"Quickly! This way!" Isaviel hissed, golden eyes gleaming large and bright and oh-so-mischievous in the first flickers of flame as she gestured to her Tiefling companion, Neeshka.
The two shared a grin before bolting down the nearest side alley. The first shouts of alarm were just going up from the wonderfully flammable hideout of the latest upstart threat to their guild of thieves. Moire would be especially pleased this time – they had made sure to load Caleb's waiting cart absolutely full of their rivals' gold, looted from them in their slumber, to take back to the guild.
"Ha! We've finally got them!" Neeshka exulted once the pair were securely perched along the top of one of the many sturdy but cramped houses of the area.
It had been a simple thing, to scale the wooden frame of a nearby building, silent as shadows as they watched the flames rise from the rickety, dilapidated building ahead. Separated a little from the rest of this cramped back corner of the Docks District it had not seemed too dangerous to light the fire – yet also not an implausible 'accident' in such a haphazard area.
Isaviel allowed her grin to spread, warmed by fire, as they watched their handiwork brighten in the cool night, dancing against the gloomy, uneven form of this section of the city. Finally the alarm went up and the Watch could be heard rushing to the scene, arms and armour clattering typically. But they would find no evidence there, just a suspicious band of escaping ruffians cursing as they stumbled into the street. All they could do was run for water and try to stop the fire spreading.
"I think we've earned ourselves a long night of merriment at the Flagon, Neeshka – however late the hour," Isaviel declared at length once it was absolutely certain that their handiwork was done.
"Right you are!" her friend was quick to agree, her high voice showing her cheer without restraint, the patches of red-mottled skin around the base of her slight horns growing darker against her pale complexion to denote her improving mood.
First, though, they would have to call at Moire's hideout a few streets down on the north side of the docks, nearer the sea. The pair moved accordingly, quickly regaining the street and taking another alleyway off the main road, not at all daunted by the dark, cramped city, dodging sleeping beggars and the calls of the most tenacious tavern-drinkers. Once, when cities were still new to her – how long ago did thirteen months seem? – it would have unsettled Isaviel. Still, she had never been alone in this place, having come upon Neeshka at Fort Locke as the Tiefling was sneaking away from Neverwinter. When Isaviel saved her from a group of corrupt fort guards who had been trying to recapture her for another bout of less brief torturing, Neeshka had preferred to tag along. And not just after Isaviel had looted the same fort for clothes and health potions to aid her, either.
"Let's not stick around too long, ok? Caleb's taunts make my horns itch," Neeshka complained, jolting Isaviel out of her thoughts…just as a great stab of pain tore through her chest, searing over her skin and causing her to stumble and cry out.
"Isaviel! What's the matter?" Neeshka cried in alarm, immediately looking about them for an attacker, rushing over to catch her slumped Elven friend.
"I-I…"it was hard for her to breathe, but the pain was receding – enough for the Moon Elf to recognise that the darkness was a little too dark. Her golden eyes fixed pointedly upon Neeshka's pink ones for a just a second longer than normal. We are being followed. Something is wrong, "It's my scar. I-it hasn't caused me any pain in years. But it's passing now." Another firm look. We need to move. Now.
Immediately they were gone through the night, inhumanly silent feet covering ground as quickly as if they had never passed by. In this state Isaviel's strange heritage showed, shadows swelling and gathering over her, her own form seeming vaguer, blurred, transparent in places. It was as if she was becoming one of the fragile shadows cast by the dim lanterns in the streets ahead. Neeshka knew the way and had long ago learned that it was impossible to follow her friend like this.
The sounds of their pursuers started to catch up with them just as they rounded the corner that would bring them to the concealed side-entrance to Moire's hideout. The footsteps were oddly uneven, clicking and clacking alternately. They would have no time to get inside before they were attacked, that was for certain. The sounds were too loud; too close.
A soft whistle, barely audible to the Elf's inhuman hearing, was carried on the wind. A heart beat would have been too long a pause. Wheeling about, Isaviel was just in time to arc back away from a viciously serrated dart, unsheathing a dagger as she did so and sending it to bury itself deep in the throat of…her monstrous pursuer. Armoured in scraps of tattered leather and odd links of chain it was small and oddly proportioned, with very long, gnarled arms and large, bare, splayed feet. Manacles glowed around its ankles as if fresh from the anvil, and braided blue hair pooled about it as it collapsed to its knees, choking on thick yellow blood, almost tripping its companion whose abyssal black eyes fixed on Isaviel. They showed a hatred which she had never seen before.
"Kalach-cha!" it rasped, pushing aside its co-pursuer with enough force to send it sprawling into the gutter to die face-down.
The creature's own intense hatred seemed to have stalled it – that and its failed companion. As it reached for a throwing knife, dripping with poison and the Hells knew what else, a grin spread across Isaviel's face. Oh, how little it knew. Concentrating on the darkness about her and the transparency of her appearance, she propelled herself forward…and rode a shadow to appear in a blur of inky blackness behind the monster, whose eyes opened wide with shock as a double-edged kukri now protruded from its chest.
"What in all the Hells were they?" Neeshka exclaimed as Isaviel retrieved her weapons.
"I have no idea," Isaviel admitted softly, turning the closest creature over and looking over its green-skinned face, the raised dots of black scars and burn marks on its visage utterly alien to her. Those same manacles were around its wrists as well, and the other one had a metal collar around its neck.
"Well, they seemed to hate…you," Neeshka pointed out, "And they look like slaves."
Isaviel nodded thoughtfully, searching their armour for pockets, for anything tell-tale of a motive or an origin, but there was nothing. They would come back after their meeting with Moire and search more thoroughly soon, she surmised. There were acquaintances of hers in town who could find answers where neither she nor Neeshka had any expertise. Duncan, Sand.
"This is very bad," she told her friend, standing with a frown, "We have to find out the truth soon, Neeshka. Be on your guard," the Moon Elf looked about them and put a hand on the Tiefling's shoulder, "We need to get inside."
Not even an unusually large share of the loot and a surprising deficit of Caleb's insults at Moire's hideout could buoy Isaviel's spirits. Especially not when she and Neeshka returned to where they had left the creatures' bodies to find them…gone. Her skin had crawled and her mood had blackened, feeling far too helpless for her liking.
So it was that two pairs of glowing red eyes blinked out of the darkness into the West Street dominated by The Sunken Flagon, the broad, squat, detached inn, two storeys high above the ground. Its red-tiled roof, arcing with an oddly gaudy elegance at its eaves, was literally a sight for sore eyes. When Neeshka put a hand on Isaviel's arm, she initially flinched and automatically reached for a weapon, but her friend shook her and her thoughts span away from her inexplicable anger and her fear of being followed.
"Something's wrong," Neeshka whispered, "The street's too quiet."
It was true – no one was out leaning against one of the thick wooden posts holding up the awning to throw up into the gutter. No one was outside at all, and the entrance to the large tavern which made up most of the ground floor was closed.
"You're right," Isaviel murmured, "There are hardly any lights on in there."
They stalked across the deserted street and stopped facing each other across the frame of the double doors, listening intently. No sounds of battle could be heard, but nor could anything else. The silence was increasingly eerie – this would normally be a night of revelry, one where sailors were drinking their fill before the ships set off to collect the harvests from faraway lands.
Isaviel was first to push open the door on her side, stumbling into the dimly lit main half of the tavern to see Sal, the place's only reliable employee, scrubbing thick yellow blood from the central rug. So much for Nashkell, there would always be a stain blotting out that town on that part of the dyed pile crudely denoting a map of Faerûn. Quickly surveying the scene, she saw that Sal himself was unharmed, though he leapt to his feet with a fearful cry upon her entry, his night cap askew, and there were several upturned chairs, along with a few shattered glasses. The fire was blazing at least, and by it stood the muscular, battle-scarred form of her half-uncle, Duncan, wincing as he tipped whiskey onto a large cut on his left arm. He downed the rest of the bottle and only then looked round at her, as if he had been expecting just that entrance all along. A pause as the pain settled… then a smile warmed his weathered features and he approached, pulling her into a hug which she could not so warmly return. Affection had always suited her ill.
"Lass! I'm glad you're unhurt! You are unhurt, aren't you?" he held her out at arm's length to survey her with concern, then looked to Neeshka, who was just closing the doors, "The both of you, right?"
"Yes, yes, we're fine," Isaviel pulled away, running a small, deceptively delicate-looking hand through her thick midnight-blue hair until it snagged in the knotted plaits at the back of her head.
"We need answers, Duncan," Neeshka put in as her friend hesitated, the words all tumbling out even more quickly than usual.
Duncan's expression darkened and he moved naturally to the bar after unhooking a familiar metal pot from the fire.
"Come, the two o' ye. Draw up a stool each – I had hot cider waiting for ye, and it'll calm yer nerves. There's quite a bit of explaining to do, as it turns out."
Still silent, struggling with that odd prickling anger that welled like embers swelled by a breath deep inside her, Isaviel did as she was bid. Neeshka's tail was twitching anxiously – she had a nervous character, and the recent attacks had not helped. The Tiefling was evidently not comfortable enough to take a seat, angling herself by the bar so she had the best view of the doors.
"You. Drink," Duncan commanded sternly, instantly recognising the situation, "There'll be no more fights tonight in my inn. You too, lass."
Her half-Elven uncle pushed a mug of warm spiced cider into Isaviel's hands. Again, she did as she was bid, focusing on the heat of the liquid as she swallowed, imagining it burning away that odd, dark feeling inside. Closing her eyes she let out one long breath, and when they opened again they were her typical golden shade, large and bright and once more with black pupils.
"We were attacked openly in the street, Uncle," Isaviel told him after her next sip, "By a pair of monsters the like of which I have never seen. Green skin, black eyes…"
"Braided hair, manacled, dressed in scraps of armour, yes, I know," Duncan sighed, "That yellow blood has never been easy to clean away. One o' you girls might want to stitch in a new Nashkell for me," he winked when they both glared at him.
"You're hiding something – poorly," Isaviel pointed out. Frivolity always meant diversions in situations like these with Duncan, "You have seen these creatures before. Tonight is not the first time that you have come upon them, is it, Uncle?"
"No, no 'tis not, lass. Although it has been quite a few years now since last I slew a Bladeling or two. Twenty five years to be precise – the last I saw of them they were fighting as underlings of the extra-planar Githyanki on one of the…sides in the Battle o' West Harbour."
"Extra-planar?" Neeshka snorted, "That's a fancy word, especially coming from you."
"Hey, with you running in and out of here every which way at every which time, a man needs to know his ter-min-ology…" Duncan stumbled over the word all but deliberately, "All I'm saying's that those Githyanki creatures hail from one of the other planes – ours is the Prime Material and theirs is a stake in the Astral, serving their Lich Queen. And commanding those wretches, the Bladelings, to do their whims."
"The Battle of West Harbour," Isaviel breathed; her foster-father had never given much away about that event, but that it had occurred on the hills by her home town, and his wife Shayla along with her mother Esmerelle had both died on that day when returning to the village looking for her, "I…I know so little of that day."
"Aye. Yer father knows more on the matter than I, but I can say a little more yet. 'Twas there that the King of Shadows warred with some great evil warlock, while his devils and demons fought the Giths. And you two know how unlikely that is. We people of all about tried to join together to stem the slaughter that those Giths and shadow-priests had been dealing to the unsuspecting townspeople for the past year. But it was that warlock and his battle with the King of Shadows that seemed to put a stop to it. In their wake was just a great charred scar in the centre of town…and so many silver shards. I picked up one, so as to 'never forget' and Daeghun did the same, in memory of yer ma and his Shayla."
Isaviel felt her anger rising again at the mention of her foster father's name and bit back her angry words, clutching her mug and instead opting to try to divert the topic.
"But what are the Bladelings doing here now after all these years? Why did they attack me, and why did they come here?"
"I can't answer all o' them questions, lass, but I did catch one o' those I killed trying to make off with my shard – here, take a look." And he placed a palm-sized object, smooth-faced and jagged edged, shimmering silver and reflective as any mirror onto the table-top between them.
"They wanted this?" Isaviel asked softly, moving to touch it and snatching her hand back when magical energy fizzed at her fingertip. Her scar was hurting again; she moved to rub at that absentmindedly instead, and did not fail to notice Duncan's confused recognition of her response to the magic.
"That's odd," he mumbled, "It's never shown any magic before," he picked it up and turned it over in his hands, then looked up at her blankly "It's warm. That's…odd. I'll have Sand look it over in the morning."
"There's something else, isn't there?" Isaviel demanded more than asked.
"Yes lass, there certainly is," Duncan nodded, "I had word from Daeghun this morning – he had West Harbour's town wizard Tarmas contact Sand directly. Yer foster-father wants ye home to retrieve his shard and to find the truth of all this."
"It's almost like he knew I would be attacked today."
"He said nothing of the ki…"
"He did know I would be attacked today," Isaviel allowed herself to snarl this time, downing her drink and turning away to stalk to the fire, "Why should I find out about his shard for him? Can he not drag his wretched body up to Neverwinter himself? He is hardly decrepit."
"Now, now lass. I know me half-brother's all grim faced and gruff but he does only want the best for ye. You'll learn that in good time, I'm sure."
"Do not speak to me of him like that."
"Daeghun sent you here…"
"To try to reign in my wicked ways" Isaviel spat out the words and tasted blood, "Duncan, he sent me to the Temple of Tyr. He tried to have me indoctrinated as a monk of the Even-Handed order, to have me 'saved'. But he was wrong. I have no leaning towards law or structure. It was on those grounds that they would not take me. They did not even consider my evilness," morality is just a word …I feel nothing at all, "We both know the law does not suit me."
"But you could have left us altogether," Duncan pointed out, "If yer really wanted to be rid of yer father you'd have up and left for Waterdeep or – maybe more to yer liking – Luskan by now. He did not want to see you fall into dark ways, lass. A path I fear ye'll get more tangled in every day."
"I do not need your council, Uncle. My choices have been as clear as I wish to you so far. There is life here, and there are friends," she tried to smile at Neeshka and found that her voice was shaking, her rage all spent.
"I know it makes ye angry," Duncan nodded, putting his hands on her shoulders as she turned to face him, brown eyes fixed on her golden ones, his half-Elven features softer and larger than hers, denoting his Human side…where she appeared to have none at all, "I know it does, but I do believe ye still care – and if nothing else ye'll be wanting the truth behind the Gith attack."
He put an arm around her shoulders and guided her to the side door at the other end of the room, pausing to open it and lowering his voice so only she could hear.
"When the red anger takes you, remember yer ma Esmerelle. She and Daeghun and Shayla all loved you, and he does yet. She would want ye to know the truth, but the way is not to wade through blood. And that's what Daeghun fears. He'd like ye back for the Harvest Fair. Gives ye tonight to decide whether or not to go home – but remember that without this homecoming ye'll struggle for answers, and might be that another attack comes when ye least expect it."
"I prefer to choose when to run," Isaviel sighed, but nodded resignedly, "But I need no time to think on this. The sooner I am in West Harbour, the more likely I will be to leave straight after the Harvest Fair. I have no wish to linger in that place. I will go at first light."
"Good, lass. There's still a threat to avoid after all – and go for the shard Daeghun promises, or go for love, I can't make ye say which is more important to ye and it doesn't matter. Now, off with ye – before I notice all that loot in yer pack."
With a smile, Isaviel nodded to Neeshka and turned for the passage to her bedroom, pausing when Duncan called after her.
"I'll have Sand write down all that he uncovers. Be safe, lass."
