"Dead herrings," Imoen said. "Dead herrings, dead herrings, bitter salt, muddy rain, dead herrings."
Viconia shrugged. "All iblith smells alike. I sense no difference."
She was curled up like a - like a millipede, Imoen thought, willing to make such an analogy. Growing up Imoen saw a lot of tiny, sinuous, graceful millipedes crammed into the corners of Candlekeep Inn, delicate and almost pretty, definitely much prettier than old slugs or garden lizards, the comparison more of a compliment than it seemed at first. Viconia was slender and dark, small and desperate.
They were all desperate.
Marpenoth; Leaffall. A half-frozen, half-slushed autumn full of mud and lashed with silty rain, the city of Baldur's Gate darkening, cold air weighted with heavy crushing smoke and fog, stench of dead fish and preparations for war.
Imoen was trapped in a tiny cellar; luxurious lodgings, extravagant lodgings in a corner among old eel-barrels and refuse, a premium demanded and paid for secrecy and lonely longing. Better to split up whilst hiding, her sister thought; all would not have fitted in this place anyway. Imoen lost with Khalid and Viconia, Teletha found with Ajantis and Jaheira.
She's canoodling with her lover and left me behind, Imoen thought. It might've been unfair of her, but nothing felt more unjust and awful, nothing felt less right, since running from Candlekeep.
Everything was wrong in their home and they'd done nothing to fix it. Mirror-faces, familiar faces, shivering into silvery monsters rising after them with needle-sharp claws. You couldn't tell a doppelganger from a familiar friend. They read what was in your head so they knew what to say, and they looked exactly the same -
Except, sometimes, if you were looking at just the right moment, you'd see their eyes glimmer into silver impenetrable deadly mirrored shields, for a fraction of a second.
Imoen had seen ol' Winthrop, who'd raised her like a da, looking grey-faced and worried and still scrubbing up tables instead of making proper preparation for their holy days. Let's hope Winthrop's worry meant he'd suspicions of what was going on, that a real Winthrop would be worried and a fake one would be jovial. He was a strong guy, Imoen's foster da; built like three brick shithouses stacked against each other, muscles like sides of beef, still a fine sight with a crossbow and nimble dips into secrets and locks with those meaty fingers. A sharp guy, with Harper connections and links to aplenty less savoury types too. She'd write to him, Imoen would, soon's there was a chance to get a letter through. If he wrote back she'd know for sure it was him. And if he didn't there'd be another friend buried on the way, is all.
Imoen's hands rubbed against the journal in her clothing, all hard edges and stinky, salt-stained pages after their escape through the sea tunnels below Candlekeep. Teletha'd given it to her to keep, not that she wanted the thing. Mister Sirrah Gorion, famous seer in the tip-top tallest towers of Candlekeep, was Teletha's foster da, perusing scholarly books and writing important papers; ol' Dan Winthrop was Imoen's, down in the inn, scrubbing tables and serving guests.
Imoen didn't want the thing. She could remember every word written on it well enough.
At the last - thrust through the narrow chink in the secret passage - Tethtoril, their last friend left in in Candlekeep, gave the journal to Teletha. Gorion's last words; Gorion's final legacy. His book of many years of adventuring, from fighting fiery red dragons to sparsely-described secret Harper quests. The last page might as well have been written in runes of fire, runes burning with the sick infected heat of long gibberling nails, akin to the long filthy scratches along Imoen's forearms that still ached when the wind blew in the wrong place.
Teletha and Imoen,
You are the daughters of the god Bhaal. Born apart, you were brought to Candlekeep for a reason. The children of Bhaal all face danger from within and without, from their sire and from their siblings and from misguided crusaders of all stripes.
The time of the prophecy of Alaundo is upon us. I can no longer shield you from the truth, Teletha. Your spirit and strength shine too brightly to be hidden. Dan and I hoped to conceal Imoen at least, but some divination tells me that she will not be far behind you when you read this.
Know that your mother was a friend of mine, an elf of Silverymoon and once a Harper. I believe you belong to her more than to your dark sire. Of Imoen's parentage I know nothing.
Take care of yourself, my child. I have seen the good in you. If the prophecy is to be defied, it must rest with you. But your path is a narrow one, and filled with a closing darkness.
Imoen and Teletha fled back to Baldur's Gate, narrowly ahead of a warrant for murder. They'd not slain Rieltar Anchev - for all the blood on his hands, for all the evil in his black soul - yet Imoen had touched the elder Anchev's puffy hand while it was still warm, seen his eyes falling halfway out of his head with the garrotte string tight around his neck. Teletha and Imoen were framed by Sarevok's cruel design, the brother they had never known who sought to kill them -
Imoen was the one who wasn't good enough for Gorion. He'd spelt it out in that letter there. Imoen was the one who didn't shine as bright as her sister; Imoen was as much a child of murder and death and darkness. It whispered inside Imoen that she was alone, abandoned, desperate, Sarevok likely as not to descend on her the next moment and spit her on his sword easily as he'd done Gorion.
Khalid sat against one of the few chinks of light in their stinking cellar, carefully holding up a book of elven poetry. Imoen couldn't read much of it, but she knew the elegant twistings and turnings of the script. Pretty and lovely and fine, too fine for ex-kitchen wenches like Imoen - she wasn't some stuck up elf. Not like Teletha's tall pointy elven slimness, waves of silver hair spilling down her back like a waterfall, walking with a divine-given surety of who she was and what she wanted. A paladin of Mielikki, the unicorn goddess. Her personal knight Ajantis hadn't left her when he found out her bloodline, but instead swore his oaths to her all over again.
Imoen supposed Teletha and Ajantis were locked up in some sordid love nest even now. Maybe Jaheira would be standing over them giving helpful pointers about technique and contraception. The thought made Imoen a little happier for the moment.
"What day is it?" Imoen asked Khalid.
She sighed and rubbed her forehead as he answered. Forget sitting around here in this lonely dark hole waiting for shapeshifters to come kill them or Flaming Fist to hang them any moment. Forget it all. Imoen drew her hood over her head.
"If I'm not back in two bells, tell Teletha. If she ever comes back," Imoen said.
Maybe she's left me. The children of Bhaal are doomed to kill each other in a bloody massacre. Kill little Imoen and maybe Teletha becomes a goddess of shiny silver self-righteousness. If Sarevok cuts Imoen out, there's no blood on Teletha's soft hands. It was a dark thought, but the city around them was dark and getting darker.
"Strategically unwise - " Viconia began.
"Stow it, Vic. I'm the least recognisable of the lot of you, and we need supplies." And far more than that.
Imoen was just another stray dull kitchen maid with mousy brown hair in the streets, doing last minute shopping at wartime prices. And doing a little last minute sneaking at other people's purses, in the spirit of Winthrop's sleight-of-hand lessons.
Funny how elbowing your way into a crowd of angry fishwives to scrape up the last half-peck of dirty flour could make your mood lift considerable.
"See? Still alive," Imoen boasted, carrying her treasures carefully. She reached for the Weave inside her and started chanting. She scrubbed her shield clean with a soapy rag moving of itself. Time to knead oil, flour, good pinch of salt, a single precious egg. She'd no oven, but a fire spell under her shield did a good job of frying warm.
"It's a holy day," Imoen announced. "The last of a tenday of holy days. Lucky I realised in time. Normally I'd celebrate with my da, Dan Winthrop. We'd turn the inn over to one of the barmaids and take the time out. Today, it's just me. It's a holy day that's all about books, only the one book I'm thinking about isn't a good book for me.
"Today we celebrate the end of a book, the end of a year's worth of readings. We put the book aside, just as I'm putting aside the book I found in Candlekeep."
There ought to be flags, and a procession of ten holy men and women carrying the books around, and a feast with scroll-shaped grilled cheese on unleavened bread and twenty-three different kinds of sweets. Winthrop had told her the stories and lore. But they were a small and scattered people who believed, and they'd been the only two in Candlekeep. It was up to Imoen now.
Scroll bread was hard to sculpt, but she'd done something at least as fun.
"The t-tenth day ... a celebration of books," Khalid said, as if he was trying to remember what was going on. "Would you tell us of it, Imoen?"
She could tell he was just saying it because he thought talking would make Imoen feel better. Still, Khalid was a sweet guy - sweet as rosewater-honey treats, sweeter than Jaheira deserved, Imoen thought in darker moments - and she took it in the spirit she'd meant.
"This day is not holy to me, not to my goddess now or the drow then," Viconia chimed in. "Except insofar as all darkness is sacred to Shar. She decrees holy days at her whim so they cannot be detected by others. At least the darkness draws near tonight."
Yet Viconia's eyes had avidly glanced at Imoen's cooking. She was hungrier than she'd dare admit. She'd get her reward eventually.
Imoen held up the sculpted bread figure she'd made. It was more or less five balls, crudely shaped and stretched. He was a tubby man with a huge stomach and limbs, with a symbol halfway drawn on his forehead.
"I complete the mark," Imoen said. Her small belt knife cut precisely into the bread. This year she had enough magic in her to do something more fun than the usual. "Emet means truth. I make this bread golem to walk."
And, miraculously, the tubby little man began to move. He danced on Imoen's shield; a funny dance, sillier than she'd meant it when she thought of it first, but magic spells had a way of surprising you sometimes. Sometimes it was in a good way. Imoen's fire glinted around him and gave him shadows, letting him make eighteen different rude gestures.
"This is who and what we are," Imoen said. "A small and resilient people, who celebrate books and cleverness and fighting even when there's no hope." Her fire crackled up and down, halfway between life and death. She tried not to think that she and Winthrop were the only ones of their people in Candlekeep, tried not to wonder whether he still lived or no. "Others try to wipe us off the map. We survive. Most of our holy days come from those slender victories. When persecuted, we make these dolls to fight for us, out of clay or stone, adamant or parchment. Or bread. Today golems are all the rage. But we invented them, because we're scholars and creators and we argue worse than a nine-headed hydra under a confusion glamour."
The golem's bread buttocks shivered and shimmied.
"So today is about books," Imoen said. "You know me; I'm not so devout. But I know just enough words." She closed her eyes briefly, remembering Winthrop's warm heavy hand on her shoulder, his burn-stained fingers pointing out the dark black letters on the scroll. He'd taught her patiently, helping her get enough formal pronunciation to uphold the ceremony to go from child to grown-up. The foreign words in a not-dead-yet tongue still came to Imoen's throat, though not without stumbling. Passage from the book of laws, steady and regular like the tides beating against stone on a calm night. Know the laws so's you could argue in and out of them like a needle flashing quicksilver between threads, know the laws before you picked which ones to break and which never to let down. Imoen Winthrop, sister, foster-daughter, friend; play pranks and pick pockets all you wanted but never let a pal down, never betray a friend, ever.
One sentence to go, then one syllable. Viconia and Khalid listened to Imoen, dear Khalid with a smile on his face, Viconia cautious and questioning as if trying to decipher another new surfacer tongue.
But the last syllable wasn't spoken by Imoen.
At Imoen's ceremony there were four: Imoen and Winthrop, Teletha and Gorion. Should've been more, but the folk Winthrop had written to couldn't make it in time. Teletha had listened, intently, probably not understanding much but drinking it all in the way she normally did with any lesson. She'd paid attention enough to remember the final words.
The door to the cellar was open, that last syllable echoing from it. Teletha came from outside and stood with arms outstretched, dressed in dirty mail and a muddy green cloak. Khalid's posture straightened as he saw his wife at her elbow. Ajantis followed behind them with a fatuous look plastered on his face, staring at Teletha the way he always did.
"Did you think I'd miss this, Imoen?" Teletha said softly. "It's a holy day for you; I never would. Mielikki would never want me to let down my own sister."
"Jaheira ... 'tis n-not safe ... we are in hiding," Khalid stuttered. Gladness to see his wife was nevertheless written on his face.
Viconia straightened her back and gave Ajantis a meaningful look; he never responded, following Teletha with that silly dizzy stare as if he'd been whacked eight times in a row on the head with a piece of five-by-ten. He was never particularly bright, that boy, but he had the lost-blue-eyed-puppy look down to a T. A silly game, Imoen thought; Viconia made plays for Ajantis every so often as if to keep her hand in, but never blatantly enough that Teletha would turn against her.
They sealed the cellar behind them. Teletha brought out a wineskin, Ajantis produced tin cups. Jaheira lit a torch smelling of cedarwood. Imoen recited the last words of the blessing. She picked up the now feebly dancing little bread golem.
"And emet becomes met, death, when you wipe away one part of the word," Imoen said. She scrubbed out a little piece of the golem's markings with her handkerchief. He became just bread again: inanimate, but tasty.
"It b-becomes quite a feast," Khalid said. Jaheira had even brought sausages, tucked into her leather jerkin and rather squashed. Imoen lightly fried them up. The bread circled the room and back to her. Teletha and the others had taken hardly any; it was nice of her sister to save plenty for her.
"We ate before we came," Teletha said. "Taste the Moonshae wine, Imoen. It's just like old times. Remember how the third cask on the left had a loose tap and we snuck down there that night?"
"That's one thing I always did better than you," Imoen said, "held my wine and wasn't a buffle-headed lightweight!"
"That's not the way I remember it! You have the most wonderful singing voice ... " Teletha said.
"And you have a tattoo of a lopsided butterfly somewhere very personal, after we spent the whole night - " Imoen said.
"It was asymmetrical on purpose!" Teletha giggled. Ajantis reached a hand around her shoulders, looking rather like he knew exactly where her butterfly was. Jaheira and Khalid were paired off too; it sounded like he was muttering some of that elven poetry into his wife's ear while she laughed. Viconia sat alone, unpaired, dubiously poking at a sausage as if she wasn't exactly sure what kind of meat it was. Not even a human wants to know that one, Imoen thought.
Imoen bit off a crust of her bread. Funny. It had a weird taste on her tongue, like it'd absorbed some of the metal from her shield.
"Take some wine with the dry," Teletha urged her. It sloshed around in the cup like wet blood.
"I'll drink to all gods being bastards," Imoen agreed. Teletha understood her, but the others didn't. "Isn't that why we're here today? Gods bugger everything up. Then again, if Bhaal'd stuck to buggery, I guess we'd all be less buggered, if ya catch my meaning." Imoen couldn't resist her joke.
No - Imoen's and Winthrop's god wasn't any of the sillies who'd screwed Faerun royally in the Time of Troubles. Not Helm or Silvanus or Shar or Selune or any of the others. Some of the gods were nice enough, sure, but when the last pickled herring had run out they were just folk like Imoen and Teletha and Dreppin and Hull. They did good or bad depending on what they were like and what they felt like doing at the moment. They were just more powerful, was all. Imoen's people went deeper: they worshipped the one god who existed before the dawn of time, the maker of the universe, the many-named and unknowable god.
Sure beat worshipping jerks like Bhaal, or old-socks-for-brains mad ones like Cyric.
Viconia was slow in the corner of Imoen's eyes, her white hair falling yet stilled, like an echo carved out of snow. She bit off the corner of the sausage and chewed it meditatively. Jaheira snuggled in closer to Khalid, unusually affectionate in the open after a full tin mug of wine. He kissed the top of her ear, hiding the action below his hand but still obviously working his way down.
"To Imoen, my sister," Teletha proclaimed. She shrugged off Ajantis' hold and went to Imoen. She clinked their tin mugs together. "You'll always be first with me," she whispered. "Drink to that."
Imoen clutched her golem as if she'd squeeze out its bread guts. The head was all that was left. Her fingernails dug into it.
"Emet means truth," Imoen whispered.
Her fingernails dug into the golem's head. She made the necessary mark in there, no longer playing.
Already Viconia was on her feet, calling out to Shar to protect her. Imoen's magic flared around her, strong now compared to cantrips in Candlekeep, even stronger now that she knew what she was. The golem's head blazed with an inner light. The light shone red on Viconia with no harm, on Khalid, and yet not on Teletha nor Ajantis nor Viconia.
Teletha's hair was always silver. But now her eyes were silver, too. And her clawing hands reached to rip Imoen's throat out.
Imoen's dagger slammed savagely into Teletha's neck. She screamed as she killed her own sister.
A purple blade sizzled into existence where none had been before, and plunged into Jaheira's back at Viconia's will. Khalid got to his feet, drew his sword.
"You killed my love and your sister!" Ajantis shouted. "Are you a murderer like your father?"
But it didn't do him any good. Imoen blinked hot tears from her eyes. They went in and slew the creature with Ajantis' face. Its blood was green, its skin melting into silver.
Teletha struggled, trying to hold together the rest of her ragged throat. "Your sister is dead," she rasped. "Know this before you die."
Just a shapeshifter. Just another stinking shapeshifter. Imoen fell to her knees. They were probably all dead. She smelt congealing blood. She felt Khalid's arms around her, comforting her even while he too must feel it.
"Be faster next time, rivvil," Viconia said. Not iblith this time; high praise from a drow. Imoen giggled again through her hopeless sobs.
"They're all dead and we're going to die here. Bhaal will see to that," Imoen said. Against doppelgangers who plucked thoughts and fears and worst nightmares from your mind as easily as letting a ripe apple fall into your fingers, who could stand? After them, was it remotely possible to stand against Sarevok, their master? It was enough to make a cat laugh. Teletha was dead. Teletha had to be dead, to let such creatures come in her place.
Imoen sat there in the darkness, above the dripping blood. She felt Khalid come to her, wrap an arm around her shoulders though he had to be thinking much the same as her. If Teletha was dead, Jaheira was dead. She and Khalid would suffer the same. She felt even Viconia near them, curled up less like a millipede and more like a wet cat waiting to be drowned for good.
They waited in the dark, the remains of the bread forgotten, the candles all out. They didn't feel hungry any more. Khalid whispered something that used Hanali Celanil's name, an elven goddess, then called to Silvanus with his voice choked, Jaheira's deity foremost in his head. Viconia spoke jagged words in her own tongue that sounded more like curses than appeals to Shar. Imoen thought of prayers to her unknown god, and yet all that came to her was: You have abandoned me and I'm not even certain you exist.
Yet from underneath the cellar came a scraping noise. At first it was faint, an illusion. Then it was loud, mice rustling around below. And then came the tapping noise. The mice weren't crude enough to actually force the trapdoor open.
So Imoen greeted the mice with a drawn sword. Viconia levered up the trapdoor a few inches and stepped quickly back.
The stench of the sewer came up through the trapdoor, bringing gallons of ordure and mud with it.
"Imoen," Teletha said weakly. "If it even is you ... " she said. "I just killed you, I just slew you in the depths of the sewers, after an ogre mage who built his lair from the fingerbones of children. You spoke like you and looked like you ... "
"And you found you could do it," Imoen said. "Maybe I found that out too. Maybe we'd best fight each other, and let Sarevok take what's left. Maybe it'd hurt less."
"It hurts," Teletha said. "It has hurt and harmed me and left nothing untouched. Since Gorion was cut down, and ... "
"And I was there at the time, you lying fucking Sarevok-sucking shifter, so don't even dare to give me any more of my memories to convince me you're the real you ... " Imoen hissed.
"I am the real me." Teletha clambered out. Imoen's sword pricked her chest, yet she was able to force her sister back a few steps, blade against steel armour.
"Jaheira," Khalid begged. His sword likewise held his wife at bay, but let her walk out of the trapdoor nonetheless. She stood rooted to the ground, knowing what he thought she was.
Teletha pointed her sword at Imoen's chest. Imoen's own blade ran to her throat. Two children of the god of murder, ready to cut each other down at any moment. Sewage ran through Teletha's silver hair, cooking-grease through Imoen's.
"It's truly me," Teletha said. "Will I look away for one instant and barely see a doppelganger's claws through my back? Is it really you, Imoen?"
"You mean the Imoen that's missing your bright shining spirit? The Imoen that Mr. G. didn't think anything of, the kitchen maid?" Imoen said. "Imoen the dark god's daughter, who'd murder anyone for fun or power or no reason at all."
"It's not like that," Teletha said weakly. "You need to be safe, you were supposed to be safe - you're more stubborn than a kicking mule. You came with me and you weren't supposed to. Gorion knew you would, that's why he wrote - "
"You never write, you run away with your favourite piece of pretty-boy arse, and you think you can come to me condescending like the Bhaalspawn heroine of the hour," Imoen said.
"I want to save you and everyone; that is not wrong," Teletha claimed. "Imoen, please, a sign that you are yourself, just as I give you signs - "
"Even if you are you, we're killers born and bred and you're the one who's stronger at it - "
"No. I need your strength, Imoen; you build and you make and you turn the grimmest of times into the most foolish of jokes, jokes that some stick-up-the-arse paladin doesn't deserve - see, I said it for you that time - " Teletha pleaded.
"Stupid jokes from a shapeshifter."
"You - The reason why you think I am a doppelganger is because you just killed one, the same way as I just killed one," Teletha recited. "The reason why the doppelganger fooled you was because you knew I would come. You knew I'd come to the Imoen who wants to close a book, on this last night of the reading cycle for the people, and the people's ancestors' ancestors' ... "
"Bring me truth and bring me proof, you bufflehead, stop wading about reciting things that a mind-reading doppelganger would know." Imoen's sword didn't waver from her grip. One plunge forward and she could thrust it into Teletha's chest. But she did not plunge.
"The proof can't be memory, for they know memory," Teletha said. "It can only be truth."
Logic so far, Imoen thought. "The truth is that I want to kill some doppelgangers," she said. But she gestured to Teletha to continue, while Khalid and Viconia stood against their own counterparts.
"The truth is that we read a book together in Candlekeep catacombs and we knew it to be truth," Teletha said. "It cut our hearts like a shard of glass. We knew that truth was in agony. But not all truth is like that."
"The truth is in law and lore," Imoen said.
"The truth is in the books of your people. The truth is in what you do and what you say," Teletha said. She extended her right hand, and dropped her sword with a clatter. She faced Imoen's blade alone.
"The truth is that I'm holding a sword up to your chest because I love my sister, and I'll kill anyone that steals her face or threatens her," Imoen said. Her voice caught in her throat. Her hand wobbled, finally, and she couldn't keep it up any longer.
The two sisters came to each other. They sobbed on each other's shoulders.
"We closed the Candlekeep book," Teletha said.
"And we open a new one," Imoen said, sobbing into Teletha's leather sleeve. "Tell Sarevok we're coming for him. Just like old times - together."
—
Written for Yuletide 2018 for Kaz.