"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.
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.