Paul Kemp - Shadowbred

"So we do," Riven said. He offered his hand. Cale was surprised, but took it. They had said good-bye with the same gesture after Jak's death.

"Welcome back," Riven said, and the words sounded almost exactly like those Mask had whispered in Cale's ear before the battle with Malkur Forrin's mercenaries.

"Almost there, now," Cale said softly, echoing Mask's words.

"What did you say?" Riven asked.

"Nothing. It's good to be back," Cale said, and meant it. He had come to rely on Riven, his Second, and Riven had not let him down.

Riven gazed into the night, licked his lips. "There are some things you need to see. Things have happened since you were last here."

Riven was rarely cryptic and his words raised Cale's curiosity. "Such as?"

"Follow me," Riven said.

They turned and walked up the drawbridge side by side. Before they reached the tower's archway, two short-haired hounds darted out of the tower and dashed toward them. Both had birder in them, judging from their ears and black and brown spots.

"My girls," Riven said by way of explanation. His voice held a surprising softness.

Cale kneeled as the canines rushed toward them. Riven halfheartedly ordered the dogs to heel and neither even slowed.

Cale held out his shadowhand to the dogs. They sniffed it suspiciously, whined, and backed off, but Cale persisted and the larger came back again to tentatively sniff, and the smaller followed suit. Moving slowly, Cale rubbed the larger one on her muzzle, the smaller on her flanks.

That did it. Tails wagged and they licked his fingers. Cale gave them a final pat.

"They're good dogs," he said, standing.

"Loyal," Riven answered quietly.

"A good quality," Cale said, not necessarily meaning the dogs.

"That's truth," Riven said.

Tongues lolling, the dogs bounced from Cale to Riven, and the assassin stroked each of their heads in turn. They licked his hand and both fell over and showed their bellies. Riven scratched each. Cale found the scene entirely incongruous. Until then, he had never seen Riven gentle with anything.

"I never understood your fondness for dogs," Cale said good-naturedly.

"And I never understood your fondness for Jak Fleet," Riven said as he stood.

Anger chased Cale's smile and hot words formed on his lips. He started to speak but Riven shook his head, held up his hand, and cut him off.

"That's a lie. I did understand it. Fleet and I… reached an understanding before the end. I'm sorry for those words, Cale. Old habits return when I see you."

"Old habits are slow to die," Cale said, echoing the words he had spoken to Mask moments before.

"Go on," Riven said to the dogs, and gestured at the archway. The dogs turned and darted inside, tails wagging. Riven watched them go, then turned to Cale.

"Let's say we end all this, beginning now."

"End what?"

"The posturing," Riven said, making a frustrated gesture. "All of it. We've been through too much, Cale. You are Mask's First and I am his Second, and that's the end of it."

Cale managed a nod through his surprise. They had been through too much. "Well enough," he said. "We are past it. Starting now."

Riven stared at him, nodded, and they walked up the drawbridge.

"I presume we'll hit the Hole after midnight?" Riven asked.

Cale nodded. "Well after."

Guards would be not only fewer, but tired in the small hours. Cale had killed many men during the sleepy hours before dawn. He knew Riven had done the same.

They strode through towering iron doors and into the temple's foyer. The dogs were gone. The bare entryway appeared exactly as it had when Cale had last seen it. A pair of wooden double doors stood opposite them, with a wide stairway beyond it leading up into darkness.

"I had thought to fit the place out," Riven said by way of explanation. "Transform it into a temple for Mask. I thought that was what he wanted."

Cale knew that guessing at what Mask wanted was a fool's game. "But it wasn't?"

Riven shook his head. "I don't think stealing this place was about getting a new temple. Or at least it was only partially about that." He looked at Cale sidelong and said, "I think it was about us."

They walked through the double doors and started to climb the wide stone stairway beyond.

"Us? What makes you think that?" Cale asked.

"They do," Riven said, and nodded at the top of the stairs.

Cale stopped in his steps.

At the top of the stairs stood seven men clad in darkness. Long dark hair hung loose around clean-shaven brown faces. At first Cale thought each wore a mask over the top half of his face but he realized it was a tattoo of a mask. The dark eyes looking out of the tattoos featured the eyefolds typical of those from the far east.

All wore gray cloaks, gray breeches, and soft leather shoes. None wore weapons, but all showed battle scars on their hands and forearms. Torchlight from the hall behind them backlit their silhouettes.

"They said a vision brought them here," Riven said.

"A vision?" Cale walked up the rest of the steps, Riven beside him, until he stood face to face with the foremost of the seven men, whom Cale took to be the leader. The man, smaller and less muscular than Riven, gave a nod and the others bowed slightly. All seven regarded Cale with open curiosity, though they said nothing.

"What kind of vision?" Cale asked the leader.

The man said nothing, merely studied Cale's eyes, the shadows that leaked from his skin, the darkness that flowed around him like fog.

"I asked you a question," Cale said.

"They arrived two months after you left," Riven explained. "They almost never speak, but I know they call themselves shadowwalkers. They may not be shades, but I have seen them move and they are damned close."

"What are they doing here?" Cale asked Riven, though he continued to eye the shadowwalkers.

" 'Waiting,' is all they would say."

"Waiting?" Cale asked. He stared into the leader's dark eyes.

"For what?"

"They won't answer you, Cale. They're just here… waiting. And they won't help us with Yhaunn. I have tried to enlist them before. Whatever they are waiting for, it hasn't happened yet."

"And you think it has to do with us?"

"With you."

Cale turned to him. "Me?"

"They aren't priests," Riven said, nodding at the shadowwalkers. He pulled the tie out of his hair and let it fall down his shoulders. "Hells, I don't know what they are. But they serve priests, or they did. They're from Telflamm, Cale. Mask has a large temple there, a large following. When they arrived, they said the Shadowlord had stopped answering the prayers of the priests. When they learned of that, they had the vision that led them here. They say they follow the Twilight Path."

Shadows leaked from Cale's skin as the implications of Riven's story settled on him. Mask had not stopped answering his prayers. Mask had chatted with him in an alley, or at least he thought so.

He looked at Riven and said, "Sometimes gods do not answer the prayers of even their priests."

Riven shook his head. "This is not one wayward priest. They said none of their priests received spells. None."

Cale shook his head, his mind spinning. What if he was the only priest to whom Mask spoke?

"What about you?" Riven asked, his voice quiet. "Does he still grant you spells?"

Cale hesitated, turned back to look at the shadowwalkers.

They were gone.

"I told you they were good," Riven explained. "What about it, Cale? Does he still grant you spells?"

Cale answered Riven with a question of his own. "What about you? Can you still heal with your touch? Does he still grant you that?"

Riven nodded. "That… and the rest."

Riven's candor surprised Cale. The assassin had been surprising him since Cale had appeared on the island. Cale decided to be honest.