Twilight Falling

CHAPTER 9

Moving quickly through the broad avenues and daytime street traffic, Cale, Riven, and Jak made their way uptown. Before long, the two-story brick and wood buildings of the Foreign Quarter gave way to the more elegant and architecturally varied worked-stone residences near the Temple District.

While far from the manses of Selgaunt's Old Chauncel, the homes near Temple Avenue, mostly those of academics, artists with wealthy patrons, and priests, nevertheless indicated the relative wealth of the owners. Cut stone facades, glass windows, covered gardens, lacquered carriages, and gated, well-tended patios and walkways were the rule. Sculptures of magical beasts loomed in every plaza and perched on the corners of most roofs, often carved from the black veined marble imported from the nearby Sunset Mountains. Even the sewer grates, into which the road channels drained, were of cast bronze, with stylized dragons as lift handles.

Selgaunt soared skyward on all sides of the neighborhood. Against the skyline to the north, Cale could see the octagonal bell tower of the House of Song towering over the cityscape. Near it stood Lliira's Spire, the elegant, limestone-faced tower of the Temple of Festivals, festooned as always with long, streaming pennons of green and violet.

To the north, on a high rise overlooking Selgaunt Bay, stood the many-towered, sprawling palace of the Hulorn. The complex looked as twisted and warped as the late ruler's mind. The palace was slowly being abandoned by the dead Hulorn's staff, while agents of the Old Chauncel looted its secrets and argued over who would be its next tenant.

"Nearly there," Jak said. "That's it. At the end of the road."

Ahead, alone in a cul-de-sac, stood a stone house of the Colskyran style, called such after the mage-architect who had pioneered the style two decades earlier. Characterized by elaborate, magically-shaped stonework around the doors and windows, stylized downspouts, and colorful tiled roofs, Colskyran buildings could look as grand as any manse. Not so that home, where there were gaps in the roofing-broken tiles that had never been replaced-unrepaired cracks in the stone scrollwork around the windows, and crumbling mortar between the river stones in the low wall that surrounded the property. Broken statuary lay untended in the courtyard. Shrubs, creepers, and ivy had overgrown the lot. Cale thought that the flora must have grown wild and untended for years.

"This is where you Harpers keep your sage, Fleet?" Riven sneered. "Small wonder your people never knew what was going on."

Jak turned on the assassin and his green eyes flared. "You keep your mouth shut, Drasek Riven." In a softer voice, he added, "And I'm not a Harper anymore."

Surprised, Riven looked as though he wanted to say something further but held his tongue.

In truth, Cale too wondered what sort of sage lived in a house like that.

"Jak," Cale asked, "who is this loremaster?"

Jak pursed his lips. His hands went to the pockets of his trousers and he said, "His name is Sephris. Sephris Dwendon. He assisted the Harpers sometimes …"

Riven chuckled at that.

"Didn't I tell you to shut up?" snapped the halfling.

Cale interposed before Riven could make a reply.

"Assisted?" asked Cale. "He doesn't anymore?"

"No. Listen, Cale." Jak took a deep breath and said, "He's was a priest of Oghma … until they forbade him from performing services."

Riven smiled and opened his mouth to speak, but a fierce glare from Jak kept him from saying whatever he'd been contemplating.

"Why?" Cale asked, increasingly dubious.

Jak shifted from foot to foot and said, "Well … he holds to some unusual ideas. About numbers, mostly, but other things too. I think they think he's insane. Healing spells didn't help him, though."

Cale squatted down to look Jak in the eye and asked, "Numbers? How do you mean?"

"You'll see."

Cale was doubtful, but kept it from his face so as not to hurt Jak's feelings. Still, perhaps Jak's loremaster was not their best play. Maybe Elaena at Deneir's temple would remember them and would help.

"Little man-" Cale began.

Jak shook his head and put a small hand on Cale's shoulder.

"Cale," he said, "I wouldn't have brought us here if I didn't think he could help. Just trust me. I don't think he's insane. I mean-" Jak's eyes found the ground-"he might be, but. . he's a genius, Cale. Really. The church still takes care of him, despite his illness. It's because he's such an asset to them. He knows things."

Cale looked past Jak to the poorly maintained house. His doubt must have shown on his face.

Jak went on, "He doesn't care about things like the house, and the church doesn't want to pay for a groundskeeper. He doesn't even see people much anymore, but he'll see me. We were friends a long time ago, before he … started to think the way he thinks."

"And this loremaster is expensive?" Riven asked, amusement in his voice.

Jak stared daggers at Riven. "He doesn't charge, Zhent. But the church requires a 'donation' to see him."

Riven's one eye narrowed and fixed on Jak.

"I'm not a Zhent any more than you're a Harper, Fleet."

"And I believe that as much as I believe that black is white," Jak spat.

"Believe what you will," Riven said, low and dangerous.

"Enough," Cale ordered, before the argument went out of control.

Riven eyed Cale and said, "If I cared what this sphere was-and I don't-I'd tell you you're both fools to consult this so-called 'loremaster.' "

Cale looked him in his one good eye and replied, "And if I cared what you thought, I'd ask."

To that, Riven only stared.

Jak looked at Cale, awaiting a decision.

Cale made up his mind quickly-they really had no other option. He had no reason to think that Elaena could help them, even if she was willing. He would trust the halfling's judgment.

"Let's see what he has to say," said Cale. "It's only coin. If it's a waste of time, we'll know it soon enough." He looked to Riven and added, "You can wait here if you like."

"Oh, no," Riven sneered. "I wouldn't miss this."

With that, the three of them strode for the house. The small gateman's shack stood empty and overgrown, the iron gate unlocked and rusted. They walked a cracked flagstone path through the overgrowth and approached the house. If Cale hadn't known better, he would have thought the place abandoned. He wondered if the loremaster might have died some time before, unbeknownst to Jak.

Before they reached the porch, the heavy wooden door creaked open and a tall, balding man with a wreath of brown hair exited. He wore a pinched frown and dark green robes, the raiment of a priest of Oghma. A bronze holy symbol in the shape of an unfurled scroll hung from a chain around his neck. He took in their weapons and armor, still frowning, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"I don't believe-"

Jak cut him off. "We have come to see Sephris Dwendon. We're prepared to make a donation to the Lord of Knowledge."

The priest pursed his thin lips, obviously perturbed by Jak's interruption. Cale was pleased to see that the man was not the sage, as he had at first thought.

"Sephris is indisposed," said the priest, but he didn't turn to leave.

Cale well understood the game, priest or no priest. He would have smiled but for the bad taste it left in his mouth.

"We're prepared to make a large donation to the Sanctum of the Scroll," Cale said. "We will not require much of Sephris's time, or yours."

The priest took that in and gave them an appraising look, as though evaluating their capacity to pay what Cale had promised.

After a moment, he said, "Very well, then. I shall see if Master Sephris is receiving visitors."

He turned to reenter the house.

Jak called after his back, "Tell him Jak Fleet is here to see him. Jak Fleet."

The priest did not acknowledge that he'd heard.

They waited, Riven smirking all the while.

"They rotate priests as caretakers for him," Jak explained. "It's not a highly regarded job. Sephris can be difficult."

"That explains him then," Cale said, referring to the priest.

After a few moments, the priest returned. In his hands, he held an open silver box lined with red velvet.

"Sephris will see you, but I must collect the donation first, of course."

Riven sneered, but Cale wasn't surprised by the request. In Sembia, even religion was business.

"Of course," Cale said.

He took from his belt the pouch of platinum suns given him by Tamlin, counted out ten, and placed them in the donation box.

The priest gave a tight smile and snapped the box closed. Cale wondered how much of that coin would actually find its way to the church's coffers.

"Follow me," the priest said. "Sephris is in the library, as always."

They entered the tiled foyer of the home and walked down the main hall. The windows, screened by the overgrown trees and shrubs outside, let in only scant light. No paintings hung on the walls, only scrawled numbers and equations, written floor to ceiling in Elvish, Dwarvish, and Chondathan. Cale stared at them uncomprehending. The mathematics were either very advanced or utterly nonsensical.

"We erase them," the priest explained, nodding at the numbers, "when Sephris moves on to another room. The whole house is this way."

Cale shared a glance with Riven. Rather than smug, as Cale had expected, the assassin looked … coiled.

Did evidence of madness make him uncomfortable? Cale wondered. A still more uncomfortable thought surfaced in Cale's mind-did serving a god ultimately render all priests at least a little insane? Cale had encountered at least two before: the Righteous Man, and Jurid Gauston.

The priest led them to a pair of walnut double doors, notable for the lack of numbers written upon them.

There, he turned and said to the three, "He may have already forgotten that I told him of you. After announcing you, I will await you here in the hall. Do not unnecessarily agitate him. Do you understand?"

Cale realized then that he didn't know the priest's name, and that the priest didn't know his. It was better that way, he supposed.

They all three nodded. The priest opened the doors.

The circular, high-ceilinged library smelled of ink and esenal root, an herbal paper preservative. Books, scrolls, and papers were crammed so tightly into the wall shelves that the room appeared built of books rather than wood and stone. Thamalon's collection was paltry compared to it. The single room alone rivaled the temple of Deneir's borrowing library. Books and papers, covered in numbers and equations, lay strewn haphazardly across the floor as though blown by a whirlwind. Small teaching slates, similar to those used by Cale's language instructors back in Westgate, lay here and there around the library, filled with chalked formulae written in a tiny, precise script.

Sephris sat at a huge, ornate oak desk in the center of the library, furiously writing with a stick of chalk on another such slate. His thinning brown hair, neatly parted on the side, sprouted from a round, overlarge head. He could have seen fifty winters, he could have seen forty. He wore a heavy, embroidered red robe, and where his arms peeked out of the sleeves, Cale could see numbers inked on his skin. The man had covered his body the same way he'd covered the walls.

The priest cleared his throat and said, "Sephris, the men I spoke of are here."

Sephris looked up at them, though his hand continued to scribble on the slate, as though propelled by another mind. His brown eyes, piercing and thoughtful, narrowed.

"I see them," Sephris said. "You may go."

The priest nodded and excused himself from the room, closing the door as he departed.

"I knew you were coming," Sephris said to them. His eyes looked at them but didn't seem to focus. "See?" He held up the slate upon which he had been scribbling. It was covered in various mathematical formulae. Cale could make no sense of it. Sephris must have sensed their confusion. He tapped a number in the lower left hand corner of the slate. "Three heroes. See?"

Cale didn't. Neither did Riven, it seemed.

"This is madness, Cale," muttered the assassin. "He thinks scribblings told him we were coming. How? Madness."

Cale heard tension in the assassin's voice.

Sephris smiled softly, set down his slate, and rose from his desk. He dusted chalk from his robe and looked at Riven.

"You wonder how?" the loremaster asked.

Riven made no response but took half a step back.

"How many heavens are there?" Sephris asked him.

Riven fidgeted uncomfortably. He looked to Cale and Jak as though for help. Cale had none to give.

"How many?" Sephris asked again.

"How would I know?" Riven snapped.

"There are seven," said Sephris, and he clicked his tongue. "How many Hells?"

Riven scoffed-nervously, Cale thought-and gave no answer. Sephris waited, fingers twitching.

Cale answered, "Nine. Nine Hells."

"Correct. And there's your answer. That's how I knew."

"What?" Cale asked.

But Sephris's mind had already moved on. He stared hard at the halfling, as though trying to remember who he was.

"It is good to see you, Sephris," said Jak slowly. "Do you remember me? Jak Fleet. We met through Brelgin."

Sephris nodded, smiled as though he had just remembered a truth, and said, "It is good to see you, Jak Fleet." He snapped his fingers. "You are one of the three. Servant of the eighteenth god. You remain a seventeen. That is well."

His eyes went vacant. Hurriedly, he bent over the desk and scribbled something on the slate, muttering to himself.

Cale, Jak, and Riven shared a look. None knew what to do or say.

Sephris completed his calculation, or his mad scribbling, examined the result, and nodded.

He looked up at them and said, "I'd offer you a seat, but as you can see, I have none to offer. Zero."

He focused his gaze on Cale, a studied look that made Cale uncomfortable.

"You're the first," Sephris said. "One of the five. Were you aware of that?"

"One of the five what?"

Sephris ignored him and studied Riven in the same way.

"You," he said to the assassin, "You're the second of the five. Two blades, one eye. Your soul is dark. Do you know why you lost your eye?"

Cale felt Riven tense beside him.

"Easy," Cale said to the assassin under his breath.

"You don't know anything about me, old fool," Riven said, his voice low.

Sephris sighed, the longsuffering sound of the misunderstood. He stepped out from behind his desk and walked across the library, hopping to avoid stepping on any of the papers and books, and stood in front of them. Cale readied himself to prevent Riven from doing the old man violence.

"Ten words, thirteen syllables."

"What?"

Sephris signed in exasperation and said, "The words you just spoke. Ten words, thirteen syllables. Do you believe that to be chance? Choice?"

Riven said nothing, which didn't seem to trouble Sephris.

"Not so. Not choice. The necessary answer. Two and two are always four."

For a reason Cale could not explain, hearing those words from Sephris reminded him of his attempt to articulate Fate.

"I see what you cannot," Sephris said to Riven, to all of them, "and I know what you do not." He gestured with his arms to indicate the papers on the floor. "Numbers … formulae. The universe is an equation. Did you know that? Each of us is a sub-equation. Every question a function. Each, therefore, solvable." He looked Riven in the eye and asked, "You don't want to be solved though, do you? Fearful of the answer?"

Riven looked like he wanted to spit. His hand hovered near his blade.

"He's mad," the assassin said, but sounded unsure of himself.

"No," said Jak, "he just knows things. He just. . thinks differently."

"Indeed," said Sephris softly, and he smiled at Jak. "Differently." He turned and walked away from them, again careful to avoid stepping on any papers or tomes. "Sit where you like. It does not matter."

None of them moved. They continued to stand just inside the door, as though fearful that to enter the library would immerse them in the same mad world in which Sephris lived.

"Do you know why we've come?" Cale asked him.

Sephris folded his hands behind his back and looked up to the ceiling.

"Many variables, of course …"

He trailed off, muttering to himself, pacing the library, studying nothing. Cale wondered if he should ask the question again.

"Variables," Sephris muttered, "variables." He stopped walking and turned to look at Cale, his gaze sharp. "You've brought me something."

"That shows nothing," Riven said. "A Turmishan palm reader could-"

"You've brought me a half," said Sephris with a smile, "but you wish the whole."

Cale felt the hairs on his nape rise. Beside him, Riven stuttered to a stop.

"Didn't I say so?" Jak said, and shot an I told you so look at Riven. "Show him, Cale."

Cale unslung his pack.

"You require an answer within two days," said Sephris, nodding. "Two. Hmm. These formulae are complex. You three present quite the problem. Interesting…."

Cale, wondering how in the Nine Hells Sephris seemed to know what he knew, removed the half-sphere from its burlap blanket. He held it up for the loremaster to see. The gems within the quartz sparkled in the candlelight.

"We need you to tell us what this is," Cale said.

For the first time since they'd entered the library, Sephris seemed to give something his full attention. He stared at the half-sphere-hard. He seemed to have stopped breathing.

"Place it on my desk," he said. "Careful of my papers."

After a moment's hesitation, Cale walked across the library, mindful of the debris on the floor, and placed the half-globe on Sephris's desk. As he did, he looked at the slate on which Sephris had been writing. The numbers and symbols on it were written in half a dozen different languages, at least two of which Cale didn't recognize. Probably Sephris had invented his own branch of mathematics to symbolize his thinking.

"How many languages do you speak?" Cale asked in Chondathan.

Sephris waved a dismissive hand and answered in Turmishan, "There is only one, young man, and it is not written with letters. Now, move away from my desk."

Cale did.

Staring at the half-sphere throughout, the loremaster walked to his desk and sat. He put his chin in his palms and stared at it, transfixed, his eyes drinking it in, whispering to himself all the while. Cale realized as he backed toward the door that the loremaster was actually counting the flecks of gemstones within the half-sphere. Dark and empty! There were hundreds, at least-perhaps thousands.

"Is he counting the gems?" Jak asked in a whisper, when Cale had retreated back to the door.

Cale nodded, watching.

When Sephris looked up some moments later, he seemed surprised to see them there.

"You, still?" the loremaster said. "This changes everything. Everything."

He picked up his slate, wiped it clean with the sleeve of his robe and began to write furiously.

"A dominant variable," he muttered. "Dominant."

Cale, Riven, and Jak could do nothing but stand and wait while Sephris scratched his head and studied what he had written.

"No," Sephris muttered, and again he wiped the slate clean. He started anew to write but stopped and looked up at them. "Return to me in eighteen hours. I will provide you with your answer then."

"No, Sephris," Cale said. "We cannot."

He couldn't leave the half-sphere unprotected.

Sephris looked taken aback; he must not often be refused. He eyed Cale shrewdly.

"It will be safe here with me. Look." Sephris hurriedly scribbled a formula on the slate that filled it only halfway. He held it up for Cale and said, "Do you see? It will be safe until at least the nineteenth day of this month."

The scribblings meant nothing to Cale, but he needed an answer, and that meant abiding by Sephris's rules. They could keep watch from the street.

"Eighteen hours then," he agreed.

"Excellent. You may go."

At that, Riven scoffed. Under his breath he said, "By your leave, milord."

Cale said nothing. They turned, opened the door and exited. The priest-caretaker greeted them in the hall.

"Did you find what you sought?"

Cale deflected the question. "We'll return tomorrow evening."

"Very well," said the priest, content not to press. "I'll expect you then."

And that was that.

When they reached the street, Cale eyed the nearby buildings. One of them, a three story stone tallhouse, had a roof with only a slight pitch.

Cale pointed and said, "There. We'll keep watch in shifts, in case Vraggen makes another grab for the half-sphere."

In truth, Cale didn't think the mage would risk another attack, but he wanted to be certain. The tall-house roof offered a nice vantage of the entire street.

"Good," Jak said.

"I'm in," Riven said, "but there's something I need to tend to first. I'll be back before nightfall."

"Describe the something," Cale said.

"My concern, Cale."

They exchanged glares. Cale knew it would be pointless to press.

"Act as though you're being watched," he said.

Riven sneered and laid a hand on one of his enchanted sabers.

"I always do," the assassin said. "I'lll be back near sunset."

As Riven walked away, Jak said, "I don't trust him, Cale. Not as far as I could throw a troll."

Cale made no comment, just stared into Riven's back. He was not sure if he trusted the assassin either. Obviously Mask did, but that gave Cale no comfort-Mask was a bastard, after all, and always had his own agenda.

"Let's get situated on that roof."

Riven hurried through the streets, his left hand on a saber hilt, heading for the Foreign District. After he'd left the Zhents a few months earlier, he'd purchased a nondescript flat there. It still felt strange to him to have somewhere to go, somewhere he considered his home. While in the Network, he had made a habit of changing the location in which he slept at least twice per tenday, more out of a sense of professional caution than genuine fear. Riven rarely left enemies alive, and the dead didn't often carry grudges.

After he'd left the Zhents, he hadn't seen the point of moving around so often. In truth, after he'd resigned he hadn't seen the point of much at all. He had saved enough coin to keep him in whores and luxury for years, but that kind of life didn't appeal to him. If he'd been a weak man, he might have turned to a weak man's vices-drink and drugs-but those things had never held a draw for him either. So for a time, he'd felt aimless.

To his surprise, that had changed the day he found his girls, and changed still more when he had heard the Lord of Shadows's Call in his dreams.

Riven reached under his tunic to touch the onyx disc that hung from the chain around his neck. He had taken it from the corpse of the last hit he'd performed for the Network: a fat merchant who had run drugs into Cormyr for the Zhents, but had compromised an operative when he was captured by the Purple Dragons. For Riven, the disc symbolized two things: the end of his relationship with the Zhents, and the beginning of his relationship with Mask.

While he wasn't a priest like Cale-Nine Hells, the mere thought of that made him sneer-he also wasn't the man he once was. His mind was opening, he knew; something was happening, though he didn't yet know what. He knew only that he served Mask, and for the time being that knowledge was enough. That his service made Cale uncomfortable only made it more satisfying. Riven respected Cale, but didn't like him.

Still, Riven knew the Lord of Shadows had a purpose for Calling him and Cale almost simultaneously. Mask whispered that purpose in his dreams. Riven understood it when he first awakened, when his skull felt as though it was filled with squirming snakes, but the basis for that understanding fled from memory as the dreams faded out of his consciousness. Still, the understanding remained, the certainty, and Riven didn't question further.

He supposed it was faith, and that thought made him laugh.

For most of his life, Riven had thought that faith made men weak, made them dependent upon the divine rather than their own resources. He had held men of faith in contempt, even those in the Zhents. Especially those. In fact, the return of the Banites to authority in the Network had been the very reason he'd left it. The Zhents under the resurgent Banites would not be the Zhents in which Riven had flourished. The new Church of Bane was too fanatical. But Mask had taught Riven to make distinctions among faiths. Faith didn't have to make a man weak or mad, though it often did-he thought of Gauston, The Righteous Man, Verdrinal, and that fool Sephris. In Riven's case, faith was making him stronger. He could feel it changing him. Mask didn't make demands of Riven. Mask said to him, Here is a way to strength. Take it if you will. Riven had taken it, for he respected strength-those who had it, and those who shared it with him.

When he neared his flat, Riven circled the block a few times to determine if he had a tail. He didn't. Satisfied, he headed for home.

His flat shared half the space in a one-story wooden building with a scribe-for-hire's shop. The scribe-Riven had never bothered to remember his name-owned the building and had let it to Riven only because he was afraid to refuse. The scribe made his living notarizing bills of lading and shipping contracts, and drafting documents for the illiterate. He also sold paper, ink, and writing quills. He and Riven had exchanged exactly one sentence since Riven had taken the flat and that suited Riven fine. Riven made the scribe so nervous that the man's ink-stained hands visibly shook anytime Riven walked in his direction. That too suited Riven fine. No conversation meant no questions.

The building stood at the corner of Mal's Walk and Drev Street, both narrow, dirty little cart roads near Selgaunt's western wall. Most Selgauntans held those who lived "under the wall" in contempt, but Riven felt at home there. He could have afforded a much nicer location, of course, but denied the urge. Luxury made a man soft, he knew, and needed only look to Cale for an example of the phenomenon.

The thought of betraying Cale and that little bastard Fleet had entered his mind, of course, but he had dismissed it. Mask clearly wanted him and Cale to work together, and Riven still owed Vraggen a handswidth of steel in his gut for that spell. More than a handswidth. He thought of the dark place that spell had taken him, full of shadows….

He shook his head. In any event, the surest way to get a go at Vraggen was to pair up with Cale, and if the half-drow and the rest of his crew got in his way, all the better.

He strode past the door to the scribe's shop, past his own door, and ducked down Mal's Walk. He didn't see the girls-they'd be along-and no one else was in sight. He pulled a slim dagger from a boot sheath, slid the blade between the shutters of his only window, and carefully lifted the latch. Silently, he pulled open the shutters and slid through the window.

Good habits, he told himself. Unless absolutely necessary, he tried to avoid obvious entrances and exits. With all the corpses he'd left in his wake, it paid to stay sharp.

No one was inside the two room flat. Riven's spartan furnishings took up little space. In the front room, a plain wooden table and chair stood near the hearth. An oil lamp and a water jug sat upon the table. Other than the hardware for the hearth and the girls' buckets beside the door, the room contained nothing else. His bedroom contained a wood framed bed with a feather mattress-his lone indulgence-with a wagon-trunk at its foot. That trunk held most of his personal belongings.

Around the room he had secreted the wealth he'd accumulated throughout his career in the Network: several diamonds behind a loose stone in the chimney, and four separate coin caches under the floorboards. He went to each in turn, removed the contents, and put them in his coin purse.

He was leaving; he knew that. Possibly, he would not return. Cale didn't see that yet, but Riven did. Whatever they were involved in, whatever Vraggen and this half-drow were scheming, it was bigger than Selgaunt. It had to be. Riven's dream visions had become more frequent, the pain in his skull upon waking more intense. Mask was preparing him for something….

A scratch at the door drew his attention, a chuffing at the gap between the bottom of the door and the floor.

"Here I come," he said, smiling.

He rose and glided across the room. He checked the buckets-one filled with water, one filled with the boiled scraps he regularly purchased from a butcher on Tenderloin Street. Typically, he pre-paid by the month, and a butcher boy delivered the buckets of scraps every day or two.

He opened the door and the girls thundered in, tails wagging and tongues lolling.

He kneeled down to receive their charge and they nearly bowled him over. He rubbed each behind her ears.

"Hey, girls, hey. Good dogs, good dogs."

They licked him in greeting, fairly covering him in dog spit, while their tails wagged furiously. He fought through their affection to shut his door. The smaller of the two, a short-haired brown and black mutt with bright eyes, flopped onto the floor and showed Riven her stomach. Riven obliged her with a belly rubbing.

The larger brown hound with the gentle eyes, obviously the smarter of the two, left off Riven's affection and went for the buckets while the other was distracted with the belly rub. The smaller caught on fast, though. She rolled onto her feet and scampered over to the food. The larger made a hole and the two began to eat in earnest.

Riven slid near them and patted their flanks as they ate. He marveled at how gentle they both were. Most strays would squabble over food, and growl if they were disturbed while eating. Not his girls. He thought they might be a bitch and her daughter but he had no way of knowing for sure.

"I'm thinking I'll be gone for a bit, girls," he said, surprised at how sad those words made him.

He'd grown attached to his girls, as attached as he got to anything. They looked back at him, meat and drool hanging comically from their mouths. He scratched each behind the ears again. The smaller licked his hand.

"But I'll make sure you're cared for."

He had encountered the girls on his way home one night, perhaps two months before. Both dogs, obvious strays, had been as weak as infants and as thin as reeds. When Riven held out his hand and softly called to them, they had approached him timidly. But when he gently rubbed their muzzles and flanks, their diffidence vanished and they fairly overwhelmed him with licks. Since then, they'd been his girls, and they returned to his flat almost every day. He suspected that they lived in the alley nearby.

He'd never bothered to name them. He wasn't sure why. Maybe he would someday.

Riven had loved dogs since boyhood. Back in Amn, in a life that was so far removed from the present that it seemed to be someone else's past, he had been a kennel boy for Lord Amhazar, an insignificant but sadistic nobleman with a taste for women and violence. Riven's hours with the dogs had been the only happy moments in an otherwise harsh boyhood typified by episodic beatings and chronic hunger.

One morning, that nobleman had beaten him senseless for a reason Riven still did not understand. It was Amahazor's signet ring that had popped Riven's eye. Afterward, he'd left Riven for dead on the side of the road. But Riven didn't die. A passerby, a slaver out of Calimshan, had taken him in and for reasons still unclear to Riven, nursed him back to health, and trained him with weapons. Looking back, Riven realized that he owed that slaver much. He might have told him so if he hadn't put a punch dagger into the base of his skull over a decade before.

When Riven reached early manhood-even then he was already a highly efficient killer-he'd returned to the Amhazar estate in the night, murdered his former lord and the entire Amhazar family, then burned the place to the ground. He'd spared only the serfs and the dogs from the slaughter.

You can always trust dogs, he thought, looking at his girls as they licked the bucket clean. Dogs were utterly guileless. Dogs always stayed loyal. Not so with men, as Riven knew well from experience.

Absently, he rubbed them each in turn. They lay on their bellies on either side of him, full and content.

He would not betray the trust they had given him.

"Stay," he said to them, and he rose.

They gave no sign they understood, but both their tails drummed the wood floor.

"I'll be back."

He opened the door and walked next door to the scribe's shop.

The door was ajar so Riven walked in without knocking. The small shop was crammed full with shelves covered with parchment rolls, inkpots, quills, paperweights, and a host of other paraphernalia that Riven, who could not read and write, didn't recognize. The scribe, a thin, plain looking man with squinty eyes, sat behind a huge walnut desk on one side of the room. He was writing something on a piece of parchment and had not yet looked up at Riven.

"Hold just for a moment," he said. "Let me finish this thought." He thumped the paper with his quill point. "There." He looked up. "Now-"

When he saw Riven, his gaze went in rapid succession from Riven's scabbarded sabers to the window that looked out on the street, to Riven's face. His squinty eyes went as wide as fivestars.

"You! Ah-I mean, how can I help you? Is something wrong with the flat? Or do you want to purchase something?"

Trying to get out from behind his desk, the scribe tripped over his feet. When he caught himself on the desk, he toppled his ink pot and spilled ink over whatever it was he had been writing.

"Oh, dark! Dark and empty!"

He tried to sop up the dark fluid with some spare paper, succeeding only in staining his fingers black.

Hearing the scribe curse in anger almost brought an amused smile to Riven's face. Instead, he adopted his professional sneer and stalked toward the desk.

"I do want to purchase something" he said. "Your services."

The scribe wiped his fingers with the parchment.

"You n-need something written for you?" the scribe said, his voice shaking.

Riven eyed him coldly and replied, "No. Something else."

The scribe's eyes moved around but not once did they settle for more than a heartbeat on Riven's face. He dropped the ruined paper and wiped his hands, still shaking, on his trousers.

"Wh-what then?"

Riven leaned forward and rested his fingertips on the desk. He knew he had to tread carefully-create enough fear to ensure compliance with his request, but not so much that he frightened the scribe into fleeing town.

"Two bitches scratch at my door in the late afternoon or evening. You've seen them?"

The scribe's mouth hung open slightly. He nodded.

"I'll be leaving for a while. I won't be returning to the flat for a time."

The scribe started to speak, but Riven cut him off.

"You are not to re-let it. No matter how long I'm gone. Here."

He reached into his cloak, removed a diamond-a small fortune, more than the scribe earned in a year, perhaps two-and placed it on the desk. The man's eyes went wide.

"Take it. That is advance rent for the next twelve months. It's also advance payment for the service you are to perform for me."

The scribe eyed the diamond but did not reach for it. He met Riven's gaze.

"The dogs?" he asked.

Riven nodded. At least the man wasn't stupid.

"A butcher's boy delivers a bucket of meat scraps to my place daily. I feed the scraps to the gir-dogs. I also provide them with water. They rely on me for that. I will make arrangements with the butcher for the deliveries to continue while I'm away. You will see to it that the dogs are fed and allowed entry into the flat. That's all."

The scribe didn't dare refuse but Riven thought he looked less than enthusiastic. The assassin decided to make things perfectly clear.

"Hear what I'm about to say, scrivener. You hurt the dogs, or don't abide by my request, and I'll find out. When I'm back in town, I'll look in on you for a while. I'll watch you from the shadows, for days. You won't know when."

He let the import of that sink in then added, "I've killed over fifty men, scribe, and some of them died ugly. It's work to me. Business. You cross me on this and you're just another number. Clear?"

The scribe's eyes showed white. He nodded rapidly. "Yes. Clear."

Satisfied, Riven shot him one final glare, spun on his heel, and walked back to his flat. The girls' tails thumped the floor when he entered. He smiled at them.

"Taken care of, girls," he said.

For a time, an hour or two maybe, he sat on the floor between them and gave them his full attention. The smaller wanted to play but Riven had no play in him. When the flat began to darken, he stood.

"Time to go, girls." He stood and opened the door. He gave them one last pat as they trotted out. "See you tomorrow," he said out of habit, then realized that he probably wouldn't.

Watching the girls trot back across the street to the alley, he felt concerned. What would happen to them if he were to die?

He blew out a breath and shook his head.

You're getting as soft as Cale, he chided himself.

He pulled the door closed behind him and hit the street. He would make a stop off at the butcher and head back to the Foreign District, to Cale and Fleet.

He shot only a single glance back as he walked-to the alley, where his girls lived.

As promised, Riven returned before dark. Their perch atop the rowhouse afforded a nice panorama of Selgaunt and the setting sun cast the city in fire.

Cale and Jak nodded a greeting, and Riven returned the gesture.

"Anything?" the assassin asked.

"All quiet," Cale replied.

"Too bad," said Riven, and the three shared a chuckle.

Rotating one man out for breaks, they sat atop the rowhouse while the sun set, night fell, and Selune rose. As Cale had suspected, nothing happened. At midnight, Cale sat apart from Riven, regularized his breathing, closed his eyes, and silently prayed to Mask for his spells. The Lord of Shadows heeded Cale's request, and the holy words burned themselves into his brain, words of power that Cale could actuate with his will and his holy symbol. He felt Riven's gaze on him throughout, but they didn't speak of it afterward.

Otherwise, the night passed with nothing more interesting occurring in the street below than a carriage throwing a wheel. Each of the three managed to get at least a few hours of sleep.

The next day, the gongs and bells of the Temple District sounded the dawn and began to count down the hours. Sephris had told them to return in eighteen hours-not tomorrow afternoon or evening, but exactly eighteen hours. Cale figured that Sephris meant what he said. They would return between the fourth and fifth hour.

Like the night, the day passed without incident. The caretaker-priest exited Sephris's home in the morning to retrieve two buckets of water from a nearby city well.

Otherwise, they saw nothing but the occasional passerby. The time passed-slowly, but it did pass.

About half an hour after the Temple of Song rang the fourth hour, Cale stood.

"Let's move," he said to Riven and Jak.

The three descended the row house on the alley side and hit the street. As before, the caretaker-priest, dressed in green robes, opened the door to Sephris's house before they reached the porch. Cale figured he must have some kind of alarm spell triggered by the opening of the wrought iron gate.

"Gentlemen," the priest said, managing to inflect the word just enough to make it an insult. "Sephris is expecting you. He has been awake all night." From the circles under the priest's eyes, Cale thought that he too had probably been up all night. "Follow me," he said.

Riven grabbed Cale's shoulder and said, "I'll wait."

"What? Wait?" asked Jak.

Ignoring the halfling, Riven kept his gaze on Cale.

"I don't care what the sphere is," the assassin said. "You know my terms."

Cale looked into Riven's face. Indeed he did know Riven's terms-the death of Vraggen-but he also knew the real reason for Riven's reluctance to enter the house: Sephris made him uncomfortable. No reason to make an issue of it. He gave Riven an out.

"That's a good thought. Watch the street in case anyone else shows."

Riven nodded.

Cale and Jak turned to follow the priest. As he walked, Cale realized that he was beginning to regard Riven as something more than an assassin. He was beginning to regard him as a man, with human weaknesses and fears. That made him uneasy. It could make hard decisions more difficult if their relationship went bad later on. He put it out of his mind as they entered Sephris's house.

New formulae covered the plaster walls of the hallway. To Cale, they looked hurried. Sephris's precise script had given way to a barely legible scrawl, as though the thoughts had come too fast for his hands to record.

"As you can see," the priest said, "Sephris has been very busy since you left."

Cale nodded. He and Jak shared a pensive look.

The priest led them to the library doors. Before he opened them, he turned to face them, lips pursed.

"I fear that your perception of what is happening here, with Sephris, may be … incorrect."

Jak began to interrupt with a protest but the priest held up a hand and cut him off.

"I can see it in your face. To someone from outside the church, it may appear that we treat Sephris as an oddity, or perhaps a sort of mascot."

Here he looked at Cale with hooded eyes. Cale managed to hold his gaze, though his thoughts tracked the priest's words. It seemed to him that Oghma's church displayed Sephris the same way a Cormyrean sideshowman displayed his freaks. That the church required a "donation" to see Sephris only solidified the perception.

The priest gave a tight smile and nodded, as though he had read Cale's thoughts.

"I assure you that is not the case," the priest continued. "Without a caretaker, Sephris would not eat, drink, or bathe. Caring for him is not always pleasant, yet my brethren and I regard it as an honor."

"An honor?" Jak exclaimed. "I thought-"

"You were mistaken," the priest interrupted. "You see, Sephris is not insane. He is blessed, one chosen by the Lord of Knowledge, and is so regarded by all in Oghma's orthodox church."

Disbelief must have shown on Cale's face.

The priest nodded. "I know how it must appear to you, but it is not so. Oghma has blessed Sephris with a unique gift-an ability to think in a way that no one else can think, to know what no one else can know." Sadness, or awe, dropped the priest's voice. "It is a wondrous gift, but a gift from a god can be a difficult burden for a man to bear." The priest looked at them and gave a soft smile. "Such is the case with Sephris."

The priest seemed to be waiting for a response. Cale could think of nothing to say. He didn't know why the priest had just told them what he had. He merely nodded.

The priest looked from one to the other, his face emotionless, then he turned and opened the doors. As he did so, his words stuck in Cale's brain: Sometimes a gift from the gods is a difficult burden for a man to bear. Cale reached into his vest pocket for his holy symbol but stopped before touching it.

"Sephris," the caretaker-priest said, "the petitioners from yesterday have returned."

The priest turned and nodded to Cale and Jak, then exited the library, pulling the doors closed behind him.

To Cale, the library appeared even more disorderly than it had the day before. Papers and workslates lay strewn about everywhere, all covered in Sephris's urgent scrawl. On the desk, set upon a stack of papers, stood an intricately crafted bronze orrery. Beside it sat the half-sphere. Sephris hovered over both, staring. He looked the same. He hadn't changed his red cloak and Cale doubted that he had eaten. Despite the frantic nature of Sephris's writings, the man himself appeared calm and composed, at least at the moment. Cale supposed that even those fueled by divine knowledge could not maintain a fervor forever.

Without looking up, Sephris said, "Only two of the three on this seventeenth day of the sixth month."

"Sephris?" Jak asked hesitantly. "Are you all right?"

Sephris looked up. Dark circles colored the skin under his eyes.

"Indeed, Jak Fleet. Better than I have been in some time." He put his hand on the half-sphere and grinned. In that smile, Cale saw madness, or conviction. "I can't see it," Sephris continued. "It is a dominant variable, but so dominant that I don't know. I cannot solve it."

Cale's heart sank as the import of those words registered. Sephris didn't know what the sphere was. They had wasted a day.

"Come here," Sephris said, and waved them toward the desk.

Cale and Jak walked across the library, each careful to avoid stepping on any of Sephris's work papers.

"Never mind those," Sephris snapped. "Come here."

The half-sphere sat on the desk, inert, inscrutable even to Oghma's Chosen. Cale stared at it. He didn't know what he would do next.

Sephris smiled at them. His eyes were bloodshot and intense. His hair stuck up at odd angles. He nodded at the half-sphere.

"I cannot solve it! You have presented me with a premise for which I cannot craft a proof. For that, I thank you."

"Thank us?" Jak asked.

Sephris nodded and said, "Indeed. I have thought for some time that there was nothing that I could not solve, given time. I am pleased to be wrong."

Cale picked up the half-sphere. The gemstones within the quartz caught the light and twinkled, taunting him. He was glad for Sephris-since Sephris seemed to be glad-but he was also disappointed that they knew nothing more than they had the day before.

"We're pleased for you, old man," said Cale, "but we'd hoped for more. We need to know what this is, and if you can't-"

"I know what it is, Erevis Cale," Sephris cut in, smiling broadly. "I simply do not know its fate. Except that it is entangled, infinitely entangled, with you two."

Cale stared at him hard and asked, "How do you know my name?"

"Because I solved you, First of Five."

"What-"

Only then did Sephris's words register.

He knew what the sphere was!

Cale held up the half-sphere and managed to keep the emotion out of his voice when he said, "Tell us."

"Yes, tell us," Jak echoed.

Unlike Cale, Jak's voice betrayed the excitement he felt.

Sephris held out his hands for the half-sphere and asked, "May I?"

"Of course," Cale answered and handed it to him. Cale was surprised to see that his own hands were shaking.

"Imagine the sphere intact," Sephris said, and he pointed to the green gem-cut in half-set in the exact center of the half-sphere, "and note the emerald set in its center."

"All right," Jak said, smiling, eager. "Go on. Go on."

Cale nodded.

"Imagine that the emerald is-" Sephris tapped one of the planets represented by his orrery, the one third from the sun-"Abeir-Toril. Our world."

Cale's arms went gooseflesh.

"What?" Jak asked. "What?"

Cale cleared his throat as the implications of Sephris's statement hit him. "Then the other gems are …?"

"Stars," Sephris said. "And planets … other celestial bodies. Including some that are visible in our sky only once every few centuries."

Jak reached out a hand for the half-sphere though he did not touch it.

"How can you be sure, Sephris?" the halfling asked. "It doesn't look like anything."

The loremaster-Cale thought that Sephris had earned the title-chuckled at that.

"Jak Fleet, the motion of the heavens can be represented by a mathematical model as easily as… the volume of a sphere. I'm certain. Observe."

Sephris turned the small crank on the orrery. The bronze gears of the mechanism turned and the eight planets began to circle the sun.

"You see? Their motion is predictable, understandable, solvable." Sephris's voice turned wistful as he continued, "The movement of the heavens is applied mathematics in its purist form." He looked down at Jak, who stared wide-eyed at the orrery. "And so I am certain. I suspected that the sphere might be a representation of the heavens when first you showed it to me, but some of the unusual heavenly bodies represented by gems in the sphere caused me to doubt, but I resolved those."

"Unusual?" Cale asked, intrigued.

Sephris nodded and said, "Indeed. As I mentioned, some of the celestial bodies represented in the sphere appear in our sky to the unaided eye only rarely."

Cale thought he understood. If he imagined himself standing on the emerald, the gems in the sphere represented the celestial heavens surrounding Toril.

"So it's a map," Cale concluded.

"Trickster's toes," Jak oathed, and snapped his fingers. "A map. Of course. But a map to where?"

Cale's mind raced. Why would Vraggen and Azriim risk so much for a map of the stars? They could simply look up at the night sky with a spyglass and obtain the same information. The sphere would tell them little more than Sephris's orrery.

"It is a map, at least of sorts," Sephris acknowledged, but gave a secretive smile. "The most elaborate, complete representation of the heavens that I have ever seen. It must have taken months to craft." He indicated his orrery and added, "This is paltry in comparison. But the sphere is more than a mere map."

In a rush, it all came together in Cale's mind. Sephris had described the motion of the heavens as predictable, but he had also said that some of the celestial bodies represented in the sphere appeared only rarely. In that instant Cale knew what the sphere was: It was a picture of the sky at a particular point in time.

"It's a timepiece," he breathed.

Sephris looked at Cale with raised eyebrows, obviously surprised that he had made the connection.

"Indeed," said the loremaster. "It could be nothing else."

Jak frowned and asked, "A timepiece? Like a Neverwinter clock? How?" Before Cale could explain, realization dawned on the halfling's face. "Because then-movement is predictable, because some of the gems-some of the celestial bodies, I mean-appear only rarely." He looked at Cale, smiling. "So it's not a map to a where …"

"It's a map to a when," Cale finished, and could not keep the excitement from his voice. He looked to Sephris. "When?" he asked, but knew the answer the moment the words came out of his mouth.

Sephris shook his head, frowned, and said, "I cannot tell with only half of the sphere."

Cale should have realized that, of course.

Sephris sank into his desk chair with an audible sigh. Exhaustion showed on his face. Cale realized that the loremaster had hardly mentioned numbers at all since they'd entered the library. Fatigue must have quelled his mania.

"Can you determine anything, Sephris?" Jak asked. "Does it show a time in the past?"

Sephris shook his head and answered, "The future, I believe, Jak Fleet. The future."

The halfling looked at Cale with raised eyebrows. Now they knew that Vraggen wanted the sphere to tell him when something would occur. . but what? Cale looked at Sephris.

"If we had the other half of the sphere," he asked, "you could tell us the time?"

"Easily."

Cale nodded. That was something.

"Cale …" Jak began.

"Let's discuss it outside," said Cale.

He picked up the half-sphere and put it in his pack. Sephris watched it vanish into the pack the way a man might watch his lover's back fade into the distance.

Cale looked at Sephris, then looked at the halfling and said, "Jak, let me have a moment."

Surprised, Jak looked a question at him but nodded. Without a backward glance, he exited the library.

Before Cale could say anything, Sephris said, "You are a priest, aren't you, Erevis? I could calculate the answer but I'm very tired and it would be easier if you would simply tell me."

Cale nodded and asked, "How did you know?"

Sephris chuckled, "I can see the abhorrence on your face."

Cale started to protest but Sephris held up his hand and shook his head.

"I'm all too familiar with it," Sephris said. "You see in me what you fear you may become. Only another priest has that fear. Only priests are wise enough to fear, rather than covet, the gifts the gods may give."

"The little man-Jak-is also a priest," said Cale. "You didn't see the same fear in him?"

Sephris waved his hand dismissively. "He is a seventeen. A seventeen is prime, evenly divisible by only itself and one, at least among whole numbers. Do you see? A seventeen is not divided in his soul. He is at peace because he already knows what he is. He is not becoming. He is what he is supposed to be. Do you want to know what number you are?"

Cale knew that whatever he was, he was not a prime number, but some number divisible by two. Cale's soul and his loyalties were divided, and he knew it. Light and darkness warred in him, man and god, faith and independence.

"No," he said, a bit more harshly than he had intended.

Sephris accepted that without a word.

Cale had planned to ask Sephris what he meant when he had called him the "First of Five," but he decided then and there that he didn't want to know. He didn't want to plumb any deeper into Sephris's thought processes. He did not want to plumb any deeper into his own nature. Except….

"Was it worth it?" Cale asked. "Oghma's gift?"

Had Mask granted Cale a "gift" of the sort that Oghma had bestowed on Sephris, Cale would have hated him for it.

Sephris nodded. He took Cale's meaning.

"That is a fundamentally flawed question, Erevis. Do you know why?"

Cale shook his head.

"Because it implies a choice."

Mentally, Cale rejected Sephris's statement. He insisted on believing that at some point choice entered into the equation.

Cale said, "I'm not a determinist, Sephris."

Sephris smiled softly. "Then let me answer you this way. Serving a god brings many rewards, but it also demands a price, always a price. The price I paid-" he sighed, a sound both contented and fatigued-"is simply more apparent to you than the price you have paid … and will pay."

To that, Cale could think of nothing to say. He found that his hand was in his pocket, clutching his mask. He released it as if it was white hot.

Sephris leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and said nothing further. Cale took that as an invitation to leave.

"Thank you for your help, loremaster. If we get the other half of the sphere …"

Sephris smiled, though he still kept his eyes closed, and said, "Then we will speak again."

Cale turned to go. The library didn't appear as disorganized before.

When he laid his hand on the door handle, Sephris called to him, "One last piece of advice, Erevis. Listen carefully, for here is the key to understanding Fate." He paused before he said, "Two and two are four."

Cale gave a smile. If only it was that simple.

"I don't believe in Fate, loremaster."

Sephris opened his eyes then and said, "That is only because you cannot yet do the math."

Outside, Jak didn't ask Cale what transpired between he and Sephris. Instead, the halfling and Cale filled Riven in on events. The assassin took it in without a word.

Afterward, he said, "So the sphere tells the time that something will occur. But we don't know what the something is and we don't know where it will happen."

Cale nodded. Almost involuntarily, all three glanced skyward, though no stars were visible in the daytime sky.

Jak took out his pipe and tamped it.

"But we can be sure it's not good," the halfling said.

At that, Riven scoffed. Cale suspected that the assassin didn't care if what Vraggen sought from the sphere was good or otherwise. He only wanted to kill the wizard whose spell had made him afraid. Cale would just have to use that.

Jak struck a tindertwig and puffed on his pipe. The pipeweed's aroma filled the overgrown yard.

"Cale," Jak said, "we can't give them the sphere."

"Still thinking like a Harper, Fleet?" Riven asked with a sneer. "What do we care what this sphere signals? Worried about the innocent?"

Jak blew smoke in Riven's direction. He started to frame a reply, but Cale's hand on his shoulder cut him off.

"Little man, he's just goading you," Cale said. "It's his way. Just leave it alone."

Cale shot Riven a contemptuous glance.

"We can't turn over the sphere," Jak repeated. "They aren't human, at least some of them aren't, and we don't know what they plan to do." He shot a heated glare at Riven and added, "And burn him if he won't think about innocents. Wearing a pin didn't make me what I was, Drasek Riven, and resigning from the Network doesn't change what you are."

Riven only sneered.

Cale found that he too was concerned about innocent lives, and that realization pleased him. But there were more selfish reasons at work. He wanted to stop Azriim and Vraggen-kill them-for personal reasons. They had invaded Stormweather Towers, murdered guards, kidnapped Ren, and tried to incinerate he and Riven at the Stag. They had earned his wrath. For that, they would all die.

Cale patted Jak's shoulder and said, "We're not giving them the sphere, little man, or at least we're not letting them keep it. We get Ren back safely and kill them all, under the leaves of the Elm. That solve your problem?"

"Solves mine," Riven said, and he winked at Fleet.

Jak blew smoke rings at him and said, "You couldn't solve two and two with an abacus, Zhent."

Jak's choice of words gave Cale gooseflesh.

"We've got a day," Cale said. "Let's get ready."