Once made, the decision lifted some of the weight that sat heavily on his soul. He did not yet know where he would go, but he would leave. Perhaps he could convince Jak to accompany him.

As always, the thought of the halfling rounded the corners of Cale's anger and brought a smile to his face. Jak had stood by him through much, through everything. They had faced Zhents, ghouls, and demons together. Perhaps most importantly, Jak had helped Cale understand Mask's Calling. Jak had taught him how to cast his first spells.

Of course Jak would accompany him. Jak was his best friend, his only friend, his conscience. A man—even a killer—couldn't go anywhere without his conscience. He and Jak seemed linked, seemed to share a common fate.

Cale smiled and reminded himself that he did not believe in fate. At least he hadn't. But maybe he had come to. Or at least maybe he should. How could he not? He had been called to the priesthood by his god and had defeated a demon through that Calling.

But I chose to accept the Calling, he reminded himself.

Korvikoum. That word—his favorite concept from dwarven philosophy—elbowed its way to the front of his mind. Dwarves did not believe much in fate. They believed in Korvikoum: choices and consequences. In a sense, fate and Korvikoum stood in opposition to one another, as much as did Vaendin-thiil and Vaendaan-naes, as much as did being a killer and being a good man who killed.

Cale reached for the wine chalice on the table beside his chair and took a sip. The five-year-old vintage of Thamalon's Best, a heavy red wine, reminded him of the nights in the library he and his lord had played chess over a glass. Thamalon had believed in fate, strongly so. The Old Owl had once told Cale that a man could either embrace fate and walk beside it, or reject it and get pulled along nevertheless. That evening, Cale had merely nodded at the words and said nothing, but ultimately he wondered if Thamalon had gotten it right.

Still, Cale was convinced that the choices a man made could not be meaningless. If there was fate, then perhaps a man's future was not fixed. Perhaps a man could shape his fate through the choices he made. Fate delineated boundaries; choice established details. So fate might make a man a farmer, but the farmer chose what crops to plant. Fate might make a man a soldier, but the soldier chose which battles to fight.

Cale liked that. Fate may have made him a killer, but he would decide if, who, why, and when he killed.

He raised his glass to the darkness, silently toasting the memory of Thamalon Uskevren.

I'll miss you, my lord, he thought.

He would miss the rest of the Uskevren too, and Stormweather Towers, but he would leave nevertheless. From then on, he would serve only one lord.

He reached back into his vest and again withdrew his holy symbol. The velvet of the mask felt smooth in his hands. He held it before his face and stared at it, thoughtful. The empty eye holes stared back.

Fate or choice? they seemed to ask.

Cale considered that, and after a moment, he gave his answer.

"Both," he whispered, "and neither."

With that, he turned the mask around and put it on, the first time he had ever done so in Stormweather Towers. It did not bring the expected comfort. Instead, it felt wrong, as obscene as Thamalon's absence from the manse. He pulled it off and crumpled it in his fist.

"What do you want from me?" he whispered to Mask.

As usual, his god provided him no answers, no signs. Mask never provided answers, only more questions, only more choices.

Months before, in an effort to better understand his Calling, Cale had scoured Thamalon's personal library for information about Mask and the Lord of Shadows' faithful. Unsurprisingly, for Mask was the god of shadows and thieves, after all, there was little to be found. He had finally concluded that serving Mask was different than serving other gods. The priests of Faerun's other faiths proselytized, ministered, preached, and in that way won converts and served their gods. Mask's priests did no such thing. There were no Maskarran preachers, no street ministers, no pilgrims. Mask did not require his priests to win converts. Either the darkness spoke to you or it didn't. If it did, you were already Mask's. If it didn't, you never would be.

The darkness had spoken to Cale, had whispered his name and wrapped him in shadow. And now it was telling him to leave Stormweather Towers.

He sighed, finished his wine, and stood. If he was to be reborn in life's bright struggles, he would have to do it elsewhere. It was time to go.

CHAPTER 2

THE DEAD OF NIGHT

"Well met, mage," said Norel, as he slid into the chair across the table from Vraggen.

"Norel," Vraggen acknowledged with a nod. He unfolded his hands to indicate the tin tankards on the table, each foaming with ale. "I purchased ales for us."

Suspicion narrowed Norel's eyes to slits. Obviously, he thought the ale might be poisoned. The thought amused Vraggen. As if he could be so ... banal.

As quick as the snake that he was, Norel reached across the table and snatched the tankard from in front of Vraggen, rather than the one set before him.

"Appreciated," Norel said, "but I'll have this one, if you please."

From the smug smile on his face, he seemed to think he had made a point.

Vraggen shrugged, took the ale in front of Norel, and said, "Well enough. This one will be mine then."

Vraggen immediately took a draw, grimacing at the watery taste of the indifferent brew. It reminded him of the swill he had endured as a mage's apprentice in Tilverton, before that city's destruction by agents of Shade Enclave.

Seeing Vraggen drink and not fall over dead, Norel grinned and gave an almost sheepish nod—the closest he would come to apologizing for his mistrust, Vraggen supposed—and took a long pull on his ale.

Vraggen watched him while he drank, smiling with an easy disingenuousness, but wondering if he would need to kill him later in the evening. Not with anything as vulgar as poison of course, but dead was still dead.

Time would tell, he supposed.

The two sat at a small table in a back corner of the Silver Lion, a mediocre taproom at the intersection of Vesey Street and Colls Way, a boisterous corner deep in Selgaunt's Foreign District. It was spring, and near the tenth hour. As usual for the Lion, a thick crowd of merchants, drovers, and caravan guards filled the tables and slammed back drink. The heavy aroma of the Lion's infamous beef stew—a thick, wretched concoction inexplicably favored by caravanners—hung in the air. When mixed with the ubiquitous smell of pipeweed smoke and sweat, it made Vraggen's stomach turn. Tankards clanged, plates clattered, and conversation buzzed. Everyone wore steel; everyone drank; and no one paid any attention to Vraggen and Norel.

Exactly as Vraggen required.

He had chosen the Lion as the location to meet Norel for two reasons: first, it was in the Foreign District. Zhent operatives like Norel considered the area a "hot zone," a high-trade area well patrolled by Selgaunt's Scepters, the city's watchmen. Norel would therefore consider himself safe, and not fear the meeting to be a pretense for a hit. Second, the noise of the crowd made eavesdropping difficult by all but the most skilled and determined spy. That was well, for Vraggen wanted no premature disclosure of his plans. Many Zhents thought him dead already, and he wanted them to continue to think as much until he was ready to move.

Vraggen took another draw on his ale. When he placed the tin tankard, engraved with the crude crest of a rearing lion, back on the table, he glanced casually into the crowd behind Norel, looking for his lieutenants.

There they were.