Paul Kemp - Twilight Falling

In that moment, Cale thought with certainty that Dolgan must be insane, or a worshiper of Loviatar, or perhaps both.

Azriim and Dolgan backed off-Azriim eyeing Jak darkly-until they stood beside Vraggen and the little easterner near the mouth of the alley. Jak slid nearer to Riven and Cale.

"Two days, Cale," Vraggen said. "For the guard's take, do not be late and do not attempt any trickery."

"You bring him to the Twisted Elm-intact-and you'll have your sphere, intact."

Vraggen nodded. Azriim gave a graceful bow.

"A pleasure, gentlemen," said the half-drow, "and I use that term casually. I'll look forward to our next meeting."

"As will I," said Cale, and promised violence with his gaze.

Riven pointed his swords at the easterner and added, "And if you step between me and your pet wizard again, maybe we'll have our dance after all, eh?"

The easterner said nothing, merely spat, sheathed his blade, and glared.

"Until then," Vraggen said, and he removed from his robes a teleportation rod similar to that used by the attackers in Stormweather Towers.

Each of the mage's team removed a similar rod. A few turns of the bronze devices and all but Azriim were gone.

The half-drow delayed a fraction of a heartbeat, and in that moment, his laughing voice sounded in Cale's head, What do you think of my new pants?

Then he too was gone. But for Dolgan's blood on the ground of the alley, the combat might never have occurred.

Cale, Riven, and Jak stared at one another in silence for a long moment.

After a time, Jak summed up all of their thinking.

"Dark," he cursed. "Dark and empty."

Cale agreed. Who were these bastards?

"Your hand," he said to Jak.

"Huh? Oh."

Jak sheathed his punch dagger, took out his holy symbol, and intoned a prayer to Brandobaris. The skin of his hand closed completely. He flexed it, seemed satisfied.

"Now I need a smoke," the halfling said. He took out his pipe and popped it in his mouth, though he didn't light it.

"You?" Cale asked Riven, and indicated the slash the assassin had taken on his forearm.

"It's shallow. Save the spell."

Cale didn't argue. The thought of using a healing spell on Riven made him uncomfortable anyway.

The assassin held the sleeve of his cloak against the wound and pressed hard to stop the bleeding.

"Let's get out of here," Cale said. "Nothing has changed. We still head for Jak's contact." He kneeled, repacked the half-sphere in his pack, and used a handkerchief-he habitually carried one; once a butler always a butler, he supposed-to pick up Ren's fingers. They would serve as Cale's talisman until he brought the young man back safely.

"Your sage is going to have two days," Cale said to Jak. "I want to know what this sphere is before the meet at the Twisted Elm." He looked at each of Riven and Jak in turn. "Whatever it is though, our priority remains getting Ren back safely. Agreed? He's just a boy, caught up in this by Beshaba's own ill luck."

"Agreed," said the halfling.

"Agreed," said Riven, managing to sound only a little reluctant.

Cale sheathed his blade.

"That doesn't mean we're giving Vraggen the sphere," he added. "That only means we're getting Ren back alive. Either way, we hunt them down and kill them all afterward. Agreed?"

Riven sheathed his sabers, smiled hard, and said, "Agreed."

Jak said in a softer tone, "Agreed. But…"

Cale looked at him and asked, "But?"

"Did you see how fast they healed, Cale?" Jak tapped the stem of his pipe on his chin the way he did when thinking hard. "Both the half-drow and the small one. And that big one with the axe? No one should have lived through that. Look at all the blood."

Cale looked to the pool of blood congealing on the cobbles of the alley-Dolgan's blood. He thought the same thing.

Riven spat. "So they're hearty whoresons. I've seen men like that before. Takes more to put 'em down, is all. But we saw that they bleed; they'll die."

"That's more than hearty," Jak said, shaking his head. He lowered his voice. "Those aren't mental mages. In fact, I… I don't think they're human."

"Dung," cursed Riven. "You're mad, Fleet. They're as much men as us."

Cale ignored Riven. He knew Riven lacked subtlety, in manners as well as thought, and he knew of the assassin's distaste for things magical. Riven would not consider the possibility that Vraggen and his team might be other than they appeared because he didn't want to consider it. Strange for a man who had gone so far in the Zhents, an organization rife with wizards.

To Cale though, Jak's point seemed well taken. All of Vraggen's crew had demonstrated a lack of concern with wounds. Nine Hells, Dolgan seemed to enjoy being wounded! And all had healed rapidly-too rapidly. Azriim and the woman had shown telepathic powers, and they had the ability to look like other men.

"Shapeshifters," Cale breathed. "Dark."

He'd heard of creatures who could take the form of men-doppelgangers and their ilk-but he'd never encountered any, though rumors to that effect had swirled around the Faceless One back in Westgate. No wonder then that their imitations of the house guards had been so perfect.

Jak nodded and popped his pipe in his mouth.

"That's what I was thinking," the halfling said.

He pulled out a tindertwig, struck it on the cobbles, and lit up.

"Dark," Cale oathed again.

Riven scoffed, but Cale heard the doubt in it.

"That makes it all the more important that we learn what this sphere really is," Cale said. "I want to know what in the Nine Hells is going on."

Vraggen's remark about not needing sleep seemed more ominous. What was the mage after?

Riven shifted from foot to foot, as though full of anxious energy. He still had not sheathed his blades.

"Then let's stop standing around in this damned alley and get to where we're going," said the assassin.

"Take us to this loremaster, little man," Cale agreed.

"All right, but. ." Jak said, pausing to blow out a cloud of smoke. "There's something else, Cale. Your sword. Did you see how it made some kind of connection with the sphere."

"I did," Cale said.

He could no longer deny that his blade's contact with the sphere had changed it somehow.

"So?" asked Riven.

Cale put his hand on the blade's hilt and said, "That's a question for later, not now."

For now, all he needed to know was that its edge could still draw blood.

Moving quickly through the broad avenues and daytime street traffic, Cale, Riven, and Jak made their way uptown. Before long, the two-story brick and wood buildings of the Foreign Quarter gave way to the more elegant and architecturally varied worked-stone residences near the Temple District.

While far from the manses of Selgaunt's Old Chauncel, the homes near Temple Avenue, mostly those of academics, artists with wealthy patrons, and priests, nevertheless indicated the relative wealth of the owners. Cut stone facades, glass windows, covered gardens, lacquered carriages, and gated, well-tended patios and walkways were the rule. Sculptures of magical beasts loomed in every plaza and perched on the corners of most roofs, often carved from the black veined marble imported from the nearby Sunset Mountains. Even the sewer grates, into which the road channels drained, were of cast bronze, with stylized dragons as lift handles.

Selgaunt soared skyward on all sides of the neighborhood. Against the skyline to the north, Cale could see the octagonal bell tower of the House of Song towering over the cityscape. Near it stood Lliira's Spire, the elegant, limestone-faced tower of the Temple of Festivals, festooned as always with long, streaming pennons of green and violet.