He felt as if a giant's hand pressed him to the riverbed and held him submerged. The water was not deep. His back scraped against the rocky bottom and he could still see sunlight cascading through the rough water. But he couldn't gain purchase to push himself to the top. The current rolled him, twisted him, twirled him like a dry leaf in a gale.
And above it all, even underwater, he could hear the dull, foreboding rush of the Dragon's Jaws.
In his head, he heard the fey say, Speak, shade, or all is lost. Already your friends are drowning, though the woodsman swims strong and even now tries to save them.
Cale's breath was failing. He didn't even have the sense to feel much surprise at the fact that the fey could communicate telepathically. He reached for the surface and felt his hand broach the water, feeling the sun's sting on his flesh for only a moment before the current pushed him back down. The falls were near. His breath was gone. A flurry of incoherent images flashed through his mind: Riven leading a religious service, the Fane of Shadows, a twin spire built on an island and reaching for a starry sky, a laughing mask stepping from Shar's shadow to stab at Cyric, the Plane of Shadow, the ruins of Elgrin Fau.
The ruins of Elgrin Fau.. . .
He hoped the fey was still listening.
Over six thousand years ago, he projected to the fey, on a world now forgotten, Kesson Rel the Dark, first Chosen of the Shadowlord, angry at his forced exile from Elgrin Fau, banished the whole of the city into the Plane of Shadow. The inhabitants thought he had stolen the sun, but he had stolen only them. He lingers still in the darkest places of the Shadow Deep, feeding his malice. One day, I will find him and avenge his betrayal.
For a heartbeat, everything fell silent. Cale blew out the last of his breath in a stream of bubbles. A sudden roar filled his ears, impossibly loud. He felt himself falling, going through the Dragon's Jaws and down into oblivion.
Your travels will lead down dark paths, said the fey in his head. Journey well, shade.
CHAPTER 12
PLOTTING
Kexen sat alone at a small table in the Pour House Inn and Tavern. Under his sleeve, Sessa, one of Zstulkk's sets of eyes, coiled tightly around his forearm. The noise and smoke agitated the serpent, and it slithered irritably around Kexen's arm. Kexen stayed still and calm. Zstulkk's familiars had been known, on rare occasions, to bite their bearers.
An image of his body, bloated and purple from cave viper venom, floated through Kexen's mind. He pushed it away with effort. Everyone in Zstulkk Ssarmn's slaving organization knew that the yuan-ti saw through the eyes of his pet serpents. Bites occurred only when Zstulkk was displeased with what he saw through the serpent, or when the operative was captured and in possession of incriminating information. Kexen would give his employer no cause for displeasure, and had no intention of being captured by anyone-ever.
Tallow candles scattered around the common room provided the only light, sending greasy, swirling spires of smoke ceilingward. The stifling air smelled of unbathed sailors, the cheap body-fragrance of whores, and a wretched, dried-fungus incense that Felwer, the one-armed proprietor, insisted on burning in a ceramic incense tray behind the bar. Felwer always told anyone who would listen that the incense attracted whores and repelled cats. The innkeeper had an affinity for the former and an inexplicable phobia for the latter. Felwer even kept a dog to keep the cats at bay: a grizzled old bitch named Retha, who typically did nothing except lay before the hearth and leak piss on the floor.
The shouts of passing street vendors, selling cured rothe meat and pickled mushrooms, carried through the irregularly-shaped holes in the wall that served as the Pour House's windows. Kexen's rickety table, cobbled together from salvaged wood from ruined ships, seemed ready to tip at the slightest bump and spill the tankard of mushroom ale that sat untouched atop it. He would not have cared. The swill smelled like urine and probably tasted worse; he'd bought it only to keep Felwer from fretting.
Bleary-eyed, grinning sailors of various races thronged the common room, all either drunk already or well on their way. The professional girls circled the sailors like perfumed sharks that smelled blood in the water. Kexen had already made his own disinterest plain to an insistent, would-be skulker courtesan who looked haggard even in the dim light of the house's candles. Sessa would have bit her had Kexen not pushed her away. The courtesan moved on with an indignant huff to sit on the lap of a gigantic half-orc sailor, probably a pirate.
Bawdy songs erupted at intervals from a group of dark-skinned Calishite sailors who sat on the other side of the common room. Gaming for coppers went on at several tables and in every corner: sava, scales and blades, roll-the-bones, and king's ransom. Shouts of glee or moans of despair went up from time to time, depending upon the roll of the dice or the draw of the deck.
Kexen smiled. He understood well what it was to lose a month's pay on a throw of the dice or a hand of cards. He had long ago served his time crewing a slaver, squandering his pay in dives like the Pour House-but not anymore. As a rising member of Zstulkk Ssarmn's organization, he was accustomed to finer surroundings. All he wanted was to complete his business with Thyld and get back to his residence in the Middle Heart.
A patient man by nature, Kexen continued to wait without fidgeting, staring through the smoky air at the curtain of strung oyster shells that served as the main door of the Pour House. Thyld was due presently.
Kexen and Thyld had a longstanding relationship. Thyld, a member of the Kraken Society and hence a man with considerable contacts, sold pertinent information to Kexen on the side, and occasionally acted as a middleman between Zstulkk Ssarmn's organization and third parties in need of certain services. It was the latter that Kexen expected. It just annoyed him to have to meet at the Pour House. For reasons inexplicable to Kexen, Thyld had chosen that time to hold their meet in the Lower Port tavern.
Kexen shifted in his chair-taking care not to upset either the rickety table or the even less stable cave viper affixed to his arm-and adjusted the two cocked and loaded magical hand crossbows he wore on his hips. He had taken them from the corpse of a drow mercenary he'd put down a year earlier. The open-bottom holsters, flexibly affixed to his weapon belt, permitted easy aiming and firing while still holstered, even under a table. The bolts carried a quick acting paralytic he'd purchased from a duergar herbalist. A professional precaution. The cutlass on his hip could serve too, if necessary.
Obviously, Kexen thought it unlikely that Thyld meant him harm, else he would not have come alone. In truth, Thyld was naught but a scrawny skulker done well. Still, Kexen preferred to be overcautious rather than under-breathing. Operatives of the Xanathar knew Kexen to be a member of Zstulkk's organization. With a war in the offing between the yuan-ti slaver and the beholder crime lord, an overzealous servant of the Xanathar could decide to make a name by trying to put Kexen down. Best to be prepared. In Skullport, it always paid to be prudent.
Still, it made him uncomfortable that Thyld was late. It smelled ever-so-slightly of a set-up. Typically, Thyld was nothing if not punctual. He decided to give the ferret-nosed fool another hundred count and he would leave. He was busy with Zstulkk's business-a Luskan caravel filled with flesh was due in port within hours, and he needed to process the stock. He had only scant time to waste with Thyld.
As if summoned by Kexen's thoughts, the sea-shell curtain parted and there stood Thyld, balding head, nervous eyes, potbelly and all. Behind him lurked another man, tall and muscular, with a huge axe strapped across his back.
Kexen breathed easier. It was no set-up.
Thyld looked around the common room and Kexen hailed him with a raised hand-the hand attached to the arm free of a serpent. Thyld nodded his oversized head and waded his skinny body through the sea of sailors and whores. The large man followed, eyeing the sailors coldly.
Kexen figured the big man was an Amnian, possibly a ship's captain to judge from his bearing. He wore a threatening scowl and a dark cloak interlaced with silver thread.
Thyld slid into the chair opposite Kexen. He looked a bit different somehow but Kexen couldn't quite place the change. The big Amnian sank into the chair beside Thyld, bumping the table and nearly toppling Kexen's tankard. Thyld showed surprisingly quick reflexes in snatching the ale before it tipped.
"Kexen," Thyld said with his typical brisk nod. "This is ... a client."
Thyld indicated the big man, who nodded.
"Potential client," Kexen corrected automatically. "Zstulkk takes only the highest paying jobs."
"Of course," Thyld acceded with a bow of his misshapen head. "This potential client needs goods moved and protected. I recommended Zstulkk, which naturally brought me to you."
"Naturally," Sessa hissed as she slithered down Kexen's forearm, head first.
The viper, concealed by Kexen's sleeve, went unnoticed by either Thyld or the Amnian. Her hissing voice was so quiet Kexen only barely heard her himself.
Kexen looked in the mustachioed face of the Amnian and asked, "Nature of the goods?"
"Where did you get that shirt?" asked Thyld, studying Kexen's overshirt.
He reached out a hand to touch the cuff and Sessa tensed.
Taken aback, Kexen looked curiously at Thyld, then at the black sleeves of the wool shirt he wore.
"Don't touch it," he said, and withdrew his arm. "What in the Hells kind of question is that?"
Thyld stiffened, frowned, and wagged a finger at Kexen.
"I've recently sworn off the use of expletives," he said. "Please refrain in my presence."
Never a man of quick temper, Kexen resisted the urge to shoot Thyld in the belly and walk away. Business was business.
"Very well," Kexen said to Thyld. He looked at the Amnian and asked again, "Nature of the goods?"
Sessa poked her head out from under Kexen's cuff, apparently to allow Zstulkk a better view of Thyld. Neither of the humans noticed the serpent and it quickly withdrew into the shirt sleeve.
"Highly magical," the big man replied to Kexen, with a curious sidelong look at Thyld. His voice was deep but had the lazy diction of a dullard. "Let us leave it at that."
Kexen nodded, unsurprised. Most of his clients were secretive about their wares. He didn't need, and typically didn't want to know what it was his men were guarding.
"Very well," said Kexen. "How many wagons will you need?
After a thoughtful pause, the man replied, "Only one."
Kexen raised his eyebrows, looked to Thyld, and said, "You understand that I don't arrange transport unless the fee, in addition to expenses for the manpower, is in excess of a thousand gold?"