As always, I own little, and reviews are welcome.
Chapter Twenty-One: Shades
Kera stared at Gorion and knew that he could not be real. He could not, she told herself silently. She had seen him fall, and she had seen his blood on the ground near Candlekeep, and she had seen his face all waxen and cold afterwards.
"Gorion!"
He had told her to be quiet, and she had. He had told her to hide, while the strangers circled him. She had, and now, while she supposed they had left, taking their victory with them, she knelt beside him.
"Gorion," she said again, and she found that she did not care if the strangers heard her, if they came back for her, if they sent one of their friends looking. "Father."
She touched the side of his face, and he was cold. She looked at her own fingers, curled against his skin, and she wondered why she was not sobbing or howling over him. "Father," she said again. "Please…" Please, what, she wondered? Tell her who they had been? Tell her who the tall man in the grey armour had been, the man with the fierce yellow eyes?
Why, she thought, why had he not run also? Why had he stayed and looked so calmly at the strangers as they came out of the trees?
She had seen him stumble, had heard him cry out. She had seen it when the tall man had driven him to his knees, and pushed a sword into his chest.
Something cold splashed against her fingers, and she found that she was crying, silently, her throat painfully tight. She closed her eyes against the swell of tears.
"Kera," Gorion said, and his voice was the same. "Kera. Child. What are you doing here?"
She opened her mouth, and the words died on her lips. She needed to demand what he was, really, beneath this shape he wore, this shape that belonged to a dead man. He could not be Gorion, could not be the man who had led her out of Candlekeep the same night that he had died.
"I'm…" she muttered, and shook her head. "You're not Gorion."
He smiled. "How could I not be?"
"You're dead."
"Child, this is foolishness." Gorion's smile stayed, and he stepped closer. The rain pattered against his shoulders, broad beneath his robes, and his hair hung in damp tangles. "I am here, with you. You know me, don't you?"
"No," Kera said, and stepped back. She reached out blindly and found Solaufein's hand, and then the supporting weight of his arm. "You're not real. You can't be. I watched you die. Sarevok killed you."
"This world of ours is strange, is it not? Can I not be here with you despite that night?"
She wanted to believe it. She wanted it to be true. She wanted him to be real and to be whole and to be her father again, as he always had been in Candlekeep.
"The world is strange," Kera said slowly. "But you are not Gorion. I don't know what you are, but you are not Gorion. You are wearing his shape, and you are not him."
"Foolish child," Gorion snapped. "Can you not see reason, even now?"
"What are you, really?" She searched his face, and saw the tiny, faded scars that ran down his cheek and into his beard. "What are you?"
"Father?"
"Yes, child?"
She shifted around on the windowsill. The edges of her book were digging into her legs, and the clear spill of sunlight through the casement convinced her that she would rather be outside. "I've finished it."
"No, you haven't," he answered, without looking up. His hand kept moving, the quill sweeping elegant black inkstrokes across the parchment. "You read fast but not that fast."
"Sorry."
His head lifted, and he smiled. "Go on, then. Get yourself out of here."
She dropped onto the cool stone floor, and laid the book back on his desk. She looked at him, and saw the small spread of pale scars again. "Where did you get those?"
"These?" He leaned back in his chair. In the bright fall of the sunlight, his smile turned sad, and old, and again she wondered why. "Oh, a long time ago. Not long after you were born."
"I am what I appear to be," he said, and the light in his dark eyes was strange, hooded. "I am your father."
No, she thought. Her father was Bhaal, and Bhaal's scent was everywhere, in the rocks and the rain and the heavy, dragging sound of Gorion's robes across the stone.
"You sound different," Imoen said, hesitantly. "You don't…Gorion was never angry. Not like that."
"Should I not be angry?" He swung around, and Imoen froze. "I left Candlekeep with your sister that night, and I was killed. Due to her being there, due to her blood calling those who would end her life."
"Gorion," Imoen said, and her voice cracked. "Don't…say such things. Don't…"
"Don't? Don't say that had your sister never been brought to Candlekeep, I might still have been alive? Don't say that you and she are the cause of all this?"
"Sarevok was the cause," Kera said.
"Sarevok would never have come to Candlekeep. He would never have sent assassins first. He would never have waited in the forest that night. You were the cause that brought him."
"No, I…"
"And had you not waited," he said, coldly. "Had you not dawdled in the stables, and in the library, perhaps we could have been gone from Candlekeep all the sooner, and safely into the night."
"No." These were lies, she knew, lies and blame and second-guesses. Even so, her eyes prickled, and something heavy settled in the pit of her stomach. "No. It wasn't like that."
"Wasn't it?" He was closer, stepping across the rain-slick stones, and she could smell the dust and the parchment and the ink, the thick ebony ink that had been his favourite. "Was it not true, child," he said, and his face twisted into a smile. "Was it not true that you had no wish to leave, and it was only after you spilled blood in the stables that you realised you had to leave?"
"Yes, but…"
"Do you remember how it felt, seeing a man's death before you? His life shed by your hand?"
"No, I…"
"You came to me white and shaking, child. Do you remember it? His blood was all over you, child. Do you remember?"
She did, and even when she pressed her hands against her eyes, she saw him, the assassin, the man who had tried to kill her in the stables. She remembered the sudden slackening of his features when she drove the dagger in, and how his breath had caught wetly in his throat.
She felt Solaufein's hand drop away from hers, and she opened her eyes in time to see him sliding in front of her.
"Enough," the drow said. "She has heard enough."
"You would have a drow speak for you, child? Except…he does far more than just speak for you, doesn't he?"
"This is pointless," Jaheira said, and Kera heard the woman's voice waver. "This accomplishes nothing. We need…"
"You take a drow into your bed? A drow who should not be on the surface? This drow?"
Kera opened her mouth, and could not quite frame the right words. She looked at Imoen, and at Jaheira, and saw nothing but uncertainty. They were waiting, waiting for her, she supposed. They don't know what to do, she thought, and the realization of it jolted through her.
"You know nothing of him," she said, quietly. "You know nothing of us."
"Don't I?" Gorion's gaze sharpened on the drow, raking over him. "In his eyes I see betrayal, and regret. It clings to him, child. His foolishness caused more than just his own downfall, and he should have died for it. Can you not feel it on him?"
Solaufein growled, low in his throat, and his hand flew to his sword hilt. "Be silent."
"Silent? When you stand before me, with your thoughts and your eyes all full of her?"
"You know not of what you speak, creature. My thoughts are my own."
"Are they? You sent her to her death, drow. And yet here you stand, in this world that is not yours."
Solaufein's sword was half clear of his scabbard when the air shifted and rippled into a shape of ebony skin and a heavy fall of white hair. Proud eyes above high cheekbones, and a smile that Kera almost recognized. The rain fell and flecked against the strong planes of her face and ran in thin lines across the slope of her neck.
"Look at me," the shape said, and the voice was Phaere's, soft and cajoling. "Solaufein. Look at me, Solaufein."
His shoulders were rigid. "I am looking at you."
"So obedient." She lifted a ringed hand and touched the side of his face.
Kera swallowed and forced back the sudden, terrible urge to drag him aside, to leave Phaere touching nothing but air.
"Beautiful," Phaere said, and her fingers brushed against his mouth. "You are still so beautiful, Solaufein. Do you remember it? Do you remember us? Do you remember how I had you in the temple, and then on the surface, in the night?"
Solaufein jerked away from her.
"Oh, you do remember. You remember how it was, don't you?"
He growled something in drow, and she laughed.
"But how could I not be myself? Am I not here, before you?" She touched his hair, where the white strands lay thick and wet against his face. "You did this, Solaufein. You wanted House Despana destroyed, and with them, my life as well. You let it happen, and you wanted it to happen."
"Ardulace," he said, and shook his head.
"Ardulace would have fallen, in time. Your haste for revenge brought my death, Solaufein, and the fault is yours. You betrayed us, Solaufein. You betrayed me."
His mouth moved soundlessly, and something twisted in Kera's chest. Without thinking, she grasped his hand, and murmured, "They're not real. She's not real. She's not Phaere."
"These things that they know…how else could they know them?"
"She's not Phaere," she said again. She caught his chin, and turned his head. "Solaufein. They're not real, and we need to decide what to do about them."
"Yes. Yes, we do." The words spilled out in a strange, shuddering rush. "Forgive me."
She let her hand linger against his face a moment longer. Then she turned, and drew her sword, and looked into Gorion's face. "I tire of this, and I would know what you are, and why you toy with us this way."
"Toy with you, child? Why would I do that?"
"The truth," Jaheira said, firmly. She moved, so that her shoulder was against Kera's. "The truth, and then leave us, or face us."
"The truth?" Gorion's smile spread wider, and he looked at Kera. "For your soul, godchild. Your soul and that of your sister. It has been long since blood was spilled here, upon these stones, for your father."
Solaufein crossed the distance between them first. The tip of his sword met Gorion's shoulder, and Kera almost looked away. But Gorion only laughed, or seemed to, and the outline of his robes dissolved. Solaufein's blade sheared deeper, and glanced against dark, scaled skin. The creature – whatever it was, whatever it had been beneath Gorion's shape – twisted, and Solaufein stumbled. Haer'Dalis dived in front of the drow, both swords flicking up to brace against the downward swipe of the creature's claws.
Half aware of Imoen calling her name, Kera dragged herself away. She heard the crackling sound of some spell, and her knees buckled when it drove full-force into her chest. Valygar moved in front of her, and she heard the other creature howl. She gritted her teeth and shoved back up to her feet. She saw the creature falter, and when Minsc swept his mace against its legs, it toppled. Valygar pushed his sword almost hilt-deep into the thing's body, and it thrashed. A second blow from the ranger's mace stilled it, and a third removed most of its head.
The other creature - the thing that had worn Gorion's shape and used Gorion's voice – bled dark blood when Solaufein's sword raked its shoulder open. Kera darted past Valygar, and ignored Jaheira's warning to stay back. Haer'Dalis spun around and behind it, and sank both blades into the flesh above the jutting points of its hips. The creature wrenched away, and the tiefling's swords tore clear. The creature shrieked, and Kera paused. She looked into its pointed, narrow face, and found that she could not quite see it, not really. She could see angles and fierce black eyes and teeth, and the flickering suggestion of something else, something beneath its skin.
"What are you?" she murmured.
"The truth," the thing answered, in Gorion's voice. "Your truth, child of Bhaal. Your thoughts. Your blood. I know them. I know you."
She remembered running in the gardens of Candlekeep, and how the white gravel crunched beneath her heels. She remembered the pale billow of dandelion seeds as they blew away from her sister's lips. She remembered sitting at the window, knees drawn up and sharing the sill with Imoen, while the air smelled of apples and late afternoon sunlight. She remembered the cobwebs in the hayloft, and how they clung to her face. She remembered the bristling handfuls of the hay, and how she had shoved too much of it down Imoen's back and how her sister had shrieked and giggled.
She remembered Gorion, and the weight of his hand on her shoulder. She remembered the night, that night, when she had followed the trailing edge of his robe as he led her out of Candlekeep.
"Come with me, child. Stay fast and silent. I will not lie to you. You are in danger, and I will protect you for as long as I can."
"No," she said. "You don't."
The thing snarled, and lunged up at her. She jerked back from it, and when her heels skidded on the wet stone, she knew she had not quite moved far enough. The claws lashed out, and dug into her thigh. She wrenched away, and the sudden burst of pain made her cry out. She saw Solaufein, and the arcing motion of his sword as he leaped at it.
Haer'Dalis steadied her, both hands on her shoulders. "My raven," he said, and it came out breathless. "Your timing is, as ever, utterly atrocious."
"Kill it," she ground out. "I want it dead."
"It's dead," Solaufein answered. He straightened up, and pulled his sword clear of the creature's neck. "Kera?"
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine," Jaheira said, her tone acerbic. "You're bleeding all over the ground. Let me see."
She obeyed, and Haer'Dalis very carefully turned her so the druid could scrutinize the gash on her thigh. The tiefling grinned, a little raggedly, and said, "She's all yours, my darkling friend. My swords need cleaning."
She sank into Solaufein's arms, and she could feel him shaking slightly. "Are you alright?"
"Am I alright? I am not bleeding," he replied, softly. "I…I will be alright."
She nodded, and bit her lip when Jaheira's spell buzzed over the wound in her leg. The cool press of salve followed, and another spell, while she leaned against the drow, and turned her face against the fluttering pulse in his throat.
"Kera," Imoen said awkwardly, from somewhere behind her. "Are you alright?"
"I think so."
"That was…" Imoen laughed, and it sounded dry and anxious. "That was strange."
"Very," Kera said, and turned so that she could look at her sister. "It couldn't have been him. You know that, yes?"
"Yes." Imoen pressed her hands together before bringing one up to tug and twist at the sodden hanks of hair near her ear. "I wanted it to be. Even if it didn't make sense. Even if it couldn't be. Do you know what I mean?"
"Yes," she answered. She reached out, clasped Imoen's hand. "I do know what you mean."
Under the steady, warm fall of the rain, Solaufein followed Kera as she stepped through the ruined gates. His hand on his sword hilt was not steady enough for his liking. His hair hung in thick, soaked waves, and he was too aware of the weight of it against his neck. His armour seemed heavier that it should have, and it clung to him.
He saw steps first, rising up from cracked blocks that marked out a courtyard. Above, vines curled over wide platforms and travelled the height of carved columns. A single, square-cut slab stood between them, and dark streaks spread across the pale stone. There were statues as well, he saw next, and strange shapes hewn into the stone, and he remembered standing in the scented darkness before Lolth's altar.
"This is a temple," he murmured into Kera's ear.
She nodded. Her face was pale and tight, her brown eyes narrowed. "Yes."
"A temple," Imoen said. She crouched down, and pushed past a spray of ferns. Beneath, jagged markings ran across the stone, half filled with moss. "A temple for Bhaal. Who would want to build a temple for Bhaal?"
"Lots of people," Kera muttered.
"Be careful," Jaheira said. "We don't know that this place is empty."
Kera stopped, and tipped her head back. She breathed in slowly, and he found himself watching the rain as it ribboned her face.
You are still so beautiful, the creature wearing Phaere's form had said. And she had said that to him, once, in the silence of her chambers, when the doors had been locked and they had hoped Ardulace's spies were not watching. Kera had said it as well, he remembered, while they had lain next to each other in Saradush. He remembered her hands on him, how she had touched him, slowly and gently, as if she was still learning her way across his body, or as if she might hurt him.
You take a drow into your bed, the other creature had snarled, and something had twisted in his gut at those words. Still, the words had been meant for Kera, and not for him, and she had heard worse from the creature's mouth before that.
What were these things, he wondered, that they could reach into thoughts and pull out memories and turn them into weapons?
"You betrayed us, Solaufein. You betrayed me."
"Solaufein," Kera said, and her voice jarred him out of his thoughts.
"I'm sorry," he said. He blinked, and rainwater prickled the corners of his eyes. "What is it?"
"This. This is the altar. Bhaal's altar."
She gestured, and he followed her gaze to the edges of the big stone slab. Beneath the dark patches, he saw figures, carved into the stone and dancing across it. Others stood in a circle behind, and he thought he saw flames.
"This is blood?"
"Yes. Blood, and all of it spilled for Bhaal," she said, and her voice was faint, and far away. "Do you see this? See how they must have danced for him?"
"Yes."
"So many of them," she said, and dragged her fingertips across the stone. "I can feel it. All of them, inside the stone."
He looked past her, to where Imoen knelt beside the druid, both of them gazing at the flaking side of a column. Somewhere close by, the wind ruffled the dripping ferns. "All of them?"
"There were many people here once. Great festivals were held here. Many of them died here."
"In sacrifice?"
"Yes. Murder as ritual. For Bhaal."
"Kera," he said. "How do you know this?"
"I can feel it. In the stone."
Very gently, he closed his hand over hers and drew her away from the altar. Beneath her soaked leathers, she was shaking, and her fingers slipped and fumbled against his.
"Solaufein," she said. "I can hear them. There were so many of them. This place is full of them."
He touched her face, streaked with water and the straggling strands of her brown hair. He wanted her away from this place, and somewhere dry, and he wondered how long it might take, and what it was she needed to find here. He wanted to walk beside her, out through the gates and into the forest, and he knew he could not, not yet. Instead, he kept his hand wreathed around hers, and he let her lead him past the winged statues, and deeper into the temple.