Midnight's mask

CHAPTER 4

Cale, Magadon, and Jak materialized on a deserted side street in Selgaunt's Foreign District. The bustle of a thriving city hit their ears. Cale pulled up his hood and the three companions walked out of the alley to find themselves on Rauncel's Ride, one of the main thoroughfares of Selgaunt.

Selgaunt's plenty contrasted starkly with the ruin and deprivation of Skullport.

Shop after shop lined the broad, paved avenue, their doors thrown open, their proprietors offering seller's smiles at the passersby. The typical mix of travelers, traders, merchants, mercenaries, adventurers, pickpockets, laborers, and beggars populated the walkways. Horse-drawn carts, noble coaches, and humble farmers' wagons loaded with grain and other foodstuffs rolled along the cobblestone streets. Livestock lowed and grunted from roadside pens. A squad of Scepters, Selgaunt's city watchmen, walked amongst the milling crowd, eyes alert for thieves. Each wore black leather armor and a silver-hilted blade, with a green weather-cloak thrown over the whole. Out of habit, Cale avoided eye contact.

Children darted between the pedestrians. The call of street vendors filled the air, rising above the general rush of the crowd to hawk everything from dried flowers to three-day-old bread.

The afternoon sunshine did not quite offset the coolness of the brisk autumn wind. The air carried the faint tang of Inner Sea salt, horse manure, and the aroma of cooking meat. Everything looked, sounded, and smelled exactly as it always had, but Cale could not quite shake the feeling that Selgaunt was different.

Walking beside Cale, Jak said, "Not a slave in sight. Nice to be home, eh?"

It struck Cale then.

Selgaunt was not different; Cale was different. Worse, he was not sure the city was his home anymore.

"Cale?" Jak prodded.

Cale kept his brooding to himself and said to Jak only, "It is good to be back, little man."

Though he knew it would sting his skin, he decided to pull back his hood and endure the sunlight. He could not spend the rest of his life hiding from the sun or he would end up like the majority of Skullport's skulkers-pale shadows slinking furtively through the darkness. He wondered how Varra had maintained her dignity while living in such a sunless pit; he wondered, too, what she would think of Selgaunt, gleaming in the sunshine. Thinking of her reminded him of their kiss. He could still taste her lips. It took real effort to put thoughts of her out of his mind. He tucked the stump of his wrist into his cloak pocket and walked along.

"This is a different city than Starmantle," Magadon observed, eyeing the people, high fashions, and elaborately architectured buildings of Selgaunt. "Quite different."

Cale nodded.

In Starmantle, still more or less a frontier town, buildings and fashion were designed to be functional. In Selgaunt, one of the most sophisticated cities in the Heartlands, buildings and fashion were styled to be stunning. Wooden buildings with simple architecture predominated in Starmantle, while in Selgaunt, fully half the buildings were made of stone or brick, and almost all of them had one kind of architectural flourish or another. In fact, an architecturally ordinary home or shop in Selgaunt was a sign of tastelessness at best, financial distress at worst.

"Bit different from Skullport, too," Jak said, and there was no mirth in his voice.

"Truth," Magadon said somberly.

Cale said nothing, merely looked out on the sea of pale faces around him. He had little in common with them anymore, if he ever had. They were human; he was a shade. He wondered if he would happen upon anyone from the Uskevren household: Tamlin, Shamur, or. . Tazi. The thought summoned a pit in his stomach. He could imagine how they would look upon him now that he was. . transformed. Nine Hells, even Jak sometimes looked at him with fear in his eyes. Only Varra and Magadon looked at him like he was still a man, and Cale suspected that was because both of them knew darkness almost as well as Cale.

He pushed the maudlin thoughts from his mind and distracted himself by focusing on the passersby, noting weapons, movements, glances. He had not lost his trained eyes, and he picked out the professionals with satisfying ease. The thieves were apparent enough to him that they might as well have been wearing a uniform.

And something else was apparent to him, too-shadows. He was as conscious of the location of shadows as he was of his own hand-those cast by people, by buildings, by carts. They were his tools now; he was connected intuitively to the dark places around him. The realization both comforted and disquieted him.

"I think I'll purchase a new hat," Jak said, eyeing with admiration the wide-brimmed wool cap perched atop the head of a fat merchant with a ratty moustache. The little man doffed his filthy and torn hat and slapped it against his thigh, then replaced it on his head. "Mine is a little road worn. Some new clothes, too, maybe." He eyed his burned pants with dismay.

"We should re-equip entirely while we're here," Magadon said. "Rations. Field gear. Arrows for me. I'll handle that. I assume we won't remain long, Erevis?"

Cale did not know, so he shook his head. "We will see, Mags. It depends on what we can learn."

They had very little to go on. The Sojourner had mentioned the Eldritch Temple of Mystryl but the reference meant nothing to Cale. He thought he knew someone who might be able to help-Elaena, the High Priest of Deneir in Selgaunt. She had healed Jak once, when he had been wounded by a demon, and she, along with all priests of Deneir, valued lore and lost knowledge. She might have heard of the Eldritch Temple. Cale hoped she would remember them and agree to assist.

"Surely we'll be here at least long enough to clean up?" Jak asked. "I mean, look at you two. You look like you've been swimming in a sewer."

Magadon smiled. "We have been swimming in a sewer. And you look little better, Jak Fleet."

Jak grinned, doffed his cap, and bowed.

Cale agreed with Magadon's assessment. Skullport was a sewer, and its stink still clung tenaciously to his clothes, to his skin, to his soul.

"We ought to fill our bellies, too," Jak said, warming to his subject. "Roadtack and conjured food can sustain a halfling only so long."

Magadon nodded at Jak and smiled. "Especially this halfling."

"That's truth," Jak said, and patted his stomach. "Venison, I say. Or pork."

"Hot beef stew," Magadon said.

Cale forced a smile and nodded agreement. He knew that recent events had left a mark on his friends. Over the last few hours-hours, he thought, marveling that so much could have occurred in so short a time-they had fought the Skulls of Skullport, barely escaped a collapsing cavern in the Underdark, journeyed to and from the Plane of Shadow twice, and fought the most powerful spellcaster and mindmage that any of them had ever encountered. Jak and Magadon looked drawn, wrung out. Their banter told Cale that they needed to engage in something ordinary to remind them that all was not slaves, shadows, spells, darkness, and danger. Walking under the sun on the streets of Selgaunt, they looked as relaxed as Cale had seen them in a tenday. They needed human activity. Strange that Cale did not feel the same need.

"Let's take a meal now," Cale said to accommodate his friends. "And gear up. Afterward, we will call on Deneir's temple."

"Elaena," Jak said, nodding. "A good thought. Worth a die cast. But as you said, food first. So follow me. I know a place."

The halfling turned off Rauncel's Ride and led them a few blocks to a clapboard-sided tavern and eatery called The Workbench, frequented by watermen and laborers. Oars, a rusty anchor, and various old tools hung from the walls. The thin tapmaster took in their appearance, wiped his hands on his apron, and frowned. When Cale flashed platinum the man grew immediately solicitous.

Sembia remained Sembia, Cale thought, as he handed over a pair of platinum suns.

Few other patrons sat at The Workbench's sturdy tables, and those who did minded their own affairs.

Cale, Magadon, and Jak enjoyed a hearty meal of day-old chicken stew, stale bread, and an entire wheel of soft, sharp goat cheese. Cale surprised himself by savoring every bite. He could not remember anything ever tasting so good. Perhaps he needed ordinary activity after all.

Afterward, the trio spent an hour in one of Selgaunt's many shopblocks. There, they replaced travel-tattered cloaks, tunics, breeches, and boots, and Magadon re-equipped them with field gear and more hardtack. Cale enjoyed watching Jak haggle with the merchants. The little man was as professional and skillful a haggler as he was a gambler and pickpocket.

By the time they were done, the bell tower of the Temple of Song and the hour-callers on the street announced the fifth hour after noon. They'd enjoyed nearly two hours of peace. It had done them all good.

"Back to it," Cale said, and the three headed toward Temple Avenue.

They walked east along Tormyn's Way, leaving behind the shops and inns of the northwest corner of town. Soon they were moving through narrow avenues lined with residences. The homes, though small, were built of sturdy wood or brick, and even the most modest had a tiled roof-a long distance from the ramshackle squalor of Skullport.

As they moved east, the small structures gave way to grander homes built of quarried and magically-sculpted stone. Squads of Scepters grew more commonplace, as did the presence of carriages.

In the distance ahead, overlooking the city from its perch atop a high rise, stood the crenellated towers and high walls of the ridiculous Hunting Garden of the Hulorn. The thick, gaudy towers of the Hulorn's palace stood behind the garden and just poked their tops over the garden's walls, as though peeking out in embarrassment.

Not far from there, Cale knew, stood the sprawling grounds and manses of Selgaunt's Old Chauncel, including the squat, walled towers of Stormweather. He grew wistful, thinking of his old life.

He had been away from the city only a few tendays, but felt as though he had been gone a lifetime. His stomach clenched when he thought about what he had left behind. Jak must have seen it in his expression.

"You all right?" Jak asked him, looking up with concern.

"Yes," Cale lied. "The light is bothering me some, that's all."

"Of course," Jak said. The little man's gaze looked off toward the Hulorn's palace, toward the abodes of the Old Chauncel. He knew the city as well as Cale.

Jak said, "I left Mistledale after I'd seen twenty winters. I went back once and only once, a few years after leaving. Did I ever tell you about that?"

Cale shook his head.

"I wanted to see the lake where I'd fished as a boy with my father and uncle, to see some of my childhood friends, the hillside home I grew up in. That sort of thing, you know?"

Cale nodded.

"And while I was there I realized that my memory of things had more shine than the things themselves. I realized, too, that sometimes leaving a place changes you, and when you go back, you realize it isn't really your home anymore. That's how it was for me in Mistledale. By the time I came back, I'd changed, grown beyond it. It's sad in a way. Old friends drift away, sometimes even family. But growth is part of life."

"It is, eh?" Cale asked.

"It is," Jak affirmed, and popped his pipe into his mouth. "I think you understand that as well as any."

Cale did not answer, so Jak lit with a tindertwig, took a draw, and blew it out. Eyeing Cale sidelong, he said, "For some people, a place is home. But for men like us, people have to be home. And not just any people. Friends. The friends who live through the changes with us, who grow with us."

"Truly said," Magadon offered.

Cale took Jak's meaning, and it helped him get perspective. He had changed, perhaps grown beyond the Uskevrens. Perhaps he was nostalgic for Stormweather and his old family because they represented the simpler life he'd once known, the smaller stakes. It had not always seemed so then, but he had been an ordinary man when he had served Thamalon the Elder-not a shade, not the First of Five-and events had not felt quite so big as now.

"I hear your words," he said to his friends. "And thank you."

His friends said nothing, merely walked beside him in silence.

Cale knew that he had to adjust-to what he had become and to the scale of events in which he was participating. His days as an ordinary man were long over. He had only a short time to ponder the realization. They rounded a corner and walked through the large granite arch that signified the western end of Temple Avenue.

The wide street stretched before them, teeming as always. Pilgrims, petitioners, and priests crowded the stone-flagged avenue, praying, preaching, and proselytizing. Chants and songs filled the air, with the ring of gongs and chimes. The multitudinous colors and styles of robes, vestments, and cloaks created a swirling sea of colors that ran the length of the street.

The brisk wind and nearness of the bay did not efface the aroma of incense, perfume, and unwashed bodies. The air was syrupy with the smell. Cale inhaled deeply, cleansing his nostrils of the last of Skullport's fetor.

Five temples dominated Temple Avenue-fanes dedicated to Milil, Sune, Deneir, Oghma, and Lliira-though another dozen or so shrines stood in their shadows. Midway down the avenue, the construction on a new temple to Siamorphe, the goddess of hereditary nobility, was progressing apace. Cale knew that the cornerstone had been hallowed and the foundation laid three months earlier. In another month or three, the structure would be complete. The Talendar family, a rival to the Uskevren, was financing the construction. The second son of the Talendar, Vees, had returned from Waterdeep as a priest and vocal advocate of Siamorphe. By financing the building of the Noble Lady's temple, the Talendars hoped to curry favor with the church hierarchy, expand the worship of Siamorphe to the most cosmopolitan city in the Heartlands, and ensconce their son as a high-ranking priest.

Cale smiled. As always, rank was not necessarily earned in Selgaunt. Sometimes it was bought. But from what little Cale knew of Siamorphe's faith, he imagined that things might not go as the Talendar hoped. Bloodline meant everything to the faithful of Siamorphe, but Selgauntans little understood that. Wealth mattered in Selgaunt, not lineage.

Sitting areas for public contemplation dotted the street-stone and wood benches situated under the red and yellow autumn canopies of dwarf maples. Each bench generally shared the shade with one or two monstrous sculptures, the legacy of the late Hulorn's fetish for peculiar statuary. All of the works depicted this or that hybrid monster: manticores, chimerae, owlbears, and the like. Starlings perched in the nooks of the statues and their droppings painted the stone and marble with splashes of white.

Cale, Magadon, and Jak weaved their way into the crowd and moved toward the Hallowed House of Higher Achievement, Deneir's temple, which stood near the eastern end of the avenue, where the street curled back into the city proper.

As they walked through the throng, they saw a gray-robed trio of Ilmatari priests sprinkling flower petals into a fountain and praying to their god for an end to a pox afflicting an outlying village. Dancers in red gossamer and adorned with finger gongs swayed through the crowd, lay worshipers of Sune who promised with the swing of their hips the pleasures of the Firehair's worship. The tallest of the dancers ran her fingertips over Cale's shoulder as she passed. When her painted fingernails came away trailing shadows, her eyes went wide.

As they passed the small but popular shrine to Tymora, the Lady of Luck, Jak and Magadon both walked over and flipped a copper piece into the public offering plate set outside the doors.

"A copper to the Lady returns tenfold in gold," Jak said, uttering a traditional Tymoran prayer of offering. Other passersby did the same, offering the same prayer or a slightly modified version. The priestess standing near the offering plate, garbed in a blue robe chased in silver piping, thanked them all and offered the Lady's benediction.

"Dare much," she said. "And the Lady keep you."

Cale kept his coppers in his pocket. He did not think that the Lady of Luck would appreciate the coins of a servant of the Shadowlord.

Groups of faithful walked past them in close-knit groups, talking amongst themselves, eyeing the wonders of the street. All looked suspiciously at Cale, Jak, and Magadon. Cale knew that he and his companions looked less like worshipers and more like predators. Other than Cale, Jak, and Magadon, and a few pairs of whistle-carrying Scepters on patrol, almost no one else on the avenue bore weapons openly.

Cranks and aberrant philosophers held court on the avenue's walkways, or under the eaves of a maple, shouting sermons and nonsense at anyone with whom they made eye contact. They reminded Cale of the madman who had accosted him back in Skullport. Cale could not remember what the man had said to him but for some reason he thought it important. It escaped him and he put it out of his mind.

A few noble coaches rolled slowly down the center of the road, the occupants looking out from their lacquered havens with looks of benign disdain. Cale knew that worship on Temple Avenue by the nobility was more about status than piety. All noble households had at least a shrine to the family's patron deity within their manse. The rich worshiped in the public temples to see and be seen, mingle with the other rich, flaunt their baubles, make and break alliances, and gossip.

Cale remembered Thamalon once telling him that more deals were done in the churches and festhalls of the city than ever were done across a desk or in a parlor. Cale knew it to be true, and thinking of the Old Owl and his practical wisdom turned Cale sentimental.

To his left, the whitewashed bell tower of the Temple of Song jutted into the sky like the finger of a titan. A quartet of songhornists, accompanied by a shawm player, stood on the temple's portico and softly played. A crowd stood around them, smiling and clapping.

Farther up the avenue stood the sprawling Palace of Holy Festivals, Lliira's temple. Colorful pennons atop its roof flapped in the breeze. Music and laughter leaked from the doors, audible even from a distance.

Across the street from Lliira's temple stood the elegant, soaring spires of Firehair's House, the temple of Sune. The architecture of Sune's temple sported many suggestive protuberances, shafts, openings, and curves. Two flaming braziers shaped like salamanders flanked the tiered stairway that led to the temple's double doors. The priestesses never let the flames in the braziers go out, even in thunderstorms. Beauty was everlasting-that was the message of the ever-burning flames. Sune's temple served not only hedonists, artists, and aesthetes, but also Selgaunt's prostitutes by providing temporary shelter and minor healing magic to those in need. Many such women subsequently converted to the worship of Sune and thereby turned the practice of their livelihood into a kind of worship. Cale remembered that a jest among the men of the Old Chauncel was that the temple's presence had resulted in Selgaunt having some of the most attractive and disease-free working women in the Heartlands.

Jak elbowed Cale in the thigh. "Strange that I do not see a worship hall for Mask. Do you, Magadon?" Jak shaded his eyes with his palm and made a show of looking about.

Magadon chuckled.

Cale smiled and said, "Brandobaris seems to be similarly absent, little man."

Jak laughed and shook his head. "Ah, but that is where you're wrong, my friend."

With the ease of the practiced expert, Jak casually lifted the coin purse from a passing pilgrim, a thin, middle-aged man with a scar running down one cheek. Jak's skill impressed even Cale, who had seen seasoned Night Mask lifters operate.

Jak held up the purse for Cale to see as the pilgrim went on his way.

Jak said, "The Trickster's temples are where I find them. Turns out, that's mostly in the pockets of others." He grinned at Magadon, who wore an appalled expression. "Never fear, Mags. I'm not in the mood to worship today. And I only take the Trickster's Tithe from those who deserve their pockets emptied."

Jak turned and called to the pilgrim, "Goodsir! Goodsir! You dropped this."

The pilgrim turned, saw his purse in Jak's hand, and patted at his empty vest pocket. He seemed too shocked to speak.

Jak jogged up to him and pressed the purse into his hand.

"My mother always said to keep your coin purse in your underlinens. Along with the rest of your jewels. That's sound advice."

Leaving a speechless pilgrim in his wake, Jak sauntered back to rejoin Cale and Magadon, neither of whom could help but smile.

"Now that, my friends-"

Jak looked past them and froze in mid stride.

Alarmed, Cale whirled, but he saw nothing other than the sea of faces and heads. He started to turn back to Jak, but then saw what Jak had seen.

"Dark and empty," he swore. He could not believe his eyes.

"It cannot be," Jak said behind him.

Sephris Dwendon, Chosen of Oghma and likely madman, walked slowly through the crowd toward the low, stalwart walls of the Sanctum of the Scroll, Oghma's temple. A group of somber priests surrounded him, forming a protective circle and keeping passersby from getting too close. All of the Oghmanyte bodyguards wore white shirts, white trousers, and black vests adorned with embroidered characters from a variety of alphabets-the typical outerwear of priests of Oghma. Each also wore a crimson harlequin mask over their eyes and an iron mace at their belts. They eyed the crowd warily but did not seem to notice Cale's and Jak's stares.

Sephris wore a simple red robe and worn shoes. He carried a book in the crook of his elbow. The loremaster's distant gaze carried sadness, and he did not seem to see those around him.

Cale did not remember Sephris being so tall. The loremaster stood half-a-head taller than any of the bodyguards, almost as tall as Cale.

"What is it?" Magadon asked, stepping beside him.

"That man should be dead," Cale said, and nodded at Sephris.

"Which? The tall one with the Oghmanytes?"

Cale nodded.

Jak stepped beside them and added, "The slaadi killed him, gutted him. We saw his body."

"Then he could be a slaad," Magadon said, eyeing Sephris coldly. "Shapechanged to resemble your man. Remember Nestor?"

Cale remembered. Nestor had been a comrade of Magadon's. One of the slaadi had killed him and taken his form.

"I remember," Cale said. "But we just saw both slaadi hours ago. You two killed the third. This. . this would have required several tendays to put in place."

"They can teleport from place to place quickly, Erevis," Magadon said. "They could have been moving between Skullport, the Sojourner's lair, and here. Or there could be another slaad that we haven't yet seen. We should be certain."

Cale nodded. Magadon was right.

"If he is a slaad," Cale said. "Then we kill him on the street. We'll deal with the Scepters afterward."

To his surprise, Magadon and Jak both nodded, faces grim.

Cale put his hand to the velvet mask in his pocket and whispered the words to a spell that allowed him to see dweomers.

Once cast, the spell was indiscriminate in its application. Many trinkets, weapons, rings, and robes of passersby lit up as they walked through Cale's field of vision. He ignored them and picked his way through the press toward Sephris, with Magadon and Jak beside him. The three circled wide and fell in beside and slightly behind the loremaster and his bodyguard priests.

The maces of the bodyguards all shone a soft red, and two wore magical belts that glowed, but Sephris's body did not show an aura in Cale's sight, as it would if he were a shapechanged slaad. Only a single ring on his right hand radiated an aura.

"He's no slaad," Cale said.

Jak blew out a soft whistle. "Then they must have brought him back. He was dead and they brought him back. Dark."

Cale said nothing but his skin went gooseflesh. Not because Sephris had been returned from the dead, but because too many things seemed to be happening at just the right time, in just the right place. Had they not stopped to take a meal and re-equip, they would not have seen Sephris at all. Cale found it increasingly difficult to deny the presence of Fate in events. He felt as though he were being propelled toward something, something important, something he might not like.

"Perhaps I should have thrown a copper into Tymora's plate, after all," he muttered.

"What did you say?" Jak asked.

"Nothing. Speaking to myself."

Like Sephris sometimes did, he thought, and he did not like where those thoughts started to lead.

Any idea of asking Elaena and the temple of Denier for assistance vanished. If Fate had determined that Cale would happen upon Sephris, then Cale would consult him.

Riven despised Selgaunt's Dock District, always had. The alleys all stank of fish, puke, and urine, and with rare exceptions, the food served in the ramshackle inns along the waterfront smelled only mildly better. The whores were all too cheap and the sailors all too drunk. The place was a cesspit of human weakness.

Beside him, Azriim, still in the flesh of a half-drow, walked along as though he might step in something unpleasant at any moment. Despite the slaad's efforts, his otherwise shiny black boots had picked up a coat of road muck. Riven took satisfaction in the slaad's unhappiness about that.

Dolgan, once more in his guise as a bald, muscular, Cormyrean axman, stumped along beside Azriim. Unlike Azriim, with the prominent gray streak that cut through his hair, Dolgan's new form showed no telltale sign that he had been partially transformed into a gray slaad.

"We should not be walking the docks undisguised," Riven said. "Cale may have returned to the city."

Cale had magically transported himself somewhere with Fleet and Magadon. Selgaunt seemed as probable a destination as any.

"Why would he?" Dolgan said. "This place is a hole."

Riven thought the dolt's words ironic, considering he had worn vomit on his clothes as though it were a badge of honor. But he kept his thoughts to himself and said, "He would return because he's got nowhere else to go."

"Let's count on him being here, then, shall we?" said Azriim as he surveyed the piers. "If he shows, grand. And if not, then not."

Riven grunted noncommittally. He still had not made up his own mind what he would do when the First of the Shadowlord showed. He had laid the groundwork to make Cale think him a possible ally. Riven was not yet certain that was his best play.

"What type of ship are we seeking?" he asked, eyeing the wharfs.

Ships thronged the bay and a forest of masts dotted the sky-schooners, carracks, longships, barges, frigates, caravels-and most of them flew a pennon denoting their country or city of origin. Dock hands shouted, cursed, and sang as they furled and unfurled sails, loaded and unloaded crates of cargo. The fat harbormaster and his agents prowled the piers, assessing cargo taxes, recording the names of berthed ships and their captains. Gulls squawked in the air above. Deckhands on a nearby caravel took shots at the birds with a sling. They missed every time.

"Something in particular," Azriim answered.

Riven spit and said, "You won't find one with silk sheets and a feather bed."

Azriim missed his sarcasm, or chose to ignore it. "I know. Isn't that unfortunate? Sailors." He tsked. "Oh. Here's the very thing, now."

They stopped before a twin-masted, square-sailed cog. The blazing red and gold pennon dangling from the midmast declared its port of origin to be Bezantur, a city in Thay. Several other flags and pennons adorned the masts. Riven had no idea of their meanings. A stylized demonic face decorated the prow, mouth open, fangs bare. Riven could not read the writing on the hull and would be damned to admit as much to the slaadi.

"Demon Binder," Azriim said aloud. "What a quaint name."

Deckhands climbed the ship's rigging, swabbed the decks, and formed a human chain to load barrels and crates from the pier into the hold. The ship would be setting to soon enough.

Riven knew enough about the Thayans to think it likely that the ship carried more than barrels in its hold. Thayans were notorious slavers. Slavery and trafficking in slaves were technically illegal in Sembia, but the right coins in the right palms made enforcement lax, particularly when the ship carrying the human cargo was merely stopping in Sembian ports for a refit.

"Thayan," Dolgan observed, unnecessarily.

"See the captain there, on the sterncastle?" Azriim asked. "My, he is a nice dresser. And that thin fellow beside him, with the earring, beard, and long hair, leaning on the rail? That must be the first mate."

Riven saw the two men to whom Azriim referred. The captain wore a fitted jacket with shiny buttons, black pantaloons, high boots, and a tailored, high-collared red shirt and vest. A cutlass hung from his belt. The first mate wore similar clothes, but without the jacket and cutlass. Instead, he wore a long fighting knife on his hip.

Riven understood immediately what the slaadi proposed to do.

"We could just purchase passage," he said, not because he cared about the slavers, but because he was not sure how they could easily dispose of bodies. Besides, if the ship boasted one of the notorious and powerful Thayan Red Wizards as a passenger, things could get ugly very fast.

Dolgan chuckled.

Azriim grinned. "Now where is the enjoyment in merely buying passage?"

Riven looked into the slaad's mismatched eyes. "I did not realize that enjoyment was the object. Efficiency and effectiveness are the only things I'm interested in."

"Enjoyment is the only goal worth pursuing," Azriim said, still smiling.

Frustrated with the slaad's unprofessionalism, Riven could not hold his tongue. "You and your boy here are sloppy. You'll leave a trail."

"Boy?" Dolgan growled.

Azriim's grin widened. "Indeed we will. And that's the very point. Now, I'm sure there's something you can do in this city to occupy yourself for a time. At the very least, get some better attire. Really. I'm embarrassed to be seen with you. Return here tonight, say, around the tenth hour. You are to be a wealthy merchant with a secret destination. Dolgan and I will.. relieve the captain and first mate of their duties and prepare the crew for your arrival."

Riven saw no point in arguing further. He shook his head in disgust, spun on his heel, and walked off. As he headed away from the slaadi and the docks, still stewing, he saw a trio of stray dogs slink down an alley. He thought of his girls and the anger went out of him.

He would have gone to his old garret already to check on them but he had not had a moment away from the slaadi, and he had not wanted the creatures to know of his girls. He knew well that affection for anything was a weakness others could exploit.

He wandered for a time, circling back a few blocks to ensure that neither of the slaadi was following him.

Neither was.

Relieved, he turned a corner and headed south and west, toward the Warehouse District. He would take a moment to check in on the girls.

After the assassin walked away, Dolgan said, "I think we should kill him. Father is wrong about him."

"You have made your views clear," Azriim replied, looking up and down the wharfs.

Azriim needed to procure the services of a second ship. He agreed with Riven that the priest of Mask would not easily give up his pursuit, so he was planning a misdirection.

"I just made them clear again," Dolgan said, and spat a glob of saliva onto the street. "He called me 'boy'."

"He certainly did," Azriim said, and grinned.

Azriim was fond of Riven. He regarded the human as a fosterling, not unlike the way in which the Sojourner regarded Azriim and Dolgan. It amused and pleased him to have a ward of his own. He turned and faced his broodmate.

"He is an ally, Dolgan. He hates this priest of Mask, is that not clear? The Sojourner read his mind, is that not enough?"

"But…"

"Dolgan, of the two of us that are standing here now, one of us is stupid." He let the meaning sink in; as he expected, it took a moment. "Let us leave the decisions to the other one, eh?"

Dolgan's brow furrowed and he showed his teeth in a snarl. "One of us standing here is the stronger, too."

"True," Azriim acknowledged. "Which is why I leave the axe work to you. Now leave the thinking to me. Done?"

Dolgan shrugged noncommittally and chewed his lip. Azriim decided to take that as acquiescence.

"Come," he said, and started walking the wharf. He did not seem able to keep mud from his boots, so he resigned himself to a layer of filth.

"Where?" Dolgan asked.

"You will see."

Azriim found what he wanted within an hour-a large, three-masted open sea caravel sporting the scarlet and green flag of Urlamspyr. He knew the Sembian caravel would be faster than the Thayan cog.

An open-mouthed wooden porpoise adorned the caravel's prow; it held in its jaws a representation of a coffer filled with gold coins. Azriim smiled. Everything in Sembia related back to coin in one way or another. He saw only a few crewmen on deck, tying off lines or climbing in the rigging. Most of the hands must have been on shore leave.

"Remain here," Azriim said. "I will return apace."

"Another ship?" Dolgan asked. "Why?"

"Because I have learned to respect the doggedness of our priest of Mask."

"Huh?" Dolgan asked. "Doggedness?"

Azriim patted his broodmate on his muscular shoulder. "Remember, Dolgan-I do the thinking. Remain here."

Though it galled him a bit, Azriim changed his facial structure to eliminate the half-drow features. As he walked, he lightened his skin, rounded his eyes and ears, and softened his cheekbones. Then, donning a businesslike smile, he walked down the pier toward the gangplank. He hailed the first sailor who made eye contact, a thin youth who had seen fewer than twenty winters.

"Is the captain aboard?" he called up.

The sailor rested his hands on the rail and squinted. "Who wants to know?" The human had a hole where one of his front teeth should have been.

"I do," Azriim answered, and flicked a fivestar up to the sailor.

The youth caught it and the coin vanished into his sash belt.

"He is," said the youth, and he vanished from the side. From above, Azriim heard the sailor calling, "Lubber to see the Captain!"

Azriim walked to the edge of the wooden gangplank and waited. He knew it would be rude to go aboard without an invitation. The other crewmen aboard the ship eyed him as they worked, laughing and making the occasional snide comment at Azriim's expense. Azriim ignored them. He had business to do. And besides, they dressed like buffoons.

With his left hand, he drew one of his wands-a finger-long shaft of ash capped with gold-and palmed it.

After a time, Azriim heard the call, "Captain on deck," as it passed from sailor to sailor. Hearing this, Azriim deemed at least some of the crew, and probably the captain, to be ex-navy. He rebuked himself for not anticipating that. He could have adopted the form of a scarred veteran. Still, coin spoke with a loud enough voice to a Sembian crew.

The captain appeared at the top of the gangplank. Black hair worn in a short helmcut topped a clean-shaven, pockmarked face. Bags hung under his piggish eyes. He wore fitted wool breeches, high boots, a broad belt with a silver buckle, and a stiff-collared blue shirt. A broadsword and dagger hung from his hip. He did not advance down the gangplank to offer Azriim his hand.

"I am captain of Dolphin's Coffer," he said, his voice loud and resonant. "Captain Sertan."

Azriim made a bow and wasted no time. "Well met, Captain. I need your services and that of your ship."

The captain frowned. "You want a berth on my ship? You know where we're headed, do you?"

Azriim reached into his shirt pocket with his right hand and withdrew three rubies, each as big around as a fivestar. Several sailors in the rigging caught their sparkle and whistled.

With onlookers focused on his extended right hand, Azriim used his body to shield his left hand. He surreptitiously pointed the tip of the wand at the captain and mentally activated its magic, which made the target open to suggestion. Azriim contained a smile when the captain's expression slackened-a telltale sign that the magic had worked.

Azriim said, "No. I want to reserve your entire ship into my service, and I want you to head where I request. No questions asked. This is half of what I'm willing to pay."

Captain Sertan eyed the gems and licked his lips. He might have agreed to Azriim's request even without the aid of the wand. There was no cargo he could carry that would profit him more than what Azriim offered.

"That sounds quite reasonable, friend," said the captain, and he walked down the gangplank. His voice had the lazy lilt of the enspelled. "Tell me more."

Azriim smiled in a comradely fashion. "I want you to set to tonight and sail for Traitor's Isle. Anchor there and wait for up to a tenday. I and my two companions will meet you there, probably within only a few days."

"Meet us? You won't be aboard?"

"Not at first. But we will show eventually." He pressed the rubies into the captain's hands. "And if we do not, keep what I have paid you and be about your own affairs."

"Very well," the captain said. "I will recall the crew."

Azriim smiled. "Excellent! But first show me your ship." Azriim needed to memorize the appearance of the vessel, to make teleporting there easier.

They turned and walked up the gangplank. Azriim knew that the wand's effect would last only a few days, but he figured that would be long enough. Cale would either show within that time or he would not. And if Azriim had need, he could always renew the effect of the wand once he came aboard near Traitor's Isle.

He looked the captain up and down and said, "I admire your garb, by the way."