A starless, moonless sky roofed a dreary landscape. Shades of black and gray predominated, as though the entirety of the plane had been coated in ash. Even Jak's ordinarily bright red hair appeared a dull rust color. The air was gauzy with shadows. Cale knew ten or more synonyms in nine languages for "darkness," and none of them adequately captured the brooding, oppressive gloom of the place.
The bog in which they stood extended in all directions to the limit of his vision. Steaming pools of stagnant water and mud dotted the lowlands. Stands of reeds and black-leafed trees not unlike Faerunian cypresses grew in clusters along the edge of the ponds. Flotillas of dull gray flowers floated on the surface of the water. Clouds of birds, or perhaps bats, to judge from their wheeling, jerky motion, fluttered in the air above the trees. Black flies the size of coins teemed in the air.
"It changes over time," Magadon said.
Cale looked to the guide, met his white eyes with his own dark gaze, and asked, "What does?"
"The landscape," Magadon said. "It changes."
Cale could not keep the surprise from his face.
"What do you mean?"
"I haven't noticed that," Jak said, looking around at the swamp, and even Riven looked taken aback.
Magadon nodded, as though he had expected such a response, and said, "It's quite subtle." The guide pointed at a nearby cypress. "That stand of trees was over a stone's throw away yesterday-or however long ago it was that we arrived here.
"Dark," Jak oathed, wide-eyed. He stared at the ground under his feet as though it might swallow him at any moment. "What kind of place is this?"
"Why didn't you tell us this before, Mags?" Riven asked.
The guide shrugged and took a small bite of the plant he held in his hand. He spit it out almost instantly.
"Nothing to tell," Magadon said finally. "We cannot stop it, and we weren't moving until Erevis regained consciousness."
Cale eyed Magadon with new appreciation. The man noticed details. Cale liked that. But Cale noticed details too, and the guide's last words caused him concern.
"How long was I unconscious?" Cale asked.
Magadon shrugged again and said, "Hours. Days. Who can say in this? I can see only twenty paces. There are no stars, and if this place ever sees a sun, Drasek's a cloistered priest of Torm."
"Riven," Riven corrected absently.
Magadon gave a half-smile and continued, "We've seen a few animals, but I don't recognize any of them. So I cannot determine the passage of time from their activity cycle. We're in the dark. Literally. We were afraid to move you-you seemed almost catatonic-so we've remained here since we arrived."
Silence sat heavy while Cale digested that.
Jak began to pace a circle, kicking at the mud.
"But you're up now," he said, " and we've got to get out of here." He held his holy symbol in his hand flipped it between his fingers. "I tried divinations soon after we arrived, Cale. No answer."
Cale looked at him and asked, "What do you mean?"
Jak held up his holy symbol, a jeweled pendant.
"I mean divinations do not work here. The Trickster can't hear me. Or can't answer me. I'm...."
Cale understood. Jak felt severed from his god.
The halfling began again to pace.
"It's not right here," he said. "I don't feel right." Jak stopped pacing, as though struck by a realization. He looked at Cale and asked, "Do you?"
Cale recognized the question behind the question but answered only with a non-committal grunt. Strange as it seemed, Cale felt better than he had in some time. The feeling brought him little comfort. He wondered again what he had become, that he could feel at home in such a godsforsaken plane. He reached for his own holy symbol before he remembered that the female slaad had devoured it along with his hand. Awkwardly, he rested his palm on his sword pommel. His sword; the sword that bled shadows. He wondered if it too had changed further upon its arrival in the Plane of Shadow. He resisted the urge to draw it.
"It's just another place," Riven said, seemingly as calm as the windless air. "Ease down, Fleet."
Apparently, the assassin too felt at home there. Either that or he hid is discomfort well.
"Ease down, little man," Cale seconded to Jak, to head off another exchange between the halfling and Riven. "We've been in worse places. Haven't we?"
Jak looked at him curiously and nodded.
"We'll get out of here too," Cale said. "It may just take some time." Cale looked to Magadon and made his voice sound normal. "How about a fire?"
"Tried," Magadon said, and nodded toward a pile of tinder not far from Cale. "The wood is saturated with this bog. It won't hold a flame. We tried to keep you warm with blankets, but...."
Cale said, "A light then, at least. Jak, your bluelight wand."
"It's no good, Cale," Jak replied, shaking his head. "We tried it. I might as well have it covered in a sack."
"This place eats light," Magadon said.
Cale heard the tone of his comrades, saw their morose expressions, and realized that the gray of the plane had already infected their souls. Strange that it had not affected him. He supposed that made him a creature of the gloom.
"Pull it anyway, little man," he said to Jak. "It's better than nothing."
Jak shrugged and took his wand out of an inner pocket of his shirt. He spoke the command word and the tip glowed blue. The light did little to dispel the darkness.
"Listen to me," Cale said to all of them. "I brought us here and I will get us back. I just need some time to figure out-" to figure out what I am, he thought-"to figure out how." He looked at each in turn. "Well enough?"
Jak nodded. Riven said nothing, merely stared at Cale appraisingly. Magadon adjusted his pack and said, "Well enough."
"Now let's get the Nine Hells out of this bog," Cale said.
Jak brightened at that. Magadon grinned.
"Which way?" Jak asked, and held his wand above his head as though it would better pierce the twilight. It did not. "I can't see anything worthwhile in any direction."
Cale looked to Magadon and said, "You're our guide."
Magadon's pale eyes glowed in the twilight.
"I should have charged you more than three hundred gold," he said with a chuckle.
Cale could not quite bring himself to smile in response.