As always, a huge thank-you to everyone who is following this story. I own almost nothing, and reviews are always welcome.
Chapter Nine – The Tears of Bhaal
There was cold stone beneath her, and her sudden, indrawn breath sounded too loud. Slowly, carefully, Kera pushed up to her knees. Her sword was still clenched in one bruised hand. She saw nothing past the undulating dark stone beneath her feet, and the pale light above, grey and wan and sickly. She made it all the way up, and swayed. Her skull pounded, the roar of her blood heady and deafening.
Where was this place, she wondered, with its endless shadows and its air that tasted like hot steel?
"Ah, little sister. You are awake."
She knew that voice, and it sent fear coiling through her gut. "Sarevok," she said, and turned slowly.
He was close to her, close enough that she had to suppress the urge to leap away from him. He was tall and brawny, slabbed with muscle. Golden eyes bright in a scarred, strong face. He carried no weapons, and his heavy shoulders were not encased in armour, and she wondered why.
"Yes," her brother said. "Are you surprised?"
"That depends," she answered, and somehow her voice stayed steady. "Where are we?"
"Since I am here before you, breathing, where do you think?" He smiled slowly. "This is no place for the living, usually, little sister."
"Where am I?"
"This is a place of our father's. A place inside your own mind. A place created by your own mind."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean this place is shaped by your own thoughts, and it is our father's blood in you that gives you this power."
She studied him for a long, wary moment. "Then are you really here, or have I conjured you up?"
"Both, and neither." He grinned, bitten-off and venomous. "You are dead, little sister. As dead as I am."
"No, I…" She faltered, the words drying up in her mouth. "No. I…we…we can't be."
"Why not?"
"We were fighting Irenicus, and…" She stopped. "We killed him, and my soul came here."
"Your soul?" Sarevok's grin widened. "Little sister. What have you been up to?"
"A mage took my soul for his own."
"But your soul belongs to Bhaal," her brother said. "Don't you know that?"
Kera looked at him, properly looked at him, at the old lines of scars that criss-crossed his face and disappeared under his collar. "Why would I dream you up?"
"Perhaps you didn't."
"Now that is more what I would expect from you." She scrubbed a hand through her hair, and winced when her fingers snagged on thick tangles. "Where is this, really?"
"A plane, of sorts. One that perhaps belonged to Bhaal, long ago, or was dreamed by Bhaal." Sarevok shrugged. "Perhaps we are all here, all of us Bhaalspawn who are dead."
"I'm not dead. Irenicus is dead. I saw him fall. I cut his throat."
"Cut his throat, did you? You did that to me as well, little sister. Do you remember?"
Sarevok fell, his solid frame crashing against the ground.
She looked down at him, exhausted, every breath jerking through her. Blood dripped from the ugly gash across her chest, and her shoulder throbbed. But she brushed Jaheira away, and knelt beside her brother. She reached out and tugged his helmet off, revealing the hard angles of his face, bathed in sweat. His golden eyes were narrow and furious.
She let the tip of her sword rest against the hollow of his throat.
"Kera," Sarevok said, quietly. "My sister."
She leaned her whole weight against the hilt, did not stop until she felt the blade shear through bone.
"Though," Sarevok said casually, "I suppose what you did to me was more of a beheading. Do you remember?"
"Yes," she spat out through clenched teeth. "Of course I remember." She looked past him, saw nothing but greyness, unraveling. "Where are my friends?"
"I don't know. Here, somewhere. Somewhere on their own."
"How can I find them?"
"This place is our father's," he said, and something cold wound through his voice. "Let the blood in you that is his help you and guide you."
"No."
"Let the blood help you," Sarevok said. "Let it guide you through this place to your friends."
"No."
"Come now, sister. You are lost. You could run until your legs give out, and you will not find a way out of this place. Not unless you give in to it."
"No!" She shouted it, at Sarevok and at the anger coiling inside her. "No," she said again. "I will not, and unless you're going to help me, get out of my way before I relieve you of your head again."
"Quite the spine you have now, sister." He smiled again, cold and goading. "You are not quite the child I faced, are you? You know how it feels now, don't you? That infernal wrath of ours?"
"It is not ours," Kera snarled. "It is yours, and I want nothing more to do with it."
She pushed past him, and bit the inside of her cheek when she heard him laughing. Beneath her, her boots thudded against the smooth stone floor. She wanted to spin around and drive her sword into him until he fell again.
Keep moving, she thought. Keep moving.
She marched on, over the rolling dark stone, until sweat slicked her hair to her face. The air pressed too close, stifling and hot. She stumbled more than once, wincing when her knees smacked hard against the ground. Sheathed at her hip, her sword was heavy, the blade still fouled with blood, and she could smell it. She could smell Irenicus and his death on it.
Kera stopped. What was it Sarevok had said? This place is shaped by your own thoughts?
She wanted to find the others. She needed to find the others.
She reached out, pushed her hand through the greyness, and touched cold stone.
A gateway, she realised, high stone doors reaching up into mist. Swirling patterns descended, eyes and wings and glittering jewels and feathers. She leaned up, let her fingertips trail down past some shining white gem. On either side of the doors, water ran, slithering and falling and collecting in small white pools. She knelt, cupped her hand in the water, and smelled salt.
"This is called the Gate of the Watchers," Imoen said.
She whirled, spattering icy water. "Are you real?"
"I think so. I feel real. I saw Gorion," her sister added. "He looked so sad."
"I saw Sarevok." Kera frowned. "How do you know about the Gate?"
"Gorion told me," Imoen snapped. "He said it will open, and it will be our way back."
"What else did he say?"
"That he was sorry for keeping secrets." Imoen shrugged. Her lips were pressed together, white and thin. "And he said that the tears are in the door."
"The tears?" Kera stared down at her wet hands. "Whose tears?"
"Bhaal's." Imoen smiled strangely. "Death causes many tears to fall, and Bhaal collected many in his time."
Kera caught her sister's hand and squeezed. "Come on," she said, fiercely. "We need to find the others."
"How did you find me?"
"I…" She shook her head slowly. "I realised how much I wanted to find you."
The cold stone jutted up into high, rough spars. Somewhere behind them, the Gate was lost in the greyness, and Kera tried not to wonder what might happen if they lost all sense of direction. No, she thought. We can't get lost in here. It's part of us.
"Kera," Imoen murmured. "Look."
She shook herself out of her thoughts and followed Imoen's gaze.
Huddled in between two spearing columns of stone was Solaufein, his eyes closed and his hands locked together.
"Stay there," Kera whispered back to her sister. Very carefully, not quite trusting the stone or the forge-fire air, or even the presence of the drow, she approached him. "Solaufein? Solaufein, it's me. It's Kera."
His eyes opened, red and confused. "Kera?" His pulse was thumping at his throat, and his shoulders were pressed hard against the stone behind him. "No. I was…I was back in Ust Natha."
"No," she said gently. "You're with me, here. You're not dead. You're not in Ust Natha."
"Where is this place?"
"Somewhere. A plane that belonged to Bhaal."
Unsteadily, the drow pushed up to his feet. He stared at her for a long moment. "You found me," he said, wonderingly. "How?"
"I wanted to," she answered, and saw him smile.
In a place where the stone was red and twisted and curled into strange shapes, they discovered Jaheira and Minsc. The druid spun around, her eyes angry and her face pale and pinched. "Where have you been?"
"Looking for you," Kera retorted, a little too sharply. When Jaheira's expression did not soften, she added, "I'm sorry."
"No." Jaheira shook her head. "No. It is not your fault. I…we saw things. Both of us. I…tried to lead us out, but…"
"The walls here change," Minsc said, close to a whisper. "We looked for you and we could not find you. We have…never seen a place like this one."
"No," Kera murmured. "Neither have I."
"Irenicus is in here?" Jaheira asked.
"Yes. Somewhere."
"Through the door," Imoen said. "He has to be."
In his own maze, Kera wondered, or simply waiting? He would be alone, she assumed, so perhaps he merely gathered his strength and prepared. He had to know, he had to know that she was here with him, that she could not leave without her soul.
Underfoot, the stone changed, became ragged and rough, and she tripped. Imoen caught her elbow, and she grinned tiredly in response. She needed to find Valygar and Haer'Dalis, and soon. Cold sweat prickled at the nape of her neck, and when she turned around, she half expected to see Sarevok again, or the Gate.
"There you are, my raven," said the tiefling, with an insouciant smile. "Been wandering, have we?"
"Been looking for you, actually," she replied acidly.
"Oh? A kindness indeed. Back in the planes, I see, and the hard way, it seems. Still, I know how such places breathe." Haer'Dalis shrugged. "I was seeking you out, and I happened upon our ranger friend, as lost as you."
She looked past the tiefling's wiry shoulder, and noticed Valygar, though she was almost certain that Haer'Dalis had been alone. She nodded slowly. "Alright. Then we need to find Irenicus, and get ourselves out of here."
The Gate of the Watchers stood before her, the white gemstones bright and fierce. Almost thoughtfully, Kera reached up and traced her fingers around one, following its tapering shape. The jewel was smooth and cold. There were others, beside and below it, too many to count.
How many had fallen beneath Bhaal's rage?
And how had it felt, to see them fall, to feel their deaths?
She shook herself. The thought was not – could not be – her own.
She found another gemstone, and let her fingertips slide over it. It was quite beautiful, the surface unblemished and slick. Someone spoke her name, and she shook her head again. Let her fingers trail across the door, looking for a seam, an indentation, something that would tell her that the door could be opened. Someone else said something, and she heard raised voices, close to an argument.
Of course it can, she thought. I made it. I put it here. I kept it closed until I found the others. I kept it closed, kept Irenicus on the other side until we were ready.
"Kera," Solaufein said into her ear. "Kera, can you hear me?"
"I can hear you," she answered, without turning. "Can you feel it?"
"Feel what?"
"The door."
"Kera." He stepped around in front of her. "Look at me."
How had it felt, all those deaths, their spent lives flooding and filling Bhaal's flesh?
"I am looking at you." But she was not, she was looking over his shoulder at the white jewels, at how they shone, wet and bright. She wanted to reach past him, and touch them, and bring the taste of them between her lips.
"You're not." Firmly, the drow moved again, so that he blocked her view. "Look at me."
She did, eventually, into the stern angles of his face. "I am."
"You need to open the door," he said, carefully, slowly. "You need to open the door."
She reached past him, and flattened her hand against the door. She felt stone and seeping coldness and something old. Had Bhaal made this door first? Had he caused it to come into being as some kind of memorial, she wondered, some kind of notched post for all the death he had brought about?
Solaufein did not move. "Open the door, Kera."
She needed it open and she needed to find Irenicus and she needed her soul.
The door swung wide, silently, and the white jewels flickered. She clenched her teeth and tried to suppress the sudden urge to touch them again, to see if she could carve them clear of the stone. She reached out, and Solaufein caught her wrist.
"You found me," he said, his voice pitched low. "You found me and you opened the door. We need to move, Kera. Now."
She wanted to ask him what he meant, but his grip on her wrist was punishing, and when she looked up and through the door, she saw Irenicus.
"You are here," Irenicus said. "I have been searching for you. I would ask why you are here, but this place is yours, is it not?"
"No. It's not mine."
"Yours, your sire's, your blood's." He shrugged. "I have been thinking on your soul. It knows so much, here. It knows what it should be."
"It should be with me." She tried to step back, and realised that Solaufein still grasped her wrist. It was almost painful, but when he shifted to let her go, she grabbed his hand and held on.
"No," Irenicus said. "It is the soul of something that is part divine, and that is not something you are worthy of, I think, even with all your tenacity." His blue eyes flicked past her, and his smile widened. "And your companions came with you. Did they want to, I wonder? Did you ask them? Or did all your terrible, god-sent blood drag them down here because you know you would fail alone?"
"We're not dead," Kera snapped. "I will take my soul back from you, and you will be lost down here."
"Not dead? Perhaps not. Such things are treacherous, aren't they, child? Who is to say that you have not been mistaken for dead in Suldenessellar? Who is to say that you are not dead?"
No, she thought. I killed him. I cut his throat and watched his blood spill.
"So what is it to be, Child of Bhaal? Will you fail, now? Or would you prefer to be shown to your death?"
She could not quite force her tongue to work properly, so she flung herself at him. His clenched hands flared, and the spell sent her flailing away from him. She twisted over, let Jaheira haul her back up to her feet. She saw him hurl Valygar away, and then he changed.
His frame shifted, seem to buckle and give, become shapeless somehow.
Appalled, Kera watched as stiff spines and sharp spars jutted out through his skin. His head arced back, and a terrible, wordless cry wrenched from his lips. She knew what it meant when he grew, when every tendon and muscle lengthened, when claws sprouted through the ends of his fingers.
The Slayer, she thought, and stared up into its sunken, burning eyes. The Slayer.
He must have learned its shape and its purpose from her soul.
The jaws of the creature opened, and its narrow head turned and fixed on her. She knew what it felt like, to be trapped behind those sharp lines of bone, to be locked inside it.
It was ferocity given form, death given shape, and it was Bhaal's.
"Kera, move!" Solaufein leaped past her. He uncoiled off his feet, swinging his sword at the Slayer's shoulder. The blade glanced off thick bone plates, and a brisk sweep of huge claws sent the drow sprawling.
How, she thought, how were they meant to kill it?
In Spellhold, when pressed, Jaheira had confessed only that they had fled until the change took her again, and the Slayer and its anger left her.
Minsc's mace smacked hard against the Slayer's left arm, and Valygar pushed in on the right, his sword skimming in and under and scraping across its ribs. Kera threw herself at it, digging the point of her blade under the frill of spikes at the throat. Her feet were off the floor, braced against it, and when it spun, her head lurched. Minsc bellowed something angry, and his mace drove against the back of its knees. She tried to drag her sword free, and the Slayer howled. The claws sank into her waist and heaved her away.
She landed awkwardly, gasping. Rolled away when the Slayer followed her, pushed up to her feet. She whirled, brought her sword up to block the vicious sweep of the claws. "Minsc!"
He obeyed, diving behind and sending his mace snapping relentlessly against the Slayer's legs. Valygar darted in on the other side, Haer'Dalis close beside him.
The Slayer turned again, and the spined tail whipped out, sent the ranger to his knees.
Kera gauged the distance, and snapped, "Solaufein, help keep him busy."
The drow nodded, and slipped past Jaheira to where Minsc stood, methodically hammering his mace against the Slayer's chest, Haer'Dalis on his other side.
She knew the Slayer, knew how it felt to breathe through its fanged mouth and look through its eyes. She knew how ponderous it was to first move with its heavy, long claws and its spiked tail. She knew how it could absorb blow after blow, how the sheer strength in it was frightening. She knew how tempting it was within its frame to simply sit back and let it take over, let its claws and its fury do what they could.
Kera launched herself at the Slayer's back, felt it sway when her boots ground against the sharp, jutting ribs. She hooked one arm over its shoulder and held on while it thrashed. The head flung back, and the wild sweep of the claws tore Haer'Dalis over onto his back. Another rush pushed Minsc to one side, and the Slayer reached out for Solaufein.
She fumbled with her sword, tried to angle the blade beneath the cluster of spines at the Slayer's neck.
The drow's sword cracked against the Slayer's left arm. He rolled away, ducked under the follow-up strike of the claws. He spun, brought his sword sharply beneath the Slayer's grasp, and between its ribs.
The Slayer shrieked, and Kera saw the claws as they twisted past the drow's sword, and lodged in his shoulder. She drove her sword into the Slayer's neck, wrenched when the tip touched bone. Dark blood slicked her hands, and she bent her head to the Slayer's neck. The dreadful wound smelled of sun-heated rock and new steel and safety.
No, she thought, and jerked away. The motion jolted her off the Slayer's back, and she fell. She flipped over onto her back, leaned up on her elbows in time to see the Slayer wavering.
The stiff line of its shoulders was changing, blurring, the reptilian, severe shape of its face sinking in on itself.
It was changing, she realised. Changing at last, and back into Irenicus' lean, narrow shape.
He was bleeding, she saw first, bleeding in great gouts from the wound at the back of his neck. His blue eyes swiveled, and his mouth moved, and he said, "You."
"Yes," she said, and grasped his shoulder with one hand. "It's over."
She drove the sword into his chest, and held him when his knees gave way. His shoulder lolled against hers, and his breathing came fast and harsh against her neck. She could smell his blood, rich and wonderful, and when she scrabbled for a better handhold against his shoulder, it dampened her fingers.
"Kera," Jaheira said. "Kera. Child. Kera, it's over. Let him go."
She stared at Irenicus' face, eyes half closed, unmoving. The blood flowing past her hand was thick and warm, but no breath stirred between his lips.
"It's over," Jaheira said again. "Let him go."
Very carefully, she lowered him to the ground. Beneath his leathers, his chest was still, the ugly wound gaping and red. Joneleth, she thought, and said nothing. She knelt, and touched his face, touched his mask, just beneath his eyes.
And she felt it, her soul.
It was right, and simple, and between breaths, and it filled her.
"Oh." She smiled. It was beneath her skin, slipping into that empty place.
Imoen's hand found hers. "Do you feel it?"
"Yes." Her smile widened. "Oh, yes. I feel it."
Imoen nudged her gently. "So you know how to get out of here, then?"
For a long moment, she stared at Irenicus, at his closed eyes. She remembered how she had shied back in the cage that first day – or at least, the first day she remembered – and tried to swallow back the surge of fear. She remembered how brilliant his eyes had seemed, and she wondered again who he had once been.
"I think so," she said, and turned. "Is everyone alright?"
Jaheira was already at Valygar's side, murmuring some spell while he cradled his arm. She looked across to Solaufein, and swallowed. Blood welled through deep, jagged marks, circling his shoulder, and his whole frame was tense.
"Are you alright?" Kera asked.
"He'll be alright," Jaheira replied. "He needs a healer, and fast."
She wanted to go to him, but they were still trapped, and they needed to be out, and back in Suldenessellar. She thought of it, thought of it until every nerve in her ached, and when the blackness swept across her, she reached for him.
