by Paul S. Kemp
“It’s still full,” he reminded her. “Did he hurt you?”
She looked down at the mercenary’s blood that stained the table.
“I’ve had worse,” she said.
Cale didn’t doubt it.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
He realized he was still touching her hand, and let her go. She looked him in the eye and Cale saw strength there, and pain.
“Varra,” she said. “Thank you for … that.”
Cale nodded an acknowledgment. He thought her name a nice one.
“When do you go home, Varra?”
Her gaze narrowed and she flushed.
“What? Why do you ask? What that oaf said—It’s not true of me, not anymore. I’m not—”
It took Cale a moment to understand her meaning. When he did, he felt his own ears flush. “That’s not what I meant,” he said, waving a hand. “I meant that I would escort you home.”
He saw that she didn’t understand his offer.
“Men like that,”—he nodded at the door through which the mercenaries had exited—“might try to find some dignity by revenging themselves on you.”
When she understood his meaning, her eyes softened, but she still said, “They won’t. And an escort will not be necessary.”
“They’re not coming back, Cale,” Riven said.
Cale ignored the assassin.
“I know it is not necessary, Varra,” he replied, impressed with her diction and dignity. He sensed an education in her background, or at least an educated mentor. “But I’d prefer to do so even still.”
She held his gaze for a moment, as though measuring his intentions. The moment stretched.
“Very well,” she said at last, and walked away.
Riven, having watched the whole exchange, favored Cale with his signature sneer then said, “I wonder if the Shadowlord knows that his First is as soft as an old woman.”
Cale gave the assassin a stare.
Riven chuckled in response.
“Well, while you do that,” the assassin said, nodding at Varra, “I’ll get to work.”
Cale walked beside Varra, following her lead while he kept his eyes and ears alert for any sign of the mercenaries. Like Riven, Cale thought it unlikely that the men would return, but he’d been wrong before.
Fortunately, the sellswords didn’t show themselves, though orcs, drunken sailors, bugbears, and slaves marched past. Diseased, reed-thin men and women—human, goblin, and even orc—lingered in alleys or lurked in sewer mouths, coughing, smoking, watching them with the dull eyes of the damned. Voices and the tread of boots carried from the bouncing catwalks and bridges strung high above them. Cale had to adjust his technique to evaluate danger in three dimensions. He found it discomfiting.
Cale hadn’t bothered to disguise himself against discovery by Azriim and the other slaadi. He would have to rely on the darkness and crowds to give him anonymity. A disguise would have required an explanation to Varra, and might have dissuaded her from allowing him to escort her. And Cale felt a strange attraction to the woman. Souls akin, perhaps.
Varra used no torch or candle, instead choosing roundabout routes lit by lichen, glowballs, and torches. She seemed unafraid of the street, and Cale knew enough not to attribute her fearlessness to his presence. He admired her mettle. In truth, he admired her.
They walked in silence for a time.
“I told you it was unnecessary,” she said after a while. “Those men won’t be back. It’s happened before.”
Cale only nodded.
“It’s not far now,” she said, filling the silence between them.
Cale, who spoke nine languages, found himself somewhat at a loss for words. Except for Thazienne and Shamur Uskevren, he had not had much interaction with women in recent years.
“How long have you lived here?” he finally managed.
She gave a soft little laugh and said, “A long while.” She looked at him sidelong as they walked. “How long have you been here? No. Why are you here? You don’t belong here. I can see that. You’re friend might, but you don’t.”
“He’s not my friend,” Cale replied, though he was not so sure. “We just … understand each other. And work together. Why are you here?”
It was clear to Cale that Varra didn’t belong in Skullport either.
She smiled fully, an expression that illuminated her face, and said, “You first.”
“Business,” Cale replied. To ensure that she didn’t take him for a slaver or worse, he added, “I’m looking for someone.”
“Aren’t we all,” she said, but otherwise had the sense to ask nothing more. Cale appreciated that.
“And you?” Cale asked.
She waved a delicate hand in the air and said, “Where else would I go?”
Cale could think of nothing to say to that.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
To his surprise, Cale thought first of the Plane of Shadow but he immediately righted his thinking.
“Westgate,” he replied. Her face showed no recognition. Surprised, he wondered if she had been born in Skullport. “A large city overlooking the sea,” he explained. “Far from here.”
He put his hand to Weaveshear’s hilt as two ogres plodded by. Only their stink proved offensive.
“It’s sunny in Westgate, I expect?” Varra said.
Cale supposed it was, at least sometimes. Of course, he had done most of his work in the night.
“Yes,” he replied.
Her expression grew wistful, even as she absently stepped over a body that was either drunk or dead.
“I haven’t seen the sun in … a long time,” she said.
Again Cale found himself with no words. The silence sat between them as they passed one rundown, rickety building after another, and one rundown, rickety human being after another.
After a while, he asked, “Why do you stay?”
She gave that same quick laugh then said, “I was born far away, too far to easily return.” Her voice dropped and she added, “I’ve nowhere else to go. This is my home now.”
Before Cale could respond, she pointed to a dilapidated, moisture-swollen flophouse leaning dangerously against the cavern’s wall. A rothé pen stood to its right; a fungus garden to its left. Unlike most of the structures in Skullport, another building was not built atop the flophouse, though Cale could see movement in some of the caves and recesses higher up the cavern wall.
“That’s it,” she said. She stopped and turned to face him. “Thank you for the escort.”
Cale thought again how pretty she was, how beautiful she might have been with appropriate food, dress, and a softer life under the sun. Tempting though it was, he knew he could not help her with those things, at least not just then. He had other, more pressing business.
“My pleasure, lady,” he said.
He gave his best bow, smiled, and turned to leave. She caught his cloak sleeve.
“I have a fire pit inside,” she said, with only a hint of self-consciousness. “It’s warm. I share lodging with two other women, but they’re probably still … out.”
At that moment, under Varra’s gaze, Cale didn’t need a fire pit to warm him. He felt an inexplicably powerful compulsion to take Varra in his arms and it almost overcame his better judgment. Almost. He smiled at her and gently took her hand. It was soft and feminine, despite the harshness of her work. He noticed for the first time that only a few shadows were leaking from his flesh. It was as if she kept his darker nature at bay.
“This is not a good time,” he said. “I have something important that I must see through to the end.”
A coffle of slaves trudged past, chains ringing. Cale noticed a ragged looking human staring at him, all the while wearing a crazed smile. The human looked familiar, perhaps the same madman who had accosted him on the street when they had first arrived in the city.
Varra pulled him back to himself by touching his cheek and staring into his eyes. She smiled, t
he first smile he had seen that touched her eyes. Seeing her face light up like that, he almost changed his mind.
“A man of secrets,” she said. “But with a darkness about you that is plain.”
Cale could not deny it.
She held her smile and said, “Does the man of secrets have a name?”
Cale flushed, feeling the fool. He had failed even to introduce himself. He started to say his name but quickly caught himself.
“Vasen Coriver,” he said, making her one of the only people still living on Faerûn who knew his given name.
One less secret, he thought.
She withdrew her hand from his and brushed a stray hair from her face.
“Vasen,” she repeated. “I like that. Well, Vasen, will we see each other again?”
He answered her honestly, “I don’t know.”
She seemed to accept that, though her smile faltered.
“I think we will” she said, “But until then retain il nes baergis.”
Cale had never before heard the language.
“What does that mean?” he asked.
She winked at him and said, “I’ll tell you when I see you next.”
Without another word, she turned and walked into the flophouse.
Cale could do nothing but watch her go, thinking how important the briefest of encounters sometimes felt, and how he had a new reason to stop the Sojourner and his slaadi.
At first, Azriim did not believe his eyes—his own eyes, which he retained despite being in the form of Thyld. He peered through the darkness at the two humans. Was it possible? Awkward in Thyld’s pathetic skin, he picked his way through the slaves and other street traffic to draw closer to the pair of humans. He eyed the male.
The height, the bald head … it could only be him.
Azriim drew in a sharp breath, and flexed his hands as though they were his natural claws.
Though Azriim could not imagine how, not more than a block away stood what looked like the priest of Mask, Erevis Cale. The same Erevis Cale who had followed Azriim and his broodmates all the way to the Fane of Shadows, who had wounded Azriim, killed Elura, and whom Azriim had thought drowned at the bottom of the Lightless Lake.
Azriim stared at Cale, afraid to move, thinking that if he did the image of the priest must reveal itself as an apparition conjured by his imagination and boredom.
For the first time, he noticed that the dusky skin was not a play of the dim light. He saw too the shadows that flared at intervals from Cale’s skin like black fire. That took him aback at first, causing him to doubt what he saw, but then he took its meaning. He was indeed looking upon Cale, and Cale was a shade. The priest had undergone the transformation that Vraggen had sought for himself. That transformation had somehow allowed Cale to survive the dissolution of the Fane. And there he was. Azriim wondered if any of Cale’s comrades had also survived. Certainly Serrin would be interested in reacquainting himself with the one-eyed assassin.
Azriim smiled and almost laughed aloud. The boredom that had until then afflicted him vanished. Cale had tracked him to Skullport. A hundred questions ran through his mind—most importantly, how?—but he pushed them all aside. It was enough that he had a challenge.
As though feeling Azriim’s stare, Cale looked away from the human female who stood near him and made eye contact with Azriim. Azriim looked away quickly, though he could not contain his grin.
When Cale looked away, Azriim withdrew into the darkness and softly whispered an arcane word. His body wavered for an instant and he knew that he had become invisible to onlookers.
Azriim reached out his consciousness and established contact.
I have news, he projected.
He sensed curiosity from Dolgan and Serrin. Both were preparing the final stages of Azriim’s plan.
Erevis Cale, the priest of Mask, is here, he said.
Silence. It was as though Serrin and Dolgan had broken the connection.
Serrin recovered himself first.
Are you certain? he asked. What of his companion, the one-eyed assassin?
Azriim fought down his irritation with the question and answered, Of course, I’m certain. I’m looking upon him even now. I do not know of his companions.
We should kill him, Serrin offered.
Obviously, Azriim answered again, though he had begun to conceptualize a way in which he could first use Cale to further his plan. But with some style, of course.
Dolgan seemed at least to have gathered his wits.
How can he be here? asked the big slaad. How could he have known?
To that, Azriim had no certain answer though he suspected scrying.
Impossible to say, Dolgan, he replied, though he remembered that Dolgan had named Cale as relentless. Azriim realized that his broodmate could not have been more correct. As a precaution, immediately take a new form and from this point onward, maintain a ward against scrying on your person.
They projected acquiescence.
What will you do? Serrin asked.
Follow him, Azriim replied. In the meantime, proceed with the preparations.
He cut off the link with his broodmates and grudgingly reached out across Faerûn for the Sojourner. When he located him, he indicated his mental presence and waited for his father to allow him contact.
Azriim? the Sojourner asked. You are agitated.
Azriim did not waste words: The priest of Mask followed us here.
For a moment, the Sojourner did not respond, then: His companions?
Unknown.
If I attempt to scry him to determine whether his comrades live, he may sense it. Has he seen you?
Of course not, Azriim snapped. We have taken precautions.
He will attempt to scry you, said the Sojourner. He has no other course. Keep defensive wards in place henceforth, and avoid contact.
Azriim ground his teeth, finding the activity unsatisfying without fangs, and asked, Avoid contact? We should be allowed to kill him.
Azriim felt the Sojourner’s mental presence lightly scouring his brain, causing him an itch behind his eyes.
You wish to kill him because his presence offends your pride, the Sojourner said. You consider him a challenge worthy enough that you will take satisfaction in his death.
Azriim didn’t bother to deny it, though the Sojourner’s pedantic tone irked him.
The Sojourner continued, You would do this despite my admonition to you that pridefulness in excess is self-destructive?
Azriim did not bother to deny that either.
His father said nothing for a time, then, Very well. Kill him. Perhaps the lesson may be learned another way.
With that, the Sojourner cut the mental connection.
Azriim fumed over his father’s condescension but kept his attention on Cale.
The human left off the female and walked past the invisible slaad. Azriim fell into step behind him. He toyed with the idea of attacking Cale, taking him by surprise, killing him on the street, and taking his form, but dismissed the idea. The Sojourner’s disappointed tone had rankled him. He would swallow his pride and observe.
For a time.
OLD DOGS
After only three days—after only six cycles, Jak corrected himself—the halfling could mostly tolerate the sights, sounds, and smells of the city. He still felt weak-kneed when he saw the hapless and hopeless slaves being whipped, zombie laborers carting goods, or illithids feeding on brains, but he managed at least to keep down his meals and banish the nightmares.
Throughout the cycles, Cale periodically had tried to scry Azriim, but to no avail. Jak wasn’t sure whether he should take the failure as Beshaba’s own luck or something more foreboding. Cale offered no opinion on the matter, though he seemed thoughtful. Jak put it out of his mind. If the slaadi had known Jak and his friends were in Skullport, they would have already attacked.
While Cale tried to magically locate the slaadi, Riven had taken the mundane approach. He put out inquiries but learned only t
hat Skullport’s underworld was tittering with the expectation of a gang war between two rival slaving organizations, one run by a beholder crime lord and the other by a yuan-ti slaver. After two cycles of questioning, bribing, and threatening, Riven had been able to learn nothing about the slaadi.
“It’s too tight here,” the assassin told them across the table of an inn. Jak had forgotten the name of the place already. Frustration tinged the assassin’s voice. “No one is talking.”
Cale considered that.
“Then we need get obvious,” he said.
Jak knew what that meant. They would make themselves apparent—and make themselves targets—hoping to draw the slaadi out.
Riven looked across the table and asked, “You’re certain?”
“We’ve got nothing else,” Cale replied, nodding.
Thereafter, as they moved to a different inn every two cycles, they all four traveled together rather than moving in more circumspect pairs. Accustomed to “quiet work,” Jak felt they might as well have had a royal herald announcing their presence in Skullport. Each time they moved, the halfling eyed with suspicion everyone they passed on the street, certain that each skulker was a slaad in disguise.
Cycles passed, and they moved from inn to inn. Skullport seemed to have as many inns as a stray dog had fleas, and all of them were the same: rundown drug-dens filled with whores, bad food, and swill that passed for ale. Jak began to lose hope. Perhaps the slaadi had already left the city?
Then Riven got a lead.
“This man named Thyld purports to have information on a duergar with unusual eyes,” Riven said.
They sat around a small table in their filthy, windowless room.
“You looked into him?” Cale asked.
Riven nodded and said, “Of course. He’s a well known information broker in the city, associated with a group called the Kraken Society. He looks legitimate.”
“When?” Cale asked.
“Later this cycle,” said Riven. “I go alone. At a place called the Crate and Dock.”
Cale rubbed his chin, thinking.
After a time, he said, “This is all we have, so we go. But it smells wrong. Treat it that way.”