Cale's hands opened and closed, opened and closed. The pounding of his heart filled his ears. With effort, he took control of his anger, channeled it.
"I think you've made him angry, Dolgan," Azriim jibed.
Dolgan fixed Cale with a hard glare and bared his fangs. "Good," the slaad said.
Moving with deliberateness, Cale took out his black mask and donned it. Behind its opaque curtain, he let the killer in him take hold. Jak was dead. For the moment, so was Cale's conscience. He was going to make the slaad suffer.
Never taking his gaze from the big slaad, he whispered a series of prayers, casting spells that gave him added strength, speed. The darkness in the sanctum deepened, mirroring his mood.
"Oh, he is definitely angry," Azriim said.
The slaadi paced along the edge of the psionic barrier, their movements predatory. Azriim removed first one wand, then another from his thigh sheath, touching himself and Dolgan in turn, no doubt augmenting their own abilities.
Cale watched the slaadi work and called upon Mask again, invoking a spell that infused him with a shard of the divine. A small part of Mask's power rushed into him, filled him, focused his rage, increased his spite. His body grew half again as large as normal. His strength increased still more. He stood as tall as Dolgan. His strength matched a giant's.
He was ready.
He turned from the slaadi to look back at Magadon.
The guide looked … drained. Cale could not help him, not until he had killed something.
"Hang on," Cale said to him, and his voice was deeper than usual, more commanding. "This will be over soon."
Magadon nodded, gritting his teeth against the pain.
"Lower the barrier, Mags," Cale told him, and turned back to face the slaadi. "Raise it behind us after we're through."
The slaadi stopped pacing.
"Don't trouble yourself," Azriim said, and held up his teleportation rod. "We'll come to you."
Cale stared holes into the slaadi.
Azriim lowered the rod.
"Have it your way, then," he said.
The slaadi backed off and spread to opposite sides of the wide corridor.
"Erevis…." Magadon began.
"The big one is mine," Cale said to Riven.
The assassin nodded, stood at Cale's left shoulder. He spun his blades and pointed their tips at Azriim's chest.
"That's unfortunate. I have wanted to kill the stupid one for a long while. But I'll settle for the chatty one."
Azriim smiled, and the smile gave way to a hiss. Dolgan drew his axe from the sheath on his back, held it in his hands, and roared. Veins and sinew rose from the muscles of his arms, chest, and neck.
Cale put his hand to Weaveshear, started to draw it, but stopped.
Riven looked at him sidelong. "What are you doing?"
"Close work," Cale said, the words a threat and promise for Dolgan. He could not control the shadows pouring from his flesh.
Riven absorbed that. "I think I'll go with my steel, just the same."
"Lower it, Mags," Cale commanded again.
Dolgan dropped his axe and waited, claws flexing. He and Cale would fight hand to claw.
"Remember that they are stronger," Riven said to Cale.
"No, they're not."
Riven stared, nodded, bounced on the balls of his feet. "Do it, Mags," he said.
The psionic barrier flared once and disappeared.
The moment it disappeared, Azriim spoke a word and discharged a bolt of black energy from his outstretched hand. Cale and Riven threw themselves against opposite walls and the black ray streaked past them.
Riven bounded forward at Azriim, blades whirling.
Cale charged Dolgan.
Memories of a past life-or was it only a dream? — slipped away from Jak, gossamer wraiths of recollection floating away into oblivion. He knew he remembered things, he just could not quite remember what things. The loss pained him distantly, but even that soon faded.
It did not matter. He was happy where he was.
He stood barefoot on a rolling moor. Swells of plush green grass stretched around him for as far as he could see. The grass felt soft under his feet, between his bare toes. Golden sunshine showered down to warm him. Stately, solitary elms dotted the moor, their canopies casting great swaths of grass in shadow.
Shadow.
A memory bubbled up from somewhere. He almost got his mind around it but it drifted away before he could pin it down. Still, whatever it was made him smile.
A soft breeze stirred the grass, caused the leaves of the elms to whisper among themselves. It also carried from somewhere in the distance the smell of food cooking-a heavy, stomach-warming smell. The aroma was familiar to Jak but he did not know why.
"Oh well," he said, unperturbed.
Following his nose, he started walking. A cerulean sky roofed the land, dotted with puffs of white. He had to have a smoke. It was too nice a day not to have a smoke. He reached for his pipe and discovered that it was not in his belt pouch.
Strange, he thought, but his disappointment faded quickly.
He whistled a tune and walked on. After only a short while, another smell attracted his attention and caused him temporarily to forget about the cooking aroma-the unmistakably wonderful stink of pipeweed. And good quality.
Someone else had decided that the day required a smoke. Surely they would share a spare pipe with a fellow traveler.
"Hello there," Jak called. "Who's there? Who's smoking?"
"Here," returned a voice from the other side of a nearby hill.
Jak legged his way up the hill. When he crested the rise he saw a well-dressed halfling with wavy, sandy hair seated under an elm, his back to the trunk, a wooden pipe stuck between his teeth. A broad-brimmed green hat with a purple feather lay on the ground beside him. The halfling smiled around the stem of his pipe. Jak found the smile infectious.
"Well met!"
Jak returned the smile and said, "Well met."
He was certain he had seen the halfling before, maybe in some dark place underground. He searched his memory but found nothing.
The halfling climbed to his feet, dusted off his red trousers, and said, "You sure took your time. Seems like I've been waiting for you a long while." He banged his feathered hat against his thigh and replanted it atop his head.
"You have?" Jak asked, confused.
"I have," responded the halfling with a wink. "Now come on."
Green cloak swooshing, the halfling walked up to Jak, placed a tindertwig and pipe-already tamped, no less-into his palm.
"You'll be wanting this, I assume. Now, follow me. I know where you're going."
"You do?" Jak asked, and followed along, taking a whiff of the unlit pipeweed. "How? I don't even know where we're going. Do we know each other?"
The halfling looked at him out of the corner of his eye, green eyes glinting.
"We know each other very well, Jak Fleet."
Jak flushed with embarrassment. It was quite rude not to remember an acquaintance.
"Uh … I'm afraid I don't remember your name."
"No?" the halfling asked with raised eyebrows. "Well, I imagine you will in time. Are you going to smoke that or keep holding it hostage under your nose?"
"Huh? Oh." Jak grinned, struck the tindertwig on the rough leather of his belt pouch, and lit. He took a deep draw. Exquisite.
"Very good," he said. "Where's the leaf from?"
"Around here," the halfling said.
Jak resolved to get some more as soon as possible. Meanwhile, he blew a series of smoke rings as he walked along. His comrade did the same and for a time they held an unspoken competition over who could produce the biggest ring.
Jak lost, but barely. He found that he liked the halfling; he could not help it. Something about the rascal seemed so familiar and yet Jak could not remember his name. He was sure he would in time, just as the halfling had said.