Baldurs gate, p.23
Baldur’s Gate, page 23
“What is it?” Jaheira asked him, still keeping her eyes on Tamoko. “What’s in there?”
“Scrolls,” Abdel replied.
Jaheira looked at him. He was kneeling in front of the chest, his back to her.
“Scrolls?” she asked.
“Evidence,” he answered, turning to face her. He looked at her and smiled, but his smile quickly faded as he looked past her, then turned his head to scan the room. Jaheira followed his gaze to nothing. Tamoko was gone.
The chest was heavy, and Abdel was tired. He carried it a long way through the streets of Baldur’s Gate and brushed aside Jaheira’s offers to help. They had decided their course of action in the cellar, and they were both more than a little nervous. Abdel got the feeling Jaheira wanted to say something to him, and he felt like he should say something to her. They settled on small talk.
“She’s something, isn’t she?” Jaheira asked conversationally, watching the midday crowds go by as they walked.
“Tamoko?” Abdel asked unnecessarily.
Jaheira nodded and said, “I’ve never seen a fighting style like that before. It was… beautiful.”
“I think she’s from Kozakura,” Abdel offered.
“She’s beautiful,” Jaheira said, her voice quavering ever so slightly.
Abdel got that feeling from her that told him to stop. He set the chest down gently next to a sweet-smelling bakery. An old woman harrumphed as she passed, having to walk around the big chest.
“She might be able to…” Abdel started to say, but Jaheira just tipped her head to one side and smiled, knowing what he was going to say.
“I hope so, Abdel,” she said. “I really do, but I find it hard to believe.”
“She has no hope?” he asked, wanting to draw something out of her but not sure what.
Jaheira smiled and put a hand on his heaving chest. He was sweating from carrying the evidence, but she didn’t care. “She might love him,” Jaheira said. “If she does, that might…”
She stopped talking and just stood there, looking at him.
“I love you,” he said, not sure why he thought he needed to say that just then, but he needed to.
She smiled a strangely sad smile, but her eyes sparkled. “I love you,” she said.
He smiled, but not at her. He smiled at the feeling that washed over him then. It was like the feeling he used to get before a particularly threatening fight or just before a kill. It wasn’t as long ago as it seemed, but once Abdel was afraid that the feelings he had for Jaheira came from what he now knew to be his father’s side, the part of him that was a murderer. Now, he realized that feeling wasn’t the same, that the love he felt for her was pushing the Bhaal out of him, replacing his need to kill with his need for her.
Jaheira’s expression changed, and she laughed lightly at the sight of all this thinking. He didn’t realize it, but his face had betrayed his inner dialog all too well.
“Pick up that chest,” she said playfully, “we have people to see.”
“Yes ma’am,” he replied. “Let’s go turn ourselves in.”
“Oh no,” Julius breathed. “Get away from me!”
The young footman waved his halberd weakly at Abdel and Jaheira. The bruises under his eyes were a livid purple, but he’d taken the cloth out of his nose. His eyes were bright red, and his face was pale. He didn’t look well, and now he was scared on top of it all.
“Why,” he asked the heavens, “on my watch?”
“Julius,” Abdel said as he put the chest down on the gravel path leading to the gates of the ducal palace, “we’ve come to turn ourselves in.”
Jaheira slid her sheathed blade out of the loop on her belt and tossed it casually to the ground in front of Julius’s feet. Attracted to the odd confrontation, the other guards started to gather around.
“You’re going to kill me this time, aren’t you?” Julius asked, his voice as serious as it was weak.
Abdel removed the broadsword from his back and tossed it to land on top of Jaheira’s weapon on the ground in front of Julius. The young footman jumped back.
One of the other guards asked, “You know these people?”
Julius ignored his comrade and said to Jaheira, “You might as well kill me. They can’t bust me any further down…” he turned his gaze to Abdel and finished, “…except maybe the dungeon.”
Abdel put his hands on top of his head, smiled, and fell to his knees.
“Footman Julius,” he called in a voice loud enough for everyone within a block of the palace to hear, “I, outlaw Abdel, surrender to you.”
Jaheira followed suit, saying, “And I, outlaw Jaheira, do the same.”
“Why,” Julius asked the other guards, “is it always my watch?”
Julius, with a parade of other guards to back him up, led Abdel and Jaheira through the wide, high-ceilinged corridors of the ducal palace. He stopped at a set of tall double doors on either side of which stood two nervous halberdiers.
Julius nodded at them and said, “Duke Angelo is expecting us.”
They pulled open the doors, and Jaheira gasped at the sight of the chamber within. It was an enormous room filled with ornate furnishings and artifacts that simply oozed wealth. It was like some exotic museum. Abdel had seen some things similar to the pieces here inside Candlekeep but not all in one room.
There were six people already there, but only one man—a half-elf actually—stood when Julius led Abdel and Jaheira in. Abdel had heard of Duke Angelo only in passing. He was said to be a good man. Not as good as Scar, maybe, but if he hadn’t been replaced by a doppelgänger, a man who would listen to reason. Two guards put the heavy chest down a few paces into the room. Abdel and Jaheira followed Julius and the other guards’ lead and bowed to the duke.
“These are the…” Julius said, “…them, m’lord.”
Angelo smiled at Julius and said, “Footman…”
“Julius, m’lord.”
“Julius,” Angelo said, nodding, “you’ll make corporal for this.”
Julius looked relieved, but didn’t smile. “Th-tha-thank you, m’lord,” he stammered.
“Abdel Adrian,” Angelo said, “I have heard a great deal about you.”
“Duke Angelo,” Abdel said with a nod.
While the two guards who’d brought in the chest opened it, Abdel studied the other occupants of the room. There were two women, both tall and dark and impeccably dressed, dripping with gold and dazzling gems. They both regarded Abdel as if he were a specimen to be studied. Two of the men were middle-aged bureaucrats—politicians—common even in cities like Baldur’s Gate. They looked at Abdel as if he was an entirely different kind of specimen.
The third man was obviously one of the mercenaries who’d made Baldur’s Gate his home. He was dressed in simple, utilitarian clothes, and there was no sign of jewelry. His face was serious, expectant, and well chiseled. Though he was seated, Abdel could tell this man was tall, easily as tall as Abdel himself, and solidly muscled. His eyes were dark but gleamed oddly in the daylight streaming through the windows. This man never looked at anyone or anything but Abdel.
“I am told you have brought with you your reason for turning yourselves in,” Angelo said, his voice alive with curiosity. “I have it on good authority”—and he glanced at the big man—“that you are both members of the Shadow Thieves, and spies of Amn here to incite war through sabotage and—”
“We’re none of those things,” Abdel said, “and the contents of this chest will prove that.”
The big man stood and approached slowly, still keeping his eyes on Abdel. The sellsword almost thought the big man’s eyes flashed yellow, but—
“A chest full of scrolls?” Angelo asked.
“Yes, m’lord,” Abdel answered.
Jaheira cleared her throat and added, “M’lord, on these scrolls you will find plans for mines both familiar and unfamiliar to you. You will find an alchemical recipe for a potion designed to ruin iron ore. You will find—”
“Evidence of a Faerûn-spanning conspiracy,” Duke Angelo finished for her, “that only you two Amnian agents are aware of, is that it? Did I get that right?”
“We have surrendered ourselves,” Abdel said, fighting to keep still, fighting not to betray his nervousness. “We are at your mercy for as long as it takes you to study the contents of this chest. There is a man in Baldur’s Gate who is working for an organization called the Iron Throne.” Abdel stepped forward, in front of Jaheira. “The Iron Throne is responsible for the troubles with the iron supply, not Amn. These men, if men they are, use doppelgängers to kill the very best of us—Captain Scar and Grand Duke Eltan among them.”
Angelo seemed ready with another quip, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away from Abdel’s.
“And this man in Baldur’s Gate?” he asked.
“This man is named Sarevok,” Abdel answered.
Then things started happening too quickly for all but two of the people in the room to really follow.
Angelo looked sharply over his shoulder at the big mercenary, whose eyes did flash with a distinct yellow light. Duke Angelo said, “Sarevok?” at the same time that the mercenary’s hand flashed forward, and there was a lightning bolt of energy, thin and blue-white. It cracked in the air of the room, and Abdel twitched to the side faster than even he thought he was capable of. The electricity flashed past him. The eyes of the fancy women and the stuffed men bulged, and one of them spilled his drink.
There was a scream behind Abdel, followed quickly by a thud and Angelo’s voice asking, “Sarevok?” again.
Abdel reached for his sword, but of course it wasn’t there. The big man twisted his fingers and muttered something Abdel couldn’t understand, and Abdel realized two things at the same instant: This man was Sarevok, and he was casting a spell.
Abdel leaped forward and brushed Sarevok’s hands aside as he went for his half-brother’s neck. The spell spoiled, Sarevok bellowed in rage and brought his hands up to break Abdel’s stranglehold. Abdel answered that with a head-butt that bounced the back of Sarevok’s skull against the wall. Neither of them had remembered Sarevok falling backward, with Abdel on top of him.
Abdel thought of Jaheira, then his promise to Tamoko, and his fingers relaxed just enough that Sarevok managed to push him away and to the side, almost breaking Abdel’s neck in the process. As he rolled onto his back, Abdel could see two guards—one of them Julius—rushing to put out a fire. The fire was burning on Jaheira’s chest.
“Jaheira!” Abdel screamed, and he spun at the movement next to him, though at that instant he cared about nothing more than the half-elf woman who lay sprawled and burning on the floor. Sarevok stood and bounded toward the big glass window. Abdel let him go.
Angelo shouted, “Sarevok!”
Abdel slid across the polished floor to Jaheira’s side. There was an enormous crash as Sarevok leaped through the window. Duke Angelo slid to the floor next to Jaheira, and Abdel reached out to grab him.
Angelo called out, “Get a priest!” but Abdel didn’t hear him. He was too busy screaming into the lifeless eyes of the woman he loved.
Abdel stabbed the doppelgänger so hard his hand followed his broadsword through the creature’s body. He could feel the thing transform while his arm was still inside it, but even that sensation wasn’t shocking enough to distract Abdel from what he’d come here to do. Thanks to Sarevok’s own, nearly compulsive, record-keeping they’d been able to find the entrance to the subterranean labyrinth of old sewers and catacombs the doppelgängers had been using to infiltrate nearly every corner of the city of Baldur’s Gate. All the tunnels led in one direction. As Abdel tossed aside the dead doppelgänger, he peered into the murky darkness and somehow knew they were close, but didn’t know exactly what they were close to.
“This way?” Duke Angelo asked Abdel, his voice clipped and professional. The press of soldiers from Angelo’s Flaming Fist, men who fought in the memory of Scar and Eltan, almost pushed the half-elf forward.
“This way?” Abdel said finally, “Yes, I think so, but I can’t be sure.”
“Maerik,” Angelo called.
The stocky sergeant pressed through his comrades, nodding expectantly.
“Take your men and Ferran’s,” Angelo ordered, “back to the last side passage. Err to your left.”
Maerik said, “Yes, sir,” and was off faster than even Angelo expected. These men were fighting for their homes now.
“Temil,” Angelo said to a short, thin, gray-haired woman in flowing satin robes, “you and your men go left up there and try to circle around. I’m going with Abdel and taking Julius’s men with me.”
The mage smiled and swept her robe around in a flourish. Her men followed her warily, obviously not used to taking orders from a sorceress, but knowing their duty.
Abdel didn’t wait for Angelo to catch up. He was off down the passage fast, stepping lightly on his toes, ready for anything. Angelo followed more cautiously, and his men slowed him down. Abdel heard their voices and their footsteps growing more distant as he moved on, but he just couldn’t wait for them.
When Tamoko stepped out in front of him he slid to a halt, and he realized who she was before he killed her.
“Tamoko,” he said, “where is—”
She drew her strange curved sword as fast as anyone Abdel had ever seen draw steel. Her eyes blazed at him, but Abdel couldn’t tell what she felt at that moment. She was injured. Her black silk clothes were stained a darker black. Abdel knew as much by the smell as anything that she was bleeding, and bleeding badly. A trickle of blood was running down the right side of her face from under her black hood. She was breathing heavily, and Abdel saw her fighting not to stagger as she advanced on him, one pained step at a time.
“Tamoko…” he said, and she shook her head. Abdel saw a tear trace a line down her left cheek.
“I was… orokashii,” she said, “I was disloyal… I was disloyal.”
Abdel put his sword up, ready to defend, but not to kill.
“He killed Jaheira,” he told her, though he wasn’t sure exactly why.
“I know,” Tamoko whispered. “Of course he did.”
“He needs you,” Abdel told her, “but he doesn’t deserve you.”
“It is I who does not deserve him,” she said and attacked.
Abdel was staggered at his own ability to block her Z-shaped assault. It was fast—for any other swordsman but her. She stumbled at the end of it, throwing herself off balance in what must have been the first time in years, maybe ever.
“I won’t kill you,” he told her.
“I have to kill you,” she replied and attacked again, this time taking a nick out of Abdel’s side. He roared more with frustration than pain. She stepped back quickly, and her knees gave out all at once. Her chin hit the flagstone floor, and Abdel heard her teeth clack together. She put her arm out to stop her fall a good second after she’d already hit the floor.
“He killed you too,” Abdel asked her as she lay there on the floor trying to move, then just trying to breathe. “Didn’t he? For helping us?”
Angelo came up behind Abdel and asked, “What is this—” but Abdel stopped him with a hand to his chest.
“Tamoko?” Abdel asked the dying woman.
From the floor, she said, “I release you… from your vow. I cannot… he must… shiizumaru… he must die.”
“Tamoko,” Abdel said, but by the time he finished saying her name, she was dead.
It wasn’t absolutely necessary, for the completion of the ritual, for the other sixteen priests in the inner sanctum of the High House of Wonders to be chanting. It was an aid in concentration for High Artificer Thalamond Albaier, though, and a chance for the lesser priests to see the greatest of all Gond’s miracles.
The fact that the woman lying sprawled and lifeless across the marble altar had elf blood in her veins didn’t help, but the high artificer had been asked to perform this ceremony at the request of the new leader of the Flaming Fist, so he was doing everything in his substantial power to see that it happened. The candles that burned in the room were blessed of Gond, the air was scented with incense grown in the greenhouses of Wonderhome itself, and the artificers and acolytes gathered there chanted in disbelief at seeing this ritual performed three times in as many tendays. The first two times, the outcome had been Gond’s will but had gone against the wishes of the high artificer and his secular friends.
This time, perhaps it was the wavering in the high artificer’s own faith that made the difference. Gond might have thought a demonstration was due.
A sharp, jagged breath was drawn in, followed by a hollow wail that made every hair in the chamber stand on end.
“Abdel!” Jaheira screamed as she was born once more onto the face of Toril.
Abdel had no idea how far underground he was. He followed the passageway, leaving Tamoko’s body behind, with Angelo and an increasingly anxious group of Flaming Fists. They were good men, but this was a bad situation, and all Abdel could do was trust in Angelo’s ability to lead them. A lot of people—all of Baldur’s Gate—would have to start doing that.
The passageway ended in a small, low-ceilinged chamber with one other exit. A wide archway opened to a much larger chamber, and the unmistakable orange glow of torchlight lit the space beyond.
Abdel took a deep breath. Through that archway, he knew, he would find his half-brother, a man he’d seen only once before, and only for the length of time it took his brother to kill the woman he loved. Abdel didn’t want to kill anymore, had even naively hoped that Tamoko would be able to show Sarevok that there was human blood in his veins too, but now he’d come here for one reason and one reason only.
He stepped through the archway with sword in hand, and a sizzle of cold electricity passed through his body at the sight of the chamber beyond.
The space was enormous, and though Abdel was no engineer or miner, he couldn’t imagine what was keeping the ceiling—and what must have been two hundred feet or more of earth and bedrock above it—from falling in. The rows of stone pillars that lined each of the long sides of the rectangular chamber looked more ornamental than practical. Carved into the stone of the pillars and the walls alike were scenes of unimaginable horror. Screaming faces of men, women, children, and beasts leered out at Abdel, their faces frozen in a moment of pure agony—the moment of traumatic death. Only an artist who had visited the deepest pits of the Abyss could have carved such faces.
