The monks' chanting rose in shrillness and pitch. Draconis's blood droplets began to glow golden in their vial and the young dragon started to tremble. Sarevok noticed that he too was feeling strange. Weak and empty as though the life force was being drawn from him. Tucked away in Onoros's robes, he spotted the golden glow of at least one other vial. Surely it was his own, and perhaps Balthazar's too.
Voices babbling unintelligibly echoed from the walls of the chamber and something like golden mist rose out of Draconis's body. He yelped and clutched with his hands as if to catch the stuff and push it back in, but it was as insubstantial as smoke. Onoros opened the vial releasing a stench of seared herbs and the smoke began to arc toward it as though drawn into the blood.
The same golden mist was rising from Balthazar and Sarevok was not surprised to see it lifting from his own flesh. Theirs did not stray far from their own bodies, however, saturating the air around them but going no further.
All at once, Draconis screamed far louder than he had done at merely being kneecapped. His eyes rolled back into his head and inhuman wails reverberated from those thin blue lips. Seconds later, Sarevok understood why.
He was reaching into a treasure chest laden with gold and rubies when without warning it snapped shut. His torso toppled forward, no longer connected to his legs as the treasure was drowned in a scarlet flood…
The image faded. Now he was lying on a stone altar and a mad-eyed woman was looming over him wielding a knife. He raised his arms to stop her, only to find that they ended a few inches from his face in pudgy, defenceless hands…
His mind was gone, there was only the wolf. Rage, fear and pain drove him at the nearest living creature. Somebody was yelling instructions to stop but it was impossible. Then from out of nowhere came an unholy ripping sound and there was nothing but terror and pain…
Crying and trembling he peered around the edge of his window watching Arowan's undead servants ripping limbs from the defenders of Saradush. They seemed to be bypassing his hiding place but then his door was kicked open to reveal the face of Dorn Il-Khan. He was pleading for mercy but the half-orc only leered…
He was standing by his father Gorion, desperately clutching a virgin sword that had never drawn real blood. Bearing down on him was a vast figure, masked by a grotesque suit of armour. All that he could see were golden, glowing eyes blazing murderously beneath the helm. His own eyes…
The parade of death went on and on. He felt as well as saw it, though in a slightly detached way. It was like an incredibly vivid dream. Some of his deaths he recognised like Bhaal destroying the chinchilla, others he had only heard about like the hanging of Eric and the crushing of Sendai. Most were total strangers to him. Those Bhaalspawn he had killed himself were the hardest to endure.
He was standing on a bridge, and somehow he knew that this would be the last of the visions. Cyric was coming for him, laughing manically as his faithful Madele wept helplessly on the far bank. Then there was only darkness.
Sarevok came around to find himself being propped up by Rasaad and Coran. The golden dust was settling back into him, seeping back into his veins through the pores of his skin. The same thing was happening to Balthazar, who leaned against one of the brick walls, his chest heaving. Apparently, his monkish training had not totally prepared him for the effects of the ritual for although he was still standing he had stepped into one of the stool buckets in his disorientation.
Nothing was leeching back into Draconis. The dragon lay pale and ill on the stone floor, his essence corked in the vial. Only a shimmering golden strand the width of a piece of wool connected him to it.
"You have to let it go now," Balthazar told him shakily.
Draconis pressed his lips together and shook his head mutely.
"Father… father will disown me if I give up my birth right."
"Your father will be dead," Balthazar retorted harshly. "Give it up. All of that pain. It is all but purged from you now, the difficult part is over." He reached down and stroked Draconis's hair. "If you let it back in now you will have to experience those deaths all over again."
This was a lie, but it was more than the dragon was prepared to face. With a sigh, his tense body relaxed and the last of the golden strand pulled away from him. His eyes drifted closed. When the very last of the Bhaal essence was contained within the vial, the chanting ceased abruptly. Reverently, Onoros dropped the vial, letting it smash at their feet.
Just as when a Bhaalspawn died, a great cloud of golden glitter burst from it, lingered for a moment and dissipated. Yet Draconis lived on, apparently unharmed save for the physical injuries and a few shards of shattered glass which had buried themselves into his cheek.
"Do not heal him," Balthazar instructed Anomen and Jaheira who had already moved forward. "Let him come around on his own."
Draconis's revival took some time. It was a rather tedious wait in the aftermath of the ritual, and no doubt the battle between dragons and monks raged on outside. Yet in the surreal world of the monks' cloister they grew bored, waiting in silence for over an hour as Draconis twitched and stirred.
"He is waking up!" Jaheira said at length.
"Finally!" snapped Viconia, prodding the dragon with the toe of her boot.
Draconis blinked, his expression oddly vacant. Slowly he sat, rubbing his blue lips with one finger and looking puzzled at a puddle spreading out from under him.
"Yuck!" shrieked Viconia, hastily withdrawing her boot.
"Not again…" muttered Onoros.
"Draconis? Can you hear me?" demanded Balthazar.
"Yes…" the dragon murmured, but he seemed oblivious to the fact that he had wet himself. "Yes, I can hear you."
"His voice sounds different," Jaheira said. There was a note of accusation in her voice as she frowned at Balthazar. "Was this supposed to happen?"
"We thought perhaps if he was left to a natural rest rather than being healed magically that it might not."
"Will he recover?" Sarevok asked sharply.
"No… and no…" Balthazar said. "This is why the ritual normally takes three days. We do it in stages to give the mind and body time to adjust. We find that if the severance is performed too quickly, there can be some permanent side effects…"
Draconis had put his hand in the puddle and was now splashing his fingers in it experimentally. He let out a little chortle, and Sarevok recoiled.
"Irenicus took Sarevok's soul even faster than this ritual," Viconia recalled, "But it did not have this effect on him." She eyed the oozing pool with distaste. "Trust me, I would have remembered."
"Really? Then what side effects were there?" Onoros enquired with professional curiosity. "Tell me about this Irenicus. What exactly did he do?"
"What exactly did you do?" blasted Sarevok. "I have no intention of being turned into some mindless animal splashing about in my own piss!"
"You won't," Balthazar assured him. "We have an excellent success rate with the long version of the ritual."
"Perhaps we could improve it still further," Onoros pressed, "If you could tell us exactly what it was that this Irenicus did to you."
"We do not know and even if we did, you could not replicate it," Anomen snapped. "Irenicus had complex machines and used human sacrifices. The devices were hugely intricate and he was one of the most powerful mages who ever lived."
"Ah," Onoros nodded to Balthazar. "It sounds like he was dislodging the divine part of the soul with the essence of lesser souls. A game of spiritual snooker if you will. We experimented with something similar in the early days but it always resulted in the death of the target so we tried another approach based on the work of Amauna. I see from your reaction that you are familiar with the prophetess? She opened her veins into a small fountain in the original ritual but we found that a few droplets of blood are just as effective."
Sarevok opened his mouth to reply but they were interrupted by hurried feet half running, half tripping down the stairs. A bloodied monk skidded to the bottom of the stairwell to inform them that Draconis's father Abazigal had arrived with the bulk of his dragon army.
Draconis licked his fingertips experimentally, but finding he did not like the taste of the liquid he smeared it over his cheeks instead. When he brushed the shards of glass in his face he felt a scratching pain and burst into child-like tears.
Coran scratched his chins.
"Anyone else not looking forward to daddy-dragon's reaction to this?"
According to the monk, things were going badly outside for the monastery. They had not been expecting such a full-on attack so soon but with Sendai and Yaga-Shura dead and Arowan fleeing north without an army, that left Balthazar as the only viable threat to Abazigal's dominance. Clearly, the dragon Bhaalspawn had decided to throw everything he had into taking him out.
Devoutly, the monks had put up a good fight but their cannons were toppled and their crossbow wielding mercenaries had scattered and fled.
"It's over," the monk panted.
"Not yet," replied Balthazar darkly. "We still have his son. Go back and tell him."
Obediently the monk ascended the stairwell.
"Kill him!" Viconia snapped suddenly, pointing at Balthazar. The rest of the party stared at her. "You heard the monk, his army is obliterated, he can't keep us here any longer."
Onoros adopted a fighting stance, but Balthazar calmly smoothed down his fists.
"I think you will find, drow, that it is Abazigal who is keeping you here now."
"Abazigal has no quarrel with us!"
The monk's eyes twinkled as though she had said something very funny. Even the cloistered ones behind their walls were making noises which might have been very out-of-practise snickers.
"Abazigal has a quarrel with all the non-dragon Bhaalspawn including your Sarevok," the monk informed her dangerously. "And even if he didn't, you failed to prevent this," he gestured at Draconis who was rocking back and forth humming to himself. "He would torture you to death for this alone."
"Great," muttered Coran, slumping against a wall. "That's just great."
"At least it is cooler down here," Anomen muttered resignedly.
There was a squelch and an explosion of blood. It splattered in great globs dotted with sticky chunks of brain and fragments of skull all over their shins and Draconis's face. It was the head of the monk who had run upstairs to inform Abazigal that they had his son. The dragon lord was very kindly returning it to them.
"But did he have time to deliver his message before they decapitated him?" frowned Balthazar.
This question was answered in the form of rescue parties. First a lone dragon, easily dispatched. Then a trio. Then a regiment of five. They had been given no orders to negotiate, but down here in the narrow stone cloister they could not transform without crushing themselves and Draconis. This made them easy pickings for Balthazar and the party.
"How many do you suppose are left?" asked Anomen.
"Too many for us to fight our way out, that's for sure," replied Coran as they heaved the corpses into an empty cell.
For a long time after that there was silence and the group fell to speculating. Was Abazigal attempting to starve them out after all? Had he given up? Or were his minions simply refusing to skulk down here to their deaths after the first nine failed to return?
In the end it turned out to be the latter. A slow clap echoed down the stairwell a short distance above their heads and there he stood. He was a vivid sea blue not only around the lips but his entire face. His teeth were long and distorted, not unlike the tusks of an orc.
"Very well done. I have watched you kill those weaklings I sent ahead with great interest. For lesser creatures you are quite amusing." His eyes narrowed. "Now, where is my son?"
"We have him here," replied Balthazar. "He will be returned to you, once you have given up your divine essence."
Abazigal pulled back his blue lips into a snarl.
"I will never give up Bhaal's essence."
"You must choose between that and your son."
"Let me see him."
Given Draconis's current state nobody was enthusiastic about showing him to his father, but Abazigal's leaden tone made it clear that their refusal would result in fire or poison raining over their heads, or else the air supply being cut off. Cautiously, they manoeuvred Draconis to the bottom of the stairwell, propped up between Onoros and Rasaad.
To their relief, despite the gore on his face, Draconis presented himself in a reasonably dignified way and greeted his father mildly but with recognition. Abazigal sniffed the air. His eyes flickered to the wet patch between his son's legs but he nodded curtly.
"You leave me no choice," he said, his voice trembling with suppressed rage. "Come to the surface Balthazar and perform your accursed ritual."
"Onoros must come with me," the monk insisted, "And Sarevok also."
"Very well, bring your monks," replied Abazigal indifferently. His eyes flickered contemptuously over the two men supporting his son, but to his mild surprise Rasaad remained with Draconis. He sniffed at Sarevok on the stairwell.
"You are one of us," he noted. "A captive of Balthazar?"
"Not a captive. A guest," corrected the monk.
"A guest who was not permitted to leave," Sarevok clarified acidly.
"You agreed to the ritual," Balthazar reminded him sharply, "And now the severance must be completed. For all three of us. We shall require a few drops of your blood Abazigal."
Lip curling, Abazigal held out a clawed sapphire finger to Onoros who collected a few droplets in his flask. He corked them and retreated into the cloister.
"I would not want the ritual to be… interrupted," said Balthazar.
He and Abazigal were looking at each other evenly. It was clear to Sarevok that the dragon would never permit Balthazar to live after this insult. There was no point arguing about his own participation in the sped up ritual. Never mind that Arowan was still out there, her essence intact. Balthazar could only hope to sever the Bhaalspawn in front of him now. His time was up, and he knew it.
Eyes narrowing like an angry cobra, Abazigal gestured Balthazar up the stairs and the monk began his final climb, leaving Sarevok to weigh up his options. He didn't have all that many.
He could cooperate with the severance, pray that his extra day of preparation spared him from becoming a vegetable like Draconis and cross his fingers that Abazigal might view the monk as their common enemy and let him go. That seemed like a very long shot.
Alternatively he could hide in the catacombs, cross his fingers that the ritual left Abazigal in as useless a state as his son, and hope that the dragons would simply go away. This was also a long shot, but the odds looked slightly better.
Sarevok whipped out his father's sword, only to find Abazigal's already pointed at his throat.
"Drop it," snarled the dragon.
Sarevok looked down. His party were gazing up from the bottom of the stairs but they would never reach him in time.
So, this was how it felt. For Freya descending into Irenicus's dungeon, for Eric climbing the steps to the gallows in Baldur's Gate, for the minor Bhaalspawn he had personally dispatched to the Abyss. The point of Abazigal's blade pricked his adam's apple and his fingers released the sword to buy him a few more precious minutes of life. It hit the floor with a very final clang. This is what it meant to be the Lord of Murder.
"Remember that we still have Draconis!" Viconia's voice echoed up warningly to Abazigal.
Yes, there was still that hope. As long as Draconis was down there alive, Abazigal would surely not risk touching them. Sarevok climbed after Balthazar with a little more confidence, and at last emerged blinking into the bright light of the courtyard.
Fleeing was impossible. Dragons were perched on every ledge, their scales gleaming like coins in the sun. Everywhere he looked claws were gleaming and long tails flicking with displeasure.
"You think me a fool, Balthazar?" Abazigal roared. "I can smell the Bhaal taint ripped from my son and heir!"
"If you want him back demi-god or otherwise, you will complete the ritual!" Balthazar thundered in reply.
"Will I? Will I?" hissed Abazigal, stretching out monstrous blue wings and clawing over the bodies of dead monks as he resumed his true form. He nodded at the nearest two dragons. "We shall see who breaks first!"
Sarevok felt his hands being bound tightly behind his back and then lifted up by the rope. They tied the ends about the barrel of a broken cannon and left him hanging from the battlements by his wrists.
It was agony. His arms were bent the wrong way backwards and there was a sensation of muscle ripping inside him. Desperately he braced his feet against the walls to take the pressure off of his arms. Abazigal's cruel laughter rang in his ears as they strung up Balthazar beside him. He knew what the monk had done to his son and that he, Sarevok, had let it happen. He was going to make them pay for it.
Pressing his feet against the wall made the discomfort bearable but the sun blazed down and Sarevok had no shade or water. Sooner or later fatigue was going to win out and he would drop to a slow, excruciating death.
Deep in the cloister, Onoros had commenced the severing ritual. When the visions of Bhaal's many deaths began to play again Abazigal screamed and writhed on the floor. His tail thrashed and his talons clawed empty air in distress, but for Sarevok blotting out his present reality was nothing short of a mercy. Even Freya's death, though it looked more gruesome, had the saving grace of being faster than this.
Golden dust began to seep from him once more, coiling its way down the stairwell to the little flask where Onoros was collecting the essence of himself, Abazigal and Balthazar. He could feel himself losing consciousness as Draconis had done. Sliding into the darkness of oblivion…
His feet slipped from the wall, forcing the full weight of his body onto his arms. Both shoulders cracked, pain and adrenaline seared through his body like white hot pokers. There could be no doubt that both arms were dislocated, just as when Freya had ripped his sword arm from its socket the first time he had died.
"Perhaps this is justice that it ends this way again," Sarevok's last thoughts pierced the smothering blanket of pain. "Justice for Tamoko."
He looked down at his broken body. His essence was hanging only by a thread as thin as spider silk and even that was tugging away gently. Tamoko's face swam before his eyes wearing the same sad smile she had worn when he had sent her out alone to face Freya. He imagined her holding out her hand to him, ready to guide him to the other side. All he had to do was release the last bit of essence.
Hung up beside him, Balthazar let the remnants of his essence go. He gave a great sob of relief mixed with agony. The monk had at long last got his wish. He was mortal and alive too, though probably not for very much longer. On the ground Abazigal heaved his carcass backward and shuddered as he drew Bhaal's essence back into himself. Two of his dragons crept forward, talons raised to aid him, but he brushed them aside.
"And Bhaalspawn I remain, Balthazar, despite your best efforts!" he snarled into his dying enemy's face.
Slowly, he ran his claw along the golden tendril that still joined Sarevok to his ebbing essence, but Sarevok was past paying the dragon any attention. Delirious with torment and close now to death, all he could see were two pathways. One led into Bhaal's Abyssal domain where the skinless wolf sat waiting for him. Tamoko stood upon the second path. It led… somewhere else.
Bhaal spoke first.
THE HERO OF BALDUR'S GATE AND THE HERO OF SARADUSH. WE'RE THE SAME PERSON, WE ALWAYS WERE.
"Still scheming to become a god, Sarevok?" Tamoko sighed.
YOU ALREADY ARE ONE. YOU ARE A PART OF ME.
"Don't throw away your last chance," she begged him. "For once in your life, reject your father's call and come with me."
YOU ARE A PART OF ME THAT I WANT.
Tamoko pushed her sleek black hair from her face. She had been a ruthless murderess in life, yet part of her had always seemed so lost and vulnerable. Was she in a god's domain now, or one of the hells? Perhaps they both deserved the latter, and yet she had been an Ilmatari. Ilmater offered forgiveness to almost anyone if they would only ask for it. Perhaps even Sarevok Anchev.
Between the ritual and the hanging he was so far gone that he barely felt Abazigal's talons tear open his chest. Something was sliding out of him that oughtn't to be, but thanks to Freya's efforts in the Abyss he was accustomed to that. It did not distract him from Tamoko reaching for him.
"Come with me now. Please?" she asked for the final time.
"It is done," panted Onoros, dropping all three vials onto the ground at once. A cloud of golden dust enveloped his feet.
Rasaad opened his mouth, but Coran shook his head violently to silence him.
"It is done. Sarevok made his choice."
"He might still be alive. We should help him!" Rasaad cried.
"I fear we are unable even to help ourselves," Jaheira replied grimly.
"Clearly Abazigal never intended to complete the ritual," Onoros confirmed. "He is only holding off on suffocating us because he knows we have his son. I think he must know that we took Draconis's essence but I doubt he guesses at the state of him now. Once he learns the truth..."
Draconis had taken a handful of excrement from one of the slop buckets and was painting the walls with it contentedly.
"If we are to die, let it be with some shred of dignity," Viconia said stiffly. "Let us start by disposing of that… thing."
"I agree," said Jaheira coldly.
Rasaad and Coran both protested this suggestion. Draconis was no longer in possession of his mental faculties. It would no better than killing a baby.
That argument struck a nerve with Viconia and she slapped Rasaad, hard.
"You were happy to let Viconia put her brother out of his misery, but you would leave this poor creature in this state?" Jaheira countered. "Sylvanis forbid that you should ever have such power over me… what is so funny?"
Viconia was gazing up at the light high above them and laughing quietly, her squeaky guineapig-like laugh.
"Viconia?" Rasaad ventured cautiously, but she ignored him and kept laughing. "I know that I am frequently the last to get the joke, but I cannot fathom what you could find so amusing at this juncture?"
"Perhaps as the Servant of all Faiths she could walk out of this unharmed?" Jaheira noted disdainfully. "Perhaps the gods will protect her while the rest of us are impaled or eviscerated. I daresay she would find that most entertaining."
The drow shook her head. Then throwing her silver hair back, Viconia howled with laughter. Her chest shook and her teeth gleamed white in the gloom while tears rolled down her cheeks. To the others she appeared utterly deranged.
"Seems that the Servant of all Faiths has given into the madness that surrounds us," sighed Coran. "Perhaps we should follow her example. It might be for the best at this point."
She seemed to find this even funnier. Then without warning she ripped the satchel from Coran's back. The strap was slung about his neck but she pulled it with such force that it tore at the seams leaving an angry red welt about the elf's throat.
His hands flew to his neck in alarm. For a moment the feeling reminded him uncomfortably of tightening rope. Viconia was rooting through the bag frenziedly, scattering the elf's meagre possessions over the floor of the cloister.
"Viconia, what in the hells is wrong with you?" Anomen cried, but it was Jaheira who brought the drow back to her senses by belting her across the face.
Tears of laughter still clung to her lashes, but she sobered up. Her ruby eyes were dancing and alive as Rasaad had not seen them in a long time. The tired and defeated woman Arowan had beaten down was gone, Viconia had at last reclaimed her spark.
"Yes, I put my brother out of his misery just like you said Jaheira, and don't you see? I know how I am going to get out of this!" Viconia announced with such a deranged sense of triumph that the others knew she was talking about more than just their immediate predicament. "I can't believe that I didn't think of it sooner. Thank you, Valas, you have saved me again!"
Her tiny elfin hands emerged from Coran's satchel. In her left she clutched the Girdle of Femininity, in her right a cruel little knife.