In his mind's eye, he was already planning his next steps. He would take Cyric's war to the Banites in Selgaunt. After disposing of them, he would do the same in Ordulin. Cyric and his servants would rule the underworld in all of Sembia! He—
Huge, leathery hands took his head between them and lifted him from his feet. Claws as long as a man's thumb sank into his cheeks, scraped against his skull. He tried to scream but the hands kept his mouth clamped shut.
He uttered a muffled wail of agony. Through the pain, he realized that his protective spells, including his teleportation contingency, had not functioned. He could cast no further spells without the ability to speak. He squirmed and kicked futilely.
A voice sounded in his head—Azriim's voice, Cease your struggles, fool. Even you must realize that this is at an end.
Terror ran up Vraggen's spine. Azriim! It dawned on him then.
Azriim was not Azriim.
Incoherent images raced through his brain. Azriim's grin. His perfect teeth. His wild eyes. His sly comments. His manipulation.
Azriim was a shapeshifter. He had never seen it.
Ah, Azriim's voice said, and Vraggen could hear the satisfaction in it. You see it now, don't you?
Vraggen saw it all clearly. He had been a pawn, and the realization hit him that he had failed, both himself and his god. Despair washed through him, soaked him to his soul. He stopped even trying to fight. He felt as though he might cry. He went limp in Azriim's inhuman grasp. Mindlessly, the strands of shadow continued to fill him with shadowstuff, but Vraggen knew the transformation would never finish.
See me now, before the end, Azriim said, and turned him around.
Vraggen caught a flash of green skin, muscle, teeth, and mismatched eyes. A slaad, his mind registered distantly, Azriim was a slaad.
Why? he thought. Why?
But Azriim provided him with no answers.
Pray that your mad god is merciful to fools, Azriim said, and he opened his mouth wide.
A tremor shook the Fane as Cale and Riven jerked open the double doors. For an instant, the entire temple seemed to waver, to grow as insubstantial as a phantasm. Cale knew then that the Fane would not long remain in Faerun.
Cale and Riven stepped into the sanctum. Cale took in the scene in only a heartbeat.
In the center of the circular sanctum stood a dark altar. There, a hulking green slaad stood. It clutched Vraggen's headless corpse in its clawed hands. The slaad shot them a grin and swallowed whatever it held in its jaws: Vraggen's head, probably. Blood darkened its shark's teeth. Cale noticed the slaad's eyes then: one blue and one dark. It was Azriim.
"Dark," Riven cursed, and Cale knew he was angry because he wouldn't be able to kill the mage.
In the ceiling directly above Azriim was a circle of darkness about which spun a sky full of stars. The whole reminded Cale of a child's pinwheel, but its motion nauseated him. Shimmering, pulsing tendrils of shadowstuff reached from the hole, feeling for Vraggen, feeling for anything. Cale felt the pull of those tendrils on his sword.
In a flash of insight, Cale understood it all. Azriim had duped Vraggen into opening the Fane then murdered the mage in the midst of his transformation to a shade. But why?
Near the back of the sanctum stood another slaad. Leaner than Azriim, with eyes of gray, it was the slaad who had tortured Jak. In its hands, it held a tree—a sapling with black bark, gray leaves, and small silver fruit the size of walnuts. Strangely, the tree had no roots, though it somehow suggested roots.
Intuitively, Cale realized that it had all been about that tree—the Weave Tap. The slaad with the tree held in its other hand the brass teleportation rod. Without even looking at Cale and his comrades, he twisted it once, twice, and vanished with the Tap.
"No," Jak said through clenched teeth
Casually, Azriim tossed aside Vraggen's corpse, detaching the last of the tendrils.
"You're too late," the slaad croaked. "The Sojourner has his prize."
"We'll see," Cale and Riven said in unison. To Jak and Magadon, Cale projected, Use missiles, Jak, and your magic, Magadon. Don't let him use the teleportation rod.
He and Riven charged.
Before they had taken three strides, Azriim spoke an arcane word and vanished from sight. Cale and Riven arrested their charge and went back to back. Cale couldn't hope to hear Azriim's movement above the pulsing in the room.
Again, the Fane wavered.
We've got to get out of here, Cale, Riven projected.
Cale made no answer. He couldn't let it end that way.
Azriim's voice sounded in Cale's head, I would love to linger and kill you slowly, Erevis Cale, but time is short and my work completed. It satisfies me that you now understand your failure. I'll allow that as vengeance for my ruined pants.
Cale could hear the smile in his voice.
Magadon's voice sounded in Cale's brain, He is standing near the far wall, directly in front of the alcove. He has the teleportation rod in his hands. Follow me.
Without waiting for Magadon, Cale dropped his blade, drew a throwing dagger, and hurled it at the corner at about the height of the slaad's chest. Beside him, Riven too fired a dagger. Both sank into flesh with a dull thud.
Azriim's pained croak could be heard even above the pulsing. Magadon streaked past them, white fire blasting from his hands. The smell of charred flesh filled the room. Riven sped for the corner, blades bare. Cale retrieved his own blade and did the same.
Stay away from those tendrils! he "shouted" as he ran.
Jak's scream stopped them cold. Cale whirled around to see Nestor, halfway through his transformation into a slaad, standing behind Jak with the tip of his blade sticking through Jak's chest.
Nestor completed his change as he pulled his blade free. Jak collapsed face-down to the floor of the sanctum, a pool of blood expanding from his body. Nestor, fully in slaad form but still holding his blade, again stabbed Jak through back.
Cale ... the halfling projected, then fell silent.
Nestor! Magadon's mental voice screamed.
"Jak!" Without a moment's hesitation, Cale put Azriim out of his mind and raced for Jak. Nestor—no, Dolgan—grinning, dropped his sword, pulled his teleportation rod, twisted it, and disappeared with a grin.
Cale sank to Jak's side, soaking his cloak in the halfling's blood. Cale turned him over. His green eyes were open.
"Jak! Jak!"
"I can't see, Cale," the halfling whispered. His eyes were vacant. Cale had seen that look on the faces of corpses.
Cale cradled his head, tried to hold back the tears but failed.
"I know," he said. "I know."
Another shudder shook the Fane. Again it wavered, flickered out of reality for a heartbeat. Cale too felt insubstantial. He was losing his best friend.
Riven and Magadon ran up behind him.
"Let me help carry him," Riven said, and put a hand on Cale's shoulder. "We've got to go, Cale."
Cale couldn't even nod.
"The slaad used his rod to flee," Magadon said. After a pause, he said, "I'm sorry, Jak. I didn't know. I didn't know."
Cale wanted to tell the guide that it was not his fault, that he could not have known, but no words would come.
The pulsing of the sanctum continued. Cale heard it like a distant heartbeat. Jak's breathing slowed, slowed. He tried to wipe Jak's brow with his stump—
—and knew what he had to do.
Cale looked up at Magadon and said, "Take his wounds."
The mind mage backed up a step and said, "Cale, he's—"
"Take them, and give them to me."
Riven looked a question at Cale. Magadon looked horrified.
"It will kill you," the mind mage said.
"Do it," Cale pressed. "Now!"
"No. I—"
"Do it," said Riven, in a tone that didn't allow for refusal.
Magadon stood there with his mouth open. Another tremor shook the temple.