Midnight's mask

CHAPTER 8

Vhostym prepared to leave his pocket plane. He knew that he would not return. He would send for the Weave Tap when the time arrived.

He felt no nostalgia over his departure. The place had served him well as an isolated location from which to put his plan into place, but its utility was at an end. And Vhostym retained nothing that did not have utility.

The binding spells with which he had confined the demons, devils, and celestials he used in his research would degrade over the coming centuries. Eventually, the creatures would be free to slaughter one another or to return to their home planes. Or not. Vhostym did not care what became of them. Their utility too was at an end.

In his mind, he cataloged the threescore spells he had spent the last few hours preparing. He inventoried components for the spells, checked the magical paraphernalia that adorned his person. He reached into a belt pouch and counted the twenty magical emeralds he had personally crafted to prepare for this night. They were all there, with the exception of the one he had provided to Azriim.

He was ready.

His ragged breath sounded loud and wet in his ears. He felt increasingly tired. The pain in his limbs, in his muscles, his bones, wracked him. He reached into his mind and diminished his brain's capacity to register painful sensations. The agony decreased but did not end. He endured it. His illness was advancing quickly, inexorably. He needed events to move just as quickly. He had only a little time remaining, and therefore none to waste.

From the extradimensional storage space within his robe pocket, he withdrew a fillet of jade. Rather than lift his arms to place it on his head-the motion would have caused him added pain-he instead took hold of it with his mind and floated it atop his brow. He then incanted the words to one of his most powerful transmutations, a spell that would allow him to take an incorporeal form. All of his items and components would accompany him into incorporeality, and would remain as solid to him as the real world would seem insubstantial.

When the magic took effect, his flesh tingled, its malleability palpable. He regretted that he would have to once more spend time in a form other than his natural body, but he was not yet prepared to set foot on the surface in his own flesh.

His body dissolved relative to the material world. His flesh, clothing, and spell components turned gray and insubstantial. The world around him lost color. A channel opened between his being and the Negative Material Plane-a necessary element of the spell-and a preternatural cold suffused him. He willed his body to stand on the chamber floor, though he could have floated through it had he wished.

The transformation did nothing to end his pain, which, like his equipment, had followed him into his ghostly form. But the new form did not have the sensitivity to light that was the congenital curse of Vhostym's material flesh.

He incanted another spell and turned invisible. Afterward, he cast again and teleported from his pocket plane to the surface of Faerun, to a mountainous region on the frontier of the realm of Amn.

He materialized where he intended, in a thicket of century-old ash trees, near the bottom of a tree-dotted, steep-sided mountain vale. Darkness shrouded the valley. Mountains walled him in, dark and ominous. A brook wound its way through the vale's trees.

Vhostym's form allowed him to see well even in darkness, allowed him to sense the lifeforces of the animals around him. The creatures perceived the negative energy of his form and cowered in their dens, instinctively terrified of him.

They were wise to be frightened, for he had death on his mind.

Neither Selune nor her tears were visible above the mountains, but a window of stars shone down from a cloudless sky. The wind stirred the ash leaves, but his form felt nothing but the pain of his illness. He longed to smell the air, feel the breeze.

Soon, he reminded himself.

Vhostym knew that a single, twisting pass behind him was the only nonmagical means of entering or exiting the vale. He knew too that mages and priests in service to Cyric kept the pass hidden with illusions and spell traps to protect the vale's secret-a tower hidden within the ash trees. Vhostym could mark the tower from where he stood only because he knew where to look.

The windowless, square spire of gray stone stood in the center of the vale, near the brook, barely visible through the trees. The crenellated top, silhouetted in the starlight, looked like a mouthful of broken teeth. Four soldiers armed with glaives and armored in mail stood watch on the ground before the temple. They were all human, so Vhostym assumed they must have some magical device that allowed them to see in the dark.

A raised drawbridge lay flat against the tower's face. The drawbridge did not rest at ground level, but about a troll's height up the wall. Vhostym knew that the double doors behind the drawbridge opened onto the second floor of the tower.

Vhostym floated forward through the trees, toward the tower, an invisible harbinger of doom. Nothing visible on the tower's exterior bespoke its dark purpose but Vhostym knew it to be a temple of Cyric the Dark Sun, one of two towers built in hidden vales in the Small Teeth, a mountain range that made up the southern border of Amn. Though a distance of a few leagues separated the two temples, a secret underground tunnel wormed under the mountains to link them.

The Towers of the Eternal Eclipse, the worshipers called them. Vhostym found the name ironic and appropriate.

Decades ago Vhostym had scoured Faerun for the material he would need, along with the Weave Tap, to complete his greatest spell-a peculiar type of stone that fell from the heavens. The stone had a latent property-the ability to amplify arcane power cast through it.

One of Vhostym's divinations had at last located a large deposit of the stone in the Small Teeth, in the form of Cyric's temple. Further magical inquiries had determined the origin of the stone. Millennia before, a small rock with this special property had blazed a path of fire across the sky and smashed into the mountains, exposing a seam of granite. The impact pulverized the otherworldly rock and left a crater in the mountains, but the heat and pressure of the impact had transferred the stone's properties into the local granite. Later, a sect of Banites-the original builders of the temple-had quarried the stone to build their towers. The temple was later taken over after the Time of Troubles by the Cyricists. Neither the Banites nor the Cyricists ever learned of the amplifying properties of the stone.

For months after learning the nature and history of the towers, Vhostym scried them repeatedly. He had memorized their interiors, their defenses. He knew the locations of the warding glyphs and spell traps that guarded some of the towers' interior doors. He knew the number and nature of those who garrisoned each spire: roughly fivescore soldiers, a dozen priests, and a handful of mages. The High Priest of Cyric who reigned over the towers, one Blackwill Akhmelere, occupied the eastern tower this night, so he would be spared.

No one in the western tower would live more than another hour.

Vhostym cast a long series of protective spells. When he finished, an array of invisible magical wards sheathed his person. Unless they could be dispelled-and no one within the tower had the power to counter Vhostym's dweomers-he was virtually invulnerable to harm from either weapons or spells.

The most powerful of the defensive wards would not last long, however, so speed would be his ally. He removed a root from his pouch, chewed it, swallowed, and recited another spell. When he finished, his spectral body felt energized, faster.

He was ready to begin. Vhostym started forward.

A sudden call went up from the guards before the tower and he stopped his advance. The guards scrambled aside as the sound of a winch mechanism carried through the valley and the drawbridge started to lower. In moments, the drawbridge's edge was flat on the ground, forming a ramp from ground level to the elevated double doors. The twin iron slabs of the temple doors swung open, torchlight poured out, and a group of twenty sword-armed and mail-armored soldiers trooped down the drawbridge.

All of them wore the hard looks of experienced fighters. Each bore a longbow and stuffed field pack over his shoulders. A short-haired, dark-eyed priest in plate armor led them, trailed by a boy who steered a mule loaded with field gear. The priest bore a black staff capped with an opal. The opal radiated a soft, red light that allowed the humans to see, but would not itself be easy to see from a distance. The red light highlighted the priest's breastplate to reveal an enameled image: a white, jawless skull, the symbol of Cyric the Mad. The gate guards bowed their heads as the priest stalked down the drawbridge and passed them. Waving his staff, the priest offered them Cyric's blessing.

A raiding party, Vhostym guessed.

He knew the Cyricists often raided the merchant caravans that braved the mountain paths between Amn and Tethyr. Sometimes they raided for food and supplies, other times they raided only to murder or take captives for later sacrifice.

The double doors closed behind the raiding party and the drawbridge clicked its way back up.

The ringing of the raiders' mail and the stomp of their boots sounded loudly in the night as they picked their way through the trees. The priest gazed about alertly as he walked but his eyes passed over Vhostym without hesitation. The party walked along the path near Vhostym and marched on toward the pass. Within moments, the night swallowed them and their red light.

Vhostym stared after them, pondering the capriciousness of the multiverse. Had the patrol been scheduled to move out only a quarter hour later, it never would have left at all. Vhostym was reminded again of the utter randomness, the absolute meaninglessness of the multiverse. He might have wished that existence had a greater purpose but he knew better and refused to deceive himself. It simply was. Of course, an existence without external purpose was also an existence without boundaries, at least for one of Vhostym's power. The reminder spurred him to action.

He turned back to the tower and spoke aloud a word of power.

Time stopped, at least subjectively. The world froze, except for Vhostym.

The spell would last only a short while, but he could cast it again if necessary.

Taking his pouch of enchanted emeralds in hand, he spoke a stanza of arcane words and teleported into the first floor entry hall of the tower. Torchlight lit the room but the brightness did not trouble Vhostym's incorporeal form. Two soldiers and one of the temple's wizards stood within, frozen between breaths. The drawbridge winches stood in alcoves to either side. Two closed wooden doors awaited in the opposite wall.

Without hesitating, Vhostym dropped one of the emeralds on the floor-the gem took corporeal form when he released it-and spoke a command word. At his utterance, the jewel shattered into a rain of shards and left in its wake a green glow that encompassed the entirety of the entry hall and extended through the wooden doors. The abjuration embodied in the glow restricted any form of extradimensional magical travel, including teleportation, into it or out of it.

Vhostym's hastening spell augmented the already-rapid flight granted him by his spectral form and he passed rapidly through the wooden doors. A wide stairway led down. Murals depicting the Dark Sun stained the walls. The corridor linked with several rooms as well as the watch stations set in each corner of the tower. Vhostym dropped a gem, and another, until a green glow covered the entire first floor. He noted the location of those within as he moved-the guards armed with long bows at the watch stations; the servants asleep in their beds.

He floated downward through the floor and did the same on the ground floor, where most of the guards were quartered, and in the dungeon, where a few guards kept watch over prisoners. Then he floated up through the floor and did the same on the third floor, which featured a large central room around which lay the chambers of underpriests and lesser mages. In moments, that entire floor too was cloaked in green. He moved up to the next floor and repeated the process, this time painting in green the rooms of the senior priests and wizards.

A sudden rush and blur of sound told him that time had resumed. He was in the uninhabited, large central room on the fourth floor. Other than an endless series of wall murals depicting the Dark Sun reading the Cyrinishad, the room featured nothing other than several doors, four pillars, and two stairways, one leading up and one down.

He imagined the surprise the inhabitants of the tower must have felt-between blinks, the rooms they occupied had lit up with a green glow. From below, he heard alarmed shouts. No doubt someone was rushing for one of the tower's many alarm bells.

A door to his left flew open and a priest in his night clothes, but with a blade clutched in his hand, burst out. He looked through and past Vhostym and padded toward the stairway.

Vhostym put the priest out of his mind, repeated the word of power, and again stopped time. The priest froze in mid stride. Vhostym floated up through the floor to the fifth story. There, he found almost the entire level to be a single, open chamber dedicated to the wretched rites of Cyric the Dark Sun. Inlaid tiles formed a sunburst in the center of the chamber, on which sat a pedestal of white stone shaped like a jawless skull. Vhostym could feel the magic in the room as a tingle on the nape of his neck. Wrought-iron braziers with skull motifs stood in each corner. A score or so of skeletons in plate armor lined the walls. Vhostym ignored it all and placed his abjuration gems.

He floated to the only room off the ceremonial chamber-the bedchamber of Olma Kulenvov, the highest-ranking cleric in the tower. The embers from a dying fire lit the chamber, and Olma slept comfortably in her opulent, carved ash bed. Vhostym dropped a binding gem, activated it, and exited through the roof.

Each corner of the tower's roof featured an external observation ledge. Vhostym cast a holding ward on the doors that led to each of the posts. Three guardsmen stood on each ledge, immobile between moments. Vhostym rapidly cast a series of spells that conjured a cloud of noxious green fumes over each post. The clouds of gas appeared over and around the guards. The men were dead but did not yet know it. They existed between the last two breaths of their lives. When time resumed, the men would inhale the choking fumes and die painfully.

Vhostym flew down to the ground and cast a spell at the feet of the guards on the exterior of the tower. The evocation summoned a small, spinning ball of potential energy that would explode after a delay, the length of which Vhostym chose as he cast: a fifteen count. Then he cast another holding ward on the drawbridge and double doors.

No one would be allowed to escape the tower.

He sank below the surface of the vale, blind while he traveled through solid rock, until he reached the beginning of the broad, earthen tunnel that linked the western tower with the eastern. Timbers set at even intervals supported the ceiling. A simple incantation twisted the wood of the score or so timbers near Vhostym. They shattered, shooting splinters and chunks of jagged wood in all directions. Several passed through Vhostym's form.

The sudden loss of support caused the roof of the tunnel to sag, crumble, finally to collapse. There would be no escape through it either. Vhostym returned to the surface and examined his handiwork.

He had turned the temple into a tomb. Those outside it would be dead when time restarted, and those within could not escape.

He waited, eager to begin.

After less than a ten count, the blurry rush of sound and motion told him that time had resumed. It was time to kill.

Cale, Jak, and Magadon stood on the maindeck of Demon Binder, looking at one another.

They had a ship, still cutting through the sea, but had no one to man it.

"What now?" Jak asked.

Cale thought about it and made his decision.

"We take a moment to free the slaves, then find the slaadi and kill them. Right now." To Magadon, he said, "You have a link with Riven?"

Magadon nodded. "Erevis, are you certain? Riven said he would signal us when the time was right."

"Mags," Cale said, "Mask wanted the slaadi to escape and they escaped. That's all I am going to give Riven and that's all I'm going to give Mask. We want the slaadi dead for our own reasons. Mask's are … incidental to those."

Jak's eyebrows raised but he held his tongue.

Magadon blanched and shook his head. "I should have such nerve when it comes to speaking of my own father."

Cale knew that Magadon was born of Mephistopheles, an archdevil. The guide did not even care to speak his father's name.

"Mask isn't my father," Cale said.

"No," Magadon agreed, though the word sounded more like a question than a statement.

To Jak, Cale said, "Go release the slaves, little man. See if any of them can sail this ship to take the rest back to land. We are leaving as soon as they're out."

Jak nodded. "I saw keys for the cages on one of the corpses." He turned and sped off.

"Show me, Mags," Cale said.

Magadon furrowed his brow in concentration and a rosy glow haloed his head. He held out his hand to Cale. Cale took it, felt his mind meet Magadon's, and saw what the guide saw through Riven's eyes..

They were on a ship sailing its way through the night and the dark water. A soft, inexplicable green glow shrouded the entire vessel. Cale had no notion what it was. The ship sported three masts to Demon Binder's two, and its sails were triangular rather than square.

Riven stood on the maindeck and looked out over the sea. An enormous peak exploded up from the sea behind the ship. Sheer sides rose from the waters and extended toward starry skies. A single tower on a high promontory was backlit by the starlight.

Cale knew the name of the island, though he had never seen it before. Everyone who lived near the waters of the Inner Sea had heard of Traitor's Isle. Sailors used the island and its magical tower as a distance marker. Cale let the mental image of the ship sink into his mind. He extended his senses to feel the shadows aboard and. .

Felt nothing.

He tried again but still could not feel the shadows aboard the other ship. Something was blocking him.

The green glow. It was somehow blocking his ability to transport himself aboard. He clenched his fists in frustration. He considered trying to transport them into the water near the ship, but dismissed the idea. Even a small mistake in the transport could leave them alone on the open sea. Besides, even if he could put them next to the ship's hull, how then would they get aboard?

"What is it?" Magadon said.

"A problem," Cale answered, and left it at that. He released his hold on Magadon and considered.

He looked toward the hold. Jak had hung a rope ladder from the top of the hatch. One by one, the freed slaves climbed up it and stood on deck. They wore only ragged tunics and trousers. All were bootless. All had a tenday's growth of beard on their faces. Many coughed or swayed on their feet.

Their gazes went to the dead and unconscious Thayans, still scattered about the deck, to Cale, to Magadon. Most gave hard smiles and nods.

They stood about near the hatch, obviously unsure what to do. Other than the coughing, they looked to be in decent health, nothing like the slaves Cale had seen in Skullport.

Cale and Magadon walked over to the slaves as more continued to climb the ladder. Before Cale could speak, one of the former slaves, a short, thickset man of about thirty winters, stepped forth and said, "Seems we owe you thanks, lubber, for freeing us and giving these Thayan flesh peddlers what they deserved." He grinned-his front teeth were gone-and extended his hand. "So, thanks to you."

Cale took the man's hand in his own. Nods around. Murmured gratitude.

The man had called Cale "lubber." Cale's hopes rose.

"You are a sailor, then?"

"Aye," said the man.

"As are we all," said another bass voice, from just inside the hold. A thicket of black hair appeared in the hatchway, followed by a head the size of a bucket, and a body as large as a great orc. A black beard, shot through with gray, hid his mouth, but the man's dark eyes carried a hardness Cale had seen only in his own reflection and Riven's single eye. An overlarge, misshapen nose jutted from his face like a weathered crag.

"Captain on deck," said the man with whom Cale had been conversing, and the rest of the former slaves stood at attention.

"Ease, men," the captain said, and lifted himself fully out of the hatch. The men relaxed and the captain's gaze swept the ship, the sea.

"This whore is still underway. Jeg, Hessim, Veer, Pellak, get the mainsail furled. Nom, get her anchor down until we know what's what. Ashin, get on the helm."

Without hesitation, the men snapped to their duties. Cale considered protesting, thought better of it, and got out of their way.

"Runnin' hard at night," the captain said to Cale. "Thayans are fool sailors. You're not seamen, are you?"

"No," Cale answered.

"But you two and the little fellow would be the men who freed us."

Cale nodded, as did Magadon.

"Then you have my gratitude and that of my crew." He extended his hand. "Captain Evrel Kes, out of Marsember. These are my men. "

Cale took his hand. Despite the captain's age and the fact that his large body had gone somewhat fat, there was strength in his grip.

"Erevis Cale," Cale answered.

"Magadon, out of Starmantle."

"Jak Fleet," said the little man's voice as his red head popped out of the hold and he climbed onto deck. To Cale, Jak said, "That's everyone. Still some stores down there. Grain and spices, I think."

Cale realized the captain had come up from the hold last, only after all his men had been freed and sent above. Cale liked him already.

Above and around them, Cale and his comrades watched as the captain's men scaled the mast and began drawing up the mainsail. They hollered down to Nom to drop anchor.

"I can see, you fish turds," Nom shot back from the bow, and released the anchor.

Evrel smiled at his men's banter.

From the helmsman's perch, Ashin called, "This one's still alive, Captain."

"As are a few of these," called another crewman, sticking his foot into one of the Thayans Cale had left unconscious on the deck.

Evrel looked at Cale and said, "The punishment at sea for slavery is execution."

Cale saw no bloodlust in the captain's eyes, no need for vengeance. Evrel was simply proposing to do what he saw as his duty.

"You are captain of this ship, now," Cale answered, and not even Jak protested.

Evrel nodded. "You know the law of the sea, Ashin. They go over. All of them."

Ashin nodded, heaved the still immobilized slaver over his shoulder, carried him to the side, and cast him over. Three other crewmen threw the unconscious Thayans over the rail.

"The corpses go after them," said Evrel to the crew. "Step to it, lads. This ship stinks badly enough."

The crew gathered the remaining dead and pitched them over, but not before stripping them of weapons and valuables. The captain watched it all, then turned back to Cale.

"I left my manners in the hold," he said, and smiled. "Well met, Erevis, Magadon, and Jak. Now, if you were sailors, I'd wonder at a mutiny. As it is, I wonder how you got aboard. I do not see another ship."

"Spell," Cale said, and left it at that.

Evrel frowned. Cale knew that sailors were notoriously suspicious of magic, and captains more than most.

"You're hunting Thayans, then?" Evrel asked. "Or slavers maybe? Or did this crew in particular do something to run afoul of you three?"

Cale shook his head. "None of those. What we are hunting escaped us. The slavers just got in our way."

The captain stared at him a moment.

"Reason enough," Evrel said. "And fortunate for me and my men. I'll remember to stay out of your way."

The dropped anchor noticeably slowed the ship. The rest of Evrel's crew, having cleared the decks of bodies, set about familiarizing themselves with the vessel's operation and layout. The heavyset man Cale had spoke with earlier issued frequent orders. Cale assumed him to be Evrel's first mate. He soon walked over to confer with his captain.

"My first mate," Evrel explained. "Gorse Olis."

Gorse nodded a greeting. Cale, Jak, and Magadon reciprocated.

Jak asked, "How did you and your crew end up here, like this?"

The captain's lips curled and Gorse gave a harsh laugh.

Evrel said, "I commanded Sea Reaver, a carrack out of Marsember. We were taken on the open sea by a three-ship pirate fleet out of the Pirate Isles. These bastards," he made a gesture to indicate the Thayans, "bought us from the slave blocks there. I don't know what they had in mind for us."

"Nothing good," Gorse said.

"That's certain," answered the captain.

Cale had given the captain and crew time to get their hands around the ship, so he cut to his question. He had no other options. They would have to pursue the slaadi using ordinary methods of transport.

"We need your services, captain. Can you sail this ship? The. . men we are pursuing are aboard another ship and we have to catch them."

Evrel and Gorse shared a look and Gorse nodded.

Evrel looked back to Cale and said, "She's an ugly Thayan bitch, but we can sail her, Erevis Cale. Where is the other ship you're after? Be difficult to track her by night."

Cale said, "Near Traitor's Isle is the last we knew of her."

Evrel nodded and called over his shoulder to the helmsman's post. "Ashin, where in Umberlee's realm are we? And how far from Traitor's Isle?"

Ashin plucked the mechanical device from the table near him and climbed out of the steering pocket. He held the device to his eyes, looked skyward, and manipulated the mechanism.

Evrel said, "As long as he can see the sky, Ashin can locate us on the Inner Sea better than any helmsman I have ever seen. He can make a decent estimate even without the astrolabe."

Gorse added, "The men think his father was a water elemental with a bent for studying the stars. He knows sea and sky as well as any."

Cale smiled. He liked the new crew of Demon Binder.

In short order, Ashin pulled the device from his eye and shouted, "We're far west of that, Captain. Nearest port is Procampur. More than eighty leagues from Traitor's Isle."

Gorse whistled and shook his head.

The captain turned back to Cale, brow furrowed. "You're sure you marked this ship near Traitor's Isle?"

Cale nodded.

"More sorcery," Gorse muttered.

Evrel said, "There's no catching it, Erevis. We are two days from that island sailing day and night and assuming favorable winds. So unless you can lift this ship out of the water and fly it there, your hunt is over."

The moment Cale heard Evrel's words, he understood why Mask had arranged for the slaadi to escape, or at least understood one reason. The Shadowlord wanted to test Cale, to see how far he could push his abilities, and he wanted Cale to sink deeper into the shadows.

Jak must have seen something in his expression. "What is it, Cale?"

"An idea, little man." Cale put a hand on Jak's shoulder and said to Evrel, "Captain, I am going to do exactly that, if you and your crew are willing."

At first Evrel smiled, as though Cale were making a joke, but a frown quickly swallowed the smile. An even deeper frown formed on Gorse's lips.

"You are not jesting?" the captain asked.

"I am not."

"You're not?" Jak asked.

The captain studied Cale's face, looked to Jak, to Magadon.

In Chondathan, Gorse said, "Captain, we hardly know these men. They could be pirates, Zhents, evil men who just need a crew. We should be careful."

Before Evrel could respond, Cale said, "Gorse, I speak and read nine languages. You will need to use something more obscure than Chondathan to communicate secretly in my presence. And you're right. You do not know us. So know this: I once killed for coin. Now I serve Mask the Shadowlord as a priest. And I am as much shadow as man."

He held up his hand and let shadowstuff leak from his fingertips. Both captain and mate went wide-eyed.

"Umberlee's teats," Gorse cursed.

"I am a mindmage and woodsman born of an arch-devil," Magadon said, doffing his cap and showing the stubs of his horns.

His words did nothing to set the seamen at ease.

Jak grinned and said, "I am the ordinary one, it seems. A one-time Harper and priest of Brandobaris the Trickster."

Cale looked the two sailors in the eyes and said, "That is all you are going to get. But now you know us as well as most. Well enough?"

Gorse cursed, but to his credit, also smiled.

"I'm just a fisherman's son out of Arabel," the mate said.

The captain, too, grinned through his beard.

"Talos take me, Erevis Cale, but if you can make this ship fly, I swear that you will always have a welcome berth on any vessel I command."

Cale wondered if the captain would feel the same after he learned what Cale intended. Cale would not make the ship fly. He would surround it in darkness and move it and the whole crew from where they were to the shadow of the cliffs of Traitor's Isle.