'Still,' the Sojourner said. 'You did accomplish much in Skullport. And for that you deserve something.'
Both slaadi looked up.
'A partial transformation to gray,' the Sojourner said. 'A taste of what is to come.'
Without further preamble, he held forth his hand and two small black spheres appeared in his palm. To Riven, they looked like peach pits, except that both glowed with energy and spun in mid-air, each on an invisible axis.
'Assume your natural forms,' the Sojourner said. 'And eat.'
Eagerly, the slaadi began to change. Azriim and Dolgan grunted as their bodies twisted and cracked. The half-drow and human forms stretched, grew, gained bulk. In their eagerness, both had forgotten to remove or loosen their garb. Clothes ripped.
Skin tore and gave way to leathery green hides. Faces and skulls distended to accommodate cavernous mouths filled with fangs. Claws poked from the ends of fingers and toes. In less than a tencount, the slaadi had taken their natural form, that of hulking reptilian bipeds, both as tall as Cale. Dolgan's shoulders were nearly as broad as he was tall.
Riven reminded himself to never forget what they really were, allies or not.
The Sojourner flicked his fingers and one of the magical seeds floated toward each of the slaadi. Both snatched them out of the air and gobbled them greedily.
Instantly a silvery glow suffused them both, leaked from their ears, their eyes.
'It tingles,' Dolgan said, and his voice was deeper.
Azriim grinned maniacally. He held his arms out before him and studied his hands as they began to change.
The silver glow intensified, flashed, and the slaadi began again to change. Their hulking green forms diminished. Muscles became leaner, bordered with visible sinew and lined with veins. Heads became sleeker, more angled. Eyes narrowed; eye ridges became more pronounced. Mouths shrank and fangs thinned, lengthened, visibly sharpened. Green leathery hides faded to slate gray.
Then it was over.
Both slaadi were smaller but the strength implied by their former bulk had been replaced by something that suggested … predation. They looked sleeker, faster, more efficient. It was as though they had changed from bears to hunting cats. Dolgan, of course, remained the larger of the two.
Both slaadi smiled a mouthful of new fangs, though Azriim frowned when he realized that he had rent his shirt and breeches. Dolgan smiled at his brother's displeasure.
Azriim disappeared from sight, but his disembodied voice said, 'Excellent.'
He reappeared. Dolgan grinned and also disappeared and reappeared, disappeared and reappeared, like a child delighted with a new toy.
Riven now knew that the transformation had changed not only the slaadi's bodies, but their magical abilities. At the very least, they could turn themselves invisible merely by willing it. Riven wondered what other new abilities the slaadi could manifest.
'Enough of this,' the Sojourner said, and Dolgan's grin vanished. 'Time is short. Sakkors awaits.'
'Sakkors?' Dolgan asked, stumbling over the word with his new lips and teeth.
'A onetime Netherese city,' the Sojourner answered. 'Now in ruins.'
'Unfortunate,' said Azriim, and grinned. 'I like to leave cities in ruins, not find them so.'
Dolman guffawed.
Riven kept his disdain from his face. He thought the slaadi unprofessional fools. They were as undisciplined as children.
The Sojourner said, 'Sakkors was destroyed and lost long ago, when the ambition of the greatest of human mages exceeded his reach. But the city's mantle remains intact.'
'We can teleport there,' Dolgan said. He held up his teleportation rod, shot Riven a glare, and tucked it back in his pocket. 'Then we tap the mantle with another seed and complete our transformation.'
'You are not listening, Dolgan,' Azriim said, and tsked. 'The Sojourner said Sakkors was lost. That means he does not know where it is.'
Dolgan stared at Azriim, confusion in his dull eyes and slack mouth. He asked, 'How can we go there if he does not know where it is?'
'I am certain he will inform us,' Azriim said, and made a flourish at the Sojourner.
The Sojourner frowned at Azriim's flamboyance but said only, 'I have been unable to locate Sakkors's exact location, but my research and divinations have revealed its general vicinity.'
'You see?' Azriim said to Dolgan.
'Scry it,' Riven said, thinking of how Cale used Magadon to see a location before teleporting there. 'Then teleport in.'
'It resists remote scrying,' said the Sojourner. 'Even mine. Instead, you will find its exact location with this.' The Sojourner tapped his staff on the floor and a device appeared out of the air-in form, it reminded Riven of a ship's compass. A thin needle with a golden point hung suspended in a clear liquid within a transparent sphere chased in gold. The whole rested in a tripod gimbal.
'It looks like a compass,' Riven observed. He had seen sailors use such devices for navigation. He understood their use, though he could not use one himself.
The Sojourner smiled at Riven. 'That is not far from the truth. But this compass is attuned to the emanations of Sakkors's mantle, rather than to the magnetic sheath that surrounds your world.'
'So we need only get in the area of the ruins,' Azriim said. 'And the compass will guide us to it exactly?'
'Yes,' the Sojourner said. 'I have determined that Sakkors lies somewhere beneath the waters of the Inner Sea-'
'Underwater?' Riven asked.
'Not to worry,' Azriim said, but offered no further explanation.
'Yes,' the Sojourner said. 'Underwater. Not far off the coast of the realm of Sembia, near the city of Selgaunt.'
'Your old haunts,' Azriim said, slapping Riven on the shoulder and grinning. 'I almost killed you there, not long ago.'
'I haven't forgotten,' Riven said in a low tone. He let the slaad make of that what he would.
The Sojourner continued. 'You will take a ship to sea and the compass will guide you to the ruins. Once there, you will tap Sakkors's mantle, exactly as you did in Skullport.'
'And after that?' Azriim asked.
'After that, the Crown of Flame,' said the Sojourner, his voice almost wistful.
'I meant for us,' Azriim said.
'Of course you did,' the Sojourner answered. 'For you, completion of your transformation to gray, freedom from service to me, and something else. . '
'What else?' Azriim asked.
The Sojourner shook his head and admonished, 'Patience, Azriim.'
Riven had never before heard them mention the Crown of Flame. He dared ask, 'The Crown of Flame?'
The Sojourner waved a hand casually, though the movement caused him obvious pain. 'Something I saw once in my youth, and would see again in my dotage.'
'Saw?' Dolgan asked. 'I thought you wore it.'
'In a manner of speaking, Dolgan,' the Sojourner replied. 'Now, let me see to our new… broodmate, and you three can be about your tasks, while I am about mine.'
Azriim cocked his head. 'You have a task?'
'I do,' the Sojourner said. 'And after I've completed it and you have tapped the mantle in Sakkors, you will not be returning to this plane. Say your farewells.'
Azriim's tone was wary. 'Where then?'
'I will advise you,' the Sojourner said, and offered nothing more.
While Azriim pondered, the Sojourner used another minor summoning spell to provide Riven with his own teleportation rod, similar to that of the slaadi, and instructed him in its use. Then he cast several spells on Riven, ostensibly to ward him from detection by Magadon or Cale. Riven was in no position to protest, though the spells
