'I told you I would come back,' he said.
She nodded, stared at him. Her mouth opened, closed, and finally she said, 'Where were you? Were you hurt in all this?' Her gesture took in the destruction.
'I was … nearby,' he said. 'I was not hurt. I was worried that you were.'
'I kept hoping….' she said. She looked away from him and took a deep breath. 'I'm glad you are here.'
'I am too,' he said.
She looked into his eyes and smiled.
He wanted to touch her, to hold her, but did not feel that he was entitled. He wanted her to fly into his arms but she did not. He wanted to smile but it wouldn't come. They looked past and around each other for a few uncomfortable breaths.
From within the row house, a woman's voice called, 'Who is it, Varra?'
'It's none of your affair,' Varra snapped over her shoulder.
Grumbles answered her but quickly faded.
She turned and looked Cale in the face. Before she could speak, Cale plunged into deep water. 'I am here for you,' he said.
At that, her eyes flashed. She leaned toward him, perhaps unconsciously.
'I am leaving and I want to take you out of here,' he continued. 'It's not safe anymore, if it ever was.'
She looked alternately surprised, grateful, and afraid. 'When?' she said.
'Right now,' Cale said. 'I can take you to Selgaunt. A city on the surface. In a breath you can be gone from here.'
He reached out and took her hand, held it lightly. Her skin was so soft, so warm.
'Now. .' she said, as though trying out the word. 'But…'
'Now,' he said. 'You can start anew there.'
At his words, she looked at him sharply and he wondered what he had said. He saw the struggle on her face but he did not understand it. After a moment, the struggle ended. She took his hand between hers.
'Do you feel something between us? Something. . special?'
Cale hesitated. He had known her for only hours. Still, he could not deny the. . connection. Her touch set him aflame. He nodded, and Varra exhaled.
'I do too,' she said. 'That's why I want us to start anew, not just me. Why not, 'We can start anew there?' '
Cale understood it then. He struggled for an answer, at last decided that he would not lie to her.
'I'm involved in something. Something big. Bigger than even this, I think.' He indicated the destruction of Skullport. 'I won't be able to be with you, not for a while. . maybe not ever. My life is. . moving in unexpected directions.'
She stared into his eyes, sadness in the set of her mouth. But resolve, too.
'Then come back when it's over,' she said. 'Come back when fate permits a 'we.''
Cale looked at her sorrowful face and could not stop himself. He pulled her close-she did not resist-and softly kissed her lips.
'I will,' he said.
With that, he turned and walked away, not knowing if he would ever see her again.
He met up with Jak and Magadon. Both looked questions at him but had the sense not to ask anything. In silence, he drew the darkness around them and pictured in his mind's eye an alley in Selgaunt that he knew well.
His last sight before the darkness moved them across Faerun was of Varra standing in the crooked doorway of her dilapidated row house.
CHAPTER 4
Cale, Magadon, and Jak materialized on a deserted side street in Selgaunt's Foreign District. The bustle of a thriving city hit their ears. Cale pulled up his hood and the three companions walked out of the alley to find themselves on Rauncel's Ride, one of the main thoroughfares of Selgaunt.
Selgaunt's plenty contrasted starkly with the ruin and deprivation of Skullport.
Shop after shop lined the broad, paved avenue, their doors thrown open, their proprietors offering seller's smiles at the passersby. The typical mix of travelers, traders, merchants, mercenaries, adventurers, pickpockets, laborers, and beggars populated the walkways. Horse-drawn carts, noble coaches, and humble farmers' wagons loaded with grain and other foodstuffs rolled along the cobblestone streets. Livestock lowed and grunted from roadside pens. A squad of Scepters, Selgaunt's city watchmen, walked amongst the milling crowd, eyes alert for thieves. Each wore black leather armor and a silver-hilted blade, with a green weather-cloak thrown over the whole. Out of habit, Cale avoided eye contact.
Children darted between the pedestrians. The call of street vendors filled the air, rising above the general rush of the crowd to hawk everything from dried flowers to three-day-old bread.
The afternoon sunshine did not quite offset the coolness of the brisk autumn wind. The air carried the faint tang of Inner Sea salt, horse manure, and the aroma of cooking meat. Everything looked, sounded, and smelled exactly as it always had, but Cale could not quite shake the feeling that Selgaunt was different.
Walking beside Cale, Jak said, 'Not a slave in sight. Nice to be home, eh?'
It struck Cale then.
Selgaunt was not different; Cale was different. Worse, he was not sure the city was his home anymore.
'Cale?' Jak prodded.
Cale kept his brooding to himself and said to Jak only, 'It is good to be back, little man.'
Though he knew it would sting his skin, he decided to pull back his hood and endure the sunlight. He could not spend the rest of his life hiding from the sun or he would end up like the majority of Skullport's skulkers-pale shadows slinking furtively through the darkness. He wondered how Varra had maintained her dignity while living in such a sunless pit; he wondered, too, what she would think of Selgaunt, gleaming in the sunshine. Thinking of her reminded him of their kiss. He could still taste her lips. It took real effort to put thoughts of her out of his mind. He tucked the stump of his wrist into his cloak pocket and walked along.
'This is a different city than Starmantle,' Magadon observed, eyeing the people, high fashions, and elaborately architectured buildings of Selgaunt. 'Quite different.'
Cale nodded.
In Starmantle, still more or less a frontier town, buildings and fashion were designed to be functional. In Selgaunt, one of the most sophisticated cities in the Heartlands, buildings and fashion were styled to be stunning. Wooden buildings with simple architecture predominated in Starmantle, while in Selgaunt, fully half the buildings were made of stone or brick, and almost all of them had one kind of architectural flourish or another. In fact, an architecturally ordinary home or shop in Selgaunt was a sign of tastelessness at best, financial distress at worst.
'Bit different from Skullport, too,' Jak said, and there was no mirth in his voice.
'Truth,' Magadon said somberly.
Cale said nothing, merely looked out on the sea of pale faces around him. He had little in common with them anymore, if he ever had. They were human; he was a shade. He wondered if he would happen upon anyone from the Uskevren household: Tamlin, Shamur, or. . Tazi. The thought summoned a pit in his stomach. He could imagine how they would look upon him now that he was. . transformed. Nine Hells, even Jak sometimes looked at him with fear in his eyes. Only Varra and Magadon looked at him like he was still a man, and Cale suspected that was because both of them knew darkness almost as well as Cale.
He pushed the maudlin thoughts from his mind and distracted himself by focusing on the passersby, noting weapons, movements, glances. He had not lost his trained eyes, and he picked out the professionals with satisfying ease. The thieves were apparent enough to him that they might as well have been wearing a uniform.
