Cale laid his bare blade beside him and stretched out on one of the cots. Given their situation, he felt obliged to be honest with Riven. Even the assassin deserved to understand the risk. He did not bother with a preamble.
"I've got the half-sphere in my pack."
The assassin didn't even look at him when he said, "Of course you do. Where else would you have it? A safehouse? I know you too well."
Cale ignored the tone and continued, "The ward I put on it to keep divinations from locating it will expire soon. I can't renew it. Not yet."
Riven stared at him, his eye cold, and asked, "And?"
"They'll be coming for it."
"If anyone other than the innkeeper or Fleet walks into this room, Cale," Riven said with a hard, mirthless grin, "they don't walk out."
Cale gave a nod, and after a moment he said, "You haven't yet asked the play."
It surprised him that Riven had not asked him what was the plan. Had their situations been reversed, Cale would have asked back on the street.
Riven ran a thumb along the blade of one of his sabers and said, "That's because I don't care, just so long as I get to put a handbreadth of steel through that wizard. That part of the plan?"
Cale chuckled.
"All right, then," Riven said. "That's all I need to know. Now, get some sleep."
Cale did just that. As he drifted off, it occurred to him that he ought to be concerned to have a former Zhent assassin sitting with drawn blades only a few paces from where he slept. Inexplicably, he wasn't, and the hours passed too fast.
Riven shook him. Cale came instantly awake.
"I'm drifting, Cale. Give me two hours, then let's get some food."
Riven was asleep almost instantly. Cale kept watch, tense, but nothing untoward occurred. Except Riven's dreams.
Less than half an hour after falling asleep, Riven began to toss about. His brow furrowed and he muttered in an alien tongue, "Nirtfel caul ir vel..."
The words, alien and vulgar, spilled from between Riven's lips. Though he had been a letters man back in Westgate, even Cale had never before heard a language like that. It called to mind moonless nights and blood sacrifice.
Riven grinned fiercely in his sleep, clutched at the disc that hung around his neck, and in that moment, Cale realized that Mask was speaking to Riven in his dreams, showing him, teaching him.
But what?
And why does it bother me so much? he wondered, though he knew the answer.
It bothered him because it meant that Mask saw him and Riven as equally worthy, as peers. Cale didn't like to think he shared much in common with Drasek Riven.
Except that both were killers, through and through.
In his dream, Riven laughed softly.
Cale put Mask out of his mind. He had more immediate concerns than his god's fickleness. He knew Vraggen and the half-drow had to be scouring the city for him. It was only a matter of time before a spell latched onto the half-sphere.
Riven ceased muttering and the next hour passed slowly.
Cale touched the assassin lightly on the shoulder. Riven came awake in an instant.
"You were dreaming," Cale said. "Speaking in your sleep."
He wondered if Riven remembered what Mask had shown him. Riven grunted, sat up, and sneered.
"Oh?" said the assassin. "Did I say anything interesting?"
"Nothing I understood."
Riven nodded and the effort replaced his sneer with a wince.
"My head feels like I took a dwarf's warhammer to the temple."
Cale saw significance in Riven's choice of the word "temple" but said nothing.
Riven tucked his holy symbol under his tunic and the two of them headed downstairs to eat whatever might be leftover from breakfast. Afterward, they moved outside to wait. Neither of them wanted to get caught inside a common room again. Vraggen had already shown a willingness to torch an entire establishment to get at them.
Riven ducked down an alley and climbed atop the roof of an eatery two buildings down from the Lizard. From there, his crossbow marked the whole of the street as well as the Lizard's entrance. Cale could barely see his head above the roof edge.
Cale stayed at street level, eyeing the steady stream of passersby, moving randomly along the block, but always keeping the Lizard in his sight. He saw nothing suspicious. That put him at ease. Perhaps the wizard and half-drow were not as hard on his trail as he suspected.
Jak showed up late that afternoon. He approached from the northeast, moving easily through the street traffic, a lightweight blue cloak thrown over his green pantaloons, gray shirt, and embroidered green vest. As always, a feathered cap topped his head. When Cale saw him, he sighed in relief. He had feared the halfling would not show for days. He could always count on Jak.
Cale signaled Riven, who nodded and left off his post. Then Cale moved to intercept the halfling. Before Jak spotted him, Cale considered invoking the spell that would allow him to detect illusions but decided against it. His enemies used illusions, true, but they could not have learned of Jak and the Lizard so quickly. If they had, they would have already attacked.
Besides, he would not, he could not, stay suspicious of everyone. It drained him, made him edgy, made him Riven. Riven's words from the previous night sounded in his mind: You've got no one you can trust either. You just think you do. Cale rejected that. Jak was Jak and he could trust no one more.
He separated from the crowd and walked toward the halfling. Jak spotted him immediately, smiled, and gave a hail. Cale walked up to him quickly. Jak must have seen the urgency in his face and stride. The halfling's smile vanished.
"Trickster's toes, Cale, what is it?"
"You got here fast. I just left the signal today."
Jak smiled and doffed his cap.
"I check the lighthouse every day, Cale," the halfling said. "You get in more scrapes than my drunken uncle Cob. Now, what's going on? You look pale, even for you."
Cale grinned, took the halfling by the arm, and turned him around.
"Let's walk, Jak. We don't want to stay in one place any longer than necessary."
To keep up, Jak took two or three strides to each of Cale's.
Cale went right to the point: "I've got something sought after by some powerful people, Jak. And they've got something—someone—I want to get back alive."
"One of the Uskevren?" Jak asked.
"No, but one of the house guards. A boy." Cale paused before adding, "Riven's involved."
Jak nodded knowingly and said, "No surprise there. That murdering basta—"
"No," Cale interrupted. "Riven's with us, Jak. He'll catch up with us in a few moments."
Jak stepped in front of Cale and put up a hand for Cale to stop.
"What did you just say? Riven? Drasek Riven?" He looked around for the assassin, didn't see him, then stared into Cale's face, bristling. "Riven's an indiscriminate killer, Cale. Did you fall asleep in a mistleaf den or something?"
Cale couldn't help but smile. That seemed to round the edge of the halfling's anger. Jak raised his eyebrows and looked at him uncertainly.
"It's a long story, my friend," Cale said. "For now, Riven's with us. But he and I have already had a talk. He crosses you, I put him down."
Jak harrumphed and crossed his arms over his chest.
"He crosses me and I put him down," said the halfling.
"Fair enough," Cale said, still smiling. He put a hand on Jak's shoulder. "We've got a room in the Lizard. Let's head back and go up."
They did. In the room, Jak took a seat on one of the cots, leaning forward and resting his forearms on his knees. Riven arrived moments later.
Jak stared at the assassin. The assassin stared at Jak. Neither said anything.. Cale let it go. If this partnership was to work, Jak had to establish some of his own rules. Cale knew the halfling knew that, full well.