Twilight Falling (21 page)

When Riven reached early manhood—even then he was already a highly efficient killer—he’d returned to the Amhazar estate in the night, murdered his former lord and the entire Amhazar family, then burned the place to the ground. He’d spared only the serfs and the dogs from the slaughter.

You can always trust dogs, he thought, looking at his girls as they licked the bucket clean. Dogs were utterly guileless. Dogs always stayed loyal. Not so with men, as Riven knew well from experience.

Absently, he rubbed them each in turn. They lay on their bellies on either side of him, full and content.

He would not betray the trust they had given him.

“Stay,” he said to them, and he rose.

They gave no sign they understood, but both their tails drummed the wood floor.

“I’ll be back.”

He opened the door and walked next door to the scribe’s shop.

The door was ajar so Riven walked in without knocking. The small shop was crammed full with shelves covered with parchment rolls, inkpots, quills, paperweights, and a host of other paraphernalia that Riven, who could not read and write, didn’t recognize. The scribe, a thin, plain looking man with squinty eyes, sat behind a huge walnut desk on one side of the room. He was writing something on a piece of parchment and had not yet looked up at Riven.

“Hold just for a moment,” he said. “Let me finish this thought.” He thumped the paper with his quill point. “There.” He looked up. “Now—”

When he saw Riven, his gaze went in rapid succession from Riven’s scabbarded sabers to the window that looked out on the street, to Riven’s face. His squinty eyes went as wide as fivestars.

“You! Ah—I mean, how can I help you? Is something wrong with the flat? Or do you want to purchase something?”

Trying to get out from behind his desk, the scribe tripped over his feet. When he caught himself on the desk, he toppled his ink pot and spilled ink over whatever it was he had been writing.

“Oh, dark! Dark and empty!”

He tried to sop up the dark fluid with some spare paper, succeeding only in staining his fingers black.

Hearing the scribe curse in anger almost brought an amused smile to Riven’s face. Instead, he adopted his professional sneer and stalked toward the desk.

“I do want to purchase something” he said. “Your services.”

The scribe wiped his fingers with the parchment.

“You n-need something written for you?” the scribe said, his voice shaking.

Riven eyed him coldly and replied, “No. Something else.”

The scribe’s eyes moved around but not once did they settle for more than a heartbeat on Riven’s face. He dropped the ruined paper and wiped his hands, still shaking, on his trousers.

“Wh-what then?”

Riven leaned forward and rested his fingertips on the desk. He knew he had to tread carefully—create enough fear to ensure compliance with his request, but not so much that he frightened the scribe into fleeing town.

“Two bitches scratch at my door in the late afternoon or evening. You’ve seen them?”

The scribe’s mouth hung open slightly. He nodded.

“I’ll be leaving for a while. I won’t be returning to the flat for a time.”

The scribe started to speak, but Riven cut him off.

“You are not to re-let it. No matter how long I’m gone. Here.”

He reached into his cloak, removed a diamond—a small fortune, more than the scribe earned in a year, perhaps two—and placed it on the desk. The man’s eyes went wide.

“Take it. That is advance rent for the next twelve months. It’s also advance payment for the service you are to perform for me.”

The scribe eyed the diamond but did not reach for it. He met Riven’s gaze.

“The dogs?” he asked.

Riven nodded. At least the man wasn’t stupid.

“A butcher’s boy delivers a bucket of meat scraps to my place daily. I feed the scraps to the gir—dogs. I also provide them with water. They rely on me for that. I will make arrangements with the butcher for the deliveries to continue while I’m away. You will see to it that the dogs are fed and allowed entry into the flat. That’s all.”

The scribe didn’t dare refuse but Riven thought he looked less than enthusiastic. The assassin decided to make things perfectly clear.

“Hear what I’m about to say, scrivener. You hurt the dogs, or don’t abide by my request, and I’ll find out. When I’m back in town, I’ll look in on you for a while. I’ll watch you from the shadows, for days. You won’t know when.”

He let the import of that sink in then added, “I’ve killed over fifty men, scribe, and some of them died ugly. It’s work to me. Business. You cross me on this and you’re just another number. Clear?”

The scribe’s eyes showed white. He nodded rapidly. “Yes. Clear.”

Satisfied, Riven shot him one final glare, spun on his heel, and walked back to his flat. The girls’ tails thumped the floor when he entered. He smiled at them.

“Taken care of, girls,” he said.

For a time, an hour or two maybe, he sat on the floor between them and gave them his full attention. The smaller wanted to play but Riven had no play in him. When the flat began to darken, he stood.

“Time to go, girls.” He stood and opened the door. He gave them one last pat as they trotted out. “See you tomorrow,” he said out of habit, then realized that he probably wouldn’t.

Watching the girls trot back across the street to the alley, he felt concerned. What would happen to them if he were to die?

He blew out a breath and shook his head.

You’re getting as soft as Cale, he chided himself.

He pulled the door closed behind him and hit the street. He would make a stop off at the butcher and head back to the Foreign District, to Cale and Fleet.

He shot only a single glance back as he walked—to the alley, where his girls lived.

As promised, Riven returned before dark. Their perch atop the rowhouse afforded a nice panorama of Selgaunt and the setting sun cast the city in fire.

Cale and Jak nodded a greeting, and Riven returned the gesture.

“Anything?” the assassin asked.

“All quiet,” Cale replied.

“Too bad,” said Riven, and the three shared a chuckle.

Rotating one man out for breaks, they sat atop the rowhouse while the sun set, night fell, and Selune rose. As Cale had suspected, nothing happened. At midnight, Cale sat apart from Riven, regularized his breathing, closed his eyes, and silently prayed to Mask for his spells. The Lord of Shadows heeded Cale’s request, and the holy words burned themselves into his brain, words of power that Cale could actuate with his will and his holy symbol. He felt Riven’s gaze on him throughout, but they didn’t speak of it afterward.

Otherwise, the night passed with nothing more interesting occurring in the street below than a carriage throwing a wheel. Each of the three managed to get at least a few hours of sleep.

The next day, the gongs and bells of the Temple District sounded the dawn and began to count down the hours. Sephris had told them to return in eighteen hours—not tomorrow afternoon or evening, but exactly eighteen hours. Cale figured that Sephris meant what he said. They would return between the fourth and fifth hour.

Like the night, the day passed without incident. The caretaker-priest exited Sephris’s home in the morning to retrieve two buckets of water from a nearby city well.

Otherwise, they saw nothing but the occasional passerby. The time passed—slowly, but it did pass.

About half an hour after the Temple of Song rang the fourth hour, Cale stood.

“Let’s move,” he said to Riven and Jak.

The three descended the row house on the alley side and hit the street. As before, the caretaker-priest, dressed in green robes, opened the door to Sephris’s house before they reached the porch. Cale figured he must have some kind of alarm spell triggered by the opening of the wrought iron gate.

“Gentlemen,” the priest said, managing to inflect the word just enough to make it an insult. “Sephris is expecting you. He has been awake all night.” From the circles under the priest’s eyes, Cale thought that he too had probably been up all night. “Follow me,” he said.

Riven grabbed Cale’s shoulder and said, “I’ll wait.”

“What? Wait?” asked Jak.

Ignoring the halfling, Riven kept his gaze on Cale.

“I don’t care what the sphere is,” the assassin said. “You know my terms.”

Cale looked into Riven’s face. Indeed he did know Riven’s terms—the death of Vraggen—but he also knew the real reason for Riven’s reluctance to enter the house: Sephris made him uncomfortable. No reason to make an issue of it. He gave Riven an out.

“That’s a good thought. Watch the street in case anyone else shows.”

Riven nodded.

Cale and Jak turned to follow the priest. As he walked, Cale realized that he was beginning to regard Riven as something more than an assassin. He was beginning to regard him as a man, with human weaknesses and fears. That made him uneasy. It could make hard decisions more difficult if their relationship went bad later on. He put it out of his mind as they entered Sephris’s house.

New formulae covered the plaster walls of the hallway. To Cale, they looked hurried. Sephris’s precise script had given way to a barely legible scrawl, as though the thoughts had come too fast for his hands to record.

“As you can see,” the priest said, “Sephris has been very busy since you left.”

Cale nodded. He and Jak shared a pensive look.

The priest led them to the library doors. Before he opened them, he turned to face them, lips pursed.

“I fear that your perception of what is happening here, with Sephris, may be … incorrect.”

Jak began to interrupt with a protest but the priest held up a hand and cut him off.

“I can see it in your face. To someone from outside the church, it may appear that we treat Sephris as an oddity, or perhaps a sort of mascot.”

Here he looked at Cale with hooded eyes. Cale managed to hold his gaze, though his thoughts tracked the priest’s words. It seemed to him that Oghma’s church displayed Sephris the same way a Cormyrean sideshowman displayed his freaks. That the church required a “donation” to see Sephris only solidified the perception.

The priest gave a tight smile and nodded, as though he had read Cale’s thoughts.

“I assure you that is not the case,” the priest continued. “Without a caretaker, Sephris would not eat, drink, or bathe. Caring for him is not always pleasant, yet my brethren and I regard it as an honor.”

“An honor?” Jak exclaimed. “I thought—”

“You were mistaken,” the priest interrupted. “You see, Sephris is not insane. He is blessed, one chosen by the Lord of Knowledge, and is so regarded by all in Oghma’s orthodox church.”

Disbelief must have shown on Cale’s face.

The priest nodded. “I know how it must appear to you, but it is not so. Oghma has blessed Sephris with a unique gift—an ability to think in a way that no one else can think, to know what no one else can know.” Sadness, or awe, dropped the priest’s voice. “It is a wondrous gift, but a gift from a god can be a difficult burden for a man to bear.” The priest looked at them and gave a soft smile. “Such is the case with Sephris.”

The priest seemed to be waiting for a response. Cale could think of nothing to say. He didn’t know why the priest had just told them what he had. He merely nodded.

The priest looked from one to the other, his face emotionless, then he turned and opened the doors. As he did so, his words stuck in Cale’s brain: Sometimes a gift from the gods is a difficult burden for a man to bear. Cale reached into his vest pocket for his holy symbol but stopped before touching it.

“Sephris,” the caretaker-priest said, “the petitioners from yesterday have returned.”

The priest turned and nodded to Cale and Jak, then exited the library, pulling the doors closed behind him.

To Cale, the library appeared even more disorderly than it had the day before. Papers and workslates lay strewn about everywhere, all covered in Sephris’s urgent scrawl. On the desk, set upon a stack of papers, stood an intricately crafted bronze orrery. Beside it sat the half-sphere. Sephris hovered over both, staring. He looked the same. He hadn’t changed his red cloak and Cale doubted that he had eaten. Despite the frantic nature of Sephris’s writings, the man himself appeared calm and composed, at least at the moment. Cale supposed that even those fueled by divine knowledge could not maintain a fervor forever.

Without looking up, Sephris said, “Only two of the three on this seventeenth day of the sixth month.”

“Sephris?” Jak asked hesitantly. “Are you all right?”

Sephris looked up. Dark circles colored the skin under his eyes.

“Indeed, Jak Fleet. Better than I have been in some time.” He put his hand on the half-sphere and grinned. In that smile, Cale saw madness, or conviction. “I can’t see it,” Sephris continued. “It is a dominant variable, but so dominant that I don’t know. I cannot solve it.”

Cale’s heart sank as the import of those words registered. Sephris didn’t know what the sphere was. They had wasted a day.

“Come here,” Sephris said, and waved them toward the desk.

Cale and Jak walked across the library, each careful to avoid stepping on any of Sephris’s work papers.

“Never mind those,” Sephris snapped. “Come here.”

The half-sphere sat on the desk, inert, inscrutable even to Oghma’s Chosen. Cale stared at it. He didn’t know what he would do next.

Sephris smiled at them. His eyes were bloodshot and intense. His hair stuck up at odd angles. He nodded at the half-sphere.

“I cannot solve it! You have presented me with a premise for which I cannot craft a proof. For that, I thank you.”

“Thank us?” Jak asked.

Sephris nodded and said, “Indeed. I have thought for some time that there was nothing that I could not solve, given time. I am pleased to be wrong.”

Cale picked up the half-sphere. The gemstones within the quartz caught the light and twinkled, taunting him. He was glad for Sephris—since Sephris seemed to be glad—but he was also disappointed that they knew nothing more than they had the day before.

“We’re pleased for you, old man,” said Cale, “but we’d hoped for more. We need to know what this is, and if you can’t—”