The sun set over the camp, giving the tents an orange glow, like bonfires. As the banners of the Flaming Fist rustled gently above their heads, the officers, Skie among them, lined up in formation practising the same manoeuvres over and over. She looked up from under her helmet at Bence bellowing his orders and felt a twinge of guilt. Gauging Freya's reaction had been necessary though. Things were going poorly for her father in Baldur's Gate. It was said that the only rest the Flaming Fist got back home were a few hours before they were resurrected. Not bringing them back was no longer an option, there were too few of them, but it was plunging the Silvershield estate deeper and deeper into debt.
Baldur's Gate was a bomb with a lit fuse. Her father, the Duke, had seen the problem brewing for a long time but he had done nothing, pinning all his hopes on his son to raise their fortunes. Only the golden child had died, and the entire Silvershield dynasty was in danger of dying with him. Skie had the seed of an idea of how to fix things but it would be risky and difficult. She caught Bence's accusing gaze. He was a nicer boyfriend than Eldoth, but she was no longer so naive as to believe that she could really marry just anybody. Not if the Silvershields were to survive. She shook her head a fraction and he bitterly turned away.
As night enveloped the camp, Minsc sighed with frustrated boredom and tucked Boo into his pocket. The hamster emptied his bulging cheek pouches of the various seeds and crumbs he had accumulated during the day, and snuggled down into the warrior's broad chest. Dynaheir cast a worried glance over at Arrow who was trying to coax Imoen into drinking a little water. She whimpered and shook her head, clutching at her pink hair. Arrow looked beseechingly at Glint and M'khiin, but neither cleric nor shaman had any cures left to try.
As the adventurers in the camp retired to their bedrolls, one lone figure slipped unnoticed into the trees. They clung to the shadows, face covered by a heavy maroon cloak. A short distance from the camp, they came to a clearing and stopped with a nervous backward glance to check that they were not being tailed. When they looked forward again they let out a frightened gasp for two figures had silently crept into the glade. A dark-haired vampire in over-tight leathers and a tall man with a strange, mutilated appearance.
"Well?" Bodhi breathed eagerly, "Did you slip the tracking wardstone into Freya's belongings?"
"Yes…" the cloaked figure spoke, slowly and guiltily, "But her wizards found it before she left the camp."
The vampire snarled in frustration and scratched her yellowing nails at the nearest tree, tearing off a chunk of bark. It landed at the feet of the trembling spy. Irenicus grasped his sister's arm. The grip was rather too firm, causing Bodhi to wince and flinch away from him resentfully.
"Calm yourself sister," Irenicus spoke warningly.
"Is all this really necessary?" their agent asked, in a tone of voice that suggested that they would much rather not be doing this.
"I stood alone against the entire Flaming Fist when Eric and I landed in Baldur's Gate," Irenicus said. "Had it not been for the presence of the Hero things might have turned out differently. If your… our… cause is to flourish then Freya has to go!"
"Swear not to hurt her!" the agent said in the manner of somebody who desperately wanted to believe that the two would keep their word, rather than truly believing it to be so.
"Of course not!" smiled Bodhi sweetly. "We'll send her to a nice farm up in the Dale, don't you worry."
"We are sending her to werewolf island," Irenicus cut her off sharply. "She will be far better off there, among her own kind. Sooner or later if she remains in human society she will snap and there will be a bloodbath. All lycanthropes turn feral eventually. Name me one who didn't!"
"It just seems a little too convenient," the agent mumbled nervously. "An island full of werewolves and the pack cannot leave…"
"Werewolf island is real. It exists," Irenicus assured them. "If you doubt me you can ask Freya herself. She has been there."
The reluctant spy wrung their hands together and shivered in the cold night air. The waxing moon peeked from a gap in the dense, cloudy sky. It would be full before the week was out. Full moon was when Freya was at both her strongest and her weakest. Perhaps they could find a way to use this opportunity.
"If you could only see the state that the city is in," Irenicus said, sensing that their double-agent was wavering. "Refugees block every street, food is scarce, disease is rife, and the Grand Dukes do nothing. The people cry out for freedom! There will never be a better chance to replace the council, but that cannot happen while the Hero supports them. You know this!"
"I know it," sighed the cloaked traitor, resignedly. "It is not just her strength but her popularity. Too many will follow her lead and support the rule of the current Dukes, for as long as she does."
"Precisely," said Irenicus coldly. "So if you are serious about replacing them, you know what must be done."
Freya, meanwhile, had found the Temple of Cyric. After wandering in the region Jaheira had indicated for some time, they came across an abandoned campsite. The occupants (crusaders, judging by the personal effects they left behind) appeared to have been dragged away. Seizing the opportunity, Freya transformed and set her shiny wet nose to the task of sniffing them out.
The party followed her deep into the woods, to a large cavern partially concealed by climbing ivy. She stopped at the entrance and turned back, pressing her finger to her lips with an urgent expression. There was heavy breathing coming from inside the cave and through the gloom they could just make out the glint of a large pile of coins.
"Well bugger me with a pick axe," Freya breathed. "Never seen one of them before. Smells terrible."
"What is it?" asked Edwin. He tried to sound manly and authoritarian but there was a definite trace of fear on his lips.
"Dragon. Ok, give me a minute," the werewolf said.
She shuffled back from the cave entrance and made for a patch of dense bushes. The ivy had enveloped them too, and the original shrubbery was dead, but the covering of leaves was still thick enough to conceal a large person behind them. Provided that the person in question did not mind regiments of angry ants climbing up their bottom.
"What are you doing?" demanded Corwin.
"I'm taking a piss!" whispered Freya. "I'm not fighting a flaming dragon with a full bladder! Does anyone else need to go? Apart from Edwin, I reckon he's peed his robes already."
"Filthy beast!" muttered Edwin, adding; "Endure the insults for now, Odesseiron. As soon as the witch dies you may draw a line under this sorry business and return to civilization."
Bathroom breaks taken care of, the party returned to the cave and slipped inside as quietly as possible. Even the Hero's heart was thumping somewhat as they took in the sheer scale of the creature before them. It made the giant beetle look feeble by comparison. The dragon lay curled up sleeping, her fanged face tucked cosily under one vast emerald wing. Her scales rose and fell with her rancid breath, which was so powerful that it fanned their hair every time she exhaled.
Freya slipped off her boots and led the party quietly around it. At one point they froze, thinking the dragon was about to wake up. She grunted discontentedly and shifted in her sleep, swishing her enormous tail and sending a small avalanche of tinkling golden coins skittering down from her horde. There were sapphires glittering in that pile and flawless diamonds, too heavy to put into a pendant. The werewolf looked at them longingly, but kept the party moving until they had crossed the cave to a set of stairs leading down into the dark.
"Our less-than-lucid lycanthrope does not intend to lunge like a lunatic against this lethargic lizard?" asked Baeloth.
"He means he is surprised that you do not mean to fight the beast and claim her horde," translated Viconia helpfully. "We all are."
"I… can't," sighed Freya.
"So, the mad dog isn't totally lacking in common sense," muttered Corwin.
"It's not that," whispered Freya, looking wistfully at the dragon and fingering the hilts of her swords. "It's just that taking out a dragon was always mine and Coran's special thing. It doesn't feel right to slay one without him."
Rasaad was not entirely sure whether the mad-dog was joking or not. He certainly wouldn't put it past her. The monk caught Corwin's eye, and she grimaced and rolled her eyes at Freya. He smiled at her and shrugged helplessly and they descended the stairs after their leader. Viconia came down next, summoning her flaming sword for light, with Edwin and Baeloth bringing up the rear.
"One day I'd like to have a dungeon of my own," chuckled Edwin, looking around enviously at the branching labyrinth and rubbing his hands together. "I'll fill it with traps and monsters and lock all my treasure away where nobody can ever find it!"
"Great idea. You should invite us to a dungeon-warming party when you're done," suggested Freya innocently. She transformed again so that she could sniff the direction of the captives, then turned back. It would not be a great idea to do this too many more times without a break. Transforming could be somewhat fatiguing.
"So that you can plunder my riches? Is that your plan werewolf? I think not!" snapped Edwin. "I am watching you, you depraved brute. Always watching."
They followed the scent of the captured crusaders through the maze of tunnels, finding nothing more threatening along the way than a few mangy bugbears. Corwin was starting to doubt the accuracy of the werewolf's nose and had the party split up to search more tunnels. Freya was certain she knew what she smelled though, and continued down the tunnel alone until she finally ran into their first fellow human.
He wore long black robes trimmed with purple, and embroidered over the chest was a symbol. A jawless skull set against a purple sun. The mark was known across Faerun as the calling card of the mad god, Cyric. They were in the right place, but Freya could take no pleasure in this. This temple felt uncomfortably familiar, full of vague memories and feelings, like a half-remembered dream.
"Who are you?" cried the robed man. "Actually never mind I just want to get out of here!"
"That mark…" whispered Freya. Twisted sounds and images flashed through her mind.
A laughing madman with a divine blade. Upstart! There was no way to escape this fate, but one could prepare for it. Split the lake into a thousand droplets just like Sarevok had said. The enemy would destroy the one last depleted droplet, but only one. The other droplets would fall in the end, and the lake would reform. The laughing lunatic… that mark…
"Cyric!" screamed Freya, in a voice that was not her own. Swept on a tidal wave of rage and hatred she threw herself at the cultist. The man's mouth contorted into a ring of shock and fright. He drew his dagger but he had no chance against the werewolf, even though she had not bothered to draw her own weapons. She barely registered what she was doing as her fist slammed down into his skull over and over. By the time she regained her senses, what was left was barely recognizable as a face.
The man's right eye socket was so badly shattered that it no longer held in the eyeball. It dangled out of his head, attached by nothing but a thin ribbon of nerves and connective tissue. Where his nose used to be, there was now a bleeding hole speckled with crushed cartilage. Blood was pouring from the cheek, which had burst like the skin of a grape, and cracked bits of tooth were scattered over the floor.
Footsteps came hurrying down the corridor. Freya scrambled to her feet looking down in horror at her own handiwork. Her fist was dripping with the dead cultist's blood. A fragment of his bone was embedded into her knuckle but she had been too high on inexplicable rage to notice the pain.
"By Selune, what happened?" cried Rasaad.
"I… he attacked me!" lied Freya, too petrified at her own loss of self-control to tell the others the truth. "I didn't have time to draw my swords. He pretended to surrender, then pulled a blade on me as he went past."
"A Cyricist," remarked Corwin disdainfully, prodding the Dark Sun symbol with her boot. "Looks like we've found them. You shouldn't have trusted him in the first place, Freya, it's a death cult. He will have made hundreds of sacrifices to his mad god. Cyricists worship murder."
"Yeah, yeah that's right," nodded Freya, still badly shaken but comforting herself with this notion. This man had deserved the violent end she dealt him. "They do."
Beyond the door that the cultist had just come through, they found the three crusaders. They had been locked in cages, presumably while they waited to be sacrificed. More to convince herself that she was not a murderous lunatic than out of genuine compassion, Freya decided to let these three go. They were not like the elites on the bridge but young and scrawny. Little more than canon fodder for the crusade.
"Help, let us out of here! Help!" cried the shortest of the three young men.
"Yeah no worries," said Freya distractedly. A wooden lever was placed conveniently by the cages. She tugged on it to let them out.
There was a hideous squelching noise and the party let out yells of shock. Six foot spikes erupted from the floor of the cage impaling the trapped crusaders. Each one was suspended between floor and ceiling on a spike. Two had been impaled by their abdomens and flopped backward, their unharmed faces could have been sleeping but for their wide, staring eyes. The shortest one had a spike shoot between his legs and straight up the middle, bisecting him neatly from bottom to top. Because there were still tendrils of flesh holding the two pieces together around the spike, gravity was very slowly pulling his halves down and apart, like a peeling banana. Drains were directing the blood away from their feet but only the drow, who were accustomed to this sort of thing, were managing not to gag.
"What the shit?" gasped Freya weakly, once she had managed to scrape her jaw off of the floor.
"Well at least it was quick," observed Corwin, looking a shade green.
Viconia reached into the cages and plucked the crusader badges from the dead recruits' chests. With the corner of Baeloth's robes she wiped the blood from them, explaining to a disgusted Corwin that they might be useful if they needed to send spies into the crusader ranks.
"It is not a very noble act to kill helpless prisoners," Rasaad remarked disapprovingly.
"I didn't do it on purpose, I was trying to let them out! I don't get it… what is the point of that?" yelped the werewolf. "If they're in the cages you've already trapped them. Just poke a spear through the bars to finish them off, it's a lot less effort than floor spikes. Those things must have taken months to install! And who cleans them? I mean seriously! Why bother?"
"Because they're maaaaad!" cackled a voice from the corner. "Mad followers of a mad god." She leaned forward eagerly, reaching a wrinkled deathly white arm through the bars. "My master would have had us use a spear or a dagger! Our lord was a craftsman of murder, theirs is a mere showman."
"Who the hell are you?" snapped Corwin. Viconia stepped forward and held her flaming sword up to the cage. Inside squatted a frail, emaciated woman. She was unclothed save for a loincloth, though this hardly mattered because her skin was so saggy that her breasts were just slightly larger wrinkles. Her quick, darting head perching on its overlong neck put Corwin in mind of the ostriches from the circus. Only those birds had eyes in their sockets. This woman had nothing but red, crusted knots of concave scar tissue.
"Forgotten servant to a forgotten god," the woman answered in a bitter, sing-song voice. She hopped to the other end of her cell, lippity, lippity like a dying frog. As she turned they saw a skull symbol tattooed onto her back, but instead of the Dark Sun of Cyric, this was the mark of Bhaal. "I was there when the mad-god came for my master, yes. Master needed Madele to tend to him. So many children. He had spent all but the tiniest sliver of his power. He was weak, so weak I had to chew his food."
She bared her gums at them and smacked them wetly together in demonstration. The old priestess would not be much good for chewing Bhaal's food anymore. She had only five teeth left that they could see and even those were rotten and black.
"This woman was present when Bhaal was slain by Cyric," marvelled Viconia. "The Dark Sun's minions must have imprisoned her years ago."
Freya crouched down, looking at the half-dead senior before her but picturing in her mind's eye the same face from years before.
Younger. Her hair was not thin and grey but black and curly. Her eyes had been a startling green and she'd had a mouth of bright white teeth, filed into points. She had always been skinny though. Much too skinny for Bhaal's liking. She was not one of the mothers, but a caretaker. Such a tender nursemaid toward the end, when his numerous progeny were almost all born and his powers drained to less than those of a mortal human…
"Madele," whispered Freya, stroking the blind old woman's face. The name came to her mind as though she were recognizing a long lost friend. "This used to be a temple of Bhaal and she was his priestess. Her name is Madele… Why do I know that?"
At the unfamiliar brush of another person's hand, Madele grasped the bars of the cage in distress. She gripped them so hard that her knuckles turned white and they shuddered back and forth. The bars would not break though. Even Freya could not snap them. They seemed to have been intentionally designed to wobble, to give the illusion that they were close to breaking, just to torment the captive.
"Faithful!" wailed Madele. "Though my name has withered to dust through the endless night, still may I be called faithful! Lone travellers wandered too close, fell into our nets and we cut out their hearts. Blood ran down my arms and I felt the Lord of Murder's blessing."
"Why would you worship a god of murder?" Rasaad cried, recoiling from the cage in revulsion.
"We waste time with this creature!" Viconia told Freya harshly. "Put her out of her misery if you like, but for Shar's sake let us move on!"
"SILENCE!" thundered Freya. Her voice boomed through the temple, so powerful that it seemed to the party as though the walls were shaking. That was bound to attract the attention of the cult. Any hope of a sleek, discrete operation to retrieve the wardstone was shattered. "Madele was loyal to me all these years! Through everything!"
"Bhaal, Freya," Rasaad spoke carefully. He was frowning at his leader with a troubled expression. They all were. "She was loyal to Bhaal."
"Yes…" said Freya. She raised her hand to her head which was throbbing uncomfortably. "Yes."
"The reign of Bhaal is long past," said Corwin uneasily. "He's dead. Freya, we should get the wardstone to get into Bridgefort and get out of here. I don't think this place agrees with you."
"No," agreed Freya. "The temple under Baldur's Gate where I killed Sarevok didn't either, but this place is worse. I feel weird." In fact she felt at home. Like this was her own domain, a place she belonged. She said, as much to remind herself as the others; "Bhaal is gone."
"A new age of Bhaal will be upon us and soon." Madele contradicted her. "It would be upon us already had the others not interfered. The cursed servants of the Dark Sun violated our temples, and before that, the Harpers stole our children."
"You were slaying your children as I recall," replied Viconia. There was a definite frosty edge to her voice. She had once been called upon to sacrifice a baby herself and her inability to do it had been the cause of her exile and all her problems since. "They cannot have been any great loss to you."
"We were serving the droplets by making them fall!" cried Madele insanely. "We were returning them to the lake!"
Shadows were flickering on the edges of Freya's vision. Brief outlines of people stepping in and out of the branching corridors, watching, listening and weighing up when to strike. Freya's roaring voice had alerted the cultists to their presence and now they were gathering.
"I am one of Bhaal's children," announced Freya. She wanted to speak with the blind priestess, to understand the memories she had of this place and what had happened when she attacked the first cultist. These assassins could wait.
"And he took you," whispered Madele. "A priestess and a Harper spy meeting in shadows, hiding their passion. But we saw. She could not hide her belly as their brat grew. Her Imoen would have made a fine priestess, she showed all the signs of her mother's power. Alianna was so proud of her whelp. But in the end, we let him take her so that he and his Harper friends would GO AWAY!"
"But Gorion didn't go away did he?" retorted Freya proudly, suddenly feeling less like Bhaal and more like herself. "Dad came back for us!" Then she added, in response to her party who were trying to draw her attention to the approaching cultists; "Firebomb the corridors if the little sods can't wait their turn!"
"Gorion? Come back for you? No, no, no," Madele cackled. "When little Imoen died he led the Harpers to steal our children but then what did he do? Mutilated the master's divine soul! Took a portion of each of you to make her a new soul. Oh, he is fortunate that he died before our Lord of Murder's revival, out of the reach of his retribution. His punishment would have been dire indeed!"
"I know what Dad did," said Freya in a stiffly defensive voice. "But he loved us. He would have saved us and raised us anyway, regardless of Imoen."
Suddenly they were bathed in blindingly bright light as Edwin and Baeloth each sent fireballs hurtling down the hallways. Corwin unleashed an arrow of detonation, partially collapsing one of the tunnels. Poor blind Madele could see none of this but she could hear the roar of the flames and the shrieks. She could feel the heat on her withered cheeks and smell the smoke. She cackled delightedly, and stroked Freya's thick, soft hair with undisguised affection.
"Then what about Sarevok?" Madele asked slyly, pressing her lips to the bars, as close to Freya as possible.
"What about him?" Freya replied warily.
"Sarevok was Alianna's son," Madele revealed in her creepy sing-song voice. "The son of the priestess he loved didn't get his soul shaved like the rest of you. Oh no! He was sent to be raised by a noble family. Gorion intended a life of wealth and comfort for Imoen's brother. But our agents got to him before this temple fell and set him on the right path."
"What 'right path?'" asked Rasaad.
"Why, to continue our work by destroying as many of his siblings as possible!" cried Madele, as though this were obvious.
Footsteps were approaching. The charred corpses of the acolytes lay smouldering on the ground. But a cult guarded by a dragon had to have more challenging opponents to offer. Freya got to her feet sharply and drew her swords, much to the relief of her companions.
"I will find the key and free you Madele," she promised. "Hang in there."
The cultists came sprinting through one of the burned out corridors. This helped rather than hampered the party since the Cyricists formed a trail of human breadcrumbs, leading them into the heart of the compound.
"Are you alright Freya?" Rasaad asked, his face creased in concern. "You have been behaving very strangely since we came to this temple."
Freya was spared from having to answer by Edwin opening a bad door. He peered inside and let out a feeble wail. It seemed that the cult liked to keep pets. A colossal violet worm burst through the mosaiced floor. It flailed its facial tentacles at Freya from a dizzying height, reaching almost to the top of the cavern.
"Woah!" grinned Freya, her grey eyes lighting up. "Now this is more like it!"
"The demented pooch is back to normal!" cried Edwin in mock-celebration. "How did it come to this? Following a lunatic down the gullet of a colossal earthworm."
"First we battle that beast of a beetle and now this bogging burrowing behemoth!" Baeloth agreed. "Is our bigwig boss hell-bent on seeing us beaten by bugs?"
"Come on comrades, let's clear this coterie of Cyric converts and crazies," boomed Freya in a taunting but accurate imitation of Baeloth.
"No!" snapped Corwin, slamming the door in the disappointed werewolf's face. "We are here to find the wardstone and that is all. I am not battling anything else with you today that hasn't got a spine!"
They hacked and slashed their way through legions of cultists until they reached a large room in the compound. One entire wall was blanketed by an aging tapestry of a dragon in its death throws. On another the bricked wall had been removed to reveal the natural cave rock. Into it someone had started to carve a new statue of Cyric. It was clearly a work in progress. A chisel and a pile of chipped rock fragments lay at his protruding stone sandals. In its half-completed form it looked as though the mad-god was emerging, laughing, from the rockface itself.
Yet whatever the original purpose of the alcove had been, and whatever future purpose the artist had in mind for it, it was clear that its current function was to be a sparsely furnished office.
Unimpressive though the office itself was, the administrator occupying it was another matter. The winged humanoid clearly had some draconic ancestry. She had a lipless fanged snout, green crocodile-like skin and a flicking forked tongue. Her broad torso was crammed into a suit of ill-fitting human armour, though this was largely redundant due to the thickness of her hide. Cyric's symbol was beat into the metal, and she wielded a fat meat-cleaver of a blade.
"A half-kobold? Huh," said Freya cocking her head to one side. "Vampires can reform, goblins talk and humans and kobolds can breed. This whole trip has been a proper biology lesson."
"My name is Ziatar, sister of the dragon upstairs and priestess of Cyric!" the part-dragon rumbled softly, "And you will regret calling me a kobold when you are watching your innards slithering away down my master's altar. Guards! Defend me!"
Freya gathered her party next to the door, in the shadow of Cyric's statue, as Zieltar's elite guard came running to defend their mistress. As the last of them crossed the threshold, looking around wildly for the intruders, Freya shoved her people out of the room behind them. She stood between them and the cultists blocking the way out and cried; "Edwin! Baeloth! Fumigate the room!"
Spiderwebs coated the floor, binding the cultists' feet like steel manacles. This was followed by an eruption of brown and yellow clouds. The stench was unbearable and as they breathed it in, the Cyricists began to choke. Freya planted her boot squarely on the nearest cultist's chest, sending him tumbling back into the toxic fumes and slammed the door, trapping them inside.
They waited, watching tendrils of poison eking out from under the door crack. When the air cleared and they opened the door, all of their enemies were spread-eagled on the floor unconscious. Edwin sent a fireball tumbling into the room for good measure. The flames roasted the furniture and burned up the tapestry with a choking smell of burning dust. Only Ziatar herself survived, slumped at the feet of the statue of Cyric. Corwin took advantage of her unconscious state to shoot an acid arrow at point-blank range through her reptilian jaws.
There was little to plunder from the room. The office had mainly contained flammable documents. Only the key to Madele's cage had survived the inferno. They were about to leave when the dragon tapestry smouldering away revealed a mural underneath. Freya brushed the ashes from it, frowning. It was a montage carved into the wall. It showed hundreds of tear-like droplets falling from the sky to fill a great lake, and the avatar of the Lord of Murder rising out of it.
"The lake becomes the droplets…" Freya squinted at it, remembering Sarevok's strange words in her dream. "And the droplets become the lake."
"Cyric's mouth opens!" Viconia pointed out. "Look!"
She reached her arm between the statue's laughing teeth and drew out handfuls of what appeared to be Ziatar's horde. It was smaller than that of her true-dragon sister but contained at least a thousand gold pieces, an opal tiara and some sizable pearls. The sword in Cyric's scabbard could be pulled out, and they handed it to Rasaad to hold. By far the most important find in the sparkling collection was a palm-sized granite pebble engraved with glowing blue runes.
"The wardstone!" cried Corwin. "Good! Let's get out of here before that sleeping dragon finishes her siesta."
Slow, deliberate footsteps clicked daintily into the room behind them. They turned around slowly. A tall necromancer in a skull mask (Freya was pretty sure that it was fashioned from a real skull) slipped into the room. Her robes were a sinister, sickly purple and formed tendrils at the bottom like the flames of the Dark Sun. She extended both hands before her and there was a sudden chill, as though all the heat and energy were being sucked from the room.
A dark, organic energy bubbled between her palms and the party's wizards. The cultist threw her head back with a shudder of pleasure, as she drew their life force into herself. As her spell completed and she lowered her palms, both Edwin and Baeloth collapsed, dead.
Freya and Rasaad charged her. The werewolf ought to have been able to take her down, but overconfidence proved her undoing. As she reached the necromancer a series of contingency spells fired at the same time, grasping the Hero in a giant invisible fist, striking her with lightning and paralyzing her. Rasaad's punches were not sufficient to break through her defensive spells. She sneered at the monk mockingly, then lifted him with a second unseen hand and hurled him into the stone wall next to Cyric.
Rasaad flopped down. He was struggling to his feet but it was obvious to Viconia that he had broken his collarbone and probably several ribs. Their archer was not moving a muscle. Cyric's high priestess had laced Corwin under a Hold Person curse and only her eyes flickered helplessly.
Cyric's servant now advanced slowly on Viconia, the last member of the party still able to fight. A magical missile flew at the drow, leaving a comet trail of glitter behind it. She dodged the first and her magic blocked the second, but the next five hit her in the chest, blasting her again and again. The drow collapsed wheezing and the Cyricist slashed her face with a dagger and kicked Viconia's already broken ribs. Cobwebs sprung from her fingers, binding Viconia. The Dark Sun leader smiled and pulled her dagger to finish the sacrifice. Memories raced through Viconia's mind of being bound to the alter of Lolth, before her brother had rescued her, and she froze in terror.
"NO!" hollered Freya but there was nothing she could do.
Viconia screwed her eyes closed as the dagger fell. There was a sickening squelch of puncturing flesh, but she felt no pain. Cautiously she opened one red eye and squeaked in terror. Rasaad had thrown his injured body between the priestess and her victim and had been rewarded with a dagger through his lung. Blood spurted from the monk's mouth and nose. The necromancer pulled her dagger from his chest, threw him aside with one of her magical hands and prepared to stab Viconia. The drow was too badly injured to attempt to defend herself. She threw her body flat on the floor, with her arm protecting her head and howled.
Suddenly there was a crunch of shattering rock, a resounding crash reverberated through the room and the floor shook.
"Woah!" breathed Freya. Then she cried more urgently. "Viconia! Healing potions, save Rasaad!"
Viconia scrambled up from the floor, with difficulty and couldn't believe her eyes. The statue of Cyric had detached itself from the wall and crushed his own priestess. The dead woman was completely covered in stone but the arm holding the dagger she had meant to use on Viconia poked out. A scarlet pool of blood was spreading out from under the mad-god's prone form.
The drow fumbled frantically through Freya's pack for the healing potions, tipping them one after another down Rasaad's neck until he stopped coughing blood. He lay on the ground wheezing heavily and moaning in pain. Only then did she take a couple of potions for herself. The foolish boy had tried to sacrifice himself to buy her a few more minutes. What a useful, loyal male he could be if only there were someone to train him properly! There was no way to revive Baeloth and Edwin without taking them back to camp, and nothing to do about the immobilized human women except wait for the spells binding them to wear off.
"What did you do?" asked Freya, awed.
"Nothing!" Viconia frowned. She looked from the fallen statue of Cyric to the place it had occupied in the wall. The image had been carved into the rock face itself. There was no conceivable way it could have simply toppled over. "My eyes were closed. What did you see?"
"It just ripped itself out of the wall!" Freya replied, flexing her fingers, trying to shake the spell. "Fuck me, I thought we'd had it that time for sure!"
"Mmmph! MMMPPH!" chipped in Corwin, but they had to wait a few minutes for her to regain control of her body to understand what she was trying to say. "Look at his back! Look at the statue's back!"
They looked at it. It was just robes, hair and bare legs. It could have been the back of any number of statues. At first glance there was nothing peculiar about it, until they remembered. The statue was half carved out of the cave wall. The back had not been chiselled out yet. It should be a lump of amorphous rock, not a rear with more lifelike carving than the front.
"Ok, that's weird," admitted Freya. "But at least we're alive!" She glanced at Edwin and Baeloth. "Well most of us are anyway. Best get these two stiffs back to camp and bring them back."
"Are you sure you want to bother?" asked Corwin. Freya considered this.
"Eh, they found Irenicus's tracking wardstone," she shrugged. "Probably be as well to keep them around."
On the way back they came to Madele's cage. Freya pulled the key out and unlocked it.
"There," she panted. "You're free."
"I'll never be free!" wept Madele. "I am bound to the Lord of Murder! He guides me even when he is silent… so silent." Her voice rose to a hysterical, pleading scream. "I am here! I do as you will!"
"Madele, you have proven your devotion and earned your place in Bhaal's realm a thousand times over," Freya comforted her. "Leave this place and live out your life as you see fit. You don't need to sacrifice anymore."
"That goes against everything my lord taught me," Madele whispered. Sadly or hopefully, the party could not tell. Then a deep frown line appeared between her eyes. "Everything is going to be different now isn't it?"
"Yes it is," whispered Freya, holding her close. "Try to find something to care for if you can. You cared for Bhaal as he was dying, and in spite of everything you never abandoned him. Keep faith a little longer. Wait in the Fugue Plane. Heed no offers from demons or other gods. You shall hold an honoured place in Bhaal's domain."
"You can't promise that!" croaked Rasaad, who despite the healing potions was still badly beaten up and thoroughly spooked.
"Oh, but she can," Madele whispered in a croak. "The lake has become the droplets, but as the rains fall the droplets will reform the lake. Thank you Master. Thank you."
"Lake… droplets… that's exactly what Sarevok said!" Freya yelped, shaking her. "What does it mean?"
"When the time of troubles came to an end we tried to make the rains fall faster," Madele whispered. "Rains of blood, and so many droplets we made fall over our alters, but it wasn't enough. They intervened; cowards, traitors! All with their own selfish reasons. Some smuggled you out, others murdered your mothers and took you. Too many of you survived. You cannot reform, Master, not yet. But I will wait," she promised. "I will wait."
By the time the party limped back to the surface, mercifully leaving the snoring dragon undisturbed, they were too fatigued to attempt returning to camp. They tied up Edwin and Baeloth in their bedrolls to prevent their carcasses from being dragged off by wild animals. Corwin and Freya, who were less hurt than the other two, prepared a small meal and laid out their bedrolls. Viconia frowned deeply into the fire, lost in troubled thoughts.
"He will be alright," Rasaad reassured her. Viconia looked up questioningly. "Baeloth. Please do not be distressed. They will be able to revive him, I am sure. The spell drained his life energy but his body is entirely untouched."
"I don't care about them!" snapped the drow impatiently. Though perhaps it would be closer to the truth to say that she didn't care much. She was fond of Baeloth, despite his attempt to sacrifice her to the Spider Queen, and she had been quite distraught when the priestess stabbed Rasaad. Though her overriding fear for her own survival had enabled her to mask it. "I was thinking about that Cyric statue."
"That was very strange," admitted Rasaad. "There must be a rational explanation, but I am struggling to see what it could be."
Viconia looked into the monk's calm, reassuring face. Her eyes traced him, appreciating more than just his physique. She felt safer in his presence somehow. Then there was Freya, who was sitting beside him. What the Hero lacked in brains she made up for in sheer power and force of personality. A leader even a drow could respect. Trust was a weakness, and weakness was death. She had set her heart against ever trusting anybody again so why, of all people, was she finding herself letting her guard down in the presence of a pair of Selunites?
"There is something else…" began Viconia. As a Sharran she revelled in secrets and was reticent to tell hers. Yet Lolth's personal intervention to stop Baeloth from sacrificing her had her completely confounded. These two worshippers of her goddess's enemy both had extensive education in religious matters. Perhaps they could offer some useful insight, so she told them about her visit from the Spider Queen.
"Shar saved you, Lolth saved you, Cyric saved you," Corwin listed. Her disdainful tone made it very clear that she did not consider being rescued by such entities to be a good thing. "You're a popular little elf."
"Ha! Maybe you're this 'Servant of all Faiths!'" teased Freya. Then she actually thought about it, and her expression changed. She was looking at Viconia aghast, as though she were really seeing her for the first time. The werewolf leaned forward and said seriously; "Holy crap. I reckon you are!"
"If you are going to mock me..." Viconia spat impatiently.
"I'm not!" Freya replied emphatically. "The Spider Queen descended from her celestial cobweb to personally spare one of her enemies. How often does that happen?"
"Never," replied Viconia slowly. "She would not even do so for her most prized servants in the normal scheme of things. When her favourites die, whoever slew them becomes the new favourite. Lolth values strength in her followers and detests weakness."
"So does Shar. And yet she called you to her priesthood when you fled to the surface as a weak helpless exile. Why?" Freya pressed.
"I always assumed that she had done something particularly terrible even by drow standards," said Rasaad darkly. "And that the Nightwhisperer had claimed her for her own."
"Thank you!" beamed Viconia, sincerely flattered. Then she frowned. "But no. That is not what happened. I had worshipped the Spider Queen for an age and a half, far longer than all three of your ages combined. I had sacrificed many to her insatiable rage; drow and surfacer alike. Yet there came a time when my faith in Lolth was no more."
"Couldn't have come to that conclusion before you murdered all those people, could you?" sneered Corwin.
"I lapsed when a child… a baby… was to die. It would not have made Lolth stronger or more influential or a greater deity. I lost my will that day." Viconia paused and took a deep breath. "One of the lesser priestesses, eager to usurp my position in Lolth's favour, sensed my hesitation and sacrificed the little one herself."
"One split second of doubt and she destroyed your whole family?" Freya raised an eyebrow. "Damn. No wonder Baeloth was shitting bricks when she turned up in your tent."
"There was a little more to it than that," said Viconia coldly. "True, the incident threw our house into disfavour and left us vulnerable but I had an opportunity to prostrate myself before the Spider Queen and redeem myself as a drow. But I refused. I was disgusted with my queen so I cursed my mother and endangered our house. I naively thought that I would survive my actions."
"Why would you think that?" asked Corwin, bemused. "Even we mere-surfacers know of Lolth's intolerance of insubordination. She does not even permit the acknowledgement of other drow gods."
"I thought it because…" Viconia hesitated, then admitted. "Because I had been saved by divine intervention before. Things like that Cyric statue falling and crushing the priestess have happened to me many times over the years. In my arrogance I imagined myself blessed, favoured by multiple deities. Chosen."
"Because you are!" insisted Freya. "Bugger me with a ram's horn! Hey, Captain, we've got the Chosen One in our party. Can't you just picture Caelar's face when she finds out about this?"
"You can't tell people!" Corwin and Viconia cried in unison. Freya looked quite put out.
"Why the hells not?"
"Well for starters Freya, nobody is going to believe you," said Corwin. "I'm not sure I do actually, and for seconds in the minds of the soldiers there are two candidates for the Servant of All Faiths: Caelar and you. The instant you start going around telling people that you're not the chosen one you give the crusade a huge boost."
"The Flaming Fist harpy speaks true. I am drow," said Viconia wryly. "The rivvil will not follow me whether I am the Servant of all Faiths or not."
"Which you obviously are," cut in Freya. "Shar rescued you and granted you use of her powers after you spared a baby. You made yourself weak by sparing the life of someone even weaker. Sorry Viccy, but that doesn't make you classic Sharran material."
"It is... strange." Viconia admitted stiffly. "I have often wondered about that. But I was not about to reject survival so freely offered. I did not worry too much about the why."
"I am sorry for misjudging you," Rasaad said quietly. "I had always believed that you had done something in the Underdark too terrible even for the drow. Had I known of your compassion and mercy-"
"Do not insult me male!" Viconia hissed at him. "If you think me weak now, I will gladly correct you!"
"But all of the gods we have mentioned so far are evil," Rasaad continued his sentence. He had long since learned to brush aside her threats and insults. "The Servant of all Faiths is supposed to be chosen by… well… all faiths."
Viconia and Corwin turned to Freya as if to say; 'see?'
"Ok," reasoned Freya, chewing on a long stalk of grass thoughtfully. "How many servants of good and neutral gods have tried to kill you since you came here? Priests, paladins, warriors?"
"Numbers beyond count," the drow replied bitterly.
She picked up a stone and tossed it at their campfire bad temperedly, making pretty red sparks fly out. They reflected and danced in her ruby eyes as she glared at them.
"Aha!" grinned Freya triumphantly. "And how many succeeded?"
"You make an interesting point," replied Viconia. "But I would prefer not to trust to divine intervention."
"And you won't have to!" Freya assured her bracingly. She flipped out her right-hand sword and held her hilt to Viconia. "I shall protect you Chosen One. I swear it on my honour."
"You don't have any honour," observed Corwin acidly.
"Alright," conceded Freya. "But I swear it just the same. She's the servant of all gods, and that includes mine, Selune. Maybe if I protect her that'll compensate for all the church rules I've broken or intend to break."
Rasaad winced at this brazen statement but Viconia smirked and raised a thin silvery eyebrow.
"Would you be so quick to swear me your allegiance if I were a man?" she enquired teasingly.
"Nope," said Freya, winking unapologetically. "But take survival when it is so freely offered. Don't worry about the why."
They sat around the fire in thoughtful silence for a while, trying not to look at Edwin and Baeloth in their body-bags. Somebody would have to sleep with the dead wizards in their tent tonight to prevent them from being dragged away by forest beasts. Each of the surviving party were hoping that if they did not mention it, it wouldn't be them.
Finally Rasaad remembered the sword that they had taken from the statue of Cyric and handed it around the group for inspection. It would normally fall to Baeloth or Edwin to identify an artefact like this, but in this case, the mages were not needed. Their leader recognized the blade the instant she got a proper look at it. Despite the sorry state that the party was in, their prize seemed to delight her.
"Do you know what this is?" Freya cried excitedly.
"I have a feeling you're going to tell me," sighed Corwin.
"This is his sword! Sarevok's actual sword!" the werewolf grinned, her eyes sparkling. She leapt to her feet and gave it a wild swing, bouncing on the balls of her feet like an over-excited puppy. "I was too wolf-crazy to pick it up in the temple after I took him down, and by the time anyone came back for it, the thing had been stolen. Those fucking Cyricists must have made off with it. Ha!"
"What good is Sarevok's sword to you? You dual wield," snapped Corwin. "What are you going to do with a broadsword?"
"Carry it! Use it!" grinned Freya. "Chop wood with it for the campfire! Trust me Sarevok is watching this from the afterlife and fuming. I have the bastard's sword. That's better than cuckolding him. Ha ha! Oh wait- I know exactly what I'm going to do with it."
"Marching and drills for a while at least," cut in Corwin. "With the crusader's badges someone should be able to get past the blockade and use the wardstone to access Bridgefort, but it can't be us. We'll have to send Arowan."
"Why?" frowned Freya, slightly insulted.
"Because we'll be recognized from a mile away, badges or no badges! I am the Captain of the Flaming Fist, we have a pair of drow with us and you attract attention like a lighthouse attracts moths!" groaned Corwin. "There is no way that this party is sneaking into the crusader camp unnoticed."
"Fine, send Arrow. But we've got better things to do than drills. We need to send word to Baldur's Gate and get Coran up here sharpish," Freya insisted, "Because I know what we're going to do while we're waiting!"
"What is that?" the monk asked apprehensively. He did not want to see Coran again. Not while he was still trying to work out where he and Arrow stood. Freya winked conspiratorially and draped one arm over his shoulder and the other over Viconia's.
"You, me, Coran… and Corwin if you're up for it," the Hero grinned, in a tone that suggested she was about to announce the holiday of a lifetime, "Are going to slay that fucking dragon!"