A Watery Grave

A long, roped wooden bridge stretched before them, spanning the dark waters of a broad stream that ran deep beneath it. They stared at it in silence for a moment, listening to the wood creak. And then a heavy gust took it in the side, and it began to rock back and forth, barely holding its rotting planks together it seemed. A fortress loomed in the distance above.

"Well that certainly looks precarious." Xan's grim frown deepened even more than usual, his eyes mirroring a beaten despair as he gazed down to the rocks below. Evelyn only shook her head slowly, and started forward.

"Come on."

Her bravado only lasted so long, however, once she was but several steps out onto the planks. Then she began to take them slowly, one at a time, pausing at every untoward creak she heard from the wood underneath. She kept her eyes almost perpetually fixed through the cracks between them, trying not to think about those same rocks below. It was a vain effort.

Sometime after she had passed beyond the lowest dip at the center of the bridge, she could hear Kivan hissing something in warning from behind.

"Someone is coming!"

She froze instantly, and listened. Just over the dull roar of the waters below, she could hear grunting and what might have been speaking from beyond the safety of the other side. When she rounded back upon the others, her eyes went wide. Each of them still stood where they had been. Not one had set foot on the bridge after her.

"What were you waiting for?!" she cried out then in anger and surprise.

"You to fall," came the Elven mage's bitter reply. Imoen only shrugged helplessly.

She had a death grip on the corded ropes that ran to either side of the bridge with one hand, her staff clutched desperately in the other. She only had time to turn around as something large and burly plowed into view from behind the rocks on the other side.

"Stop!" the thing bellowed at her. "You go nowhere! This our bridge, you pay to walk it!" Another of the things trudged into sight then to stand beside the first.

For a moment, she could not place the two beasts. But then she remembered that day when they had found the half-eaten child alone on the road. Those two man-like monsters seemed to resemble the two they had met before more than just a little. And they certainly didn't look averse to adding her to some main course the way they licked their jagged teeth.

"You pay … two hundred gold coins for all heads," the thing continued, shouting across at them, "or lose heads!"

Evelyn only stared, wide eyed … first at the water and the rocks below … and then at them. And then she looked back toward the others.

They had not made any move to cross the bridge to help her, but she could see Kivan readying an arrow where he stood and Imoen pawing at her sleeve. Minsc was glaring intently toward the other side, but he had yet to take that massive blade of his in hand. And it was for the better, she thought hurriedly then. She did not dare to hope that that bridge would support him as well.

"I think," she stammered back at the two beasts, edging her way a step along backwards toward the others, "I think we'll just take the long way around!" She nodded her head emphatically, giving them a nervous smile that she hoped they could not see for what it was. Turning around quickly, she hastened another few precarious steps, but then came an angry grunt from behind.

"Your head so dumb you not miss it!" it growled.

"Yeah!" the other barked at her as well. "We kill you, take stuff, and get gold anyway! Dumb head!"

And then they both were lumbering toward her.

The rope bridge began shaking wildly, their heavy feet crashing down upon the rotting wood as they charged toward her. An arrow hissed past Evelyn's head, and she could hear Xan shout something before light exploded across the expanse. Both struck one of the man-beasts square in the chest, and he tumbled over the side of the bridge with a howl. The other kept coming. But then wood snapped.

Eve only had time enough to wrap her arm even more tightly about the rope beside her as the thing suddenly roared in surprise, its jagged teeth flashing wide as it plummeted through the broken planks below. The rushing waters swallowed it almost too quickly.

Everything was still for a moment, as Evelyn sat there on the bridge, alone, and staring down into the rapids. And then she stood, looking back towards the others. Imoen shrugged again, and her best friend gave her a hard look. She turned away.

And then something terrible happened.

Evelyn heard it before she felt it … the death knell of a rope snapping free. Then came the shuddering tremor along the bridge that rocked her to her knees.

"Eve!" someone screamed behind her.

She cried out in surprise as she fell to the wooden planks, one of them bursting beneath her. The whole bridge canted to one side, and then she was tumbling over its slanted edge, screaming herself. She caught the broken rope almost too late.

"EVE!" Imoen shrieked again, suddenly bursting into view over the rock face above, her eyes wide and wild. But there was nothing she could do.

Panic overwhelmed her, but Evelyn still somehow managed to pull herself back up partway onto the crooked bridge, half of it swinging slowly from side to side while the rest stood still. She still had her staff in her other hand, keeping it from a watery grave below. Whatever happened, she was not about to lose it. It was one of the only things of Gorion she still had left.

The others were shouting at her, but she hardly paid attention to what they said. Instead she swung back with all her strength, and heaved the ashwood up and back toward the rock face behind. It clattered along the edge, and then lay still.

"Hold on, Eve!" Imoen started for the bridge then, but Kivan wrapped an arm around her, dragging her bodily back. Thankfully, no one else tried.

With both hands gripped tightly about the rope supports of the bridge, Evelyn finally had a chance to catch her breath. It was cut short, however, as the other rope suddenly broke.

For a moment … she was weightless, the crisp mountain air rushing around her. But then that rush became a hissing scream, and all her weight – and the bridge – came crashing forward against the rock. She barely had time to scream before both her hands were jarred loose. And then she was falling.

She thought she heard something as the water closed over her, a wailing cry from the depths screaming for her blood.

But then her head struck stone … and she knew no more.

There was a darkness … pervasive, and complete … all around her.

She stuck her hand out into it, trying to catch sight or sense of something. But there was nothing … only her hand before her face. It moved as if she were in a dream.

And then everything began to fall apart.

She felt herself coming undone, piece by piece, disintegrating into the ether slowly … inexorably …

She watched it, and she could do nothing … only watch, as her whole being drifted apart and faded …

No … not faded, she thought dully … it felt more like she was being drained … of what, she did not know … but it was going somewhere …

She started to scream … or at least, she tried to … But there was no sound in that void … and everything was drifting away … further … and further …

… and further …

And then it all came flooding back.

Evelyn exploded into the world of the living once more, screaming as loud as she could. But something held her down, pressed firmly against her opened mouth. And instead of screaming, she gagged.

Water erupted from her throat as the thing pulled away – a man, she had enough thought to realize before she twisted over and retched out the rest of her lungs into the grassy dirt. He collapsed down beside her, breathing hard. For her part, Eve fought to keep more air in than out.

She coughed for a long time, her throat convulsing it seemed for every last drop of water still left down inside it. Even after it had subsided somewhat though, she still could hardly keep from choking on the gods knew what.

"Xan?" she finally blurted out in surprise, shoving a fist into her mouth in the next moment. The Elf lay sprawled along the earth beside her in nothing more than his trousers, his robes and his boots nowhere to be seen. He opened his eyes and frowned up at her.

"You fare very poorly in the water for someone who grew up alongside it their entire life," he said simply, his face drawn. She gave him a hard look – or tried to while rattling violently with her own wracking coughs – but he ignored it.

They were both soaked – she more so than he since she had had no chance to spare any of her clothes from their watery fate. But she cast around, still choking on her own breath, and it seemed as if they were safe … for the moment. She looked back toward the stream.

"What happened?" she managed quietly, her voice shaking. "Where are the others?"

The sodden Elf arched an eyebrow but did not open his eyes. "Hopefully bringing dry clothes …"

They sat there for some time in silence, the rushing of the stream before them all that really broke it. Evelyn hardly cared for sitting still just then, but she also did not feel quite back in sorts with herself just yet. And the Elf made no move to leave, content to wait. Maybe it was better that they did. Kivan would find them soon enough, she did not doubt.

She remembered the dream, or the void, or whatever that place was that she had gone to when everything had gone black. The memory was fading now, but she could still remember just how it felt to have her very being slowly drained from her. She started shaking at the thought of it, the cold from her drenched clothes hardly helping. She wondered if that had been what it had felt like for that assassin when she had drained the other woman's life …

She didn't want to think about it. She didn't want to think about anything just then. She just wanted to go home …

I just want to go home … the thought echoed dully in her head for some time. Tears kept trying to well up in her eyes, but she bit them back, hoping that the other might mistake them for just more water then. She could hardly afford to look any weaker.

"What will you do when we are finished here?" the Elf asked slowly at her side of a sudden. "Provided, of course, that any of us survive at all."

"Just what I said I would do." She swallowed back those fears and childish longings swiftly, reinvigorated somewhat at that thought. There was no time for them now. "Go to Beregost."

"To avenge your father's death?" he offered, and she nodded.

"Yes."

"But what is the point, Evelyn?" He pulled himself up onto his elbows. "You will not bring him back to life by slaying another. Even if you manage to find and kill the men responsible – which I doubt – will it bring you any satisfaction in the end?"

She swallowed again – this time her overwhelming hate. "Yes," she managed through clenched teeth, her voice hoarse. She kept her eyes fixed in front of her.

The Elf withdrew. "Then perhaps you are not so wise as I thought," he said then. "And perhaps it was foolish of me to rescue you, seeing as how you are doomed anyways."

"Then maybe you should have just let me drown," she spat angrily, giving him a heated look. "You could have saved yourself the trouble, and the risk."

Even as she said the words she knew she did not mean them. What she had felt after the darkness had been more frightening and terrible than anything she had ever felt before in her life. She started shuddering uncontrollably.

The mage only gave her a worried look. "Are you cold?" he asked, studying her. She was, but she was hardly about to tell him so. Even so, he hardly waited before pulling himself closer and trying to wrap his arms around her. "You're losing too much heat – "

"Don't touch me!" she twisted away and leapt to her feet. She regretted her anger almost instantly, but she was still feeling dazed and could hardly control it as she glared down at the other. She could feel something worming away inside her – fear … fear of whatever it was that had waited for her in that void beyond that world. And it had left her shaken to her very core.

"I think you misunderstand me," Xan told her simply, gravely. "We are all doomed," he continued. "Very few of us know the when. And it is foolish to fight against it. It will come when it will come, and there is no point in trying to change that. Yet you seem very much as if you wish to hasten that end."

Just then he looked beyond her … across the stream. "It seems your friends have arrived," he said then. "Oh, and they've brought my robes ..."

He moved past her, but stopped, looking back. Eve could just see the three pulling into view from the trees upon the other side of the stream, Imoen suddenly waving her arms wide as she caught sight of her best friend still alive and well. She only wished the latter were true.

"It might have been pointless," Xan was saying quietly, "since you will surely die soon anyways. But that does not mean it has to be today." And with that, he turned around, and leapt into the waters once more, swimming across toward the other side. For her part, Evelyn stayed where she was for a while longer, not sure yet if she trusted herself enough to move.

If nothing else … she knew now that she was afraid to die. She didn't think she could ever face that black abyss again. She just hoped that, someday, she might send Gorion's murderer there instead. Whatever the Elf thought, it would bring her much satisfaction.

Oh, yes … it would.