Midnight's Mask

  Jak absorbed the story in wide-eyed silence. Finally, he said, “He’s a plant? Burn me! Every time I think I have that blackheart figured….”

  “You are not alone in that,” Magadon said.

  Jak popped his pipe in his mouth and looked up at Cale, his expression mildly hurt. “You could have trusted me with it.”

  “I know that, little man,” Cale answered. “It wasn’t trust. I figured the fewer who knew, the better. And I wanted at least one of us to be outside of it, in case something went wrong. If we all started to go mad, I wanted someone who could figure things out and fix it.”

  Jak seemed to accept that. He chewed his pipe, thoughtful, and said, “You three were talking a long while to come up with this little scheme. And you said something in a foreign language, Cale. What about that?”

  “We did?” Cale asked.

  “You did,” Jak answered.

  Cale had no idea what Jak was talking about. He looked to Magadon, whose face showed similar confusion.

  “Something else?” Cale asked Magadon. “Another contingency?”

  Magadon shook his head. “Perhaps. We won’t know until we know.”

  “Trickster’s hairy toes,” Jak softly said.

  Cale agreed. The idea that something else might have been placed in his mind but he was ignorant of it….

  From far down one of the tunnels, whispers sounded, hisses. They trailed back to silence. Still, whatever lived in the Underdark of the Plane of Shadow must have heard their voices or perhaps seen their light.

  All three had blades in hand before they drew their next breath. Jak pocketed his pipe and licked his lips.

  “We should not stay here overlong,” the little man said.

  Weaveshear leaked shadows; so too did Cale’s flesh.

  “We aren’t,” Cale said. “Mags, show me what Riven sees. We go on my word. We wait for the Sojourner to show, find out what we can, then hit him with everything we have.”

  Magadon nodded, closed his eyes, and concentrated. A violet halo surrounded his head and he held up his free hand. Cale took it.

  And saw.

  For the hundredth time, Riven rebuked himself for leaving Cale bleeding but alive. He still did not understand why he had done it. He never left opponents alive. A simple flick of his blade would have opened Cale’s throat and put an end to the First of the Shadowlord. Cale’s shade flesh could not have regenerated the damage that Riven could have done.

  He could not explain his behavior. When he looked back, it was as though someone else had been controlling him. The events atop the tower were a blur in his memory.

  He pushed the recriminations out of his mind as unproductive nonsense. He needed to focus on the present. He stood on a sword’s edge and he knew it. He had taken a gamble allying with the slaadi. The creatures were unreliable; they might turn on him at any time.

  He did not know where the slaadi had brought him. From the crumbling cavern near Skullport, they had teleported to the surface, mentally communicated with their master, the Sojourner, and from there teleported to….

  Here, Riven thought.

  The foppish slaad Azriim, in his preferred half-drow form, stood to one side of him, and the dull slaad, Dolgan, stood to the other. Both seemed to have already recovered from the wounds inflicted on them at the Skulls’ tower.

  “Where are we?” Riven asked.

  “Home,” Azriim answered.

  They were in the center of a smooth-walled, hemispherical chamber. There were no windows and the stone, while smooth, was not masonry, so Riven assumed they were underground. The dry air smelled faintly of medicines or perhaps alchemical preparations. The smell made his nose tingle.

  A thick carpet covered the floor, and a single, dim green glowglobe on the far side of the chamber provided the only light. The globe cast only enough illumination to raise shadows in the room. Riven could see little. Irregularly-shaped mounds dotted the floor and it took Riven a moment’s study to recognize them as cushions and furniture. In better light, the place must have looked like a Calishite Caliph’s harem room.

  Riven saw no means of egress, no doors or archways of any kind. That made him uncomfortable, and he let his hands fall to the hilts of his sabers. It would have been ridiculous for the slaadi to have brought him all the way here only to ambush him, but….

  They are unpredictable, he thought. And it’s better to be cautious than dead.

  He decided to take steps to ensure a means of escape, should he need it.

  “Home is dark,” he said. “How about a light? I can’t see past my hands.”

  He deliberately stepped on a cushion at his feet and feigned a stumble into Dolgan. Cursing, he intentionally entangled himself in the slaad’s cloak and limbs—the slaad’s form looked fat but his body was as solid as a tree—and used the short-lived tussle to lift the teleportation rod from the slaad’s cloak pocket.

  “Watch where you step, human,” the big slaad said, dislodging Riven and shoving him away.

  “I can’t watch anything, oaf,” Riven answered. “I said I cannot see.” He feigned a second stumble on another cushion and used the movement to secrete the rod in his cloak. “There are cushions all over the floor and walking on this ridiculous carpet is like moving through mud.”

  “I selected these carpets myself,” Azriim said, his tone mildly hurt.

  “I’m not surprised,” Riven answered, putting a sneer in his voice.

  Dolgan said to Azriim, “Why can’t I just kill him?”

  “I am tempted,” Azriim said lightly, “given his view of my carpets.”

  Riven stared into Dolgan’s face, the features indistinguishable in the darkness. “His permission to try won’t make it so, slaad. I’d put you down in less than a tencount, darkness or no.”

  Riven kicked away the cushions near him, to clear any trip hazards. Both hands went to saber hilts and he balanced on the balls of his feet. Dolgan took a step forward but Azriim stopped him with an arm across his chest.

  “Enough,” Azriim commanded, smiling indulgently. “You’re adding to his tension.”

  Riven kept his gaze on Dolgan but said to Azriim, “You haven’t yet seen me tense, slaad.”

  “I can smell your sweat at ten paces,” Azriim said.

  Dolgan glared at Riven and said, “I do not understand why we have not killed him. His brood killed Serrin, wounded you, wounded me.”

  “Brood?” Riven asked derisively. “I’m a man, oaf. I don’t have a brood. And you’re fortunate that it wasn’t me who gave you the wound. If it had, you wouldn’t be standing here to annoy me.”

  Azriim ignored Riven and said to Dolgan, “You enjoy being wounded, Dolgan, so no harm done. And besides, I like him.” He looked at Riven and smiled broadly. “Even though he has poor taste in clothes, friends … and carpets.”

  Dolgan started to speak but Azriim cut him off, saying, “Silence, now. The Sojourner comes.”

  Riven felt something … a presence … join them, fill the space. He could find no other way to characterize it.

  The slaadi looked past him, their eyes wide.

  Riven could not help himself, though it meant turning his back to the slaadi. He turned around to see a circular hole in the wall where none had been before. Floating a hand’s-breadth off the floor before it was a humanoid creature that could only be the Sojourner. The instant Riven laid eyes on the creature, memories from the Plane of Shadow flooded him.

  “Father,” said Dolgan, awe in his tone, and Riven heard the big slaad abase himself.

  Azriim stepped forward and put a hand on Riven’s shoulder. The sudden contact gave Riven a start but he managed not to gut the slaad.

  Azriim said, “Sojourner, I’ve brought you a present.”

  “What in all the Hells is that?” Cale breathed. Wisps of shadow snaked from his flesh.

  “The Sojourner,” Magadon answered softly. “It must be.”

  “Dark,” Cale swore. He knew that at that moment Riven’s
memory was filling in.

  Beside them, Jak asked, “What does he look like? What is he?”

  Cale only shook his head. “I don’t know, Jak.” He had never seen a creature like the Sojourner.

  The Sojourner was neither slaad nor human, though he was humanoid in shape. With his pale flesh and skeletal frame, Cale might have thought him undead had it not been for the thready black veins pulsing beneath his skin. He bore a staff, and several magical gemstones orbited his head.

  Magadon said, “Gods. I can detect his mental energies even through the link with Riven. He has a presence, Erevis. Do you feel it? I think he’s not only a wizard but also a mindmage.”

  “A mindmage? Like you?” Cale asked.

  “Not like me,” Magadon corrected. “More powerful, Erevis. Much more. Riven is in very real danger.”

  Cale nodded. To Jak, he said, “Little man, cast every defensive spell on us that you can. Hurry. Do whatever you can to shield us from spells and mental attacks.”

  “Done,” Jak said. He pulled out his holy symbol, a jeweled pendant, and recited the words to a spell, then another.

  Still watching through Riven’s eyes, Cale said, “Speed and surprise are all we have. When we get there, we concentrate everything on the Sojourner. He’s the target. The slaadi are incidental. Mags, can you tell Riven that we’re coming?”

  “Not without risk of detection by the Sojourner,” Magadon answered. “He will be sensitive to mental emanations. I’m surprised he hasn’t yet detected the visual leech.”

  “Then we’ll surprise Riven, too,” Cale said. “Get ready. We go when I say.”

  Cale held off because he wanted to give Riven a moment to gather himself. The rush of memories was intense. Besides, he also wanted to learn as much as he could before attacking. He could not hear through the mind leech but he could see enough to read the Sojourner’s thin lips.

  Meanwhile, Jak continued to cast.

  In a rush, Riven remembered why he had betrayed Cale, why he had left the First of the Shadowlord bleeding but not dead. The torrent of memories made his temples burn.

  He was a plant.

  Only long practice allowed him to keep his face expressionless. He suddenly became painfully conscious that a mind-reading slaad stood beside him and another behind him, and that the Sojourner—a creature of obvious but unknown power—hovered across the chamber.

  Riven, Magadon, and Cale had devised a plot back on the Plane of Shadow to get Riven close to the Sojourner. Riven’s betrayal of Cale was designed to gain the slaadi’s trust, which it had. Magadon and Cale would then use Riven as a beacon to bring them to the Sojourner.

  Snippets of the exchange played in his mind.

  Why me? Riven had asked, when Cale had related his idea.

  You already know why, Cale had answered, and Riven had known why: because a betrayal by a former Zhent and assassin was believable; because the Second of the Shadowlord would surely covet the position of the First; because Riven was a better killer than Cale.

  It was believable enough that it was almost true. Hells, perhaps it was true.

  Riven’s mind raced; he pored through his memories. What had he really intended? He could not remember many of the details. But he did remember that he’d wanted to keep other options available. And at that moment other options were looking more and more appealing.

  When Riven had told Azriim in Skullport that he always sided with the winner, he had meant it. And while he deplored being second to Cale in Mask’s eyes, he also had thought back then that they would succeed. Mask was blessing him with more powers every tenday. He’d had no intention of remaining the Shadowlord’s Second forever.

  But he could see now that his calculus had been off. He had stood face to face with high-ranking members of the Zhentarim, powerful priests, skilled warriors, all of them powerful men and women, but he had never before stood in the presence of anything like the Sojourner. The creature’s thin body fairly sparked with pent-up power; his presence implied might. There would be no defeating him.

  If Riven wanted to side with the winner, he had to side with the Sojourner and the slaadi.

  He reconsidered the plan, reconsidered everything. He may or may not have planned a betrayal of the betrayal back on the Plane of Shadow, but now….

  Don’t come, he thought to Cale and Magadon, in case Magadon was somehow connected to him. Don’t bother.

  The Sojourner looked past Riven and Azriim to Dolgan and said, “Stand, Dolgan.” His soft voice leaked so much power that it seemed to squeeze everything else out of the room.

  Over his shoulder, Riven watched the big slaad lurch to his feet, as obedient as a well-trained dog. Dolgan was gnawing excitedly at his lower lip, so hard it was bleeding. Riven wanted to sneer at the oaf’s obsequiousness but could not quite manage it. Obsequiousness seemed appropriate, somehow.

  Dolgan caught his gaze, made a bloody grin, and said, “Maybe you’re tense now, eh?”

  Riven resisted the urge to slit the bastard’s throat and turned back to face the Sojourner.

  The creature held a smooth duskwood staff in his pale, long-fingered hands. A tracery of gold or electrum spiraled around the shaft from base to top. He inclined the staff slightly and the hole in the wall behind him vanished, replaced again by smooth stone.

  No wonder Riven had seen no exits. The Sojourner created them as needed. Riven was doubly pleased that he had lifted Dolgan’s teleportation rod. He would need to figure out its operation quickly, should an emergency arise.

  Riven considered the Sojourner. He looked vaguely human, but unlike any race of humans with which the assassin was familiar. Standing a head taller than even Cale, the Sojourner’s thin body looked as though it had been stretched overlong by pulling him at the ankles and head. Sunken black eyes in cavernous sockets stared out of a similarly elongated face. His nose was little more than a bump with two vertical slits, his lips as thin as blades. The points of his backswept ears reached nearly to the top of his bald, spotted pate. A handful of magical gemstones whirred around his head in different orbits. Seeing them, Riven was reminded somehow of Cale’s celestial sphere, the magical artifact that had started everything.

  “A present, Azriim?” the Sojourner asked, letting his gaze fall on Riven as he floated forward across the room. Outside the light of the glow globe, the Sojourner was reduced to a shadow in Riven’s sight.

  With great effort, Riven kept his face a mask—no fear, no wonder, no dread—even while his mind moved through possibilities.

  Azriim said, “Yes, Sojourner. This human was … helpful in our successful use of the Weave Tap. His clothes are unfortunate, I acknowledge. And his taste is poor in general. But neither of those are fatal flaws.”

  Riven did not bother to correct Azriim, though he had been more than merely helpful with planting the Weave Tap seed—he had been instrumental. Without Riven’s intervention, Cale would have killed Azriim.

  But instead of speaking, Riven made a stiff bow. The gesture did not come easily to him.

  “Sojourner,” Riven said.

  The creature did not acknowledge him, and Riven dared take no offense. The Sojourner stopped in the air two paces from Riven. Up close, his power was even more palpable. Fear threatened, but Riven managed to hold his ground and his expressionless mask. Riven’s eyesight adjusted somewhat to the darkness and he could again mark the Sojourner’s features.

  Though he was not a slaad, the nose slits, spotted skin, and the shape of his eyes reminded Riven of something slaadlike, or at least reptilian. He wore a short-sleeved robe of red silk, trimmed in gold, over which hung an ermine-trimmed black cape clasped at his throat with a silver pin. His thin body swam in the clothing, and both robe and cape hung off his frame as though he were made of sticks.

  The Sojourner fixed Riven with a stare, started to say something, but stopped, blinked, and inhaled sharply.

  At first Riven did not know what had happened, then it hit him. The Sojourner had felt a s
tab of pain.

  “Father?” Dolgan asked.

  Beside him, Azriim wore a sneer nearly the match of Riven’s.

  The Sojourner had to be sick or injured, Riven reasoned, which explained why the creature had moved his body hardly at all since entering the room. Perhaps even small movements pained him.

  Riven tried to figure how that fit into his calculations, if at all.

  The Sojourner’s spasm passed as quickly as it had appeared.

  “I am well, Dolgan,” he said, and eyed Riven. “You were a companion of the priest of Mask?”

  Riven nodded tightly. The mention of Cale as a priest irritated him.

  “You betrayed your friend to join my sons?”

  “I don’t have friends,” Riven answered, and kept his voice steady. “I have allies and enemies. Allies I use. Enemies I kill.”

  The Sojourner smiled, a barely perceptible rise in the corners of his mouth. “Which are we, then?”

  Behind Riven, Dolgan chortled. The big slaad shifted on his feet.

  “Allies,” Riven said, but could not prevent himself from adding over his shoulder, “For now.”

  Dolgan growled, moved a step closer.

  Riven tensed, readied himself. Azriim dispelled the tension. “You see?” the foppish slaad said, grinning and thumping Riven on the shoulder. “I like him. So does Dolgan.”

  Dolgan scoffed and spat on the carpet.

  Azriim frowned at that and said, “Mind the carpet, fool.”

  The Sojourner remained expressionless, motionless, and considered. Riven knew his life sat on a blade’s edge. The moments seemed hours. Finally, the Sojourner said to Azriim, “The timing is poor, Azriim. Things are nearing completion and you have introduced a … random element into my plans.”