Midnight's mask

CHAPTER 15

Riven, Azriim, and Dolgan aimlessly walked Selgaunt's streets as the false dawn lightened the sky. By accident, they had ventured near Riven's garret. He found himself scanning the streets and alleys for any sign of his girls, at the same time hoping and not hoping that he would catch a glimpse of them.

"What are you looking for?" Dolgan asked.

Riven chided himself for his carelessness. "Nothing. Mind your own affairs, slaad."

Dolgan grunted, Azriim grinned, and the three walked on. The street traffic was beginning to build as dawn approached. Shop doors and shutters opened. Farmers and their wagons entered the city and made their way to market. Sellers of sweetmeats and stale bread took their favored spots on the street. Riven gave a fat, already sweating sweetmeat seller his first sale of the day, purchasing two candied pears. He ate both without offering any to the slaadi.

"Where are all the clothiers?" Azriim said. "I am dressed like a pauper."

Riven knew several booths that sold clothing but did not mention any to the slaad.

Dawn broke and they walked on, awaiting word from the Sojourner.

Within a quarter hour, Riven noticed concern among the pedestrians. Eyes were wide; brows furrowed; strides were a step too fast. The rustle turned to an alarmed murmur.

"What is going on?" he said, more to himself than to the slaadi.

"What?" Dolgan asked.

A young laborer pelted down the street in their direction.

"Did you see it?" he shouted. "Did you see it?"

He looked like a madman.

Riven stepped in front of him and grabbed him by his cloak.

"Have you seen it?" the young man said, his breath coming in heaves. Riven saw real fear in his eyes.

"Seen what?" Riven asked.

"The sun," the boy said.

Riven gave him a shake. "What are you talking about?"

The daylight noticeably dimmed, then grew darker.

Riven released the boy and looked up to the east. The sun was too close to the horizon for him to see; buildings blocked his view. He jogged up the street until he reached an open square. The slaadi followed. So too did a gathering crowd of Selgauntans.

A small crowd had already assembled there, strangely hushed. All of them gazed to the east. Riven followed their looks and could hardly believe what he saw.

Overnight, another moon had appeared in the sky. A pitted sphere of dark rock hung in the sky just above the horizon line. It appeared as large as Selune. Its edge blocked part of the rising sun. The sphere did not move as the sun rose; it just hung there, foreboding, waiting. As the sun continued its ascent, the sphere ate more and more of its face.

Riven was too astonished to speak. Those in the crowd around him muttered in ominous tones. Others moved closer to each other, as though for comfort. Horses neighed.

"Has Selune abandoned us?" a woman cried.

A man said, "What in the Seven Heavens is it?"

"Where did it come from?" asked another.

"The gods keep us," said an old woman. "It is Alaundo's prophecies!"

Riven remembered the Sojourner's words and knew that the orb had nothing to do with the gods or prophets: Remember that what you see this day is my doing.

The Sojourner had summoned or created another moon. He was causing an eclipse. Riven marveled at the power represented in the sky.

In a flash, Riven understood the meaning of the Crown of Flame. But he could not understand why the Sojourner wanted to create it.

Beside him, Azriim chuckled, then laughed full out. Several people in the crowd looked at him as if he were mad.

Dolgan smiled tentatively and looked from Riven to Azriim.

"What is funny?" the big slaad asked.

Azriim laughed the louder.

A tingle in Riven's head announced the presence of the Sojourner.

It is finished, the creature said. This day is to be my last day, and I will spend it alone. Your service to me is over. Return to this place and claim what you've earned.

An image of a tower fixed itself in Riven's mind, a stone spire atop a mountain island in the Inner Sea. Riven recognized the island. Everyone who lived in a port on the Inner Sea had heard of the Wayrock. Sailors used it to aid navigation. But no mention of the Wayrock ever spoke of a tower on its top. The Sojourner must have raised it there, or moved it from elsewhere, just as he had done with the moon.

Dolgan and Azriim shared a glance, and Riven saw the eagerness in their expressions.

Playing to the end the part Mask had assigned him, Riven asked, And for me?

Name it, said the Sojourner, and the offer nearly caused Riven to renege on his plans. But he thought of his god, his girls, his. . friends, and held fast.

Let me consider.

There is only a short time, the Sojourner responded.

"We will come now," Azriim said, speaking aloud in his eagerness. "The human can choose his payment later."

The slaadi withdrew their teleportation rods and Riven did the same. Just before Riven made the final turn, he sent his thoughts to Magadon and spoke a single word: Wayrock.

The rod transported him across Faerun in a breath and he appeared with the slaadi in a door-lined chamber, presumably within the tower the Sojourner had showed them. The walls, ceiling, and floor glowed faintly silver, casting enough light for Riven to see by.

"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.

Riven hit the floor in a crouch and slashed the slaad's gut with both sabers. The blades opened two gashes in the creature's midsection. Dolgan hissed with pain and lurched backward. His regenerative flesh was already closing the wounds.

Riven whirled a half-circle to face Azriim. The slaad bounded forward and let fly with a flurry of claw strikes. Parrying wildly, Riven gave ground, countering where he could. The slaad pressed, caught Riven in the chest with a claw, then a shoulder, and nicked his throat. Riven finally managed a more aggressive counterattack. He ducked beneath a claw strike and drove his saber half its length into Azriim's chest.

The slaad expectorated a spray of blood. Before Riven could finish him, Azriim bounded backward, hissing with pain as the saber withdrew from his flesh. Riven pursued but Azriim leaped upward and the leap never ended. The slaad went airborne, hovering near the ceiling, spattering the floor with his blood. Riven's slash hit only air.

Like Dolgan, Azriim's wounds, too, were closing before Riven's eyes.

Riven knew his situation was dire. The slaadi were faster than before, stronger, and they regenerated wounds that should have killed them. Riven was breathing hard and bleeding from a handful of painful wounds.

"You see it now, don't you?" Azriim taunted. "This isn't your temple. You're in your tomb."

Riven donned his sneer and answered, "What I see is you and your boy unable to close the deal." He put his fingers to the gashes on his face and they came away bloody. He looked at them, spat on the floor. "And if this is the best you have, neither of you are walking out of this room."

Azriim grinned. "I always liked you. It's unfortunate that I have to kill you,"

Dolgan roared a challenge.

Riven resolved to take at least one of the bastards with him before he died. He readied himself….

The darkness on the far end of the room behind Azriim deepened and Riven could not contain a grin.

"It's about godsdamned time," he said.

Cale had finally arrived.

Answering Dolgan's roar with a shout of his own, Riven charged the slaad.

Cale, Magadon, and Jak materialized in a large chamber in the tower they had seen through the leech, near a stairway leading upward. Doors dotted the walls of the chamber, and the whole room glowed a soft silver. Even through his boots, Cale could feel the magical power moving through the structure.

Azriim floated in the air in the center of the chamber with his back to the newcomers. Riven and Dolgan fought across the chamber. The assassin's blades whirled, darted, slashed. The big slaad held his ground and answered, lashing out with his claws.

Magadon drew an arrow to his ear, caused its tip to glow red with mental energy, and let it fly at Azriim.

The shaft sank to the fletching in the slaad's back. Azriim screamed, clutched at the tip protruding from his chest, and turned around. The scream distracted Dolgan and the big slaad also turned. Riven made him pay for his inattention.

The assassin drove a saber into the big slaad's throat, pulled the blade free, and swung a decapitating strike with his other saber. Somehow the big slaad kept his feet and ducked under Riven's slash. Blood poured from the hole in his throat. He held up one clawed hand and a small glowing ball appeared in his palm. Without a moment's hesitation, he threw it to the ground at his feet and it exploded into a ball of fire. Slaad and assassin flew backward from the point of the blast.

Cale, Magadon, and Jak raised their arms to shield themselves from the heat.

"The Tap," Cale reminded Jak, then drew Weaveshear and ran to Riven.

"You again, priest," Azriim said from near the ceiling. "My, but you are stubborn."

Cale risked a look up and saw the slaad pull Magadon's mentally-enhanced arrow through his body and let it fall to the floor. Magadon fired several ordinary arrows but they deflected off the slaad's hide.

"Enough of that," Azriim said, and launched a fireball from his palm at Magadon and Jak. The ball exploded in their midst, engulfing both of them in flames. When the flames dissipated, neither showed so much as a scorch mark on their clothes. Jak's wards had shielded them both from incineration.

Cale reached Riven's side and pulled him to his feet. Burns covered the assassin's face and hands. His good eye was seared shut.

"They've transformed," Riven said through his burned lips. "More powerful now."

Cale nodded and hurriedly incanted his most powerful spell of healing. Mask's power flowed through him to Riven and the assassin's burns vanished entirely.

Riven smiled his thanks, hefted his blades.

Ten paces away, Dolgan laughed. "That hurts," he said, and lifted himself to all fours.

Cale ignored him.

"I'm here for the Tap," he said to Riven. "We kill it first, then we kill them. Where's the Sojourner?"

Riven shook his head. "He said he would not see the slaadi again. He's not in the tower."

Cale nodded, relieved despite himself. Still, he thought he knew where he would find the Sojourner when the time came.

Behind them, Dolgan found his feet, still laughing. His flesh was healing the burns even as he stood.

"I've got it, Cale," Jak shouted to his back. "It's here. In an upper floor."

Cale and Riven sprinted across the room. Above them, Azriim incanted a series of arcane words and a pulse of black energy spread from the slaad in a visible ring across the entire room. It could not be avoided.

When it hit Cale, he felt a preternatural cold seize him, but a ward that Jak had cast flared and chimed. Cale recognized it as a death ward. The spell might have killed him but for Jak's protective spell.

The slaadi had indeed transformed into something more powerful.

Similar chimes and flares sounded from the wards on Magadon and Jak. Unprotected, Riven gasped and stumbled. Cale shrouded him in shadows and kept him moving.

"Are you all right?" he asked Riven.

Riven waved and nodded. They reached Jak and Magadon near the stairs.

"Up," he ordered. "Keep the divination active, little man. The Sojourner is not here so we move fast."

He turned around to look at the slaadi. Azriim's spell appeared to have done no harm to Dolgan. Azriim floated down to the floor to stand beside the bigger slaad.

"Come back," Azriim taunted. "Things are only now getting interesting."

Cale ignored the taunt and ushered his friends up the stairs. He delayed a moment behind them and incanted a spell that summoned a wall of stone at the base of the stairs. The magic of the spell caused the edges of the wall to meld with the stone of the tower, blocking access.

It would only delay the slaadi, he knew.

"We should stand and fight," Riven said, seemingly recovered from the death spell.

"We will," Cale said. "But the Tap is first. The only way to stop the Sojourner is to kill it. This is bigger than our personal grudges."

"That's right," Jak said.

"Nothing is bigger than the personal, Cale," Riven said, but did not argue further.

Cale stared at him a moment, turned to Jak. "Which way, little man?"

"Follow me," Jak said.

The slaadi appeared behind them at the bottom of the stairs, bronze rods in hand. They had teleported through the wall.

"Go," Cale said to them.

Azriim and Dolgan rushed up the stairs, taking three steps at a stride. They raised their hands as they raced upward and balls of energy streaked out of them.

Cale stood in the path of the fireballs, held Weaveshear before him, and intercepted both before they exploded. Shadows poured from the weapon.

"Move," Cale called again over his shoulder, and his friends went. Cale pointed Weaveshear down the stairs and released the pent-up energy directly into the slaadi. The magic slammed into the creatures' chests, knocked both of them back down the stairs, and engulfed them in fire.

Both roared, leaped to their feet, and bounded back up the stairs. Their clothing was aflame and smoke poured from both of them.

Cale turned and sprinted after his friends. With his shadow-enhanced speed, he caught up with them quickly. They crossed another broad, bare chamber and found themselves at the foot of another set of stairs.

"Up again," Jak said. "We're close."

"Here they come," Magadon said, looking behind them. He turned, dropped to one knee, and drew an arrow to his ear.

Across the large chamber, the slaadi appeared. Other than some slight charring, their bodies showed no wounds from the fireballs. Both roared.

"Trickster's toes," Jak oathed.

"Keep your concentration on the Tap," Cale ordered him. He did not want Jak trying to cast a spell against the slaadi and losing the thread of his divination.

Magadon spent more of the little mental energy he still had, charged his arrow, and let fly. The missile hit Dolgan in the hip, sank deeply into his body, and sent him spinning to the floor. Azriim leaped over him and continued his charge.

Holding his mask around Weaveshear's hilt, Cale incanted a spell. When he spoke the last word, he called into being a magical wall that spanned the width of the room. Composed of shadows and veined with viridian lines, it audibly sizzled, radiating magical energy from only one side-that facing the slaadi. Cale could barely see through it.

Azriim halted his charge and hissed, skin smoking in the presence of the magic. Behind him, Dolgan climbed to his feet, his skin also smoking. The big slaad jerked Magadon's arrow from his hip. Azriim withdrew a wand from his thigh sheath.

"Up," Cale said. "Go."

Like the wall of stone, he knew the magical wall would slow the slaadi for only a few breaths.

The four comrades raced up the stairs. They found themselves in a wide foyer. A pair of large wooden double doors bound in brass stood on the other side of the foyer.

"In there," Jak said. "That's it."

Below them, the sizzling sound from Cale's wall of energy went silent. Azriim must have countered it somehow.

The slaadi were coming.

"How are you going to kill it?" Riven asked.

"I'm not," Cale answered. "The sun is."

As they charged down the hall, Cale whispered the words to a spell that allowed him to see dweomers. The double doors glowed in his sight, the wards evident to his magic-sensing vision. The Sojourner had warded the doors well. Cale did not hesitate. Blade in hand, he threw his shoulder against them and knocked them open.

Glyphs flared and magical energy blazed out of the jambs. Weaveshear drank it all and Cale suffered no harm. Power rushed into the blade's steel and it emitted a cloud of shadows. The weapon vibrated in Cale's grasp, pregnant with the Sojourner's power. Cale whirled around, pointed the tip at the head of the stairs, and waited.

The moment the slaadi appeared, he discharged the energy.

A beam of viridian light streaked from Weaveshear's tip-the recoil drove Cale back a step-and hit Azriim in the stomach. The slaad bared his fangs and grimaced but the energy seemed to have no effect. Even Azriim looked surprised. He looked up and grinned a mouthful of sharp teeth.

"Go," Jak said to Cale. "We'll hold them off. Get the Weave Tap. Kill it."

Cale hesitated as the slaadi advanced.

"Go," Magadon said over his shoulder.

Cale nodded, turned, and ran into the room. Judging from its size and the defaced murals painted on the walls, the room once was a religious sanctum of some kind. Scorch marks marred much of the floor, as if a magical battle had been fought there.

In the center of the chamber stood the Weave Tap, grown to ten times the size of the sapling Cale had seen the slaadi remove from the Fane of Shadows. Silver limbs formed a canopy for golden leaves sparkling with arcane power. A silver pulse periodically raced up the bole, like the beat of a heart. The energy in the room stood the hairs of Cale's arms on end.

The Tap's roots stood exposed, the ends melded with the floor of the chamber. The entire ceiling of the room glowed silver. Cale visualized the tower shooting a beam of magical energy from its top into the sky. If he killed the Tap, he would kill the beam, kill the eclipse, stop the Sojourner.

He stepped through the space between shadows and covered in one stride the distance between the doorway and the Weave Tap. He materialized amidst its roots, near the bole.

Behind him, he could hear his comrades fighting for their lives with the slaadi. The combat had leaked through the doors into the sanctum. Cale turned to see Azriim unleashing a flurry of claw strikes against Riven. The assassin held off the attack with a whirling counter of his sabers, but barely. The slaad forced Riven backward through the doorway and fired a bolt of energy from his palm at Magadon, who was fighting alongside Jak to finish off Dolgan. The energy struck the guide squarely and drove him into the wall-hard.

Dolgan took the opportunity to tear into Jak. A claw strike sent the little man careening backward, bleeding from his chest. He answered with a stab of his shortsword and a shouted spell. White fire flew from his hand and struck the slaad in the chest. It scorched Dolgan's skin, but the slaad only grinned.

Jak looked over his shoulder and caught Cale watching.

"Kill it, godsdammit!" the little man shouted. He turned and charged Dolgan. Magadon climbed to his feet and joined him. Blades and claws met.

Cale turned, sheathed Weaveshear, and wrapped his arms around the Tap's bole. The wood felt warm, like skin, and the moment he touched it, he knew the Tap possessed sentience.

He gritted his teeth as the Tap's awareness reached for his mind. He did not resist it. The mental touch was not hostile, merely unfocused, flailing. Still, it indicated a living, self-aware creature.

Cale sensed its nature through the mindlink-born of the Weave and the Shadow Weave, of light and darkness, forever existing in the gray area between the poles of its being.

Just like Cale.

And Cale was going to kill it. He had no choice.

I'm sorry, he thought, and hoped it understood.

For a breath, but only a breath, he almost reconsidered. But the sounds of combat from behind brought him back to himself. Jak screamed. Magadon shouted. Another spell sizzled into the stone.

Pulses of silver light throbbed between Cale's arms as regular as a heartbeat. Cale pictured the first place in Selgaunt that came to his mind and called upon the darkness to move both himself and the Weave Tap there.

The darkness answered. Pitch surrounded him and the Tap. He felt the familiar sensation of being stretched parchment-thin, and in the next heartbeat found himself blinking in the half-light of Temple Avenue. He had brought the Weave Tap with him. It stood beside him, towering and unstable on its exposed roots.

Shouts of surprise greeted his appearance. The street was crowded.

"Look! Look there!"

The street traffic stopped. Horses started, snorted at his sudden appearance. Heads poked out of coaches, out of temple windows. A hundred faces, formerly upturned to watch the partial eclipse, turned to regard him. The pilgrims near him backed away quickly, warily. Children regarded him with wide eyes. A walkway philosopher pointed his finger at Cale and berated him as an agent of devilry.

"Is that a tree?" someone shouted. "Look at it!"

Exposed to the partial sunlight, the Weave Tap began to writhe and smoke beside Cale. The silver pulses came faster, faster, the frantic beat of terror.

Cale backed off, eyes wide. People poured out of the temples to watch.

The Tap's branches and roots twisted, curling with agony, blackening in the partial sunlight. Formerly glowing leaves of pure arcane power fell from smoking limbs, showering the street and disintegrating in small explosions of sparks. The Tap's consciousness still had a vague hold on Cale's mind and he distantly sensed its pain and fear.

Bark peeled; the tree's trunk split. Cale imagined the equivalent happening to a man-bones shattering, skin burning, peeling away. It was too much.

The Tap started to topple over.

"Get out of the way," Cale shouted to no one in particular, and the assembled crowd retreated.

The Tap caught for a moment on one of the Hulorn's statues, then crashed fully to the street. Limbs shattered. Magical energy sprayed out in all directions.

"I'm sorry," Cale said to it again.

The Tap's death throes became increasingly violent as it burned in the sun. The crowd shouted, oohed. The Tap's thrashing limbs and roots threw off intense flashes of power. Where they landed, unpredictable magical effects occurred: cobblestones sprouted legs and scurried into the crowd; flowers rained from the sky; a horse was transmogrified into a mouse; one of the bestial statues that lined the street-a manticore-sprang to life and flew roaring into the sky.

The crowd of pilgrims turned and ran, panicked. From afar, Cale heard the telltale clarion of a trumpet. A squad of Selgaunt's watch, the Scepters, was coming.

Cale wanted to wait, to ensure that the Tap died and that the geyser of magic accompanying its death would cause no real harm. But his friends needed him. He stood for a moment, torn. The Tap's silver heartbeat slowed. He felt it dying.

Erevis! Magadon projected into his brain, his voice urgent. We need you!

Magadon's tone sent alarm through Cale.

The Scepters rounded the corner at a run, blades bare. They were a dagger toss from Cale. The watch sergeant looked first at Cale, then the burning, dying Weave Tap, and slowed his advance. He pointed the tip of his weapon at Cale.

"Hold there, goodsir," he said.

Beside Cale, the Weave Tap burst into flames. Gray-green smoke poured into the sky. Cale glanced into the faces around him and saw. .

Sephris.

The loremaster was staring at him out of the crowd. He shook his head and mouthed some words. "Two and two are four."

Erevis! Magadon called again, and the despair in the guide's voice made Cale's mouth go dry.

Ignoring the Scepters and the loremaster, Cale stepped into the shadow of a nearby statue and imagined in his mind the chamber in which he had found the Weave Tap. He drew Weaveshear.

"I said do not move," the watch sergeant commanded again.

The darkness gathered around Cale.

The Scepters rushed him.

The last thing he saw before he moved across Faerun to the tower was Sephris, calculating.