AN: Thanks to everyone who reviewed since I last thanked reviewers - that should be Starx, Calimbor and Anna. Thanks; I really do appreciate it.
"Xan," said Imoen, "where – are we?"
It isn't safe, Felix had said to Xan, and Xan had said I can get off a blindness hex in the time it takes you to blink and besides you've got that pig-sticker there. And Felix had looked down and the sword hung there, useless and heavy, and he remembered a moment
several days ago not long after they had crawled back into the sunlight, when he had washed in the stream and thought there was dirt caked between his toes but it was blood.
"This is a fine establishment," said Xan, as though offended. "Can't you tell?"
Imoen squinted blearily at the sign-board. It was filthy and showed a naked, rosy-skinned woman who was a fish from the waist down, coyly clutching her breasts and offering the trio a simpering edgewise smile. Felix looked at her. The painting was crude, but for a moment it came to life, and she seemed to be looking directly back at him.
Boy.
He shivered.
"See here," said Xan, rolling his eyes. "I do apologize if the Blushing Mermaid doesn't quite measure up to the standards of whatever solid oak bar they had in Candlekeep for serving elven wine in tiny crystal glasses, but you said you wanted to see the city and this is it."
Imoen was still vague-eyed, still brittle. She had walked holding her arms stiff at her sides, and now she stood underneath the brightly-painted sign and seemed to shrink. Her hips were not as wide as the mermaid's; her breasts were not as full. It was like an icon of an unsympathetic god.
Felix looked at the mermaid. He knew her painted lips never moved, but he still heard distinctly
Boy. Little boy. Come here.
"I say, Master Lightfoot—"
"I'm fine. I'm fine."
"You're shaking.—You're not still worried about that Sembian chap giving us the third eye, are you?"
Felix shook his head.
"Have you got a chill, then?"
Felix shook his head.
"I don't want to go in," said Imoen in a small voice, like a girl begging her father.
Xan seemed truly puzzled. "You were all for it not an hour ago, Little Miss."
"I guess—" she said haltingly. "I wanted to—forget…?"
"Well then," said Xan, unhesitatingly seizing her young hand in his older, calloused hand, "you've come to the right place, I daresay."
What had happened was a punishment. The thought came to him like a lightning bolt, striking him where he stood shivering in the splintering rain, in the shadow of the inn. A punishment, for breaking the vow. The vow the sword's old owner had sworn, that it would never take a life. He had taken life, and it had not been his fault; but he had paid, and would continue to pay.
He had not paid. Another had. Others had. He was only the instrument that brought down senseless punishment on the heads of innocents. That was the way; innocents always suffered, never the guilty. The guilty were the instruments of their punishment. But perhaps, if they were being punished, all alike were guilty.
"What about you, Master Lightfoot? Anything you'd care to forget?"
In that dream, that vision, there was a figure dressed in armor, and the figure said: "Brilliant. Come at me with everything you have."
The Lord of Murder shall perish. But in his wake
"Fine," said Felix. "Fine. Fine. Let's go in. Let's. I don't care."
he shall spawn a score
"That's the spirit, fellow." Xan clapped him on the back. "You're in a bad way, but there's ways to make it all better, no matter how bad it gets…Let's sort you out…"
of mortal progeny.
The went in the doorway, where it stank and was dark and loud, and down a flight of stairs. The smell began to change. The wood walls became stone. Felix wondered, for a delirious moment, what dungeon Xan had led them into.
Chaos
A tall man, dressed in black leathers, blocked the hallway. Torches behind him made his whole frame dark.
"Bless me 'eart," he said, clapping himself on the chest, "if it aint old Xan-boy! What's the tale, bitter ale?"
"Fewett! Hullo, you old backstabber!"
They embraced. Imoen stood back, looking grayer every minute, and she glanced furtively at Felix but
shall be sown in their footsteps.
"Why, I don't believe I've seen your sour mug in ages…" Fewett was saying, peering in at Xan. His thug's face, twisted in some long-ago brawl, reminded Felix wrenchingly of
"You have to stand right in the middle of it," said Davaeorn, looking far more grave, pained and thoughtful than any man so evil had a right to look. "Right in the middle of it. Then you start to understand a thing or two."
Right in the middle.
Xan placed a ten gold piece in Fewett's hand. "That's for me, the lad and the girl…"
"My, my," said Fewett, leering at Imoen, "she's a cute one, aint she?"
Xan smiled thinly. "No one is going to lay a hand on her here, Fewett. She's a friend and under my auspices."
Imoen hardly looked reassured.
"When I was a boy," said Davaeorn, "I liked to fly kites."
"Kites, sir?"
"Kites."
"Your father was an evil man, child," said Jaheira. "But you see – you see that what is bred in the bone need not out in the flesh."
Davaeorn had not come from evil stock. Yet he had been an evil man. Yet
"If it's the city you want," Xan was saying, as they moved further and further down the dim stone corridor, away from the city and everything familiar, "you can't do better than this. You two ought to count yourselves bloody lucky, really, that you've got a guide who knows a thing or two. These are called the Undercellars. And they're a damned lot more fun than drinking yourself stupid in the tavern upstairs. Safer, too."
"Safer?" choked Imoen.
"Oh, yes," Xan went on imperturbably. "No-one ever gets hurt in down here. Cross my heart, Little Miss. You see—" He looked back, and his smile in the dim yellow light had an unfortunate appearance. "Nobody wants to hurt anyone."
"She belongs to me," said Davaeorn.
Everything he had been taught in the marble halls of Candlekeep was a lie. Men did not treat each other like men. The world was full of sharpened knives, and men were animals wearing masks.
They were coming into a long arcade, like an underground market, and the hawkers were crying loudly in voices that should have been sweet but were somehow not:
"I'm a fine lookin' strumpet, aint I?"
"Well, if ye wants to go strappin' with this nab, you'll first have t' give up the socket money…"
Everything reeked damply. Eyes glittered out of the half-dark on either side of them, and Imoen, whimpering, huddled closer to Felix, but he stared straight ahead and took
Lord of Murder shall perish
no notice of her.
There had to be a way to go back. The way it stood, there was more blood ahead, as long as the sword hung on his hip. But there was a way. There was a way to keep the blood back, if he could only
Then Felix opened his eyes and he was sitting cross-legged on a velvet cushion. They were hunched in a small, low-ceiling room that smelled overwhelmingly of some thick and unfamiliar tobacco. The lush deep shapes of the pillows and hangings had an underwater appearance. Felix was looking at something strange in front of him; something he had never seen before.
It was like a metal octopus with four long, lashing arms, and at first it seemed to be moving, but he realized the arms were only being held by the four persons seated around it. One of them was in his own hand. Xan was holding it there, saying urgently:
"Felix. Master Lightfoot? You're not fading out on us already, are you?"
He shook his head.
"Sorry, Xan, I—"
"Nevermind that. Here, let me show you how it's done."
Other faces were floating in front of him. Xan, on the right, his narrow face looking unhealthy again in the swampy light; Imoen on his other side, looking stupidly down at her crossed legs. He realized that she was holding his hand: it was limp and unresponsive in hers. She also clutched one of the tentacles winding out of the odd-shaped thing in front of them. It had a body like a flower bud, tapering upward, and he half-expected to see a tiny head on top of it, smirking back at him.
"Just put your mouth on this," said Xan, holding the end of the tentacle in Felix's hand. He put his lips around it. The nozzle was cold and bitter-tasting, and he almost
right in the middle of it
gagged.
"Alright," said Xan, and gave him a tight smile and squeezed his hand, then reached out with his other hand and twisted a knob on the metal octopus.
"Just breath," said Xan.
Felix breathed.
The next words he heard as if through a heavy fog.
"You'll be alright, Master Lightfoot."
sweet sweet dreams dreams. Sweet, dreams. Lightfoot. Light foot. Felix the happy child happy happy moving
curve around corners
backwards
sideways
He was looking at himself.
There was a moment when the crash of voices in his head threatened to kill him: then all voices stopped altogether, and there was only a beautiful, crystal silence.
He looked around. The world did not seem dim anymore. A silver light lingered around the edge of his vision, flickering, shining on everything, and he was not afraid.
Then he coughed hard.
"Bloody amateur," said Xan affectionately, and squeezed his hand again. Then he breathed in. Then he fell back on the cushion, sighing with relief.
"Felix," said Imoen, "I love you, okay? I love you. Don't leave me." Then she breathed in again, then she doubled forward, repeating quietly: "I love you. I love you."
It was then that Felix saw the fourth man, who had been sitting across from him, on the other side, for some time. There was no reason he should not have noticed him before. In fact, given his appearance, that was very strange indeed.
The man was young, and his head was shaved. He had a lean, hard, neat look, and his chin and cheeks jutted out. His face was violent with metal. An iron stud weighed down his lip, giving him a permanent, clown-like pout. Five metal rings pulled out his pale left cheek like pins in a dissection specimen. Another ring hung on his left eyebrow, and a sixth, the largest of all, hung from his nostrils, giving him the look of a young and exceptionally mean stud bull.
He was smiling at Felix. Felix smiled back. With the silver light dancing all around, Felix realized that he loved this man.
The man opened his mouth to speak. As his tongue slid past his flawless, brilliant teeth, Felix saw something impossible: for a moment it looked forked, like a snake's. Then as the man continued speaking, he realized it was no illusion. The very end of the tongue had been cut in half, the edges of the split still pink and raw, although they had healed.
Even through the happy haze of the lotus, Felix had a faint unpleasant feeling.
He inhaled again. Beside him, Xan was laid out on the cushions, giggling helplessly.
"Hullo, friend," the man across from him was saying, lisping with his cut tongue. "Nameth Thlythe."
"Pardon me?" said Felix, blinking.
"Thlythe."
"Felix?" said Imoen, still gripping his hand, and looked around wildly. "Where are you. Felix? Felix?"
The man inhaled, then, grinning, blew a fan of white smoke at Felix like a kiss.
"Thath a nice, pretty girl you got there, friend. I'm with my girl too. Mind you, you're girlth not as pretty 's mine. No girl's prettier'n my Krithten."
"Pardon."
"I thaid," said the man, without the slightest change in his sugar-sweet voice, "that scabby hoor next t' yes, havin' her freak-out her first time on the lotus, aint worth a sewer rat's tail compared to the light of my lithe – my Krithten." Then he sat back and bit his thumbnail.
"Okay," said Felix, and blinked again.
"Me an' my girl," said Thlythe, as if sharing a delicious secret, "just got off work, see? We likes to come here afterwards. Does it all the time. T' relax."
Felix nodded as if he couldn't possibly agree more.
Thlythe held up his nozzle in a scholarly way, looking at the ceiling. "Loving my girl," he said, "is like – havin' a dire wolf. Eat you. From the pecker up. Chewin' all the way. Mask, but I loves how she loves me."
The Lord of Murder shall perish
Then it was different. He was no longer sitting in front of the octopus, listening to Thlythe sing the praises of his Krithten, but was in a similar room lying flat-out on the old, faded cushions, and the silver light still danced in his eyes. He smiled. And suddenly he wasn't alone.
He looked up, and a woman, older than Imoen but younger than Jaheira, was crawling across the floor toward him like an enormous cat. She smiled. Her teeth were not bright, like Thlythe's, but her smile was sweet and again he found himself responding in kind. Then he saw her breasts. They were impossible to overlook, hanging down huge and luminous inside her caftan, and again
boy
He swallowed.
"Yer friend sent me," she said kindly. "Thought ye might appreciate my services."
She had rich dark hair. He reached out and ran his hands through it, wondering, and she guided his hands. She began to laugh prettily.
"Aw, but you're too cute, ye are! Like a 'lil puppy-dog…And yer eyes…"
He kissed her. Underneath him, the floor gave a sudden, violent lurch, and then he was sure that liquid gold was pouring from her throat into his. He whimpered and moaned and they pawed at one and other and she was still laughing…
Then he heard a familiar voice, and everything went as cold as ice.
"And what. Is the meaning of this?"
He would believe, later, that he had never been so terrified in all his dangerous life. He remember the girl being snatched away from him, as if by a single giant hand, and then he saw another woman gripping her by the front of her shift and shaking her mercilessly. Although the other woman was short, she behaved with a furious, fearless indignation.
"How dare you! Keep your vile claws off that boy; he isn't for your kind! He's better! He's, he's…"
"Jaheira?" said Felix, sitting wide-eyed on his rear end.
"Oh, child," said Jaheira, thickly.
"Jaheira," said Felix, and suddenly began to smile. "Ya know. Ya know, you're – really pretty. Jaheira."
She looked at him long and hard. Then, gripping the wailing prostitute by the hair, heaved her out into the hall.
"The gods have mercy on you!" she bellowed after the luckless girl. "If I see your face again, I surely will not!"
Felix lay back. Already he missed the taste of the white smoke, and the silver light was beginning to fade. Soon the voices would start again.
Jaheira tensed, her eyes blazing, and for a moment he was sure she would kick him. Then she shook her head, knelt, and helped him gently to his feet.
"I'm going to get you out of here," she whispered.
Then they were back in the wide hall, with the voices everywhere and the wet smell, and Jaheira was screaming: "Imbecile! Vile, scheming charlatan! Murderer!"
Xan, one arm around a beautiful, doe-eyed elven girl whose dress had come loose from her left shoulder, looked back at her belligerently.
"Go suck an egg," he slurred.
Jaheira punched him in the face. He staggered back, giving the girl an accidental shove – she fell with a shriek unto a heap of cushions – and caught himself against a pillar. He glared at her.
"She-avatar of Helm. What's the bloody matter with—"
"You completely irresponsible—"
"—the bloody matter with—"
"—could have got his throat cut—"
"Look!" Xan bellowed suddenly, clearly. "Gods damn it all…I like you, and I respect you, but if that bloody kid hadn't lived the first twoscore years of his life like a bloody monk, he might not be such an absolute bloody wreck—"
"If it is your wish to die, elf," said Jaheira, with a quiet, smoldering, anger, "I beg you, do it, but do not drag the innocent into your sinkhole of self-murder."
"Perhaps if you took a moment to remove that exceptionally long iron rod from out your arse," Xan flung back, "you might come to realize—"
Then, in the giddy, spiraling nightmare that the day had become, there came one final unfolding and revealing. The last strangers made their entrance, and the horror was complete.
The crash of iron-shod footsteps filled the hall. The hawkers stopped extolling their virtues; the patrons stopped their desperate laughter. Felix, Xan and Jaheira all stared slack-mouthed. Men in armor, in a single column, were coming down the arcade. As they came nearer, all recognized the insignia of the Flaming Fist on the militiamen's shields. They crashed nearer and nearer until they finally stopped, and one, the tallest, broke away from the rest. He came forward until he stood in front of Jaheira, then gestured with his right hand. The others, faceless inside their helmets, began to move out in a circle.
"What is the meaning of this?" said Jaheira, faintly.
The Flaming Fist officer removed his helmet. He had thick hair the color of chocolate. "Madam," he said, "my name is Desmond Merzer. I serve the Flaming Fist."
"I am well aware of this. And what is your business us, good sir?"
Xan, rubbing his eyes, tried to stand upright. "I say," he muttered.
Merzer looked from one of them to the next: Jaheira, Felix, Imoen and Xan. He seemed to know them all, and nodded. His mouth was tight. "By the authority vested in me by Grand Duke Eltan, most high sovereign of the city of Baldur's Gate…"
"Found it, Des!" came a high voice from behind them. One of the footmen, small and skinny, stood in the door of the room from which Felix had recently been removed. He held up something gleaming.
Merzer crooked his hand.
"Bring it here."
The footman brought it closer. He held it out to Merzer, who held it down so that the prostrate Felix could see.
"Do you recognize this object, sir?"
Felix regarded it with idiot wonderment. "No."
It was an enormous hunting knife, jagged-shaped, like a canine toot. It was half-drenched in blood.
"You are all under arrest," said Merzer, calmly, "for the murder of Haj Set Kah, Brunos Rockweigh, several others – and Sir Rieltar Anchev."