Paul Kemp - Midnight's mask

"The air feels strange," Dolgan said.

Azriim nodded.

Both transformed into their natural bodies-mottled gray skin, sinew, claws, fangs-and sniffed the air.

Riven felt nothing peculiar. He looked around the large chamber. Several doors led out to adjacent rooms and halls. The stylized door handles caught his eye. He stared at them, trying to discern their shape. When he did, the realization made his heart race.

All of the hardware featured a similar motif: a jawless skull in a sunburst.

The hairs on the nape of his neck rose. He understood in that moment what the Shadowlord had intended all along, why he had required Riven to escape with the slaadi from Demon Binder, why he had wanted Riven to play his part through to the end.

The tower was once a temple to Cyric, Mask's enemy. The Sojourner had taken the entire structure, and presumably murdered its priests. The god of shadows and thieves had manipulated all of them-all of them-to orchestrate the grandest theft of all. He'd arranged to steal an entire temple of the mad god.

Riven marveled at the scheme. It had been a bold play, as bold as he had ever seen. And he had been the Shadowlord's hand in the play. Or at least one of Mask's hands.

He could not help but smile, and the smile turned into a chuckle.

"You are amused?" Azriim said. The slaad held out his hand and examined his fingers, and his brow furrowed.

"What is happening?" Dolgan asked. He too stared at his body as if it were a foreign thing.

"Not amused," Riven answered, still chuckling. "Free."

"Free from the Sojourner," Azriim said, and nodded. His voice had grown deeper. His claws were longer. "What is happening to me?"

"No," Riven said. "Not from the Sojourner. From you two. From this charade."

Riven knew that Mask wanted him for one more thing.

"What do you mean?" Azriim asked. The slaad's gray skin bubbled and stretched, as if something were moving just under it.

"Allies and enemies, slaad," Riven said, and sneered. Riven's feigned allegiance to the slaadi was over. He was allies only with Cale, his brother in faith.

Azriim caught his tone and backed up a step. Dolgan began to growl.

"Enemies, I take it?" Azriim asked.

"Enemies it is," Riven answered. He drew his blades. He knew that the Sojourner was not in the tower. It was just him and the slaadi.

"You're standing in my temple," he said.

Azriim's gaze narrowed. "Your temp-"

The word turned into a bestial scream that Dolgan echoed. The slaadi raised their hands to the ceiling and roared. Veins, muscle, and sinew lined their flesh.

Riven stepped backward, unsure of what was happening.

The slaadi began to change. As before, when Riven had watched the Sojourner transform them from green slaadi to gray, now they were transforming before his eyes into something even greater. A chaotic flash of colors sheathed the slaadi. Both went rigid; both roared at the ceiling. Their claws extended; tufts of skin sprouted from under their chins; they grew slightly in stature; fangs darkened; green-gray skin lost its mottling, became like dark slate.

Then it was over. The slaadi eyed him with hunger in their eyes.

Riven pulled his holy symbol from under tunic and let it dangle openly. He knew the slaadi had just become more dangerous but he held his ground. Mask had put the temple under his feet, and he was a Chosen of Mask. He would not abandon it.

Cale and Jak stood on the deck of Demon Binder, surrounded by crewmen, all of them staring up at the dawn.

"Gods," Jak whispered.

Cale watched the rocky sphere slowly swallow the sun. He knew it was the Sojourner's doing. It had to be. Whatever the creature was planning, it was about to happen. Cale had seen enough eclipses on Faerun to know that a partial eclipse in one region might be a full eclipse in another. He knew that wherever the Sojourner was, the eclipse was total. The water rose, causing the ship to bob.

The darkness lengthened, stretched a shadowed hand over the bay. He thought of the Fane of Shadows, of Shar, the goddess of night, of Mask, of the Sojourner, of his own transformation, of the Weave Tap. He saw the thread that connected them all. He knew what he had to do.

"Go get Mags," he said to Jak.

Magadon was meditating alone in a cabin in the forecastle.

"Tell him we have to go now, Jak. We're going to kill the Weave Tap."

Jak stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending.

"We're going to act like heroes, Jak. Go."

The little man grinned, nodded, and sped off.

Cale stared up at the heavens. He and his companions might not be able to defeat the Sojourner, but they could destroy his tool, stop whatever it was that he intended. Cale thought he knew how to do it-like him, the Weave Tap was a creature of darkness, created by the priesthood of the goddess of the night. Like him, it was vulnerable to the sun.

Jak returned shortly with Magadon. The guide stared up at the sky, pale eyes wide.

"Activate the leech on Riven, Mags. We have to move. Jak, cast every protective spell you can. Quickly, now. And the moment we arrive, divine the location of the Weave Tap. This time the Tap comes first. The slaadi are secondary."

Jak nodded and began to cast. Magadon concentrated and a soft red light haloed his head.

"I've got him," he said.

"Show me," Cale said, and took Magadon's hand.

The slaadi parted to either side of Riven, crouched low. The creatures' transformation had changed their outward appearance little, but Riven did not fail to notice the coiled grace with which they moved. Dolgan flexed his claws and growled. Azriim showed his fangs and hissed.

Riven remembered that the slaadi's transformation from green to gray had granted them new magical powers. He assumed their new transformation had granted them still more such powers. He decided not to wait for a demonstration.

He showed his back to Dolgan and feigned a charge at Azriim, who leaped backward. As Riven had expected, Dolgan lunged at his exposed back.

Riven spun a half-circle and slashed a crosscut at Dolgan's throat with his right saber. The move surprised the slaad, who could do nothing but sacrifice his arm to save his neck. The saber cut hard into the slaad's bicep. The blow should have sunk halfway through the muscle, but instead cut only a deep gash into the slaad's flesh.

Grunting with pain and dripping black blood, the slaad swung wildly at Riven with the claws of his other hand. Riven had expected the attack and tried to ride the momentum of his slash into a full spin out of arm's reach, but he was too slow. The slaad's transformation had made him faster, and his claws caught Riven's back and tore through cloak and flesh to cause a painful slash. Riven grimaced and chopped with his left saber at Dolgan's head, but the slaad used the momentum of his own swing and bounded a few steps away from Riven.

He snarled as the wound in his arm began to close.

Riven caught motion out of the corner of his eye-Azriim. He doubled up his sabers in his right hand, jerked a dagger from his belt, and flung it at the slaad. The short blade flew true and hit Azriim in his chest, but deflected off his hide as if it were a breastplate. The slaad pointed a clawed finger at Riven. A sickly green beam issued from the digit and hit Riven in the stomach.

Riven's heart stopped. He gasped, clutched his chest, and fell to all fours. He tried to pull in a breath, to force air into his lungs.

A breath came. Another. He closed his hands around the hilts of his sabers and tried to rise. Before he could regain his feet, Dolgan's huge hands closed over his shoulders, pinning his arms. The slaad lifted him bodily toward his fanged, open mouth. Riven stared into the tooth-lined opening.

Thinking quickly, he brought his knees to his chest, kicked out, and drove his feet into the slaad's throat. The blow would have crushed a human's windpipe but only caused Dolgan to gag, cough, and drop Riven.