there it was. 'That mean anything to you?'
Jak shook his head, but his knowing eyes studied Cale intently.
'He also said that there is another, that there are two champions of Mask.' He looked questioningly at the little man. 'Could that be us?'
Jak immediately shook his head and held his holy symbol up between thumb and forefinger. 'Not possible,' he said. 'You could be one, I suppose, but I couldn't. I'm a priest of Brandobaris. I can't also be the servant of another god, much less the servant of Mask. If there's another Champion, it's someone other than me.'
Cale accepted that with a nod. He sat back in his chair and gulped his ale.
Jak leaned forward and looked at him earnestly. 'That confirms it though, Cale. The gods are involved here. Or at least Mask. Cale… I think you're being called.'
'You're crazy.' Cale sipped from his ale and tried to keep his hand from shaking.
Jak laughed softly. 'It's hard to get your hands around, I know.' He sipped from his own ale. 'You know how I became a priest of Brandobaris?'
Cale looked up and shook his head. They had never discussed Jak's entry into the Trickster's priesthood. Cale welcomed the opportunity to learn more about his friend:
'It was Year's End Eve in the Year of the Serpent,' Jak said, lust after the Time of Troubles. I was twenty-six then.' His voice grew distant as he journeyed far back in his memory. 'I was doing a fourth-story job in Hillsfar-I was solo then, too,' he added with a playful wink, and took a gulp from his ale.
'Cale, I got in and out of this noble's villa without a bitch, loaded with swag. I had enough king's pictures to last two years.' He chuckled and shook his head. 'But I was young and stupid. Really stupid. I took too much, and it was way too heavy. I got ten feet down the wall, lost my balance, and fell.'
'Fell! You?' Halfling rogues notoriously lacked climbing skill, but over the years Jak had repeatedly proven himself an exception.
Jak nodded, smiling. 'I should've left nothing more than a bloodstain and a pile of coins on the pavement.' He gripped his holy symbol and leaned forward intently. 'Instead, I drifted to the ground like a feather.'
Cale knew what that meant-he had heard similar stories before. 'Divine gift.'
'Divine gifts' agreed Jak with a nod. 'I turned over that whole take to the first priest of Brandobaris I could find. Took the rites right there. I was called. You see?'
Cale took a draw on his ale. 'I see… but how'd you know it was Brandobaris that had called you? Why not some other god? Why not luck? Or the whim of a passing mage?'
'No, it was the Trickster, all right.' Jak nodded thoughtfully and stroked his whiskered chin. 'How can I explain? I think it's different for everybody, Gale, but I just Anew, you know? The same way you know your mother is your mother, even though you didn't see her give birth to you.' He crossed his hands and eyed Gale shrewdly. 'Has something like that already happened to you?'
Gale sipped thoughtfully from his ale and recalled the mysterious darkness that only he had been able to see through. 'Maybe,' he said. 'Maybe.' He felt himself being pulled along through events he didn't fully understand, the marionette of a divine puppeteer. He didn't like it. He would be no one's puppet, not even a god's. Especially not a god's.
As though reading his mind, Jak said, 'You're always your own man, Gale, even after you accept your calling, and you can reject it. Most don't though-the gods seem to call only those ready and able to accept. Kind of a convergence of mortal and divine interests.'
It pleased Gale to learn that a call could be rejected. He wasn't sure Mask had tried to call him, but if so, he reserved the right to refuse.
I'm not changing for you, Mask, understand? He had tiled changing for Thamalon and Thazienne, and it had only made things worse. He was through with trying to be something other than what he was. A skilled killer.
He put Mask out of his mind and finished his stew. 'You ready?' he asked Jak.
The little man's face fell slightly but he rallied quickly. 'Ready.' Hurriedly, Jak slammed back the last of his ale and enjoyed a final spoonful of stew.
'Then let's do this.'
Verdrinal awoke with a start. His heart thumped so hard in his chest that he thought it would surely explode. The residuum of the sound that had awakened him from his nightmare played at the edge of his still sleepy consciousness and promised him an ugly death.
There's someone in the room! his mind screamed.
Slowly, he slid his hand under the sheets and patted the space to his right-nothing. Dark, he inwardly cursed. For the first night in the last five, he had not taken a lover. He was alone.
Terrified, but unwilling to die without trying to take some action, he jerked upright in bed and peered around the opulence of his bedchambers. He saw only darkness-the hearth had burned itself out. It must be several hours past midnight.
Heart racing, he waited for the sleep to clear from his eyesight. Within a few moments, he could make out varying shades of gray-his dressing table, armoire, work desk, divan, dressing screen, chairs^There! A shadowy figure stood near his wardrobe. His breath left him, his body went weak; his intent to fight to the last vanished under a tidal wave aifeaE
'Dark!' he screamed.
He threw off his sheets in a cloud of silk, rolled across the bed, and reached for the nightstand drawer where he kept a poisoned knife. He couldn't control his fingers-he fumbled clumsily with the drawer latch. He couldn't breathe-he wanted to scream for Hov but his constricted throat would make no sound. He would be dead in a heartbeat.
Damn this drawer! Damn this drawer! He stared over his shoulder in terror. The figure didn't move. He froze, cocked his head, and peered intently through the darkness. The figure didn't move because…
It's my damned night cloak, he realized. He had thrown it over his wardrobe before coming to bed.
'My cloak,' he muttered. He would have laughed but he still hadn't recovered his breath. His sweat-soaked body shivered in the night's cold. He collapsed back into the bed and stared up at the ceiling until his heart ceased pounding.
''There's no one here,' he announced to the night. He had imagined the sound, had imported the terror of his nightmare into his bedroom..
He had dreamed of the dread, or what he imagined the dread to be. He had run and run through a featureless, unending maze, all the while dogged from behind by a clawed black vision of unspeakable evil. He had heard it sniffing for him, chuffing like a hound. Periodically, it had called out to him. 'Little puke,' it had hissed. 'Little puke.'
'Puke,' he breathed, and chuckled in relief. He had scared himself witless!
No longer afraid, but still flushed from the rush of fear, he pined again for Arlanni, the sain, taut young woman who had been warming his bed for the past few days. She had left in a huff after a spat over the dinner roast.
Too bad Arlanni was so damned difficult. It made her all the more appealing, of course, he thought with a smile. Thinking of her long blonde hair and firm thighs, he grew warm with excitement. I should send a messenger for her this instant, he resolved.
He sat up again and reached for the small bronze bell that sat on his nightstand. Increasingly eager for Arlanni's body, he shook it urgently. Its soft chime reverberated through his large bedroom. Hov would be along in a moment.
The big man had taken to standing watch outside his door since the incident with Riven.
Such a diligent worker… a pity, Verdrinal thought, too much work makes a man a dullard. He again shook the bell. 'Hov,' he called, 'Hov.'
Before Verdrinal took another breath the darkness to his right suddenly came to life. A shadowy figure rushed him. A fist grabbed him by the hair and jerked him roughly down on the bed.
'Aiee-' The feel of cold steel at his throat silenced his scream.
A body slithered close, stinking breath felt hot on his cheek. 'Hov can't help you,' said a voice.
Drasek Riven's voice.
A shudder shook Verdrinal's body when he heard the coldness in the assassin's tone. This was not the emotionally volatile Riven that had argued with him yesterday in his study. This was Drasek Riven the professional
