But it was working.
A rosy glow suffused Jak's body. The wound in his throat closed to a pink scar, to unmarred skin; the bruises on his arms and face healed. The spell remade his flesh, providing a complete and whole vessel for the returning soul. The spell then created a conduit between Jak's body and whatever plane to which his soul had traveled, opening a door that otherwise always remained closed. Cale put himself in the door, held it open, and called Jak's name.
Cale's voice grew in volume until it boomed, reverberated through the room, carried from the Sojourner's tower into the planes. He called Jak's name, trying to pull his soul back from its rest to re-inhabit his body.
'Jak!'
An unwelcome memory surfaced-Sephris Dwendon, changed after his forced resurrection, filled with bitterness. The memory of Jak's words surged back to Cale. When I'm dead, leave me that way.
Cale's voice faltered.
Was he doing the right thing? Was he acting to help Jak or satisfy his own desire to have Jak back? He did not like what he thought was the answer. But Jak had told him that friends, not places, were home, and Cale needed him.
His doubt caused the spell to start to unravel.
He remembered Sephris's bitter words, his admission that he had returned only out of a sense of duty. Jak would do the same. Cale could not bear to think of an embittered Jak.
Tears of guilt flowed down his face. He controlled the sob that threatened to burst from his throat.
He realized that he could not ask Jak to return. He would not. Wherever Jak was, that was home now.
He ceased the invocation and the power went out of him. He put his hand on Jak's forehead.
'Goodbye, my friend.'
He reached into one of Jak's pouches, took his ivory-bowled pipe, and put it in a pouch at his own belt. He would keep the smell of Jak's pipeweed near to him-always.
Jak cocked his head and listened. The call did not repeat. For a reason he could not explain, profound sadness struck him. He had lost something, he knew. But he did not know what.
'Finish your soup, son,' said his father. 'You're free to stay now.'
Jak did not know what that meant and his father did not explain. His father smiled and said, 'Cob and I have taken care of the hives for the day. We can all go fishing at dusk, if you'd like. There's pond nearby, stuffed with longfin.'
That sounded grand to Jak. The sadness diminished in the glow of his family's love. He sat back down at the table with his family and ate his mother's soup.
Magadon, Cale, and Riven stood looking at one another in a central chamber of the tower.
'What now?' Magadon said at last.
'I will take Jak and you both back,' Cale said. 'I have some things I need to do.'
Magadon nodded.
'I'm staying,' Riven said.
'Why?' Magadon asked.
'There are things I need to do also,' Riven answered.
Cale looked around the temple, once Cyric's, now Mask's, and understood.
'This has only just begun,' Riven said to Cale. 'You realize that?'
Cale thought of Sephris, of the Source's call across Faerun. He nodded. He knew that Mask was not through with them yet. But for now, he had his own matters to address.
'You can leave Jak here,' Riven said. 'With me. You'll have a reason to come back.'
Cale looked Riven in the eye. He thought again of Jak's words to him on the streets of Selgaunt-friends are home.
He nodded. 'You'll see to him?'
Cale could not put Jak's body in the ground, could not be there when it happened.
'I will,' Riven said.
Cale looked Riven in the face. Riven returned the stare.
The moment stretched. As one they stepped forward and embraced, briefly. A warriors' farewell.
Cale stepped back, pulled the shadows around him, and said, 'Let's go, Mags.'
EPILOGUE
The surf roared far below them. The foam dancing in the shoals was barely visible in the pre-dawn light. A cool breeze rustled Cale's cloak. The glow from a cluster of lights far up the coast could only be Urlamspyr, one of Sembia's largest cities. Cale had never seen it. Perhaps now he would. He had no reason to return to Selgaunt. He had no reason to do anything.
Varra looked around, unable to see much in the darkness but the fading stars. Cale had convinced her to let him temporarily take her from Skullport. He could not yet commit to a we-he agreed with Riven that Mask was not done with them-but he wanted to do something for her, and at least for the moment, he did not want to be alone.
'It's been a long while since I've seen the sky,' she said, her voice soft.
'I know,' Cale replied. He held Jak's pipe in his fist.
She must have heard the tightness in his voice, the barely controlled grief. He did not seem able to make it go away.
'What's wrong, Vasen?' she asked. She did not touch him.
For a moment, he could not speak. Finally, he said, 'I lost my best friend recently.'
He was not certain how long ago it had been. One day seemed to bleed into another.
She stared at him for a time before saying, 'I'm so sorry.'
Quiet lay between them. Only the surf spoke.
Cale looked straight ahead, out on the whitecaps of the Inner Sea. He felt Varra looking at him, staring at him. He wondered what she was thinking. Cale still did not know why he had returned to her rather than Tazi, rather than staying with Magadon in Starmantle. They had shared little; they had exchanged only a few sentences. Still, he felt. . drawn to her. He supposed everyone needed someone to whom they could confess.
'Tell me something about yourself,' she said, and he thought she had read his mind.
'Like what?'
She did not hesitate. 'Tell me something you've never told anyone else.'
Cale's heart thumped hard in his chest. He still did not look at her.
'You don't know what you're asking.'
'Yes, I do. Tell me.'
He swallowed and turned to look at her. Her expression contained no judgment. He held her gaze. She waited, saying nothing.
'I've killed men for no reason other than coin,' he said, and once he started, he could not stop. 'Lots of men. I've killed many others for what I thought were good reasons. I serve a god who lives in the dark and now I think the dark lives in me. I've spent almost the entirety of my adult life doing violence. I've had only two close friends.' The admission pained him distantly, but it was true. 'Both of them are dead now.' His voice broke but he recovered and finished. 'I've done many, many evil things in my life. And now I'm alone.'
She stared at him in silence with such sympathy in her brown eyes that he could not hold back tears-tears for Jak, for Thamalon, for himself, for everything. He squeezed the ivory-bowled pipe and put it back into his vest pocket.
She reached up and touched his face. 'Oh, Vasen….'
He turned his face away from her and stared out at the sea. He gulped down the knot in his throat.
'Call me Erevis. Erevis Cale. Vasen Coriver died a long time ago.'
