Midnight's Mask

Cale dropped Weaveshear and stepped from Magadon's side over to the slaad in a fraction of a breath. Still enlarged and empowered from his spells, he intercepted Azriim's attack on Riven by sticking his hands into the slaad's jaws-impaling his palms on the fangs-and pulling the creature's head around toward him. Cale's blood filled the slaad's mouth. Azriim tried to bite down on Cale's hands but Cale not only held the slaad's jaws apart, he started to stretch them open further.

Azriim's neck corded with muscles and veins; Cale's arms, too, strained with the exertion. Both combatants were screaming, but the spell of silence devoured the sound.

Increasingly desperate, Azriim clawed at Cale's hands and forearms as his jaws stretched wider and wider. The attacks tore Cale's flesh but the man seemed beyond pain. He continued to pry Azriim's jaws apart, attempting to tear the slaad's face in twain.

Eyes fearful, Azriim left off savaging Cale's arms, groped in his pouch, and found his teleportation rod. Cale tried to knock it from his hands with a series of awkward kicks but the slaad managed to work the dials.

Magadon drew his blade and charged down the hall, intent on not allowing the slaad to escape. He was five strides away, four. ...

Azriim gave the dial a final twist and disappeared, leaving Cale and Magadon staring at each other over Riven's body.

Cale's breath was heavy and audible. The slaad's silencing spell must have been centered on Azriim's own person.

"Your hands," Magadon said.

Cale looked at his palms. Each had ragged punctures that went all the way through. Even as they watched, Cale's flesh started to regenerate the wounds. He ignored what must have been excruciating pain and kneeled at Riven's side.

"He is still alive," Cale said. He withdrew his mask, held it in his hand, and uttered a series of healing prayers.

Riven's breathing grew deeper. He would live.

Cale stood, still large, still dark, still . . . something more than a man.

Riven's eye opened. He started to rise. Cale moved to help him to his feet and to Magadon's surprise, Riven accepted the aid.

"I ca

Cale incanted another prayer. When he finished the spell, he waved his hand before Riven's eyes.

Riven blinked and his eye widened when he saw Cale. He offered a nod of thanks.

Cale said nothing. He walked down the hall, into the sanctum, to Jak's body. He studied it as if committing it to memory. He turned to them and said, "I'll return when it's done."

"What?" Magadon asked.

"The Sojourner," Riven answered for Cale, and Cale nodded.

"We'll stand with you," Magadon said.

"I know you will. But not this time. This time, I work alone. Stay with Jak. I'll return."

With that, he vanished into the shadows.

CHAPTER 18

ENDINGS

Vhostym smiled through his pain. He had teleported out of his tower and now stood, in his own flesh for the first time in centuries, on the surface of Toril.

The starlight, visible in the dark sky around the Crown of Flame, caused needle stabs of pain in his flesh but he did not care. The pain on his skin was paltry compared to the agony of his rapidly deliquescing organs and bones. He would be dead soon, but he had accomplished what he had pla

His spell, his greatest spell, caused the umbra of the Crown of Flame to fall directly on his island, casting a perfect circle of shadow over it and the surrounding sea. As Toril continued its orbit around the sun, as Toril spun and wobbled on its axis, the magic of Vhostym's spell constantly adjusted to keep Selune's tear before the fiery orb, poking a black hole in the sky, projecting a black spot onto Faerun's surface, onto Vhostym's island. He had turned day into night and claimed that night for his own. He reveled in his final act of dominion over the multiverse.

Looking up through watery, stinging eyes, Vhostym admired the white flares of the corona that shot out in vaporous streams from the black hole of the sun-it was his father, mille

Vhostym had only a short time left, he knew. He had finished his work only just in time. He who had lived for mille

He could have walked Faerun during a natural eclipse, of course. Toril experienced many. But during a natural eclipse the umbra raced across Faerun's surface as the celestial bodies continued in their orbits. He would have been able to spend only moments in its darkness.

He wanted more. He wanted to create the eclipse, to hold it in place, to spend a day on the surface. To control it, as he had controlled so much in his life. And he had done it.

Instead of his habitual flight, Vhostym walked on one of the Wayrock's rocky shorelines, shoeless. He stumbled often, but the feel of the stones under his feet, the sound of the surf in his ears, the smell of sea salt, all of it was more precious to him than all of the treasures he had accumulated. He savored each moment. He would pass into nothingness with the satisfaction of having spent a life accomplishing much.

* * * * *

Cale's grief and rage had given way to a simmering, inexhaustible need that could be met only in the Sojourner's death. Cale did not understand the Sojourner's purpose in blocking the sun and did not care. He wanted only one thing-chororim. Justice, vengeance. For Jak and for himself.

He walked the shadow space to the island outside.

Darkness reigned, as black as pitch. In Selgaunt, the eclipse had been partial. Here, as Cale had expected, it was total.

For now.

A ring of white fire surrounded the black hole in the sky. Dim stars were visible beyond the absent sun.

The tower loomed behind him but no magical energy rose from it to seize the rocky sphere in the sky. Cale had ended that when he killed the Weave Tap. The eclipse continued for now, but soon Toril would spin the Wayrock out from under its shadow. The Sojourner's spell was dead; he just didn't know it yet.

And so was the Sojourner.

Cale saw nothing around him except the tower and an unending series of rocky outcroppings and sandy beaches. Even the gulls, tricked by the eclipse into thinking it was night, had returned to their nests. The roar of the breaking surf was the only sound. He stepped through the darkness to a high promontory and sca

With an act of will, Cale caused the darkness to make him invisible, visualized the dark spaces between visible space, and stepped across the island, covering a spearcast at a stride. He moved methodically across the terrain, from beach to promontory to hilltop.

He heard the Sojourner before he saw him. Cackling, grotesque laughter carried above the sound of the surf. Cale followed it to its source, blood on his mind.

On a sandy beach below him, ankle deep in the foamy water, a pale, sticklike figure moved feebly along the beach. With effort, the figure held his thin arms out, as if enjoying the fresh air. He stumbled often in the surf, nearly falling several times. He grabbed at his thin chest from time to time, his breath rattling. Gasps of pain escaped his lips but always gave way to another bout of laughter.