Melyssa had a pretty name, Aerie used to think, as she had first gazed up into the rounded, glow of her saviour. Fair in complexion and looks, her cheeks gave lie with the brightness of youth. The scars that crisscrossed her body were fine, so very fine, except for a few jagged marks along her sternum.
Aerie remembered the time Lysa had made Xzar insert a soulgem beside her heart. That had given her the shivers for so many nights. Even for Lysa, that was creepy. It kind of made sense at the time though. It still made sense. A last ditch attempt to trap her essence, her… self if anyone ever slew her. A phylactery of sorts. Xzar had warded it with more enchantments than even Edwin knew how to respond to. But… Lysa saw her flesh as nothing more than a golem ever since Aerie had known her. Xzar's needlework had been so fine, and he had sewn enchantments into her flesh, enchanting the thread.
Lysa's eyes weren't just haunted, they were shadowed, deadened. Even after she had nailed Irenicus to Suldanessellar's Tree of Life, the city's queen, Ellesime, staring in horror as she set the tree ablaze, its towering flames adding to the ravaged city, Lysa's eyes had stayed untouched. They had been dragged into the abyss that day, she, Xzar, Monty, Edwin and Safana…
There were walls infused with green, infernal flame, running in patterns, their trails pulsing dark to light, darting around. The souls of those Lysa had slain. They met them, again, their fallen companions.
Faces Aerie knew, and those she had not known. Shar-Teel, who had taught Aerie how to kill, how to enjoy killing. Viconia had poisoned Shar-Teel over a slight from before; Lysa later informed Aerie that she had sheltered the drow when she, Safana, Faldorn, Eldoth, Edwin, Xzar and Monty had found her at a farmstead outside Beregost, near Baldur's Gate. Viconia had murdered the farmer and his sons; she claimed they had tortured her and worse, burying her alive, but not deeply enough. She had clawed her way out in the night, and exacted her revenge. They had found her sitting amongst the last, begging for death. Lysa had listened, looked into the drow's eyes, and pressed her boot down on the youngest son's throat.
Later, they were found by Shar-Teel, and in the city of Baldur's Gate, after they had slain Sarevok, Viconia had left Lysa, stealing away in the night. In the inn, Shar-Teel had sneered at Viconia, calling her a coward and more besides.
As Shar-Teel, the strongest of them, gasped her last in the backstreets of Athkatla, city of coin, Lysa took Viconia's hands in her own, one in each, and proceeded to break each of the drow's fingers in turn, and then her wrists. Monty had gagged her from behind, standing on Xzar's shoulders. Then, her own fingers digging into the drow's graceful neck, Lysa dragged her to the government district, and outside the prison, yanked off the drow's hood, and called to the onlookers. Soon a crowd formed, and a priest of Beshaba was attracted to the din. A pyre was erected, and Lysa watched coldly as Viconia was burnt alive. The blood debt she owed Shar-Teel was paid with the last gasp of Viconia's screams.
Aerie remembered how even Monty's face paled, how Xzar muttered to himself. Shar-Teel had not been broken by Irenicus, but had resisted, and for the most part, he had ignored her, instead focusing on Lysa and Imoen. Shar-Teel barely spoke of it, but Aerie had understood some of the humiliation involved for the proud warrioress, the revenge she had sworn. Aerie had never met Imoen, and Lysa had mentioned her only in passing; the two had grown up together, as sisters, but not all sisters saw eye to eye. At first, Aerie thought it must have been nice to have a sister, but Imoen had pranked Lysa one too many times for Lysa to forgive her, and saw her childish antics as unwelcome. She had taken a broom to the younger girl, and threatened to bust up her nose the next time she got her into trouble. The beating was severe enough Imoen crawled away into a corner and didn't speak to her until they were reunited in the Abyssal pocket plane.
Imoen had been amongst the faces, her spirit given spectral form. She had escaped Irenicus' cage the day the Shadow Thieves of Amn had raided his lair, but had been cut down during the fighting. Lysa faced her dead sister dispassionately, without questioning why she tried to flee, if she would have left her trapped in the jar. If facial expressions spoke at all, Imoen's was one of shame and confusion. Lysa's wasn't.
Gorion had been there. Lysa had not even acknowledged him, and Aerie had only learned his name because of Lysa's imp, a creature she backhanded often, even though it caused her pain. When she caught the imp talking to Aerie about it, pretending to be sly and puffing itself up, she gave it such a beating the imp squealed and begged her for mercy. Aerie had never seen an imp cry so piteously before; it reminded her of a bawling child, helpless before its furious mother. Unable to mask its thoughts from its mistress, all it could do was plead uselessly.
Once before, Aerie had gathered it up into her arms after Lysa had given it a slapping so sound it had curled up into a ball. Aerie had noticed that she had never broken any of its bones, or dislocated or sprained it, and she had never offered the imp healing, only a cuddle. The look Lysa had given her was enough to make the former avariel swallow, but still to hold onto the grey creature. Then the imp had bitten her, and she dropped it with a yelp. Pulling back, tears had filled her eyes, its needle-like teeth having pierced her arm; droplets began to spill. Lysa said nothing, but lifted the imp up and slapped its face hard enough to turn it pink. This time, Aerie let it bawl.
Aerie had never been certain if the imp had bitten her of its own accord, or because Lysa had commanded it to, or if it were out of fear.
She had a soft spot for the imp ever since those first days after the circus as they travelled towards Nalia's Keep. The imp would made advances towards Monty, whispering things that caused the halfling to redden, and ball his fists, threatening to gut his 'admirer', to which Lysa growled that if the imp died, Monty died, and savagely backhanded the creature as Xzar threw his arms around Monty, exclaiming, "Oh no, not Monty!". Monty shoved the filthy mage off cursing. It was shortly after that incident that Monty sewed up Xzar's mouth.
Nalia's was another face. Aerie had never liked Nalia; she was never something to be pitied. Nalia had been devoured by Yuan-ti, half devoured, before Monty ended the abomination, and Lysa put the young noblewoman out of her misery. After looting the remnants, as was their due, they fired the keep, Faldorn calling on the nearby trees to help break the sewers. The blackened husk had made a fitting pyre, purifying the Yuan-ti stench, or so Faldorn declared. They never had found out who was behind the invasion.
The faces of two half elves had joined Gorion's spectre, neither one someone Aerie knew. The imp had warily informed her that Jaheira, the she-elf had a blazing row with Lysa, and left. They had met in the Friendly Arm Inn, and a bounty hunter had poisoned Khalid, her husband, the male elf, and would have poisoned them all, had they eaten the stew. But Lysa wasn't hungry, and Jaheira was too busy lecturing her, and they had made it as far as Beregost before parting ways. The imp laughed at that, because the next face was a dwarf, holding a bloodied half axe. The imp then pointed at Jaheira, and Aerie understood. She hadn't asked how Lysa had managed to make ends meet before she was joined by Xzar and Monty, whom she had found in the Feldepost Inn.
Kagain, a dwarf, who had offered Lysa employment, had met his end with Monty's dagger in the back of his neck after three xvart arrows pierced his mailed gut. Monty then lifted Kagain's purse, and upon their return to Beregost, the halfling looted the dwarf's shop as their 'payment'. With that scant coin, he and Xzar were able to find enough 'volunteers' to make it to Nashkel after approaching Beregost's mayor and proposing a 'trading expedition'. It was considered a fool's errand, but 'the bigoted priest' wanted answers and more importantly coin, so he gave them his blessing. The imp chortled at this. Eight was enough or so they thought. Lysa, still hounded by bounty hunters, tagged along, and Eldoth was one of their companions. The rest had been a mix of desperate folk from Beregost, and a couple of naïve fools, the imp had narrated, searching around for their faces. Of the eight sell swords that set out, only Eldoth had made it to Nashkel in one piece. Monty, Xzar and Lysa obviously had, but not without wounds.
In Nashkel, they met Edwin, a Red Wizard of Thay, and he offered his services in exchange for a spot of bounty hunting: a Rashemen witch. Monty accepted, begrudgingly, but only after Nashkel's mayor claimed the mines were infested with demons. However, having lost more 'swords', actually, sticks, the imp guffawed, to Aerie's confusion, they were short on clubs. The imp explained all the iron was 'rotting', when Aerie pressed, and Xzar and Monty believed it emanated from the Nashkel mines, as they were the source of all iron for the region. It seemed somewhat unbelievable, but Aerie had heard tales of this iron-eating plague back in the circus. She had dismissed it as rumour then, but the imp was adamant and seemed insulted at Aerie's scepticism; she had to appease his ego by widening her eyes for him to continue.
Edwin and Eldoth had played a vicious game with Lysa, each courting her in his own way; Edwin wanted to make her his concubine, Eldoth his whore, and each had laid wagers with the other in ever more ridiculous sums. After telling that she would consent to sharing her bed with both, if they were prepared to entertain her at the same time instead of taking it in turns, she waited for their answer. Before they agreed, she held up her finger, and said "but you two go first. Unless you boys are scared?" The imp sniggered and mimed big, large eyes. After copious amounts of firewine and some black lotus, unwilling to lose their wager, Edwin finally slammed his hand down on the table and agreed, his face flushed. Eldoth shrugged.
The imp suggested that Lysa had walked out on them, having no interest in their wager, before they had ever touched her. She dropped a couple of coins on the floor, the cost of a night with a whore, and left them to it, then invited the rest of the inn to watch. Nashkel's harlots, she told the innkeep, would be paid handsomely by the pair if they participated. Eldoth hadn't seemed to mind, but Edwin was determined never to speak of it again, when he finally got over his raging headache. The imp then mimed Edwin's walk over the next day and a half, imitating the Red Wizard's robes, and matching his facial expressions with an uncanny accuracy. Its impression of Eldoth was one of exceptional smugness.
Far too much detail for Aerie's liking.
More faces had glided by. There was Bodhi's, her features consorted with hate. Aerie remembered how Lysa had pinned the vampire to her coffin, staking her shoulders and hips, and then breaking her arms and legs. Lysa was heavily pregnant at that point. Bodhi had never seen her niece. Lysa dragged the coffin outside, and then they waited for the sunlight.
Then there was the baby. Aerie couldn't look. Lysa had held it up in front of Irenicus. Its ears were delicately tipped, its eyes Irenicus', its mouth its human mother's. Aerie had never asked if Lysa miscarried, or if she had stopped her father's lineage with its first breath. Its body had joined its mortal father, and Ellesime had wept and screamed as the flames took hold.
Unlocking Lysa's "potential" had seen her seen her combine her innate gifts with her new focus: mage slaying. That she herself dabbled in the Art seemed irrelevant.
Imoen had been with child too, but whoever fathered it did not stand beside her. The faces did not speak, at least, not with words, but Aerie could guess. Had it been Irenicus, or another Bhaalspawn the wizard had captured? She couldn't have imagined Irenicus allowing Imoen to keep the child of another… unless he wanted to seize its soul. But the belly of Imoen's spectre hadn't looked heavy, only slight, but her ethereal hands had moved to cover her bump. No one had said anything.
Aerie had asked when Lysa had summoned her imp. The imp had confessed to being called to Lysa from her dreams, and found itself banished and recalled as a matter of course. The first time Lysa awoke to finding it there, she half strangled the creature. When it kicked itself, she yelped and let go. Since then, Lysa had learnt to tolerate the pain; the imp biting itself to get her attention had ceased to be effective after the first few years. It had proven itself useful, it bragged, acquiring elixirs and potions from Phlydia's lab. The old alchemist's memory was clouding, so she simply made more, wondering aloud where she had misplaced her vials. The imp also searched the catacombs and brought back ancient, crumbling scrolls. Lysa never asked where the critter found them.
Phlydia's figure drifted by, still bearing the gashes from the doppelgängers' claws.
Eddard Silvershield was another. The imp mimed a big heart, and made sweetheart eyes, looking towards Lysa. Her own were lost when she saw Eddard's spectre, then walked through the young man as though he were simply gone; the white mist swirled around her and faded. The imp then confided that the two had been of an age, and Eddard had visited Candlekeep with his brat sister since childhood. In his fourteenth year, Lysa had noticed him, and watched him from the boughs of a tree, and Imoen, a few years younger, had decided to cause trouble and flinched pies. The purple smears on both Eddard and Lysa's tunics had earned them a sound scolding from Tethtoril and Karan. Lysa's shame had been great, and in return, she had pinched Imoen savagely. The imp wondered why she hadn't ordered it to drop itching powder in Imoen's laundry, as Imoen had done in return, but Lysa wasn't that way inclined. That was when she had taken a broom to the girl.
Sarevok's lackeys had slain Eddard after Lysa had entered Baldur's Gate; his brigands had ambushed the caravan he was playing guard duty for, part of his application for the 'Order of the Radiant Hart'. Eddard as a paladin and Lysa never would have worked out, but she didn't see it that way. In the scuffle to capture him, for ransom, Eddard had got stabbed, and bled out. Another paladin, Ajantis, had been involved but had escaped. Later, Lysa had discovered that Skie, distraught and in Candlekeep, had run off, dragging Imoen with her.
There were shades around Imoen the former avariel hadn't recognised, but the knowledge of the place had been imparted to Lysa, and through her, the imp. Aerie gave it a questioning eyebrow, and then offered the imp its favourite treat: firewine fruit tart. Jessa Vai, an officer of the Flaming Fist, and Laurel, a paladin. Alora, a halfling, and Skie. There were many shades… copies of each person, all except Alora. Upon closer inspection, twin fangs glistened from the halfling; almost all of the shades bore fang marks. Aerie counted over three dozen of each shade, including copies of Imoen.
After public uproar over a spree of 'relieving' drunk and drunken sleeping patrons in each of Beregost's various inns and taverns, Jessa Vai set a trap, caught and arrested Skie and Imoen. Throwing the duo into a cell with Alora seemed the only sensible option; Alora was of an age and similar disposition to the girls, and wasn't a hardened cutthroat, and the only other female prisoner in the cellars.
Choosing not to ruin her future prospects by incarcerating and risking the lifelong wrath of at least one of the Silvershields, the officer decided to uphold the law with a liberal interpretation; she made them an offer. Placing them in Laurel's care, a paladin who frequented the inn Vai was temporarily stationed at, in exchange for a fair wage, the issued tasks that suited the trio and Laurel's talents. Later on, Vai joined them.
Before Vai returned to the city of Baldur's Gate, Bodhi ambushed them. Aerie's eyes lowered, tracing the patterns of green fire beneath the floor. She imagined such a bright hope in the trio's eyes, and then she saw the broken deadness in the gaze of Imoen's spectre. The imp shrugged and chomped on its tart.
Lysa shot Aerie a look without looking; she could feel Lysa's eyes. The imp didn't seem to be able to get fat, no matter how many tarts it inhaled, but Aerie understood.
Many more faces drifted by, faces that meant nothing, faces that had lost meaning. Even Quayle's face had lost its import. Quayle, who had sheltered her, who had caused Alora to leave Baldur's Gate, because he found her too light-fingered, too distracted by shiny fancies for the circus. Aerie remembered the tales he told her of the Hall of Wonders in 'the Gate', the common name for Baldur's city. He told her tales as she lay there, after they had hacked off her wings, the circus as much a buyer from the slave trade as anyone else in Amn. Quayle had nursed her back to health, regaling her with every jape he knew, every tale he could tell as her spirit diminished, until finally making her laugh. But that was a lifetime ago.
Then there was Kalah, the stagehand to the old gnome. Bitter, envious, and full of hate, the younger gnome had tried to murder them all, weaving spells beyond any of them, magic stolen, perhaps from the ruins of Irenicus' lair, perhaps from some wicked merchant; it did not matter where he obtained the djinn from. All that had mattered is he had murdered Quayle and many others, his magic drawing in innocent bystanders who had never mocked or ridiculed him. Lysa and her companions were also pulled in.
Scarred, and bruised, still bloodied from her escape, Lysa's wrath seemed to fuel her might, and not even Kalah's pilfered spells could stop her. Enduring invocation after invocation, she shrugged off lighting, fire, ice and acid; illusions seemed to burst before her, and she broke open his skull with a swipe of her fist. Then she raised him by his throat, his windpipe cracking beneath her grasp. It was too late for Quayle, but others had been spared his fate. Those who survived Kalah's gladiatorial games.
That face. Aerie had stared up, wondering if she was dreaming, Lysa's eyes cool as she swept over the tent as the magic unravelled. Those who were awaiting the games, women, children, huddled together, weeping. Most were more terrified of Lysa than they had been of Kalah. All Aerie could recall was her grief, and her relief, her awe, her wonder, and the young woman standing beside Lysa, her face as she leaned forwards, her touch as her healing replenished her.
Her touch was different to the indomitable rage Aerie had felt from Lysa; dark, but in a different, more primordial way; less raw, but savage, vast, wild. Lysa drew strength from the murdered, but Aerie hadn't known it at the time. In those noble eyes, she saw strength, and the young woman had seen something in her, and turned to Lysa. Aerie felt that cool regard wash over her, bore into her, felt something, something for the briefest of moments, and then it was lost. But her eyes were drawn back to the young woman's. That day, Aerie accepted her fate, and her fate accepted her.
Remorse coursed through her, mingling with regret, tinged with hatred, fear. The young woman had not escaped her choice, had not escaped at all. Her spectre lingered, facing her. In the abyssal realm, inside the pocket plane, Lysa's dead gathered, dead because of her, the dead who followed her. Aerie had lost her wings, lost everything, but that day she had pushed herself to her knees, drawn by the strength of the young woman's spirit, everything had changed, forever.
Faldorn. Aerie's lips traced the spectre's name in life, her vision branding the ethereal figure with the memory of how she had been before. Before Cernd had slain her, tracking her as a wild beast and striking at her like an assassin, before her chest had been gorged, her life's blood spurting in violent, irregular gushes. Before… she was ruined, beyond anyone's ability to heal. Lysa had torn him apart, his werewolf form snapping as the dry twigs beneath his paws. The crunch of his bones, the crack of his neck… that limp, shuddering form. As Lysa had cast him aside, Aerie had felt no remorse, no pity, only dull hatred.
She had loved Faldorn. Faldorn who had shown her understanding, compassion, who taught her to be strong, the nobility of her spirit. Faldorn, a daughter of the Uthgardt Black Raven tribe, and later, Aerie learned, one of the Shadow Druids. Faldorn had been teaching her when Cernd slew her. Aerie had called the roots of the forest to devour Cernd's corpse, draining it of its blood, much to Xzar's horror, the broken and torn pieces dragged beneath the soil. That was the day Shar-Teel took Aerie on, using her fist and words to foster her broken spirit into wrath.
Lysa had given her new wings, black feathers in place of once white, but nothing could bring Faldorn back. Aerie had knelt, swearing herself to Lysa. Her cause had not mattered; Faldorn's death did not matter. Lysa had told Aerie of what she was, of who her sire was, and that once she ascended her dead father's throne, the murdered, all murdered, would be hers. Faldorn could be restored. Quayle could be restored. Eddard. All those who had been stolen. For that, Aerie had offered her her soul.
