Baldur's Gate (11 page)

“Bastard,” Abdel breathed, “you bastard…”

“Not me,” the ghoul said indignantly. “No, not me! I knew! I knew not to eat that one. I told them not to eat that one. I killed one for you.”

“What?” Abdel muttered. “Who killed … ?” He put a hand stiffly to his head and staggered. He wanted to fall down and sleep—fall down and die—but he knew he had to remain standing. Like always, what seemed like every day of his life now, he had to take vengeance. He had to settle a score. He had to kill. Abdel was tired.

“I killed this one that ate my old teacher, your father, though I can’t remember his name—your father’s,” the ghoul explained.

Abdel shook his head and walked away.

“I did,” Korak pressed.

“I know, I know,” Abdel said.

“Come with you, yes?” Korak babbled. “You go to Cloak Wood. I know Cloak Wood.”

“I’m not going into the Cloak Wood.”

“I know Cloak Wood. I take you there. I come with you.”

“No,” Abdel said. “No, ghoul. I’ll kill you if you follow me. You’re lucky I don’t kill you now, whether you took out that other thing or not. I should kill every last one of you. I should make it my life’s work.”

“Just eating,” Korak tried to explain, “that’s what we do, like you and cows, you and pigs. We eat.”

Abdel wanted to laugh at that, thought he might cry, but did neither.

“If you follow me,” he said again, “I’ll kill you.”

Korak sat in the tree for a while and watched Abdel go. The big sellsword didn’t turn around, and when Korak thought it was safe he reached around to the other side of the tree and brought out the arm he was saving. He bit into the rotting flesh, and the taste made him smile.

“Just eating,” he mumbled as Abdel disappeared from sight. The ghoul’s grin widened as he munched on Gorion’s rotting arm.

The fact that Tazok actually struggled amused Sarevok to no end. The ogre huffed and wriggled and squirmed in the leather restraints and even tried to slide around the descending blades. It took Sarevok several hours to kill the ogre, and Tazok felt every stab and slice. The wide-open metallic “pear” that had broken the ogre’s jaw prevented him from speaking. Sarevok didn’t care what Tazok might have to say. He wasn’t interrogating the ogre, he was committing murder, pure zealous murder in the name of Sarevok’s father and in the cause of the Iron Throne.

“Very good,” Sarevok said, looking up from his victim at an identical ogre—Tazok in every way but for the bleeding cuts and oozing wounds—standing over the table.

The other Tazok smiled, then seemed to blur. Sarevok didn’t feel the need to blink, like most people who saw a doppelganger transform often did. He went back to work killing the real Tazok and looked up again only when the creature had fully reverted to its gray, smooth, wide-eyed, thin, and freakish form. Sarevok didn’t remember this one’s name, though he recognized a small scar on its forehead and knew this one had been useful to him in the past. The other doppelgangers, who had been looking on from the shadows of the torture chamber, took a step forward into the warm orange light of a glowing brazier. Sarevok’s eyes flashed yellow in appreciation, and he smiled at his secret army.

“You have done well,” the son of Bhaal said, “Beregost is turning. I will not require so many of you there now. You will have new missions, all of you, new… selves to take on, closer to home this time. Go now, revel in the city for a night, then come back here for your…”

Sarevok stopped and looked down. Tazok, eyes wide, let his last blood-reeking breath slip through the open steel pear.

Sarevok smiled and continued, “… instructions in the morning. Your rewards will be waiting for you at the door.”

The doppelgangers bowed in unison and turned to leave. Some of them began to transform even as they walked. They’d be drinking side-by-side with the common citizens of the city this night. The thought of that amused Sarevok, though not as much as the sight of the dead ogre.

The doppelganger who had taken Tazok’s place turned to leave as well, and Sarevok held up a hand to stop him.

“Not you,” he said.

The doppelganger turned and bowed slightly, saying nothing.

“You will return to Beregost in the other form you learned today.”

The doppelganger bowed again, and its skin seemed to grow furry, though it wasn’t hair but a trick of the light over its magically shifting form. Sarevok laughed a little at the grotesque sight. When it was done, a short but powerfully built human stood over the table across from Sarevok. The man was handsome, in a rugged, hard way. Scars crisscrossed his face, and his clothes were pure Sword Coast sellsword—hardened leather and patches of steel plate. The man smiled, showing crooked yellow teeth and a malevolent glint in his dark brown eyes. Red stubble covered his otherwise smooth head.

“Extraordinary,” Sarevok breathed in admiration. “Tamoko.”

The doppelganger jumped when the slight woman appeared from the shadows. She’d been there all along, watching Sarevok’s back, growing ever more sickened by the tortured death of the ogre, and none of the doppelgangers had seen her. Sarevok could see the one who now took the form of this stocky sellsword take note of that.

Tamoko bowed deeply, never looking at the doppelganger or the dead ogre.

“Bring Tranzig from his cell,” Sarevok told her. “He can meet his double before I kill him.”

“If it’s over, it’s over,” Khalid said, “but I won’t be made a cuckold while — “

“Stop it, Khalid,” Jaheira interrupted. “There’s nothing…Abdel…”

“Spare me, Jaheira,” the half-elf countered, “you’ve made your feelings plain to us all.”

Jaheira’s eyes flashed angrily in the dim light of the nearly empty tavern. They’d been in Beregost almost three days and had discovered little of value about the Iron Throne, but both of them had had a chance to think.

“I’m not — ” she started to say but stopped when she realized she had no idea how to finish that entence.

“Do you love him?”

“Did you love Charessa?” she spat. Khalid sighed, closed his eyes, and shook his head.

“That was a long time ago.”

“That was three months ago, Khalid,” Jaheira argued, “and more before that.”

“I like — ” It was Khalid’s turn to start something he couldn’t finish.

“She’s a Harper, Khalid,” Jaheira said, though he certainly already knew that. “You can’t even find your … your…”

“Dalliances?” he provided, smirking with a combination of humor and guilt.

Jaheira wasn’t at all amused, or at all forgiving. “We worked with her,” she said.

“I’m not proud of that, my wife — ” Khalid started.

“Don’t call me that.”

“It’s true, isn’t it?” Khalid asked. “At least for now?”

“For now, maybe.”

Khalid’s face grew serious, and he leaned over the table holding her eyes with his gaze.

“Abdel is a freak, Jaheira,” he said quietly. “He is the son of the Lord of Murder.”

“I know that,” she whispered, ripping her eyes away to stare at the pewter wine goblet on the table in front of her. She wanted to drink, but her hands were shaking, and she didn’t want Khalid to see that. Her husband sat back, his gaze softening a bit.

“Can I blame the Harpers?” he asked. Jaheira shook her head in response. “We were happy before we joined.”

“We were happy when you were faithful,” Jaheira said simply, then looked him in the eye again.

“Very well,” Khalid said, his voice carrying a note of finality.

“Maybe…” Jaheira whispered. Khalid sat forward again to hear her. “Maybe it is the Harpers. We’ve been using Abdel, you know? How am I not supposed to feel sorry for him?”

“Pity isn’t driving you to him, Jaheira,” Khalid accused.

“No, perhaps not,” she agreed, “but are we any better than the Zhentarim—manipulating this simple man into… into the gods only know what?”

“We all have a destiny,” Khalid said, shrugging. “Abdel’s is just more… intense than most.”

Jaheira allowed herself a little laugh at the understatement. “He doesn’t even know.”

“Would it help him any if he did?”

“He has that right, doesn’t he?” she asked, really wanting an answer.

“Yes,” Khalid said, “and no. I ask again: Would it help him any? Has it helped any of the children of Bhaal?”

“I don’t know about any of the others,” Jaheira replied, “but Abdel has good in him. Maybe it was his mother—whoever she was—or Gorion—certainly Gorion—but there’s a … a struggle in him. He kills easily, yes… the man in the Friendly Arms… but he trusts easily too. How else would we have been able to manipulate him—”

She stopped to sob, then quickly pulled herself together. She sniffed and looked away.

“We should have had children,” Khalid said, “you and I. It would have changed things. You would be a good mother. You have been—to Abdel.”

Xan rubbed his aching forearm. Letting the orc beat him at arm wrestling was as painful as it had been productive. He was in the process of buying the orc a drink, but the ugly creature who called himself Forik was already talking.

“Tazok’s a punk,” Forik growled, “who still owes me seventeen copper pieces.”

“Indeed,” Xan said, “then you’ll help me find him?”

The orc grunted and said, “If I knew where ‘e was I’d’a beat da copper outta ‘im by now, elf.”

“He’s recruiting men and humanoids—orcs, and other… warriors. He’s got to have some kind of—”

“Nah, nah,” the orc interrupted, “Tazok ain’t in town dat long when ‘e’s ‘ere. ‘E’s gotta guy, though, over at da Red Sheaf.”

“The inn?” Xan asked.

“Wha’d’ya think?” the orc growled. The big humanoid looked Xan up and down, taking stock of the gaunt elf. “I ‘ate elves.”

Xan shook his head and asked, “You what?”

“I ‘ate elves,” Forik repeated, then smiled and added, “but yer awright.”

“For my sake,” Xan said, returning the creature’s ugly grin, “I hope you’re dropping the ‘h’ off the front of’hate.’ “

This made the orc laugh. “Yeah, yer awright.”

“So Tazok stays at the Red Sheaf?”

“Nah,” the orc said, ” ‘E’s gotta guy in Beregost—calls ‘imselfTranzing, er Tazing, er somethin’ like that. Tanzazing stays at da Red Sheaf—works fer Tazok.”

“Have you tried to get your copper out of this… Tranzing?” Xan asked.

The orc looked away and shrugged, trying not to look scared. ” ‘E don’t owe me.”

“How long are we going to just sit back,” the burly old miner shouted to the slowly assembling crowd in the center of Beregost’s quiet marketplace, “and let Amn do as she pleases with us? How long are we going to watch our brothers be thrown out of work—our mines spoiled, our livelihoods destroyed? I’m not moving to Waterdeep! Waterdeep has nothing for me! This is my home—I mine iron—and Amn isn’t going take that away from me, or my sons!”

Xan touched Khalid lightly on the shoulder, and the half-elf and his wife turned and greeted him.

“Getting testy?” the elf asked, nodding at the speech-maker.

“He’ll call for war next,” Jaheira predicted, and the burly miner reciprocated in kind.

“If I have to take my pick to an Amnian head before I take it to a vein of good iron—so be it!”

There was a spattering of applause in the growing crowd, and someone shouted, “Let’s march!”

A man in Amnian attire slowly backed out of the marketplace, knowing when to make himself scarce.

“Tazok has an associate,” Xan reported, “a man named Tranzing, or Tanzing, staying at the Red Sheaf.”

“That makes sense,” Khalid said, nodding.

“We’ve heard that Tazok has worked out of that inn before,” Jaheira added, “and that people—strangers—from the south have visited there looking for him and his right-hand man. We hadn’t heard this name Tanzing.”

“Are we going to let Amn strangle us?” the miner shrieked, and the crowd, now over a hundred strong, roared back. Fists flew up into the air.

“We should get out of here,” Xan said, eyeing the crowd and his companions’ Amnian features.

Khalid nodded, took a flinching Jaheira by the arm, and followed Xan back to the inn. When they entered the front doors, passing another crowd of travelers preparing to head north, the innkeeper stopped them with a frantic wave.

“Sirs and madam!” the innkeepers called. He was a stout, bald man with bad skin and no teeth. “Your large friend is back. He asked me to ask you to ask that he… he asked that I ask…”

“Easy, there,” Xan said, placing a condescending hand on the flustered little man’s shoulder.

“He’s waiting for you in his room.”

Xan smiled, and the innkeeper said, “Everybody’s checking out!” as if that were some explanation.

“As will we, I’m afraid,” Xan said. The crestfallen innkeeper nodded and turned away.

“Come in,” Abdel said in answer to the light rap at his door. The old door squeaked open just enough for Jaheira to slip through. He nodded and looked back down at the washbasin on the little table in front of him. She had taken the time to change. A soft green silk blouse and a simple cotton skirt made her look less like the warrior he knew her to be. He didn’t want to look at Jaheira the woman— Jaheira the wife. She moved toward him slowly but didn’t come too close.

“We have some… we know more,” she said quietly. “Are you all right?”

Abdel tried to smile but couldn’t. He’d been trying to wash the grime of the road and the ghouls off him for hours, dipping an old rag in a basin of cool water over and over again. His shirt was off, and he could feel Jaheira’s eyes on him. Her gaze made his skin feel hot.

“Tazok has a man in Beregost,” she said, recognizing his unwillingness to talk about his visit to Gorion’s grave.

“There’s a man living in one of the inns here named Tranzig who helps Tazok recruit sellswords and humanoids for the Iron Throne. Xan has gone to try to find him, to keep an eye on him. Khalid will come to tell us if he leaves the Red Sheaf.”

Abdel nodded, though he’d only barely heard what she had to say.

“I’m…” he said.

She stepped closer in response. He reached out a hand and touched the soft fabric of her skirt, felt the firm warmth of her thigh beneath it. She stepped into him, and without consciously willing himself to do so he began to kiss her taut stomach through the silk of her blouse. His skin tingled, and he drew in a sharp breath and heard Jaheira do the same thing. There was something about the feel of her that was just perfect—and perfectly wrong.