Twilight Falling

CHAPTER 7

This time, when Cale left Stormweather in the cold, dark hours before dawn, he did not slink out the back. Instead, he walked out the front door, the same front door where, hours before, five house guards had been murdered. Already the blood had been cleaned and new guards posted. They nodded respectfully to him as he passed. Cale returned the nod. The respect was mutual. Uskevren house guards had once again fought and died in service to the Uskevren. They, along with Cale, had once again driven an invader from the house. Cale had already discussed with Tamlin the necessity of providing for the families of the slain guards and the lord of Stormweather had readily agreed.

Cale inhaled deeply as he walked across the night-shrouded grounds. The air was cool. The verdant gardens from the manse to the main gate smelled of lilac and lavender. He caught the aroma of chrysanthemum and it reminded him of that last embrace he had shared with Thazienne. Crickets chirped in the grass.

Despite the dark events in the house, Cale felt a peculiar lightness. He and Tazi had parted as they should, and in leaving the manse he was not abandoning his family but serving them-the same thing he had been doing for years. His personal Vaendaan-naes had begun, perhaps.

Only his concern for Ren and his simmering anger over the slain Uskevren house guards kept his mood somber.

When he reached the main gate, he bade farewell to the six guards on duty there. Seeing them reminded him of Almor. The grizzled old warrior would be buried the next day, at Uskevren expense. Cale wished his soul a speedy journey.

He exhorted the guards to stay alert and walked down the stone-lined walkway for what he knew with certainty to be the last time. The guards closed the gate behind him with a clang, the sound as final as a funeral gong. At the end of the walkway, he turned around to view the manse from the street one last time. The squat turrets barely topped the walls, and Cale thought for the first time that the architecture of the home properly reflected the family within-strong, low to the ground, and as immovable as a mountain. The Uskevren would abide. Shamur and Tamlin would see to it.

Smiling, he headed down the street.

Selune had already set, but her glittering tears cast in silver the path she had taken through the heavens. The blocks of coal in the street torches had nearly burned through, leaving only glowing embers. Darkness covered Sarn Street. Due to the hour, the broad avenue stood empty, the shops closed and shuttered.

Wrapped in burlap in his pack, the half-sphere felt as heavy as a lodestone. He had cast non-detection wards on his person and the half-sphere but knew that the spells would grant him only a few hours reprieve from magical scrying.

And that only maybe, he reminded himself. He suspected that a caster more powerful than him might be able to pierce the wards. And he had no doubt that the shadowy mage who had accompanied the half-drow was a more powerful caster. Still, Cale had deemed it worth the effort. If the spells worked even for a short while, those hours would provide him time to prepare. Hie would contact Jak, locate a scribe or academic who could tell them about the sphere, and figure out the play to retrieve Ren.

It pleased him that Ren's well being came first to his mind, rather than vengeance for the attack. Thazienne's rebuke in his quarters had caused him to doubt his motivations. He might be a killer at his core, but he still sometimes acted good, and that pleased him.

He had considered attempting to magically track the other half of the sphere in the possession of the half-drow and his crew but had decided against it. Likely the wizard would have it warded with more powerful spells than Cale could hope to pierce. He also feared that they might be able to use his own spell against him and somehow track it backward to find him. Besides, even had he located it, he would not have moved to retrieve it until after he made contact with Jak.

He headed west, for the Foreign District, to find his friend.

With each step farther from the manse, his mood darkened. The lightness of spirit that had possessed him in Stormweather's gardens disappeared, replaced by the weighty realization that he was alone. At that moment, he was at his most vulnerable-on empty streets, with no allies at his side.

He moved rapidly but stayed alert to his surroundings.

To Cale, the chill air seemed unnaturally still, the silence of the street ominous. He knew that the attackers must have watched Stormweather Towers for days before they attacked, possibly with magic, possibly with spies on roofs. Conceivably, operatives might still be lurking nearby in the darkness, waiting for someone to leave the manse. Though his spells protected him from magical scrying, he had only his wits and skills to guard against ordinary spies. They could have been watching him even then.

Nothing for it, he thought, gazing up at the dark rooftops. In for a dram, in for a drink. If they were out there, he would face them-alone. He loosened his blade in its scabbard.

Out of professional habit, he avoided the dim light cast by the nearly exhausted street torches. A man backlit by torchlight at night presented a perfect target for crossbowmen. Instead, Cale darted through the darkness on one side of the street. Run, stop in shadow, listen, and watch. Even while sprinting his footfalls only whispered over the flagstones. And when he wished, shadows cloaked him like a shroud. Not even the stray dogs sleeping in the shop doorways and alleys stirred at his passing.

As he moved, his gaze went from likely ambush point to likely ambush point-the shadows of doorways, the darkness of alleys, rooftops. He struggled to find the calmness that usually came over him when he was working, but it remained elusive. Despite his precautions and his better sense, he perceived potential ambushers in every shadow. He realized the feeling was likely the result of too little sleep and too much stress. Nevertheless, the feeling remained. Knowing it to be irrational did nothing to obviate its hold on him. It had been a night of irrational experiences, after all-a man with a shattered face and a gut wound had grinned, had thought it "wundafa," and illusionary disguises had perfectly imitated house guards down to their voices. A half-drow with mismatched eyes had invaded his mind and become irate over ruined trousers, and an incorporeal Cyricist mage surrounded by shadows had actually managed to frighten Riven.

Cale could only imagine Ren's state of mind. The boy was not yet twenty and was caught up in something that he likely couldn't understand. When Cale was twenty, he'd been embezzling from the Night Masks and killing men for coin. Ren had made the right decisions, taken legitimate work, and still Beshaba, the goddess of ill-luck, had cursed him.

Fate is a fickle bitch, Cale thought, and he grinned without mirth.

As he moved, he considered his opponents. He knew that he had not yet taken the measure of the mage, the half-drow, and the rest. They were an unknown, and that worried him. He didn't like fighting unknowns. As an assassin, Cale had always preferred to study his targets for days before making his move. He didn't have that luxury though, not if he wanted to get Ren back alive. He wondered again about the half-sphere wrapped in burlap in his pack. It had to be more than it seemed. It-

A high-pitched wail from up ahead, inordinately loud in the night's heavy silence, brought Cale up short and set the dogs in the street to barking. In two hammering heartbeats, Cale had his long sword and holy symbol in hand. The weapon felt lighter than usual in his grip. Darkness seemed to flow along the blade-a trick of the flickering street torches, he supposed. He sunk deeper into the shadows.

Nothing for a moment, then the wail repeated. He tensed.

A dagger toss ahead of him, a gray alley cat sprinted across Sarn Street, screeching. Another darted after it.

Cats. Only cats.

He realized that he was holding his breath. He blew it out in a sigh.

I'm too on edge, he thought. I need to get off the street.

He decided to take to the rooftops. It would be harder work, especially for a tired man, but safer. He would take the heights for as far as Selgaunt's architecture allowed-a long way usually. In all but the Temple and Noble Districts, the city was amazingly uniform. Two story brick and wood buildings with gently pitched, tiled roofs predominated. A skilled man could cover a lot of ground in Selgaunt without ever putting his feet on the street.

Cale turned off the main avenue and jogged down an alley, startling a handful of cats. The damned things seemed everywhere. There, he melded into the darkness, blade ready. He waited a few moments to ensure that he was not being trailed. Nothing. He whispered a prayer to Mask and a globe of the darkness through which only he could see formed around him. A spy, even one with magically augmented vision, would not be able to penetrate it.

Casting the spell brought him the calm that working had not. He held the mask in his hand and remembered that he was not truly alone, even if his god generally was a bastard.

He ran his hands over the brick and wood walls behind him, found his grip, and climbed to the roof of the nearest building. The exertion further cleared his mind.

As he crested the top of the wall and slid onto the roof, he disrupted a roost of eave-doves. They cooed in aggravation, flapped angrily, and paced about, but did not fly away. He avoided stepping on any of them, crossed the roof and surveyed the street below. Still nothing and no one.

Feeling more comfortable, Cale headed uptown at speed. Sometimes he leaped across alleys, sometimes he was forced to descend to street level for a time before re-ascending another building. The process brought him back to himself. Anyone attempting to follow him would have had to have been very good or very airborne.

In less than half an hour, he reached the border of the Foreign District. Below him, an ancient stone wall, only thigh-high, separated the district from the rest of the city. From the rooftops it looked exactly like what it was: a granite line that symbolically divided the "inferior" foreigners from the native Selgauntans. Despite their thirst for commerce, most Sembians still regarded foreigners as backward and uncultured. Cale thought the Sembians had it exactly wrong. While Sembians, especially "noble" Sembians, worked hard to maintain a veneer of cultural sophistication, at their core they were little better than orcs. Cale had experienced firsthand the cutthroat politics of the "civilized" Selgauntan elite. At least orcs were forthright enough to put an axe in an enemy's chest. The Sembians smiled and stuck a punch dagger in a kidney.

Uskevren excepted, of course, he thought with a hard grin.

The streets in the Foreign District were wide enough to accommodate the larger ox wagons necessary to move shipboard goods from the wharves into the city. The alleys too were wider. Though even there Cale could have stuck to the rooftops, the longer jumps across the alleys would have been riskier. Instead, he descended from the roofs, hopped over the short, symbolic dividing wall, and took to the stone paved streets.

Unattended carts dotted the roads. Painted signs, designed to attract the attention of newcomers to the city, hung from shop fronts, the words barely distinguishable in the light of guttering street torches. Periodic reminders of the recently deceased Hulorn's strange artistic tastes loomed out of the darkness like malformed ghosts-here a bronze statue of a rampant chimera on a raised pedestal, there a stone fountain of a hydra spitting dyed water from the mouths of its many heads.

As Cale walked onward, the sky began to gray. Dawn. The dung sweepers would be about their business soon, collecting dried dung from the street and reselling it in the outlying villages for fuel and fertilizer. Lights started to peek through the slats of shop shutters. Sunrise was only a couple of hours away and the city's merchants were preparing for a new day.

Within a quarter hour, the smell of baking bread started to fill the still air-a wholesome smell. Cale savored it. In a few hours, the stink of horses, crowds, and fresh fish would overwhelm the tantalizing aroma of the city's bakeries.

Cale had always enjoyed the pre-dawn hours, both back in Westgate and in Selgaunt. Cities felt different at that hour. With night still hiding the filth, the quiet streets seemed almost pristine. For the few hours before dawn, the whole of the city belonged to the bakers, the fishermen, and the dung sweepers.

And the assassins, Cale thought.

He had killed more than a handful of sleeping men in those quiet hours. More than a handful….

With a shake of his head, he put the past out of his mind and headed for the flat that he and Jak rented.

Jak didn't maintain a permanent residence in the city and was notoriously difficult to find from day to day-a necessary trait in an independent thief operating in a guild-dominated city. After their encounter with the demon lord Yrsillar, Cale and Jak had established a system by which they could easily and quietly contact one another, in case the need arose. The device was a simple one. They had rented a small room in a two-story, wood-framed boarding house in the Foreign District and paid the landlord, a retired sailor from the Dragon Coast as old as the Netherese Empire and as scarred as a butcher's block, a bit extra to leave it and them undisturbed. He never asked questions as long as they paid. Neither Cale nor Jak ever actually stayed in the room, of course-it wasn't a residence or a safe-house. Instead, it was what professionals termed a "lighthouse." It provided a signal, nothing more.

In this case, Cale and Jak kept the shutters closed at all times unless they wanted a meet, in which case, they opened the shutters on at least two windows. Both were to pass by the flat at least once every two or three days. If the shutters were open, the other wanted to meet at the designated time in one of the three designated locations. The time was always sunset. The locations, in order of preference, were a quiet alehall and inn in the Foreign District called the Gilt Lizard; the Scarlet Knave, a gambling den on the wharves; or a dry well a bowshot outside the north gate of the city.

Currently, the shutters were closed, just as they had been two days before when Cale had walked past. He had not seen Jak in over two tendays.

From the street, the boarding house stood dark. Cale wasn't sure if the other six rooms were even rented. Even if they were, the type of tenants who took rooms there were not likely to rise with the dawn.

He crossed the street and trekked silently up the rickety exterior stair that led to their rented room. He stopped at the door, kneeled, and listened. Nothing. He examined the lock to see if it showed signs of tampering. It didn't. He took out his key, drew his blade-it still carried that odd, dark cast in the steel-and he opened the door.

The room was empty, just as he and Jak had left it. It smelled musty from the recent rains, like an old root cellar. Cale struck a tindertwig on the wood-planked wall and the room took shape in the light. It was a small square without furnishings or even a hearth. Had he actually stayed in the room, a hotpot would have been necessary to heat it in the winter.

Cale moved to the windows, opened the shutters, and secured them against the outer wall. When Jak saw them open, he would come in, close them, and head for the Gilt Lizard.

Being there reminded Cale of the room he'd kept as a young letters man and assassin back in Westgate. He'd had a different name then, been a different man. That room had been in a converted storehouse behind the Black Boot Inn, he remembered, near the stables and the inn's kitchen. The place had always smelled of stew or manure, he thought with a smile, depending on the time of day. He had kept his stash of skimmed coin beneath the floorboards. No one had ever found it, though the Night Masks had eventually deduced that he was embezzling guild proceeds and forced him to flee the city.

The thought of hiding the half-sphere there, beneath the floorboards maybe, tempted him. He really felt the thing to be an invitation to an attack. But he resisted. The half-sphere would be safest on his person. Besides, once he met up with Jak, he wanted it to attract the half-drow and his crew. That was the only way Cale could negotiate for Ren's return. He didn't know how to find the half-drow, so he needed the half-drow and wizard to find him. He just wanted it to occur on a timetable that allowed him to learn first what in the Nine Hells the sphere was.

Thinking of the half-sphere reminded him again of his sword-the sword that had sheared the sphere neatly in two, the sword that had shadows dancing along its length. Had its contact with the sphere changed the blade? More importantly, had contact with the sphere changed him? He didn't feel different … did he?

Cale shook his head. He didn't have time to worry about it. He snuffed the tindertwig and headed out.

He would take a room at the Gilt Lizard and await word from Jak. There was nothing else for it. He hoped the halfling checked the flat later that day and saw the open shutters.

Cale headed down the stairs, hit the street, and headed east for the Lizard, which sat deep in the Foreign District.

On the way, his growling stomach reminded him that he needed to eat. Within three blocks, he found a small bakery with an open door and a staff busy at work. It took only the flash of two silver ravens to get Cale a loaf of day-old meatbread-mincemeat and various slaughterhouse leftovers pre-boiled, salted, and baked into wheat bread, a cheap Foreign District staple that he hadn't eaten in years. Afterward, he took a seat in a public plaza, in the shadow of one of the late Hulorn's gorgon-statue fountains. He needed to pass an hour or so. The innkeeper at the Lizard didn't answer knocks until the sixth hour.

The sixth hour… the time was ominous. Soon after that, Cale figured his ward on the sphere would expire.

At that point, he would be carrying a magical beacon in his pack. He had no illusions about what would happen then.

Unfortunately, he could not cast the ward again until he refreshed his spells with meditation, and that he could not do for over eighteen hours. Mask answered Cale's prayers for spells only at midnight. He hoped he could pair up with Jak before the ward expired. If the half-drow and wizard showed, he would like to have the halfling at his side.

Of course, they might not show. Divination spells were not exact, and had limits, even when cast by a wizard of power. In truth, Cale didn't even know if the sphere could be magically scried. Tamlin's divinations had revealed no magic of substance and that was obviously wrong. Perhaps-

Cale shook his head, put all of that out of his mind, and focused on the meatbread. First things first.

With dawn approaching, the birds began to sing. A few starlings alit near the fountain, chirping and fluttering in the water. Cale watched them while he chewed. The meatbread tasted as poorly as he remembered-he had grown spoiled by Brilla's cooking, he thought with a smile-but it did fill his stomach.

After he finished Cale wished he'd bought two loaves. He stretched out his legs and allowed himself to relax for a moment. Resting on a full stomach reminded him of how exhausted he felt. The drone of the fountain's magically driven flow relaxed him, the birds' songs lulled him. He had not slept in well over a day. His eyes felt heavy. He blew out a sigh, crossed his hands behind his head, leaned back, and closed his eyes for just an instant-

— and he awoke with a jolt. Instinctively, his hand went for his sword hilt. His heart thumped. He looked around and …

Nothing. Just the birds and the fountain. He cursed under his breath and let his heartbeat slow.

How long had he been asleep?

Not long, he figured. Probably less than a quarter hour. Dawn still had not broken. He shook his head and rebuked himself for his carelessness. He had been lucky, nothing more. Falling asleep on the street! Dark and empty! A child could have put him down while he dreamed away.

He bent over the fountain, scattering the birds, and splashed water on his face. The cool water shocked him awake. He shook his arms, stretched the stiffness from his legs, and headed out. He would take his chances that the Lizard's innkeeper was up a bit early. He needed a defensible place to rest, at least for a few hours.

The sky lightened further as he walked, but his spirit did not. He knew he could be attacked at any moment. He also knew that he could not stay sharp every hour of every day. Sooner or later he would make a mistake.

Like falling asleep on the street, he thought angrily.

He needed help and he knew it. For an instant, he wondered if he had done the right thing by leaving Stormweather. Perhaps he should have accepted Tamlin's offer of aid.

He shook his head. No. He'd had to leave. The presence of the sphere put the Uskevren at risk. Besides, he could no longer stay in the same home as Thazienne. Also, he saw Mask's hand behind recent events. He didn't think it a coincidence that the wizard who had accompanied the half-drow had worn a holy symbol of Cyric-a rival deity hated by Mask. The Lord of Shadows had used Cale before to thwart the Cyricists. Cale accepted that as one of the duties of his Calling. While he didn't always do exactly what his god dictated, in general their interests were aligned. After all, Cale had no love for the followers of the Dark Sun. But to return to Stormweather might involve the Uskevren in one of the many battles in the divine war between Mask and Cyric. Cale alone had chosen to heed Mask's Calling. He could be a soldier in that war, but he would not conscript the Uskevren.

He reached into his pocket and ran his fingers over the velvet mask that served as his holy symbol.

This fight is ours alone, he thought to Mask.

As though in response, a low whistle sounded from a side street to his right. Cale lowered into a fighting crouch and sought the source.

Riven stepped from the shadows of a covered porch. He had eschewed his scarlet cloak for a more practical gray. That gave Cale pause. Riven rarely discarded his cloak. Was this another illusionary imposter? Cale hesitated.

Riven's mouth twisted in impatience. He waved Cale toward him.

Cale kept his hand near his blade hilt as he walked toward the assassin. He called to mind the prayer that allowed him to see magical dweomers and whispered it under his breath. If the spell showed a dweomer on Riven, Cale would cut him down and determine its accuracy after the fact.

Riven's sabers glowed blue with magic, as did his armor, a ring on his left hand, and something in one of his belt pouches, but not Riven himself. Cale breathed a bit easier. Riven was Riven. Cale should have known. Even the most sophisticated illusion would be hard pressed to mimic the arrogance of Riven's sneer.

Riven nodded at Cale's blade hand and asked, "You nervous, Cale?"

Cale ignored the barb but took his hand off his sword hilt.

"I said I'd find you," said Cale. "You tailing me?"

It concerned him that Riven had tracked him down. If the assassin could do it, so could the wizard and the half-drow.

"You look like the Ninth Hell," Riven said, and grinned through his goatee.

"I asked if you were following me."

"Not exactly," Riven said, and he pulled the chain that held his holy symbol out from behind his blue tunic. The onyx disc looked like a hole in the assassin's callused palm. "A mutual friend told me where to find you."

Cale stared at the symbol, nodded. Mask had probably spoken to Riven in a dream, or a vision. The Lord of Shadows had often so spoken to Cale.

Looking at the holy symbol, Cale wondered again, with a pang of jealousy that surprised him, if Riven could cast spells. After a moment's thought, he decided not. Riven was smart, but his intelligence was more of a practical street wisdom. Cale thought spellcasting required a kind of insight that Riven lacked, a sort of philosophical introspection.

Or at least he would choose to think so.

He wondered too why Riven and he served the same god but used different holy symbols. For that, he had no ready answer, but it somehow comforted him. Mask distinguished between them. Cale liked that.

"What else did he tell you?" Cale asked.

"Nothing."

Riven's sneer softened, and he replaced his holy symbol behind his tunic. Cale nodded knowingly.

"Get used to it," Cale said. "That's his method. He reveals only what he thinks you need to know to serve his purposes. You know why?"

"Don't care."

"Because to him, you're only a tool," Cale answered anyway, though he could tell from Riven's face that the assassin wasn't listening. "You think you're more than that, don't you?"

Riven's one eye narrowed and he said, "You be a tool, Cale. I'll be a weapon."

That made Cale wonder what promises Mask had made to secure Riven's loyalty.

"We'll see," Cale replied. "But I'll do you a favor and tell you something: he's as much your tool as you are his."

He realized how arrogant it sounded the moment the words left his mouth-A god his tool? But, yes. Foolish or not, he regarded Mask as serving him as much as he served Mask. Jak had once described it as a confluence of mortal and divine interests. Cale thought that put too nice a dress on it. It was mutual utility, nothing less and nothing more. Because Cale realized that, he could resist Mask's imperatives and stay his own man. He wondered if Riven could do the same.

"You going to tell me what's going on?" Riven asked.

Cale looked him in the eye and said, "You want in on this? All the way? It's ugly."

Riven's mouth was a tight line, but he said, "I've been in this since those sons of whores blew me out of the Stag. I'm in it all the way."

"Well enough. Let's keep moving."

They fell into stride together, heading for the Lizard. As they walked, Cale filled Riven in on what had occurred at Stormweather.

"So there are at least five of them," Riven said afterward. "That'd be manageable. Where's this sphere then?"

"Half-sphere," Cale corrected. "It's safe. And we're not handling this alone. I'm bringing in Fleet."

Riven stopped cold and pulled Cale around by the shoulder to face him. Cale stared at his hand. Riven removed it.

"That little prig halfling bastard?" Riven sneered. "He's a liability, Cale. You and I can handle this alone. We've taken down Cyricists before."

Cale remembered. They had worked together well. Too well.

"True," Cale acknowledged.

"So why bring in Fleet?"

Because he's my friend, Cale thought but didn't say.

Instead, he stared evenly at Riven and said, "Because I can trust him." He paused before adding, "And I don't trust you."

Riven looked angry for a moment, then recaptured his sneer.

"Pleased to hear it," said the assassin. "I thought you were getting soft."

Cale decided to resolve a few things right then and there. He knew that Riven despised Jak. Several months before, the halfling had nearly killed Riven with a stab through the back. That had been business though, and Cale thought Riven could put it aside as such. After all, he and Riven had scarred each other previously too. But Cale knew that it must have galled the assassin that he had been split by a halfling. Cale had to set some rules. He put a finger on Riven's chest and looked him in the face.

"Fleet's my first choice on this, Riven. It's us, and it's you. You're along for the ride, nothing more, holy symbol or no. We can use your blades, but we can get by without them." He waited for a reply but Riven made none. Cale went on, "If you can't handle being around the little man, then walk away now. You move on him and I'll put you down without a second thought. Clear?"

Riven stared at him, his good eye unreadable, his other an empty hole. A long moment passed. When he spoke, his voice was low and dangerous.

"You know, Cale, you've threatened to kill me before, yet here I stand. You're losing credibility. And one day your threats are going to make me angry."

Cale tensed, let his hand glide near his blade hilt. If he had to, he would take Riven down right then.

Through his goatee, Riven smiled a mouthful of stained teeth and said, "But not today. I hear you. Fleet keeps breathing. But I want in on this, all the way through."

Cale heard the sincerity in Riven's voice. The assassin owed the shadow mage a blood-debt for whatever that spell had done to him in the street.

"You're in then," said Cale. "All the way."

They started walking, the tension still thick. For a time, they said nothing and the silence stretched.

At last, Cale said, "What's it like to have no one to trust, Riven?"

Riven surprised him with laughter-a genuine laugh. Cale didn't think he'd ever before heard the assassin really give vent to true mirth.

"For being so smart, Cale, you sure are a stupid bastard." His laugh gave way to a dark, knowing chuckle. "You don't have anyone you can trust either. You're just blind enough to think you do."

Cale could think of no reply to that. But as he walked, the words "mutual utility" again floated to the front of his consciousness.

Fortunately, the innkeeper at the Lizard, a slim, efficient man named Preht, was up early that morning. His wife and daughters had already begun breakfast preparations. Cale could smell the aroma of cooking sausage coming from the kitchen.

Cale and Riven purported to be travelers from Cormyr. Preht looked doubtful-he obviously wanted no trouble. But when Cale prepaid for a full tenday's lodging, the innkeeper's smile returned tenfold. They declined breakfast. Cale needed rest more than food. After asking Preht to keep an eye open for a halfling who was to meet them there, they headed upstairs to their room.

The room had two cots with clean linens, a night table with a few candles, a chair, a washbasin, a chamber pot, and one small window. Riven closed and latched the shutters. A few beams from the rising sun leaked through the slats.

"You take a few hours," Riven said. "Gods know you look like you need it. I'll watch. Afterward, I'll take a couple myself."

Too tired to argue, Cale only nodded.

Riven took a seat in the chair, his magical sabers drawn and laid across his knees. His eye burned a hole through the door.

Cale laid his bare blade beside him and stretched out on one of the cots. Given their situation, he felt obliged to be honest with Riven. Even the assassin deserved to understand the risk. He did not bother with a preamble.

"I've got the half-sphere in my pack."

The assassin didn't even look at him when he said, "Of course you do. Where else would you have it? A safehouse? I know you too well."

Cale ignored the tone and continued, "The ward I put on it to keep divinations from locating it will expire soon. I can't renew it. Not yet."

Riven stared at him, his eye cold, and asked, "And?"

"They'll be coming for it."

"If anyone other than the innkeeper or Fleet walks into this room, Cale," Riven said with a hard, mirthless grin, "they don't walk out."

Cale gave a nod, and after a moment he said, "You haven't yet asked the play."

It surprised him that Riven had not asked him what was the plan. Had their situations been reversed, Cale would have asked back on the street.

Riven ran a thumb along the blade of one of his sabers and said, "That's because I don't care, just so long as I get to put a handbreadth of steel through that wizard. That part of the plan?"

Cale chuckled.

"All right, then," Riven said. "That's all I need to know. Now, get some sleep."

Cale did just that. As he drifted off, it occurred to him that he ought to be concerned to have a former Zhent assassin sitting with drawn blades only a few paces from where he slept. Inexplicably, he wasn't, and the hours passed too fast.

Riven shook him. Cale came instantly awake.

"I'm drifting, Cale. Give me two hours, then let's get some food."

Riven was asleep almost instantly. Cale kept watch, tense, but nothing untoward occurred. Except Riven's dreams.

Less than half an hour after falling asleep, Riven began to toss about. His brow furrowed and he muttered in an alien tongue, "Nirtfel caul ir vel…"

The words, alien and vulgar, spilled from between Riven's lips. Though he had been a letters man back in Westgate, even Cale had never before heard a language like that. It called to mind moonless nights and blood sacrifice.

Riven grinned fiercely in his sleep, clutched at the disc that hung around his neck, and in that moment, Cale realized that Mask was speaking to Riven in his dreams, showing him, teaching him.

But what?

And why does it bother me so much? he wondered, though he knew the answer.

It bothered him because it meant that Mask saw him and Riven as equally worthy, as peers. Cale didn't like to think he shared much in common with Drasek Riven.

Except that both were killers, through and through.

In his dream, Riven laughed softly.

Cale put Mask out of his mind. He had more immediate concerns than his god's fickleness. He knew Vraggen and the half-drow had to be scouring the city for him. It was only a matter of time before a spell latched onto the half-sphere.

Riven ceased muttering and the next hour passed slowly.

Cale touched the assassin lightly on the shoulder. Riven came awake in an instant.

"You were dreaming," Cale said. "Speaking in your sleep."

He wondered if Riven remembered what Mask had shown him. Riven grunted, sat up, and sneered.

"Oh?" said the assassin. "Did I say anything interesting?"

"Nothing I understood."

Riven nodded and the effort replaced his sneer with a wince.

"My head feels like I took a dwarf's warhammer to the temple."

Cale saw significance in Riven's choice of the word "temple" but said nothing.

Riven tucked his holy symbol under his tunic and the two of them headed downstairs to eat whatever might be leftover from breakfast. Afterward, they moved outside to wait. Neither of them wanted to get caught inside a common room again. Vraggen had already shown a willingness to torch an entire establishment to get at them.

Riven ducked down an alley and climbed atop the roof of an eatery two buildings down from the Lizard. From there, his crossbow marked the whole of the street as well as the Lizard's entrance. Cale could barely see his head above the roof edge.

Cale stayed at street level, eyeing the steady stream of passersby, moving randomly along the block, but always keeping the Lizard in his sight. He saw nothing suspicious. That put him at ease. Perhaps the wizard and half-drow were not as hard on his trail as he suspected.

Jak showed up late that afternoon. He approached from the northeast, moving easily through the street traffic, a lightweight blue cloak thrown over his green pantaloons, gray shirt, and embroidered green vest. As always, a feathered cap topped his head. When Cale saw him, he sighed in relief. He had feared the halfling would not show for days. He could always count on Jak.

Cale signaled Riven, who nodded and left off his post. Then Cale moved to intercept the halfling. Before Jak spotted him, Cale considered invoking the spell that would allow him to detect illusions but decided against it. His enemies used illusions, true, but they could not have learned of Jak and the Lizard so quickly. If they had, they would have already attacked.

Besides, he would not, he could not, stay suspicious of everyone. It drained him, made him edgy, made him Riven. Riven's words from the previous night sounded in his mind: You've got no one you can trust either. You just think you do. Cale rejected that. Jak was Jak and he could trust no one more.

He separated from the crowd and walked toward the halfling. Jak spotted him immediately, smiled, and gave a hail. Cale walked up to him quickly. Jak must have seen the urgency in his face and stride. The halfling's smile vanished.

"Trickster's toes, Cale, what is it?"

"You got here fast. I just left the signal today."

Jak smiled and doffed his cap.

"I check the lighthouse every day, Cale," the halfling said. "You get in more scrapes than my drunken uncle Cob. Now, what's going on? You look pale, even for you."

Cale grinned, took the halfling by the arm, and turned him around.

"Let's walk, Jak. We don't want to stay in one place any longer than necessary."

To keep up, Jak took two or three strides to each of Cale's.

Cale went right to the point: "I've got something sought after by some powerful people, Jak. And they've got something-someone-I want to get back alive."

"One of the Uskevren?" Jak asked.

"No, but one of the house guards. A boy." Cale paused before adding, "Riven's involved."

Jak nodded knowingly and said, "No surprise there. That murdering basta-"

"No," Cale interrupted. "Riven's with us, Jak. He'll catch up with us in a few moments."

Jak stepped in front of Cale and put up a hand for Cale to stop.

"What did you just say? Riven? Drasek Riven?" He looked around for the assassin, didn't see him, then stared into Cale's face, bristling. "Riven's an indiscriminate killer, Cale. Did you fall asleep in a mistleaf den or something?"

Cale couldn't help but smile. That seemed to round the edge of the halfling's anger. Jak raised his eyebrows and looked at him uncertainly.

"It's a long story, my friend," Cale said. "For now, Riven's with us. But he and I have already had a talk. He crosses you, I put him down."

Jak harrumphed and crossed his arms over his chest.

"He crosses me and I put him down," said the halfling.

"Fair enough," Cale said, still smiling. He put a hand on Jak's shoulder. "We've got a room in the Lizard. Let's head back and go up."

They did. In the room, Jak took a seat on one of the cots, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees. Riven arrived moments later.

Jak stared at the assassin. The assassin stared at Jak. Neither said anything.. Cale let it go. If this partnership was to work, Jak had to establish some of his own rules. Cale knew the halfling knew that, full well.

Riven swaggered across the room to stand over the halfling, a sneer on his face. Jak continued to stare, unflinching.

"Jak Fleet," Riven said, with sarcastic courtesy. "Well met indeed. I'd hoped to see you under … different circumstances."

Riven held out his hand, a disingenuous offer of peace, and Jak stared at it contemptuously.

"You better put that back where it belongs before it gets lighter by a few fingers."

Riven gave a cold, hard smile and teased, "Yap, yap, little dog. Do you ever bite? I haven't forgotten anything, you know."

Jak stood up, hand on his short sword hilt, chest puffed out, and said, "Neither have I. You still wearing a scar in that kidney?"

Riven's intake of breath was as sharp as a razor. He glared down at Jak, hands on the hilts of his own blades.

"You pull them," Jak said, "you'd better be ready to see it through."

The halfling's lower lip noticeably twitched, and his green eyes blazed.

Riven held Jak's gaze for a moment longer, chuckled, and backed off a step.

"He's got backbone, Cale, and no denying that," Riven said. "Maybe I'll see it sometime."

Still chuckling, he turned and took a seat on the other cot.

Jak followed him with his eyes, sitting only after Riven did.

That was that, Cale thought, and made sure not to smile. Well done, little man.

Jak glanced at Cale, his cheeks red under his bushy sideburns, and said, "These people after you must be something for you to partner up with him." He jerked a small thumb at Riven, who only sneered. "What is it they want?"

Cale took the half-sphere from his pack, unwrapped the burlap, and showed it to the halfling. Jak hopped to his feet and walked over to Cale.

"This?" the halfling asked as he took the half-sphere in his hands, eyeing the tiny, colored gemstones set within the quartz. "Gems are valuable, but other than that, it doesn't look like much. I'd probably bypass it on a second story job." He pulled out his holy symbol, a jeweled pendant he had lifted from somewhere, and intoned a prayer to Brandobaris, the halfling god of rogues and tricksters. "It's not magical either. You sure this is what they want?"

"I'm sure," Cale said.

Riven, seated on the cot, leaned back against the wall and guffawed. He was sure too.

Only then did the implications of what the halfling had said hit Cale.

"Wait, you detect no magic at all?"

"No. Should I?" While he spoke, Jak removed an ivory bowled pipe from one of his belt pouches and fished around in another for his tin of pipeweed.

"I don't know."

At Stormweather, Tamlin had detected protective spells on the sphere. Could it be losing its power? More alarming, could it be masking its power somehow?

"Jak," said Cale, "we need to know what this thing is… or was. You know anyone who can help? A Harper maybe?"

Jak had once belonged to the Harpers, a broad-reaching organization that sought to do "good," whatever that meant.

Jak filled his pipe, and struck it with a tindertwig. He blew out a smoke ring in Riven's direction and nodded.

"I know someone," Jak said, "but he's no Harper. He's … well, you'll see. He is discreet, though, in his way, and I've used him before. It'll cost us."

"I've got the coin," Cale said.

"I've got coin too," Riven said, surprising them both.

"Well enough," Jak said, with a raised eyebrow directed at Cale.

After that, Cale filled the halfling in on the details of the past night, including the use of illusions, the half-drow's and Almor's telepathic abilities, and the way splitting the sphere had seemed to affect Cale's sword.

Riven leaned forward on the cot and listened intently throughout. It was the first time Cale had mentioned the change in his enchanted sword and the attackers' use of telepathy. Jak took it all in. When Cale finished, the halfling blew out another smoke ring.

"A mental mage?" he asked. "That might explain the 'illusion.' You might have only thought they looked like the guards."

Cale hadn't considered that. Mental mages-psionicists-were so rare that he'd never encountered one before. He had no idea what one might be capable of doing.

"Possible," Cale said. "I don't know. They didn't manage their weapons like mages, though, mental or otherwise."

"How would we fight psionicists?" Jak asked the ceiling, thoughtful.

"Same way as anything, little man," Cale said, and put his hand on his sword hilt.

"Damned right," added Riven. He picked his teeth with his little finger. "I knew a psionicist once. Little different than an ordinary wizard. Nothing special."

Cale thought Riven's words sounded forced but did not comment.

"I hope not," Jak said. He looked to Cale. "You think they've kept the guard-Ren-alive?"

Cale shook his head. He didn't know, but he sure hoped so. He felt responsible for Ren being captured. He'd told the young man it would all work out. It hadn't.

"He's alive," Riven said. "Else why take him? He's a contingency. If they'd gotten away with the whole sphere, he'd be dead already. They didn't, though, so he's not. Yet. But that doesn't mean they won't have a go at us anyway."

Neither Jak nor Cale took issue with Riven's reasoning. It made sense.

"Now what?" Jak asked the room.

Cale answered, "Now you take us to your contact, and we find out what this is."

"You have a ward on our half?" Jak asked Cale. "To prevent magical tracking?"

"I did. Not anymore. You?"

"Of course," Jak said, and gave him a wink. The halfling again took out his holy symbol and incanted a prayer, all the while holding his pipe in one corner of his mouth. "That ought to keep it for a while."

Cale smiled. He should have known the halfling would have a warding spell available. A good thief could always shield his swag.