"Cale," he said between gritted teeth, averting his eyes.
"Straight through, Riven," Cale said, still pulling Jak along at a near jog. "Get us to a room."
Riven looked back and nodded. His one eye fixed on Jak and the halfling was surprised to see in his gaze not contempt but understanding. For a reason he could not explain, Jak felt comforted.
Riven led them into the maze of narrow streets and alleys that was Skullport proper. Leaving behind the relative openness of the market plaza, Jak felt as if he were walking down the gullet of a beast. While the port and its markets had been relatively well-lit to show the merchandise, farther into Skullport pedestrians and shopkeepers had to provide their own light-at least those who wanted it. Only an occasional torch or glowball lifted the darkness. People, creatures, stink, and trash thronged the narrow thoroughfares.
Jak started to pull his bluelight wand from his pocket but Cale stopped him.
"No light," Cale said. "It would be like carrying a beacon here."
Riven nodded agreement, though Jak knew the assassin couldn't see well in the poorly-lit streets. Jak's halfling blood allowed him to see well enough in darkness, but the black still caused him to feel isolated. They moved deeper and deeper into the city. The halfling felt as though he was swimming underwater, discovering what lay ahead only when it was already dangerously near, and instantly losing to the darkness everything that passed behind.
Side by side, Riven and Cale shouldered their way through orcs, ogres, sailors, whores, even a pair of trolls. Open sewers yawned like burst boils in the streets, churning out vileness. Great shaggy rothe, the cows of the Underdark, lowed from their pens.
Eventually they found themselves outside of a ramshackle inn. Riven seemed to know it. A rusty anchor hung from hooks over the crooked door. Jak assumed the "Rusty Anchor" to be the name of the place.
Riven turned and was about to say something when a bearded old man in tattered breeches, covered in nothing but dirt from the waist up, stepped out of the street crowd and lunged at Cale, arms outstretched. Cale had a hand on his throat and Weaveshear at his belly before the old man touched him. The sword leaked darkness. The old man paid it no heed. Jak checked above them. There was no sign of the Skulls, and no sign of interest from the passersby on the catwalks.
The old man's eyes were wild.
"There's a hole in the sun," he said to Cale intently, spraying spittle. "A dark hole in the sun. Do you see it?"
Cale took him gently by the shoulders and moved him away. The man stumbled and fell in with the other street traffic, still babbling.
"He's mad," Magadon observed.
Cale nodded but seemed thoughtful.
"Cale seems to attract those sorts," Riven said without a smile. "I'll get a room."
Cale said, "We move every twenty-four hours, Riven. Like you said, we maintain a soft footprint. No pattern. We'll try finding them first. If that doesn't work.. .."
"We'll let them find us," Riven finished, and entered the inn.
Jak, Magadon, and Cale waited in the street, tense and still damp from their time in the Sargauth.
Riven soon returned, having procured their lodging.
When they entered the wood-floored common room, Jak barely noticed the corpulent innkeeper, the wolf-eyed patrons, the barmaids, the smoke, and the whores. He made straight for the stairs, straight for their room, and it was only after he got behind a closed door that he felt like he could breathe. After he recovered himself he realized he'd forgotten to buy a tindertwig, but he didn't care.
CHAPTER 14
CHANCE ENCOUNTERS
Though Cale had no reason to suspect that Azriim or the other slaadi knew that he and his comrades were in Skullport, he thought it prudent to ward each of them with a spell that would prevent them from being easily scried. He also sought to minimize the times they appeared together on the street or in public. Accordingly, they took their dinner-salted fungus, a stew sprinkled with rothe meat, and cellar-cooled mushroom ale-in pairs, each protected by a magical ward that Cale and Jak would have to periodically renew.
Cale took his meal with Riven. They needed to plan.
Sweating patrons thronged the Rusty Anchor's common room. Cale hadn't seen quite such a pack of rogues since his days in Westgate. To a man, all of the patrons wore sharp steel and hard looks: duergar slavers, human and half-orc sailors, mercenaries, even the goblin laborers squawking over a game of dice looked seasoned. No doubt Skullport had long ago culled the weak from the flock.
The pungent smoke from the dried fungus that substituted for pipeweed in Skullport cloaked the room in a thin, brown haze. From time to time, Cale caught an acrid whiff of crushed mistleaf, a powerful narcotic, wafting up from the basement.
Professional women were as ubiquitous as the smoke, all of them wearing alluring smiles and scant clothing. Cale and Riven had already made their disinterest plain. A steady stream of paired men and women moved up and down the small staircase that led to the Anchor's dark basement, where the women plied their trade.
Apparently, the Anchor was inn, brothel, and drug den all in one. The rooms upstairs provided lodging for travelers. The rooms in the basement were home to courtesans, mistleaf sellers, and their respective clients.
The boisterous crowd-drinking, smoking, whoring, eating, and gaming-created a tumult so loud that Cale and Riven had to sit close just to hear one another. That was well, Cale figured. The raucousness ensured that they would not stand out and would not be overheated.
"We're here," Riven said. "So what's the play?"
Cale held his tongue as a dark-eyed barmaid placed full tankards of ale on the table before them. Her black hair and high cheekbones reminded him of Tazi.
"Thank you," Cale said to her, loud enough to be heard above the raucousness.
She looked at him as though she had never before heard the words. Under her gaze, for a reason he could not explain, he felt keenly conscious and vaguely ashamed of his transformed flesh. She was attractive, he saw, even with a sheen of sweat coating her face and tired circles painting the skin under her eyes. She started to say something but thought better of it. Behind her, a patron shouted for another round. She gave a smile that barely moved her mouth, nodded to acknowledge Cale's gratitude, and walked away. Cale admired the sway of her hips as she moved between the tables, thinking again of how much she reminded him of Tazi.
He shook his head as he turned back to Riven, back to business. Riven wanted the play. Unfortunately, they had little information upon which to operate. They knew the slaadi were in Skullport for a reason related to the Weave Tap-no doubt they hoped to drain the magic of the Skulls, or perhaps the magic that supported the cavern itself. But Cale didn't know exactly how or when the slaadi were going to do it. He would not be able to attempt to scry Azriim until midnight, when he again prayed to Mask for power.
They had no answers, only questions, only uncertainties. So the play would be the same in Skullport as it would be anywhere else.
"Turn angler, find a long-tongue who knows something," Cale said, easily falling back into the cant of the professional. "We know Azriim has taken the form of a duergar and a half-drow. Start there."
Riven took a draw on his ale.
"Neither of those are exactly rare here," he replied.
Cale could only agree. Duergar and drow were as common in Skullport as the damp.
"The slaadi are staying low, Riven," he said, his thoughts solidifying as he spoke. "That's why Azriim is changing forms. Whatever they're planning, it's big enough that they want to give no sign beforehand and leave no trail afterward. If you don't have any luck quickly, we'll make ourselves obvious and try to draw them out."
Riven's one-eyed gaze was piercing and he did not smile.
"Still Cale the clever, eh?"
Cale made no reply, instead took a drink of his ale. He looked across the table and realized that he had slowly, as slowly as the southern movement of the Great Glacier, come to rely on Riven. The realization made him uneasy.
To hide his discomfort, he said, "Just be quick."
Riven sneered, nodded, and slammed down the rest of his ale. He started to rise-
And from the other side of the common room, Cale heard a deep voice proclaim over the tumult, "Once a whore, always a whore."
A bout of harsh laughter followed. Cale turned in his chair to see a muscular man, bristling with steel and covered in leather, pull the dark-haired barmaid onto his lap.
"Come here," the man said.