Shadow's Witness

  When he removed his small hand, Cale saw the item—a silver pin in the shape of an exquisite harp. The symbol of Jak’s membership in the Harpers.

  “He’s my best friend, Brelgin. If we can’t help him, then we no longer includes me. I’m out.”

  Without another word, Jak turned and walked out of the temple, a stunned Cale following and a speechless Brelgin left in their wake.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE RETURN

  Neither man said a word when they emerged onto the Avenue of Temples. Worshipers thronged the street. The smell of incense hung thick in the cold air. Simultaneously, the bells of several temples began to sound the noon hour.

  Jak turned and looked at Cale, his eyebrows raised in question.

  “East,” Cale replied above the din. “Toward the docks. Good a place as any to spend the rest of the day.”

  Jak nodded agreement.

  Picking their way through the crowd, they sloshed through Selgaunt’s bustling streets and headed eastward for the Wharf District.

  Cale smelled the fish market a full block before they reached the bay. By the time they had reached the next intersection, he could hear the dull, inchoate roar of the market in full swing. Now midday, the bayside fish stalls teemed with people and overflowed with the winter bounty of the bay—steelfin and cod, mostly. Customers haggled loudly for the day’s catch. Fishmongers affected pained expressions and counter-offered. Coins clinked and moved from hand to greedy hand. Selgaunt went about its business.

  Ships crowded the piers, the winter-cloaked crews busy about the decks and rigging. Sails snapped in the salty wind. Frost-covered ropes creaked in their pulleys. The shouts of sailors and the bellowed orders of captains filled the air. Though he had lived along the Inner Sea his whole life, Cale had been aboard ship only once, and that had been a harrowing adventure. Cale had fled Westgate aboard Wave Runner, a schooner captained by a one-armed, vulgar pirate named Gros Fallimor. Though he and Gros had become fast friends on that voyage, after debarking in Selgaunt he had never seen the old pirate again.

  Thoughtful, Cale’s gaze drifted out to sea. The still water of the bay mirrored the gray of the overcast sky. In the distance, working to keep the shipping lanes clear of floes, he could see powerful icebreakers plowing through the water like iron-plated dolphins.

  “Let’s get a room somewhere. I need a bath and some rest,” said Cale. The filth of the guildhouse still lingered on his clothes, and he suddenly felt the effects of a day and a half without sleep. “We’ll move on the guildhouse an hour or so before dawn.”

  Jak looked surprised at that, and nervous. “You want to move against Yrsillar at night? That soon?”

  Cale nodded firmly as they skirted the market and walked along the pier. “I’d go after him right now if I didn’t think fatigue would make me sloppy. We can’t delay any longer than necessary.” He stopped and looked his friend in the face. “There’s no predicting what that bastard will do next. He wants me, but I’m not all he wants. He’s going to keep killing unless someone stops him. And if he can continue turning men into ghouls …”

  “He’ll have an army soon enough,” Jak finished solemnly. “We go at night, then.”

  Cale began again to walk, his mind on revenge. “Don’t be worried, Jak. Darkness is as much our element as it is his.”

  To that, Jak said nothing. After a few moments of silence, the little man seemed to reach a decision. He pulled Cale to a stop and looked into his face, embarrassed but determined.

  “Cale, when I first saw the shadow demon in Sarntrumpet, I froze. It scared me so bad I just froze.” He paused and added softly. “I wanted you to know.”

  Cale stared at him a long moment. “So now I know. It doesn’t change anything. There’s no one I’d rather have with me.”

  Jak smiled gratefully.

  “It scared me too,” Cale confessed. “But it’s a magical fear, supernatural. Since we know that now, it’ll be easier next time.”

  Jak did not look totally convinced. Cale wasn’t sure that he was entirely convinced himself.

  “Let’s get a room,” he said.

  They took a room at the Winsome Wench, a low-cost flophouse used mostly by transient sailors and operated by a weather-beaten old woman named Matilda who looked as tough as boiled leather. She was a wench, but hardly winsome. Cale paid her an extra fivestar for the luxury of a bath and laundry service.

  Afterward, he took a glass of hot spiced cider in his room, climbed into the lower bunk of the tiny bed, and quickly fell asleep.

  He awoke to find the room dimly lit by a single candle set in a tin candleholder. Jak sat cross-legged on the floor beside it, eyes closed, holy symbol in hand, meditating. Cale knew him to be praying to Brandobaris for spells, committing magical words to memory in preparation for the confrontation with Yrsillar.

  Surprisingly, the small window in their room that overlooked the bay was dark. The sounds of commerce, cargo, and shipping had fallen silent. The wharf seemed eerily quiet.

  He cleared his throat to get Jak’s attention and asked in a whisper, “What time is it, little man?”

  It took Jak a moment to come out of his prayer trance. When he did, he opened one eye and cocked an eyebrow at Cale. The soft glow of the candlelight made him look like a sinister, red-headed pixie. “A few hours past midnight,” he softly replied. “Selune will be setting soon.”

  “Dark,” Cale oathed in surprise, and sat up in the bed. He had slept away the whole day and most of the night. “Sorry about that, Jak,” he said, while pulling on his freshly laundered shirt. The laundry girl must have brought in his clothes while he slept. “I didn’t mean to sleep that long.”

  Jak pocketed his holy symbol, stood up, and used the candle to light the wick of the room’s single oil lamp. Cale squinted as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness.

  “Not a problem. It gave me time to come to terms with Brandobaris. Just in case.” He laughed casually, but Cale thought it sounded forced. “Besides, while you slept I had some of Matilda’s fish stew and homemade ale. Quite good actually. Wouldn’t have been my choice for a last meal, though.” He tried to smile at his joke but managed only a pained grimace.

  Cale could think of nothing to say to ease his friend’s uneasiness. He too felt less than sure that he would see another sunrise. He tried to change the subject. “You should’ve gotten some sleep, Jak. Elaena said you needed rest.”

  The little man snorted as he belted on his short sword and daggers. “Are you kidding? Burn me, Cale, I feel like my skin is on fire. I couldn’t fall asleep if a mage used a sleep spell on me.” Seeing Cale’s concerned frown, he hurriedly added, “But I’m still ready for this. I’m not … it’s just the waiting.”

  Cale nodded. He understood. Had he not been absolutely exhausted, he doubted he would have been able to sleep either. He stood and stretched his long frame and belted on his weapons.

  “Let’s get a quick meal and get this over with. No more waiting.”

  “A meal? You hungry?”

  Cale donned his enchanted leather armor and threw on his new blue cloak.

  “Not especially. But I need to do something … normal beforehand. You understand?”

  “I understand. Definitely.” Jak smiled. “I’m hungry again, anyway.”

  They gathered up their gear, took the candle in hand, and walked down the hall to Matilda’s room. After a round of firm knocking, the sleepy, grumbling old woman opened her door a crack.

  “What is it?” she croaked.

  “We’re leaving,” Cale announced. “Now, and we won’t be back.”

  She nodded, grumbled something obscene under her breath, and tried to shut the door. Cale stuck his boot in the opening to prevent it from closing. “We would like something to eat before we go, old woman. It’s important.”

  At that, her eyes narrowed angrily. “It’s too damned late,” she protested. “You’ll have to—”

  Cale shut her up by flashing a handful o
f fivestars. “One meal, Matilda. It’s not a lot to ask. I said it’s important.”

  She studied the coins, torn between sleepiness and greed. The gold in Cale’s hand represented more than a tenday’s rent. After only a moment, greed won out. She gave a brisk nod and grabbed the fivestars in a wrinkled hand. “I’ll get dressed and be down in a moment. You’ll set your own table though, you hear? There’s bowls and spoons in the cabinet.”

  “Fair enough,” Cale said, and headed downstairs to the dining room with Jak.

  They took bowls, cups, and semi-clean tableware from an ancient wooden cabinet and sat at the sturdy common table. Within a few minutes, Matilda, now dressed in faded nightclothes, descended the stairs and walked into the kitchen to start a fire. She was still grumbling.

  “Stew, bread, and ale is all I got,” she announced over her shoulder.

  Cale shot a longsuffering smile at Jak. “Looks like you’re getting fish stew as a last meal no matter what you do, little man.”

  “So it seems,” Jak replied, and distractedly passed his finger back and forth through the candle’s flame. “It’s fate, Cale, and there’s no point fighting fate.”

  Before long, Matilda emerged from the kitchen. In her gnarled hands, she held a serving board set with a pot of steaming stew, a loaf of day old black bread, and a pitcher of ale. After setting the whole on the table, she filled both their cups with ale and ladled their bowls full with the chunky fish stew.

  “You have as much of this as you want,” she told them. “Leave the mess and I’ll get to it in the morning.” She took a step back and eyed Cale determinedly. “But I’m going back to bed now, gold or no gold. This ain’t no time for decent folks to be up and about.”

  “No, it’s not. Thank you, Matilda, and goodnight.”

  Startled by his considerate reply, she muttered under her breath, walked away, and slowly walked back up the creaking stairs.

  Jak and Cale sat in silence. They picked at the food, their minds on other things.

  As he spooned in another mouthful of the stew—it was tasty, as Jak had said—Cale looked around the seamy dining room. Empty now, the morning would no doubt find the dirt-stained floor populated by seedy men with dirt-stained souls. Anyone, including fall-down drunks, thieves on the lam, assassins on a job, and whatever other dregs had managed to stumble into Matilda’s boarding-house with enough coin for a night’s lodging. Back in Westgate, Cale had taken pre-dawn breakfasts in rooms exactly like this more times than he could count.

  This is who you are, he thought, and felt no sadness, only resignation. He had tried for years to deny it, to be nothing more than a butler and a kind man, but he was too tired to deny his nature any longer. His soul, too, was dirt-stained, and this was where he belonged.

  “Dark,” Jak oathed. He set down his spoon and stared at Cale with wide eyes.

  Cale waved the candle smoke out of his face. “What?” His hand went to his sword hilt and he half rose from the chair. His eyes searched the dark room but he saw nothing. “What?”

  Jak’s hand went to the pocket where he kept his holy symbol. “Just now,” he said, still shocked. “The smoke. It … formed a mask around your eyes.”

  “You’re mistaken,” Cale instinctively protested, but his flesh goosepimpled.

  “I’m not,” Jak insisted. “Blast. Something’s happening here, Cale. With Yrsillar. With us. Something big. Dark and empty, but I can feel it.” He pulled his holy symbol from his pocket and rolled it along his knuckles.

  Cale decided then to tell Jak everything. Maybe the little man could shed some light on what was happening.

  “Jak, listen. When I faced Yrsillar, he called me a Champion of Mask.” He felt stupid saying it aloud, but there it was. “That mean anything to you?”

  Jak shook his head, but his knowing eyes studied Cale intently.

  “He also said that there is another, that there are two Champions of Mask.” He looked questioningly at the little man. “Could that be us?”

  Jak immediately shook his head and held his holy symbol up between thumb and forefinger. “Not possible,” he said. “You could be one, I suppose, but I couldn’t. I’m a priest of Brandobaris. I can’t also be the servant of another god, much less the servant of Mask. If there’s another Champion, it’s someone other than me.”

  Cale accepted that with a nod. He sat back in his chair and gulped his ale.

  Jak leaned forward and looked at him earnestly. “That confirms it though, Cale. The gods are involved here. Or at least Mask. Cale … I think you’re being called.”

  “You’re crazy.” Cale sipped from his ale and tried to keep his hand from shaking.

  Jak laughed softly. “It’s hard to get your hands around, I know.” He sipped from his own ale. “You know how I became a priest of Brandobaris?”

  Cale looked up and shook his head. They had never discussed Jak’s entry into the Trickster’s priesthood. Cale welcomed the opportunity to learn more about his friend.

  “It was Year’s End Eve in the Year of the Serpent,” Jak said, “just after the Time of Troubles. I was twenty-six then.” His voice grew distant as he journeyed far back in his memory. “I was doing a fourth-story job in Hillsfar—I was solo then too,” he added with a playful wink, and took a gulp from his ale.

  “Cale, I got in and out of this noble’s villa without a hitch, loaded with swag. I had enough king’s pictures to last two years.” He chuckled and shook his head. “But I was young and stupid. Really stupid. I took too much, and it was way too heavy. I got ten feet down the wall, lost my balance, and fell.”

  “Fell! You?” Halfling rogues notoriously lacked climbing skill, but over the years Jak had repeatedly proven himself an exception.

  Jak nodded, smiling. “I should’ve left nothing more than a bloodstain and a pile of coins on the pavement.” He gripped his holy symbol and leaned forward intently. “Instead, I drifted to the ground like a feather.”

  Cale knew what that meant—he had heard similar stories before. “Divine gift.”

  “Divine gift,” agreed Jak with a nod. “I turned over that whole take to the first priest of Brandobaris I could find. Took the rites right there. I was called. You see?”

  Cale took a draw on his ale. “I see … but how’d you know it was Brandobaris that had called you? Why not some other god? Why not luck? Or the whim of a passing mage?”

  “No, it was the Trickster, all right.” Jak nodded thoughtfully and stroked his whiskered chin. “How can I explain? I think it’s different for everybody, Cale, but I just knew, you know? The same way you know your mother is your mother, even though you didn’t see her give birth to you.” He crossed his hands and eyed Cale shrewdly. “Has something like that already happened to you?”

  Cale sipped thoughtfully from his ale and recalled the mysterious darkness that only he had been able to see through. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe.” He felt himself being pulled along through events he didn’t fully understand, the marionette of a divine puppeteer. He didn’t like it. He would be no one’s puppet, not even a god’s. Especially not a god’s.

  As though reading his mind, Jak said, “You’re always your own man, Cale, even after you accept your calling, and you can reject it. Most don’t though—the gods seem to call only those ready and able to accept. Kind of a convergence of mortal and divine interests.”

  It pleased Cale to learn that a call could be rejected. He wasn’t sure Mask had tried to call him, but if so, he reserved the right to refuse.

  I’m not changing for you, Mask, understand? He had tried changing for Thamalon and Thazienne, and it had only made things worse. He was through with trying to be something other than what he was. A skilled killer.

  He put Mask out of his mind and finished his stew. “You ready?” he asked Jak.

  The little man’s face fell slightly but he rallied quickly. “Ready.” Hurriedly, Jak slammed back the last of his ale and enjoyed a final spoonful of stew.

  “Then let’s
do this.”

  Verdrinal awoke with a start. His heart thumped so hard in his chest that he thought it would surely explode. The residuum of the sound that had awakened him from his nightmare played at the edge of his still sleepy consciousness and promised him an ugly death.

  There’s someone in the room! his mind screamed.

  Slowly, he slid his hand under the sheets and patted the space to his right—nothing. Dark, he inwardly cursed. For the first night in the last five, he had not taken a lover. He was alone.

  Terrified, but unwilling to die without trying to take some action, he jerked upright in bed and peered around the opulence of his bedchambers. He saw only darkness—the hearth had burned itself out. It must be several hours past midnight.

  Heart racing, he waited for the sleep to clear from his eyesight. Within a few moments, he could make out varying shades of gray—his dressing table, armoire, work desk, divan, dressing screen, chairs—

  There! A shadowy figure stood near his wardrobe. His breath left him, his body went weak, his intent to fight to the last vanished under a tidal wave of fear.

  “Dark!” he screamed.

  He threw off his sheets in a cloud of silk, rolled across the bed, and reached for the nightstand drawer where he kept a poisoned knife. He couldn’t control his fingers—he fumbled clumsily with the drawer latch. He couldn’t breathe—he wanted to scream for Hov but his constricted throat would make no sound. He would be dead in a heartbeat.

  Damn this drawer! Damn this drawer! He stared over his shoulder in terror. The figure didn’t move. He froze, cocked his head, and peered intently through the darkness. The figure didn’t move because …

  It’s my damned night cloak, he realized. He had thrown it over his wardrobe before coming to bed.

  “My cloak,” he muttered. He would have laughed but he still hadn’t recovered his breath. His sweat-soaked body shivered in the night’s cold. He collapsed back into the bed and stared up at the ceiling until his heart ceased pounding.