and wait for up to a tenday. I and my two companions will meet you there, probably within only a few days.'
'Meet us? You won't be aboard?'
'Not at first. But we will show eventually.' He pressed the rubies into the captain's hands. 'And if we do not, keep what I have paid you and be about your own affairs.'
'Very well,' the captain said. 'I will recall the crew.'
Azriim smiled. 'Excellent! But first show me your ship.' Azriim needed to memorize the appearance of the vessel, to make teleporting there easier.
They turned and walked up the gangplank. Azriim knew that the wand's effect would last only a few days, but he figured that would be long enough. Cale would either show within that time or he would not. And if Azriim had need, he could always renew the effect of the wand once he came aboard near Traitor's Isle.
He looked the captain up and down and said, 'I admire your garb, by the way.'
CHAPTER 5
Cale, Jak, and Magadon followed Sephris and the Oghmanytes as they walked toward the Sanctum of the Scroll.
'He must have moved into the temple,' Jak said. 'Or they forced him to move there.'
'So it appears,' Cale said.
When they first had met Sephris, the Chosen of Oghma had lived with a caretaker in a small residence near Temple Avenue. Sephris had covered the walls of his home with erudite mathematical scribblings. That was where Jak and Cale later had found his corpse, gutted by the slaadi. The creatures had murdered the loremaster for helping Cale and Jak. Cale guessed that the Oghmanyte high priest had moved Sephris into the temple for his own security.
'Do you think he will be. . upset when he sees us?' Jak asked. He twirled his pipe in his fingers, a nervous habit.
'We'll soon know,' Cale answered.
'Who is he talking to?' Magadon asked, indicating Sephris.
From their position behind and slightly oblique to Sephris and the Oghmanytes, they could see the loremaster in profile. His lips moved continuously, though he appeared to be talking to no one in particular. Cale was too far away to read them, but he knew well enough what the words were.
'He is talking to himself,' Cale said. 'Calculating.'
'Calculating?' Magadon asked.
Jak said, 'He does mathematics, the kind no one understands but him. That's how he knows things. He's always doing it.'
Magadon's eyes narrowed. 'What do you mean, 'knows things'? Is he a prophet?'
'Of sorts,' Cale said. 'Wait, and watch.'
The priests neared the tiered steps that led up to the double doors of Oghma's temple.
Still muttering as he walked, Sephris pulled a stylus-the kind with a sharpened tip that was used to write in wet clay-from an inner pocket of his robes and pushed up his sleeve. He pressed the stylus's tip into his forearm and began to write on his flesh. His expression never changed, even when he started to bleed.
'Gods,' Magadon oathed, aghast. 'Is he mad?'
'Maybe,' Jak said. 'But I've never before seen him do anything self-destructive. What's wrong with him?'
Cale shook his head.
At first the priests accompanying Sephris did not notice his wounds. When they did, one of them shouted and the whole group stopped. Another of the Oghmanytes, a young, brown-haired woman, gently pried the stylus from Sephris's fingers, all while speaking what Cale took to be gentle reassurance. The loremaster calculated throughout, offering the woman only token resistance. Another of the priests, a middle-aged man with wavy blond hair, stepped forward, took Sephris's bleeding forearm in his hands, and whispered what Cale assumed to be a healing spell. The wounds in Sephris's arm closed.
'This may not be a good idea, after all,' Jak offered.
Cale agreed. It appeared that Sephris may have truly gone mad.
'Agreed,' he said. 'Let's see where his sums take him. If he wants to see us, he will let us know. Otherwise, we go to Elaena.'
The priests escorting Sephris closed their circle more tightly around the loremaster and hustled him forward. He moved with them, as stiff as an automaton, still calculating. The group reached the stairs and started up.
Sephris put three stairs under him and stopped, head cocked to the side. The priests tried to pull him along but he resisted.
'Here we go,' Cale said.
The three of them continued their slow walk forward, eyeing Sephris.
One of the priests asked Sephris a question and the whole group tried to move him forward, but the loremaster held his ground. He irritably pushed away the hands that tried to force him up the stairs. He turned around, numbers and formulae still tumbling from his lips. He dropped the book under his arm and scanned the crowd as he calculated. The gazes of his escorts followed his.
Sephris's eyes found Cale and Cale read his lips: '… two and two are four,' the loremaster said.
Korvikoum, thought Cale.
They stared at one another over the crowd of passersby. Sephris looked to Magadon, to Jak, and Cale did not see pleasure in the loremaster's expression. More like. . resignation.
The little man waved tentatively.
Sephris did not wave back. The priests escorting him saw Jak's wave, Sephris's stare, and frowned. Brows furrowed; hands went to maces. Quiet words passed between them. Two spoke aloud the words to spells that Cale guessed to be divinations. They were examining the trio. They reported whatever they learned to the tallest priest in the group, who nodded. The two others tried to turn Sephris around and guide him up the steps.
'What do we do?' Jak asked softly.
Before Cale could answer, Sephris pushed away the two priests near him-demonstrating surprising strength- and started down the stairs toward Cale. The two priests caught him quickly and stopped him cold. Sephris struggled, began to shout numbers, formulae. The loremaster's words made no sense to Cale. He sounded like the madmen elsewhere on the street. Passersby watched with wide eyes.
'What in the Hells are they doing to him?' Jak said.
'Come on,' Cale said, and hurried forward.
The two priests forcibly turned Sephris around and bodily carried him up the stairs. He continued to shout over his shoulder, kicking and flailing. The rest of the priests moved to the base of the stairs to intercept Cale. There, they formed up and waited, their expressions hard, their hands on mace hafts.
Cale did not slow until he stood face to face with the tallest of the four.
'We are here to see Sephris Dwendon,' Cale said, and started to push past the priest. The man put a hand to Cale's chest and halted his advance. With effort, Cale resisted the urge to punch him in the face.
'He is not seeing anyone at this time,' the priest said. He stood a head shorter than Cale, but looked to be built as solid as a tree.
'That's a horse's pile,' Jak said.
On the stairs above, Sephris struggled furiously in the grasp of his fellow priests.
'The three are come,' the loremaster called. 'Let me go. Let them come. I need to hear their words to finish the equation.'
Jak tried to dart past the priests, but they stepped before him and blocked his way. They started to draw their maces and Jak backed off, palms raised.
Cale stared into the eyes of the priest. He could not control the shadows that sweated from his pores.
