Cale shook his head. He had no idea.
One of the spindly-legged bullywugs on the near side of their line shook its frog head, staggered, and croaked. Others croaked in answer. Cale could hear the question in their tone.
Cale held his breath. Nestor, the dolt, continued to move. Cale willed him to stay still. Eyes were drawn to motion, even in the dark. But the big fighter continued his crawl.
The bullywug that had staggered suddenly pointed in Nestor's direction and croaked loudly. Thirty pairs of bulbous eyes focused on the human. The shaman ceased his ritual swaying, stood, and looked in Nestor's direction. Spears were brandished. Loud croaks ran up and down the line. The bullywugs started to hop toward Nestor.
"Dark and empty," Cale oathed.
With nothing for it, Nestor jumped to his feet and ran for the cypress. Thirty bullywugs led by their shaman hopped after. Spears whistled through the air.
Just as Cale and Riven prepared to rush to his rescue, two, then three of the spears thumped into the human. He staggered and fell, disappearing in the mud and undergrowth.
Cale held his ground, strained to see the fallen man but could not. It was as though the earth had swallowed him up.
"Nestor!" Magadon shouted.
The guide started back but Riven blocked him with his blade.
Ten or more of the bullywugs swarmed the area in which the human had fallen and their spears rose and fell. The rest, having heard Magadon's cry, croaked loudly and hopped for the cypress. Their shaman began a rhythmic chanting that Cale knew could only be a spell.
Jak grabbed Cale by the arm and said, "Whatever you're going to do, do it fast!"
Cale knew what he had to do—follow the shadows, the same as he had done his whole life.
He followed the mist swirling off his blade, stepped to the water's edge, and shoved his sword in, all the way to the hilt. The shadows leaking from the iron hissed when they hit the water, as though the blade was hot. For a moment, the lake churned and foam sprayed. A heartbeat later, a depression formed in the water around the sword. A hemisphere as large as a merchant's wagon. A bubble of air. He withdrew his blade and the depression remained.
"Here!" he called. "Here!"
His comrades ran to him, with Magadon covering their retreat with bow fire. The air was filled with spears and croaks. Spears thumped into the cypress's trunk and splashed into the lake.
"Get in," Cale urged. "It will support us."
He was guessing on that last but it proved to be true.
Riven, Jak, and Magadon jumped into the hemisphere, Magadon still firing. Cale followed, and it began to sink.
"Burn me," Jak whispered, as the depression began to descend. It formed into a perfect sphere as the water closed above them.
By the time the bullywugs reached the shore, the lake had already swallowed Cale and his comrades. Looking up though the lens of the sphere, the bullywugs appeared blurry and indistinct. Their croaks, muffled. A few spear tips poked into the water, but none reached within the sphere.
Cale put a hand on Magadon's shoulder to comfort him on the loss of his friend. Magadon looked him in the eyes and gave a nod. He took a deep breath.
"Here," the woodsman said. "Do not resist."
While Cale, Riven, and Jak shared a confused look, Magadon closed his eyes, touched two fingers to his temple, and visibly concentrated.
Cale felt a tickle at the base of his skull, followed by Magadon's "voice" in his head: We now are all linked telepathically, at any distance.
"Nice," Jak said. I mean, nice, he said again, mentally, and grinned.
How long? Cale asked, more and more impressed with the mind mage.
More than an hour, Magadon responded.
Better than handcant, Cale said to Riven and Jak.
The bubble descended rapidly. Its sides felt leathery, though it was perfectly transparent. Below them the Fane glowed eerily, itself contained within a much larger hemisphere suspended in the depths. Try as he might, Cale could see no bottom to the lake. A field of statuary, not unlike the garden topiary in Stormweather, surrounded the temple building itself. Shadows darted amongst the statues.
See them? Cale said.
I see them, Riven said.
Jak nodded, as did Magadon.
Ready yourselves, Cale warned. I doubt they're friendly.
CHAPTER 18
THE FANE OF SHADOWS
Their sphere stopped at a point adjacent to and just touching the larger sphere of air that contained the Fane. Like soap bubbles, the two instantly joined to form one larger bubble. The eerie green light, seemingly emanating from everything and nothing, provided a surreal illumination. Cale felt a strange sense of solitude, as though he was floating through the cosmos, as though he was suspended within the starsphere in his pack.
From the statue-filled courtyard, the host of shadows streaked toward them with an unearthly moan. They appeared vaguely humanoid, with a deeper darkness where their eyes ought to have been. Menace went before them.
Cale and Riven stepped forward to meet them, blades bared. Jak followed, holy symbol brandished in his hands. Magadon, in stride beside the halfling, closed his eyes for a moment and a ball of white fire took shape in his hands.
Form up, Cale ordered, as the shadows swooped in. A tight circle.
Just as the comrades prepared to receive the onslaught, the shadows stopped.
They hovered in a semicircle three paces away. For a moment, nothing happened, then they began to moan. Those dire voices cast more chill than an Alturiak gale.
In answer, Cale's sword vibrated and cast off more wisps of darkness.
I don't know, Cale said to his comrades, to cut off the questions he felt forming in their minds.
"Trickster's toes," Jak said.
The moaning abruptly ceased, and Cale's sword stopped vibrating. A silent communication seemed to pass between the shadows and they parted like a curtain to allow Cale and his comrades passage.
Jak's voice sounded in Cale's head, Whatever was in that starsphere went into your sword.
Cale nodded, and hoped again that whatever had transformed his sword had not transformed him, too. Cale looked at his blade. The dull steel still emitted streamers of shadow. He thought of the strange language that Riven had learned in his dreams, the speaking of which struck like a physical blow. He saw Mask's hand in both the sword and the words.
Sephris's voice sounded in his memory: Two and two are four.
Cale led his comrades through the shadows, which dispersed after they passed.
The statues that littered the courtyard were of extraordinary craftsmanship. Carved from black veined marble, basalt, obsidian, or ebony, all depicted what could only be a god or goddess of night. Many appeared as old and worn as the multiverse. Others likely had seen only a century or two. Intuitively, Cale understood the deities represented there to be gods and goddesses of darkness, night, or shadows on a hundred different worlds.
Who sculpted these? Jak asked, and even his mental voice held a touch of awe.
Cale wondered the same thing.
A metal plaque on the pedestal of each set forth the name of the represented deity. Most were in tongues or alphabets that even Cale had never before seen, but—
He stopped before a towering blacksteel sculpture of a long, dark-haired woman in a flowing cloak—the largest, most conspicuous sculpture in the courtyard. A cowl partially hid her features, but her mouth smiled knowingly. The plaque at the base was engraved in Thorass, an ancient form of common on Faerun—Shar, it read. The Dark Maiden, Keeper of the Secret Weave.
Beside and slightly behind the statue of Shar, nearly hidden in its shadow, stood another statue, smaller and carved from black hematite: A one-legged human male in thieving leathers, with a cowled cloak pulled up to reveal only the lower half of his face. He seemed to be looking up at Shar from the shadows and sneering.
The expression reminded Cale of Riven.
In its hand, the statue held a long sword that looked strikingly similar to Cale's own. Cale's heart raced as he read the plaque: Mask, it read, and nothing more, as if any more than that one word was unnecessary.