Jak replied with a harrumph and silence. The tension was as thick as the stink.
"The plants at least look familiar," Magadon said, in an obvious attempt to diffuse the situation. "But they're slightly different. Here. Look at this swamp flower . .. thicker roots, thinner stalks and leaves. The sky's different too. What in the multiverse is this place?" he asked again.
At that, Cale wiped away the substance caked on his eyelids-mud-opened his eyes, and looked up into a pitch black sky devoid of stars. Clusters of low, ashen clouds dotted the dark canopy, backlit by a dim, sourceless ochre light.
"The Plane of Shadow " he announced.
There was a moment's silence, followed by Jak's exclamation, "Cale! You're awake!"
The halfling splashed through a pool of shallow water to reach Cale's side. He knelt and helped Cale to sit up. Cale's muscles felt as though they had been beaten with warhammers.
"Trickster's toes," Jak said. "You're as cold as Beshaba's heart." Over his shoulder, he shouted to Riven, "Get him another blanket, Zhent."
When Cale smiled at Jak, the halfling's eyes went wide and he recoiled so hurriedly that he fell on his backside. His hand went to his mouth.
"Oh ... oh, Cale."
Riven stepped closer to see, the request for the blanket forgotten, his lone eye focused on Cale's face.
"Dark," the assassin oathed.
Magadon, standing in ankle deep water and holding a gray flower in his hand, looked at Cale with some curiosity.
"Are you all right, Erevis?" the guide asked.
"I am," Cale replied, though the stares made Cale uncomfortable.
Still, he had been transformed and he knew how he must look to them. He held up his arm and looked at the hand that the female slaad had bitten off, at the wrist that should have been a stump. The transformation had somehow regenerated it. He flexed the fingers. They felt normal, but his once pale skin had turned dusky gray, darker still on the regenerated hand. Wisps of shadows snaked at intervals from his fingertips and leaked from his pores. He was sheathed in shadows. Touching the darkness lightly with his normal hand he felt a slight resistance.
"You're covered in them," Jak said softly.
Riven kneeled on his haunches and studied Cale's face. "You've changed more in the time since we arrived here," the assassin said. "What's happened to you?" That last sounded more like an accusation than a question.
Cale had no ready answer.
"Your eyes," Magadon said. "The white's gone black. The pupils are yellow. They glow in this twilight. I can see them from here."
Cale managed a nod. The change in his eyes explained why he could see perfectly out to a bowshot's distance, despite the dimness of the plane. In fact, as his head cleared, he realized that each of his senses had grown sharper. He could hear Riven's breathing at ten paces, taste the subtle organic tang in the air, and smell the otherwise unnoticeable wisps of sulfur leaking from a nearby bubbling pool.
I'm not human.
The words rose unbeckoned from the back of his brain.
I'm a creature of shadow.
He pushed the words away.
"What's happened is what's happened," Cale said, looking meaningfully at Riven. "I'm still me."
Even to his own ears the words sounded like a lie. He unfolded himself and stood. Jak stood too, still staring at him.
Riven, rising and eyeing Cale doubtfully, said, "Are you?"
Unconsciously, the assassin reached for the onyx disc at his throat. In that gesture, Cale saw what Riven was wondering: Had the Shadowlord, their mutual deity, caused Cale's transformation? If so, Riven probably would perceive the transformation as a divine boon and be jealous of it.
"This wasn't him," Cale said, nodding at Riven's disc.
The assassin dropped his hand from the symbol.
Cale continued, "And you wouldn't want it even if it was."
Riven seemed to consider that before changing the subject.
"You're a shade, then. And you brought us here?"
Cale nodded and said, "I think so."
"You think so?" Riven asked, his voice edged with tension. "Can you take us back?"
Cale slowly shook his head and all three of his comrades visibly deflated. Even with all the new knowledge swirling in his brain, he didn't know how, or if he could return them to Faerun. Whatever he had done back in the Fane to bring them there, he had done it unconsciously, out of an instinct for survival. He could not even remember it.
"The teleportation rods?" Cale asked.
Riven had taken two of the magical transport rods from the slaadi.
Jak perked up. So too did Magadon. But Riven gave a harsh laugh; to Cale, it sounded forced.
"First thing I tried," the assassin said. "They crumbled to dust in my hands."
He turned away, eyes hooded. Jak sagged. Magadon, stoic as ever, went back to his study of the flora.
Silence reigned. The realization lay heavy on all of them-they were trapped, at least for a time.
Magadon, with his psionic sensitivity, must have sensed their thoughts.
"Better here than drowned," he observed matter-of-factly, even as he continued studying the bog's flora.
No one disputed that logic.
Cale's eyes found Jak. The halfling held his gaze for only a moment before his expression filled with shame. He looked as though he might cry. Cale understood the reason. He knelt before Jak, put a hand on his shoulder and spoke in Lurienal, the halfling's native language.
"My choice, little man," Cale said. "I would do it again."
Jak looked away, eyes welling, but managed a nod. After a moment, he looked back at Cale and said, "I would have done it for you too, Cale. Do you know that?"
Cale smiled softly and replied, "Of course I do. That's why I did it."