Shadowbred_ The Twilight War Part 16

Cale looked up at the sky and imagined how it would feel to see the Uskevren again. He realized then that he had already made up his mind. At the moment, he could do nothing more to find Magadon, and Magadon would have told him to go help his family. He would leave at once. And after he had put matters with the Uskevren to right, he would return to the search for Magadon.

He looked back at the cottage and saw Varra at the open window. The sight of her made his heart race. She ducked out of sight and soon a light flared in the cottage. She emerged carrying a small clay lamp. She wore only her night dress and the wind stirred her dark hair. The image reminded Cale eerily of the spirits that he, Jak, Magadon, and Riven had seen on the Plane of Shadow, moving through the ruins of Elgrin Fau-the Seekers of the Sun.

Varra hurried over to the elm. He stood as she approached.

"Did I awaken you?" he asked.

"No," she said. "Not you. Are you all right?"

He nodded, positioned the other wooden chair beside his. She sat and so did he. He saw little good to come from equivocating.

"I received a message."

She looked at him, puzzled. "A message? Tonight? How?"

He cleared his throat. "A spell, from the son of a very old friend."

Varra looked only mildly surprised that Cale had received a magical sending in the dark of night.

"The friend you have been seeking?"

"No. Another."

She stared into the woods. So did he. The distance between them was much greater than that between the chairs.

"What did it say, this message?" she asked.

"It asked for my help," Cale answered.

She nodded. Silence sat heavy between them. Cale wrestled with how to tell her he had to leave. Before he could say it, she asked, "Why don't you share with me, Erevis?"

The question took him off guard. "What do you mean?"

"I mean ..." she trailed off, searching for words. "Each night when you leave the meadow and do ... whatever you do, I lay awake, terrified that you won't come back. Did you know that? You have never told me where you go, what you do."

Cale looked at his hands. "I didn't ... I thought you were sleeping. And you do not want to know."

She looked at him. "Yes, I do. I see the bloodstains on your clothes. You try to wash them off in the brook but I see them. I've asked no questions about it, about anything, but ..."

She looked away.

Cale said nothing, merely stared at his hands as if they had an answer. Shadows slowly rose from his fingertips. He watched them drift off into the night like smoke and made up his mind to tell her the truth. He turned in his chair to face her.

"Here it is, then. Sometimes when I leave here, I go to help some of the villages around us."

She c.o.c.ked her head. "Those villages are days away, Erevis."

Cale nodded. "You know what I am, Varra. I can travel very fast through the darkness."

She stared at him, eyes wide, and nodded at him to continue.

"While I'm away, I ..." he gazed into the night, "... kill things. Creatures, mostly. Marauding monsters, trolls and the like. It's gotten worse of late. But sometimes people. It depends. That is the blood you have seen on my clothing."

He saw the shock in her eyes but pushed onward. "They are evil things, Varra. Evil men."

She scooted back in her seat, as far from him as the chair allowed. He doubted she even realized it. He knew then that leaving was the right thing to do for her, too.

"Why do you do it?"

Cale swallowed. "Because I promised a friend once that I would try to be a hero. It sounds absurd, I know. But I meant it. And when I do ... those things, I'm keeping the promise to save people."

Varra stared into the woods. "The world is too big to save everything, Erevis."

He shook his head. She did not understand. "I do not want to save everything. I just want to save something something. I need to." The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted them.

Varra's look was sharp enough to cut flesh. She studied his face. "Is that why you brought me from Skullport? Because you needed to save me?"

Cale could not look her in the eyes. His silence answered her well enough.

"You don't love me?" she asked softly, and her voice quavered.

He did look into her eyes, then. He leaned forward and took her hands in his. She was so warm. "Varra, I care for you. Very much. I feel something between us, something ... wonderful. But there are things I must do, and those things stand between us like a wall. That's why I do not share myself with you. I cannot keep my promise here. It's not enough, what I'm doing. I need to do more." He swallowed, then said, "I felt like myself when I was looking for my friend, Varra. I was talking with people and standing in places that belonged on a street in Skullport, and I felt like myself."

He felt embarra.s.sed saying it, but there it was.

She spoke in a small but resolute voice. "You cannot be yourself here? With me?"

Cale spoke quietly. "I am not a man made to be a husband, to live in a house, tend a garden. Varra, listen to me-I have fought demons, killed creatures from other planes with my hands, these hands." He held up his shadow enshrouded hand, scarred and callused. "I watched a wizard dim the sun, then broke his body as mine broke. I am different from other men. More than in my skin. I've seen forty winters and I will see hundreds more, thousands maybe. But who I am, what I am, was determined in a few key hours scattered over the course of my life up to now. I cannot change that. I do not want to change it."

Varra shook her head. "No, Erevis. Everything you do is who you are, not a few moments. You choose to focus on certain events and let those define you, but they needn't. You are more than that."

Cale looked away. He could not expect her to understand. She did not know what he had seen, what he had done.

She glanced up at the stars. "We are finally talking to one another, but only to say good-bye."

"Good-bye" sounded hard to Cale, but he nodded and said nothing. He could think of nothing else to say.

She took a deep breath and laid her palm on his cheek. "Do you remember what I said to you, back in Skullport, when we first met?"

Cale spoke nine languages but Varra's words then, still stuck in his brain, had confounded him. "Relain il nes baergis." "Relain il nes baergis."

"It means, 'I know your soul.' And I do, Erevis. I do not want you to leave. And I do not think you are as different from other men as you think. You would be a good husband, a good father. Your deeds are different, but not your heart." She smiled and Cale thought her beautiful. "You would stay if I asked you. I know you would. But you would resent me for it. I cannot live with that."

Cale started to protest but knew she spoke truth. They had never lied to each other. He would not start now.

"We are connected, Erevis. I don't know how or why. I just know that we are. Do what you must. Go, help your friends. I'll remain here."

Cale looked into her eyes. "What will you do?"

She smiled and waved a hand at the cottage. "I will keep up the house and tend my garden. I will draw water from the well and put food on the table. This is home for me now. It will not be the same without you, but it will still be home."

"I am sorry, Varra," Cale said, and meant it.

She smiled. Her tears glistened in the starlight. "I know those are not idle words. That is why I love you."

She touched his lips. He kissed her fingers. She closed her eyes and smiled. Without another word, she rose, pushed him back in the chair and climbed atop him.

"Varra ..."

She hushed him with a finger on his lips. He looked into her eyes and understood-they both knew this was farewell. He surrendered to the moment, wrapping his arms around her, kissing her neck. Her body radiated warmth; his radiated shadows.

Her hands answered his, caressing his shoulders, his hair, the back of his neck. She kissed his ear, his lips. He slipped her nightdress over her head and ran his hands down the length of her nude body. She tugged at his nightshirt.

He put everything out of his mind except her-her smell, her touch, her taste. He wanted to remember them always. She responded with the same urgency. Soon they were lost in each other, and his hands, the blood-stained hands that had killed demons, slaads, and dozens of men, were gentle for a time.

Afterward, they walked naked to the cottage in silence, holding hands. When he entered, he took his gear from his old wooden chest and donned his enchanted leather armor, strapped on Weaveshear and his daggers, pulled on his boots. His gaze fell upon the book he had received from the guardian of the Fane of Shadows. He had not opened it in over a year. The last time he had opened it, he discovered that Mask had placed a black mask within it-a new holy symbol. He held the book in his hands, studying its face. He flipped open the cover.

No mask. He smiled with relief and put the book in his satchel.

Varra watched him throughout. "Must you leave tonight?"

"I think it is better this way, Varra."

She nodded and said softly, "I have something for you."

She went to her night table and took something from the drawer-a piece of cloth, a black piece of cloth. A mask. Cale's holy symbol. Shadows swirled around him.

"I found it in the garden two days ago. The wind must have blown it there. I knew what it was but I said nothing. I'm ... sorry. But I kept it for you. I've known since then that you would leave."

She held it out for Cale.

He hesitated, took it, and stuffed it in his pocket. It lay there like a lead weight.

She looked up into his face. "When I wake up, you will be gone?"

He nodded. "I will wait until you fall asleep before I leave."

"I hope you will return."

He said nothing, kissed her once more, embraced her one last time, and she climbed into bed, into their bed. He sat with his hand on her hip while sobs shook her. He could not stop his own tears. Exhaustion eventually overcame her and her breathing grew steady.

He stood and took a long look around the cottage. He had called it home for over a year. It had been a good year. He looked down on Varra, committed her sleeping face to memory, pulled the shadows about him, and transported himself to Selgaunt, back to the only family he'd ever had.

CHAPTER EIGHT

29 Marpenoth, the Year of Lightning Storms.

Cale appeared where he had intended, in a narrow alley off Rauncel's Ride in Selgaunt's Warehouse District. Crumbling mudbrick walls boxed him in. Barrels and crates lay haphazardly strewn through the alley. The smell of old vomit and stale p.i.s.s hung in the air. Cale almost smiled at the familiarity of the odor. He glanced up and down the alley and saw no one.

"Ao, but you took time enough coming back," said a voice.

Cale whirled around, jerking Weaveshear from its scabbard. Shadows swirled from steel and flesh. He spotted the speaker-a slim, dark-haired man with several days' growth of beard on his face-huddled p.r.o.ne against the alley wall. How had Cale missed him the first time?

The man lifted himself on his elbow and peered up at Cale out of a ma.s.s of threadbare, filthy clothes and a misshapen, stained cap. Cale figured him a drunk. He saw no weapons.

Cale lowered Weaveshear, took a few fivestars from one of his belt pouches, and tossed them on the ground near the drunk.

"Mind your own affairs, friend."

The drunk did not even glance at the coins. He had eyes only for Cale.

"Haven't I been doing that all this time?" he asked.

The man's knowing tone made Cale wary. Weaveshear still in hand, Cale approached until he stood two paces from the stranger. Shadows oozed lazily from Cale's blade.

"How do you mean?" Cale asked.

The drunk chuckled and sat up with a grunt. Cale realized that the stench of vomit and p.i.s.s came from the man's clothing, not the alley. Close proximity made the smell worse. Cale wrinkled his nose.

"Foul, eh?" the man said and looked down at his clothing. "Keeps the stray dogs from bothering me."

The man seemed to notice the coins for the first time.

"Ah," he said, and all three vanished under a single deft pa.s.s of his hand.

Cale could tell the man was not what he appeared-he was too clear-eyed, to precise in his movements-though Cale did not yet know whether he was dangerous. He had encountered shapeshifters before and decided to take no chances. He pointed Weaveshear's tip at the man's face.

"Who are you?"

The man seemed unbothered by the shadow-bleeding blade pointed at his face. He reached up and put a fingertip on the edge. Shadows from the steel corkscrewed his finger.

"Nice weapon," the man said. He took his finger from the blade, produced one of Cale's fivestars, and tossed it into the air. He caught it on his fingertip, balanced upright on one of its five corners.

Cale kept the wonder from his face. He knocked the coin from its perch with Weaveshear and it c.h.i.n.ked on the stones of the alley.

"I will ask you only once more. Who are you?"

The man frowned at the fallen coin. He looked up and asked, "Who do you think I am?"

Cale said nothing, though something about the man felt familiar.