Dawn of Night

CHAPTER 19 SOWING

Cale materialized in a ready crouch, Weaveshear in hand. He took a quick scan of the tunnel. It extended in both directions to the limits of his darkvision. Clusters of stalagmites stood at intervals on the uneven floor, and stalactites hung from the ceiling like drips of stone. A still pool was along the wall to the right, its dark water smeared with a gray fungal growth that floated on top. Cale had no sense of how far they were from either Skullport of the battle they'd just fled. He found the feeling disorienting, isolating.

The tunnel was silent but for their breathing. The slaadi were nowhere in sight.

"Where are we?" Jak asked.

"Somewhere in the Underdark," Cale replied. "Light, little man. Mags, find them."

Beside Cale, Jak struck a sunrod on the rocky ground. The thin shaft of alchemically treated metal rang softly off the stone and began to glow more brightly than a torch. It would last an hour or so. Jak held it aloft, illuminating the tunnel for all of them. Though Cale had not needed the sunrod to see, he welcomed its dim luminescence for the shadows it cast.

Magadon's knucklebone eyes took in the surroundings, and scoured the floor.

"Blood," the guide said.

He moved to a splotch of dark matter on the floor. Cale followed the guide's gaze and saw a large smear of black blood, intermixed with chunks of flesh and a shard of bone. The stone floor near the remains looked malformed, as though it might have melted and been reformed.

Magadon put his fingers to the blood, studied it. He rubbed the flesh between two fingers.

"Slaadi," he said. "And still damp. One of them was wounded here."

He wiped his fingers clean on his trousers.

"Which way, Mags?" Cale asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

He knew they had only moments to stop the slaadi, and they could ill afford to get the direction wrong.

Magadon studied the floor near the blood while Cale silently implored him to hurry. The guide brushed his fingers along the stone as if communing with it. He moved across the stone, stopping here and there to examine the floor more carefully.

"What is it?" Jak asked.

Magadon replied, "Scratches from their hind claws. Very faint. They must have transformed back to their natural forms." He stood and nodded down the tunnel. "They went that way."

Cale exhaled and thumped him on the shoulder.

"Let's go," he said.

They sped down the tunnel. Magadon ran at Cale's side, while Jak and Riven brought up the rear. Weaveshear still vibrated in Cale's hand and continued leaking shadows.

Not more than two hundred paces later they found a wide corridor that opened off the tunnel. Unlike the rough, natural walls of the cave, the corridor had a finished floor lined with marble. It looked like a road, or some kind of processional. It curved after a short distance, and from around the curve emanated a soft orange glow.

Weapons and holy symbols ready, Cale led them forward.

The corridor went on for only a short time after the curve before it ended, as though cut off with a knife, and opened onto a breathtaking panorama.

"Trickster's hairy toes," Jak oathed.

Cale could only agree.

They stood at the edge of the corridor, in an opening halfway up a sheer cavern wall that was easily as tall as three bowshots. A great circular cavern stretched before and below them, nearly as large as the one that contained Skullport. Within the cavern lay ruins. Toppled buildings of gray granite, impossibly thin towers of stone carved from stalactites, and collapsed temples of white marble littered the cavern's floor in a chaotic jumble. Their stone skeletons obscured the otherwise mathematically precise web of wide roads and broad avenues that once had connected the districts of the city. The ruins reminded Cale of Elgrin Fau, but instead of a necropolis of intact tombs, only one structure remained whole.

In the center of the cavern, glowing orange with power, towered an immense spire of rough gray stone like the finger of a god. It appeared unworked but for a covered cupola of metal that capped its top. Open archways yawned in the cupola, one on each of the four sides of the spire, and all of them leaking orange light. It was impossible to see within.

Tumors of clear crystal bulged here and there from the stone of the spire. A thin strip of protruding crystal, like wire around a sword hilt, wound a path from the base of the tower to a platform before the near archway in the cupola. It took Cale a moment to realize that the crystalline spiral was either a stairway or a ramp.

A beam of orange light as thick around as an ogre emanated from the tower through a hole in the top of the cupola. The orange beam shot toward the ceiling and cast the entire cavern in soft orange luminescence. The light caused Cale to squint with minor discomfort but didn't burn like the sun, steal his powers like daylight, or take his hand as a tithe.

When the beam reached the ceiling, it spread out and dispersed into ten thinner beams that wove amongst the stalactites like veins. In turn, each of those separated into ten still thinner beams, and so on until the threads became so tiny as to be invisible. The entire chamber was roofed by a lattice of power, and Cale had no doubt that the lattice extended its invisible grasp into Skullport's chamber, buttressing the stone, preventing it from collapsing of its own weight. They must have been nearer to Skullport than he'd thought.

"That tower is the hidden chamber where the Skulls lair," Cale said, realizing the truth even as the words passed his lips. "It must be the source of their power. Azriim has lured the Skulls away from their secret chamber and the source lays exposed. He wants to use the Weave Tap to somehow drain the tower and the web of energy. .. perhaps even destroy it."

Jak let out a long, low whistle. Riven and Magadon remained silent.

Cale realized that if Azriim was successful, it would result in a catastrophe for Skullport-a catastrophe for Varra.

"We can't let it happen," he said.

"The rock must have shifted over the years," Magadon observed. "This tunnel must once have been at ground level."

Cale nodded and said, "Or it could be just as likely that this corridor was once attached to the upper levels of a soaring tower."

Roads spanning the sky had not been uncommon in that city. Cale could sense it. The magical skill evidenced by the spire suggested to him that the ruined metropolis, that even Skullport, had once been places of grandeur. He wondered at the true origin of the Skulls.

Putting the awe out of his mind, he eyed the ruins below, searching for any sign of the slaadi. He did not see them.

"We need to get to that spire," he said. "The slaadi must be heading there. That spire is the origin of the lattice, and that's where Azriim will use the Weave Tap."

As though affirming his words, the shadows leaking from Weaveshear floated into the air and across the cavern toward the spire. The height at which the companions stood was about two-thirds of the way up the tower.

"Teleport us there, Cale," Riven said.

Cale shook his head and replied, "I can call upon the shadows only infrequently. I can shadowstep often, but teleport only rarely. The slaadi, on the other hand have no such limitation with their teleportation rods. Likely, they're already inside the cupola. We need another way."

Cale ignored the look of satisfaction in Riven's eye, and realized then that the assassin cared more about being Mask's second than he did about stopping the slaadi. He didn't have time to give it further thought.

"Look!" Jak said, pointing at the tower.

The slaadi emerged from around the back of the tower, loping up the crystalline staircase for the cupola. The largest of the three hobbled along with a limp.

"Why didn't they teleport into the cupola?" Magadon asked of no one in particular.

"The magic of the tower must interfere with transport magic of that kind," Cale said. "They probably teleported to near the tower's base. We weren't that far behind them and yet they're already halfway up the tower."

"I can get us there," Magadon said. "Without magic."

Cale turned to face the guide and asked, "What can you do?"

Magadon, already drawn and haggard from all of the psionic energy he had expended in recent hours, said, "Attune our bodies to the air. We'll be able to run above the city to the tower."

"Dark," Jak whispered.

"What will you have left?" Cale asked him.

Magadon shook his head and replied, "I'll drop the mindlink. But still, not much."

Cale took only a moment to decide.

"Do it."

Magadon nodded and held his left hand to his temple. A dim white light originated at the crown of his head and spread downward until it sheathed his entire boy. There was a sound like the whoosh of a wind. Magadon touched each of Cale, Riven, and Jak in turn, causing a similar light to limn their bodies, eliciting a similar sound.

"Now," Magadon said, and the light flared.

A tremor ran the length of Cale's body. He felt lighter, as ephemeral as a spirit. The white light rapidly diminished to nothingness, but the feeling of insubstantiality remained.

"Walk on the air as though it's solid earth," Magadon said. "Vertical movement is controlled by your mind. Imagine stairs or a ramp as you run, and you'll move up or down."

Without another word, the guide stepped off the corridor's edge and into the open air. Jak audibly gasped, but instead of plummeting to his death, the guide stood suspended on nothing.

Cale took a deep breath and followed suit. The air felt spongy under his feet, but solid enough. He could see the ruins of the city far below and had to fight down a wave of dizziness.

He said to Riven and Jak, "Come on."

They did, and when all four had tested the air, they turned and ran across the sky for the tower. Magadon and Cale led. Jak and Riven followed hard after.

With nothing but air and orange light around him, Cale felt exposed, visible. He yearned for the comfort of shadow. He toyed with the idea of making himself invisible but saw no point. He could do nothing to hide his comrades, so he would stand with them.

When they had made it halfway across the city, the biggest of the three slaadi-Dolgan-saw them. The fat slaad, wobbling on his wounded leg, made an obscene gesture in their direction and shouted to his fellows.

The creatures were almost to the cupola. One more twist around the tower and they would be at the top.

Cale could see Azriim's fanged grin, even from that distance. An itch manifested deep in the base of Cale's brain, an itch that became a whisper, then a voice.

It is my pleasure to see you again, Azriim said into Cale's mind. Unlike the feeling elicited by Magadon's mindlink, the slaad's psionic touch felt greasy, hostile. You are a persistent creature.

I'm going to kill you, Cale projected back.

Hardly a novel plan for you, priest, Azriim replied with a mental sneer.

The slaad broke the contact and spoke to his fellows. As one, the three slaadi pointed in the direction of Cale and his companions, each mouthed an arcane word, and fired three pea-sized orange balls from their outstretched palms.

"Cover!" Cale shouted, and immediately realized how foolish the exclamation sounded. ,

They were running across the open air. There was nowhere to hide.

He turned, grabbed Jak, and threw himself face down over the halfling as orange fire exploded in their midst. He prayed that Magadon would survive the blast, knowing that if the guide was killed, their ability to walk on air would cease.

One ball of flame exploded, then another, and another. The blistering air rushed past and over Cale. Jak hissed against the pain. The heat and flames enshrouded them. Cale grimaced against the expected agony but the pain did not come. His shadowstuff-suffused body resisted the spells of the slaadi and sheltered Jak from the worst of the blast. Cale waited for the fall to come, his heart in his throat.

The air remained as solid as earth under his boots.

He climbed to his feet, pulling Jak up by the cloak. The halfling already had his holy symbol in hand and he began to chant.

To Cale's right, Magadon and Riven clambered to their feet, skin raw, clothes smoking. Riven pulled shadows from the orange-tinted air, twirled them around his fingers, and touched them to his flesh. His wounds disappeared. Magadon swayed but seemed all right.

In the meantime, the halfling completed his prayer. White fire flew from Jak's outstretched hands and broke on the slaadi like water on rocks, seemingly to no effect.

Recovered, Magadon unshouldered his bow, knocked an arrow, and let fly. The arrow took Dolgan in the shoulder. The impact drove the fat slaad against the tower and he howled, stumbling on his wounded foot.

"Move!" Cale said. "We have to keep them from reaching the tower!"

Together, they pelted for the spire, Cale and Magadon in the lead. They had a full bowshot of open air to cover before they reached the tower.

Seeing them charge, Azriim barked something to his fellow slaadi, turned, and raced up the crystal stairs, taking them two at a time. He spiraled around the tower and went out of sight. Meanwhile, Dolgan jerked the arrow from his flesh, threw it over the side of the staircase, and pulled a thin iron rod from a leather tube on his thigh. His fellow did the same, except that his wand appeared to be made of wood.

"Wands!" Magadon warned as they ran.

"Spread out!" Cale shouted, and began to incant his own spell.

The comrades opened some distance between them as they charged, to make targeting them with the wands more difficult. Cale finished incanting his spell, a dweomer that cancelled other magic. He targeted it on the gray-eyed slaad's wand hoping to disable it. His spell took effect, met the magic of the wand, and failed. In that failure Cale caught a sense of the power of the mage who had crafted the wand: the Sojourner.

"Dark and empty," he whispered.

Dolgan's fanged mouth formed an arcane word and the tip of his wand flared. A mass of churning green gas formed in the air near Jak and Riven, a noxious, sick-looking little cloud. The halfling tumbled aside, but Riven ran right into it. The vapors swallowed him. The gas was so thick Cale couldn't see within.

"Riven!" Magadon said.

Unwilling to leave Riven behind, Cale and Magadon aborted their charge and turned back.

Quickly, Jak sheathed his blade, pocketed his holy symbol, and said, "I'll get him."

The halfling took a great gulp of air, held it, and rushed into the cloud. He emerged a moment later pulling Riven by his cloak. The assassin was bent double, coughing and vomiting. He pushed Fleet away and gestured toward the tower.

"Go," the assassin spat at them. "I'll follow."

He retched again, raining the contents of his stomach on the ruins far below. The cloud of gas, evidently heavier than air, began to slowly sink toward the ruins below.

Cale turned just in time to see the gray-eyed slaad fire a thin green beam from the tip of his wand. Magadon saw it too, and danced aside as the beam streaked past his hip.

Azriim came into view again around the near side of the tower, still loping hard up the spiral stairway. He was nearly to the archway that opened onto the cupola. Cale knew then that they would not be able to stop him. His heart sank.

Orange light streamed out of the archway in a cascade of beams. And in that light, Cale suddenly saw a way to stop the slaad.

To Magadon and Jak he said, "You two take the slaadi on the stairs. I've got Azriim. Go!"

"Do not delay, Erevis," Magadon said, and Cale could see the fatigue in the guide's eyes.

He would not be able to keep them attuned with the air for much longer.

Cale nodded and said again, "Go."

The guide and the halfling charged forward together. Cale stayed back, drawing his own shadow close around him, eyeing Azriim, waiting. He spared a look back at Riven, who appeared to have gathered himself.

"Meet me in the cupola," Cale said to the assassin.

Riven wiped the vomit from his mouth, eyed him, and nodded.

* * * * *

Jak knew he had to do something about the wands. He and Magadon were thirty paces from the slaadi. The creatures would get another shot at them before they could close.

"Cover me, Mags," Jak said.

The halfling pulled his holy symbol and began to incant a prayer as he ran.

The guide did not ask questions, instead he unshouldered his bow and began to fire. The guide fired rapidly, if inaccurately, even while running. His archery was astounding. The slaadi dodged the streaking missiles, though the effort nearly caused the fat one to fall from the tower.

Jak finished his spell and targeted the mind of Dolgan, overwhelming the slaad's brain with conflicting, confusing ideas and images. He knew it had worked when the huge creature gripped his head between his clawed hands and began to mutter. The slaad set down his wand and looked from Jak to his fellow slaad, then to the top of the tower and to the ruins below.

"Well done!" Magadon said.

The guide reshouldered his bow and drew his sword. Jak unsheathed his own blade, reserving his other hand for his holy symbol.

"He's only confused," the halfling explained. "He's still potentially dangerous, but for now, focus on the other."

Magadon nodded and they raced across the solid air at the slaadi.

The slaad unaffected by Jak's spell fired his wand again. Jak dodged, but the beam struck him in the side. His body went soft, amorphous. He felt his form begin to shift, felt the components of his body begin to metamorphose....

"No," he said between gritted his teeth.

Still running, even as his legs began to shrink and thin, he willed himself to stay whole, to resist whatever transformation the wand sought to force.

The effect ceased. He'd done it. Jak came back to himself, grinning fiercely.

The gray-eyed slaad, seemingly untroubled, replaced his wand in his thigh sheath and pulled a huge falchion from a scabbard over his back.

Magadon and Jak spaced themselves as they ran to come at the slaad from different angles.

But before they could close, the slaad confused by Jak's spell growled something unintelligible, turned to his fellow slaad, and lashed out with a claw. Red tracks opened in the skin of the gray-eyed slaad's chest. He bounded backward and down a few stairs, shouting urgently in a tongue Jak didn't recognize. The wounds on the slaad's chest began to close, while the larger one advanced on him in a fighting crouch.

Jak's spell was working better than he could have hoped. Tymora and the Trickster always smiled on the brave.

Still, it sometimes paid to be cautious. He slowed his charge long enough to allow him to utter the words to another spell. When he finished, his hands and feet grew sticky. He knew they would adhere to walls and ceilings, helping prevent a fall from the tower.

Meanwhile, Magadon took advantage of the confused slaad's attack on his brother. Shouting, the guide charged the gray-eyed slaad, blade bare. He closed in a final lunge and sent a cross cut at the slaad's head. The creature parried the blow, ducking and answering with a quick thrust that Magadon avoided only by bounding backward onto the air. The larger slaad attacked his brother again, but the gray-eyed creature twisted out of the way and opened a slash on his fellow's arm.

Jak realized that the guide's skill at archery exceeded his bladework. Only Riven or Cale could match the speed of the small, gray-eyed slaad.

Dolgan raised a claw to strike at his brother again but stopped in mid swing, a dumbfounded look on his broad, flat face. As suddenly as it had started, the confused slaad left off the attack on his brother, sat with a sigh on the stairway, and looked at his bloody claws as though they belonged to someone else. He began to dig his talons into his own arms, moaning in either pain or ecstasy-Jak couldn't tell which-at the sensation.

The smaller slaad grinned, feinted at Magadon to draw his blade out of position, and stabbed the guide through the shoulder. Magadon groaned, waved his blade defensively, and staggered backward down three steps. The slaad took them all in a single bound and pressed the attack. Magadon backstepped, using his blade as best he could to ward off the slaad's lightning-fast attack. Wound after wound opened on the guide. He was weakening.

Jak decided to gamble. He whispered the words to another spell and when he was done, he ran forward to the stairs, putting himself between the slaadi, right at the edge of the staircase. The confused slaad paid him no heed.

"Try me, you son of a diseased toad," Jak called.

He knew the insult was silly but that didn't matter. The magic of his spell lent the words power and significance. If the casting worked, the slaad would not be able to resist attacking him.

The slaad opened a gash in Magadon's stomach and whirled around to face Jak, hissing in rage. From the look of hate in the slaad's gray eyes, Jak knew that his spell had worked.

He added further insult by waving his short sword and saying, "I'm going to cut out your maggot-infested tongue and stick it so far up your polluted arse that you'll be able to lick your eyes."

He could not help but grin at that one.

The slaad dropped his sword, apparently intent on using his claws to rip out Jak's throat, and bounded up the stairs with terrifying rapidity.

Jak feigned fear, raised his blade awkwardly, and fumbled backward. The slaad rushed him. His claws closed on the halfling's chest and face. Pain blossomed.

Jak fell backward over the side of the staircase. The momentum from the enraged slaad's charge carried the creature right after.

Jak slipped from the slaad's grip, flipped in midair, and slammed his hands against the side of the tower. It occurred to him too late that the stone might hold an enchantment that would defeat his spell. His heart found his throat.

But his grip held.

Jak enjoyed a moment's satisfaction as the slaad fell, the beginnings of a scream erupting from the creature's throat.

His satisfaction vanished as clawed hands closed on Jak's ankles in a grip stronger than a vice. The weight of the falling slaad nearly dislodged the halfling, but his spell held them both hanging from the side of the tower at a height of four bowshots above the ruins. Jak kicked his feet, trying to shake the slaad loose. No use.

Jak tried to step onto the air and found that he could no longer walk on it. Magadon's psionic effect had ended. Was the guide dead? What had happened to Cale and Riven? He had no time to pay the questions further heed.

"You will pay for this, little creature," growled the slaad below him.

The creature's claws sank deeply into Jak's calves. The pain was excruciating and Jak could not contain a scream. The slaad began to scale him as he might a rope.

One claw released his calf only to sink into his thigh. Jak was dizzy with agony. Warm blood coursed down his leg.

"Magadon!" Jak screamed, praying that the guide was still alive. "Magadon!"

From above, all he could hear were the dumb moans of the enspelled slaad.

"Pain...." the slaad hanging from his legs said.

The creature sank a clawed hand into Jak's shoulder and began to pull himself up. Jak cried out in agony. He couldn't hold on much longer. He could imagine the creature's huge, fanged mouth just behind his head.

"I'll drop us both, you stinking frog!" Jak threatened, and he meant it.

The slaad tensed at that. Jak prepared to let go of the wall, praying to the Trickster that the impact of the fall would kill him quickly.

Magadon's face appeared over the ledge, and the glowing tip of a knocked, psionically-enhanced arrow followed.

As absurd as it was, Jak could not contain a smile.

"Mags!" he said.

He felt the slaad on his back tense, and could imagine the look of shock on his froglike face.

"Take your fill of this," Magadon said, and fired.

The impact blew the slaad from the halfling's back. Jak heard an aborted scream of pain and looked down between his feet to see the creature plummeting toward the ruins.

"Jak!" Magadon said. "Here."

Jak looked up to see Magadon's extended hand. Jak took it in his own sticky grasp, and the guide lifted him up to the stairway. Magadon was covered in wounds, some of them deep.

Near them, the confused slaad continued to sit on the stairs, wounding himself and muttering.

Jak ignored the creature, touched his friend, and spoke the words to healing prayers. Most of Magadon's wounds closed, and color returned to his face.

Afterward, still eyeing the confused slaad warily, Jak used more healing prayers to close the gouges in his own legs and shoulder.

They looked up toward the top of the tower, and Jak prayed to the Trickster and Tymora that Cale had made it to the top before Magadon's psionic effect had ended.

They looked at the enspelled slaad, then looked at each other.

"We'll go past him if possible," Jak said. "Through him if need be."

"Through him," Magadon said grimly.

As he advanced up the stairs toward Dolgan, the nonplussed slaad looked a question at him.

Magadon slashed open the slaad's throat with a hard cross slash. Dolgan fell backward on the stairs, surprise in his eyes, gurgling and spasming.

Magadon walked over him and up.

"Don't slip on the blood," the guide said to Jak.

Jak nodded and followed.

* * * * *

Cale waited until Azriim stepped into the glowing archway. When he did, the slaad's body blotted out the orange light and cast a long shadow behind him. Cale sensed the semi-comprehensible space-between-space that connected the shadows he'd gathered around him and the shadow that Azriim cast. As always, it was not but a step in a direction that could not be represented on a map, that most beings could not see or sense. He readied his blade, prayed that the tower did not interfere with his ability, and took the step.

A moment of motion and he found himself standing behind Azriim. The slaad must have sensed him for he started to turn, but too late. With gritted teeth, Cale drove Weaveshear into Azriim's back, through his spine, and out his green-skinned chest. Azriim screamed in pain, bared his fangs in agony, and started to fall. Some small thing the slaad had held in his hands went skittering across the floor of the chamber beyond the archway. Warm, black blood cascaded down Weaveshear's hilt and over Cale's hands. He twisted the blade as Azriim collapsed, eliciting another hiss. He put his foot into the semi-prone slaad's back and kicked him off the blade and through the archway.

The chamber under the cupola was nothing more than an open space covered with a metal roof. Arcane symbols were engraved into the metal. Cale had no idea what the cupola's purpose might once have been.

In the center of the chamber, erupting from the stone of the tower like the edge of a giant knife, was a faceted wedge of crystal taller than Cale. It pulsed with power and sent its orange beam of arcane might sizzling through the hole in the cupola and toward the top of the cavern.

"I said I would kill you," Cale said, and was surprised to hear in his words the same emotionless tone he sometimes heard in Riven's voice-the tone of an assassin doing his work.

The slaad apparently could not move his legs. On all fours, he dragged them behind him like dead things as he tried to move away from Cale.

So you did, Azriim replied, and even his mental voice seemed strained with pain.

With surprising suddenness, the slaad whirled around, pointed a palm at Cale, and uttered an arcane word. A fan of clashing colors flew from his hand and exploded around Cale-

-and drained harmlessly into Weaveshear. Cale felt the blade pulsing with the absorbed power, vibrating from its proximity to the magical beam.

Azriim's mismatched eyes went wide. He turned and dragged himself after the item he had dropped. Cale saw it lying on the floor not far from them: a silver nut latticed with black veins, about the size of Jak's closed fist. A seed.

Cale jumped forward and put his boot into Azriim's back. The slaad hissed in pain and collapsed onto his belly.

You would not kill me in these clothes, would you? Azriim asked, and Cale almost laughed at the absurdity of the question.

Cale saw the wounds he had inflicted with Weaveshear beginning to close. The slaad's leathery skin was sealing itself. Soon, Azriim would have the use of his legs again. The creatures regenerated quickly, perhaps more quickly than Cale himself. He knew then that he would have to finish Azriim with brutal, overwhelming, final violence.

Cale hesitated for a moment, wondering if he should spare Azriim, force him to tell all he knew of the Sojourner.

No, Cale decided. He would learn what he needed to know some other way. Azriim had to die. At that moment, chororin required it.

He raised Weaveshear high for a decapitating strike.

"This is over," he said, and was pleased to hear that his voice was his own and not Riven's.

Azriim turned to face him, turned to face death. His mismatched eyes did not show fear, but they did go wide.

By the time Cale realized that Azriim's eyes were wide from surprise, not fear, it was too late.

Agonizing pain exploded in Cale's back. Magical steel pierced his flesh, his kidneys, and scraped against his ribs and spine. He looked down to see the tips of two blades making little tents of his cloak before poking through. Two saber tips.

Riven's sabers.

Warm blood poured down Cale's back, and trickled down his front. Sparks exploded in his brain. His vision went blurry, but somehow he managed to keep his feet. Riven pulled both blades free. Cale hissed at the shot of agony that ran through his frame as the blades withdrew. He tried to turn around but his body would not respond. It was all he could do to stay upright. He clutched Weaveshear hard in his fist but felt it slipping from his grasp.

"It's over, Cale," Riven said, his voice as frigid as a winter gale. "It's over."

A saber stab again impaled Cale's organs. Another. He could not even groan. The strength went out of his legs. He collapsed to the floor, and the fall seemed to take forever. His hearing went dull. Sounds seemed to stretch impossibly long, into a scale he'd never before noticed. Only the rasping of his breath and the irregular hammering of his heart sounded clearly and normally in his ears.

Cale lay on his side, his eyes open, his breathing labored. He felt his shade flesh struggling to regenerate, but feared it would fail. Riven had done a lot of damage. Like Cale, the one-eyed assassin knew how to kill. And the assassin knew how to betray.

In some distant part of his brain, Cale wondered when Riven had made the decision to turn on them, wondered whether the assassin had planned it all along. For a reason he could not explain, Cale thought of the Plane of Shadow. He cursed himself for a fool, a trusting fool. In his mind, he could hear Azriim laughing.

Riven walked past him, past the prone slaad, and retrieved the silver seed. Sabers still bare and bloody, he walked back to stand over the slaad. Two saber tips pointed at Azriim's heart.

"My mind is open," Riven said to the slaad. "Read it."

Azriim's mismatched eyes narrowed and Cale sensed the flow of mental energy. A fanged grin spread across the slaad's face.

"I come with you, and participate in what's to come," Riven simultaneously asked and ordered.

Azriim nodded. Riven sheathed a saber and extended a hand to help the slaad up. Azriim took it and climbed slowly to his feet. His regeneration had returned the use of his legs.

"Give me the seed," Azriim said.

Riven ignored him, and Cale could imagine but not see the assassin's sneer.

Still holding the seed, Riven turned to Cale. He knelt down on his haunches so that he and Cale could see into each other's faces. Riven's eye was cold, the hole in his other socket black and deep. Cale thought back to an alley in Selgaunt, when Riven had been helpless before him. He should have killed him then.

"I side with the winner, Cale," Riven said. "You don't see it, you never saw it, but you've already lost." He stood, spat a glob of saliva onto Cale's cheek, and added, "And I've been Second long enough."

Cale tried to grab his boot, failed, coughed up blood, but managed to groan, "You'll always ... be Second . . . to me, Zhent."

Riven stood still for a moment, and Cale waited for the finishing saber cut. It did not come, and when the assassin spoke, Cale could hear the sneer in his voice.

"It doesn't appear so now."

Together, Riven and Azriim walked to the huge crystal in the center of the room. They stood for a moment before the crystal and looked at the orange beam, the beam that powered the Skulls, that kept Skullport from collapsing.

Without ceremony, Riven handed the seed to Azriim. The slaad appeared startled by the gesture, but took the seed.

Azriim looked at Cale and said to Riven, "If he lives, he'll come looking for you."

Riven eyed Cale coldly and replied, "I hope he does."

"We need to get you some new clothes," Azriim said with a smile, then he slipped the seed into the beam.

The moment the silver seed touched the orange light, it disintegrated into a million glowing particles, all of them streaking upward like a swarm of fireflies, spreading along the net of power. The orange glow darkened, turned crimson. The air changed. Cale's ears popped. A low, vibratory hum sounded, growing louder and louder. The entirety of the chamber bucked, shook. The tower rattled. The huge crystal cracked and a million fine lines manifested along its facets.

Cale turned his head and saw that outside the cupola, stalactites detached from the ceiling, fell gracefully through the air, and crashed thunderously amongst the ruins. Clouds of dust went up from the point of impact. It was raining stone.

It was at that moment that Cale realized that the bleeding in his back had stopped. His flesh closed the wound. Though still weak, he reached into his cloak pocket and found his holy symbol. The feel of its soft velvet in his hand comforted him.

I'm the First, he thought. I'm the First.

He searched his mind for a spell, something to stop Riven and Azriim. He found one, tried to utter the words, but was unable to maintain his concentration. He could only watch them, could only bear witness to his failure.

Azriim, grinning like a lunatic, took out his teleportation rod. Riven grabbed the slaad by the arm.

"I'm coming with you," he said.

Still wearing that stupid grin, Azriim nodded and said, "I wouldn't have it any other way."

The slaad began to manipulate the rod.

From behind him, Cale heard a voice-Jak's voice-exclaim, "Riven! I knew it, you black-hearted whoreson!"

Azriim and Riven looked up in surprise.

Cale turned his head to see Jak and Magadon standing in the cupola's archway. Both looked to Cale. He tried to indicate to them that he was all right, that he would live, but managed only to blink at them.

Jak's mouth went hard.

"Bastard," he said to Riven.

As fast as a lightning strike, the halfling pulled two throwing daggers from his chest bandolier and whipped them across the chamber.

Cale heard one sink into flesh. Riven grunted, and Cale turned to see one of the blades buried to the hilt in the assassin's shoulder.

"I'd kill you for that, little man," Riven said, grimacing as he pulled the dagger free. "Except that you're already dead. And I'm leaving."

The assassin had something in his hand. He hurled it back at Jak. The halfling couldn't dodge it, and the small wooden object thumped into Jak's chest, doing no damage, and fell to the floor.

Jak's pipe.

"Be thankful it's not steel, Fleet," Riven growled.

"You've wanted this," Jak said, and started to advance across the chamber. "Now you've got it. Come on, Zhent!"

Magadon walked beside him, blade bare.

"You won't get away, Riven," the guide said.

"I already have, tiefling," Riven replied with a sneer.

Azriim continued to twist the teleportation rod. Cale tried to shout at Magadon to connect psionically to Riven, but he could not say the words.

Riven looked past Jak and Magadon and toward the cupola's archway.

"They don't look happy," the assassin said, and he and Azriim winked out.

"Coward!" Jak shouted at the empty air.

Cale followed the assassin's gaze and saw six of the Skulls streaming into the cavern. Though they were still far away, Cale could see that their mouths were open, and he heard the howls of rage and dismay that went before them. Lines of energy crackled around the guardians like lightning.

The chamber continued to shake. Stalactites fell in increasing numbers. The net of power formerly visible along the ceiling crackled and sparked, its power failing. It felt to Cale as though the entire chamber was in danger of imminent collapse.

Jak and Magadon rushed to his side and sat him up. Cale hissed with pain as he rose slowly to his feet.

Jak said, "Cale, are you-Trickster's toes! You're soaked in blood."

Leaning on his friends, Cale said, "I'll be all right."

His shadow-infused flesh continued to work its miracle.

A lightning bolt exploded through one of the cupola's archways and blew them across the floor. They all fell face down on the stone. The hairs on Cale's arms stood straight up.

The Skulls are coming, he thought. And they're angry.

"Come on," Cale said, slowly clambering to his feet.

Jak and Magadon at his side, he limped across the chamber to the opposite archway. They stood there on the edge of the tower, looking down on the ruins far below. Soon the lost city would be covered in rock, the chamber forever lost to history.

Above them, the ceiling of the cavern was aglow in intermittent flashes of crimson lightning and showers of sparks. Cale saw some of the Skulls wheeling frenetically around the cavern, preventing what destruction they could, and patching the net of power where possible.

But two others were coming for the tower. Keening, aglow with power, rage, and despair, they blazed toward the comrades.

The tower shook under Cale's feet, nearly knocking him off the side. The world shook above them.

Still bleary-eyed from his wounds, Cale said, "Hold on to me and get ready to jump."

Magadon and Jak went wide eyed.

"What?" Jak asked.

Cale gathered what darkness he could around him. He needed more. It was too bright at the top of the tower.

"Jump, little man," he said. "Together."

Still they hesitated.

Two Skulls streaked into the cupola.

"Your transgression shall result in your slow flaying and prolonged torture, you-"

"Now, godsdamnit," Cale ordered.

Beams of energy fired from the Skulls' eyes.

Jak and Magadon, clutching Cale between them, jumped.