"We can do it, Jak."
Riven uttered something between a cough and a laugh.
The halfling turned from Cale, looked to Magadon, and asked, "You too?"
Magadon shrugged and made a show of reorganizing his giant pack while he said, "One of those slaadi killed Nestor, took his place, then nearly killed you. It's personal for me as well."
"You three aren't thinking right," Jak said, then mumbled, "Trickster's toes. Trickster's hairy toes."
At Jak's expression of dismay, Cale struggled to keep a straight face.
"We'll stop them, little man," Cale said. "We'll be enough."
"You better be right," Jak said, and obviously meant it.
Cale's mirth vanished. He had better be right, indeed.
Magadon stood, squirmed into his pack, and adjusted the straps.
"We can't stop anyone sitting here," said the guide. "Gear up. Let's move."
Cale stood and began to gather his gear.
The halfling touched the spot on his back where one of the slaadi, Dolgan, had run him through.
He shouldered his own pack with a grunt and said, "We do owe those damned slaadi some blood, don't we?"
"That we do," Cale answered with a smile.
He could see that the halfling was coming to terms with the decision.
"Now and again you say something that makes sense, Fleet," Riven said.
He put out his borrowed pipe, pocketed it, and pulled on his pack.
"You keep your words behind your teeth, Zhent," Jak replied. "And remember ... that's my pipe."
* * * * *
It took another two days, but at last the forest began to thin. By the time they broke for a midday repast on the second day, they were in the midst of endless plains that rose and fell like ocean swells. The tall grass, with thick, abrasive blades that looked like serrated daggers, reached to Jak's thighs. Only occasional copses of trees broke the flat monotony. Each tree was so gnarled it looked like it had twisted itself into knots trying to escape the soil. In truth, Jak had felt more comfortable in the brooding forest than he did in the plains. He felt exposed under the onyx sky. He could see little farther than a short stone's throw. There was nowhere to hide.
He held his holy symbol in a sweaty fist and his blue-light wand in the other. It seemed he had been sweating since the moment he arrived in that dark plane. He felt small, in a way that had nothing to do with his stature. When he considered the transformations of Riven and Cale, thought of the artifact, and saw in all of it the machinations of gods, he felt as though he were witnessing a myth in-the-making. It frightened him.
The stakes-albeit unknown-also frightened him. In the past, his adventures had been just that: adventures, and generally of interest only to him. But events had grown larger than the stuff of tavern tales. At that moment, Jak was pleased that he was nothing more than an obscure priest of a minor god.
He looked over at Cale, saw the dusky skin, the yellow eyes, the shadows that clung to him, and thought: Heroes have too much weight to carry.
"The correspondence seems to be holding," Magadon observed from his position out in front of them. The even tone of the woodsman's voice helped to relax Jak. Magadon seemed .. . steady somehow, like an old oak tree, like he always knew where he was and where he was going.
He was a seventeen too, Jak thought, recalling old Sephris.
Magadon went on, "If it continues, we should reach the Shadow equivalent of Starmantle in two or three days."
Assuming it's not moving away from us, Jak thought but nodded anyway.
The shifting terrain of the Shadow Deep made him feel like the land under him was a skiff floating on an endless, invisible sea. The thought made him queasy and he pushed it from his mind.
As the trek continued Jak tried several times to engage Cale in conversation, but each time Cale deflected the attempt with an inhospitable grunt. The halfling knew what that meant-Cale was thinking, planning.
Riven, for his part, seemed content to walk in silence, alone with the newfound power in his hands, which he continually examined as they traveled. Jak wondered uneasily what else Riven's hands could do, what else they had already done.
Late in the day it grew windy, then began to rain. Thick dollops of black water, whipped into sheets by a gusting wind, thumped against Jak's face as hard as sling bullets. Vermillion lightning ripped the sky into pieces. Deafening thunder pounded the earth. The storm was gorgeous and terrifying all at once, like the demon lord Cale and Jak had once fought.
Magadon called a halt and they camped under the eaves of a copse of something like elms. Jak made sure to create a beef stew with his spell that evening, to keep Riven's mouth shut. Though Magadon's weathered and oiled tents managed to keep the rain off of him, he struggled through only an hour or two of intermittent sleep.
The storm continued through the next day, but still they made good progress. Magadon refused to stop for the weather and Jak was glad. He wanted out of that plane and, if the theoretical city held the way out, he wanted to get there as soon as possible.
Sometime near the middle of that day, they reached their destination.
They stood atop a low rise, ineffectually shielding themselves against the wind and rain with their hats or the hoods of their sodden cloaks. A gently sloping, shallow valley extended before them. At its bottom, visible to Jak only in the lightning flashes, a ruined city erupted from the plain like a plague boil. The overgrown ruins covered as much acreage as did Selgaunt, perhaps more. Only the low, squat buildings in the city's densely-packed center had remained intact. Jak saw no people in the streets, no movement at all. It was eerie.
They stood looking at the ruins for a long while, as though assuring themselves that they were not looking upon an apparition. A pinpoint of golden light flashed from somewhere in the city's center, from amidst the low buildings, as though someone had briefly uncovered a bulls eye lantern.
Jak's breath caught, and he strained to see. He thought he might have imagined the light but it repeated again quickly. To him, that light, that color, bespoke one thing: a way home.
"Did you see that?" he shouted to Cale and Magadon over the wind.
Both nodded.
Magadon said, "That's the only natural looking light we've seen since we arrived."
"A way back?" Jak asked.
He couldn't keep hope from coloring his voice.
Magadon shrugged and said, "Possibly."
They squinted into the wind. The flash came again.
"A beacon, maybe?" Riven asked.
Cale drew Weaveshear and said, "Or maybe a lure. Either way, there's only one way to find out. Ready?"
Jak nodded and drew his short sword and dagger. Riven too drew his sabers, and Magadon his bow.
"Stay sharp," Cale said, starting down the rain-slicked grass of the valley.
Thunder boomed and another lightning flash illuminated the city. Jak caught a clear glimpse of toppled buildings, crumbling megaliths, and broken statues worn by the weather and pitted into anonymity. It looked as though the city had been destroyed in some unrecorded cataclysm. Sculptures perched atop the roofs of the small, single story buildings in the city's center, the only intact statuary in the ruins.
"The buildings in the center of town look odd," Jak observed. "Too small for a home. What do you make of them?"
Cale's voice was grim when he said, "Those are tombs."
Jak's skin went gooseflesh. There were a lot of them.
* * * * *
Magadon led them into the ruined city, marking the path ahead with his bow. Cale walked beside the guide, coiled, Weaveshear in hand. Jak and Riven followed after, widely spaced, blades at the ready, eyes alert. Butterflies fluttered in Jak's gut. He couldn't keep his hands from shaking, causing the shadows cast by he and his companions in the blue light of his wand to dance on the ruins.