Easy Betrayals (11 page)

Miltiades, Belgin, and Rings exchanged glances. They remembered what had happened the last time they cornered Eidola. “A sound idea,” the paladin said. He readied his hammer and shield, then kicked the door down, leaping inside with a great battle cry: “For Tyr and justice!”

In the room beyond, half a dozen human guards—no, doppelgangers in human guise, Belgin reminded himself—sprang to their feet to meet the attack. The first died under Miltiades’s hammer before he even raised his hand in his own defense, and the second fell a moment later to a hissing ray of green energy from Aleena’s wand. In the space of a moment, it seemed that everything in the room changed. Three Miltiades now filled the small guardroom, along with two Aleenas and two Rings. A towering hook horror loomed behind them, screeching and clacking its claws. Only the original Miltiades, Rings, and Aleena glowed with faerie fire; their mimics were perfect, but not good enough.

“This makes things much easier,” Belgin muttered. No one wasted their attention on his sarcasm. He dashed forward to engage a faux-Aleena, slashing and stabbing with his rapier.

A flash of light and a sudden sharp slap of thunder marked another of Aleena’s spells as she downed three more doppelgangers at once with a bolt of lightning. Belgin hurled himself into the fray, still pursuing his original foe. As the sharper finished off his opponent, two doors burst open and more doppelgangers streamed into the room, screaming with rage. “We’ve got trouble!” he called to his comrades.

“We’ve got trouble!” echoed a false Belgin who fell on him with a flurry of blows. The sharper grimaced and parried his counterpart’s attack. With a quick move he riposted and took his doppelganger through the heart, watching in horror as his own face grayed and contorted with mortal agony. I didn’t need to see what I’d look like with a sword between my ribs, he thought grimly. Baring his teeth in determination, he returned to the fight.

The next foe he faced was Eidola.

He blinked in amazement. The doppelganger hesitated, perhaps surprised herself. “You!” she barked, her voice rough as stone. “What will it take to teach you the extent of your folly?” With a bestial roar she shifted into the monstrous form of a minotaur and smashed a colossal axe down at him, a two-handed blow that could have split a tree.

Belgin yelped and dodged back. “Eidola! She’s here! The minotaur! No, the cuttlefish! No, the elf mage!” Even as he tried to dodge her attacks, avoid the other doppelgangers boiling into room, and keep track of his comrades, Eidola shifted from shape to shape in a fluid motion that kept him back on his heels. “Damn it, will you just pick one shape and stick to it!”

Eidola, now a tall, handsome elf with a cruel twist to his mouth, raised her (or his?) hands and streamed blue-glowing darts of magical energy at Belgin, Miltiades, and Aleena. The bard tried to duck aside, but one bolt struck him on the hip, jolting him with a shock that knocked him to his knees. Belgin cursed and tried to rise, but Eidola pressed her advantage, working another spell that struck at him with a lance of scorching fire. When did she learn to cast spells? he thought in disbelief. Even as the fire scorched his shirt and coat, Belgin twisted and slipped behind another doppelganger, using its body to shield him from the flame. With an agonized screech, the creature caught fire and staggered away.

Aleena replied with a powerful invocation that stabbed at Belgin’s ears like a dagger of ice. From her hand, a streaming sheet of lightning flashed forward to level the room, blasting false Miltiades and duplicate Rings to ash I and ruin. The Eidola-mage deflected the spell with some manner of magical shield she’d woven held against Aleena’s spell. As the roaring thunder died away, Belgin realized that Eidola stood alone at the far side of the room, while he and his companions stood largely unharmed at the other. Between them lay nothing.

In the sudden silence, he stepped forward and said clearly to his comrades, “That’s Eidola. She’s right there.”

The moment shattered. Snarling a curse, Eidola wheeled and dashed back through the doorway she’d emerged from, vanishing into the darkness. Miltiades, streaming blood from a new cut high on his forehead, let loose with a very unpaladin-like howl of rage and thundered after her, brandishing his hammer. Aleena followed, a step behind, pelting after the paladin.

Together, Belgin and Rings sprinted after Miltiades and Eidola.

The chamber beyond the doppelganger lair was nothing more than the topmost landing of a dark, spiralling stairway leading down. Green, rank moss coated the stone with a wet and slippery blanket. Clattering and cursing, Belgin and Rings raced recklessly down into the abyss, trailing the silver gleam and green witch fire of the paladin and the wizard. More than once, the sharper lost his footing and slipped or stumbled a few steps before steadying himself against the narrow walls.

“Does this place have no end to it?” he growled in frustration.

“The rock tells me no,” Rings answered between breaths. “This maze goes much, much farther than you’d think.”

The stair finally came to an end. Belgin and Rings blundered into Miltiades and Aleena, who stood in a long corridor that arrowed out of sight both left and right. The paladin and the sorceress peered each way, plainly frustrated.

“Which way?” snapped Miltiades. “She’s getting away?”

“How should I know?” Aleena replied tersely. “Be still a moment, all of you! We might hear her footsteps.”

Belgin, Rings, and Miltiades froze. Aleena paused a moment, tilting her head to hear better. From the darkness to the right, a faint sound of footfalls, light and swift, dwindled and vanished.

“She went this way!” the sorceress said. “Quickly!”

“No, wait!” Belgin barked. He stooped and examined the soft velvet of moss and mold coating the stone floor. “Aleena, bring your light here.” The Waterdhavian stooped and spoke a word, brightening her wand. In the emerald light, Belgin traced a set of footprints. They initially turned toward the right but then doubled back in the other direction. The bard snorted in satisfaction. “She went left. I’m certain of it.”

“What of the footfalls?” Miltiades said.

“A simple trick for any mage,” Aleena replied. “Clearly, one of the personas she’s absorbed was a skilled wizard. She can’t be far. Good thinking, Belgin.”

The sharper bowed with a smile. “Glad to have been of service, my lady.”

Moving slowly now, the foursome advanced down the hallway to the left, alert for any sign of the doppelganger’s presence. After sixty or seventy yards, the passage ended in a jagged tumble of stone and earth that completely blocked the corridor. There was no trace of Eidola.

“Perhaps she fooled us after all,” Miltiades said in a tight voice. “Or fled through a secret passageway that we missed along the way.”

“I don’t think so,” Belgin answered. “I’ve still got her track here. Either she passed through that—” he nodded at the cave-in—”or she’s still here, hiding.”

“We’ll soon see,” Aleena murmured. She uttered the words of a disenchantment, unbinding any spell within the vicinity. Silently, the four watched the end of the passageway.

Dust motes sparkled in the emerald light of Aleena’s wand. Standing in front of the rockslide, a figure appeared suddenly from nothingness. As the spell of concealment failed, a handsome elven mage stood before them, glowering in anger. He started to raise his hands to work a spell, but Aleena pointed her wand at his midsection. “Don’t even think about it,” the Waterdhavian drawled.

“So. You have me cornered and outnumbered. What now?” the elf sneered. With a gesture of disdain, his features melted and reformed as the clear-eyed, strong visage of Eidola as they knew her. A keen short sword formed from one hand, and she crouched in a fencer’s stance. “Will you destroy me with a slaying spell, then, Aleena? Smite me down with your hammer, Miltiades, after a noble challenge and trial by combat? How is it to be?”

“You will surrender,” Miltiades stated clearly. “I intend to bring you back to answer for your crimes in person, Eidola. There’s no easy way out of this for you.”

Rings nudged Belgin. “The contract,” he said quietly. “She dies here.”

“Dissension among the ranks?” Eidola observed with a smile. “Kill me or capture me, which is it to be? Dear Miltiades, you won’t allow these scoundrels to murder a prisoner under your protection, will you? Aleena, your father dies if the pirates strike me down.”

Miltiades and Aleena glanced thoughtfully at the two Sharkers.”I cannot permit it, Belgin,” the paladin said quietly.

Belgin looked from Eidola to Aleena to Rings. From his belt he drew Noph’s lasso, looping it around his left wrist. Then he offered the end to Miltiades. As the paladin watched, he spoke. “I came here with the intention of killing her, and I am under a contract to do so. But here and now, I voluntarily break my contract with Entreri. I will not do his work here, not if the doppelganger can be taken alive and made to answer for what she’s done.” He looked down at his companion, and slipped the noose from his hand. “Rings?”

The dwarf scowled and swore but accepted the lariat. “I’ve never betrayed a contract in my life, but this one 111 break. I owe Artemis Entreri nothing. I agree with Belgin.

Take your prisoner, Miltiades.”

The paladin retrieved Noph’s lasso of truth from the dwarf’s hand. “Thank you, Rings,” he said. “I’ve had enough fighting to last me a lifetime.” He turned and faced Eidola. “Now, for you. It’s long past time that we heard you speak the truth, doppelganger.”

“How charming,” Eidola hissed. As Miltiades advanced on her, she suddenly pressed her fist into her midsection, just beneath her heart. Eyes dripping venom, she reached inside her own torso and removed a single white gemstone, holding it clenched in her hand. “Enough of this. Do any of you recognize what I hold in my hand?”

“A soul gem,” Aleena gasped. “I thought as much!”

“Good,” sneered Eidola. “Then you know that if I shatter it, that portion of your father’s soul that I’ve trapped within is destroyed forever. Take another step, Miltiades, and I smash this thing. You’ll bring me in to face your justice, but Piergeiron Paladinson will be condemned beyond any hope of resurrection. Do you understand me?”

“I understand,” Miltiades answered gravely. The muscles of his jaw quivered with anger, but the noble paladin halted, watching the doppelganger. “Damn you, I understand.”

“You will retreat down the hall and back up the stair you came down. Should I detect any sign that you are attempting to follow me again, I shall destroy the gem at once,” Eidola said, smirking. “You’ve been an admirable foe, Miltiades, but I tire of this game.” Holding the gem aloft, she advanced confidently, daring the paladin to interfere.

“Do not make the mistake of believing that I will allow you to leave, Eidola,” Miltiades said evenly. He stood his ground, refusing to yield. “Damage that stone, and you will be dead before all the pieces hit the floor.”

“I think not,” Eidola snapped. “There’s room for thousands of souls in this prison, paladin. Maybe it’s time you became one of them!” She raised the soul gem high and started to shout an invocation or command, pointing at Miltiades with her free hand. The diamond began to glow with a pure white light. The paladin stood transfixed, gaping in horrified fascination at the approach of his doom.

Quick as thought, Belgin flipped a knife from his sleeve and threw it underhanded. The silver blade turned once before striking Eidola in her midriff. It was a small wound to the doppelganger, nothing more than a pinprick, but Eidola recoiled and gasped in pain, losing her spell. “No!” she shrieked.

In her hand, the soul gem blazed silently to an unbearable splendor. In one brilliant flash of supernal radiance, it seared the vision from Belgin’s eyes and set him to blinking furiously. In his ears, Eidola’s shriek of rage grew great and dark as a storm, surrounding him in spite and anger—and then it was gone.

When he could see again, Eidola stood still as a stone, her face frozen in a cold and fierce rage. She still held the soul gem clenched in her fist, but all color had been bleached from her body, leaving her white and pure as marble. Between her alabaster fingers, the diamond glittered coldly.

“Aleena? What happened?” whispered Miltiades.

Shaken, the Waterdhavian mage approached and peered into Eidola’s contorted features. “I believe she trapped herself inside the gem,” she said slowly. “I—I have seen this before. It’s a devious device, and it can strike any who stand near when its power is invoked.”

“Is she dead?” asked Rings.

“If only it were that simple,” Aleena replied. Carefully, she reached out to open Eidola’s hand and remove the stone, but the doppelganger’s fingers refused to yield. “The soul gem destroys, yes, but in some way it also preserves what it takes in its crystalline depths. Eidola is somewhere within.”

Miltiades bowed his head, wearied beyond human endurance. “Then our quest is at an end.”

Postlude

Crystal and white surround me.

I am without form, without substance, a splinter in a sea of glass. I hear the others sometimes. They gibber and shriek; they moan and plead; a few seem to silently reflect and wait with a patience beyond my own. If I could find them, I would slay them for the peace they possess.

I’ve lost my others, my guises. They can’t exist here, not in this realm of ultimate truth. How can a soul be something it is not? Here I am only the nameless mocker, the cold and vacant spirit that learned to walk in the shape of a man, an elf, a minotaur. My life was a mimicry, and without my others I have nothing left that is me.

There is one voice here I cannot bear. She’s strong, and near to me, although I cannot see her. I want to kill her, to silence her reproach, but… I fear her. Here, she is greater than I could ever be. In this crucible of glass and light, I cannot exist. But she has endured here for time beyond measure. How long is a minute without a heartbeat to count it by? How long is a day without the sun? Yet she waits in this endless tedium, not content, and not afraid.

I can’t bear the sound of her voice. She doesn’t address me—no one here can know who or what they speak to. No one. It drives me to scream, to rage, to storm uselessly with all the fury at my command. In my darkness there is a scream that could shatter the world, if only I could give voice to it.