The Tap started to topple over.
"Get out of the way," Cale shouted to no one in particular, and the assembled crowd retreated.
The Tap caught for a moment on one of the Hulorn's statues, then crashed fully to the street. Limbs shattered. Magical energy sprayed out in all directions.
"I'm sorry," Cale said to it again.
The Tap's death throes became increasingly violent as it burned in the sun. The crowd shouted, oohed. The Tap's thrashing limbs and roots threw off intense flashes of power. Where they landed, unpredictable magical effects occurred: cobblestones sprouted legs and scurried into the crowd; flowers rained from the sky; a horse was transmogrified into a mouse; one of the bestial statues that lined the street-a manticore-sprang to life and flew roaring into the sky.
The crowd of pilgrims turned and ran, panicked. From afar, Cale heard the telltale clarion of a trumpet. A squad of Selgaunt's watch, the Scepters, was coming.
Cale wanted to wait, to ensure that the Tap died and that the geyser of magic accompanying its death would cause no real harm. But his friends needed him. He stood for a moment, torn. The Tap's silver heartbeat slowed. He felt it dying.
Erevis! Magadon projected into his brain, his voice urgent. We need you!
Magadon's tone sent alarm through Cale.
The Scepters rounded the corner at a run, blades bare. They were a dagger toss from Cale. The watch sergeant looked first at Cale, then the burning, dying Weave Tap, and slowed his advance. He pointed the tip of his weapon at Cale.
"Hold there, goodsir," he said.
Beside Cale, the Weave Tap burst into flames. Gray-green smoke poured into the sky. Cale glanced into the faces around him and saw. .
Sephris.
The loremaster was staring at him out of the crowd. He shook his head and mouthed some words. "Two and two are four."
Erevis! Magadon called again, and the despair in the guide's voice made Cale's mouth go dry.
Ignoring the Scepters and the loremaster, Cale stepped into the shadow of a nearby statue and imagined in his mind the chamber in which he had found the Weave Tap. He drew Weaveshear.
"I said do not move," the watch sergeant commanded again.
The darkness gathered around Cale.
The Scepters rushed him.
The last thing he saw before he moved across Faerun to the tower was Sephris, calculating.
CHAPTER 16
Cale materialized in the shadows of the sanctum, an eerie void with the Weave Tap gone. What he saw near the doorway froze him.
Magadon, prone, bleeding, and laboring to breathe, cradled Jak in his lap. He had a hand on the little man's brow. Jak lay across the guide's legs, covered in blood, unmoving.
Unmoving.
Riven stood near them, watching, blades held slackly at his sides. His expression was impossible to decipher-it could have been controlled grief, contained rage, or indifference.
"Jak?"
The word came out of Cale's mouth before he could stop it. He tried to move but his body would not respond.
"Jak?" he said again, his voice louder.
He knew his friend would not answer.
A ragged gash opened Jak's throat. The little man's blades lay on the ground near him. He was not breathing.
Neither was Cale.
"I tried to save him…." Magadon choked as he looked up. Tears glistened in his colorless eyes.
Cale swallowed. His vision was blurry. His body went weak, numb. He managed a step forward, another. He could not take his eyes from the body of his friend, his best friend.
"I thought you were going to miss the festivities," said a voice, Azriim's voice. "I am glad to see you return."
For the first time, Cale noticed the slaadi. They stood on the other side of the sanctum's double doors, denied entry by a barrier of force. Magadon must have raised it. The barrier distorted the air like a lens of imperfect glass. The slaadi's forms looked twisted and distended through it, but Cale could still see Azriim's smirk. Both held their teleportation rods in their hands.
Cale ignored the creatures, sheathed his blade, and moved to Magadon's side. He knelt and pulled Jak's limp body from the guide. Jak felt so … light. The little man's eyes were open but unseeing. Cale could not quite believe how small his friend looked, how fragile. Had he always been that small?
Jak's shirt was twisted around his torso and for some absurd reason Cale found himself straightening it. He tried to ignore the sticky fluid that clung to his fingers. He noticed that the little man's left fist was clenched around something. Cale gently peeled back the fingers-he had never noticed how tiny were Jak's hands-to reveal the jeweled pendant that served as Jak's holy symbol. Jak must have taken it in hand before the end. Cale's eyes welled and he closed his friend's hand over the symbol.
He stood, cradling his friend, and carried him a few steps away from the doors. It seemed right to him that they be apart from everyone else.
"Look at him," Dolgan said from behind the barrier, and Cale heard the mockery in the slaad's tone. "I think he might weep."
Cale kept his back to the slaadi and looked down into the little man's green eyes. A thousand memories rushed through his mind. In all of them, Jak was smiling, laughing, smoking. Cale could not remember laughing except when he had been in Jak's company. What would he do without him?
The tears pooling in his eyes fell down his cheeks, welled in his eyes, splashed on the little man's face. He wiped them away. A sob wracked him.
His mind was empty. He wanted to say something, anything, but no words would come. Instead, an inarticulate animal sound emerged from his throat, a primal expression of the inexpressible.
They had been through so much. Survived so much. Only to end like this?
His mind kept repeating: How can this be? How can this be?
Jak's body was cooling in his hands. His best friend was growing cold. Cale was distantly conscious of his rage beginning to build. It welled up from the core of his soul, soaked him, caused his body to shake. Shadows swirled around him, little flames of darkness.
The rage gave him a focus, something to hold onto, a purpose.
His tears stopped. His sobs stopped. The world restarted.
He turned, met Riven's gaze, held it. Neither of them said anything. Cale saw something in the assassin's eye, something he had never seen. Riven's breath came fast; he bled from half a dozen small cuts. Magadon still lay on the floor, propped on his elbow, trying to staunch the gashes in his chest and abdomen. From the grotesque angle from which the guide's leg jutted from his hip, Cale could see it was broken or out of joint. The guide's face was nearly as white as his eyes. His eyes were glassy but focused.
Cale had healing spells at his command but he could not use them on Magadon, not then. At the moment, Cale's grief was the whetstone that sharpened his rage, that honed his hate. He had no healing in him. He had only anger. He could do only harm.
He knelt down on one knee and set Jak on the floor, against the wall. He brushed his hand over the little man's face and closed his eyes, gently. It was the last gentle thing he would do for a time.
"He is crying," Azriim said. Dolgan chuckled.
Cale thought back to the docks in Selgaunt when Jak had told him they should be heroes if they had the chance. He would honor his promise to the little man. But not yet. Before he could be a hero, he first had to be a killer.
He rose, looked over at Magadon, and said, "Which one?"
Magadon stared at him uncomprehending. He was going into wound shock.
"Which one did this?" Cale snapped. His tone was harsh; he had not meant it to be. Shadows boiled from his skin. His fists were clenched.
"The big one," Magadon stammered, his words slurred.
Cale nodded. He looked through the barrier at Dolgan-the big one. The distorted air magnified the slaad's claws. Blood coated those claws. Jak's blood.