The guide acknowledged Jak's point with a tilt of his head then asked, "What do we think this Sojourner wants to do with the power of the Weave Tap?"
Cale shrugged, chewed some trail tack, then said, "No way to know."
" 'Additional variables,'" Jak added, quoting Sephris, the chosen of Oghma and ostensible madman who had prophesied their fate, albeit in mathematical riddles. The halfling tapped the ashes from his pipe and stuffed it back into his belt pouch. "Whatever it is, we can be sure it's not good." He glared at Riven. "And that's why we care, Zhent."
Riven scoffed, stretched, and said, "Speak for yourself, Fleet." He paused for a minute then nodded at the belt pouch into which Jak's pipe had vanished. "You have an extra one of those?"
Jak, eyebrows arched, asked, "What? A pipe?"
Riven nodded.
Jak nodded back, shared a perplexed look with Cale, then took his spare pipe-a plain, wooden-bowled affair-from a belt pouch. He tossed it to Riven along with an extra pipeweed tin and a tindertwig.
"Keep it. And that's good pipeweed from Mistledale," the halfling said. "Don't waste it."
Obviously familiar with the paraphernalia, Riven tamped, lit, and began to smoke without saying a word. Cale's astonishment must have shown on his face.
"You've never seen a man smoke?" Riven asked him.
"I've never seen you smoke," Cale answered.
Riven blew out a series of perfect smoke rings, gave a hard grin, and said, "And I've never seen a man with yellow eyes who can move from shadow to shadow. I guess this place is changing us all, Cale."
To that, Cale could only agree.
"We've got to get back," Jak said, "find those slaadi, and stop the Sojourner. No one else even knows what's happening."
"And no one else needs to know," Riven said from around the pipe. "Understood?"
Jak looked at the assassin as if he had turned green and asked, "What in the Hells are you talking about? Did the pipeweed go to your head that fast? We need help with this."
Riven drew on Jak's pipe, discharged the smoke from his nose, and looked to Cale, who sighed and nodded.
"This is our light, Jak," Cale said. "It's personal; it's been personal right from the start. We end it, no one else."
Jak's mouth hung open.
"Our fight!" the halfling said at last. "Dark and empty! This is big, Cale, bigger than us. That Tap is an artifact. We're talking about the Weave itself. This isn't some guild grudge we're settling. We need help. I know some people who..."
Cale stared at his friend and Jak grew quiet. Cale knew it was big, but he also knew it was his.
"We can do it, Jak."
Riven uttered something between a cough and a laugh.
The halfling turned from Cale, looked to Magadon, and asked, "You too?"
Magadon shrugged and made a show of reorganizing his giant pack while he said, "One of those slaadi killed Nestor, took his place, then nearly killed you. It's personal for me as well."
"You three aren't thinking right," Jak said, then mumbled, "Trickster's toes. Trickster's hairy toes."
At Jak's expression of dismay, Cale struggled to keep a straight face.
"We'll stop them, little man," Cale said. "We'll be enough."
"You better be right," Jak said, and obviously meant it.
Cale's mirth vanished. He had better be right, indeed.
Magadon stood, squirmed into his pack, and adjusted the straps.
"We can't stop anyone sitting here," said the guide. "Gear up. Let's move."
Cale stood and began to gather his gear.
The halfling touched the spot on his back where one of the slaadi, Dolgan, had run him through.
He shouldered his own pack with a grunt and said, "We do owe those damned slaadi some blood, don't we?"
"That we do," Cale answered with a smile.
He could see that the halfling was coming to terms with the decision.
"Now and again you say something that makes sense, Fleet," Riven said.
He put out his borrowed pipe, pocketed it, and pulled on his pack.
"You keep your words behind your teeth, Zhent," Jak replied. "And remember ... that's my pipe."
* * * * *
It took another two days, but at last the forest began to thin. By the time they broke for a midday repast on the second day, they were in the midst of endless plains that rose and fell like ocean swells. The tall grass, with thick, abrasive blades that looked like serrated daggers, reached to Jak's thighs. Only occasional copses of trees broke the flat monotony. Each tree was so gnarled it looked like it had twisted itself into knots trying to escape the soil. In truth, Jak had felt more comfortable in the brooding forest than he did in the plains. He felt exposed under the onyx sky. He could see little farther than a short stone's throw. There was nowhere to hide.
He held his holy symbol in a sweaty fist and his blue-light wand in the other. It seemed he had been sweating since the moment he arrived in that dark plane. He felt small, in a way that had nothing to do with his stature. When he considered the transformations of Riven and Cale, thought of the artifact, and saw in all of it the machinations of gods, he felt as though he were witnessing a myth in-the-making. It frightened him.
The stakes-albeit unknown-also frightened him. In the past, his adventures had been just that: adventures, and generally of interest only to him. But events had grown larger than the stuff of tavern tales. At that moment, Jak was pleased that he was nothing more than an obscure priest of a minor god.
He looked over at Cale, saw the dusky skin, the yellow eyes, the shadows that clung to him, and thought: Heroes have too much weight to carry.
"The correspondence seems to be holding," Magadon observed from his position out in front of them. The even tone of the woodsman's voice helped to relax Jak. Magadon seemed .. . steady somehow, like an old oak tree, like he always knew where he was and where he was going.
He was a seventeen too, Jak thought, recalling old Sephris.
Magadon went on, "If it continues, we should reach the Shadow equivalent of Starmantle in two or three days."
Assuming it's not moving away from us, Jak thought but nodded anyway.