Baldur's Gate II Shadows of Amn (15 page)

The enormous creature moved forward as fast as a lizard a thousandth its size. She shattered the six frozen drow on her way through, and Abdel could only jump aside and get out of her way.

The sound of crossbows firing echoed through the cavern, and Abdel thought he saw at least one thin quarrel skip off one of Adalon’s shining silver scales, but the dragon didn’t flinch in the slightest. He heard a number of swords drawn, and that reminded him to draw his own. Seeing the coal black color of his skin as it passed across his face made him pause.

Adalon picked up one drow warrior—a man in glittering chain mail—and squeezed so hard his eyes popped out before he died a bloody, bone-shattered wreck. Adalon tossed him to the floor of the cavern in a splatter of gore that made one of his companions leap aside.

Something like a fireball or some other kind of obviously magical fire exploded near the dragon’s head, but she just brushed it off and flicked aside the drow who’d cast the spell. The impotent mage hit the wall of the cavern hard enough to crack his head like an egg.

Abdel looked up into the crowd of quickly scattering drow and saw one of them turn from the dragon. The drow made eye contact with Abdel, and Abdel turned toward the passing foot of the great dragon to make as if to slash at it as it passed him. Something told Abdel he wouldn’t have cut through the thing’s silver scales anyway, but the illusion seemed to work. When he glanced back at the drow, he was nodding as he turned to run.

A couple of drow warriors made to run with him, but he pushed them back at the dragon and dived behind an outcropping of rock. The dragon’s freezing breath descended on the drow warriors in roiling waves of glittering frost and froze them both in mid scream. They were made so cold that when the dragon whipped her tail around it shattered them on contact as if they were made of blown glass.

Go! A voice boomed in Abdel’s head—it was Adalon’s voice. The three of you must go—you do not have that much time. Find that drow, the leader, and go back to Ust Natha with him. Go!

Jaheira grabbed Abdel by the arm, and though he knew it was her, he was still startled by her appearance. She was a dark elf in every way now, as was he, as was Imoen.

“We were the advance party,” Abdel said, assuming that if it didn’t work, he’d probably still be able to kill the lone drow.

The dark elf nodded and sighed, sitting down on the rough stone floor of the dark cavern like a half-empty sack of grain. Abdel looked over at Jaheira, who was looking back at him with barely disguised wonder. He knew he’d never have the heart to tell her the ruse was a wild stab in the dark.

The drow folded his legs into a position that looked painful to Abdel. A sigh escaped the dark elf’s lips—more a slow, steady exhale. His eyes were closed, and it was obvious that he was not only trying to calm himself, but succeeding.

“Who’s in charge?” the dark elf asked, opening his eyes and looking directly at Jaheira.

The druid glanced at Abdel, and the drow followed her gaze. His brow wrinkled, and he seemed confused. Abdel was about to claim leadership of the party but realized the drow was finding that unusual for some reason. Abdel looked at Imoen and tilted his head. They’d known each other long enough, and Abdel knew she had a dramatic streak to her that would pick up on what was passing between them and their reluctant new friend.

“I am,” Imoen said, her voice regal in her new skin.

The drow nodded and said, “I am Solausein, second to Phaere.”

Imoen had no idea how to respond, so she just nodded.

“I was sent to kill the dragon,” Solausein said.

Imoen glanced at Abdel, then said, “We were sent to offer it one more bargain.”

Abdel couldn’t help but feel a twinge of pride. Imoen could really think on her feet.

“Well,” the drow said, “with all due respect, it seems Phaere assumed you would fail.”

“Did she assume you would too?” Imoen said with a tilt of one eyebrow.

The drow looked up at her sharply but quickly looked away. His legs unfolded, and he stood in a single fluid motion. Abdel had to work hard to keep from drawing his sword. Solausein didn’t attack, though. His eyes stayed fixed on the ground, and he turned away from them.

“We should return to Ust Natha,” he said, not looking at them.

Imoen smirked at Abdel and said to the drow’s back, “You take point.”

“All this for a diversionary tactic,” Phaere said, staring up at the tall archway of the completed gate. “I will say one thing for you humans, you do think big.”

Bodhi regarded her coldly and said, “I haven’t been human for a long time, young matron.”

Phaere turned to the vampire and smiled, letting her eyes slowly crawl up Bodhi’s tight, leather-clad body.

“I stand corrected,” she said.

Bodhi let the drow woman look at her. The vampire turned her attention to the gate. It was huge—easily big enough to march an army through. Now it was just a plain stone archway, but it still gave off a feeling of power, of magical energy Bodhi could feel from a distance. When it was activated by the dozen drow mages standing by, it would open an enchanted pathway through space and time onto the surface, and into a place Bodhi could never have walked into, let alone a drow strike regiment.

“And it will work,” Bodhi said, making sure it sounded more like a warning than a question.

Phaere was still staring at Bodhi when she said, “It will work.” The drow turned away finally and shouted a name.

Bodhi’s sensitive ears picked up the hissing whispers of the dozen mages, and something told her to turn away from the gate. There was a flash of light that would have been painful to her dark-accustomed eyes. Phaere was holding a hand over her own eyes. When Bodhi turned back to the gate, it was like looking at a rippling pool that was somehow standing perpendicular to the ground. Where she’d been able to see the rounded roofs and tower tops of the drow city of Ust Natha through the archway, now there was only a blue-violet shimmering. There was an audible hum.

“You said you wanted to see it work,” Phaere said.

Bodhi smiled at her. “And your army is prepared,” the vampire said, again more a warning than a question.

“As much of an army as we’ll require, yes,” Phaere replied. “This elf city of yours is more like a village. My distant cousins—” and she said the word “cousins” with no small amount of contempt—”have mostly fled to their precious Evermeet. It shouldn’t be too difficult to overwhelm them. It’s not something they’re expecting after all. We don’t send armies to the surface. Ever.”

“Indeed,” Bodhi said, still studying the wall of magic in front of her. “That is precisely what we’re counting on. They need to be surprised and … occupied, so we can do what we need to do.”

“I won’t bother asking exactly what that might be,” Phaere said, “and I don’t really care after all, do I? If I get the mythal, you can have your way with Suldanessellar.”

Bodhi nodded and said, “You’ll have your mythal.”

The drow was looking for the elves’ magical engine—called a mythal. Bodhi didn’t understand exactly what a mythal was. All she needed to know was that Phaere wanted one badly enough that she’d lead a regiment of drow warriors into the forest of Tethir to get one. The fact that Suldanessellar had no mythal and Irenicus had no intention of getting one for her was something Phaere would have to find out the hard way. By the time she did, Irenicus would be done with whatever it was he needed to do, and they’d be long gone, leaving the elves and drow to work out the rest on their own—leaving them to kill each other.

“The people who followed us will be here soon. They’ve been to see the dragon by now,” Bodhi said.

“Amazing,” Phaere breathed. “The lengths … I lost warriors getting those eggs.”

“Well,” Bodhi said, taking a step closer to the humming gate, “good for you. When the three of them get here, they’ll have to think they’ve succeeded in getting the eggs back. They’ll want to escape the city and bring the eggs to the dragon, who they think will send them to Suldanessellar. I’ll have someone here who they’ll think is a friend, who’ll nudge them in the right direction— through the gate.”

“You’ll send them back to the dragon?”

Bodhi smirked. “This gate doesn’t lead to the dragon, Phaere. It will bring them where I want them to go.”

“Humans in Ust Natha,” Phaere said. “It’s not right.”

Bodhi ignored the dark elf and said, “Here he is.”

The humming of the gate changed timbre for just the slightest moment, and the color shifted away from violet and more toward blue. A small, round-faced man with the features of an elf but the ears of a human stepped tentatively onto the marble tiles of the square in Ust Natha.

“Yoshimo,” Bodhi said.

The Kozakuran looked around himself once, his mouth open in awe, and took a moment to find Bodhi.

He smiled weakly and said, “Bodhi, you have most unusual friends.”

“People say the same about you,” she replied, “I’m sure.”

Bodhi stepped forward, and Yoshimo flinched back. This made Phaere laugh and Yoshimo blush.

Bodhi looked at Phaere and said, “Take care of him for me, will you?”

Phaere smirked sourly and nodded. Bodhi stepped through the gate and was gone.

“Adalon has agreed to your demands … ma’am,” Imoen said, her voice echoing through the tall-ceilinged chamber in the alien tones of the drow language.

They’d come a long way through the Underdark and into a deeper cavern, following Solausein yet trying to make it look as if they knew where they were going. The pure brashness of the whole thing was enough to fool the already frazzled drow. His failure with the dragon had shamed and shaken him, and the last thing he suspected was a party of human adventurers disguised as drow. To Solausein they were indeed the “advance party.”

They’d learned a lot from Solausein on their way, though it was difficult not being able to ask direct questions. If they showed their ignorance of drow ways, or Solausein’s mission, their cover would be weakened or even slip away completely. What they knew by the time they reached Ust Natha was that Solausein worked for the daughter of a drow matron (Imoen in particular seemed enamored with the drow’s apparently matriarchal society) who was rapidly gaining power in the city. She was the one who took the dragon’s eggs, though he did not know quite why.

Still unable to mark time in any reliable way, Abdel had no idea how long it had taken them to get to the city, but once there, it was almost overwhelming. It wasn’t the biggest city he’d ever seen, but the fact that it was enclosed in a single enormous cavern made it seem somehow huge out of all proportion.

For their own part, they told Solausein that his young matron wouldn’t know them, that they’d been assigned by one of her people. Solausein didn’t press them in any way to know who that person might have been. He seemed accustomed to lies, accustomed to knowing only a small part of anything he might be involved in.

Their drow guide had led them through the remarkable city and straight to the compound that served as his matron’s residence. There they’d been quickly ushered into this tall-ceilinged room with arched windows overlooking the skyline of Ust Natha. Abdel had to marshal every bit of his willpower to keep from shaking. His nerves were on edge knowing at any moment he’d surely have to defend himself against an entire city full of trained drow warriors, mages, and priests. He’d never been in a situation where he felt so completely at a loss. A dull yellow haze settled over his vision, and he had to just pretend it wasn’t there.

Solausein made the introductions—they’d given him hastily contrived aliases out of simple caution—and it was obvious that the young drow woman was interested only in Imoen, who for her part seemed to be reveling in her position of contrived authority the same way she was reveling in her jet black skin.

Solausein obviously assumed the drow woman he introduced as Phaere knew who they all were—they were the advance party after all—so he went into no details. Phaere didn’t seem too concerned with who was who and wanted only to know the outcome of the raid against the dragon.

“I’m surprised,” Phaere said, eyeing Imoen up and down with a surprised but favorable eye. “I was almost thinking it would allow its eggs to be destroyed first.”

“Apparently, it… uh …” Imoen started.

“Its mate is dead,” Jaheira said, coming to Imoen’s rescue. “Those eggs are its only chance to reproduce.”

Abdel just kept his eyes down, waiting for things to require him to lead their fighting retreat. He knew it would inevitably come to that. How could they possibly pull off this insanity?

“Well, then,” Phaere said, her attention still on Imoen, “that explains more than a few things.”

The drow woman turned to Solausein, who would not meet her gaze. “Are these all?” she asked him.

“Mistress Phaere,” he said, “I—”

“You left with twenty warriors,” Phaere pressed.

“The dragon overwhelmed them,” Imoen said.

Her voice was cold enough to send a chill down Abdel’s spine. Was she liking this too much? Liking it at all was too much.

Phaere smiled broadly at Imoen and said, “So it did.”

“Mistress, I—”

“Will close your stupid, ineffectual mouth,” Phaere finished for him. Solausein stepped back one step and kept his eyes fixed on the ground.

“Jaenra,” Phaere said, using Imoen’s alias and addressing her directly. “I think I’m beginning to remember you now.”

Imoen nodded curtly and offered a wry smile. Phaere stepped closer to her—very close—and said, “You will replace the ineffective Solausein in all his duties.”

“Yes, mistress,” Imoen answered.

“All his duties,” the drow emphasized.

“Yes,” Imoen answered, more slowly this time, looking the drow woman directly in the eyes, “Mistress Phaere.”

“She can be … difficult,” Jaheira said, doing a good job of sounding familiar with the drow mistress.

Solausein took a deep draft of the strange beverage that Abdel thought smelled a little like beer and forced a smile.

“It is to be expected,” he said.

Abdel took a third tentative sip of his own beverage and looked around the tavern room again. Drow taverns, if this one was typical, were quiet, serious places full of quiet, serious people with skin the color of the darkest ebony. It was dark, lit sparsely with candles, and the menu consisted of things Abdel could never bring himself to eat. Live spiders … he’d rather starve.