Paul Kemp - Dawn of Night

Jak resolved in that instant to get Cale away from the Plane of Shadow at all hazards. The darkness there was sinking into Cale, soaking him. Jak didn't want to think about what would happen to his friend if he became saturated with it. He didn't want to think about what would happen to any of them. For the first time, Jak admitted-to himself at least-that he didn't want Cale to be this "First of Five." He didn't even want Cale to be a priest anymore. He wanted Cale to be Cale, his friend and nothing more.

Jak put a hand on Cale's forearm. The shadows that clung to Cale's person coiled defensively around the halfling's fingers.

"Let's keep moving," Jak said. "We need to find the source of that flashing light. It is a way out," he said, hoping that by saying it with certainty he would make it so.

As if in response to Jak's words, from their position atop the roof, they again caught the tantalizing flash of golden light from somewhere near the center of the crypts. They could not see its source, but the color reminded Jak of sunlight.

Lightning flashed, casting the city in vermillion.

"Jak's right," Magadon said, and jumped down from the edifice.

The rest followed, and together they headed through the rain and ruin for the center of town.

As they walked, Jak tried to take Cale's mind off of the ghosts and remind him of something ordinary, of their life before his transformation to shade.

"It was raining just like this last spring when I had a run of Tymora's own luck at the Scarlet Knave. Do you remember that? I must have won ten hands of Scales and Blades in a row. I lived well over the next tenday, my friend. I bought five new hats."

Cale smiled, but his eyes were distant when he replied, "I remember, Jak." After a pause, he softly added, "I remember a lot of things."

To that, Jak could say nothing, but he suddenly missed his hats a great deal. For a time they walked in silence.

At last, Cale looked down at him and said, "Little man, do you remember once, when you were talking about the life, and you said to me, 'This is only what we do, not what we are?'"

"I remember," Jak replied, "That's the truth, Cale."

Cale's mouth was a hard line when he said, "Not anymore."

Before Jak could protest, Riven interrupted them with a saber blade at each of their chests.

"You see?" the assassin said. "You two hens are too busy clucking to-"

With speed and strength that made Jak go wide-eyed, Cale batted Riven's left-hand saber aside, grabbed the assassin by the cloak, and yanked him in close.

The assassin let his blades fall slack and merely stared. Jak detected the beginnings of a smirk at the corners of Riven's mouth, though the assassin's breathing came fast.

Cale answered Riven's stare with one of his own. His yellow eyes flashed. Shadows spiraled around his head.

To his credit, Riven kept his voice level.

"If I was an enemy, Cale, you'd already be dead. It only pays to be fast if you see what's coming. Don't get sloppy. We both know that all of the dead in this city won't be as harmless as those ghosts. Stay sharp, just as you said.

"You too, Fleet. Now-" and his eye narrowed-"put me down."

Cale's expression did not change, but he shoved the assassin away.

Riven kept his feet, chuckled, straightened his cloak, and turned away.

"Whoreson," Jak said to Riven's back.

"No, he's right," Cale said. "I'm losing focus. I feel like I'm in deep water, Jak."

The halfling felt the same way. He took a protective step closer to his friend as they continued on toward the crypts.

CHAPTER 6

THE DEAD OF NIGHT

The air grew darker as they neared the cemetery. It felt almost too thick to breathe, almost viscous. The buildings grew more and more blasted as they closed on the necropolis's perimeter wall. It looked to Jak as though the eye of an unimaginable storm had sat over the cemetery, leaving it in calm even while destroying the rest of the city.

Jak's bluelight wand illuminated little more than five paces. With each step, the sensation of being watched grew stronger in the halfling. The rain had grown colder.

Jak realized that the hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end. He took out his holy symbol and held it in the same hand as the blue-light wand.

"Strange to have a cemetery in the middle of town," Magadon observed.

"Originally, it was a commons," Cale replied over the rain. "In the final years, the inhabitants converted it to this. They wanted a cemetery within the walls, to keep their dead close. They thought that would keep them from rising. After the darkness had consumed them all, Kesson Rel returned and opened a gate in the midst of the graves. He wanted to taunt the dead with a means of escape that they could never avail themselves of."

Jak didn't bother to ask how Cale knew what he knew.

"A gate? he asked.

For a moment, Cale looked as though he had surprised himself.

He nodded and said, "Yes. The light is a gate. But I. . . I can't remember to where it leads."

Jak accepted that and kept moving.

Before them stood the low, crumbling stone wall of the cemetery. Jak felt as though that weatherworn wall demarcated more than merely the borders of the graveyard. Beyond the wall was a large expanse, overgrown with weeds, trees and tall grass, and dotted with densely-packed crypts and statuary.

They walked between two obelisks-the metal gate that once joined them lay twisted and broken nearby- and entered. It seemed to Jak that things went quieter the moment he passed through the gate.

To Jak's eye, all of the crypts appeared roughly similar-small, rectangular mausoleums of cut stone with pitched tops-though they varied in size and detail work. Most would have housed several dead, families perhaps. All had writing engraved into their face and tops, a jagged script that was faded and alien to Jak. Most had at least one statue of a winged woman on them, no doubt Elgrin Fau's patron goddess of the afterlife. Typically, she perched at the apex of the roof over the sealed door of the crypt, though she sometimes flanked the doors. Sometimes she cradled a body in her arms, and sometimes she was empty-handed.

Jak was amazed at the amount of resources the people of the city had committed to burial.

As they moved deeper into the graveyard, a fog began to form around their feet-a soup of gray mist and dark shadows. The rain slowed to a drizzle, then finally stopped. Even the thunder went quiet. The atmosphere seemed pensive, ominous.

Magadon called frequent halts, as though he saw or heard something, but then restarted the march. Jak heard nothing unusual, though his head felt muzzy. The wet must have been getting to him, but he forced himself forward.

The necropolis seemed to go on forever and fatigue gradually took its toll. Jak's legs hung from his hips like tree trunks. His vision began to grow blurry. How long had they been walking? He'd been too long on that dark plane and it was draining him.

In his dazed state, the halfling imagined deformed faces forming and dispersing in the wispy shadows that clung to their ankles and hid their feet. He shook his head frequently to clear it. The waist high shadow fog was everywhere. But hadn't it only been at his knees moments ago?

Jak couldn't see more than three paces in any direction. He was so tired that he felt as though the fog was clutching at him, turning him, forcing him to go only one way.

Magadon stopped, looked around at the crypts, and said in a whisper, "We're walking in circles." When his companions said nothing, the guide shook his head and said it again, more loudly. "We are walking in circles."

His voice sounded muted in the fog, deadened.

For a moment, it was as though no one other than Magadon could speak. It took several heartbeats for the guide's meaning to register with Jak. When it did, Jak could not fathom how the guide could have determined what he claimed. The crypts all looked the same to Jak, the trees, the grass. But Magadon knew what he knew.