Chapter 142: Light at the End

Harrian peered through the gloom of the Umar Hills catacombs, holding a flaming torch in his left hand which cast erratic shadows down the stairs and around the corridors at the bottom. The rest of the party waited behind him, looking anxiously over his shoulder at the darkness. Last time they had been there, they had been battling through shadows and skeletons, avoiding pain and death. Now they were here to once again avoid pain and death, but battling a rather different foe.

The Bhaalspawn took a deep breath, then glanced over his shoulder at the others. "Well," he said, frowning a very little. There was a pause. "Well."

"I doubt there are spiders down there, Harrian," Imoen told him, giving her brother a wry yet encouraging look. "If there are, they're probably normal-sized."

He gave her a look. "It's not them I'm worried about," Harrian mumbled, facing the darkness and closing his eyes. He wasn't sure he dared step any further, dared face this hope. Hope was the only thing that had picked him up off the cellar floor. If hope faded… he didn't know what he'd do. He didn't even know if he'd be able to make it to Suldanessellar.

No. I will. Because Irenicus shall pay.

"Do you want us to go with you?" Anomen asked falteringly. The expression on his face made it quite clear that he wanted to do nothing other than stay put and avoid going into the darkness. Besides, Harrian wasn't sure he wanted company on this anyway.

"No," he said at last, taking a deep breath and passing his torch to Imoen. "I shall do this alone." Bodhi's heart was in his pack, contained in a box Rendval had supplied, and Jaheira's body still rested on the small cart. It had seemed somewhat… childish to be pulling a tiny cart along the great roads of Amn, but Minsc had advised against horses to make their way to the catacombs.

Harrian stepped over to the cart, and reached down to gather Jaheira in his arms. Normally, he would not have stood a chance of being able to carry her and his gear as far as it was to the alter without falling over, but the Girdle of Hill Giant Strength they had bartered off Ribald made it somewhat possible. Harrian didn't want to have to do this with Minsc carrying Jaheira behind him.

"Good luck," Reynald said grimly as Harrian moved back towards the entrance. "If the Gods deem it shall be so, then you shall be reunited."

"Damn the Gods. I'm not doing this to stroke their egos," was Harrian's curt reply as the swashbuckler turned and descended into the gloom. Though, almighty guys, you know I don't really mean it, and any possible touch of luck you might have floating around and feel like throwing my way would be appreciated, he amended mentally, eyes shifting skywards for a moment.

He couldn't carry Jaheira and a torch, so his progress through the corridors was slow. He knew them after the three days they had spent underground, fighting through to get to the Shade Lord in the company of the halfling Mazzy Fentan – who had then returned to her home of Trademeet once they were done. The armour Harrian wore was made from the scales of the Shade Lord's pet, a formidable Shadow Dragon that had cudgelled them rather well before falling. And on the way, there had been that statue of Amaunator. A dead God in whom Harrian was now placing all the faith he'd ever been able to muster for a deity.

Harrian didn't know exactly how it would work – had only been given a brief, frazzled explanation from Anomen and slightly lengthier but purely practical instructions from Imoen on the way to the Hills. It seemed it would be using the remaining essence of the dead God, whose temple had been overrun by beasts of darkness, to chase away the contamination of vampirism from Jaheira and return her to the living.

If it worked. And, as far as Harrian was concerned, this was a very big if. Under normal circumstances he would have dismissed the claims, the 'evidence', as myth and fairy tale. But now… now he couldn't afford to. Not if he wanted the strength to carry on. Reynald might have been right – it might not have been his own fault if so many of his comrades had died. But, responsible or not, they had died. All around him, died. And if Jaheira was lost forever, then that was… too much. Too high a price. Too much paid for fighting by his side.

The boon of strength from the girdle meant that he could move freely, and his natural agility allowed him to hop across the lettered floor, jumping from paving stone to paving stone to make his way across the large chamber he had finally come to.

A… M… A… U… N… A… T… O… R… Don't miss, avoid the balls of fire that try to incinerate you…

The altar was, Harrian had thought then and believed now, a fairly pathetic sort of affair. A dusty slab with a half-hearted statue of the dead god at the head of it, he had not given it much consideration when they had visited here first. In fact, he wouldn't have known what Imoen was talking about if he hadn't remembered taking the part of the sun stone from the altar to allow them to proceed through the door at the end of the catacombs. But now… now all his hopes rested on it.

He gently lay Jaheira's body on the slab, then stroked her cold cheek – so cold it was disturbing, cold with death and the curse of the undead – before straightening up. He deposited his heavy pack on the floor, then rooted through it to pull out the small casket that contained Bodhi's black heart. He hadn't even known vampires had hearts left to be black.

Harrian set the casket down on the edge of the altar and flipped it open, grimacing. He wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to do with it, other than use it in the process.

He paused, then looked up at the statue of Amaunator. "Well?" he murmured, frowning. "You're the god here, dead or not. What am I supposed to do for you here? I don't have a clue. A little help?"

Unsurprisingly, the statue didn't answer, merely stared back mutely, the bronze it was set in failing to respond to his words. Merely squatted above the slab of the altar without reacting, staring with its open hands looking as if they were waiting for something, not giving him any damned answers…

…wait a second, fool. Think…

With a little trepidation and no small amount of disgust, he reached into the casket and pulled out the black heart. A little cold blood still oozed from it and dripped from his fingers onto the stone floor. He wasted no time in depositing it in the statue's outstretched hands.

And nothing happened. At all. He was just sitting in a cold temple, with a dead body on an altar in front of him and a squatting bronze statue holding an oozing black heart of a vampire!

Harrian swore, and threw the casket at the opposite wall. "Do something, you bastards!" he screamed, first at the statue, then at the ceiling. "Or is this your idea of a joke? Dangle the carrot in front of the Bhaalspawn, see how far he'll go, and then hit him with the damned stick! You're all enjoying some bloody cosmic joke at my expense, aren't you!"

He sighed, sagging against the wall and closing his eyes. "I need her. This isn't… isn't like the others I've lost. They matter. You bastards, you know they mattered to me, and those with me now… Anomen, Imoen, Minsc… they still matter." Harrian took a deep, shuddering breath, then looked over at Jaheira. "But not like she matters. She held me up in the early years and has never stopped doing so. Without her, you have no Bhaalspawn to hit with a stick! I need her! Give me this one damned boon!"

Hope. Just hope. Cling to hope. Hope.

Harrian stepped forwards slowly, then moved to kneel by the altar. He reached up and took her cool hand, resolutely not looking at her face, and bowed his head, his lips moving inaudibly. He was hardly aware of what he was saying. A prayer, of sorts – but not to a god. To anyone who could listen, any who had stood by his side and fallen. To Gorion, to Khalid, to Dynaheir… to someone. For something.

Another ragged breath cut through the silence, and Harrian realised with a start that it was not his own. The hand he gripped twitched a little, and as the thief half-rose, sluggish with amazement, what greeted him was not what he expected.

His nose exploded into pain as Jaheira's free hand swung round to whack him with the base of the palm solidly, even as the druid sat up abruptly. "Back, you beast…! I shall not… not…"

Harrian staggered back, half-blinded and quite sure his nose had been broken. He hit the wall with a thud, raising his hand to staunch the flow of blood, a little oblivious to the fact that his efforts had been successful in the face of immense pain, blood, and blindness.

Jaheira blinked rapidly, her breath still coming in gasps, clearly disconcerted. She came to a slow halt, visibly calming down, her eyes roving all over the small temple within the catacombs, apparently recognising where she was. She swung her legs over the side of the altar and stared at her hands numbly. It was a long moment before she realised he was there. "Harrian? What is going on?"

"Hello Jaheira… Glad to see you back in one piece," Harrian said. Or he tried to say that. It probably came out a lot more muffled, with a lot more d's thrown in and in a far less dashing and debonair way than he'd rather intended.

"I… did I do that?" The druid hopped to her feet slowly, hesitating for a minute to test her footing, then stepped forward and raised her hands to his face, pushing his hand away and pulling his head around to he was looking at her straight on. "I… am sorry… I… what has happened?"

Harrian paused as she murmured an incantation under her breath – evidently her druidic powers were intact – and a cool healing light engulfed the pain in his nose. He paused for a few seconds, gingerly mopping up the blood around his mouth and chin with his sleeve, gathering his thoughts and revelling in the simple pleasure her touch gave. "I… you died," he whispered, looking deeply into her green-grey eyes. "Bodhi took you… half-turned you… I had to kill you…"

Jaheira blinked. "I see," she said, frowning a little, evidently still reeling a little too much from resurrection to completely assimilate this information. "And so… if I am back, then why did you need to cast a Resurrection Spell in the Amaunator temple." There was another pause. "You can't cast that, or Raise Dead."

"No… and that wouldn't have worked on you," Harrian murmured, gingerly touching his nose before closing his hand around hers again. "You were… gone. Until Imoen found something in one of Bodhi's books on returning you to life, free of the vampirism…" He glanced away, taking a deep breath. "We… I didn't know if it would even work until now."

"Bodhi is dead?" Jaheira pressed, squeezing his hand gently. "Imoen has her soul back? The others are all well? We have the Rhynn Lanthorn?"

"Yes, to all questions," Harrian said wryly, an unstoppable smile tugging at his lips.

Concern flashed in her eyes. "You are alright?"

"I am now," he replied honestly. "It has been hell. But now… now that doesn't matter. You're back." Harrian closed his eyes briefly, resting his forehead against hers. He was only slightly taller than she was, not a particularly broad-shouldered or bulky man, and she was probably a better warrior than he was. Without the girdle, there was no way he would have been able to carry her to the altar.

"Irenicus is still out there. Suldanessellar still needs saving. But now… well…" He opened his eyes to look at her intently. "Now, I may just have a hope in all the Hells of having the strength to deal with all of that."