Jak indicated the direction Ren had walked, but the night and rain had already swallowed the guard's silhouette.
'I don't know,' Cale replied. 'He'll be all right eventually.'
Jak nodded. He kneeled and picked up his weapons. As he did, he looked sidelong to Riven, who was tending the shallow wounds he had received.
'Riven,' Jak said, and Cale could see the halfling was embarrassed. 'I owe you.'
To Cale's surprise, Riven didn't offer his sneer, didn't even look at the halfling.
'You owe me nothing, Fleet,' Riven said as he began to rifle the easterner's cloak. He threw coins to the ground, but when he located the bronze teleportation rod, he examined it for a moment before putting it in a pocket of his own. 'I've got one rule when blades are drawn-my side walks away. Everyone else-' he thumped a fist into the easterner's chest-'you leave bleeding in the dirt. It's that simple.'
'Understood,' Jak said. 'And that's mutual.' The halfling looked at Cale. 'Take off that mask, eh? You're both starting to make me nervous.'
Cale had almost forgotten that he had it on. He had fought with it on only once before. Wearing it made him feel anonymous, as though he had moral permission to kill. He didn't care for the feeling. He took off the mask, put it in his vest, and patted Jak on the shoulder. For an instant, he wondered what kind of man he would have become had he not met Jak Fleet. The halfling was his conscience, he knew. Jak had softened the edges of his nature almost as much as had Thazienne.
'I don't think Vraggen's dead,' Jak said. 'I hurt him bad, but not bad enough.'
Cale nodded. He didn't think Vraggen was dead either.
'We'll find him again, little man,' Cale said. 'But first we get the sphere back to Sephris. He can tell us when Vraggen plans to do whatever it is that he plans to do. We'll just have to find out the where and the what some other way.'
Jak nodded. He reached for his pipe, remembered that it was raining, and let his hand fall to his side.
'Did you see the woman start to change?' the halfling asked. 'There at the end?'
Cale nodded.
'What are these things?' Jak asked. 'Not just shapeshifters, and that's certain.'
Cale had no answer, but he knew that whatever the woman was in her natural form, it was big, with jaws large enough to eat a meat shank in a single bite.
'Look at this,' Riven said, and Cale and Jak turned.
Riven had his ear to the easterner's mouth.
'This one's still breathing,' he said. He stepped back and eyed the chest wounds he had given the easterner. 'The wounds are already closing.' Riven gave Jak a frown, then looked a question at Cale. 'We passed an abandoned barn about halfway between here and the High Bridge. Did you see it?'
Cale took Riven's meaning right away and said, 'I did.'
Cale watched the halfling and waited for the import of Riven's comment to settle in. It didn't take long.
Jak's eyes went wide. He grabbed Cale's hand.
'You're not-Cale, we can't. No.'
'Jak…'
Jak shook his head emphatically. 'No.' His voice lowered to a whisper. 'You're talking about torture, Erevis. That's not us.'
Cale shook his head.
'I'm talking about interrogation,' he said, but the words sounded insincere even to himself.
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.
