Author's Note: I'm really not sure about this one.
First, because I have a shameful bunch of unfinished fic sitting around that I'm just now getting back to; also because this game was old enough when I wrote my version of BG1, Fury, almost ten years ago, even though the Enhanced Edition breathed new life in the franchise. But I wrote Fury (which found its way onto TV Tropes somehow and continues to be far & away the most popular thing I've ever written) in the summer before college. Now, it's the summer before I return for grad school at the same institution. Over the years I threatened to take on SoA, a game that I've played more than any other, several times, and maybe it finally is time, if anyone remembers this fossil. Anyway, I'll see how it goes.
As the summary says, this is the story of Baldur's Gate: Shadows of Amn with one really, really big difference. I wonder how long it will take before it becomes obvious what that might be...
Incanto
Confession was a sham. Oh, not the sacrament itself; that had been a source of immeasurable comfort over so many years, whether dredging up some black, ugly thing that had stopped up the pipe of heart, holding it up to the weak light, like tea, that filtered into the cell, where it seemed not so horrible; or being assured by a laughing voice that Helm the All-Seeing did not care if he sometimes lingered by the corner of Westenra Lane because he liked that way the foreign-born maids laughed as they hung out the wash. The sham was having to pretend you had no idea who was on the other side of that screen.
There were four hundred souls or so sweating out their salvation in the halls of the Most Holy Order of the Radiant Heart, and while an elder brother might depart on a pilgrimage here, or a disheartened young squire break from strain and throw down his commission there, they were mostly the same souls, summer and winter out, their voices, high or gruff, musical, or broken and halting, much the same whether they were arguing over a heel of bread at table, softly praying in their cells as you passed by of a quiet night on the way to your own, or gossiping around the turn of one of those enormously long, enormously high-ceilinged halls that were the avenues and boulevards of their small sacred city. You knew their voices, how they coughed, licked their lips, the tics they had when they were being untruthful, or simply unkind. Anomen Delryn knew his confessor by voice; but the next time he passed Sir Keldorn Firecam at the stable, gently but firmly chiding the lad for brushing his sable charger front-back rather than top-down, he would look straight ahead, pretend they had no closer acquaintance than any rank squire could have with a noted paladin who was, moreover, received in the finest drawing-rooms of Amn.
Anomen sat on the straw bench with a quick nervous motion. It creaked. There was a creak in response from the other cell, as if his confessor had dozed off (and it was possible, he thought uncharitably, Ole Sire Firecam was no longer the proverbial chicken of spring). There was a moment of silence, pious or otherwise.
Anomen wore new, pale brown leather boots, bought from his family's tailor on the Bridge ("ah, does the heart good to clap eyes on ye, lad, the old man, he never comes to see us these days"). The hair around his temples was curled, and set with cream. The boots had cost fifteen silver, the cream two. The remaining three silvers of his weekly stipend he had put in an envelope with a note reading: One for butler, two for cook. I know we owe butler more, but he is a gentle soul & loyal whereas I do not trust that Maztican savage not to poison the evening gruel from spite. He addressed the envelope with a great big flourish: Moira, tapped the quill pen exactly four times on the inkwell, licked the envelope twice, and set off for confession with it still in his pocket. The lower-ranking and coarser brothers had whistled, leered at his new boots, attitudes ranging from friendly jocularity to the really offensive. If they had seen the girls' name on the envelope they would have taken her for his paramour.
"Good evening, son," came the voice from the screen. Then a pause, a chuckle: "Though it is not much past noon. Good afternoon sounds formal though, it has the air of leave-taking for some reason, I find…"
Anomen found himself resenting that voice, in spite of himself. It was so smooth, like silver. How different from his own voice when he spoke, that must be so familiar itself to his confessor, and all his brothers in arms. There were times when it sounded to him like the bleating of a goat. Had Firecam (no, his nameless confessor) always possessed that voice? Did age scar the face but smooth the tongue?
"Good evening, father."
Too stiff. The irritation had come through. Always leaking, spilling, that was him. Blood leaking into his cheeks. He could almost feel the hair curling at his temples, sweat washing out the damned expensive cream.
"Is there aught you wish to bring before the eyes of Helm today?"
I had impure thoughts, he wished to say.
"Yes, father," was what came out. "I was down at the tap-house once more."
Another good-humored chuckle. "The same as before? That well-known, if not universally well-regarded, public house of the Slums?"
"Aye."
"What did you do there…I wonder? Squander your coin in debauchery? Fall into the arms of a strumpet?"
"Nay."
"And were you tempted?"
Anomen cast his eyes down. The barred window made a regular grid pattern on the floor, that looked fittingly Helmite. "Yes," he said, sounding to himself too brash, too quick. "When men are enjoying themselves…one feels a prig not to join in. You understand? Such 'pleasures,' why, no, they do not seem to me pleasures at all. My tongue dries up at the thought. But whatever it is they do…it makes them laugh a great deal. Do you understand? The laughter is the temptation. I don't wish to partake in anything they do…but there are times when I would really like, I would like terribly much, to laugh with them…"
He caught himself up. Then he realized he was twisting one of those curls very tight in the fingers of his right hand, and the cream was coming away.
"Forgive me," said his sainted, anonymous confessor. "You do not have many friends here. Do you, squire?"
"An odd question. The elder brothers discourage idle banter. I was not aware that it was the aim of the Order to foster friendship. On the battlefield…well, that is a different matter! Men become fast friends quick enough facing a raging ogre. I should not have to tell you that…father. I have passed many an enjoyable eve round a campfire with brothers of the North, or irregulars from Tethyr. But that is a matter for the campaign trail…and left behind there."
"Then what, praytell, leads your tread to yon tap-house of yours?"
"I believe I said. There is a coarseness, an honesty about those folk I like. Of course…with the exception of our blessed order, the fighters among the noble youth," he bit off with a severity that was uncalled-for, and he knew it, because his face was getting redder, because he was trying to sound older than he was, and knew it, "think of nothing but their own gain, and would never undertake a commission for honor or glory…let alone right and the good. And if I cannot have the latter, I may at least find some companion who cares for the former."
"And the ale, you take little?"
"I have a seen what it does to a man."
"Ah…yes." A rustle behind the screen. Perhaps his confessor adopted an attitude of deep thought. Perhaps his posterior was simply itching. "Well. Be it so, there is no sin. You are aware of the temptations of this place, and you are honest about them. Do not lie to others, but above all do not lie to yourself. Then you will get on well.-Was there anything else?"
"Nay, father."
"Good day, then. Or, should I say, perhaps…good afternoon?"
"Wait."
"Yes?"
Smooth. Calm. Patient. Had that nameless, faceless confessor of his even begun to rise, to gather his robes? Or had he known there was more to come?
"I had impure thoughts."
"The maids again, my son?"
"Not maids, though I hear that smile. It is…worse, this time."
A hesitation, and he thought the silence had a more serious quality than before.
"You need tell me nothing," his confessor finally said. "Only this. Is she a lady, low-born or high, and whatever her character, of whom you might one day make an honest woman?"
"There are obstacles," he answered, with a readiness that surprised him.
"Then I am afraid you might be well-advised to abandon your design. Pray to Helm for purity, and try to keep such thoughts from your mind. Keep busy, and absent yourself from the tap-house if you find that makes it worse. Fiends make work for idle hands."
He was shocked, a little, by the speed with which his confessor, so slow, so patient, had drawn that curtain. Simply whisked it shut in front of him. But no, it was all silliness, and vileness. Anomen felt more ashamed of himself than ever.
"I must take my leave."
"So be it. Helm watch your steps."
Was he as relieved the interview was at an end? Or had it, perhaps, pained him to give that last piece of advice? How long had he been married to that elegant woman who sat beside him in Amn's best parlors, and had there been anything before…?
…Anomen might have asked. If, that was, he were speaking to Sir Keldorn Firecam, but that would never occur. There was only a blank voice behind a screen, that was meant to be, in symbol, the unerring voice of Helm himself.
