"What is this nonsense about you staying in Athkatla, rivvil? I demand that you accompany me to the end!" Viconia cried indignantly. "You swore to it and, though I am loathe to admit it, I need all the help I can get."
"I swore to serve the Servant of all Faiths and the best way I can do so is here, ensuring that Abazigal's life is preserved for as long as possible," Sir Anomen replied resolutely. "Persuading some of my seniors not to slaughter the dragon Bhaalspawn was no easy task. With Sir Keldorn and Sir Ryan dead and the Prelate retiring there is a power vacuum in the Order now. If the wrong candidate fills it they'll chop of Abazigal's head and the last of Bhaal's essence will shoot straight to Arowan."
Anomen gazed out over the bridge. Beyond it rose the spires and domes of the district's various temples, below the ornamental waterway continued its contemplative flow just as it had for centuries. He peered into its depths and thought he spied a glimpse of silver, though it may have been merely a fish.
Flickering above it in the slow-moving water, his own reflection looked back at him. An older man than he remembered. Aged prematurely from the strain of the past two years, his beard even sported the odd threat of grey and there were creases about his eyes that had not been there before.
He had the thing he had always dreamed of, his knighthood, but at an incomprehensible cost. What now? Assuming, of course, that he had not caused the end of the world his life as a knight would go on. Whether or not he deserved it was no longer the issue. The Order had lost so many senior members to recent events, and with the dragon armour on his chest and Casomyr in his hand, Anomen stood as one of their most valuable replacements.
Not that he meant to aspire to Prelate, now or ever. Instead he fixed upon filling Keldorn's shoes. Perhaps in time he might even marry and raise a family of his own. That is, if he could ever get over the rise of the Adversary. For a moment he could almost hear his older, wiser mentor telling him that the first step to moving past his great mistake was to acknowledge it.
"A- Arowan tried to end her life here," Anomen told the others. Rasaad looked rather taken aback at this unexpected turn in the conversation, but the knight merely shrugged wearily. He turned to Jaheira who was watching him with a deep frown. "I was the one who gave her Numbing Potions and turned her into the Adversary. The four of you deserve to know exactly how it came about."
"Does it matter now?" asked Viconia impatiently.
"It matters to me," Coran mumbled, rubbing the rope-scar on his neck subconsciously.
"Yes," Jaheira replied firmly. "I would prefer to know."
"As would I, actually," Rasaad added abruptly. "After I lost my brother to Numbing Potions I had believed my involvement with the wretched things to be at an end. Since I am forced to relive the nightmare, I am entitled to an explanation."
The monk barely recognised his image in the water as the wide-eyed innocent boy who'd set out from Calimport. Years of bitterness, anger and grief had left him with a face that radiated threat. Donning Alorgoth's clothes hardly detracted from this impression. Everything that had once seemed clean and clear cut was now murky and grey. Where once he was of the day and Viconia of the night, now they both walked in a perilous world of twilight.
He missed being close to Viconia so badly that his throat constricted whenever she spoke, but the thought of reconnecting with her only to lose her to Lolth was more than he could bear. How could it possibly be prevented? He wracked his brain day and night trying to come up with a solution, but his only solace was that she was the consummate survivor. If any mortal alive had the skill to slip free of the Spider Queen's webs it was Viconia DeVir.
But what could he do, once the prophecy was fulfilled and she was taken? Nothing except journey to the Underdark to retrieve her and die in the attempt. Alorgoth's artefacts and his own growing powers might allow him to survive there for a time, but Lolth's agents would take him in the end. He was no longer concerned about what his fellows at the monastery would think of him wearing Sharran clothes, for he knew that he would not be going back. The Servant of all Faiths might succeed in saving the world but for Rasaad and Viconia there was little hope.
Rasaad's face hardened and he stared straight at Anomen. Yes, he deserved an explanation as to how it had come to this.
Anomen took a deep breath, fixed his eyes upon the water and did not look at any of them until he was done with his story. He feared that if he caught their eyes he would not be able to bring himself to continue.
"It was after Jaheira turned. We had no notion at the time that your condition was curable, we all believed you dead. Arowan had lost everything. You… Yoshimo… Khalid… even her own integrity. She had murdered Imoen and Mazzy Fentan, resorted to necromancy, worked for Irenicus and Firkraag, and was largely responsible for bringing about the situation with Bodhi in Baldur's Gate.
"Through all that pain and grief the Slayer burst. Bhaal's avatar murdered half a street's worth of commoners. By the time Arowan came around it was too late. The carnage it wrought through her was horrific and there was nothing she could do to prevent it coming back except…"
"Dying," Coran finished for him, his voice constricted. "Arrow would have given her life in a heartbeat to save one innocent. I cannot even imagine how she must have felt knowing what she had done."
"Indeed. Let us all pay tribute to what a compassionate saint the Adversary is," Viconia interjected sarcastically.
Coran watched the water wistfully, picturing Arrow falling into it and shattering his own reflection. What a wretched sight that was these days. Coran of Tethir: shabby, careworn, the richest man in Baldur's Gate and the confidante of Bhaal. With his butchered auburn hair, heavy bags beneath his jaded eyes and skin which had taken on a saggy quality from his perpetually fluctuating weight, he had inadvertently achieved what the god's most alluring and beautiful consorts had not. Bhaal loved him.
Perhaps Bhaal even loved him in the guise of Arowan, in her own twisted way. She could have killed him. After all she had scarce reason not to, but she had spared him. Even left him the bow. He shifted it in his hand, giving the string an experimental twang. He ought to get a spare. There was a strong likelihood that the first thing Captain Corwin would do once they reached Baldur's Gate would be to demand her property back.
Merely the thought of going home made his stomach lurch. To the streets he'd walked with Arowan tending the poor and sick. To the bars where he and Freya had gotten too blind drunk to stand upright. Past the boarded-up chapel where Arowan had treated those dysentery victims with no regard for her own health. He had barely been able to step inside that hell house himself. The Adversary, a compassionate saint?
"You have no idea," he told Viconia.
"She meant to end her life. Dorn told me what she was doing," Anomen went on. "We rushed to try and stop her but I have come to the conclusion since then that he must have had a hand in it. He may even have suggested it to her as a way out in the first place. Perhaps that is what he and his foul master had planned all along."
"He always meant for her to become the Great Evil of Amauna's prophecies," Rasaad said. "From the moment he first clapped eyes on her, he and his patron singled her out as the one."
"When we found Arowan, she had climbed up onto the bridge just here," Anomen recalled glumly.
"Are you sure that death was her intent?" Jaheira asked sharply. "Arowan was an exceptional swimmer and had the constitution of an ox. She would have survived the jump."
"She had buckled on full steel plate very tightly," Anomen explained grimly.
Jaheira and Rasaad exchanged an uncomfortable look, for they alone among the party knew where Arowan had got the idea from. Long ago, on the road from the Nashkel mines to Beregost, she had fallen into the river in full plate armour. She had almost died then. Perhaps, they were both thinking, it would have been better if Rasaad had not pulled her out.
The druid glared at the water, as though blaming it for failing to drown her adopted daughter. Even if it had, it would have been too late to prevent much of the damage Arowan's life had wrought. Whereas if she had perished in Beregost… It was pointless to speculate on what her life would be like now had Arowan dissolved into glitter in that distant river. Khalid would probably still be with her, though no doubt blaming himself for lending their ward his armour in the first place. Praise Sylvanus he was not here to see what she had become. Unable to have children of his own, he had loved Arrow as if she were his natural daughter, and Jaheira had played along at happy families. At first because it was what he needed but in the end because that was what she was. The only child she would ever have with Khalid, and now she would have to destroy her.
Once that was accomplished, then what? The sun had set on the life she had shared with Khalid, and a long, bitter night had followed. With Arowan's death might it end and a new life dawn?
"How did you talk her down Anomen?" asked Coran, shattering her thoughts.
"We didn't. I doubt there is anything anyone could have said that would have dissuaded her from jumping at that point," Anomen told him. "I went in after her and pulled her out. Once she was healed and unconscious Dorn and I had to decide what to do. There wasn't much time. Too many people saw her turn back from the Slayer. The city guard were looking for her and as soon as she woke up I knew she'd try the same thing again. I panicked and… Dorn tricked me into thinking it was my own idea but… he steered me to Numbing Potions like a dog driving a sheep into a pen."
"Idiot," muttered Jaheira. Anomen did not disagree with her.
"I am sorry," he told them sincerely, looking at the others at last. "I realise that no apology can ever be enough. All I can say in my own defence is that I first met her when she was on Numbing Potions and it did not seem like such a huge problem. She was strange and off-putting certainly, but relatively benign. I still do not fully understand why this time was so different."
"Her goals had changed," Viconia answered him. "The first time she was concerned simply with getting Khalid and Jaheira away from Irenicus. The second time you gave her the potions while she was determined to stop evil, herself especially."
"Herself being, ultimately, Bhaal." Coran finished in a constricted voice. Unlike the other males in the group, the elf had little compunction when it came to weeping in public and tears were flowing freely down his angular face. "He was right, you know. I do love him. In all the forms I've known him, the smug bastard. And if we can't stop this, he'll die."
"And me, don't forget. If we fail, I'll die too!" Viconia reminded him. She rolled her scarlet eyes, offended, and huffed. "Oh never mind. I realise nobody cares about that, but I don't fancy any of your chances either. The apocalyptic wars and famines that follow will doubtless claim you all. Come then, let us away. From one cesspit of stinking rivvil to another even fouler. Baldur's Gate calls!"
"Don't you die either way Viconia, whether we fail or not?" Jaheira enquired pleasantly. "Oh, that's right. I almost forgot. Lolth will come crawling out from under a rock and drag you off to an eternity of torture in the Demon Web pits."
The druid sounded frightfully pleased at the prospect but Viconia didn't care. She smiled grimly at the water. Her distant reflection smiled back at her.
"No, mongrel, she will not."
Distorted by the water, shadowy, but with red-wine eyes like slithers of flame amongst the ripples. Hers was the reflection of a survivor. Against all odds she had made it this far, and she would make it further. For in her desperation, penned in by dragons in Balthazaar's cloister, she had devised a means of escaping not only Abazigal but Lolth as well.
"Nobody could defy the Spider Queen… except another god!" Viconia thought aloud, though in barely more than a whisper. "And Bhaal you bastard: you owe me."