Author's note: One or two of these inmates of Spellhold are made up. Mostly because I had little idea who the hell was originally in there. So sue me.
Chapter 42: Million Miles Away
Imoen sighed as Kirith pulled the pile of matchsticks towards him, giggling inanely as he counted out the small sticks as if they were valuables from a dragon's hoard. She had forgotten that it was a bad idea to play cards against someone whose mind hopped around from future to past to present, and occasionally was under enough control to pop forwards a few minutes and find out what everyone's hand was.
"Mine… all mine," the slightly insane elven wizard crooned, starting to form a little tower out of the matchsticks, the game all but forgotten right then. Dradeel, wolf-man, who had his good days and bad and was currently – much to Imoen's delight – on one of his better days, exchanged a tired glance with the pink-haired mage, and she rolled her eyes.
The fourth person, little Dili, who had right then decided to transform herself into an Orc, pouted and threw the tiny cards down onto the table. "Not fair! Not fair! You cheat, Kirith, you always cheat!"
The elf looked up at the shape-shifter, stunned beyond all belief. "Kirith no cheat!" he insisted, panicked. "Kirith just… Kirith sees. Is not Kirith's fault if Kirith sees your cards, hmm?" The mage's expression was so doleful that Imoen couldn't quite understand how Dili could continue her rant.
Oh, that was it, she was a rather psychotic little shape-shifting wizard. Well, Imoen said 'little' – that was just because, as far as she knew, Dili's original form was that of a little girl. Truth be told, Imoen had no way of knowing whether Dili was actually young human or aged dragon. The only thing she was certain of was that she was insane.
Imoen wished she were wrong, but she wasn't. Everyone here was insane – either they had been brought there like that or, like Kirith, had been driven to it by the intense surroundings Spellhold offered.
After Irenicus' dungeon, Spellhold was a walk in the park for Imoen. It was still highly unpleasant to spend day after day with all manner of 'magical deviants', however. Oh, she was allowed to go to and fro from her cell as she pleased within the designated hours and to the designated areas, so she was hardly locked up constantly, but she was still a prisoner, and that weighed heavily on her mind.
Dili had stormed out of the little library, now as an Ogre – it was, it appeared, monster day for her – and Kirith had retreated to a corner of the room, still trying to make a little tower out of matchsticks.
Dradeel was looking quizzically at her. Imoen was glad of his presence right then, but at the same time his sanity pained her, for she knew that in maybe as soon as an hour he'd go back to cowering in the corner, screaming 'Bad dog!' at anyone who dared come near him.
But right then, he was fine, and for that she was most grateful. "What is it?" she asked, her customarily bright smile crossing her face at his tentative and inquisitive expression. Other than the little gnome Tiax, whom she and Harrian had encountered briefly at Baldur's Gate, Dradeel was the only person at Spellhold she knew from Before.
"You're seeming… jumpy," he told her. "As if something's about to happen…"
That was another thing. Every inmate at Spellhold had some defining feature that declared their craziness. Imoen was sure she had no such thing, but the others seemed sensitive to her moods, and whenever she got a little nervous or anxious, they were convinced that something big was about to happen.
Right on cue, loud voices could be heard from the corridor leading to the small library, and both she and Dradeel looked around to see just who was coming.
"…Supervisor, I am more than capable of finding my way to a damned library! This isn't the largest of prisons and I'm not, despite your beliefs, totally brain-dead, so get out of my way and let me continue!"
"Corneil, there are parts of this prison it is not safe to go. You are a stranger to these inmates, and some of them have very real powers that can be dangerous, especially when you try to take one of the prisoners away!"
"If you take Tiax, He will reward you when He has reached His final destiny! Ruling the world may take several powerful right-hand men to –"
"Shut up, gnome."
"You see what I have to deal with, day in, day out? Tiax, get the hell back to your cell right now, or you'll be fed wood for the rest of the week!"
"Really. As far as I could see, Supervisor, wood, or some equivalent of it, was what the inmates here eat anyway. You had best not mistreated her, for she is very important… and if the Bhaalspawn destroys the scroll for her, the blame shall be placed solely on your head."
"This may not be a holiday camp, Corneil, but it's not a torture dungeon. These people are dangerous, and are treated as such. I still disapprove of the idea of taking one of my inmates back to the mainland! Think of the message it will leave!"
"Tiax sees that the wizards are weak. This shall help Tiax when He comes to rule all! You wizards shall fall before His might!"
"Shut up, gnome! Supervisor, I don't care what you think of taking an inmate away from this place. The orders come from the Grandmaster himself! This scroll we speak of is far more important than any inmate. Besides, after reading everything on this girl, it seems to me as if she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and was taken out of over-zealousness. Her companions have since bought a magical licence and, apart from this scroll-snatching, have hardly been disruptive."
"I'd call scroll-snatching rather disruptive, Corneil –"
Just then, the two wizards and a small gnome turned the corner to step into the library. The first two were both red in the face from yelling at each other, and then realised that there was a chance they had been talking too loud.
The first one, Corneil, met Imoen's eyes coolly. "You are Imoen, correct?" he asked lightly, straightening his robe and regaining some of the posture he had had before arguing with the Spellhold supervisor.
She folded her arms across the chest, meeting his gaze easily. "I am. I'm guessing that I'm the one you guys were screaming about back there?" Her usual teasing smile crossed her face as she raised an eyebrow at him.
"There you are! Now do what you have to and stop disrupting my asylum!" the supervisor shrieked, glaring at Corneil. He gave Dradeel, who was watching everything with a most inquisitive look, an evil glare, then strode off.
Corneil watched him go. "Come with me," he instructed Imoen curtly. She had been in this system for a few weeks already, and was quite aware that possible offers were merely orders to be followed.
Trying not to throw a backwards glance, she walked with the mage as they started out of the library and headed through the corridors leading out of the prison complex of the asylum. Her heart was racing as she considered the possibility of what Corneil had said. Was it true? Had Harrian managed to strike a deal that got her out of this place.
In the end, curiosity overcame common sense. "What is happening? What has happened?" She paused, then took a deep breath before plunging in head-first. "Am I getting out of this place."
Corneil grimaced. "Yes, girl, you are. Corias has bargained for your freedom." He turned and glared daggers at her. "But yon supervisor is right. If anyone ever hears that you were freed from this place by us, repercussions shall be swift and painful. This place has a reputation to keep up. You are only leaving because of politics."
They continued in silence, Imoen trying to stop herself from grinning and whooping at the knowledge that she was leaving Spellhold. I knew he'd do it. I knew he wouldn't leave me here. Now all that's left to worry about is…
The moment she finished that thought, what she was supposed to worry about became a very real worry. The most dangerous of inmates were kept in the area of the prison they were walking through right then. Including… him.
And he was, right then, being led back into a cell. Despite how badly treated Irenicus had to have been, he still stood proud and tall, and did not seem very dominated by the oppressive place Spellhold was.
But he saw Imoen and Corneil easily, and his placid face suddenly turned into a mask of fury as he realised what was going on. "You! What are you doing?" he demanded, starting to pull away from the two mages that flanked him, but was constrained temporarily by the magical chains that held him.
Corneil swore under his breath. "Keep him secure!" he bellowed, then grabbed Imoen. "Resist and we both die," he hissed under his breath, then started to chant quickly. He really hadn't wanted to dimension door here in the asylum, for magical wards made such an action exceedingly dangerous, but he felt he didn't have much of a choice. Unlike the other Cowled Wizards, he had not underestimated Irenicus, and knew him to be under-guarded. He clearly had designs on the girl, that much was apparent from when he had been taken in.
Irenicus swore loudly in elven as the wizard and the girl disappeared. "You fools!" he barked at the two mages who had restrained him. "You see what you have done? You absolute fools!"
The two Cowled Wizards slunk back, whimpering piteously and begging for forgiveness. Irenicus had manipulated them to be under his boot early on, for his plans to take over Spellhold would need two such as him. But they had taken their actions too far, and now, he was at a most serious disadvantage.
They died with little ceremony, killed by some of the oldest and most potent magics on Faerûn. Irenicus, despite himself, gained very little pleasure from their deaths. He had not lost; far from it. His plan would just need a little bit of… tweaking.