the river, the fey frowned, waggled a translucent finger at the assassin, and said, “No. I think I shall not grant you passage. You and your friends wield words as though they were weapons. I remain offended.”

  Ahead, Cale could hear the roar of the falls. It was growing louder. The river bed was dropping by steps; cascade after cascade. The maple trees and canyon walls around them were blurs. The boat bobbed through the water like a child’s toy. Cale knew that the mad rush down the waterway ended in a fall that none of them could survive.

  Be quick, Magadon, Cale projected to the guide.

  He held on as the bow crashed down another cascade and nearly unseated him. They had a thirty count, no longer.

  “Guardian,” Magadon shouted, and Cale felt the guide’s desperation travel along the telepathic channels. “Please, what can we do to gain passage?”

  Ahead a spearcast, Cale saw the Dragon’s Jaws. It looked just as it had in Magadon’s mental image: the river’s current had carved a great U-shaped channel through the cliff face. Foaming water roared through the channel and vanished from sight, falling into the thick mist formed from the water slamming into the Dragonmere far below. Jagged boulders jutted from the waters before the Jaws.

  “The falls!” Jak shouted from behind.

  The fey made a show of thinking.

  “You’ve offended me with words, woodsman. Now you must amuse me with them. Or surprise me. Or astonish me.” He waved a watery hand and said, “Begin.”

  The four comrades shared a look.

  Try something! Riven projected.

  Cale watched with dread as they neared the Jaws. The river surged, nearly capsizing the boat. They all four uttered a collective shout.

  “Magadon!” the halfling called.

  “I am born of a devil,” the guide blurted.

  The fey raised his eyebrows, laughed, and clapped his hands.

  “Wonderful! Which one?”

  The boat slammed into a rock, nearly sending Cale over the bow. They were taking on water.

  “What?” Magadon shouted, doing everything he could to slow their approach to the falls.

  “Which devil?” asked the fey. “Name your sire—or mother, as the case may be.”

  Cale saw Magadon’s resistance, felt it in his mind. Cale didn’t know if he wanted the woodsman to speak his father’s name or keep it behind his teeth. He understood Magadon’s struggle. Speaking the name of his demonic father—something Magadon was loathe to do—would have felt to the guide like surrender, like the way Cale had felt back on the Plane of Shadow when he’d drawn Weaveshear for the first time.

  “Tell the thing what it wants to hear, Mags!” Riven said. His good eye was wide, eyeing the approaching falls. “It’s just a name.”

  The fey’s gaze fixed on Riven and hardened.

  “The shadow of the shade speaks at last.” It indicated Cale, looked back to Riven, and said, “You are merely his shadow, are you not?”

  Riven’s eye narrowed. His mouth set into a hard line. Despite the upset of the boat, one of his hands went for a blade. His anger was palpable through the mindlink, overriding the group’s collective trepidation at the onrushing Jaws.

  “Mephistopheles!” Magadon shouted, and the word made Cale’s stomach churn worse than the river. “Mephistopheles is my blood sire.”

  The fey seemed unperturbed by the foul name.

  “Excellent!” the creature said to Magadon. “A base word but well said!”

  “You want to hear words of power, you little pissdrip?” Riven growled from the back of the boat. “Then hear this.”

  Do not! Cale ordered, but it was too late.

  Riven spat a stream of corruption in the tongue he so
metimes used as a weapon. Cale, Jak, and Magadon doubled over in pain upon hearing the words, but the fey only squinted as though he was facing the wind in a rainstorm. After Riven had spewed the sentence, he looked surprised to see that the fey had not disintegrated.

  The fey, seeing Riven was done, clapped his hands lightly.

  “Foully told, but well said.” It turned to Jak and said, “Now you, little bedraggled half-man. The pissdrip has yet to hear from you.”

  Jak, his eyes still watering from the obscenity mouthed by Riven, could not take his gaze from the river.

  Say something, Fleet, Riven projected.

  You keep your mouth closed, Zhent! Jak shot back with heat, and glared at Riven.

  Little man…. Cale prompted.

  “Come now,” said the fey. “Confess.”

  At that Jak gave the creature a sharp look, then looked to Cale. Cale gave him a reassuring nod and the halfling nodded back and turned to the fey.

  Barely audible over the roar of the approaching falls, Jak said, “I’m afraid of what is happening.”

  The fey grinned.

  “Well done, half-a-man! Well done indeed! I’d ask what in particular frightens you, but I know it is everything.” The creature spun around to face Cale, and pointing past him to the onrushing falls said, “Time is short, shade. What do you have to say to me?”

  The roar of the water was loud in Cale’s ears. He struggled to find something to say, something the fey would not have heard before. Nothing. He could not think above the roar of the Jaws.

  Hurry, Cale, Riven prompted.

  “’Ware,” the fey blithely cautioned.

  They all saw it too late. The boat crashed into a jagged rock jutting a handbreadth above the waterline. It split the side of the little craft and sent Cale tumbling into the river. He heard the shouts of his comrades for only an instant before he went under. His single good hand clutched for something, anything, but managed to take hold of only a broken bit of the boat’s hull. Not enough to keep him afloat.

  He felt as if a giant’s hand pressed him to the riverbed and held him submerged. The water was not deep. His back scraped against the rocky bottom and he could still see sunlight cascading through the rough water. But he couldn’t gain purchase to push himself to the top. The current rolled him, twisted him, twirled him like a dry leaf in a gale.

  And above it all, even underwater, he could hear the dull, foreboding rush of the Dragon’s Jaws.

  In his head, he heard the fey say, Speak, shade, or all is lost. Already your friends are drowning, though the woodsman swims strong and even now tries to save them.

  Cale’s breath was failing. He didn’t even have the sense to feel much surprise at the fact that the fey could communicate telepathically. He reached for the surface and felt his hand broach the water, feeling the sun’s sting on his flesh for only a moment before the current pushed him back down. The falls were near. His breath was gone. A flurry of incoherent images flashed through his mind: Riven leading a religious service, the Fane of Shadows, a twin spire built on an island and reaching for a starry sky, a laughing mask stepping from Shar’s shadow to stab at Cyric, the Plane of Shadow, the ruins of Elgrin Fau.

  The ruins of Elgrin Fau….

  He hoped the fey was still listening.

  Over six thousand years ago, he projected to the fey, on a world now forgotten, Kesson Rel the Dark, first Chosen of the Shadowlord, angry at his forced exile from Elgrin Fau, banished the whole of the city into the Plane of Shadow. The inhabitants thought he had stolen the sun, but he had stolen only them. He lingers still in the darkest places of the Shadow Deep, feeding his malice. One day, I will find him and avenge his betrayal.

  For a heartbeat, everything fell silent. Cale blew out the last of his breath in a stream of bubbles. A sudden roar filled his ears, impossibly loud. He felt himself falling, going through the Dragon’s Jaws and down into oblivion.

  Your travels will lead down dark paths, said the fey in his head. Journey well, shade.

  PLOTTING

  Kexen sat alone at a small table in the Pour House Inn and Tavern. Under his sleeve, Sessa, one of Zstulkk’s sets of eyes, coiled tightly around his forearm. The noise and smoke agitated the serpent, and it slithered irritably around Kexen’s arm. Kexen stayed still and calm. Zstulkk’s familiars had been known, on rare occasions, to bite their bearers.

  An image of his body, bloated and purple from cave viper venom, floated through Kexen’s mind. He pushed it away with effort. Everyone in Zstulkk Ssarmn’s slaving organization knew that the yuan-ti saw through the eyes of his pet serpents. Bites occurred only when Zstulkk was displeased with what he saw through the serpent, or when the operative was captured and in possession of incriminating information. Kexen would give his employer no cause for displeasure, and had no intention of being captured by anyone—ever.

  Tallow candles scattered around the common room provided the only light, sending greasy, swirling spires of smoke ceilingward. The stifling air smelled of un-bathed sailors, the cheap body-fragrance of whores, and a wretched, dried-fungus incense that Felwer, the one-armed proprietor, insisted on burning in a ceramic incense tray behind the bar. Felwer always told anyone who would listen that the incense attracted whores and repelled cats. The innkeeper had an affinity for the former and an inexplicable phobia for the latter. Felwer even kept a dog to keep the cats at bay: a grizzled old bitch named Retha, who typically did nothing except lay before the hearth and leak piss on the floor.

  The shouts of passing street vendors, selling cured rothé meat and pickled mushrooms, carried through the irregularly-shaped holes in the wall that served as the Pour House’s windows. Kexen’s rickety table, cobbled together from salvaged wood from ruined ships, seemed ready to tip at the slightest bump and spill the tankard of mushroom ale that sat untouched atop it. He would not have cared. The swill smelled like urine and probably tasted worse; he’d bought it only to keep Felwer from fretting.

  Bleary-eyed, grinning sailors of various races thronged the common room, all either drunk already or well on their way. The professional girls circled the sailors like perfumed sharks that smelled blood in the water. Kexen had already made his own disinterest plain to an insistent, would-be skulker courtesan who looked haggard even in the dim light of the house’s candles. Sessa would have bit her had Kexen not pushed her away. The courtesan moved on with an indignant huff to sit on the lap of a gigantic half-orc sailor, probably a pirate.

  Bawdy songs erupted at intervals from a group of dark-skinned Calishite sailors who sat on the other side of the common room. Gaming for coppers went on at several tables and in every corner: sava, scales and blades, roll-the-bones, and king’s ransom. Shouts of glee or moans of despair went up from time to time, depending upon the roll of the dice or the draw of the deck.

  Kexen smiled. He understood well what it was to lose a month’s pay on a throw of the dice or a hand of cards. He had long ago served his time crewing a slaver, squandering his pay in dives like the Pour House—but not anymore. As a rising member of Zstulkk Ssarmn’s organization, he was accustomed to finer surroundings. All he wanted was to complete his business with Thyld and get back to his residence in the Middle Heart.

  A patient man by nature, Kexen continued to wait without fidgeting, staring through the smoky air at the curtain of strung oyster shells that served as the main door of the Pour House. Thyld was due presently.

  Kexen and Thyld had a longstanding relationship. Thyld, a member of the Kraken Society and hence a man with considerable contacts, sold pertinent information to Kexen on the side, and occasionally acted as a middleman between Zstulkk Ssarmn’s organization and third parties in need of certain services. It was the latter that Kexen expected. It just annoyed him to have to meet at the Pour House. For reasons inexplicable to Kexen, Thyld had chosen that time to hold their meet in the Lower Port tavern.

  Kexen shifted in his chair—taking care not to upset either the rickety table or the even less stable ca
ve viper affixed to his arm—and adjusted the two cocked and loaded magical hand crossbows he wore on his hips. He had taken them from the corpse of a drow mercenary he’d put down a year earlier. The open-bottom holsters, flexibly affixed to his weapon belt, permitted easy aiming and firing while still holstered, even under a table. The bolts carried a quick acting paralytic he’d purchased from a duergar herbalist. A professional precaution. The cutlass on his hip could serve too, if necessary.

  Obviously, Kexen thought it unlikely that Thyld meant him harm, else he would not have come alone. In truth, Thyld was naught but a scrawny skulker done well. Still, Kexen preferred to be overcautious rather than under-breathing. Operatives of the Xanathar knew Kexen to be a member of Zstulkk’s organization. With a war in the offing between the yuan-ti slaver and the beholder crime lord, an overzealous servant of the Xanathar could decide to make a name by trying to put Kexen down. Best to be prepared. In Skullport, it always paid to be prudent.

  Still, it made him uncomfortable that Thyld was late. It smelled ever-so-slightly of a set-up. Typically, Thyld was nothing if not punctual. He decided to give the ferret-nosed fool another hundred count and he would leave. He was busy with Zstulkk’s business—a Luskan caravel filled with flesh was due in port within hours, and he needed to process the stock. He had only scant time to waste with Thyld.

  As if summoned by Kexen’s thoughts, the sea-shell curtain parted and there stood Thyld, balding head, nervous eyes, potbelly and all. Behind him lurked another man, tall and muscular, with a huge axe strapped across his back.

  Kexen breathed easier. It was no set-up.

  Thyld looked around the common room and Kexen hailed him with a raised hand—the hand attached to the arm free of a serpent. Thyld nodded his oversized head and waded his skinny body through the sea of sailors and whores. The large man followed, eyeing the sailors coldly.

  Kexen figured the big man was an Amnian, possibly a ship’s captain to judge from his bearing. He wore a threatening scowl and a dark cloak interlaced with silver thread.

  Thyld slid into the chair opposite Kexen. He looked a bit different somehow but Kexen couldn’t quite place the change. The big Amnian sank into the chair beside Thyld, bumping the table and nearly toppling Kexen’s tankard. Thyld showed surprisingly quick reflexes in snatching the ale before it tipped.