The darkness lengthened, stretched a shadowed hand over the bay. He thought of the Fane of Shadows, of Shar, the goddess of night, of Mask, of the Sojourner, of his own transformation, of the Weave Tap. He saw the thread that connected them all. He knew what he had to do.
"Go get Mags," he said to Jak.
Magadon was meditating alone in a cabin in the forecastle.
"Tell him we have to go now, Jak. We're going to kill the Weave Tap."
Jak stared at him for a moment, uncomprehending.
"We're going to act like heroes, Jak. Go."
The little man grinned, nodded, and sped off.
Cale stared up at the heavens. He and his companions might not be able to defeat the Sojourner, but they could destroy his tool, stop whatever it was that he intended. Cale thought he knew how to do it-like him, the Weave Tap was a creature of darkness, created by the priesthood of the goddess of the night. Like him, it was vulnerable to the sun.
Jak returned shortly with Magadon. The guide stared up at the sky, pale eyes wide.
"Activate the leech on Riven, Mags. We have to move. Jak, cast every protective spell you can. Quickly, now. And the moment we arrive, divine the location of the Weave Tap. This time the Tap comes first. The slaadi are secondary."
Jak nodded and began to cast. Magadon concentrated and a soft red light haloed his head.
"I've got him," he said.
"Show me," Cale said, and took Magadon's hand.
* * * * *
The slaadi parted to either side of Riven, crouched low. The creatures' transformation had changed their outward appearance little, but Riven did not fail to notice the coiled grace with which they moved. Dolgan flexed his claws and growled. Azriim showed his fangs and hissed.
Riven remembered that the slaadi's transformation from green to gray had granted them new magical powers. He assumed their new transformation had granted them still more such powers. He decided not to wait for a demonstration.
He showed his back to Dolgan and feigned a charge at Azriim, who leaped backward. As Riven had expected, Dolgan lunged at his exposed back.
Riven spun a half-circle and slashed a crosscut at Dolgan's throat with his right saber. The move surprised the slaad, who could do nothing but sacrifice his arm to save his neck. The saber cut hard into the slaad's bicep. The blow should have sunk halfway through the muscle, but instead cut only a deep gash into the slaad's flesh.
Grunting with pain and dripping black blood, the slaad swung wildly at Riven with the claws of his other hand. Riven had expected the attack and tried to ride the momentum of his slash into a full spin out of arm's reach, but he was too slow. The slaad's transformation had made him faster, and his claws caught Riven's back and tore through cloak and flesh to cause a painful slash. Riven grimaced and chopped with his left saber at Dolgan's head, but the slaad used the momentum of his own swing and bounded a few steps away from Riven.
He snarled as the wound in his arm began to close.
Riven caught motion out of the corner of his eye-Azriim. He doubled up his sabers in his right hand, jerked a dagger from his belt, and flung it at the slaad. The short blade flew true and hit Azriim in his chest, but deflected off his hide as if it were a breastplate. The slaad pointed a clawed finger at Riven. A sickly green beam issued from the digit and hit Riven in the stomach.
Riven's heart stopped. He gasped, clutched his chest, and fell to all fours. He tried to pull in a breath, to force air into his lungs.
A breath came. Another. He closed his hands around the hilts of his sabers and tried to rise. Before he could regain his feet, Dolgan's huge hands closed over his shoulders, pinning his arms. The slaad lifted him bodily toward his fanged, open mouth. Riven stared into the tooth-lined opening.
Thinking quickly, he brought his knees to his chest, kicked out, and drove his feet into the slaad's throat. The blow would have crushed a human's windpipe but only caused Dolgan to gag, cough, and drop Riven.
Riven hit the floor in a crouch and slashed the slaad's gut with both sabers. The blades opened two gashes in the creature's midsection. Dolgan hissed with pain and lurched backward. His regenerative flesh was already closing the wounds.
Riven whirled a half-circle to face Azriim. The slaad bounded forward and let fly with a flurry of claw strikes. Parrying wildly, Riven gave ground, countering where he could. The slaad pressed, caught Riven in the chest with a claw, then a shoulder, and nicked his throat. Riven finally managed a more aggressive counterattack. He ducked beneath a claw strike and drove his saber half its length into Azriim's chest.
The slaad expectorated a spray of blood. Before Riven could finish him, Azriim bounded backward, hissing with pain as the saber withdrew from his flesh. Riven pursued but Azriim leaped upward and the leap never ended. The slaad went airborne, hovering near the ceiling, spattering the floor with his blood. Riven's slash hit only air.
Like Dolgan, Azriim's wounds, too, were closing before Riven's eyes.
Riven knew his situation was dire. The slaadi were faster than before, stronger, and they regenerated wounds that should have killed them. Riven was breathing hard and bleeding from a handful of painful wounds.
"You see it now, don't you?" Azriim taunted. "This isn't your temple. You're in your tomb."
Riven donned his sneer and answered, "What I see is you and your boy unable to close the deal." He put his fingers to the gashes on his face and they came away bloody. He looked at them, spat on the floor. "And if this is the best you have, neither of you are walking out of this room."
Azriim grinned. "I always liked you. It's unfortunate that I have to kill you,"
Dolgan roared a challenge.
Riven resolved to take at least one of the bastards with him before he died. He readied himself....
The darkness on the far end of the room behind Azriim deepened and Riven could not contain a grin.
"It's about godsdamned time," he said.
Cale had finally arrived.
Answering Dolgan's roar with a shout of his own, Riven charged the slaad.
* * * * *
Cale, Magadon, and Jak materialized in a large chamber in the tower they had seen through the leech, near a stairway leading upward. Doors dotted the walls of the chamber, and the whole room glowed a soft silver. Even through his boots, Cale could feel the magical power moving through the structure.
Azriim floated in the air in the center of the chamber with his back to the newcomers. Riven and Dolgan fought across the chamber. The assassin's blades whirled, darted, slashed. The big slaad held his ground and answered, lashing out with his claws.
Magadon drew an arrow to his ear, caused its tip to glow red with mental energy, and let it fly at Azriim.
The shaft sank to the fletching in the slaad's back. Azriim screamed, clutched at the tip protruding from his chest, and turned around. The scream distracted Dolgan and the big slaad also turned. Riven made him pay for his inattention.
The assassin drove a saber into the big slaad's throat, pulled the blade free, and swung a decapitating strike with his other saber. Somehow the big slaad kept his feet and ducked under Riven's slash. Blood poured from the hole in his throat. He held up one clawed hand and a small glowing ball appeared in his palm. Without a moment's hesitation, he threw it to the ground at his feet and it exploded into a ball of fire. Slaad and assassin flew backward from the point of the blast.
Cale, Magadon, and Jak raised their arms to shield themselves from the heat.
"The Tap," Cale reminded Jak, then drew Weaveshear and ran to Riven.
"You again, priest," Azriim said from near the ceiling. "My, but you are stubborn."
Cale risked a look up and saw the slaad pull Magadon's mentally-enhanced arrow through his body and let it fall to the floor. Magadon fired several ordinary arrows but they deflected off the slaad's hide.