Baldur's Gate (26 page)

“This one must have been important,” Jaheira whispered. The sound of her soft voice echoed through the narrow passageway like a drawn-out hiss. She motioned with the dagger to a niche in the catacomb wherein sat an ornately carved mahogany casket. There was a brass plaque carefully nailed to the side but tarnish and cobwebs made it illegible. Above the niche was a shield on which was painted an elaborate coat of arms that Abdel didn’t recognize.

“Eventually this should lead out to the sea,” Abdel said, ignoring her observation.

She smiled at him in the flickering torchlight and was about to say something when the ghoul’s voice echoed back at them, “No time to stop.” Korak sounded nervous. “No time at all!”

The zombies fell on him from all sides at once.

Jaheira breathed in sharply as if she were about to scream, and Abdel’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of the ghoul being torn to pieces by a good half-dozen walking corpses who each looked worse off than even the rotting ghoul. Korak screamed a pitiful, thin wail that bounced around in the tunnel along with the sound of tearing and shuffling and splashing and cracking. The zombies were as silent as the dead they were.

One of the undead things turned slowly and looked at the half-god and the half-elf. The thing’s ashen face betrayed no sign of life, let alone emotion, but it recognized their presence and came forward. When the pieces of Korak stopped twitching, the rest of them followed suit, and they advanced on Abdel and Jaheira as one.

“We need to go,” Jaheira, already backing up, said.

Abdel thought about it for a long time—two steps of the zombies—then said, “Yeah, I think so.”

More zombies appeared from side passages. Abdel stopped counting at eight and just turned tail to run, following closely behind Jaheira. They turned a corner in the dark, damp, musty, narrow corridor, and their way was blocked by a rusted iron gate. Abdel swore loudly, and the echoes momentarily drowned out the loud, reverberating hiss of the zombies dragging their desiccated feet along the stone floor.

“Break it open,” Jaheira suggested weakly. Abdel grabbed the bars and felt big flakes of rust powder in his grip. He pulled hard on the gate and it gave a little, sending a hundred different echoes cascading through the passageway. The first zombie rounded the corner.

In a panicked voice Jaheira whispered, “Abdel…”

He turned at the same time he drew his sword, bringing it around close to his body to avoid cutting Jaheira. The zombie came in slow, tangled in the tatters of the long robe it was wearing. This one had been a woman, maybe centuries before it became this shuffling, undead thing.

Jaheira stabbed at it with the silver dagger, and a big chunk of its midsection just fell away. It staggered back, never making eye contact with either of its living prey and then came back again. When it was within arm’s length it reached its rotting claws up and took a slow, clumsy, but strong swipe at Jaheira with its hands. Abdel took its head off easily, but Jaheira had to jump out of the way to avoid being cut herself, and she dodged directly into the next zombie in line.

It grabbed at her forearm in what looked like an attempt to keep itself from falling, but the zombie wasn’t capable of that kind of high-level decision making. It meant to claw her, and using the weight of its fall as much as the strength in its dead, reanimated arm, it took three deep gouges out of Jaheira’s shoulder. The half-elf screamed and pushed back with both legs, coming into the rusted gate hard in an attempt to avoid the zombie’s second scraping set of claws. The zombie fell away as Jaheira hit the gate and continued through when the bars, which had rusted through after centuries of neglect, gave way behind her.

Jaheira had expected the gate to hold her so was surprised enough at finding herself landing rump-first on the damp stone floor that she didn’t see Abdel cut in half the zombie that had scratched her. Abdel kept his sword in his right hand and fumbled in his belt pouch with his left hand. He pulled out the pass stone and turned, moving past the prone Jaheira, even as another zombie appeared around the corner. Jaheira stood up, turned, and ran.

“Follow me!” Abdel said and didn’t look back. He could hear her staying close behind him. He held the stone in his left hand and let it pass an inch or two from the wall.

“Do you know …” Jaheira panted, “… where we’re … going?”

Abdel answered, “No, but I know Candlekeep.”

He knew this wouldn’t make sense to Jaheira, who didn’t respond.

“The whole thing,” Abdel said as he ran, “is full of secret doors. It’s practically made of secret doors. I’ve never been down here, but I see no reason why—”

He stopped at the sound of grinding stone, and Jaheira collided with his back with a grunt. A doorway slid open in the stone wall to their left. Abdel winked and stepped through into the soft, damp breeze that carried on it the scent of the sea.

“Candlekeep will take care of them for you,” Duke Angelo said, handing the semicircular glass to Sarevok. “They will never be seen again.”

Sarevok smiled, and Angelo looked away. As one of the dukes of Baldur’s Gate, an experienced mercenary commander, and a half-elf who’d already lived longer than most humans would ever dream of, Angelo had met all kinds—but no one like Sarevok. This imposing man made the air in his apartment in the ducal palace heavy with—what? Angelo couldn’t put his finger on the word: malice? avarice? destiny?

“What do you call this?” Sarevok asked, his voice even in casual conversation was deep, resonating, and commanding.

“Brandy,” Angelo answered. “It’s quite new. I think you’ll find it to your liking.”

Sarevok smiled, and Angelo managed to look away casually, as if he weren’t terrified of that grin. He crossed the big room to the fireplace, his feet whispering over the rug he’d had brought to him from Shou Lung at the cost of so many gold pieces they had to be conveyed east by magical means. The decorations and furnishings in this room could buy a small city, and Angelo took great pride in his varied collection of artifacts from the four corners of Toril. He took the poker from next to the fire—heavy mithral from the dwarven mines of the Great Rift—and prodded the fire absentmindedly.

“Interesting,” Sarevok said, and Angelo looked up to find him holding an empty glass. “Cherries?”

“I believe so,” Angelo answered, then changed the subject abruptly in an effort to hurry Sarevok’s departure from his home. “My command of the Flaming Fist is secure. This Abdel of yours, and his woman, are known and wanted in this city. I don’t suppose you can tell me how you got this information?”

“Oh,” Sarevok laughed, “of course not, but I assure you they are indeed working in the employ of the Shadow Thieves.”

“And this… what is it… cabal?”

“Guild, really,” Sarevok replied.

“This thieves guild is Amnian in origin,” Angelo said, studying the fire. “Surely they’re outlaws in Amn as well, then.”

Sarevok put down his glass with a hollow clink. “Think of them as privateers,” he said. “Outlaws in the service of Amn.”

“This is not to be tolerated,” Angelo said, as if looking for agreement from Sarevok.

“Indeed,” the imposing man said, “it is not.”

“So what does it mean?” Angelo asked. “War with Amn, then?”

“Do you fear war?”

Angelo looked at Sarevok sharply, and a cold sweat broke out under his fine clothing. He thought for the briefest moment that Sarevok’s eyes flashed an inhuman yellow, as if lit from within, then his guest smiled again.

“I fear needless war, yes,” Angelo replied. He turned away and looked at the portrait of himself that hung above the fireplace. The artist had done an admirable job with Angelo’s long, thin, vertical features. The duke kept his goatee trimmed to match the portrait, though current fashions were passing it by. The painting, unlike the man, still showed a trace of the warrior he once was. He met his own stare and felt like withering from it as much as from Sarevok’s.

“If men are asked to fight, and no good reason is given them, they don’t fight with their hearts.”

“Their hearts do not concern me, Angelo. I need arms and legs.”

Angelo took three steps and sank heavily onto a divan near the fire. He touched the calfskin cushion. It felt like a baby’s skin and had cost him enough to buy a hundred children. Suddenly it didn’t seem as impressive as when he’d purchased it in Waterdeep.

“Will your men fight?” Sarevok asked, his voice as loaded as the question.

Angelo nodded, hoping to reassure himself.

“Then tell them it is because Amn wants this war,” Sarevok said calmly. “They poison our iron mines, try to strangle our neighbors to the south, they mean to have Baldur’s Gate, the river, the mines… all of it. Is that enough?”

Angelo smiled and said, “More than enough, my friend. Add to that these Shadow Thieves working their mischief here in the Gate herself…”

“When I am named grand duke,” Sarevok said, “there will be no more Amnian cutthroats defiling our great city… if we have to kill every man, woman, and child in that cursed realm to ensure it.”

Angelo swallowed in a throat turned dry.

It wasn’t even a whole shadow that caught Abdel’s eye but the edge of a shadow. It was the third time he’d caught a glimpse of it since they’d returned to Baldur’s Gate, sneaking into the city at night, unsure of their status in that city or any other on the Sword Coast. They were considered murderers in Candlekeep. Now they were being followed.

“You’re sure?” Jaheira said softly. She’d noticed him tense at the glimpse of shadow.

Abdel nodded and said, “Just keep walking. We need to see Eltan.”

“He might be the one following us,” Jaheira said, “or having us followed.”

Abdel didn’t say anything. He was going over the options in his mind, and he made a decision quickly. Jaheira grunted in protest when he pulled her into a narrow, light-less alley.

“Shortcut?” she quipped.

He drew his sword in answer, and Jaheira grew as serious as he.

“If I have to kill whoever—or whatever—is following us, I don’t want to do it in the street.”

It took them an hour or more to reach the ducal palace, staying in the shadowy alleys the whole way. They heard footsteps once, saw another shadow, then another, before they reached their destination. Most of the time Abdel was the one who noticed their tail. He couldn’t explain it even to himself, but it was as if he could smell her. Her? Abdel shook the thoughts out of his head, sheathed his sword and, Jaheira at his side, approached the guards at the gates of the ducal palace.

“Halt,” one of them called, his voice conveying the growing tension in the city both Abdel and Jaheira had felt in the air this time. There was a heaviness about Baldur’s Gate. “Who goes there?”

Abdel held his hands out next to him and walked up the little incline to the gate slowly. “I seek an audience with Grand Duke Eltan,” he said simply.

The guard who stepped forward was a stocky young man who filled out his chain mail well. He held a well-polished halberd in a way that told Abdel he knew how to use it. Torches lit the area around the gate, and Abdel could see at least five more guards.

“And who are you?” the guard asked.

“A friend,” Abdel answered.

“Eltan—” Jaheira said, “Grand Duke Eltan knows us. He sent us to… on a mission, and we need to report back.”

“The grand duke is dying,” the guard said. “You can make your report to the captain of the watch in the morning.”

Jaheira looked pointedly at Abdel who closed his eyes and sighed, clenching his fists tightly. One of the other guards moved timidly out of the shadows, and the sound of his feet on the gravel made Abdel look up.

“Abdel?” the approaching guard asked, “Jaheira? Is that you?”

The first guard tensed visibly and shifted the weight of his halberd.

“Julius?” Jaheira said, her half-elf eyes allowing her to see the second guard’s face.

“Torm save us,” the first guard exclaimed, “it’s the Shadow Thieves!”

“No—” Jaheira started to say, but Julius rushed at her with his halberd out in front of him. Now even Abdel could see his angry, frightened face as he charged. The first guard came at Abdel, and the sellsword stepped lightly to one side and grabbed the pole of the halberd in a tight grip. The guard let go of the polearm and drew a sword so quickly Abdel realized he must have practiced it. Only Abdel’s chain mail saved him from a quick disemboweling.

Abdel spun the polearm around and was surprised by the thoughts that seemed to explode in his head. These guards thought they were Shadow Thieves—a group Abdel knew to be Amnian. Whatever story the Iron Throne had managed to create about them in Candlekeep had obviously stretched to Baldur’s Gate—and in strange ways. In Candlekeep he had proven the Iron Throne right when he killed the guard. Abdel, even as he swung the halberd at the guard, decided not to make it that easy for the Iron Throne again.

Jaheira was ready for Julius’s clumsy charge and stepped past the head of the polearm too. She punched Julius square in the nose, his own momentum compounding the blow. There was a sharp, snapping sound and a warm wetness over Jaheira’s fist, and Julius went down.

Abdel dodged a slice from the first guard’s sword and heard the other four running up rapidly even as a hollow horn blew in the otherwise quiet night. They’d have the whole palace down on them soon enough. Abdel spun the halberd around again and faked a jab at the guard’s head. The guard dodged the attack, but put his head in line for a sideswipe that knocked him down—and out—with a solid clunk. Abdel threw the halberd sideways at the approaching guards and turned to see Jaheira already running for the safety of the dark alleys. The guards chased him only halfheartedly, and Abdel wondered if it was that they didn’t want to abandon the gates, or if the dark alleys of their own city frightened them. Maybe it was a bit of both.

Abdel passed rats, garbage in piles, sleeping houses, and shops closed for the night. At intervals he would whisper-shout Jaheira’s name into the darkness. A few times he thought he heard her footsteps or saw her shadow. He passed through an alley between two expensive looking townhouses. There was a beggar asleep in the alley who looked like nothing more than a pile of rags, snoring softly. Abdel held his breath, as he’d learned to do when passing beggars. He’d been walking a long time though, and he breathed in just slightly as he passed. The smell wasn’t right. It wasn’t a beggar’s smell, and Abdel recognized it right away. He kept walking though, forcing himself not to hesitate. When he got to the end of the alley he stepped to the side and stopped, pressing his back against the wall and looking to his left at the alley entrance. Afraid of making any noise, he didn’t pull his sword.