"I insulted your potato soup," Riven answered, smiling around the stem of his pipe.
While his friends were thus engaged, Cale let his sleeve fall back over his stump. He looked out of the copse and into the sun. His eyes stung and began to tear up.
He turned back and asked Magadon, "Where are we, Mags?"
"We're home, Cale," Jak said as he struck a tindertwig and lit. From around his pipe stem he said, "And burn me if I ever want to go back to that place. No offense, Cale."
Cale caught Riven's sidelong glance. This isn't home anymore, the assassin's eye said, and we'll be going back to the Plane of Shadow soon enough.
Cale offered Jak a half smile and said, "No offense taken, little man."
"I might be able to offer a bit more specificity than Jak," Magadon said with a grin.
The guide patted the elm near him as though it was a pet, and walked past Cale out of the shade of the copse and into the full light of the sun. He took off his hat, shaded his eyes, and looked across the plains.
"We are on the southern plains between the Gulthmere and Starmantle," Magadon said. "We're two days away from the city."
"How long were we gone?" Cale asked.
Magadon shrugged and answered, "No way to know that."
To Jak and Riven, both smoking away like chimneys, Cale said, "Take a few moments, then gear up. We need to move."
He knew that Azriim and the rest of the slaadi would not have been idle. Cale would spend the travel time back to Starmantle thinking of a way to track them down.
* * * * *
Within hours they had reached the southern road out of Starmantle. A day and a half later and they had arrived at the city itself. By then, Cale had become almost inured to the pricks of pain caused him by the sun. Almost.
As always, the gates of Starmantle were thrown open and the spear-armed guards hardly noted them as they passed inside, except to smirk at their filth. Glares from Cale and Riven wiped the guards' smiles away.
The city's wide streets appeared much as Cale and his companions had left them-crowded with men, horses, humanoids, wagons, and stink-a stark contrast from the dark, desolate ruins of Elgrin Fau. The row of temples still loomed over the cityscape, supervising the sin with a knowing wink. Starmantle had not changed.
But they had. The Plane of Shadow had changed them all. Cale looked at their clothes, all faded to shades of gray and black, and knew that each of them had left more than the color of their clothes behind in the darkness.
Riven peeled off his dirt-caked cloak and tucked it under his arm.
"Where and when are we meeting?" asked the assassin.
Jak stuck a finger in his chest.
"Where do you think you're going, Zhent?" the halfling asked. "We ought to stick together."
Riven flashed his stained teeth. "You're welcome to accompany me," Riven answered. "I need to tend my gear, get cleaned up, take a meal, then take a whore. Food and flesh, Fleet. What else is there?"
Jak looked mildly shocked and said, "Pipeweed, philosophy, religion, friendship . .. lots of things, Riven."
Riven offered a sincere, "Bah," as he watched a stray dog sniff its way along the street. Cale would have sworn he saw caring in Riven's face, but when the assassin looked up, his face was as hard as usual.
"What about you, Cale?" Riven asked. "Mags? Either of you interested?"
Cale hadn't engaged the services a prostitute since he'd left the entirety of his feelings for Thazienne Uskevren scribed on a piece of paper back in Stormweather Towers, though he had felt the drive often enough. Self denial was another form of cleansing pain, he decided, and resolved that he would not surrender to his needs just then.
"No," he said, and left it at that.
"Well enough," Riven said. "Mags?"
The guide doffed his cap, pushed his hair back, and shook his head.
"I think not. I'll gear us up for the next-" The guide stopped in mid-sentence and looked to Cale. "Where are we going next?"
Cale did not yet have an answer, but he thought he had a means that might help them find out.
"I'm still thinking," he said. "I hope to know by tonight."
"Let me know when you know," the guide said, "so I can equip us appropriately. Meantime, I'll procure the necessities."
Cale nodded. For a moment, he debated with himself.
Finally, he said to the guide, "Magadon, I feel like I owe it to you to say this ..." He took a deep breath. "If you want to, if this is too much for too little, now is the time to walk away. I hope that you won't, but I want you to know there's an out. No shame and no hard feelings."
Cale regretted saying the words almost the moment he uttered them.
A brief look of hurt and surprise flashed across Mogadon's face, but the guide recovered his composure quickly, fixed his knucklebone eyes on Cale, and offered a grin.
"What do I look like," he asked, "a Zhent assassin for hire?"
Riven scoffed.
Magadon continued, "We're long past three hundred pieces of gold, Erevis. I'll be seeing this through, if you please."
Cale couldn't help but smile, both relieved and chagrined. In less than a tenday, he'd come to count on the guide's solid presence. He thumped Magadon on the shoulder.
"Good," Cale said. "Mags, I didn't mean-"
"I know what you meant," Magadon said. "It's appreciated but unnecessary. You remember our conversation back on the Plane of Shadow?"
Cale nodded.
"So do I," Magadon said, and left it at that.
Riven scoffed again and said, "There's your friendship, Fleet, as sweet as a turnip, ain't it?" The assassin looked to Cale. "If you're done with the orders now, Cale, I'll be finding my flesh."
To all of them, Cale said, "We meet at the Ninth Hell, around the tenth hour tonight. We'll take our rest and .. . recreation today, but tomorrow we start again. In the meantime, stay clear of the Underworld."
Cale didn't want any of them bumping into Dreeve and what remained of the gnoll's pack. If the creature had returned to Starmantle, he probably still held a grudge.