They stared at one another over the crowd of passersby. Sephris looked to Magadon, to Jak, and Cale did not see pleasure in the loremaster's expression. More like . . . resignation.
The little man waved tentatively.
Sephris did not wave back. The priests escorting him saw Jak's wave, Sephris's stare, and frowned. Brows furrowed; hands went to maces. Quiet words passed between them. Two spoke aloud the words to spells that Cale guessed to be divinations. They were examining the trio. They reported whatever they learned to the tallest priest in the group, who nodded. The two others tried to turn Sephris around and guide him up the steps.
"What do we do?" Jak asked softly.
Before Cale could answer, Sephris pushed away the two priests near him-demonstrating surprising strength-and started down the stairs toward Cale. The two priests caught him quickly and stopped him cold. Sephris struggled, began to shout numbers, formulae. The loremaster's words made no sense to Cale. He sounded like the madmen elsewhere on the street. Passersby watched with wide eyes.
"What in the Hells are they doing to him?" Jak said.
"Come on," Cale said, and hurried forward.
The two priests forcibly turned Sephris around and bodily carried him up the stairs. He continued to shout over his shoulder, kicking and flailing. The rest of the priests moved to the base of the stairs to intercept Cale. There, they formed up and waited, their expressions hard, their hands on mace hafts.
Cale did not slow until he stood face to face with the tallest of the four.
"We are here to see Sephris Dwendon," Cale said, and started to push past the priest. The man put a hand to Cale's chest and halted his advance. With effort, Cale resisted the urge to punch him in the face.
"He is not seeing anyone at this time," the priest said. He stood a head shorter than Cale, but looked to be built as solid as a tree.
"That's a horse's pile," Jak said.
On the stairs above, Sephris struggled furiously in the grasp of his fellow priests.
"The three are come," the loremaster called. "Let me go. Let them come. I need to hear their words to finish the equation."
Jak tried to dart past the priests, but they stepped before him and blocked his way. They started to draw their maces and Jak backed off, palms raised.
Cale stared into the eyes of the priest. He could not control the shadows that sweated from his pores.
The priest's eyes widened behind his scarlet mask but to his credit, he did not back down.
"He needs our words," Cale said, his voice low. "You heard him."
"You heard him," Jak echoed, nodding.
"What did they just say?" Sephris shouted from above. "What did they just say? I know their sums. Let them come, now! It is important."
The priests trying to manhandle Sephris up the stairs had not managed to get the loremaster very far along. Both of their masks sat askew on their faces. Both were huffing.
A crowd started to gather at the base of the stairway, looking on. Cale could feel dozens of eyes on his back.
The priests looked twitchy but did not stand aside.
"I will summon the Scepters," the priest said.
"He wants to see us," Cale answered, and nodded up at Sephris.
"That is not his decision," the priest said, his mouth a hard line. The other three priests shifted their stances nervously.
"Not his decision?" Jak exclaimed. "We are his friends. He's not your slave."
Before the priest could reply, another priest appeared at the top of the stairs, above Sephris and the priests wrestling with him. He wore an elaborate black vest embroidered with gold thread. A neatly trimmed dark beard housed a severe mouth. He called to the priests below.
"Enough! Veen, let them come up! Now. Enough, loremaster," he said to Sephris. "They are allowed to pass."
Veen, the priest in front of Cale, looked relieved. He and his fellows stepped out of the way and the three companions hurried up the steps, two at a time. Behind them, Veen ordered the crowd to move along and the four Oghmanytes fell in behind Cale and his comrades.
The two priests who had tried to restrain Sephris released him. The loremaster stood between the sweating priests, gasping and still calculating as he waited for Cale, Jak, and Magadon to approach. He appeared to be counting their steps as they climbed. When they stood before him, he said, "Three of you, on the ninth day of the ninth month during the fifth hour after noon." His gaze looked not at Cale but through him. To Cale's surprise, Sephris's voice lacked its typical mania-fed intensity. "The variables are . .. complex."
"Loremaster," Cale said. "We are surprised to see you."
"I am not surprised to see you," Sephris said, and gave a mirthless smile. Cale saw an unexpected hardness in the loremaster's expression. He remembered Sephris's words to them when they had called to his spirit after his death-Release me, Erevis Cale. My time on Toril is complete. It has not summed to zero. The loremaster had seemed at peace then, for the first and only time since Cale had made his acquaintance.
"What have they done to you?" Jak softly asked, and stared accusingly at the two priests to either side of Sephris. They did not meet the little man's gaze.
Sephris ignored the question, looked Cale up and down, and said, "The darkness has found you, First of Five. Soaked you. And you think it is done. But it has only begun. There is more, much more, yet to come. To all of us. Did you know that? Did you know what you were doing? What you were causing?"
Cale felt Jak's and Magadon's eyes on him. The priests, too, stared holes into him.
He swallowed and managed to say, "I've done what I've had to. I can't always see the consequences."
"Come inside, Sephris," called the bearded priest at the top of the stairs. "You can speak with them inside. Come."
"You do not see them because you do not want to see them, First of Five," Sephris said. He spun and stalked up the stairs.
The six Ogmanytes fell in behind him, along with Jak, Cale, and Magadon. Cale's legs felt heavier with each step.
* * * * *
Riven sat for more than an hour in the late afternoon shadows across the street from the scribe's shop. His old garret, adjacent to the shop, stood dark and closed.
At last he saw what he had come to see and his brewing anger dissipated. A butcher's boy hurried through the street traffic with a package of wet cloth in his hand. He carried it to the door of the scribe's store, knocked, and waited, shifting anxiously from foot to foot. When no one responded to his knock, he opened the door and took a step inside.
The fat scribe appeared in the doorway, irritated, and hustled him out.
"I told you not to bring that into my shop," the scribe said.
"Then answer my knock, goodsir," the boy said, and pushed the package into the scribe's hands.
The scribe fumbled with a retort, managed nothing, pushed a few coins into the boy's hand, and hurried him off. The boy ran past Riven, never noticing him.
The scribe-Riven could not remember his name-unwrapped the cloth to reveal a pile of boiled meat scraps. Seemingly satisfied, he retrieved two shallow buckets he kept near his stoop and put equal portions of the scraps in each.
Whistling a tune and nodding at a passerby, he carried the buckets to the doorway of Riven's garret. He used a key to open the door and entered. Some bustling sounds issued from just within. After a moment, he exited with another bucket and put both down on the ground.