Baldur's Gate (22 page)

Abdel had heard this was possible, but it was a power most priesthoods reserved for the most dire of circumstances. Jaheira looked at Abdel, and he saw she was impressed as much by the sort of friends Abdel attracted as by the scope of the situation they now found themselves in. “They couldn’t do it, I’m afraid,” Eltan said. “His soul had fled, or… well, whatever.” The grand duke took a moment to compose himself, then said, “They allowed me to speak with him, though, if you can believe such a thing is possible. He vouched for you, as only Scar could. He told me he’d sent you two snooping around the Seven Suns’s pier, that there was some connection between them and some group that is responsible for our troubles with the iron mines.”

“Yes, m’lord,” Jaheira said. “I was sent by the Harpers to look into this.” She paused to look at Abdel, who smiled slightly and nodded. “The Iron Throne wants to start a war between your people and mine.”

“A war with Amn?” Eltan asked. “To what end?”

Jaheira shook her head and said, “I don’t know. That was what Scar sent us to that pier to find out.”

“My city is crawling with doppelgangers,” Eltan said, “we’re being pushed into war with Amn, our resources are being sabotaged, and no one knows why?”

Jaheira reddened, sensing Eltan’s mounting frustration.

“I know where the Iron Throne meets,” Eltan said, and as if in answer a sharp sound of metal hitting the marble floor startled all of them. They looked up at the healer, who smiled sheepishly from the corner.

“You can go, Kendal,” Eltan told the man, “I’ll be fine.”

“I will need to change that dressing, m’lord,” the healer said, “tomorrow morning.”

“Very well,” Eltan agreed with an impatient wave. “Off with you.”

The door closed behind the healer, and Abdel asked, “Where is this place?”

“Here in the city,” Eltan said. “You can come along if you like. I could use a man who can operate outside the walls of the Gate. If Scar trusted you, that’s good enough for me.” He looked at Jaheira and said, “I’ve met Harpers before, miss, but I won’t hold that against you.”

Jaheira blushed and they stood to go.

” ‘We will be monks again, for a time,’ ” Julius read from the dog-eared notebook. ” ‘Return to the meeting place under the pillars of the Wise God.’ “

The young corporal looked up at the grand duke, Sergeant Maerik, Abdel, and Jaheira. Julius was squatting next to the tall, wiry man dressed in black leather that Abdel had killed. There seemed to be only two men left in the Iron Throne’s subterranean lair. Eltan and his forces were one step behind them.

“Candlekeep,” Abdel said quietly.

“Can they get in there?” Eltan asked. “My understanding was that Candlekeep rarely if ever opens her gates. How could a whole cabal of conspirators use Candlekeep as a meeting place?”

“Gorion could have answered that,” Jaheira said, looking sadly up at Abdel.

The sellsword nodded slowly. “My father was a monk,” Abdel said to Eltan. “He raised me behind the walls of Candlekeep, and he set me on the path I’ve been walking for what seems like a lifetime now. He led me to Jaheira.” He turned to the half-elf and asked, “Was he working for the Harpers?”

Jaheira shook her head and said, “He was a friend.”

“I can sooner go to war with Amn and win than storm the gates of Candlekeep,” Eltan sighed. He wasn’t’defeated, he was thinking.

“Seems a handy clue,” Maerik piped in, and Eltan looked at him sharply. The sergeant took half a step backward and said, “My apologies, I—”

“Don’t apologize, sergeant,” Eltan said. “This notebook was a rather important text to leave behind.”

“The Iron Throne has done sillier things, m’lord,” Abdel offered. “How could they want us to know they’ve gone to Candlekeep?”

“If it’s true what you—” Julius started, then stopped at a sharp look from Maerik.

Eltan held up a hand and said, “Go on, corporal.”

Julius smiled weakly and said, “M’lord, if we can’t get into Candlekeep, maybe they want us to—want you to know they’re out of your reach.”

“They’re taunting me?” Eltan asked.

Julius shuddered. “I’m just—”

“It’s possible,” Jaheira said. “We—the Harpers—have thought there’s one man behind this whole thing. A dwarf the Iron Throne had made a slave told us this man’s name. He’s a wealthy merchant from Sembia named Reiltar. I have reason to believe this man Reiltar is the—is a son of Bhaal.”

Abdel looked at her with eyes wide. There it was again, the name of this dead god of murder and the idea that he’d left behind sons. Maybe, Abdel thought, I should have pressed Jaheira for what else she knew. Jaheira looked at Abdel with a red, almost frightened face.

“The son of Bhaal?” Eltan asked, incredulous. “The dead god Bhaal?”

Jaheira nodded, and Julius stood on shaking legs.

“That’s madness,” Maerik commented. “M’lord, who are these people?”

Eltan looked at Maerik, then at Jaheira, and said, “How could you know this?”

“There are others,” Jaheira said. “Other offspring of Bhaal. The Harpers have been watching some, have lost track of others. No one knows how many have survived.”

“And one of them wants to start a war with Amn?” Julius asked, forgetting his place.

“Murder,” Jaheira said, “on a grand scale.”

Abdel swallowed in a suddenly dry throat. Gooseflesh rippled across his arms and chest, and he felt his body shudder. Murder, Abdel thought while holding back a smile with great effort, on a grand scale.

“Murder,” Tamoko said, “on a grand scale.”

Sarevok smiled at her—smiled that demon smile—but Tamoko did not step back. To her surprise, Sarevok seemed pleased.

“Murder, yes,” he said. His voice echoed in the underground chamber, and there was an unsettling shriek of steel on steel as he dragged a long, thin dagger absentmindedly across his black metal breastplate. A spark flew, but there was not a mark on the armor.

“This is not…” Tamoko paused, then sighed in frustration. She wasn’t reluctant to speak, but was still not completely fluent in the common tongue of Faerun. “It is not… acceptable. Acceptable.”

Sarevok’s yellow eyes flashed, and he turned back to the empty frame, eyeing it casually, as if it showed a scene of only passing interest.

“Tamoko, my dear girl,” he said finally. “When I found you, you were killing every day, for money. You murdered as a way of life.”

She bristled at the comparison, and her outrage gave her courage. “There is no shame in the life of an assassin.”

“You killed innocent people,” he pressed. “That is murder.”

“Innocent people have nothing to fear from the assassin’s blade,” she said. “Innocent men do not associate with men who might hire an assassin. If I am sent to a man, that man has made the reason, one way or another.”

“So,” Sarevok said, turning to her with a self-satisfied grin, “you only killed corrupt men.”

“Yes,” she said, her chin held high, falling into his trap.

“On the orders of corrupt men.”

She flushed and looked away. Sarevok chuckled and turned to the frame.

“You may enter,” he said evenly.

Tamoko turned at the sound of the opening door, and a doppelganger strode slowly, reluctantly into the room. Its huge, lifeless eyes darted around the chamber’s spartan furnishings, then took careful stock of Tamoko who stood rigidly at Sarevok’s side. The woman was dressed simply in loose-fitting trousers and a matching black tunic. Her thin, curved katana hung in its sheath at her waist. She regarded the doppelganger coldly, having no love for these creatures who were without selves.

“You are an idiot,” Sarevok said to the doppelganger, and the creature dropped instantly to its knees.

“Please, master,” it begged in a voice neither male or female, devoid of character or substance. “Spare me to serve you again. I will do anything … take on any form Your Majesty requires.”

“That soft old goat Eltan has priests—PRIESTS!” Sarevok exclaimed in a voice like the inside of a thunderclap. The doppelganger skittered back on its haunches in a desperate attempt to avoid the voice—like it had sent a shock wave across the still chamber. Tamoko jumped and felt a tingling to her very core at the power in her lover’s manner. Sarevok paused for a long time, letting the doppelganger shudder and whimper once before he continued, “Priests of the tinker god Gond, and who knows what else, wandering the city of Baldur’s Gate, praying over and over for this true sight of theirs. Do you know why?”

“We can hide, master,” the doppelganger whimpered. “Please, just—”

“Do you know why?” Sarevok asked again, his voice calm and steady.

“Sire, please—”

“If I ask you the same question a third time, doppelganger, you’d best hope the answer is written on the inside of your brain, because if it isn’t and I’ve ripped your head off for no good reason… I shall be disappointed.”

Tamoko drew her sword slowly, making a show of the sound and the reflected candlelight. She loved Sarevok, with her entire soul, lost as it might be, and though her confidence in him and her certainty that he was worthy of her adoration was more than wavering, she’d be all too happy to put down one of these soulless abominations on his behalf.

The doppelganger saw that much, at least, written plainly in her eyes.

“They search for us,” the creature said. “They search for us with their true sight. But they won’t—”

“Shhhhh …” Sarevok hissed lightly, holding a long finger in front of his lips. He smiled that evil wolf smile and stepped closer to the cowering creature. Tamoko saw a tear roll down the doppelganger’s smooth gray cheek.

“Of course they will, doppelganger, just as I knew they would. I was hoping they wouldn’t start so soon, though, and it is in that way that you have disappointed me.”

“Oh,” the doppelganger sobbed through quivering, hairline lips, “no—”

Sarevok turned and made eye contact with Tamoko for less than half a heartbeat, and the assassin skipped forward, swinging her sword high over her head.

She came in fast and steady—steady as always. She flashed her sword over her head in a rapid whirling motion designed to distract her victim—opponent—the distinction made Tamoko pause in her thinking but not in her movement. She brought her sword slashing down, driven purely by instinct honed from talent and practice. She didn’t really make a conscious decision to strike. Her blade met steel with a spark and a clang that sent vibrations up through her arm and snapped her into the now.

The doppelganger had managed to transform in the eye blink it took for her to attack. She hopped back lightly and quickly, withdrawing as much on instinct as she’d attacked. She needed time to assess the situation at hand. Her victim truly had, all at once, become an opponent.

Tamoko rankled at the sight of the transformed doppelganger. It was her. She tipped her head to the side in what some might have thought was a salute. Tamoko meant it as a promise—the promise of a slow and dishonorable death.

“Outstanding,” Sarevok said with obvious relish.

Tamoko ignored him and locked her gaze on her opponent. The doppelganger stood and took on a wide stance. It looked deeply into Tamoko with her own eyes, and with each passing heartbeat it grew more like her. Tamoko exhaled sharply and charged it.

She shouted out in her own language the name of each attack, though she was not conscious of the moment she began formal fencing. Her conscious, creative mind was pushed aside by training, experience, and a code more ancient than even Sarevok could imagine. Her sword whipped through the air with a chorus of whistles and shrieks that made the blade seem to take on a life of its own. The doppelganger managed to parry one attack after another, and it was soon dancing lightly on its toes in much the same way as Tamoko. It was still defending, though, and Tamoko didn’t think it understood she wasn’t really attacking but feeling her opponent’s skills and weaknesses, gathering information on more than just the best way to kill it.

In less than a minute Tamoko knew the doppelganger was running through her own experiences in rapid chronological order. She felt the creature make the breakthrough she had spent an entire summer working up to with sensei Toroto in the Temple of Fist and Light. She felt more, though. This doppelganger was afraid of Sarevok—an easy assumption—but it was also afraid of birds—irrationally afraid. Tamoko smiled and whistled once, a robin’s call, and the thing opened itself, and Tamoko sliced at its throat. It had made it to the following autumn of her life, though, the season she spent walking backward, and it stepped out of danger and even made a bold attack that Tamoko only barely managed to put aside.

Her sword flashed even faster, and soon she had achieved her pure state. The sword’s pommel came away from her hand and slid through an envelope of energy that surrounded her in a cocoon of pure, unmuddied martial prowess. The doppelganger’s left hand came away from its own sword, but it wasn’t ready, no power it possessed could make it ready to fight on anything even approaching the level it found itself in.

Tamoko batted its sword away and took its head off in a single zigzagging swing that was too fast for even Sarevok to see. The headless body convulsed through its retransformation, but Tamoko didn’t watch. She closed her eyes and forced her mind and spirit back together, forced herself back to the plane of life and time.

She turned around, and Sarevok was coming at her fast. He was reaching for something at his waist, and she exhaled slowly. His breastplate came away, and he was suddenly right there. She dropped her sword and before she heard it clatter on the stone floor she felt his hands on her. She grabbed at him, and their tongues met and she let him take her, though this time, she felt something missing.

Abdel heard Jaheira splash in the shallow pond near their campsite. Still two days from Candlekeep, the woman was taking a rare opportunity to wash away the grime and sweat of the road. The sun had passed under the horizon, and though the sky was a deep shade of indigo, their modest campfire was Abdel’s only source of light. Looking up in the direction of the pond, hidden from his sight by a line of closely-spaced trees, Abdel opened his pack and reached inside.