Jak scoffed, put his back to Riven, and said in a low hiss, "I've seen the result of Zhent interrogations, Cale. That one—" he indicated the easterner with his thumb—"might even be human. He didn't change. We don't know." He crossed his arms over his chest. "No. I won't do it."
"I'm not asking you to do it."
Jak looked up into Cale's face and said, "Yes you are, Cale. Don't try to dodge it that way. Asking me to stand by is the same as asking me to sanction it. Don't."
Cale hesitated but only for a moment. They had little choice.
He kneeled down to look Jak in the eyes. He could feel Riven's gaze heavy on him.
"We need to know what they plan to do with the sphere, little man, and where they plan to do it. I'll try not to let it come to that."
"Try?"
Cale sighed and said, "You said yourself that innocent lives may be at stake." While that was true, innocent lives factored into Cale's thinking only partially. He wanted payback, pure and true. He took Jak by the shoulders. "Listen, now. Sometimes good people have to do hard things. This is one of those times, Jak. If good people won't do the hard things, evil people will always win, because evil people will do anything."
Jak shook his head. His green eyes were troubled.
"So we do evil to stop evil?" the halfling asked. "That's what you're saying, you know."
Cale nodded slowly and replied, "If you like, but what I mean to say is that we must be pragmatic, Jak. And pragmatism is a merciless bitch. We can stand on principle and accomplish nothing, or we can grit our teeth and do what needs to be done."
He stood up, took a step back, and waited for Jak to decide.
"I'll try not to let it come to that," Cale repeated, and meant it.
Jak looked forlorn, and Cale wondered what his friendship with Jak was doing to the halfling. Jak pulled Cale up. Cale worried that he was dragging Jak down.
The halfling eyed Cale, looked at Riven, rubbed the back of his neck. Finally, he nodded.
"I hear what you're saying. Innocents are at stake. I know it." He looked at Cale sharply and added, "But I can't be near it, Cale."
"I know," Cale said, and he felt dirty.
He turned away but Jak grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back around. His green eyes burned with intensity.
"Don't lose yourself in this Erevis. Don't turn into Drasek Riven. You're not that man anymore."
That gave Cale a start. How many times had he told himself those very words?
He looked down at Jak and said, "I know. I won't." He put a hand on the halfling's shoulder. "This is just me learning to do the math."
"What?"
Cale smiled softly. Jak couldn't understand because he hadn't heard Sephris's words.
"Nothing," said Cale. "Forget it." He turned to look at Riven, who had already begun to bind the easterner. "Let's get him to that barn."
Riven nodded and grinned a mouthful of stained teeth. He stepped close to the easterner and looked him in the face, nose to nose.
"I told you we'd get that dance, prig. And I don't care if you're human or not. You know why?"
The easterner, of course, said nothing.
Riven's gaze was dark, his voice low. "Because everything feels pain."
The dilapidated barn sat a bowshot off the road, at the edge of an overgrown field. The farmers must have farmed out the soil and moved to better lands years before. To Jak, the decrepit building looked sinister, but perhaps that was because he knew what was about to happen within.
The rain had picked up. Riven and Cale carried the bound easterner between them. They had gagged him and wrapped him in so much rope and cord that even if he could change his shape, he could be killed easily before he could complete any metamorphosis.
As they neared the barn, the easterner, free of the immobilizing effect of Cale's spell, began to struggle against his bonds. He must have deduced what was coming, must have seen it in Riven's cold eye. Riven cuffed him a few times in the face—hard enough to split a lip.
"It only gets worse after this," the assassin promised, his voice as hard as stone. "You'll have a chance—one chance, when we get in there—to tell us what we want to know. After that...."
He stared and let the threat dangle. The easterner glared hate. Riven sneered.
Cale grabbed the easterner by his hair and said, "Anything about you starts to change, and I start cutting off limbs. Hands, then arms. I'll get creative after that."
Jak figured Cale was acting but still felt nauseated.
"I'll wait out here and keep watch," he said.
"Suit yourself," Riven said.
Cale nodded at him and said, "Stay alert. I don't think they'll be back, but we can't be sure."
Jak nodded, feeling numb while he watched Riven and Cale carry the struggling easterner into the barn. He thought Riven might actually have been whistling.
He hoped it was an affectation to unnerve the easterner, but Trickster's Toes if he could be sure.
Cale struck a tindertwig, shot Jak one more glance, and pulled the doors shut behind them.
Jak moved away a bit and sat atop an overturned feeding trough, careless of the rain. He tried not to think about what might occur only a short distance away.
He prayed that Cale could get the information without resorting to torture. In his minds' eye, he imagined the screams. Chills ran along his spine. The rain did nothing to wash away the filth he felt clinging to his soul.
From within the barn, he heard voices. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to abide.
"Sometimes good people have to do hard things," he muttered. "Sometimes good people ..."
A few rusty farm implements and barrels lay strewn about the otherwise empty room of the farmhouse. Riven propped the bound easterner on a barrel in the exact center of the room. Exposed. Vulnerable.
Cale stared holes into the man.
Riven pulled another barrel over and placed it in front of the easterner. The assassin pulled a black leather bag from somewhere. Looking at the easterner meaningfully, he began to remove the contents—blades, wedges, nails, tongs, a poker, a hammer—and placed them atop the barrel. The easterner's eyes went as wide as coins.
Seeing those tools made Cale's legs go weak. To Riven, he said in Amnish, "That's not the play, Riven."
The assassin smiled evilly, as though Cale had suggested a use for the implements.
"We'll see. How do you want to go at him?"
"Ask and answer," Cale replied. "I'll ask."
Riven gave a nod, picked up one of the blades, and ran his thumb along its edge.
"I'll answer," the assassin said.
He glared at the easterner with ice in his eyes and a razor in his hand.
Cale could see the fear in the easterner's face, though he tried to hide it.
Riven walked around the easterner, out of his sight. Cale could imagine the fear that must have instilled. The man tried to squirm around, but his binding held him fast.
Cale looked into the easterner's face.
"I don't know what you are," he said.
Riven was suddenly at the man's side, whispering in his ear, "Doesn't matter."
"I only know the situation you're in," Cale continued.
Riven let the razor play along the easterner's face, just below his eye.
"And it ain't good," he said with a smile.
Cale paced in front of the man, keeping his voice cordial. "You can heal, we know that." He stopped pacing, as though a thought had just occurred to him, and he looked into the easterner's face. "Do you know what that means?"
Cale could see from his expression that he did.
"It means we can cut you," Riven said. "And cut you, and cut you, and you won't die." He nicked the easterner's face below his eye. The man winced, but bled only for a heartbeat before the wound closed. "Not ever."