Sephris wore a simple red robe and worn shoes. He carried a book in the crook of his elbow. The loremaster's distant gaze carried sadness, and he did not seem to see those around him.
Cale did not remember Sephris being so tall. The loremaster stood half-a-head taller than any of the bodyguards, almost as tall as Cale.
'What is it?' Magadon asked, stepping beside him.
'That man should be dead,' Cale said, and nodded at Sephris.
'Which? The tall one with the Oghmanytes?'
Cale nodded.
Jak stepped beside them and added, 'The slaadi killed him, gutted him. We saw his body.'
'Then he could be a slaad,' Magadon said, eyeing Sephris coldly. 'Shapechanged to resemble your man. Remember Nestor?'
Cale remembered. Nestor had been a comrade of Magadon's. One of the slaadi had killed him and taken his form.
'I remember,' Cale said. 'But we just saw both slaadi hours ago. You two killed the third. This. . this would have required several tendays to put in place.'
'They can teleport from place to place quickly, Erevis,' Magadon said. 'They could have been moving between Skullport, the Sojourner's lair, and here. Or there could be another slaad that we haven't yet seen. We should be certain.'
Cale nodded. Magadon was right.
'If he is a slaad,' Cale said. 'Then we kill him on the street. We'll deal with the Scepters afterward.'
To his surprise, Magadon and Jak both nodded, faces grim.
Cale put his hand to the velvet mask in his pocket and whispered the words to a spell that allowed him to see dweomers.
Once cast, the spell was indiscriminate in its application. Many trinkets, weapons, rings, and robes of passersby lit up as they walked through Cale's field of vision. He ignored them and picked his way through the press toward Sephris, with Magadon and Jak beside him. The three circled wide and fell in beside and slightly behind the loremaster and his bodyguard priests.
The maces of the bodyguards all shone a soft red, and two wore magical belts that glowed, but Sephris's body did not show an aura in Cale's sight, as it would if he were a shapechanged slaad. Only a single ring on his right hand radiated an aura.
'He's no slaad,' Cale said.
Jak blew out a soft whistle. 'Then they must have brought him back. He was dead and they brought him back. Dark.'
Cale said nothing but his skin went gooseflesh. Not because Sephris had been returned from the dead, but because too many things seemed to be happening at just the right time, in just the right place. Had they not stopped to take a meal and re-equip, they would not have seen Sephris at all. Cale found it increasingly difficult to deny the presence of Fate in events. He felt as though he were being propelled toward something, something important, something he might not like.
'Perhaps I should have thrown a copper into Tymora's plate, after all,' he muttered.
'What did you say?' Jak asked.
'Nothing. Speaking to myself.'
Like Sephris sometimes did, he thought, and he did not like where those thoughts started to lead.
Any idea of asking Elaena and the temple of Denier for assistance vanished. If Fate had determined that Cale would happen upon Sephris, then Cale would consult him.
Riven despised Selgaunt's Dock District, always had. The alleys all stank of fish, puke, and urine, and with rare exceptions, the food served in the ramshackle inns along the waterfront smelled only mildly better. The whores were all too cheap and the sailors all too drunk. The place was a cesspit of human weakness.
Beside him, Azriim, still in the flesh of a half-drow, walked along as though he might step in something unpleasant at any moment. Despite the slaad's efforts, his otherwise shiny black boots had picked up a coat of road muck. Riven took satisfaction in the slaad's unhappiness about that.
Dolgan, once more in his guise as a bald, muscular, Cormyrean axman, stumped along beside Azriim. Unlike Azriim, with the prominent gray streak that cut through his hair, Dolgan's new form showed no telltale sign that he had been partially transformed into a gray slaad.
'We should not be walking the docks undisguised,' Riven said. 'Cale may have returned to the city.'
Cale had magically transported himself somewhere with Fleet and Magadon. Selgaunt seemed as probable a destination as any.
'Why would he?' Dolgan said. 'This place is a hole.'
Riven thought the dolt's words ironic, considering he had worn vomit on his clothes as though it were a badge of honor. But he kept his thoughts to himself and said, 'He would return because he's got nowhere else to go.'
'Let's count on him being here, then, shall we?' said Azriim as he surveyed the piers. 'If he shows, grand. And if not, then not.'
Riven grunted noncommittally. He still had not made up his own mind what he would do when the First of the Shadowlord showed. He had laid the groundwork to make Cale think him a possible ally. Riven was not yet certain that was his best play.
'What type of ship are we seeking?' he asked, eyeing the wharfs.
Ships thronged the bay and a forest of masts dotted the sky-schooners, carracks, longships, barges, frigates, caravels-and most of them flew a pennon denoting their country or city of origin. Dock hands shouted, cursed, and sang as they furled and unfurled sails, loaded and unloaded crates of cargo. The fat harbormaster and his agents prowled the piers, assessing cargo taxes, recording the names of berthed ships and their captains. Gulls squawked in the air above. Deckhands on a nearby caravel took shots at the birds with a sling. They missed every time.
'Something in particular,' Azriim answered.
Riven spit and said, 'You won't find one with silk sheets and a feather bed.'
Azriim missed his sarcasm, or chose to ignore it. 'I know. Isn't that unfortunate? Sailors.' He tsked. 'Oh. Here's the very thing, now.'
They stopped before a twin-masted, square-sailed cog. The blazing red and gold pennon dangling from the midmast declared its port of origin to be Bezantur, a city in Thay. Several other flags and pennons adorned the masts. Riven had no idea of their meanings. A stylized demonic face decorated the prow, mouth open, fangs bare. Riven could not read the writing on the hull and would be damned to admit as much to the slaadi.
'Demon Binder,' Azriim said aloud. 'What a quaint name.'
Deckhands climbed the ship's rigging, swabbed the decks, and formed a human chain to load barrels and crates from the pier into the hold. The ship would be setting to soon enough.
Riven knew enough about the Thayans to think it likely that the ship carried more than barrels in its hold. Thayans were notorious slavers. Slavery and trafficking in slaves were technically illegal in Sembia, but the right coins in the right palms made enforcement lax, particularly when the ship carrying the human cargo was merely stopping in Sembian ports for a refit.
'Thayan,' Dolgan observed, unnecessarily.
'See the captain there, on the sterncastle?' Azriim asked. 'My, he is a nice dresser. And that thin fellow beside him, with the earring, beard, and long hair, leaning on the rail? That must be the first mate.'
Riven saw the two men to whom Azriim referred. The captain wore a fitted jacket with shiny buttons, black pantaloons, high boots, and a tailored, high-collared red shirt and vest. A cutlass hung from his belt. The first mate wore similar clothes, but without the jacket and cutlass. Instead, he wore a long fighting knife on his hip.
Riven understood immediately what the slaadi proposed to do.
'We could just purchase passage,' he said, not because he cared about the slavers, but because he was not sure how they could easily dispose of bodies. Besides, if the ship boasted one of the notorious and powerful Thayan Red Wizards as a passenger, things could get ugly very fast.
Dolgan chuckled.
Azriim grinned. 'Now where is the enjoyment in merely buying passage?'
