He looked up at his friend and asked, "What is it?"
Cale rested his shadow-birthed hand on his sword hilt and gave Jak a forced smile.
"Nothing, little man. Just thinking."
Before Jak could press further, he noticed something unusual about Cale's sword. Fine wisps of shadow clung to Weaveshear's scabbard, leaking through the leather and swirling around the hilt.
"Your blade," Jak said, a bit more sharply than he had intended.
Riven and Magadon heard Jak's exclamation and turned to look. Cale looked at the blade, at each of them, and nodded.
"It's been like this from the start and it's getting worse as we get closer to the city. It's the magic here, I think. It's attracted to it, as though it wants to be unsheathed."
Riven's eye narrowed in a way that Jak did not like.
"If that steel draws the Skulls' attention, First of Five," the assassin warned, "this little dance is going to end early."
Jak thought much the same thing.
"Then let's just stay smart," the halfling said. "We tread lightly and keep our steel in our scabbards until we find the slaadi."
"It's nothing more than shadows," Cale added. "It won't draw anyone's attention."
Riven said nothing, only turned on his heel and continued on.
Cale, Jak, and Magadon followed.
After only a short distance more, the tunnel through which the Sargauth flowed opened without warning onto a breathtaking cavern that formed an underwater bay as large as many surface lakes. Delicate, natural stone spires rose out of the still water to merge with stalactites hanging from the ceiling-and those melded, majestic pillars of stone were the only visible support for the cavern. Jak didn't need the stonelore of a dwarf to know that magic must have buttressed the cavern. Otherwise, it would have long ago collapsed of its own weight. He looked at the shadows still clinging to Cale's blade and thought that Weaveshear must have been responding to the presence of that supportive magic.
Perhaps that was the very magic the slaadi intended to drain with the Weave Tap? Jak wondered. He didn't care to think what might happen if the slaadi succeeded. The whole cavern would collapse, crushing everyone.
In the center of the dark bay stood a rocky island adorned with a brooding fortress of gray stone. Orc and human guards patrolled the parapets. Torches hung from the walls, casting the pockmarked stone in shadow. The dark windows looked like mouths open and screaming. Looking at that fortress gave Jak gooseflesh.
"Skull Island," Riven said, following Jak's gaze. "Fortress of the Iron Ring, the master slavers of Skullport. All slaves in the city start there for. . . for treatment. Not our problem, Fleet."
Jak nodded, but thought he heard in Riven's low tone a promise: Not yet our problem. Yet again he wondered what had happened to Riven in the Port of Skulls.
A thick stone arch spanned the water, reaching across the bay from the edge of Skull Island to disappear around the curve in the tunnel. Torches burned at even intervals across the bridge. A few fishermen-two of whom were goblins-sat on the edge of the span with their lines lowered into the dark water. Several coffles of slaves shambled across its length toward Skull Island harried all the while by savage, whip-wielding bugbears.
Seeing the poor slaves and imagining what awaited them in the Iron Ring's Tower caused Jak's gorge to rise.
Perhaps the slaadi should succeed, he thought. The destruction of Skullport might be a blessing for Faerun.
"This way," Riven said, leading them onward.
They continued to hug the bank, drawing closer and closer to the darkest hole in Faerun. They passed several small fishing boats tethered to rocks, posts, and makeshift docks. They also passed several fishermen-mostly goblins and thin humans in tatters. No one spoke to them and they spoke to no one, though all eyed them with suspicious, furtive gazes.
At some point, the black sand beach gave way to a packed earth path that hugged the cavern's wall. They walked single file.
Skullport's piers came into view first: twenty or so timeworn wooden quays that jutted into the waters of the bay. Each sat on stout wooden posts that Jak thought must surely once have been masts. Ships floated in perhaps half of the berths. Jak noted a longship, several clippers, a wide-bottomed river barge, even a schooner from the Inner Sea. Lanterns and glowballs hung from the gunwales of many of the ships. Shadowy figures, their identities lost in the darkness, unloaded crates and people from the holds. Heavier cargo was lifted out with rope and a block and tackle attached to wooden posts near the berth. Goblin deckhands swarmed the wharves shoreside, carrying crates, rope, and urns off the ships to waiting lizard-pulled wagons. Armed overseers shepherded, monitored, and sometimes whipped the living cargo that emerged from the holds.
Most of the slaves were human, though Jak saw elves, dwarves, and even a few gnomes. He also saw many women and a few terrified children. The sight nearly undid him. He had to stop walking. He bent at the waist, hands on his hips, and took a series of deep breaths. He did not think he could keep down the vomit.
"Keep yourself in one piece, Fleet," Riven growled.
"Shut your hole," Cale said, and placed his hand on Jak's shoulder. "Look at it all, little man. Look at it and remember. We'll come back one day. I promise. And when we do we'll visit the Iron Ring."
Jak heard in Cale's voice the same steel he'd heard when Cale had faced off Vraggen under the Twisted Elm. Violence lurked in that tone; righteous fury. Jak had no doubt that Cale intended to return, that he would return.
The thought somehow made the scene a little less abominable, but only a little. He patted Cale's hand in gratitude, recovered himself, and looked at it, remembered it. He signaled to Riven that he was ready to move on.
The path widened into a road that ran along the wharves. A vast cavern opened off of the bay and retreated into the bedrock of the Underdark. To Jak, it looked like the open mouth and twisting gullet of a beast, more a Dragon's Jaws than the falls along the Dragon Coast could ever aspire to. Within it, covering it like the black rot, stood the City of Skulls, an amazing hodgepodge of dilapidated buildings. Many were stacked atop each other; others clung precariously to the cavern's walls.
A bewildering array of rope bridges, swings, and wooden planks hung between the upper buildings and extended back into the cavern, the highest of which stood a bowshot above the cavern's floor. Busy with a steady stream of foot traffic, they vibrated like spiderwebs.
On the cavern floor between the wharves and the city itself stood a great market. There, illithids, duergar, trolls, ogres, orcs, and the worst of humankind bought and sold the unfortunate creatures who stood atop the tall selling blocks. Bids carried to Jak's ears and an excited hum electrified the still air.
They would have to walk through the slave market to get into the city.
Jak felt lightheaded. Cale fell in beside him.
"Find the strength, little man," Cale said. "I need you here. Don't surrender to this place. And don't give Riven the satisfaction."
Jak managed a nod. He was clutching his holy symbol so tightly it was digging into the flesh of his palm.
"The city is unguarded?" Magadon asked Riven, obviously trying to distract Jak. "We can just walk in from the wilds of the Underdark?"
Riven nodded toward the stalactite-dotted ceiling and replied, "It's not unguarded, Mags."
Jak looked to the ceiling. There, high above the wharves and the market day crowd, nearly hidden in the stalactites, floated a softly glowing Skull. Its empty eyeholes moved back and forth over the market, over the wharves, over them, seeing all. Jak felt the weight of its gaze like a physical blow. Involuntarily, he quailed.
Cale took him by the arm and pulled him along. Weaveshear continued to leak darkness, but the Skull seemed to take no notice.
"Don't stare, Fleet," Riven said to Jak, then turned to Magadon. "Even if it was unguarded, Mags, what would it matter? The worst of the Underdark is welcomed here, not fenced out."
To that, Magadon said nothing.
Together, the four comrades picked their way along the wharves, dodging the filthy goblin deckhands, bugbear overseers, and slaves. The ringing clang of chains was everywhere, and slaves were everywhere. With an effort of will, Jak resisted the impulse to comfort the captives and kill their sadistic overseers.
When Jak saw that animated corpses worked beside the goblins and sailors to unload some of the cargo, his knees again went weak. The stink of their rotting corpses revived his nausea. Cale steadied him.
"It's too much, Cale," he said softly.
"No, it's not," Cale replied.
They made their way into the market. The smell of sweat, rot, and decaying fish filled Jak's nostrils. Torches and glowballs illuminated the horror. And the sounds....