As the trek continued Jak tried several times to engage Cale in conversation, but each time Cale deflected the attempt with an inhospitable grunt. The halfling knew what that meant-Cale was thinking, planning.
Riven, for his part, seemed content to walk in silence, alone with the newfound power in his hands, which he continually examined as they traveled. Jak wondered uneasily what else Riven's hands could do, what else they had already done.
Late in the day it grew windy, then began to rain. Thick dollops of black water, whipped into sheets by a gusting wind, thumped against Jak's face as hard as sling bullets. Vermillion lightning ripped the sky into pieces. Deafening thunder pounded the earth. The storm was gorgeous and terrifying all at once, like the demon lord Cale and Jak had once fought.
Magadon called a halt and they camped under the eaves of a copse of something like elms. Jak made sure to create a beef stew with his spell that evening, to keep Riven's mouth shut. Though Magadon's weathered and oiled tents managed to keep the rain off of him, he struggled through only an hour or two of intermittent sleep.
The storm continued through the next day, but still they made good progress. Magadon refused to stop for the weather and Jak was glad. He wanted out of that plane and, if the theoretical city held the way out, he wanted to get there as soon as possible.
Sometime near the middle of that day, they reached their destination.
They stood atop a low rise, ineffectually shielding themselves against the wind and rain with their hats or the hoods of their sodden cloaks. A gently sloping, shallow valley extended before them. At its bottom, visible to Jak only in the lightning flashes, a ruined city erupted from the plain like a plague boil. The overgrown ruins covered as much acreage as did Selgaunt, perhaps more. Only the low, squat buildings in the city's densely-packed center had remained intact. Jak saw no people in the streets, no movement at all. It was eerie.
They stood looking at the ruins for a long while, as though assuring themselves that they were not looking upon an apparition. A pinpoint of golden light flashed from somewhere in the city's center, from amidst the low buildings, as though someone had briefly uncovered a bulls eye lantern.
Jak's breath caught, and he strained to see. He thought he might have imagined the light but it repeated again quickly. To him, that light, that color, bespoke one thing: a way home.
"Did you see that?" he shouted to Cale and Magadon over the wind.
Both nodded.
Magadon said, "That's the only natural looking light we've seen since we arrived."
"A way back?" Jak asked.
He couldn't keep hope from coloring his voice.
Magadon shrugged and said, "Possibly."
They squinted into the wind. The flash came again.
"A beacon, maybe?" Riven asked.
Cale drew Weaveshear and said, "Or maybe a lure. Either way, there's only one way to find out. Ready?"
Jak nodded and drew his short sword and dagger. Riven too drew his sabers, and Magadon his bow.
"Stay sharp," Cale said, starting down the rain-slicked grass of the valley.
Thunder boomed and another lightning flash illuminated the city. Jak caught a clear glimpse of toppled buildings, crumbling megaliths, and broken statues worn by the weather and pitted into anonymity. It looked as though the city had been destroyed in some unrecorded cataclysm. Sculptures perched atop the roofs of the small, single story buildings in the city's center, the only intact statuary in the ruins.
"The buildings in the center of town look odd," Jak observed. "Too small for a home. What do you make of them?"
Cale's voice was grim when he said, "Those are tombs."
Jak's skin went gooseflesh. There were a lot of them.
* * * * *
Magadon led them into the ruined city, marking the path ahead with his bow. Cale walked beside the guide, coiled, Weaveshear in hand. Jak and Riven followed after, widely spaced, blades at the ready, eyes alert. Butterflies fluttered in Jak's gut. He couldn't keep his hands from shaking, causing the shadows cast by he and his companions in the blue light of his wand to dance on the ruins.
Crumbling, weed-overgrown buildings rose out of the darkness. Even in ruin, the structures managed to imply a sense of architectural majesty. Soaring arches, thick marble columns, and elaborately carved stonework were the rule. The city must have been beautiful to behold once.
Shards of bone stuck from the earth, most human-sized, but some gigantic. Cale simply stared at them and said nothing.
A broad, flagstone-paved avenue stretched before them, extending into darkness toward the crypts in the center of town. Weeds, tall grass, drab wildflowers, and even the occasional tree sprouted from between the cracked stones of the road. The ruins were old.
All but the cemetery, at least.
Jak felt uneasy, the way he did when unfriendly eyes were upon him, but he could not pinpoint a reason. He had an ominous sense of something lurking nearby, something malevolent.
Despite the continuing rain, the air felt clingy and thick, as though they were walking through a mass of invisible cobwebs. Jak could not help but hold his dagger before his face and try to part the air with it.
In silence, they trekked through the dead streets of a dead city. Riven and Magadon took the flanks, spreading out ten paces to the left and right, clearing buildings as they moved. Jak and Cale spaced themselves a few paces apart and walked down the broad road. Having descended into the valley, the ruins blocked their view of the necropolis so they could no longer see the occasionally flashing gold light. It didn't matter. They knew where to go. The road led directly to it.
Within a quarter hour, the rain lessened to something more moderate than a downpour, but lightning still flashed through the sky. Jak kept alert to Riven's side of the street-Jak's responsibility-but now and again stole a look at Cale. His friend's faraway gaze followed Magadon, but sometimes moved dully from here to there. Jak would never get used to those yellow eyes.
The halfling moved near Cale and asked in a sharp whisper, "What is it?"
Cale, who looked startled, said, "I don't know, Jak. I feel like I know this place somehow, like my mind is a palimpsest and the faded writing is now becoming visible."
Jak did not even know what a palimpsest was, but his skin went gooseflesh again.
"How would you know this place?" he asked. "The book from the Fane?"
Jak watched as Riven entered the crumbling entrance of what once might have been a shop. He exited a moment later, signaling that it was clear.
Cale shook his head again and replied, "I'm not cer-"
Riven froze and gave a sharp whistle that cut through the drumbeat of the rain. With rapidity and skill, the assassin climbed atop the building he had just exited. There, he crouched low on the flat roof and looked a block over, to a cluster of tall buildings, the domed tops of which Jak could just make out.
Cale and Jak signaled to Magadon. The guide left off his search of a building and hurried to Cale's and Jak's side.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Look," Jak said, and pointed in Riven's direction.
Beyond Riven's rooftop perch, a faint, icy blue glow rose just above the rooftops. Jak put its source perhaps a street or two away. Not the golden light they had seen in the center of town, but something else.
Riven kept his gaze on the source of the light and waved them over.
Jak, Cale, and Magadon ran to the base of the building-it was littered with decayed tables and broken ceramics-and they began to climb. Cale reached the top first and pulled Jak up the last bit. Magadon followed, struggling more with the climb but managing. All three reached the roof and crouched beside Riven. From there, they could see the cause of the glow.
"Burn me," Jak whispered.
Magadon knocked an arrow and drew it to his ear.