Paul Kemp: Twilight Falling

Fate or choice? they seemed to ask.

Cale considered that, and after a moment, he gave his answer.

"Both," he whispered, "and neither."

With that, he turned the mask around and put it on, the first time he had ever done so in Stormweather Towers. It did not bring the expected comfort. Instead, it felt wrong, as obscene as Thamalon's absence from the manse. He pulled it off and crumpled it in his fist.

"What do you want from me?" he whispered to Mask.

As usual, his god provided him no answers, no signs. Mask never provided answers, only more questions, only more choices.

Months before, in an effort to better understand his Calling, Cale had scoured Thamalon's personal library for information about Mask and the Lord of Shadows' faithful. Unsurprisingly, for Mask was the god of shadows and thieves, after all, there was little to be found. He had finally concluded that serving Mask was different than serving other gods. The priests of Faerun's other faiths proselytized, ministered, preached, and in that way won converts and served their gods. Mask's priests did no such thing. There were no Maskarran preachers, no street ministers, no pilgrims. Mask did not require his priests to win converts. Either the darkness spoke to you or it didn't. If it did, you were already Mask's. If it didn't, you never would be.

The darkness had spoken to Cale, had whispered his name and wrapped him in shadow. And now it was telling him to leave Stormweather Towers.

He sighed, finished his wine, and stood. If he was to be reborn in life's bright struggles, he would have to do it elsewhere. It was time to go.

"Well met, mage," said Norel, as he slid into the chair across the table from Vraggen.

"Norel," Vraggen acknowledged with a nod. He unfolded his hands to indicate the tin tankards on the table, each foaming with ale. "I purchased ales for us."

Suspicion narrowed Norel's eyes to slits. Obviously, he thought the ale might be poisoned. The thought amused Vraggen. As if he could be so … banal.

As quick as the snake that he was, Norel reached across the table and snatched the tankard from in front of Vraggen, rather than the one set before him.

"Appreciated," Norel said, "but I'll have this one, if you please."

From the smug smile on his face, he seemed to think he had made a point.

Vraggen shrugged, took the ale in front of Norel, and said, "Well enough. This one will be mine then."

Vraggen immediately took a draw, grimacing at the watery taste of the indifferent brew. It reminded him of the swill he had endured as a mage's apprentice in Tilverton, before that city's destruction by agents of Shade Enclave.

Seeing Vraggen drink and not fall over dead, Norel grinned and gave an almost sheepish nod-the closest he would come to apologizing for his mistrust, Vraggen supposed-and took a long pull on his ale.

Vraggen watched him while he drank, smiling with an easy disingenuousness, but wondering if he would need to kill him later in the evening. Not with anything as vulgar as poison of course, but dead was still dead.

Time would tell, he supposed.

The two sat at a small table in a back corner of the Silver Lion, a mediocre taproom at the intersection of Vesey Street and Colls Way, a boisterous corner deep in Selgaunt's Foreign District. It was spring, and near the tenth hour. As usual for the Lion, a thick crowd of merchants, drovers, and caravan guards filled the tables and slammed back drink. The heavy aroma of the Lion's infamous beef stew-a thick, wretched concoction inexplicably favored by caravanners-hung in the air. When mixed with the ubiquitous smell of pipeweed smoke and sweat, it made Vraggen's stomach turn. Tankards clanged, plates clattered, and conversation buzzed. Everyone wore steel; everyone drank; and no one paid any attention to Vraggen and Norel.

Exactly as Vraggen required.

He had chosen the Lion as the location to meet Norel for two reasons: first, it was in the Foreign District. Zhent operatives like Norel considered the area a "hot zone," a high-trade area well patrolled by Selgaunt's Scepters, the city's watchmen. Norel would therefore consider himself safe, and not fear the meeting to be a pretense for a hit. Second, the noise of the crowd made eavesdropping difficult by all but the most skilled and determined spy. That was well, for Vraggen wanted no premature disclosure of his plans. Many Zhents thought him dead already, and he wanted them to continue to think as much until he was ready to move.

Vraggen took another draw on his ale. When he placed the tin tankard, engraved with the crude crest of a rearing lion, back on the table, he glanced casually into the crowd behind Norel, looking for his lieutenants.

There they were.

Azriim sat three tables away, his dusky skin gray in the light of the oil lamps, his long pale hair held off his face with a jeweled fillet. Only in Selgaunt's Foreign District could a half-drow like Azriim go unremarked. Sembians were notoriously prejudiced against elves of any type, but in Selgaunt coin spoke before race. And Azriim's taste in finery suggested great wealth. Had they been in the Dalelands, Azriim would have been arrested on sight, probably hanged.

Dolgan shared Azriim's table. The weight of the large Cormyrean, heavy-laden with axes, ring mail, and a round gut, bowed the thick legs of the wooden chair.

Vraggen brought his gaze back to Norel, though the Zhent made only occasional eye contact. "I thought you were dead," Norel said.

Vraggen smiled and replied, "You can see that I am not. I was merely away from the city for a time."

Norel gave a quick nod, and took a long pull on his ale. The Zhent operative was struggling to look calm, but Vraggen saw through the facade: the furrowed brow, the white-knuckled grip on his tankard. Norel was nervous.

Norel put back another long gulp of his ale, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and set the tankard down on the table with a smack.

"You wanted me here, mage, and here I am. What you got? A side job?"

A side job-work beneath the attention of the Zhent leadership that an operative might do on his own time to fill his own pockets rather than the coffers of the organization.

"Of a sort," Vraggen replied, being deliberately vague.

That was mundane enough that it seemed to relax Norel. He leaned forward, an eager gleam in his dark eyes.

"Let's hear it then."

Vraggen folded his hands on the table and looked Norel in the face. The Zhent's initial response to Vraggen's next words would be important.

"There's a war brewing in the Network, Norel. It's time each of us picked a side and fought. Do you see that?"

Norel's eyes narrowed. He probably was still stuck on the idea of an ordinary side job. It took a moment for him to redirect his thoughts.

"War? You mean-" His eyes went to Vraggen's brass cloak pin, in the shape of a jawless skull in a sunburst, and his expression showed understanding. "You mean what I think you mean?"

Vraggen nodded but added nothing. He wanted to let Norel's thoughts run their course.

Norel's gaze returned to the pin, returned to Vraggen. The Zhent's thoughts were writ plain on his face. Bane, the god of tyranny, had returned to Faerun and the resurgent Banites were in the process of retaking their historic place amongst the Zhent leadership. The Cyricists, who had murdered many Banites while seizing power in the Network, found themselves the target of the Banites' vengeance. An internal schism had rent the organization. Mostly it was fought in the shadows with poison, assassinations, and the like, but of late, the Banites had grown confident, and the murders of Cyricists had become public and ritualized. Message-killings, really. Vraggen had heard that message and heeded it. That was why he'd left Selgaunt in search of the globe.