Cale appreciated what Magadon was trying to do, even if it was not entirely correct. Riven would have none of it.
"I'm pushing for a reason," the assassin said as he sheathed his sabers. He looked into Cale's face. "And he's not human. He was hit by wraiths too, same as you and me. Look at him. Unscathed. He's no more human than your father."
Magadon glanced up sharply at that. Had he been closer, Cale would have punched the assassin in the face for salting the wound of Magadon's heritage.
"What did you say?" Magadon said, his voice eerily calm.
"I've known you the better often years, Mags," the assassin said. "I know what you are."
Magadon said through gritted teeth, "And I know what you are, Riven."
The assassin waved a hand dismissively and said, "I've never tried to hide it." He looked past Magadon to Cale. "Like I said, you're our way out of here, Cale. Not the gate. Stop fighting it."
"You said that before, Zhent," said Cale, glaring, "and it's still the same nonsense."
"Not so," Riven sneered. "I've seen it, Cale, dreamed it. You're the only way we're getting out of here. And you're the reason we're still here. You're still hanging on to what you were. You're changed. We're changed. You keep saying it with words, but not feeling it. Let it go. Stop fighting."
Cale simply stared. He could frame no reply, because there was no reply to be made. Deep down, in that secret part of his brain that he kept walled off, he knew that Riven spoke the truth. Cale had been fighting it, and fighting it hard since the moment he'd opened his eyes to see a starless sky. He was not human. He never would be again. He'd told himself as much, had seen it in Jak's haunted eyes, heard Magadon state it across a fire, but he'd held it at bay with the wall of his will, kept the reality of it from infecting his psyche. And that wall was crumbling.
Tears started to form in his eyes-whether from frustration, fatigue, fear, or some combination of all of them, he didn't know-but he blinked them back. He wouldn't give Riven the satisfaction.
The assassin stared at him, waiting.
"Cale?" Jak asked tentatively.
He'd voluntarily transformed his body to save Jak, but had fought the transformation of his soul. He couldn't fight it any longer. He was too tired, and he was a shade. A monster.
What had he done to himself?
Weaveshear fell from numb fingers. His legs went weak. He fell to his knees and turned his face to the ground. He would have screamed his anger into the night, but he couldn't muster the strength to shout. Instead, he simply sat there and let the rain wash over him. After a moment, he raised his gaze and looked upon Riven. The assassin returned his look, expressionless, and nodded.
Cale nodded back. Staring at Riven all the while, Cale made a conscious decision, steeled himself, and surrendered to what he had become.
He thought he could hear Mask laughing.
Darkness entered him, enveloped him, a cocoon of night.
Knowledge flooded Cale-the full scope of his abilities as a shade. He knew then that his body resisted magic, that he could form animated duplicates of himself out of shadowstuff, could turn invisible in darkness, could travel between worlds. He saved them from the destruction of the Fane when his instincts tapped those powers. Having embraced it, he knew he could do it at will.
He was the Divine Agent of Mask, the Champion of the Shadowlord. He knew the names of the others who served Mask in a similar capacity: Drasek Riven, Kesson Rel, Avner of Hartsvale.... Proxies, Chosen, Agents, Seraphs-they had many titles. But among them all, Cale was the First and Riven the Second. It was Cale and Riven who would retrieve for the Shadowlord what he had lost.
Groaning, Cale gripped his head between his hands and tried to prevent his skull from exploding under the pressure of the influx of knowledge.
He knew in that instant that Riven was right. Cale was their way out. The irony was that Cale could not have escaped the Shadow until he surrendered to it. He knew that Mask had planned it that way. Mask planned everything that way.
Time passed, he didn't know how long, and gradually his head ceased pounding. He sat on his knees in the grass. Around him, everything stood quiet except the patter of the rain. It would never wash him clean, he knew. Not anymore.
Thazienne. .. .
A touch on his arm. He looked over and saw Jak, concern writ clear in the halfling's green eyes.
In Luirenal, the halfling said, "It doesn't matter, Cale. I'm your friend. I'll always be your friend"
It did matter, but Jak's simple words brought Cale more comfort than anything else could have. He even managed a smile.
"I know. Thank you, Jak." He cleared his throat and said, "Earlier, when I snapped at you-"
Jak waved it away.
"Forgotten," he said.
Cale nodded, patted the halfling's arm. Still a little lightheaded, he leaned on Jak and climbed to his feet. He took a deep breath and looked to Riven and Magadon.
"Riven was right," he said. "I know how to get us back to Faerun."
Riven looked only mildly smug. Magadon looked both pleased and alarmed.
"How?" the guide asked, hope in his voice.
"I'm going to shift us there," Cale replied. "But first we need to have a conversation. I've been considering something for a time. We need to handle it before we leave this place." He looked an apologetic glance at the halfling. "Jak, stay here."
"What?" the halfling asked in surprise. "Why?"
"Trust me," Cale said.
He offered a smile. It was better if Jak knew nothing of what Cale was about to propose.
The halfling looked perplexed, and maybe a little hurt, but he nodded anyway.
* * * * *
Jak tried to hide his frown as Cale steered Riven and Magadon out of easy earshot. The halfling knew that Cale must have a good reason to exclude him-likely due to a discussion of what Cale sometimes referred to as "methods"-but that lessened the sting only a little. Besides, Jak wished Cale had spoken to him about it beforehand. Jak didn't need to be sheltered from hard choices, not anymore. His views on what was acceptable had changed since his torture at the hands of the slaad.
Merely recollecting that agony made his eyes water. He still bore the scars of slaad claws on his chest and on his soul. He supposed he always would.
But in the aftermath of that pain he had come to realize that sometimes-but only sometimes-principle must give way to pragmatism. It was a hard lesson, but a true one. Otherwise, the slaadi and those like them would always win.
Sometimes good people have to do hard things, he thought, recollecting Cale's words to him on that rainy night outside of Selgaunt.
He knew the words stank of a rationalization, but he knew too that they were true. The truth was just so ugly that it sometimes needed to be rationalized.
He wondered what hard things his three companions were discussing just then. He wondered if his old friend Sephris would still consider him a seventeen.
He pulled his pipe, quickly gave up trying to light it in the rain, and instead twirled it in his fingers; a nervous habit. He eyed his comrades sidelong, trying not to listen, but unable to keep himself from watching.
Cale spoke softly but earnestly, gesturing often with pointed fingers and clenched fists. At first Magadon looked confused, but after a time the guide nodded slowly and said something in reply to Cale. Riven took a step back, as though Cale was threatening him, and shook his head. His voice rose in anger.