Yes, There Is a Debt

- "All the fighters save Keldorn concentrate on Yaga-Shura. Keldorn will protect Imoen and Anomen, and they will summon help and cast mass destruction spells on the army. Anomen can join us once his spells have been cast. Don't let anything distract you - I'm telling you that all effort will be futile until Yaga is down. And likewise, once he is, the army will scatter." Peri was regarding her group calmly, the edginess seemingly gone.

- "How do you know that, Peri?" Anomen asked.

- "I just do. I know about fanatics, and I have this feeling in my gut," she answered, frowning slightly. She didn't like to be questioned in a situation like this, but had never been a dictator. She figured that she was not infallible, and if her followers could bring up points she might have missed, it would be better for all of them.

- "I agree. With both Peri's assessment, and that gut instinct is an important thing. All good military leaders have some, and it is a grave mistake to ignore it," Sarevok said, and Keldorn, a veteran of many campaigns, was nodding.

- "Let's go in. Imoen saw him in the middle of the camp when she was scouting," Peri said.

The army, consisting mostly of humans and countless fire giants as well, fought their powerful summoned allies, falling and allowing the group to advance the legendary leader rather effortlessly.

Yaga-Shura was triumphant as he spotted Peri. The giant was even significantly larger than his kind in general. There was feral, practical intelligence in the cruel eyes, and the massive muscles, as if sculpted of flesh, moved with amazing speed. Yaga-Shura was laughing, his thick hair flowing in the wind. He is almost beautiful, Peri thought, and shuddered.

- "What a disappointment you created for me, worm!" boomed the voice of the giant. "I redoubled our efforts to crush this worthless town when I heard you were within, the Terror of the Sword Coast...only to find you gone!"

- "Terror of the Sword Coast, eh?" Peri grinned humorlessly. "Well, shit happens, Yaga."

- "I thought I would have to content myself with slaughtering all the weakling Bhaalspawn in the city and forgetting about you. But here you are! I should have been the first sent after you, and now I shall prove it! Yaga-Shura shall become even greater still!" the giant laughed and charged, readying himself to smash Peri with a large warhammer.

Sarevok slashed his old, crude Sword of Chaos, a Deathbringer blade, at the giant. He scored a perfect hit, a nerve center that brought massive damage. Sarevok smiled like a predator as he saw blood retreating from Yaga-Shura's face, his expression changing from triumph to incredulity.

- "What...?! No! No, this cannot be! I...I am wounded! You...you have weakened me! You and that foul witch, I know it! NO MATTER! Yaga-Shura will defeat you yet!" The familiar rage both Sarevok and Peri recognized was shining in his eyes. The fighters dodged his murdering, enraged blows, Imoen and Anomen chanting their voices hoarse. Finally Sarevok was able to decapitate the giant, and true enough, when his massive bulk hit the ground with a thundering thud, the remainder of his army started to retreat in panic, glad to get out without attracting attention.

Peri, however, wasn't there to marvel at being right. She found herself in the pocket plane, facing the glittering, ethereal solar again.

- "Your timing is not very convenient," she said irritably.

- "Yaga-Shura has been defeated, and as you knew would happen, his army is scattering and running," the solar answered. "The first step towards the fulfillment of your destiny has been taken. Yaga-Shura is dead by your hand, and the forces in play now move swiftly toward conclusion. Now you must know yourself and your past to reveal your future. Listen and be judged."

Peri merely nodded. It seemed to her that there was little to do but to listen.

- "Your own origin is a mystery to you, god-child. You have no beginning...and without a beginning, how can there be an ending? What do you know of your birth? What do you know of your mother, of your life before Gorion brought you to the safety of Candlekeep?"

- "Nothing." Peri had wondered about that. But sometimes, when the urges and the dreams were at their worst, she thought she was better off not knowing.

- "Your past unfolds. You would do well to heed it closely."

The woman. Peri's glossy hair, her strong body build. The familiar features. But the eyes, they were different. The exhilaration, the purpose. The fanaticism Peri had never held. Her mother was a cleric of Bhaal, happy to carry a child whose only purpose would be to be murdered in a mass infanticide, to wake Bhaal from his slumber.

- "I would slay you, my child. So that Bhaal would live again." The voice, so feminine, so dreamy. Not unkind. Peri shivered.

Then, Gorion. Peri's heart ached again. She tried to talk to him, but she was frozen in time, not able to move or speak. Gorion told how the Harpers had found out about the ritual and thwarted it, slaying many of the priestesses. Among them Alianna, Gorion's former lover and Peri's mother. Most of the children were slain too.

- "But not all of the Bhaalspawn children died that night." The speaker was a small boy, perhaps four or five years old, his voice holding bitterness and pain much older than his years.

- "Yes. Not all Bhaalspawn children were killed that night," Gorion said. His voice was also very sad, very defeated.

- "Some of us used the chaos to escape," the child said. His posture was rigid, his eyes burning in strange hue of gold and amber.

- "There was only time to save one child," Gorion said, his face downcast.

- "He saved you, leaving me behind," said the boy, such anger and resentment in his eyes. The scene flickered momentarily before Peri's eyes: the little, terrified boy dragging a screaming baby with him, Gorion taking the baby and the boy's hand, and the hand slipping. The little boy was left lying on the ground, Gorion running with the baby.

- "And so I fled on my own, to be raised by foster parents in the Iron Throne," small Sarevok said. "It mattered not. I killed Gorion in the end."

The heartache. The bitterness. In the voice of a small child. He and Gorion vanished. Peri was pale and weeping, feeling dizzy.

- "And so your past is made plain. Your mother, a priestess of Bhaal, killed by Gorion," the solar spoke. There was a smallest hint of compassion on her face.

- "Gorion saved my life. He never told me any of this..." Peri whispered, her head humming.

- "And what of your brother, Sarevok? What if fate had not intervened, and Gorion had raised him rather than you? Would you have become as he was? Would Sarevok be in your place, now, if but for the smallest twist of fate? Is there a debt between you, then, that is yet unpaid?" the solar asked.

Peri started to choke on her tears, falling on her knees. She buried her face into her hands, feeling gripping sorrow.

- "Yes, there is a debt. I could just as easily have had his life, and he mine," she sobbed. "I will... I will do what I can..."

- "Consider what you have learned here, today. There is another challenge for you to face. Farewell, god-child," the solar said and started to fade away.

- "Wait! Solar!" The weeping Peri called after her. "Can I... meet Gorion? I would need to..."

The solar seemed to consider this for a moment.

- "Very well. After you are finished with your challenge, you shall meet him," she answered and faded away.