by Филип Этанс
The fact that it was empty filled Abdel with misplaced relief.
* * *
Imoen was asleep again, laying under an amazingly sturdy lean-to the elves had woven of vines, sticks, and leaves. Jaheira sat over her, one hand holding her holy symbol and the other on Imoen's forehead. The prayer came to an end, but where there should have been a surge of healing power there was nothing.
Imoen's strength was fading fast. Her skin was pale and cool, and she slept most of the time. This was the third healing prayer Jaheira had attempted, and nothing had helped. The evil in Imoen's veins seemed to be drowning her soul, thanks to Irenicus's ritual. Mielikki was withholding her grace. It didn't seem fair, but Jaheira tried to understand.
"Phaere …" Imoen mumbled in her sleep.
"She's dying," Yoshimo said from behind her, startling Jaheira.
"Yes," Jaheira said, not looking back at him.
Yoshimo stepped forward, squatting just behind and next to Jaheira. "What people will do. ." the Kozakuran mused.
"For immortality?" Jaheira asked, wetting a rag and wringing it out.
"For immortality," Yoshimo said, "for coin, for loyalty to a crown, a flag, or a man."
Jaheira placed the wet rag on Imoen's forehead—knowing it was a silly, futile gesture but feeling she should do it anyway—and said, "Would they kill?"
Yoshimo laughed at Jaheira's obvious stab. "Where I come from," he said, "assassin is an honorable profession."
"It's murder," Jaheira said flatly, "wherever you are."
"A difference of view," the Kozakuran said. "People have killed for less, yes?"
Jaheira gently pulled the rag off Imoen's head.
"Abdel will save her?" Yoshimo asked. He seemed happy enough to change the subject.
"Abdel?" Imoen murmured in her sleep.
Jaheira gently touched her shoulder, and Imoen's eyes popped open.
"Abdel!" she said, her voice clear and loud in the quiet of the elf camp.
"He'll be here," Jaheira told her. "He'll—"
"Silence!" Imoen growled, her voice deeper now and coarse. Her eyes flashed yellow, and Jaheira gasped. Imoen sat up in a burst of motion, and Jaheira felt a hand grab her and pull her back. Imoen's jaws snapped in the air in front of Jaheira's face as if the girl was trying to bite her.
"Imoen—" Jaheira said.
"She's not herself," Yoshimo whispered.
Imoen laughed, and it wasn't her usual pleasant giggle. "Who am I, Kozakuran?"
"Bhaal. ." Jaheira answered for him.
As if in response, Imoen fell back onto the bed of leaves and was asleep.
* * *
Abdel pulled the punch he threw into Gaelan Bayle's midsection, which was the only reason Bayle survived.
"I'd like very much to kill you," Abdel told him.
Bayle's only response was a series of rumbling coughs.
"Oh," Minsc breathed, "I'm sure that did hurt, Boo."
Abdel looked over at the red-haired madman and said, "You need to go for a walk or something, Minsc. The Copper Coronet is closed for the night."
Minsc looked at Bayle then back at Abdel, smiled, and left quickly, whispering, "Looks like we'll need a new job soon, Boo."
"Where is she?" Abdel asked for the third time. "And remember what I told you would happen if I had to ask a fourth time."
Bayle looked up and forced a spittle-lined smile. "All right," he gasped, "all right. . two thousand. . gold pieces. That's my. . that's my final. . my final offer."
Abdel returned his smile and drew back his arm. Bayle closed his eyes, trying to prepare himself for the blow that was coming soon and would likely kill him.
"I knew you'd come," Bodhi said, sliding out from behind the curtain leading into the back room. "You can let him go."
Abdel turned back to Bayle, who smiled at him and winked. Abdel smashed his fist into Bayle's face and dropped the bartender like a bad habit.
Abdel didn't bother watching Bayle hit the ground. He looked up at Bodhi and took her in all at once. She was dressed in a tight silk dress that shimmered in patterns of vines and spiders. Her hair fell around her pale face and accentuated her gray eyes. Her face was regal and perfect, and Abdel could see that she might have once been an elf. She wore no jewelry or shoes.
She stepped closer to him and said, "You've come to kill me."
Abdel saw her glance at the wooden stake in his belt, and he met her gray eyes. They seemed calm and confident. Abdel knew she was sure he wasn't going to kill her, but of course he was.
"Everyone has been lying to you, Abdel," Bodhi said, her voice as sincere as any voice Abdel had ever heard. "I've lied to you. . over and over. . but I'm not the only one. What did they tell you?"
"Who?" Abdel asked.
"The elves," she said, stepping closer still. Abdel's hand went to the stake, but he didn't pull it out. "They told you, what? That I was an elf once? That I did something terrible to them or one of the sacred thises or holy whatses?"
"They told me—"
"A giant crock of horsesh—"
"Enough!" Abdel roared, yanking the stake from his belt but stepping back one stride.
"Abdel. ." she said, and he looked her in the eyes again. "I'm sorry. I had to do all these things. I had no choice and neither did you."
"I had—"
"No choice," she said again. "Name one thing in the last month you decided to do on your own."
Abdel sighed, and Bodhi's eyes softened. Her pupils seemed to widen, and Abdel felt his jaw relax, felt his grip on the stake relax, then a yellow fog passed over his vision.
"Abdel," Bodhi whispered, "be with me.."
* * *
Irenicus had warned her that this might happen, and Bodhi had very casually brushed it off, saying she'd seen monsters before. In more ways than one, she was a sort of monster herself, wasn't she?
But what she saw Abdel transform into, she really wasn't ready for.
The stake in his hand snapped in half first, then the link she'd established with him broke all at once, and his body contorted and transformed.
Bodhi was fast, fast enough to stay away from the Abdel-Bhaal thing—the raving, murderous beast. It smashed the bar to splinters and sent stools and chairs hurtling through the air so fast and so hard they shattered the plaster when they hit the walls. White dust was in the air, and the room was full of deafening sounds: roars, the footfalls of something heavier than an elephant, shattering glass, splintering wood, crumbling brick, and disintegrating plaster.
At first the thing was just breaking up the place, lashing out at everything close enough to smash. Bodhi wasn't sure exactly what to do. This was as close to an avatar of the dead God of Murder that anyone alive had ever been, and she admitted to herself that she was well out of her depth.
She knew she couldn't turn and run … or could she?
She didn't have a chance to decide before the thing that used to be Abdel turned and fixed its blazing yellow eyes on her.
Chapter Twenty-One
Jaheira was practically panting, and Yoshimo's hand was still on her shoulder for a very long time after Imoen had collapsed back into a deep but fitful sleep.
"She might kill us all before she dies," Yoshimo said.
Jaheira spun out of his grip and spat, "That's enough!"
The Kozakuran bowed his head, his eyes fixed on Jaheira's, and took one deliberate step back.
"She is possessed," he said pointedly.
Jaheira closed her eyes, calmed herself a little, and said, "I wish it was that easy, Yoshimo."
She opened her eyes and saw that Yoshimo was looking down at Imoen, his right hand resting uneasily on his sword hilt. She needed to get the Kozakuran away from Imoen before he tried to do something either cowardly or heroic. She stepped to him and put a firm hand on his chest.
"Let's let her rest," she said.
Yoshimo glanced at her, then back at Imoen, and said, "Wouldn't it be the safest thing?"
"Her
soul is being drawn away from her and into the part of her blood that carries the essence of the God of Murder," Jaheira explained. "You haven't seen what she's capable of. A burst of temper and an unsettling change in the tone of her voice … you have no idea, Yoshimo."
"All the more reason," he said, looking Jaheira in the eye. "There may not be another chance."
Jaheira pushed him gently and said, "Let's talk about this outside."
Yoshimo looked down and nodded reluctantly. "You have a few moments, but if she moves again…"
Jaheira sighed, happy to feel Yoshimo step back, happier to see him turn and duck out of the lean-to.
"If I have to," she said to his receding back, "I'll kill her myself."
She followed him out, and they walked a short distance in silence before Yoshimo turned to her and said, "What will convince you that you have to?"
"All hope exhausted," she answered flatly.
"Spoken like a true priestess," was his curt reply.
"Druid, actually," she joked, though her heart wasn't in the banter.
"There's a chance Abdel has already failed," Yoshimo said. "I understand your confidence in him, but Bodhi is no ordinary woman and more than a match for your strong young friend, blood of a god or no."
"I'll have to tell you again that you have no idea what this god's blood can do."
* * *
Bodhi's whole body exploded in pain—a kind of burning agony she hadn't experienced since before she'd become a vampire. Things had pierced her flesh before, but weapons of steel or claw never hurt her. A blade had to be enchanted to make her bleed. No fist could bruise her, and no claw could rend her, but here she was, being torn apart by this thing's bare hands.
She'd tried to speak to him, to hypnotize him, to run from him, but nothing worked. The roof had been ripped off the Copper Coronet, revealing the dark, moonless sky. The thing that was once Abdel Adrian had destroyed the tavern, then turned its full attention on Bodhi. She'd even tried to tell him where to find the pieces of the Rynn Lanthorn. She'd tried admitting all her lies and manipulations. She'd even said she was sorry.
It took her leg off, and the pain was literally blinding. It ripped her arm off, and she almost passed out. She could feel cool blood drying all over her.
The creature bit into her chest, and she could feel her heart burst, and more blood exploded out everywhere. One of her breasts came off in its mouth, and she screamed. The sound was as alien in her ears as it was in her throat.
"Abdel!" she screamed, the blood that had filled her throat fountaining out with the name. "I love you … I loved you, Abdel…."
The inhuman, wild eyes that had been burning a solid, hot yellow flickered, and the huge, misshapen head tilted to one side.
"Abdel," Bodhi said, and for the first time in more years than most humans could count, she started to cry.
He started coming back all at once, and watching his transformation actually succeeded in distracting Bodhi from the fact that she'd been ripped to pieces. There were few enough ways to kill a vampire, but that was one of them. Her head was still attached to her shoulders though, and at least some part of her heart still quivered spasmodically in her chest. Bodhi came to the nightmare realization that she could live for hours, no days, years, even centuries just exactly like this—in agony.
"Bodhi," he said, in a voice that almost sounded like Abdel's.
"Abdel, please …" she said.
His hand came back to normal in the time it took for him to reach for, grab hold of, and lift the sharp half of the broken wooden stake. The yellow faded from his eyes.
"Where?" he asked, his all too human face covered, dripping in blood.
She coughed out another gout of cool red blood and said, "My casket… under the soil. In the dirt."
A tear slipped out of one of Abdel's eyes, and Bodhi hoped it would fall on her. It might have, but she couldn't see or feel it.
"Careful," she whispered, shifting her blood-drenched shoulders to turn her open chest to him. The movement sent wave after wave of burning agony through her, but she had to do it. It would be hard enough.
Abdel held the point of the stake over the last remaining fragment of Bodhi's heart.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
She felt the stake go in, heard something that might have been dry leaves blowing over stone, and there was nothing.
Finally.
* * *
Jaheira was about to turn and go back to the lean-to when a blast of hot air blew her off her feet.
She slid to a stop through a bed of dried leaves and came to rest pushed up against the sprawled form of Yoshimo.
"By the long departed," the Kozakuran exclaimed, "she exploded!"
Jaheira got to her feet, ignored her shaking knees, and took one step toward the lean-to before looking up. When she did look up, what she saw made her stop in her tracks.
The shelter was gone—apparently consumed by what looked like a whirlpool of gray, black, and silver smoke. The whirlpool was standing on end, perpendicular to the ground. A man stepped out through the whirling winds still pouring out of the gate as if he was strolling into a friendly tavern for a night of play. He saw Jaheira and smiled.
"Irenicus!" Jaheira sneered.
The necromancer didn't answer, just leaned down, his feet still lost in the whirling magical clouds. He rose with something in his hand—an arm, thin and pale. It was Imoen's arm.
A spell came to Jaheira's mind, and she started her prayer, running through the words as quickly as she could, but finding they fell into their own rhythm, refusing to be hurried.
Irenicus spared her an unconcerned glance before scooping the rest of Imoen's limp form into his arms and simply stepping back.
Jaheira's spell drew to a close the exact moment Irenicus and Imoen faded from sight. A bolt of lightning, easily as big around as Jaheira was tall, crashed into the magical gateway, and Jaheira closed her eyes against the blinding flash. Her hair stood on end, and her skin crawled.
Yoshimo said something in a language Jaheira didn't understand, and she opened her eyes.
The whirlpool was gone, and so were Irenicus and Imoen.
"More than one problem solved," Yoshimo mumbled, "I should say."
Jaheira collapsed to the ground and slammed her fist into the uncaring earth.
* * *
Abdel fell more than walked down the stairs into the basement. He was covered in freezing gore and nearly blind with a crushing load of guilt and self-loathing. He found a barrel of water and ripped it open with his bare hands. He spilled it over himself and was immediately drenched. He rubbed the blood off his skin as best he could; his need to be cleaned of Bodhi's gore far outweighing his need to retrieve the pieces of the Rynn Lanthorn.
She'd told him where it was, and he'd killed her—mission accomplished. Abdel knew that back in Tethir, if they knew, they'd be cheering, reveling in their chance to defeat Irenicus. Abdel still wanted to care, but at this exact moment and in this exact place, he couldn't. All he wanted to do right now was go back—crawl back if he had to—to Candlekeep and just hide himself away. Here was more blood spilled because he was the son of Bhaal. More blood and more and more. He could just stay in Candlekeep, behind the walls, in the monastery. What better place? Who better than the monks to find some way to rip this curse out of him or kill him trying?
He looked at himself, and there was still so much blood on him. He saw the water from the barrel running to, then through the trapdoor. The casket was there, and the artifact the elves needed so much—that he needed so much—and that Imoen needed so much.
Imoen.
They could go back to Candlekeep together.
Abdel stood and walked purposefully to the trapdoor. He opened it without hesitation. The lanthorn would solve two problems. One more immediate than the other.
He dumped the soil out of Bodhi's casket and heard metal clatter on the wood as the jagged pieces dropped to the dirt floor. Abdel scooped them up
in his big, bloodstained hands, and, just as Elhan's mages had promised him they would, the fragments caused a teleport to activate, and the root cellar was gone in a flash of blue light.
Chapter Twenty-Two
"I want to. ." Imoen whispered, her mind a violent haze of fast-approaching hell, "go … home."
She was stretched, magically sedated, across a huge, broken, jagged-edged slab of green-traced marble in the middle of a city elves now long-dead once called Myth Rhynn. All around was the broken remnants of a great elven city, now gone to the wilderness and wandering creatures both benign and hellspawned. The marble slab was tilted on one edge, leaning at a sharp angle. Imoen lay sprawled across it, her tattered clothes gone now, and a hundred twisted sigils traced on her pale, goosefleshed skin.
A ring of elven statues, twice as tall as a real elf, surrounded the slab. The space might once have been a garden or a cemetery. The wind-worn faces of the marble elves looked down at both Imoen and Jon Irenicus with a detached calm no real person of any race could have mustered in that place at that time.
Irenicus himself gagged on his own bile and stepped back. He lost his voice to the shock, revulsion, and twisted, freakish pleasure of the sight of his last desperate hope coming to fruition. He'd chanted himself raw, and his begging with the Weave, with gods whose names no one spoke anymore—to whatever forces would listen—had been answered.
"Yes," he whispered, his voice no more than a painful squeak. "Yes. Change!"
Imoen screamed, and it was the last sound she made as a human. Her face changed first.
There was a loud sound like fabric ripping and the skin of Imoen's pretty, young, smooth-cheeked face fell away in ragged, blood-soaked ribbons. Under it her skull turned the color of old limestone and popped and ground into a different shape with each passing second. Her teeth grew and thinned into needlelike fangs, then grew again when her jaw cracked out and down. Fluid, blood, and some semi-liquid Irenicus pretended not to notice oozed, then dripped, then poured out of a hundred, then a thousand little wounds all over Imoen's spasming body. The girl was trembling uncontrollably, the shaking punctuated by loud, popping cracks that opened new, larger, puss and slime-oozing wounds. Her skin ripped then melted away, and a new arm stretched out of what once was the girl's stomach. The arm was huge, a dozen feet long or more and capped with a dripping bulb of slime that glistened in the encroaching light.
