"I suppose you do," Magadon said, and grim humor tinged his voice.
Riven put his mouth next to the guide's ear and whispered, "If he dies, you're dead too. I don't need a guide without him."
At that, Magadon actually smiled.
"I see you haven't changed, Drasek."
He removed his hat and looked Cale in the face for the first time. Cale saw that his eyes lacked color. They were solid white except for his dark pupils. Ridiculously, those eyes called to Cale's mind knucklebones that had just come up adder's eyes. The most unlucky of rolls.
"This won't hurt," Magadon said to Cale. "Not you, anyway."
Despite the attempt at levity, Cale heard the dread in the guide's voice. Magadon put two fingers to Cale's forehead and two fingers to his own. Instantly, a charge ran the length and breadth of Cale's body and he felt his mind connect to Magadon's, conjoin. The feeling would have frightened him had he not been so weak. For a fraction of a heartbeat, he was not his own man.
Almost as quickly as it had begun, their minds began to separate. As Magadon's mind pulled away, he drew Cale's pain after him. Cale's vision cleared, ribs righted and reknit, slashes closed and sealed, and the stump of his wrist stopped bleeding.
And with each step of the healing process, the wounds that had healed in Cale manifested on Magadon. The guide groaned as his ribs shattered, and he gritted his teeth as his skin split.
The entire process took only moments.
Afterward, Cale was whole but for the stump of his hand. Magadon was ruined.
The guide collapsed beside him, eyes squeezed shut, face contorted with pain. Cale would have healed him if he had had his holy symbol. With nothing else for it, he sat up, put a comforting hand on Magadon, and looked up at Riven.
"What have you done?"
"Saved you," Riven said unemotionally, and nodded at Magadon. "Watch."
Cale watched, wide-eyed, as Magadon visibly gathered himself and attempted to concentrate. Before Cale's eyes, the slashes in the guide's flesh faded, and his ribs healed.
"Dark," Jak whispered from behind him, watching with one eye while keeping the other on Magadon's comrade.
Cale too was amazed. He had seen Magadon cast no healing spell.
"How?" he asked Riven.
Riven's mouth twisted with distaste.
"Back in Selgaunt," the assassin said. "I told you I once knew a mind mage. Now you do too."
"Psionicist," Magadon corrected, groaning as he lifted himself into a seated position. "Mind mage sounds ridiculous."
Riven scoffed.
Cale helped Magadon to his feet and asked, "You healed me with your mind?"
Magadon looked him in the face with those knucklebone eyes and replied, "I established a sympathetic bond between us and took your wounds as my own. I healed myself with my mind."
Cale absorbed that, still astounded.
"So you can only heal yourself?" he asked.
Magadon nodded.
A thought occurred to Cale and he asked, "Can you pass the wounds to another?"
A guarded look came over the guide's face.
"Only if the other were willing," he said. "It's not a weapon."
Cale considered that, nodded, and extended his remaining hand.
"I'm Erevis Cale," he said, "and I'm in your debt."
Magadon took his hand.
"Magadon Kest. And that," he nodded to his comrade, a large man in studded leather armor, armed with bow and a greatsword, "is Nestor."
The big man nodded his balding head in acknowledgement. His wide-eyed gaze lingered over the corpse of the slain creature.
Magadon went on, "Perhaps you'd consider calling off the halfling? Nestor looks intimidated."
"Piss off," said the big man.
"Jak," Cale said with a smile.
The halfling sheathed his blades and gave Nestor an apologetic shrug.
For the first time, it registered that both Jak and Riven were wounded. Cale reached for his holy symbol—
And realized again that he had no holy symbol. And no hand. He looked at the stump. Strangely, it felt as though he still had a hand, as though he could still flex his fingers. He felt no pain, just loss. He looked to the corpse of the creature.
"What did you call her?" he asked Magadon.
"Her? How in the Hells would you know it was a ‘her’?"
Cale gave no answer, and Magadon shrugged.
"She's a slaad, I think," the guide said. "Creatures of chaos. Not of this world." He looked at Riven. "Not enough enemies in Faerun for you, Drasek?"
Riven sneered.
Nestor, standing over the slaad's corpse with a haunted look, poked at the body with his greatsword. Cale figured Nestor had never before seen anything like her.
"Cut her up and burn her," Cale said. "Then we move."
Nestor whirled on them.
"What?" he asked, horror obvious in his eyes.
"They heal," Riven said. "Faster than a troll. It's the only way to be certain. Fleet, start a fire. Keep it low. We don't need the whole forest seeing it."
Jak nodded and set to work. Afterward, while Magadon, Jak, and Nestor chopped the slaad's body into manageable pieces, Cale pulled Riven aside.
"How well do you know him?" Cale asked, indicating Magadon.
"We go back a bit. I'd trust him as much as you. He's been a guide out of Starmantle for years. Did some work for the Zhents years ago. His comrade is unknown to me."
"Get him over here."
Riven called Magadon over while Nestor and Jak put the slaad to the flames. The creature's flesh shed greasy black smoke as it burned. It smelled like eggs gone bad. Of course, Cale knew that somewhere in the flames his holy symbol too was burning. He watched the flesh char and peel away from the bones, hoping that somewhere the flames warmed the departed souls of the Uskevren house guards she had murdered.
When Magadon walked over, Cale asked him, "Can you get us to the Lightless Lake by midnight?"
Magadon frowned and said, "That'll be tight. The marsh is hard going. But I know the way." He paused, then added, "What's in it for me and Nestor?"
"Three hundred fivestar—gold pieces each," Cale said. "You'll have to take my word for payment, at least for now." When Magadon didn't balk, Cale went on, "There's likely to be danger there. And more of those." He indicated the roasting slaad with the stump of his hand. "Innocent lives may be at stake, but you should understand that this really is a personal matter."
The guide stared him in the face, his expression unreadable.
"There aren't any innocent lives, Erevis," Magadon said, "and I wouldn't trust a man who was out to save 'em. A grudge, now that I can understand. We're in for three hundred wheels."
He gave Riven a look then walked back to help burn the slaad to ash.
After he'd gone, Riven indicated Cale's stump and asked, "How is it?"
Coming from Riven, the question surprised Cale. He remembered the thought that had occurred to him as he lay dying: Was Riven his friend?
"I'll manage," he said. "Lost the mask, though. No spells until I get a new symbol."
He managed to keep his tone level, but in truth he had no idea how he would obtain another holy symbol. The mask had come to him by ...
Fate, he thought, and almost smiled. Almost.
Riven's hand went to his own holy symbol, then he wiped the slaad's black blood from his sabers and scabbarded them.
"Let's find this prig of a mage."
CHAPTER 17
SUMMONING SHADOWS
Behind Vraggen, the bullywugs ceased beating their drums and fell silent. The hushed air was rich with anticipation. The bullywugs seemed to be holding their breath beneath their torches. Eglos, their shaman, had represented to his faithful that the expected appearance of the Fane of Shadows would be a sign that the tribe was favored by Ramenos. Worked into a religious frenzy, the gullible creatures now would tear to shreds anyone else who attempted to set foot in the area.