The creature's body slammed into a rock, exploding into a shower of drops and mist, then instantly reformed on the other side, still grinning.
After passing the rocks, the full force of rapids seized them. Cale felt as if a hand had taken hold of the keel of the boat and thrown it forward. Foam churned, water roiled, and the boat thumped again and again against more rocks hidden just below the surface. Cale's teeth rattled in his head and his cloak was sodden. Throughout, the fey somehow swam along beside them, just out of arm's reach, smiling benignly.
"The Sargauth," Magadon said, breathing hard and trying to keep the boat from breaking into pieces. "Yes. Will you grant us passage?"
The boat slammed so hard into a rock that Cale thought for certain they had staved a side. The craft spun off the stone and rotated ninety degrees. Magadon righted them with effort. A dip, another. Water swamped the bow. Cale was soaked. The boat hit another rock, tumbled down another cascade. From the rear, Jak shouted, bounced high in the air, and would have gone overboard but for Riven's reflexes. The assassin grabbed the halfling by the cloak and yanked him back into the boat.
"Hang on godsdamnit, Fleet!" the assassin said.
Over the roar of the river, the fey frowned, waggled a translucent finger at the assassin, and said, "No. I think I shall not grant you passage. You and your friends wield words as though they were weapons. I remain offended."
Ahead, Cale could hear the roar of the falls. It was growing louder. The river bed was dropping by steps; cascade after cascade. The maple trees and canyon walls around them were blurs. The boat bobbed through the water like a child's toy. Cale knew that the mad rush down the waterway ended in a fall that none of them could survive.
Be quick, Magadon, Cale projected to the guide.
He held on as the bow crashed down another cascade and nearly unseated him. They had a thirty count, no longer.
"Guardian," Magadon shouted, and Cale felt the guide's desperation travel along the telepathic channels. "Please, what can we do to gain passage?"
Ahead a spearcast, Cale saw the Dragon's Jaws. It looked just as it had in Magadon's mental image: the river's current had carved a great U-shaped channel through the cliff face. Foaming water roared through the channel and vanished from sight, falling into the thick mist formed from the water slamming into the Dragonmere far below. Jagged boulders jutted from the waters before the Jaws.
"The falls!" Jak shouted from behind.
The fey made a show of thinking.
"You've offended me with words, woodsman. Now you must amuse me with them. Or surprise me. Or astonish me." He waved a watery hand and said, "Begin."
The four comrades shared a look.
Try something! Riven projected.
Cale watched with dread as they neared the Jaws. The river surged, nearly capsizing the boat. They all four uttered a collective shout.
"Magadon!" the halfling called.
"I am born of a devil," the guide blurted.
The fey raised his eyebrows, laughed, and clapped his hands.
"Wonderful! Which one?"
The boat slammed into a rock, nearly sending Cale over the bow. They were taking on water.
"What?" Magadon shouted, doing everything he could to slow their approach to the falls.
"Which devil?" asked the fey. "Name your sire-or mother, as the case may be."
Cale saw Magadon's resistance, felt it in his mind. Cale didn't know if he wanted the woodsman to speak his father's name or keep it behind his teeth. He understood Magadon's struggle. Speaking the name of his demonic father-something Magadon was loathe to do-would have felt to the guide like surrender, like the way Cale had felt back on the Plane of Shadow when he'd drawn Weaveshear for the first time.
"Tell the thing what it wants to hear, Mags!" Riven said. His good eye was wide, eyeing the approaching falls. "It's just a name."
The fey's gaze fixed on Riven and hardened.
"The shadow of the shade speaks at last." It indicated Cale, looked back to Riven, and said, "You are merely his shadow, are you not?"
Riven's eye narrowed. His mouth set into a hard line. Despite the upset of the boat, one of his hands went for a blade. His anger was palpable through the mindlink, overriding the group's collective trepidation at the on-rushing Jaws.
"Mephistopheles!" Magadon shouted, and the word made Cale's stomach churn worse than the river. "Mephistopheles is my blood sire."
The fey seemed unperturbed by the foul name.
"Excellent!" the creature said to Magadon. "A base word but well said!"
"You want to hear words of power, you little pissdrip?" Riven growled from the back of the boat. "Then hear this."
Do not! Cale ordered, but it was too late.
Riven spat a stream of corruption in the tongue he sometimes used as a weapon. Cale, Jak, and Magadon doubled over in pain upon hearing the words, but the fey only squinted as though he was facing the wind in a rainstorm. After Riven had spewed the sentence, he looked surprised to see that the fey had not disintegrated.
The fey, seeing Riven was done, clapped his hands lightly.
"Foully told, but well said." It turned to Jak and said, "Now you, little bedraggled half-man. The pissdrip has yet to hear from you."
Jak, his eyes still watering from the obscenity mouthed by Riven, could not take his gaze from the river.
Say something, Fleet, Riven projected.
You keep your mouth closed, Zhent! Jak shot back with heat, and glared at Riven.
Little man. . . . Cale prompted.
"Come now," said the fey. "Confess."
At that Jak gave the creature a sharp look, then looked to Cale. Cale gave him a reassuring nod and the halfling nodded back and turned to the fey.
Barely audible over the roar of the approaching falls, Jak said, "I'm afraid of what is happening."
The fey grinned.
"Well done, half-a-man! Well done indeed! I'd ask what in particular frightens you, but I know it is everything." The creature spun around to face Cale, and pointing past him to the onrushing falls said, "Time is short, shade. What do you have to say to me?"
The roar of the water was loud in Cale's ears. He struggled to find something to say, something the fey would not have heard before. Nothing. He could not think above the roar of the Jaws.
Hurry, Cale, Riven prompted.
" 'Ware," the fey blithely cautioned.