Scaling the peaks was harder than Arowan remembered it being. Dorn had been wise in his nagging about her declining physical state. She was also missing her feelings; the elation and freedom that this sort of trek through the wilds had given her before her fall. Without it, the climb became arduous.
Curiosity as to whether the wilds could still make her feel led her to delay taking her dose of Numbing Potion, but her experiment did not last long. Overpowering grief and guilt writhed in their cages, and scarcely five minutes passed her usual dose time before she could bear it no longer and uncorked one of the chilly grey bottles.
The path to the Twofold Temple was a treacherous one of slippery mud and loose stones. It was how the maligned cult clung onto existence, for a direct assault on the place was near-impossible for all but the elite of Shar and Selune's agents. Merely the process of reaching it would drive the rank and file monks to utter fatigue.
It was doing the same to Arowan. Her slow, painful climb was so taxing that were it not for her obsession driving her on she might have given up altogether. When her destination finally appeared around a bend in the path it had changed somewhat. The temple itself still sat on a plateau, protected by a wide moat that was fed from the snowy mountain peak high above them. Its water fell in a cascade of waterfalls down the mountainside, each refracting light into a stunning array of rainbows. The temple had, however, been painted. So had the bridge.
Incoherent swirls, dots, spirals and zigzags of bright colours now adorned what was once, unbelievably, a shrine to the Lord of Murder. Blue, purple and gold banners flew in the breeze. There were strings of fairy lights that reminded Arowan of a carnival she had once attended in Nashkel. The whole place had a festival vibe.
Much of the forest had been cleared too, to make way for crop land to feed the swelling population. Several large fields had been given over to huge, suspicious looking bushes with pointy fan-like leaves. As she dragged herself closer, a peculiar smell wafted from a trio of monks relaxing on the bridge. Possibly they were supposed to be guarding it, but instead they were staring at the clouds and swaying.
"The brightest light casts the darkest shadow?" she ventured after a while.
"Yeah! It does, doesn't it!" beamed the nearest monk. He was wearing yellow-white robes decorated with daisy chains. Arowan struggled not to roll her eyes as the gormless hippies stepped aside to let her pass. "Have you come to join us, sister?"
"Not exactly. Are brother Kelner and Brother Hammerhelm still around?"
"Are they!" exclaimed the monk. Arowan paused expectantly.
"Well? Are they?" she asked after a while.
"Yeah!"
She pinched the bridge of her nose, causing her to glance downward for a moment over the side of the bridge and into the moat itself. Belying the cheery atmosphere of the Twofold Trust, dozens of sunken skeletons grinned back at her. Most of the corpses in the moat dated to before the fall of Bhaal, when this had been his favourite temple, but a few were more recent: casualties of the Twofold's battle with Alorgoth's Dark Moon Cult.
"Thank you," she told the monks. "You have been very helpful."
A travel-tankard closely followed by a knife and a burning branch cartwheeled through the air at Bhaal in a flurry of sparks which the skinless hound barely evaded.
"No?" howled Viconia. "What do you mean no?"
BE REASONABLE VICONIA! AFTER EVERYTHING I'VE BEEN THROUGH TO REASCEND, I'M NOT GOING TO RISK IT BY PICKING A FIGHT WITH LOLTH.
Viconia's eyes blazed as brightly as their campfire. They were a day's ride from Athkatla and half-way to Nashkel by horseback. Their steeds, on loan from the Order, were tugging at their bridles and whinnying nervously. Partly they were unsettled by Viconia's behaviour but instinctively they did not like Bhaal very much. At this moment the drow did not like Bhaal much either.
"You slug-licking two-faced, ungrateful, cowardly male! Fine- then I shall let Arowan win. Why shouldn't I?"
Bhaal sighed and shrugged his exposed, raw shoulders.
OH ALRIGHT. I'LL FIGHT LOLTH FOR YOU.
That was too easy and Viconia was no trusting fool. Once Arowan was dead, she had nothing to hold Bhaal to his word. Only until Arowan was dead, there was nothing Bhaal could do for her anyway. It would take more than his avatar, even in its largest manifestation, to take on the Spider Queen and win.
"You're lying, aren't you?" Viconia accused him.
Bhaal replied no, but he looked shifty. His pink, limp tail hung dejectedly between his legs and he kept flinching at her like a puppy caught beside an overturned garbage can.
Rasaad picked up Bhaal by the slimy bald tail. He shrieked in protest, furless, corpse-like paws scrabbling frantically in empty air but the monk did not release him.
"This is a new low, even for you. You will protect Viconia as you swore to or I'll-"
OR YOU'LL WHAT?
Bhaal's teeth snapped at Rasaad in mid-air. He might not be able to reach him now, while the monk had him by the tail, but the meaning was clear enough. If he became a god again, Bhaal could do as he pleased, and Rasaad could not force him to lift a claw in Viconia's defence.
"What about divine debt?" Coran frowned. "You swore as Freya to protect Viconia. Doesn't that mean you have to aid her?"
I ALSO SWORE MY DEVOTION TO A SCORE OF DIFFERENT NATIONS AND RELIGIONS IN MY MORTAL LIVES, I COULDN'T HONOR ALL OF THEM EVEN IF I WANTED TO. BESIDES, STRICTLY SPEAKING, FREYA DID NOT SWEAR ALLEGIENCE TO VICONIA. SHE SWORE TO PROTECT THE SERVANT OF ALL FAITHS.
"Viconia is the Servant of all Faiths," Rasaad retorted between gritted teeth.
ONLY UNTIL AROWAN DIES.
"You bastard!" screeched Viconia, flying at Bhaal and slapping him back and forth with her palms. Rasaad gripped his tail firmly as she worked, her nails catching on Bhaal's exposed muscle and sending blood droplets showering to the ground, like some sort of gruesome pinata.
Eventually Coran felt obliged to intervene. This was helping nobody, and probably not predisposing Bhaal to want to risk his own skin to save Viconia. He held out his hands for Bhaal and after a few more strikes, Sharran and Selunite reluctantly handed him over.
"Listen mate," Coran began reasonably, petting his rather dazed friend on his battered cranium, "If you owe Skie Silvershield a divine debt for something her ancestor did decades ago, surely you will owe Viconia for what she is about to do?"
THAT'S DIFFERENT. VICONIA NEVER VOLUNTEERED TO BE THE CHOSEN ONE. THE PANTHEON PICKED HER. I DON'T OWE HER FOR SOMETHING THAT JUST… HAPPENED TO US.
"I'm disappointed in you."
GO FUCK YOURSELF.
Bhaal yawned belligerently and curled up for a nap in Coran's lap. The elf could do nothing but shrug helplessly at the others as Jaheira's lip rose in disgust. Her disapproval of his friendship with the Lord of Murder had not lessened and Coran could hardly blame her. He was repulsed by Bhaal's attitude himself, though not surprised. In her short life Freya had possessed many qualities that he had prized in a friend, but even he could not pretend that she was anything but selfish. Her habit of always taking half the loot no matter how many party members she had, that nasty business with the bandit scalps, exiling him and Safana when they became politically inconvenient, not caring two straws about the starving refugees fleeing Caelar's war until he'd forced her into taking an interest… the list went on.
Viconia leapt to her feet fuming and stormed into the wood, where she ran across a pack of gnolls. A few ill-tempered swipes of her flaming sword saw two dead and the rest fleeing into the trees. Their terrified yelps were already fading into the distance when Rasaad spoke.
"Remember when we had to have lookouts all night to keep watch for such creatures?" he asked with a smile.
She did. It seemed as long ago and far away as if it were another lifetime, and yet it had been but a few short years and close to this very region. Then they had been vulnerable as travellers on the roads, no match even for an average city patrol. These days, were gnolls to disturb them from their slumber, it would be the canines themselves who would get the nasty shock.
"And so we return to this part of the world," Viconia said looking around her. "Just as I unexpectedly returned to the Underdark. It seems my life goes around in circles. I always end up back where I started."
"Do you think perhaps you and I might end up back where we started?"
Viconia spun around viciously.
"With you waxing lyrical about the Moon Maiden and making cow eyes at Arrow?" she snapped, recalling where they had really started. "Seems unlikely, doesn't it?"
To her fury Rasaad laughed. It was a worldly laugh these days, quite unlike when they had first stumbled across one another. Indeed, in those days he had rarely laughed at all. Odd that the darker his world became, the more humour he was able to find in it.
"We must find a way to force Bhaal to help you," he said, suddenly serious. "I do not know what I would do if I were to lose you."
"My best guess? Mope," she sneered, though her insides were tying themselves into horrible little knots. "You've a gift for it."
"Old habits die hard," he admitted, "But with your help I believe they can be broken."
He held out his arms and for a moment Viconia considered falling into them. Then she remembered Arrow, and how the silly girl had taken him back over and over, only to have him pull away. It had not been what destroyed the ranger, other losses had achieved that. Yet Rasaad had weakened Arowan. Viconia was determined that he would not do the same to her.
"You'll have to do better than that," she snapped. She stormed back to camp, bits of silver hair catching on low hanging branches and staying behind like a cobweb trail. She called back to him as she went; "A lot better!"
Rasaad's brow knotted.
"Like what?"
Brothers Kelner and Hammerhelm, it transpired, had each left major aspects of their monastic identities behind them. Hammerhelm was almost unrecognisable, in that his face was obscured by a vast silver beard. It was plaited, combed and woven into such intricate patterns that the man seemed more beard than dwarf. Clearly, it was a much beloved beard that had been sorely missed during his time as a Sun Soul monk.
Kelner had found love of a different sort.
"Congratulations," Arowan said with indifferent politeness. Kelner and Erowan beamed at her, patting her large belly.
"Just fancy, eh?" the freckled, matronly woman clucked. "A mother again at my age! Bhaal be praised!"
"Bhaal? You have not converted to the Twofold Trust then?" Arowan raised an eyebrow.
"Converted? Heavens, no, Master," Erowan trilled. "No, I'll be right here in your temple waiting to pick up the reigns again. You finish up dying and ascend just as soon as you're ready and I'll pop the kettle on for you while you're off having fun painting the mountain red with the lifeblood of the infidels."
For all the world she might have been a nanny encouraging a finger-painting toddler. Arowan was about to ask where her infidel lover and their new baby fitted into this future, but she changed her mind. After all, Erowan had just mentioned being a mother before. Her loyalty to Bhaal ran deeper than her loyalty to her own flesh and blood. There was probably no need to ask where the baby's older sibling was now.
"That sounds… lovely," Arowan sighed weakly. "In the meantime, I wonder if I might trouble your order for shelter and perhaps some food?"
Erowan and Kelner's eyes lit up delightedly. Nothing made them happier than requests for sustenance. The pair of them had complimentary skills.
"I'll get the brownies," Brother Kelner beamed.
"And I'll fetch the tea!" Erowan added.
"How fares brother Rasaad?" asked Hammerhelm as the happy couple gambolled off in the direction of the kitchens. "Does he still cling to the Sun Soul heresy?"
"The last time I saw Rasaad he was wearing Sharran vestments," Arowan shrugged.
"And his nice young lady, the Servant of all Faiths?" Hammerhelm enquired. "Has she discovered the Great Evil yet?"
"Oh yes. She's in pursuit of the Adversary as we speak."
"Excellent!" Hammerhelm rubbed his broad palms together. "I do hope that when this business is settled they will choose to return to the Twofold. They will certainly be most welcome!"
Hammerhelm was a little disappointed to learn that Rasaad and Viconia would not be joining them any time soon. They were, he felt, a perfect representation of the harmonious union between the Sun Soul and the Dark Moon. Despite the numbing potions, Arowan's lip twitched upward that anyone could use their names and the word 'harmonious' in the same sentence.
She soon found herself sitting on the edge of Bhaal's corpse filled moat, soothing her red raw feet and munching on Brother Kelner's brownies as the sun slipped down the mountain. In so far as she had the capacity to enjoy anything, she was enjoying this. She idly prodded a skull with her toes sending a startled fish swimming out from one of the eye sockets. It would be easy enough to revive this moat and for a moment Arowan seriously toyed with the idea of setting up in the Cloud Peaks instead. Only it wouldn't work. At this altitude there were not enough people to build a large enough necromantic army, not even if she slaughtered every monk in the temple. Knowing nothing of the fates of the remaining Bhaalspawn, she had to assume that she would need one. Balthazar's monks likely had the capacity to scale the mountain and to a winged dragon like Abazigal, mountains were nothing at all.
Idly, she organised her pack with some delicacies the monks had given her for her ongoing journey. Then she hauled herself to her feet and retired indoors. Tonight was likely to be her last opportunity to sleep in a bed for some time. Staying at taverns in Nashkel, Beregost or even the Friendly Arm would be far too great a risk. Firkraag's spy network was everywhere, and though she was unaware of his involvement in recent events, it was safe to assume that his associates would be on the lookout for his AWOL employee. As dawn broke, she slipped away from the Twofold Temple and began her long, lonely trek across the Cloud Peaks.
"Nashkel!" Jaheira exclaimed. "What in the name of Sylvanus have these savages done here?"
Nashkel had changed. For one thing it was considerably larger. The town's limits now extended north of the river with hastily erected timber dwellings and several of the nearby farms had been engulfed by its expansion. Looming over it was a grim, windowless building with several vast chimneys rising from its roof.
"What is this monstrosity?" Jaheira demanded of the first guard she came to on the bridge, but immediately regretted opening her mouth. The air was so heavy with the reek of yeast that she could actually taste it.
"Welcome to Nashkel, home to Nashkel Taverns Bespoke Hand-Crafted Ale," the guard recited mechanically as though he were reading from a script. "If you would like a tour please proceed to the inn on the other side of the bridge where a tasting session will be provided. Guided groups depart for our brewery three times a day and a complimentary meal is included in the price."
The druid led the party across the bridge looking shell-shocked. They had to wait to cross. A dozen donkeys harnessed to carts filled with barrels were lined up and waiting to leave. Every cart had 'Nashkel Taverns' branded onto the side in ornate calligraphic letters.
"Bernard is doing well for himself I see," Jaheira bristled at the churning factory, but she failed to dredge up a reason to seek retribution, other than the fact that she disliked what he had done with the place.
"Good. I liked Bernard," Coran replied mellowly. "And I'll like staying at a decent tavern at long last even more!"
Mistrust of drow meant that Viconia chose to keep her hood raised. Though she was far from defenceless these days, she still did not like to draw attention to herself in human settlements. Coran waited until their order had been taken, then slit his palm discretely into his satchel.
"Bhaal!" he whispered. Jaheira placed her chin on her folded arms glumly, while Rasaad gave the bag a look that wished Bhaal nothing but ill. Seconds later, the god's gruesome little head poked out over the table, bulging eyes gleaming in the candlelight. "Hey buddy. Recognise this place?"
Bhaal sniffed the air. It hung heavy with beer, even for a tavern, mingled with the scent of roasting meat and smoke. A friendly little fire was crackling in the corner, lighting a somewhat unvaried drinks menu. Nashkel Taverns Original, Nashkel Taverns Light, Tropical Nashkel Taverns… apparently the locals had become defensively attached to their new main source of income.
I RECKON I'VE BEEN HERE BEFORE. CAN'T PLACE IT THOUGH. WHERE ARE WE?
"This is where we stayed after the carnival where you won Safana that ring."
HA! YEAH, I REMEMBER THAT. BUGGER ME, I DRANK A LOT THAT NIGHT.
"You drank a lot every night," Coran grinned fondly.
YEAH. THOSE WERE THE DAYS.
"Indeed, they were." Coran looked around the inn. It didn't have all that many drinkers, though the air in this town was so thick with the smell of brewery that there seemed little need to drink. A determined adventurer could probably get hammered just by stepping outside and taking a few deep breaths.
Jaheira swilled her water round and round the glass morosely. There were suspicious green flecks in it that suggested it had been scooped straight from the river, but she refused to support the landscape-ruining brewery on principle.
"We were there," Viconia told Coran at length. She rarely brought up that period of their lives which was too closely associated not only with Arowan, but with the darthiir mage Xan. It was an unstated party rule that he and Viconia's ill-fated love affair never be mentioned.
WE KNOW!
"Fuck me did we know it!" Coran cried emphatically, slamming his empty tankard on the table.
"What do you mean?" Jaheira frowned.
WHEN MINSC JOINED OUR PARTY HE WAS QUITE… TAKEN… WITH YOUR LITTLE STUNT WITH THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE.
"Would not stop going on about it for weeks!" Coran laughed. "How impressed he was by the way you kicked that cheating gamesman's butt. In the end Safana had to tell him that Boo was embarrassed by it and too polite to tell him before the barmy great lump would stop!"
HA! HE HAD A BIT OF A CRUSH ON YOU, JAHEIRA. IT WAS ADORABLE… IN A REALLY, REALLY ANNOYING WAY.
"Like Imoen had a crush on Khalid you mean?" Jaheira shot back waspishly. Bhaal flinched.
I WAS KINDA HOPING YOU'D FORGOTTEN ABOUT THAT.
"Not likely," Jaheira muttered into her tankard, and the room took on an altogether frostier tone. It didn't last long. Whatever mortified part of Bhaal was still Imoen was rapidly eclipsed by the twin personalities of Freya and Sarevok.
VICONIA! DESIST GLARING AT ME BEFORE I STRIKE YOUR EYES FROM YOUR SKULL AND HAVE A DRINK.
The drow let out a chain of expletives that turned the air blue before storming away to bed. Bhaal shrugged and began lapping up ale from Coran's tankard. Even the elf scowled at him reprovingly. Jaheira made her excuses and went to bed, this tavern was reminding her too sharply of being here with Khalid and Arrow, but Rasaad leaned across the table, muscles gleaming.
"You will protect Viconia from Lolth, coward," he told Bhaal in a low, threatening voice. "I don't know how I will force you to do the right thing for once in your miserable life, but believe me I will think of something."
Bhaal hiccupped.
YOU COULDN'T THINK YOUR WAY OUT OF A SIGNPOSTED MAZE.
"What is that supposed to mean?" snarled Rasaad.
IT MEANS… IT MEANS I HAVE LIVED SCORES OF LIFETIMES AND MET HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF MORTALS… BUT ONLY ONE WHO MAKES ME LOOK LIKE AN INTELLECTUAL.
There was a hideous crack as Rasaad's massive fist squashed Bhaal's head into the table. The force required was somewhere between cracking a nut and squashing a very large bug and the innkeeper turned to stare, but luckily Bhaal evaporated back to the Abyss before he got a proper look.
"Forgive me," Rasaad said, taking a deep breath to regain his composure. "But that achieved something for me that meditation could not. I suddenly find myself far more at peace with the world."
"He did make a rather satisfying crunch. Look, Rasaad, don't get me wrong he had it coming," Coran murmured, "But I'm not sure that what you just did exactly helped Viconia's case."
"Coran may I… may I ask you something?" Rasaad began tentatively. "As I understand it, you have a great deal of experience with women."
To the elf's alarm, the huge toned monk was turning red around the face and he had a hand placed awkwardly behind his own neck. He had heard things about monks. Instinct told Coran to deflect, and deflect he did, most fervently.
"But not much with men!" Coran pushed his chair back hastily. "I mean, I have been known to dabble but er… when one does dip one's toe into unfamiliar waters size matters and sometimes less is more!"
Rasaad blinked.
"What are you talking about?"
"Er… what are you talking about?"
"Viconia has informed me in no uncertain terms that it will take more than an apology to appease her… justifiable rage," Rasaad swallowed. "I am not sure how best to proceed. I wonder, with your extensive practise in these matters, whether you might have any suggestions?"
Coran leaned back in his chair, a wicked grin lighting his rounded features. In the candlelight his emerald eyes glittered.