Irenicus ground his back teeth in irritation. The Bhaalspawn meandered through his library, glancing at the books with the same emotionless indifference as she looked at everything else in the compound. He'd shown her the mutilated body of her adopted father and she'd shrugged.
He'd taken her to his bedroom where her werewolf sister's pelt was currently serving as a floor rug. She'd merely remarked, unfazed, on how interesting it was that it hadn't turned to dust. Only the parts of a Bhaalspawn attached at the moment of death did. Then she'd chewed off a fingernail and stared at it not-dusting for a while before flicking it away. He'd let her sit with the dryads while they described their years of misery at his hands. She had responded with a loud yawn.
"They're almost as afraid of her as they are of you," observed Bodhi, smugly. Through his incompetence Freya and Eric were dead. Now he was left with the feeblest Bhaalspawn, Arowan, a ranger with barely a hint of her father's essence. Scarcely enough even to restore his mortal health, never mind take on Ellesime and the Tree of Life.
Bodhi was itching to say that it served him right. He had let Freya send her to her coffin fourteen times as part of his 'experiments.' Still, it was a sore spot, and if she brought it up, he would likely torture her. So for once she stayed quiet.
"Get out!" snapped Irenicus. Bodhi gave him a simpering smile and slunk away into the gloom. Arowan picked up a book she was incapable of reading, and began ripping pages out one by one. He turned his face to her and said coldly; "Desist."
Arowan dropped the book impassively, causing more pages to detach from its spine. If he still had hair, he would have torn it at this point. Irenicus could not even bang his steel-bolted head against a brick wall in case pieces fell off. There was little he could do with her in this state, but he feared to leave her unattended. Her brother Eric had died from going too long without numbing potions. He had not been taking a tenth of what Arowan was drinking.
Irenicus was weaning her off of them slowly, carefully, but from such a high starting dose it was going to take months. In the meantime there was a very real risk that she might die from withdrawal in her sleep.
So here she was, not in a cage but loitering about his library amongst books she couldn't read. She had picked up another one and was trying, her mouth moving as she attempted to make sense of the words. Yet soon her eyes glazed over and stared blankly at the page.
"Ugh, my head," she complained, putting the book back.
"I haven't done anything to you yet," Irenicus pointed out frostily. "You cannot require more numbing potion, your last dose was barely an hour ago."
"No, but I picked up this nine-cups-a-day coffee habit in Baldur's Gate," groaned Arowan. "If I miss my morning beans I'm out for the count."
"Ah, wit," he said. "Your sister imagined she had it too."
"I'm not entirely joking," replied Arowan blearily. Not that it really mattered if she had a headache. She was aware that her head hurt and that it was supposed to be unpleasant, but under the influence of the potions she did not care about pain.
"You Bhaalspawn seem to have a predisposition for substance abuse," Irenicus snapped. "Eric with his numbing potions, Freya with her alcohol. It has caused me a great deal of inconvenience. It still is. I cannot use you in this state."
"I do apologise," she said, idly raising another of his books to the nearest candle. He crossed the room in two steps and snatched it from her hand.
"Sarcasm and bravado will not help you!" he snarled.
"Yeah but, let's face it, they probably aren't going to make things any worse."
The mage's face contorted with rage. His prisoner knew perfectly well that she was going to die, but thanks to the numbing potions she didn't care. He was not accustomed to being spoken to with such a lack of reverence. Even Bodhi, despite her occasional bouts of defiance, maintained an appropriate appearance of awed fear. Whereas Arowan felt nothing.
"Were it not for those numbing potions you would be on your knees pleading for mercy!" he thundered, sending lightning crackling from his fingertips. His unimpressed audience blinked at him with absolute unconcern.
"I used to do a lot of pointless things before the potions," she replied nonchalantly. "But probably not begging. A man who has gone to the effort of building a laboratory like this is not just going to release me on request. This isn't the first time I've been caged in a lunatic's dungeon. I know begging is a waste of breath."
"Ah, you mean Gamaz? Yes, his base in the Cloud Peaks was a great inspiration for this place," Irenicus mused, looking around him. "He left extensive notes on his experiments. You should have studied them, they make for fascinating reading."
"I never liked reading."
With the tips of her fingers she started heedlessly pushing books, paperweights and pens onto the floor. Not for any particular reason. Just because. When she got to the inkwell, his brittle fingers tightened about her wrist again. She withdrew her hand dispassionately.
"Candlekeep was wasted on you," he remarked spitefully.
"That is an accurate assessment."
There was a long pause, during which he kept half an eye on his prisoner in case she decided to destroy something out of boredom again. She even had to be monitored at night. This task had fallen to their geas slave, Yoshimo. The duergar could not be relied upon for such an important task. Loafers and idlers the lot of them. Barely better than drow. As for Bodhi, she did not have the self-discipline required to pay attention to Arowan for long periods. Besides, he didn't trust her not to eat her.
A clump of feet echoed down the dripping sewer-like corridor. A golem appeared at the door to the library to inform him that an intruder had entered the complex, but Bodhi had taken care of him. A faint crease appeared between Irenicus' eyes. That ought not to be possible… but perhaps his sister had brought in a live snack and forgotten about them. It wouldn't be the first time.
He pulled a small metal spanner from his robes and tightened the steel bolts on his hands and arms just in case. No good getting into a battle and having a finger fall off mid-incantation.
"Can I ask you something?" piped up Arowan.
"Another attempt at humour?" Irenicus responded between gritted teeth.
"No, a legitimate question."
"Very well, but make it brief. I must check who this so-called intruder was," he replied. "It will almost certainly be a waste of my time but one cannot be too careful."
"Are you taking numbing potions too?" Arowan asked. He looked up from his bolts, surprised, so she elaborated. "You frequently behave as though you are."
Irenicus put down his spanner with a careful click, and gave the Bhaalspawn his full attention. She was a plain but athletic woman, with wavy brown hair growing just past her shoulders. Her eyes were a solid chocolate brown, though the numbing potions gave them a vacant appearance, like a dead manatee. She retained the swarthy, freckled complexion of someone who spent most of their time outdoors, for she had not been his guest for very long. At least not chronologically. To Irenicus it had felt like he'd had to tolerate her presence too long right from day one.
"A curious observation Bhaalspawn. What prompted it?"
"The total lack of empathy. The psychotic torturing. Your single-minded fixation on the last thing you cared about." She gestured in the general direction of his mistress's shrine and the room containing her clones. "Even though according to the dryads you don't really feel anything anymore."
Irenicus ran his finger slowly over his upper lip, mulling it over.
"No, I have never taken numbing potions," he answered her at length. "But I imagine the effects of my curse are similar. I had not considered that."
"Tell me more about the curse," said Arowan. "Perhaps I can help you lift it."
Irenicus narrowed his eyes suspiciously. As far as he could tell, she cared for nothing but getting her surviving parent out of the complex. The ranger didn't even have real emotions about Jaheira anymore. Yet freeing her had been the last thing she'd cared about before she started taking numbing potions. In the absence of any other feeling to deflect her, she'd pursue that goal forever, as relentlessly as a golem. Just as he tried endlessly to recreate his passion for Ellesime, despite long since ceasing to really care.
"Fear not little one," he said. "You are going to help me lift it."
"That's why I'm here is it?" asked Arowan.
"Don't think I don't see what you are doing!"
"What am I doing?"
"Fishing for information," he said. Arowan almost smiled. He glared at her. "For an uneducated illiterate, you possess a surprising cunning. Your sister just used to rage and make threats."
The thudding feet of the golem returned. Irenicus was almost relieved to have an excuse to stop talking to Arowan.
"Master," it croaked mechanically. "More intruders have entered the complex."
"What? How?" snapped Irenicus. The humanoid mound of baked clay stood there mutely. "Go and fetch Yoshimo to watch Arowan. I will deal with it."
This made no sense! How could his defences have been breached? He had chosen Athkatla specifically because the city required that every magical practitioner be registered with the Cowled Wizards. There was nobody here with the power to challenge him. He had geas-slaves among the clerks in the government building who checked the register for him daily.
A few minutes later Yoshimo entered the library and Irenicus left in a temper. Arowan watched her exchange of guardians with a profound lack of interest.
"How are you feeling?" the thief asked tentatively.
"I feel nothing, we have been through this," she replied. "I did for about ten minutes this morning between waking up and my first dose of numbing potion. Then I was thinking about my father's death and Irenicus showing me his corpse." She paused and added reflectively; "I was quite upset about it."
"I am sorry about what happened to your father," Yoshimo said with a small bow.
"Why?" Arowan blinked in surprise. "He killed Freya for you. You put on that geas ring and gave up your freedom so that you could have your revenge on the Hero of Baldur's Gate. That was the whole point. I'd have thought you'd be pleased with how my father died. He did what your master clearly wasn't going to any time soon."
Yoshimo winced. The ranger was not saying it in an accusatory way, only as a statement of fact. She had been surprisingly understanding when they had met, north of Baldur's Gate, and he had confessed to being under the wizard's control. She'd warned him at the time that he had no idea what he had got himself into, and she had been right.
The things he had seen in this complex, he could never unsee. Nor, with the geas ring on his finger, could he do anything about it. Yoshimo felt that he was living on borrowed time, waiting for an order to come that was so obscene that he would be unable to follow it. Then he would die, and when he did Irenicus had promised him there was a place in hell waiting for him.
"I would appreciate it if you would stop referring to him as my 'master,'" he said.
"That is what he is."
Before Yoshimo could reply an explosion rocked the complex. The thief jumped in alarm as dust and powdered mortar rained down on them from above. There were pounding footsteps and yelling as the duergar rushed to aid in the battle.
"Is something wrong?" asked Arowan.
It was hard to believe that this was the same woman he had met on the road to Baldur's Gate. The one who had gone hungry to give the last of her food to refugees, and had spared his life when he'd been part of an attack on her group.
"We're in danger of being buried alive!" cried Yoshimo, trying not to get frustrated with her. "Does that qualify as wrong?"
"Yes!" said Arowan, snapping out of her stupor and suddenly alert. "If the complex collapses there is no way to get Khalid and Jaheira out. Getting them out is…"
"…necessary. Getting them out is important," Yoshimo finished for her. He'd heard it before. His fellow Ilmatari was running on a one-issue-ticket these days. "Whatever the reason, let us depart!"
"Will your geas ring permit that?" she asked.
"I was told to watch you!" the thief snapped. "Do you imagine that letting his last, precious Bhaalspawn get crushed under rubble was what Irenicus had in mind when he gave that instruction?"
"What he had in mind is irrelevant," replied Arowan. "It is the wording of the geas that counts. One must be careful how one gives instructions with such a curse… and how one follows them. Not that I object to you breaking the rules. Your survival is…"
"…not important. I know," Yoshimo sighed, unable to resist rolling his eyes. "Isn't this nice? We're only just getting properly acquainted, but already we finish each other's sentences like an old married couple. The geas is fine. Now let's move!"
They headed for the corridor but found the way blocked. One of Irenicus' duergar was retreating backward toward them, sword outstretched. Suddenly the Underdark dwarf was enveloped in a noxious purple fog. It laced sickly tendrils of gas into her ears, mouth and nose. Soon the deadly vapour was even pouring from the sockets of her eyes, and she collapsed dead.
The ranger stepped forward curiously, with the obvious intention of poking the deceased duergar. Yoshimo, however, retreated instinctively, pulling an annoyingly unconcerned Arowan with him. This was why she had to be watched constantly instead of simply being caged. The potions made her as much a danger to herself as to Irenicus' possessions.
To Yoshimo's astonishment and Arowan's mild interest, a courtesan stepped over the dead duergar and strolled into Irenicus' library as bold as brass. She had a frilly silk dress with a corseted bodice. The skirt was slit so high up the back that if she bent over her bottom would be exposed. Her long blonde hair was tied in a high ponytail adorned with multicoloured laces and exotic jewels. The woman's lips had been painted a vibrant red and she had glittering blue shadow above her charcoal decorated eyes.
"Oh, don't let me stop you darlings," she trilled, winking at Yoshimo.
"What in the hells?" the thief muttered. The courtesan ignored him and began hastily pulling books and scrolls from the shelves, tossing them onto the floor and muttering in annoyance. Every so often she would tuck something into her scroll book. On closer inspection, her dress was a heavily modified wizard's robe. A valuable one, in so far as the thief could judge. They watched her in bewilderment.
Two more strangers followed her into the library. It took them some time to vacate the corridor because despite their burly, wide girth, they were attempting to walk two abreast. The men stumbled in looking about them stupidly. There was nothing Yoshimo could pinpoint that set them apart from any other hired goons. Yet he got the sense that there was something not quite right about these two. Arowan was certain that she had seen the woman before, but it was hard to tell under so much makeup.
"Excuse me madam?" Yoshimo ventured politely.
"No!" sighed the courtesan, sweeping another pile of scrolls onto the floor with her elegantly manicured hands. "No, no, no. Nothing!" A curdled scream rang down from above. There were a great deal more hollers and bangs. "Will you SHUT UP!" she screamed at the ceiling.
"I beg your pardon?" Yoshimo tried again. The courtesan pouted and folded her arms.
"Go away please, I'm busy," she sighed. "If you try to stop me, I am going to have to destroy you, but I really don't have time for that so if you wouldn't mind…?" She made a gesture to shoo them away.
Yoshimo frowned at the courtesan, trying to make some sense out of what he was seeing. He had known Irenicus to bring blindfolded ladies on the game into his mistress's room before, but not to wander freely around the complex, trampling on his books. Besides, he had a specific type. Elfin, golden-haired and possessing ethereal grace and beauty. This woman, with her excessive rouge and careworn face did not fit the criteria. Those were heavy eye bags lurking beneath her inch-thick makeup.
Yet he had no choice but to move. Arowan was already striding away in search of Jaheira and (he suspected with some unease) Khalid's corpse. With a last, curious glance at the bizarre intruders, he hurried away after his charge.
The courtesan continued rummaging but her search did not go uninterrupted for long. Irenicus was less concerned about the Shadow Thieves overrunning his lair, as he was about locating the mage who let them in to start with. Suspecting that the assassins were being used as mere cannon-fodder as they flung themselves uselessly against his spells, he left Bodhi and the duergar to deal with them and returned below.
As soon as he saw the courtesan, he was certain that she was the one who had breached his defences. For all her harmless appearance, she radiated evil magic. A dark, necrotic aura surrounded her, and as for her accomplices, they were zombies. Not just any old mouldering tomb guardians, these were exquisite craftsmanship to be sure. Yet zombies just the same.
At once he fired off a series of contingency spells aimed at immobilizing her. Paralysis, holding, sleep. One by one they bounced harmlessly off of the necrotic aura surrounding her. She turned around slowly, resignedly, and began to chant her own incantations in retaliation.
The moment he attacked her, the zombies stopped groaning stupidly and lurched into action.
"Shank protect Bubbles!" cried one. A talking zombie.
"Carbos protect Bubbles!" declared the second, gallantly. Irenicus looked from one to the other, then back to the courtesan. These names and faces were all very familiar.
"No, Shank protect Bubbles!" roared the first zombie, who had been a half-elf in life judging by the ears. He squared up to the formally-human Carbos. Bubbles squeezed her eyes shut in embarrassment.
What fresh insult from the Seldarine was this? Irenicus gawped at them, for he remembered now who they were. This woman was the lover of the dead Bhaalspawn and powerful necromancer, Eric of Candlekeep. She, like Eric, had been a prisoner of Baeloth in the Black Pits but unlike him she had not been kept as a fighter.
With a loud but stilted curse, Carbos punched Shank squarely on his undead jaw, which promptly fell off. Shank bent down to pick it up, shoving it back onto his face with a nasty clicking noise. Carbos took the opportunity to boot him in the thigh.
Irenicus was glaring at Bubbles. A human courtesan with no powers of her own, how could this be? Eric must have done more than rescue her. Now that he came to think of it, he remembered the boy rushing backstage saying he meant to rob Baeloth's stalls of their equipment, but coming back with nothing. Had he given everything to her? It certainly appeared that way, her amulets and charms were better quality than his own!
Shank was trying to rise, but every attempt earned him a fresh kick from Carbos. Eventually the half-elf zombie gave up, twisted around on the floor and fastened his teeth around his fellow's ankle, in an effort to gnaw it off.
"Fight the wizard not each other!" Bubbles groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose.
The exile scowled at this amateurish display and apparently Bubbles had had enough too because an arrow of ice shot from each of her hands into the zombie's chests. Her henchmen collapsed and she made an impatient hissing noise.
"Forget it! Useless hulks. I'll do it myself!" she sighed.
If Irenicus had expected this to be an easy fight, he was unpleasantly surprised. Breaking through her defensive spells did not avail him. There was a morbid buzzing sound. Bubbles lifted her skirt and out swarmed hundreds of undead bees. They formed a dynamic barrier between the two of them, parting for her spells and absorbing his, at the cost of a few dead insects per curse.
"Clever. This is exactly the sort of thing that Eric might have done," Irenicus said, remembering the dead Bhaalspawn and his undead rats. He was backing away as he spoke. The insects were stinging at him. Most were blocked by his barriers but occasionally one broke through and it hurt.
"Is that a werewolf bite I see on your cheek?" Bubbles asked innocently. "You're powerful enough to throw off a lycanthropy curse, but not to heal the simple wound that went with it. Now why might that be?"
Irenicus responded with a fire blast, that destroyed almost all of the bees in one go. Flames radiated from him and their tiny undead bodies shrivelled, falling in a rain of ashes. Bubbles huffed.
"The wound is rotting I see," she said, with a twisted smile. "Let's see if we can't speed that up."
There was a moist, diseased sound, accompanied by the foul stench of decomposition. Pain and frailty leeched through his body. It was a hefty necrotic attack and he was already susceptible to it. Ellesime's punishment had left his body falling apart. He could only hold it together with bolts and magic. The grievous wounds that the Hero of Baldur's Gate had inflicted before her death, were not healing and his half-dead body was decaying around him.
Whatever Bubbles was doing was making it worse. He had no choice but to surrender to the fetid whore. Such weakness was a new low, but he swallowed his pride. Once he was restored he would make this one pay too, along with everyone else who had wronged him.
"Cease this!" he cried, holding up his palm. "What is it you want? Tell me! Perhaps I can provide it."
"Perhaps you can." Bubbles raised an over-plucked eyebrow. The spell subsided, though rancid fungi were popping in and out of existence an inch from his nose. Her threat that she could reapply it at any time was clear. "I need all the information you have gathered on the Bhaalspawn, and anything you may have in your library concerning resurrection magic. Give it to me, and I will go away."
There was a flutter of wings and a large bat flew out of the corridor. It hovered momentarily between Bubbles and Irenicus. Bodhi resumed her human form and landed, catlike, her fangs flashing wickedly.
"I'd forget stealing from us and just leave if I were you," purred Bodhi. A clanging behind her signalled the return of the armoured duergar. "Your thieves are all dead, nightwalker. Do you think you can defeat us both together and our servants too?"
Bubbles cast an appraising eye over the vampire and her brother, who was already getting to his feet. If she could take out a few duergar, she could bring them back to fight their fellows, but that would leave her open to one of those fireballs.
Then there was the vampire. Bubbles had no desire to be bitten and find herself in thrall to a mistress. She was already enough of a slave to the dead.
"Probably not," she sighed. She gestured to Shank and Carbos. "I must be going. Don't fret about the mess, they'll tidy themselves away later."
With a crackle of energy, she vanished.
"We should burn the zombies!" said Bodhi. "She practically told us they'll get up again."
"Forget Shank and Carbos, they're no threat!" Irenicus cried, leaning heavily on a duergar to pull himself to his feet. "Where is the Bhaalspawn? Spread out and find her! That pitiful ranger is the last whole-soul available. Without her I'll have to resort to picking scraps out of Imoen."
Carrying Imoen's soul was unthinkable after what he had subjected her to. He was quite content to let Bodhi endure such trauma. For himself, he'd prefer those memories kept out of his head. He led the way into the complex to hunt Arowan, leaving the zombies lying in a puddle of papers.
After a while, there was a loud groan and Shank sat bolt upright. His lifeless grey eyes fixed dully on the ice arrow in his heart. It was still almost intact for he had no body heat with which to melt it. With a jerking motion he fixed stiff, gloved hands about the arrow and yanked it out. It clattered to the floor and shattered.
Beside him Carbos was lurching unsteadily to his feet. He was taller than Shank thanks to their respective heritage, but Shank was wider thanks to a lot of big dinners. Unlike most zombies they each retained a full head of hair, Carbos's black and Shank's ginger. They had even been dressed up in fresh clothes, though they were torn here and there from having been stabbed and shot numerous times in the service of Bubbles.
These were no ordinary zombies. Eric had designed them to pass as real people, provided you did not look or sniff too closely. Even their eyes moved about in their sockets, enchanted to turn automatically to the loudest noise in the room. Occasionally this caused their eyes to rotate backward in their sockets, so that they could stare through their skulls at something behind them. Eric had not got around to ironing out all the glitches.
The pair were passable, just about, but had been dead for over a year. Signs of wear and tear were beginning to poke through the illusion magic.
Carbos took a needle and thread from his pocket and began sewing the arrow wound back up with a practised hand.
"Where Bubbles?" he blinked stupidly.
"Find Bubbles," groaned Shank. His own meaty fingers were too thick for threading needles, so he improvised. A handful of paper was ripped out and shredded from one of Irenicus' books to neatly plug the gap. "Must protect Bubbles."
Carbos sniffed the air. His eyes remained on Shank, as the last sound in the room. The enchantment was far from perfect. His body, however, gravitated toward the dead duergar on the floor. All of the purple miasma had cleared now leaving a perfect, unsullied corpse. The walnut like skull was all that stood between them and a mint-condition dwarf brain.
"Tasty," suggested Carbos. His fellow zombie nodded dully.
"Shank could eat."