Shadows Of The Knight

by Speaker-to-Customers

Sequel to Black Knight but you don't need to wait for that one to be completed before reading this. Captured by Irenicus, with some of her friends slain and even worse having been done to others, T'rissae must work with Jaheira to survive and rescue Viconia and Imoen. The mutual dislike between them is going to make that difficult...

1. You Better Run

Chapter One: You Better Run

I no longer knew how long it had been since we were captured. My world had become nothing but the cage, with only the torture sessions and the visits of the golem delivering water and gruel to mark the passage of time. I guessed it to have been perhaps two ten-days, going by the number of times I had slept and the amount my nails had grown, but I could be wildly wrong. This was hardly an environment conducive to a normal sleep pattern and I'd never needed to keep an accurate track of my fingernail growth before.

The Hooded Man came at irregular intervals and blasted me with magic. If my magic resistance protected me from a spell, he simply cast Lower Resistance on me, and then cast the flame or shock spell again. He never came close enough for me to seize him, presumably because he was wary of my physical strength, and seemed content to talk about my 'power' and cause me pain. He talked of 'unlocking' the power of Bhaal within me, although what he would do if he succeeded was never mentioned; perhaps he would unleash me as a ravening monster to spread chaos and destruction, although he was such a formidable mage that he could have caused adequate destruction by himself. He no longer wore the hood, and I could see his face, but it didn't seem real somehow. His skin seemed taut and inflexible, almost like a mask, and he wore an odd leather and metal skull-cap that hid everything behind where his hair-line should have been and even covered his ears.

When I first awoke, in the cage, I had found that my wrists were fastened together behind my back. I had managed to force them apart, by exerting all my strength, but the instant I had relaxed they had snapped back together again. On my second attempt I managed to get them in front of me before the magical pull locked them once more. All I had achieved was to get my hands in front of me, which was a slight improvement, but I was still bound. Once I could see my restraints, I realized that I was wearing Bracers of Binding, probably the very ones that I'd been given by Shapur of House Ryrrl in the tunnels under Dragonspear Castle. Ironic, in that I had kept them in case we had needed to take a prisoner – Caelar Argent, perhaps, if things had gone differently – but the only prisoner they had been used on was me; first when I had been accused of murdering Skie, and then in my present captivity. Another Irony Crisis, I thought, managing to summon up a brief moment of levity in my horrible situation. I made further attempts to free myself but with no success.

The lock on the cage door was positioned so that I couldn't reach it from the inside, not that I would have been able to do much anyway as I had no skill in picking locks nor any tools for the purpose, and the hinges were on the outside too. The lock and the bars were too solid for even my strength to make any impression, even when I augmented myself with Draw Upon Holy Might, and I could neither break nor bend them. My only hope was that someone outside would release me.

I didn't know what had happened to my friends. If the Hooded Man wanted me because I was a Bhaalspawn he would have had no interest in the rest of the party. They might have been slain in the attack, as Ajantis had been, or carried off with Imoen and me, or even left behind as irrelevant. If they had been ignored then they might be able to track me down and mount a rescue; I could only hope. Realistically, though, I thought it more likely that they had been killed or taken prisoner. I had heard screams from elsewhere in this chamber but had no way of knowing if it was my friends, being tortured as I had been, or other prisoners of the Hooded Man unconnected with me.

I awoke, after a period of snatched sleep, and opened my eyes to see the no-longer-Hooded Man standing outside my cage.

"Ah, the Child of Bhaal has awoken," he said. "It is time for more… experiments." By which he meant that he would cast painful but non-lethal spells on me. "The pain will only be passing. You should survive the process." He cast a low-powered fire spell on me, hurting a lot, but not doing any serious harm. I'd suffered much worse from kobold fire arrows. "Interesting," he said. "You have much untapped potential. Do you even realize your power?"

This was very much the way these visits always went. He would hurt me, talk about things I didn't understand, and then go away. This time there was an interruption. A golem lumbered toward him, its tread sounding heavy on the stone flags, and it spoke.

"More intruders have entered the complex, master," it said, in a deep rasping voice. Talking golems were rare and only the greatest mages could create them. An ominous reminder of the Hooded Man's power.

"They act sooner than we had anticipated," the mage said, sounding mildly irritated. "No matter, they will only prove a slight delay." He gestured and the golem lumbered away in the direction from which it had come. Another gesture, and a whirling circle of energy formed in the air around him, Dimension Door or Teleport, and he was gone.

I was relieved at the temporary respite but doubted that it would last long. I checked my burns, decided that they were too minor to be worth healing, and made use of the hole in the floor that served as a crude privy. Then I sat down and thought gloomy thoughts. Nothing happened for a while and then a man ran into the room, screaming, and a blast of magical energy followed him and blew him apart. I came to my feet, wondering if the 'intruders' were making progress and if there might be some faint hope of rescue, but there was no further disturbance for several minutes. I lay back down, gloom descending upon me once more, and waited.

Then I heard a door open and footsteps approaching. I looked, and saw… Imoen.

She scurried up to my cage and began to work on the lock. "Wake up, Trissie, wake up!" she said, as the door sprang open. "Come on, we have to get outta here!"

"Imoen!" I cried. "You're alive! I was so worried." She looked gaunt and drawn, and there were thin white lines of scars on her face, like knife cuts that had healed naturally instead of with magic; she didn't have my healing abilities.

"Hey, you're all naked, and you smell," Imoen said, as I left the cage. "He's been… doing things to you too, huh?"

"There weren't any bathing facilities in there," I said. "Where has he been keeping you? Have you seen Viconia, or Minsc, or the others?"

"I… no," Imoen said, sounding somehow uncertain. "There are a couple of other cages at the far end of this room and there's someone in one of them who looks big enough to be Minsc. I hope so."

I looked, and saw the cages she meant. My cage had a blank wall on that side and until Imoen freed me I hadn't been able to look in that direction. It did indeed look like Minsc and there was someone else in a cage a little further away. My spirits rose slightly. "We need to find weapons, fast," I said. "If the Hooded Man comes back, there won't be much we can do to stop him recapturing us."

"I have some spells left," Imoen said, "but they wouldn't be enough against… him. Will you be able to fight with those… things on your wrists?"

"Not as well as without them," I said, "but if we can find a greatsword I'll at least be able to use the basic cuts and thrusts."

"Not your fancy moves, huh?" she commiserated. "I passed through a room on the way here and I think I saw some weapons in it. I don't think it's our gear, I'll bet they sold off our best stuff, but anything is better than nothing."

"Point the way," I said. "We'll grab what there is, and then see if that is Minsc over there."

There was a golem in the room, and my heart jumped, but it stood stationary and ignored us. I saw a few weapons lying on a table and snatched up a two-handed sword. It was a basic non-enchanted weapon, not in the same class as my blade the World's Edge, but with it I would be a match for most fighters, even hampered by the Bracers. I would, as I had told Imoen, be able to perform all the standard moves that didn't require me to change my grip; cuts and thrusts, certainly, but no half-swording or murder strokes. There was a mace among the weapons, and I told Imoen to take it for Minsc, as he was fairly skilled with that weapon. In a concealed and trapped wall safe Imoen found a dagger, which she identified as possessing a minor sharpness enchantment, and she tucked it into her belt. There was a large chest against one wall and it turned out to contain several pieces of armor. There was no plate but I found a gambeson and a suit of splint mail that looked as if it would fit me adequately. I laid down the sword and, with a struggle, managed to keep my arms apart long enough to get them through the armor's sleeves.

"How did you get free, anyway?" I asked Imoen, once I had donned the armor.

"There was fighting," she said, vaguely. "My cell was damaged. I… don't know if I could do it again. There's a pain in my head and it's getting worse."

I cast one of my healing spells on her. "Better?" I asked.

"A bit," she said. "Thanks." She fell silent and I didn't press her further. I tried to cheer her up by telling her that me being bound by my own Bracers of Binding being another example of an Irony Crisis; she didn't even groan at the pun.

There was a key on the table with the weapons and I picked it up. I guessed that it might fit the cells at the opposite end of the room. I took up the sword again and we went to see if it was indeed Minsc in the far cage.

It was. The other cage at that end of the room held Jaheira, not Viconia, Safana, or Dynaheir as I had hoped, and I ignored her for the time being and concentrated on Minsc. He cried out in joy, when he saw us, and I looked for a keyhole in his cell door. There wasn't one. It must have been operated by a lever somewhere else. The construction wasn't quite as solid as that of my cage, however, and by working together Minsc and I managed to snap the locking bar and force the door open.

Minsc seemed to have lost some weight and he was no longer bald. A short fuzz of hair had grown, perhaps something between a quarter and half an inch in length, and a stubble of beard covered his chin. This confirmed my estimate that we had been imprisoned for around two ten-days.

"Free!" Minsc proclaimed. "Now I can seek revenge for Dynaheir!"

"What happened?" I asked, feeling my heart sink.

"They killed her in front of me," Minsc explained. "I failed in my duty to protect her. I know not who they were, but… I will redeem myself!"

"Minsc, that's horrible," Imoen commiserated. "I am so sorry for you."

"I won't cry for the dead, I won't," Minsc said. "Well, maybe a little, but I will staunch the tears with righteous fury! Lullaby and goodnight, Evil! Minsc will make you pay."

"I share your grief," I said. I had not regarded Dynaheir as a truly close friend, unlike Viconia, Imoen, Safana, or Minsc himself, but she had been a staunch comrade and her death saddened me… especially as it had been carried out in front of Minsc, who would be shattered by it. I felt renewed worry about Viconia and Safana. Had they, too, been murdered? But I guessed that the Hooded Man would have chosen to kill Viconia in front of me, if he had been going to kill her, and so there was still hope. "Together we shall make our enemies answer for our fallen."

"Answer they will," Minsc said, "and my sword shall be the question." I was going to hang onto the sword, unfortunately for Minsc, but he accepted the mace as a temporary substitute. Boo emerged from within his clothing and squeaked at me; I was surprised that Minsc still retained the hamster, despite having been stripped of his weapons and armor, but presumably the agile little creature had scuttled around inside his clothes and evaded our captors' gaze. Neither Minsc nor Boo had seen any sign of Viconia or Safana.

We went over to the other cage where Jaheira was imprisoned. She had never been a part of my company, as at our first meeting we had quarreled over my association with Viconia, and although our paths had crossed a few times we had never worked together. Jaheira had only been with us when we were captured because she, her husband Khalid, and the paladin Ajantis had been asked by the Baldur's Gate authorities to escort us out of the territory after my trial for allegedly murdering Skie Silvershield and my subsequent banishment. I respected Jaheira as a competent warrior, and accepted that she basically had good intentions, but I regarded her as something of an anti-Drow bigot and didn't like her at all.

"Quickly! We must get out of here before our captor returns!" she called, as we approached her cell.

"Have you any clue why we were brought here?" I asked her.

"Something to do with your Bhaal heritage, no doubt," she said, "but we can discuss it further once we are out of this place."

"Where is Khalid?" I asked. Her cage did have a visible lock and I tried the key that I had found on it. The key turned and the door sprang open.

"I do not know where he is, and it worries me," she said. For a brief moment I thought that Imoen was going to say something but no words came out. "No doubt he was taken as we were, although it seems we were all meant for different fates," Jaheira went on. "From the state of my head I think that I have been drugged, although I have been spared any serious physical mistreatment. You, however, look as if you have been treated most unfavorably, and I should not like to think of Khalid receiving the same."

"It's no worse than the sunburn I would get from a couple of hours in the sun," I said, "although Imoen seems to have fared worse." Jaheira wasn't unscathed herself, as her face was discolored by fading yellowish bruises, and her hair was missing one of its braids. "Have you seen any sign of Viconia, or Safana?"

"I have seen no-one since I have been here," Jaheira said, "other than the mage who came several times to shoot flames at you, and a golem who has brought me gruel. You do not ask after Ajantis, I notice. Have you found him already?"

"He's dead," I told her. "I saw him slain just before I was felled. You heard Minsc speak of Dynaheir, I take it?"

"I did, and I offer my condolences," she said. "Let us go forth and seek, first escape, and then vengeance."

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We went back to the room in which I had found the armor and gathered some more equipment. A mail hauberk and a small shield for Minsc, a studded leather jerkin and a spear for Jaheira, and a buckler for Imoen.

"Are those Bracers of Binding on your wrists?" Jaheira asked, as she realized that I was doing everything with my two hands together and had to lay down my sword every time I picked up something else. "Will you be able to fight?"

"I will be hampered somewhat," I admitted, "but I believe I will still be effective. It is lucky that I chose to specialize in use of the two-handed sword. If my weapon of choice had been a light one-handed weapon, especially if I was a dual-wielder like Drizzt or Cierre, I would be in a much worse position."

"Hmmph. I hope you are right," Jaheira said. "We shall see."

We went through the door through which Imoen had come, once we had donned the armor, and found that the passage was occupied by a mephit. I was able to use my sword well enough to slay it before it could do us any harm, as I had predicted, but the door beyond it was locked and Imoen was unable to open it.

"I don't understand," Imoen said. "This door was open when I came through."

"Either the Hooded Man locked it, or one of his golems did," I said. "If there's some kind of attack going on it's not surprising if they're locking things down. We'd better look for an alternative route."

A door near the cages where Minsc and Jaheira had been imprisoned led to a small room dominated by something that seemed to be an inactive magical transportation portal.

"He took me through one of these," Imoen said. "They need a special key."

"Where does it go?" I asked.

"If it's the same as the one I went through, just to a different part of this place," Imoen said. "Another level, I guess. I don't know."

There was nothing else for it but to try the one remaining exit, a corridor, in which we found a number of dead bodies. By their dress they were thieves but all their armor and weapons were too damaged to be of use, although one of them did have a pair of boots that fit me. Past them was a chamber inhabited by a lightning mephit. I killed it without difficulty. Beyond that…

A strange area, more like a natural cavern than a constructed room, with pools around the edges and a massive structure of crystals in the center. I tried to wash in one of the pools but it showed me visions of hideous tendrils reaching for me and I hastily backed away. We moved on and were confronted by a djinn. It asked me a hypothetical question, a version of the Prisoner's Dilemma, and my answer seemed to satisfy it but then it summoned an ogre mage for us to fight. We killed the ogre mage and the djinn then informed us that we should seek out someone named 'Rielev' who could give us valuable information. The djinn disappeared without clarifying his statement.

There were two exits from this chamber. One was a corridor occupied by three goblins, which we killed, but beyond them was only a locked door that we couldn't open. We tried the other exit and found ourselves confronted by a small horde of goblins. They posed little threat and we were able to take two shortbows and plenty of arrows from their bodies. Imoen was passable with a shortbow and she took one so that she could stay back and avoid close-quarter combat. I had never been any good with a bow, and the Bracers holding my wrists together would have made using one impossible anyway, and Minsc took the other. His usual ranged weapon was the longbow but a shortbow would give him at least some ranged capacity for the time being.

We entered a room in which glass tanks, filled with an unidentifiable liquid, lined the walls. There were two mephits in the room and we killed them. A chest held an enchanted quarterstaff, which Jaheira took in place of her spear, and a few sling bullets but no sling.

Imoen paled as she looked around the room. "I… I know this room," she told us. "I've been in here. We both have." Presumably I had been unconscious at the time. "He… There are things in these tanks… they used to be people. What kind of monster is this guy? Captures us easy as pie, kills whoever he wants… that could have been us in those glass things."

I tried to soothe her, with limited success, and she continued to talk. I gathered that the Hooded Man had taken her on something of a conducted tour of his lair, showing her horrible things, and talking about releasing my power. It was almost as if he had wanted her to become his apprentice, although his recruitment techniques had been less than appealing.

The next room held the usual guardian mephit, which died quickly, and an immobile golem. It also contained the first item of our own equipment that I had seen since leaving my cage; the mace Krotan's Skullcrusher, which had been Viconia's favorite weapon for a while, until she had acquired a better one, and had then become Minsc's back-up weapon for use when a blunt weapon would serve better than his sword. He took it gladly, discarding the non-magical mace, and was just as delighted when we found a longbow for him to replace the goblin shortbow. A basic, unenchanted, weapon but he would be able to use it well enough.

The golem was the janitor to the complex and, after a complicated bit of interrogation in which I had to pretend to be its master, I learnt that it would open all the doors in the complex if I could just find its activation stone. So, on with the search.

More goblins to slay and then a room which held the mysterious 'Rielev'. He was a brain in a jar, in a horrible state of living death, desiring only to die for good. To grant him that wish I had to remove the power cell that kept him alive. He advised me to use it to talk to the other brains in jars and I agreed. We found a sling and a few bullets in a barrel, giving Jaheira a ranged weapon, and the activation stone for the cleaning golem was on a table; we took it and used it to send the golem about its duties.

The brains in jars didn't seem to be aware of us, even after I connected the power cell, and talked as if we weren't there. One simply called out to a master who had forgotten him, one mentioned a 'mistress's room' that was dangerous, one talked of 'the prisoner' breaking soon – probably referring to me – and another talked of a djinn imprisoned in a bottle, who could be reached only through use of a statue, acting as a guard for something valuable. I could make little sense of anything they said and eventually decided that the kindest thing to do would be to remove the power cell and let them return to unconsciousness or death.

We moved on and, after killing more goblins, reached a room that was obviously a library. It was inhabited by goblins and another of the irritating mephits. We killed them and searched the bookshelves. We found a few useful spell scrolls, and a couple of potions, but nothing of great value and nothing that would show us the way out. Imoen was struck by the resemblance to Candlekeep, and wailed about wanting to go home, but that wasn't possible. I managed to calm her down and we continued on our way.

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There were two corridors leading out of the library. We chose the broader one and, after a couple of twists and turns, emerged into a large room in which several duergar, gray dwarves, were on guard.

"Be alert, laddies!" one called, as he saw us. "We've got company. Ho, prisoners! Ye've come to the wrong place, I tell ye true. Ilyich and 'is boys'll stop you!" He was wearing a very fine suit of chainmail, that looked like the one Jaheira had been wearing when we were captured, and wielded an axe.

"Where are the other prisoners?" I asked. "Tell me, and I won't kill you."

"Ye'll no get anything from me, Drow," Ilyich said, "except the edge of my axe. At 'em, lads!" He charged forward.

Imoen loosed a Fireball into the space behind him, catching several of the other duergar in its blast. I met Ilyich with a sword-thrust aimed above his armor; he was poised to block a slash, didn't raise his shield fast enough, and ran straight into the blade. It pierced deep, blood spurted, and the blow of his axe was weak and slow and easy to avoid. I hit him again, across the side of his head below his helm, and he went down and lay still. Most of the other duergar had been killed by Imoen's Fireball and Minsc and Imoen finished the remainder off with arrows.

We were able to gather quite a lot of usable equipment from the bodies and the chests in the room. Luckily Ilyich had not voided his bowels when he died and, after stripping his body and wiping off the blood from his armor, Jaheira claimed back her mail and donned it at once. It must have had a size-changing enchantment as it fitted her as well as it had fitted the duergar.

"I paid in blood for this armor," she said, as she pulled it on, "and it pleases me greatly to have it back."

The rest of the fallen duergar wore basic mail hauberks with no size-changing magics, useless to us, but we took three helmets. I picked up a crossbow and some bolts; it would be difficult, bordering on impossible, to use it with my wrists bound by the Bracers but I might be able to loose bolts if one of my comrades loaded and cocked it for me. At any rate it would be useful once my hands were free. Minsc picked up a two-handed sword, but decided to keep using Krotan's Skullcrusher as his primary weapon, and Jaheira acquired a full pouch of sling bullets. There were several potions of Extra Healing, which were a welcome addition. Perhaps most welcome of all was some food, for hunger was gnawing at my belly, and a couple of water-skins. It was only some black bread, and a couple of hunks of cheese, but it satisfied us for the moment. The dead Ilyich had had some acorns in his belt pouch, and I might have tried feeding them to Boo, but Jaheira said that there was something special about them and stopped me. She took them, saying that she would investigate them more thoroughly later, and we moved on.

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We went along a corridor and passed a door which we could not open; it had an odd lock that seemed to require the insertion of a vaguely humanoid-shaped object. I guessed that the unusual key might be the 'statue' referred to by one of the brains in jars. Further on was a chamber in which a demon was trapped in a magical bubble. There was a strange machine in the chamber and Imoen was intrigued enough to fiddle with it; this released the demon. Luckily it wasn't all that powerful and managed to inflict only minor wounds on us before Jaheira brained it with her quarterstaff. The creature had been armed with an enchanted bastard sword; my training had been almost exclusively with the two-handed sword, and normally I would have had little use for the weapon with the shorter blade and hand-and-a-half grip, but at least it would suffice if I had to face a foe that could only be harmed by magical weapons. There was no exit from the chamber, other than the doorway through which we had entered, and so we reversed our course.

Back through the library, along a corridor, and out into a large area which seemed to be where the sewers emptied into a pit. It was occupied by an otyugh, a monstrous creature that ate carrion and refuse, but which unfortunately would attack living creatures as well. I knew that they were invulnerable to non-enchanted weapons and it was fortunate that I had picked up the demon's sword. We slew it, although it struck me and infected me with a disease that slowed my reactions, but Jaheira cast a curative spell and restored me to health.

Chests in this cistern held more useful items. Splint mail large enough to fit Minsc, his old helmet the Eyes of Truth that granted the wearer infravision, more healing potions, and a couple of spell scrolls. A strangely-shaped key fell out of the otyugh's mouth when it died; we took it in case we found a matching lock.

Beyond the cistern was another corridor, guarded by three easily-slain goblins, leading into a large room that was carpeted and furnished. The carpet hid a spike trap, but Imoen spotted it in time to warn us. In chests and cupboards in that room we found spell scrolls, another strange key, a statuette of an air elemental that looked as if it would fit the odd lock that we had seen on a door earlier, and – to my great relief – the Helm of Balduran, that I had acquired in Baldur's Gate, and had worn ever since. I donned it at once and consigned the unenchanted helm that I had been wearing to the chest in its place.

A bare chamber off from the furnished room held a dozen goblins, which we killed, and another of the portal devices like the one we had seen just off our original prison. Imoen said that this was the one she had been taken through by the Hooded Man, and it would lead to the other area of the complex, but none of the keys we had found would activate the portal. We turned about and took the other exit from the furnished room.

It led to the strangest chamber yet; an area that seemed at first sight to be outdoors, with bare earth as the floor and a tree growing tall, yet there was no open sky overhead; just the rocky ceiling of a cavern, lit by a magically glowing globe in place of the sun. Standing near the tree were three dryads.

The dryads informed us that they were captives, and concubines, of our captor. They told us his name; Irenicus. I had a feeling that I'd heard the name before somewhere but I couldn't recall where. Jaheira remarked that 'Irenicus' meant 'the Shattered One' in the language of the Wood Elves. The dryads pleaded with us to take their acorns to the Fairy Queen, who resided in the Windspear Hills, which would enable them to magically travel there and escape from Irenicus. The Windspear Hills were in Amn, I remembered from my reading, and I wondered if that meant that this complex was in Amn too. We had been heading for the Amnian capital, Athkatla, when we were attacked and captured in the passes of the Cloud Peak Mountains.

The magical acorns, the dryads told us, had been held by a duergar named Ilyich. We had already killed him, of course, and Jaheira had picked up the acorns as a natural reflex for a druid. We promised the dryads we would do what we could to deliver their acorns, as long as we could find a way out of this prison, and they told us we could find the key to activate the portals in 'her' room. Apparently 'her' was someone Irenicus had loved, and he kept her room preserved as it was, although I found it hard to believe that the merciless mage who had tortured me and who kept brains in jars would be moved by sentimentality. Then I remembered where I had heard the name 'Irenicus' before. Centeol, the grossly obese woman we had encountered living with giant spiders in the Cloakwood, had told us that 'Jon Irenicus' had transformed her into her grotesque and almost immobile form as revenge for something Centeol had done to his wife. That did seem in character for our sadistic captor.

Imoen dissolved in tears as we were talking to the dryads, again wailing that she wanted to go home, and I tried my best to reassure here but only had limited success. I was becoming seriously worried about Imoen's mental state. She was depressed and seemingly disorientated a lot of the time, didn't recognize areas that by her own account she must have passed through earlier, and I had a strong feeling that she was hiding something. One of the dryads said to her 'He has touched you as us, hasn't he?' and, although Imoen neither confirmed nor denied it, it implied to me that Imoen had been raped. Her fragile condition was understandable. With everything we had been through, and my continuing worry about Viconia and Safana, I was pretty close to coming apart myself. I held myself together only because I knew that Imoen and Minsc were relying on me.

The room that the dryads called 'hers' opened off this semi-natural cavern. They had referred to it as 'well protected' and I suspected that it might be the room one of the brains in jars had called 'the mistress's room' and had said was dangerous. I reminded Imoen to be wary of traps and we entered.

An alarm went off immediately, a bell ringing out, but it lasted only a few seconds and then fell silent. I was afraid that it might bring Irenicus but could see no alternative to continuing on into the room. There were traps just inside the door, which Imoen was able to deactivate, and then we looked around and saw that the room was a bedroom, richly furnished, with a tiled floor laid with rugs. The rugs hid traps.

"What… what is this place?" Imoen exclaimed. "It's… beautiful. Oh, there is no way that this space belongs to the same person that owns those horrible glass containers."

"It is unlikely that our captor would rent out space," I pointed out. "It must be his."

"No, it can't be," Imoen said. "Not the person I know. This… this bed… that table… I know of them. He would… he would speak of them while… while he… It's for a lost love, kept in perfect condition. She… she despises him. This is his monument to her. He spoke of all of this, but his voice was cold… No emotion at all even while he cut… he cut… and the spells that wove through my brain… cold, ugly things!"

"He cannot hurt you now," I tried to reassure her, although in truth I was by no means certain that we would be able to oppose Irenicus successfully in our current state. "You are among friends."

It worked, to some extent. Imoen calmed down, at least partially, and said that we should do what we must and get out of this place. She removed more traps on chests and closets and opened the locks. I had just emptied one chest, taking out an Extra-Healing potion, a set of bracers, and a large gem that seemed to be a sword's pommel stone, when two clay golems rushed into the room.

"The sanctity of the mistress's has been violated," one said aloud. "The intruders will die!" Then they attacked.

They must have been inferior versions of clay golems, despite their ability to speak, because I was able to damage them to some extent with my non-magical sword. Minsc's mace was our most effective weapon against them, as I would have expected, and we managed to reduce them to inanimate piles of mud without being hurt too badly. Minsc was somewhat bruised and battered but Jaheira was able to heal him whilst still keeping spells in reserve.

We were wary of the bracers, of course, but they proved to be the basic version of enchanted Bracers of Defense, which would provide Imoen with at least some protection from physical attacks. We found a couple of spell scrolls, a Potion of Master Thievery, which might be useful if we found our way blocked by traps beyond Imoen's ability to disarm, and a key. Imoen thought that the key was the one that activated the portals, and I was about to lead the way to the nearby portal when I remembered the door with the slot for a statue. One of the brains in jars had mentioned such a door, indicating that there was a djinn behind it guarding something of value, and it was possible that the thing being guarded was another prisoner; perhaps Viconia or Safana. I didn't want to leave this area with a section unexplored, in case we missed the chance to free one or both of our missing friends, and so that is where I led the group.

The mysterious door was, indeed, opened by inserting the little statue. Going through it led us onto a walkway of wooden planks, suspended above what seemed to be a limitless void, and I guessed that we were on another plane. There were mephits flying above the walkways and, of course, they attacked. The first ones we fought were easy enough to kill but then we reached a large circular platform which was occupied by half a dozen of the little creatures. Imoen had a Monster Summoning spell, and summoned an ettercap to go ahead of us to soak up their spell-like attacks, whilst we loosed bolts, arrows, and sling bullets at the mephits. Unfortunately, they killed the ettercap before we could kill them all, and I was forced to take its place, slashing with my sword, getting hit with their flames and jets of steam, until the last of them went down. I was hurt badly enough that I drank a couple of healing potions, as I wanted us to have spells kept in reserve, before we moved on.

On a table, at the far end of the last walkway, we found an oil lamp of Calishite pattern. I rubbed it, which the story books I had read at Candlekeep said was the right thing to do, and a djinn appeared. He told us that we were in the Elemental Plane of Air, as I had suspected, and that he had been enslaved by a wizard. If I could retrieve a flask, which he believed was held by the dryads, he would be freed and he would reward me by giving me a weapon that, he said, belonged to me. My sword the World's Edge, or perhaps my enchanted crossbow the Army Scythe? He would not be more specific about the weapon and I could only hope. I would be bitterly disappointed if it turned out to be merely my boot knife.

We backtracked all the way to the dryads, obtained the flask from them, and trekked back to the genie. We exchanged the flask for the sword and the djinn teleported himself away.

It wasn't the World's Edge or the Army Scythe. I was disappointed to find that it was, instead, the Sword of Chaos that had belonged to Sarevok. Technically it was mine by right of conquest, I supposed, but not what I'd expected when the djinn had said that it was a weapon that belonged to me. This sword was only twice-enchanted, although it had a minor additional power of slightly healing its wielder, and I'd much rather have had my own blade, or the thrice-enchanted Dragon Blade that Minsc had been given by the Rashemi warrior we had met near Dragonspear Castle.

Still, this sword was very much better than nothing, and its presence answered an old question. The mercenary mage Korlasz, whom we had fought in the Undercity below Baldur's Gate, had been hired to retrieve Sarevok's sword and send it by ship to a buyer in Athkatla. That buyer must have been Irenicus. What he'd wanted with the sword I could not guess. The coin that we had found on the bodies of the duergar guards had been in Amnian Danter, familiar to me from our visits to Nashkel, and that had indicated to me that we were in Amn. This new evidence would seem to confirm my guess. At least, if we escaped from this prison, we would know where we were.

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We trudged off back to the nearest of the portals, the key activated it, and we stepped through. We found ourselves in a room and it was occupied. Only by a single person, a human, and he did not immediately attack.

"So, there is sanity in all this madness," the man said, his accent reminding me very much of Tamoko. His skin tone, his jet-black hair, and the katana at his waist seemed to confirm that he was originally from Kara-Tur. He wore leather armor but, oddly, his feet were bare. "If you are not in league with the evil that dwells in this unholy place, Yoshimo begs your assistance."

"A fair line easily used by servants of the wizard themselves," Jaheira said. "We have been imprisoned, and worse, and given many reasons to mistrust strangers we encounter."

"I share your sentiments," Yoshimo answered. "I have seen much here that has disturbed me. I myself am a warrior with no evil intentions. Please, I would welcome any assistance you might offer."

I cast Detect Evil on him and he came up clean. "He's not evil," I assured Jaheira. "How did you come to be here, Yoshimo?"

"You are a Drow!" he exclaimed, looking me in the face, and his eyebrows rose. They rose further when his gaze went to the bracers holding my wrists tightly together.

"I had noticed," I said. "I was brought up by humans, however, and you need not be alarmed."

"I am not alarmed, merely surprised," he said. "I had never seen a Drow in all my life and then I see two in a matter of days."

"You have seen another Drow? Where?" I asked, urgently, immediately thinking of Viconia.

"The Copper Coronet," Yoshimo replied.

"The what? Is that an inn?" I asked. If he was referring to Viconia, perhaps she had escaped and found her way to an inn to wait for us.

"It is," he confirmed. "You are not residents of Athkatla, then?"

"So, we are in Athkatla," I said. "I suspected as much. No, I have never been to Athkatla."

"I have," said Jaheira. "The Copper Coronet is a large tavern and inn of… dubious reputation. I knew the barman there, Bernard, and he is a good man but resolutely closes his eyes to anything that falls outside his area of responsibility. The inner portion of the tavern, not open to the general public, is reputed to operate as a brothel."

"It is indeed a brothel," Yoshimo confirmed, "and the rumor is that the girls are not there voluntarily."

"Slaves?" Jaheira hissed.

"That is the rumor," Yoshimo agreed. "I cannot confirm it of my own experience. I have not made use of those services. I merely stay at the Copper Coronet when my funds are not sufficient for rooms at a more salubrious establishment. All I know for sure is that sometimes women are brought in under guard and are not seen again in the public areas. The Drow woman that I saw was one of those brought in escorted by armed guards."

I caught him by the arm. "Tell me about the Drow that you saw!" I demanded. "What did she look like?"

He winced and twisted his arm out of my grasp, with surprising ease considering the strength of my grip, using a technique I had not encountered before. I had received some instruction in grappling, as a minor part of my training with the sword, but I could not claim to be an expert. I had read that the people of Kara-Tur were often more skilled at unarmed fighting techniques than any of the denizens of the Sword Coast, other than the various orders of warrior monks, and it would seem that this was true. I resolved that if it came to a fight against Yoshimo I would try to keep him at a distance at which his bare-handed skills would be useless and the length of my sword would give me the advantage.

He did not act as if such a fight was imminent. "You are very strong," he remarked, and his gaze went to my waist as if he was looking for a Belt of Giant Strength.

"I train hard," I said. I seemed to have lost a little strength, in fact, due to two ten-days or so in a cage without exercise and with little food, although I felt that I was still stronger than I had been before I read the Manual of Gainful Exercise; probably about as strong as Sarevok or my Aunt Cierre. Hopefully my full strength would come back once I had had a couple of good meals, and I could always cast Draw Upon Holy Might if necessary, although I had rather lost my enthusiasm for that spell since I found that it derived from my Bhaal essence rather than being a gift from Eilistraee. I dismissed the thought and pressed for more details of his possible sighting of Viconia. "The other Drow. Describe her."

"I did not see her up close," he said, "but she was much smaller than you. Short and slim. She seemed pretty, as far as I could tell, and she wore a gown of green silk."

"Viconia!" I exclaimed. She had treasured the dress that she had been given by the Calishite merchant, although she had found few opportunities to wear it in Baldur's Gate, and she had kept it preserved in her pack through all our adventures. Now, it seemed, she was being forced to wear it to enhance her value as a slave courtesan. A surge of rage swept through me, and a desire to burn this 'Copper Coronet' to the ground and slay all its patrons, but I quashed it. I would need a clear head to get out of this prison and rescue my alurl abbil. And, quite possibly, my other missing friend. Safana would be an asset to any slave brothel; at least until their vigilance slipped, and she got her hands on a weapon and started cutting throats. If Irenicus had sold Viconia to the brothel, it was likely that Safana had suffered the same fate.

"Was there another young woman with her?" I asked Yoshimo. "A Calishite, very beautiful, with long reddish-brown hair?"

"No, the Drow was alone except for her guards," Yoshimo said. "I saw someone fitting that description here, in the chamber in which I awoke, but she was a vampire."

"What?" I exclaimed. "A vampire? Are you sure?"

"I am," said Yoshimo. "I have encountered the creatures before. This was, most certainly, a vampire."

I felt a chill of horror run through me. "Where was this?" I demanded, and I started forward toward the exit from the room.

"Wait!" Yoshimo shouted, and he caught me by the arm. I pulled out of his hold, using sheer strength rather than any cunning technique, but I halted my forward movement. "There is danger ahead," Yoshimo warned. "Do not proceed before I tell you what you will face."

"Very well," I said. "Tell me what lies ahead, and tell me also how you came to be in this place."

"I am unsure both of how and why," said Yoshimo, "but I will relate my experiences and this will answer both your questions. I retired to my room in the Copper Coronet at the end of the day, as usual, but I felt more fatigued than the exertions of the day would warrant. Sleep came upon me, suddenly, before I could even finish undressing. I awoke on a cold stone floor, in a room I had never seen before, with an aching head and a pressing need to urinate. There was a woman lying on a cot nearby, but she was absolutely motionless, and I could see no sign that she was breathing. I went to her, and touched her arm, and it was cold. I was sure that she was dead."

"It sounds as though you had been drugged," Jaheira remarked.

"That is my thought also," Yoshimo agreed. "I left the dead woman and looked for a way out. I saw a door, and approached it, but I heard sounds of combat from beyond it and I realized that my scabbard was empty. I did not wish to leave the room only to find myself in a fight when I was unarmed, especially as I was becoming desperate to urinate, and so I sought somewhere to relieve myself. I saw the grate of a drain and made use of it. Then, as I was adjusting my clothing, the dead woman sat up. My first thought was that I had been mistaken about her condition, and I was embarrassed at having urinated in her presence, but then she said 'I hunger' and opened her mouth. I saw her fangs and knew her for what she was. Without my sword I had no way to fight her and so… I ran."

I looked at his waist, where his scabbarded katana was thrust through his belt, and he noticed the direction of my gaze.

"I will get to that," he said. "She did not start to move until I was nearly at the door but, even so, she nearly caught me. I just made it through in time and slammed the door in her face. There was a bolt and I shot it home. I looked around quickly, for I feared I had emerged into a fight, but no-one was in sight save for a couple of dead bodies in the garb of Shadow Thieves. Then I realized that the floor around me was trapped with pressure plates, in lines across the floor, connected to pillars at the side. I examined the closest pillar and saw that it contained a wand, positioned to discharge some no doubt lethal magic at whoever triggered the pressure plates, but it was locked into place. My toolkit was gone, save for one pick I keep concealed for emergencies, and I could find no way of removing or disarming the wand without a key that I did not have."

I thought of the two mysterious keys that we had found and wondered if they were meant for those traps. A suspicion began to form in my mind. Our escape had, so far, not been as difficult as I might have expected considering the power of our captor. Was it, in fact, a set-up? The attackers had penetrated just far enough, before being magically slain, to provide the opening for Imoen to get free and then release me. The key to Jaheira's cage had been lying in plain sight, Minsc's cage had been weak enough for the two of us in concert to burst open, and there had been enough weaponry easily accessible to get us through the opposition we faced – opposition that hadn't been there when Imoen passed through, as if her passage to my cell had been facilitated by our captor. It seemed suspicious, too, that the invading thieves must have passed through the portal despite the absence of the necessary keys. The portals must have been activated to let them through and then locked again.

Why would Irenicus have set up our escape? It seemed pointless at first but then I came up with a few ideas. Perhaps so that he could recapture us just when we thought we were free, thereby plunging us into despair and helping to break my will. Perhaps, if his aim was to unleash me as an incarnation of the God of Murder, to fuel my anger by letting me discover the things he had done to my companions; murdering Dynaheir, selling Viconia to a brothel, having had Safana turned into a vampire, and torturing Imoen. I felt a surge of anger welling up in me, as I thought about those acts, and forced myself to suppress the rage and keep calm.

"I could hear further sounds of combat," Yoshimo went on, "and war-cries that sounded like those of goblins. Without my sword I would be vulnerable and I decided to vacate the area, heading for the only exit from which I could hear no sounds, and I jumped over the pressure plates and ran. I went through a short corridor, jumping over another trap on the way, and found myself in a large room. That room," he said, indicating the exit from the portal chamber. "There were two dead bodies in it. One of them was known to me by sight, a Shadow Thief of low rank, who looked to have been struck by something like a Lightning Bolt. The other was a stranger to me, laid out on a table, and he appeared to have been… dissected. The work of a mad mage, or necromancer, no doubt."

"Oh, gods," Imoen muttered. She had gone very pale and seemed to be on the verge of vomiting. I guessed that the same thought had occurred to her as to me; the dead man might well be Khalid. Jaheira showed no such reaction and either she had no such suspicions or was controlling herself far better than I would have expected.

"There were four strange dome-shaped iron cages along one side of the room," Yoshimo continued. "They seemed to be empty and so I ignored them, for the moment, and looked for weapons. To my surprise I found my own sword on a table. It is enchanted so that no-one else can use it and presumably that is why it had been cast aside. The wallet holding my lockpicks was there as well. The dead thief had a bow, nothing like as good as my own but serviceable, and a quiver of arrows. I stripped him of his armor and was just about to take his boots when the four cages lit up and a small flying creature emerged from each one. Mephits, I think they are. They attacked me at once. I slew one only for another, identical, to emerge in its place. The same happened when I slew a second. This was a fight I could not win. I wondered if I could destroy the portals through which they were arriving but, as soon as I made an attempt, they attacked with redoubled fury. I had no option but to flee into this chamber. Alas, I found that I was trapped here. The portal through which you entered did not work for me. I have tried to destroy the mephit portals with arrows, but each time I try they swarm me and drive me back, and my arrows are running short. Now you are here we should be able to manage it, and to overcome the foes between here and wherever the exit may be. I take it there is no exit in the direction from which you have come?"

"Correct," I told him. "The way out must lie ahead. Your information about the perils we face will be very useful. Minsc and I shall attack these portals with swords, and the rest of you shoot with slings and arrows. Ignore the mephits until the portals are closed."

"Wait," said Yoshimo. "I have told you about myself, but I know nothing about you except what is obvious from your appearance. At least introduce yourselves."

I had been wondering about the possibility of Yoshimo being a plant, part of the hypothetical scheme by Irenicus to recapture us at the last moment, but his question put my mind at rest to some extent. Someone working for Irenicus wouldn't need to ask. It might just mean that he was clever enough to have thought of that, or been well briefed, but taken in conjunction with him passing the Detect Evil test it made it more likely that he was another innocent victim of Irenicus.

"I am T'rissae, a paladin of Eilistraee," I told him. "My companions are Imoen, a rogue and mage, Minsc, a ranger, and Jaheira, a druid. Further details can wait until we are out of this place."

"Indeed so," Yoshimo agreed. "Are those Bracers of Binding I see on your wrists? Will you be able to fight like that?"

"They are, and I have managed to fight well enough so far," I said.

He nodded. "Then, if someone can spare me a few more arrows, let us set about destroying those portals."

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Just as we were about to launch our attack on the mephit portals there was a disturbance. A Shadow Thief entered the room that held them and immediately the mephits swarmed to attack him. He started to flee in our direction but then, as we took advantage of the distraction to come out and head for the portals, he turned and fled out through a door at the side of the room.

We were able to destroy the first of the portals before the mephits could regroup to attack us. One of them fell dead without us touching it, as the portal must have been sustaining it, and we moved on quickly to the next portal. Each time we destroyed a portal another mephit fell and we eliminated all of them without suffering more than a couple of minor burns. Yoshimo's information had been very useful; if not for that, we would have wasted time fighting the mephits and no doubt would have been more badly injured.

With the mephits gone Yoshimo headed directly for the dead Shadow Thief he had seen as he first passed through the room, pulled off the corpse's boots, and put them on. He tried a couple of steps wearing them, grimaced, and took the boots off again. "Much too big," he explained. "My feet are slipping inside them. I will be better off barefoot until I can find boots that are a better fit."

I had been luckier; the boots I had taken from one of the first dead thieves we had passed had been a reasonable fit for me. I was about to reply to Yoshimo and then Jaheira screamed. She had recognized the other dead body. It was, as I had feared, Khalid.

Jaheira broke down in tears, briefly, but then pulled herself together and swore vengeance on those responsible in graphic and chilling terms. I suggested we should try to get him Raised but Jaheira was certain that the damage to his body was too great; I remembered what I had been told when I had taken Gorion's body back to Candlekeep and agreed that she was probably correct. His face was almost untouched, although his body had been dismembered and several internal organs seemed to be missing, and I had a horrible feeling that Irenicus had chosen to leave Khalid recognizable deliberately to enrage Jaheira. She snapped at me, and at Yoshimo, when we tried to utter words of sympathy, and even snapped at Minsc when he tried to offer Boo as a source of comfort; once more I wished that Viconia was here, as she had a gift for knowing what to say in such circumstances, although on second thoughts the antagonism between Viconia and Jaheira might have negated that skill and made things even worse.

And then Imoen revealed that she had been present when Irenicus dissected Khalid, and that he had forced her to watch, lecturing her as if she was an anatomy student. I had guessed that Imoen knew more about this place than she had revealed and now it was confirmed. She seemed to be dealing with the horrible things she had experienced by shutting them out and refusing to think about them; perhaps not the best way of coping, in our circumstances, but I was no expert in that field. Our expert was Viconia… and she had been taken from us.

"Stop it, both of you!" I commanded, as Jaheira shouted at Imoen, who seemed to be about to burst into tears. "Irenicus is trying to break our spirits, or to goad us into such a rage that we lose control, and I will not allow either. To do what your enemy wants is never a good idea. Calm down. Control yourselves. We will gather our strength and strike at Irenicus when the odds favor us – and not before."

"We should seize any opportunity that presents itself," Jaheira said, "and take advantage of Irenicus being distracted by the attack of the Shadow Thieves."

I shook my head. "It's a set-up," I said. "I believe he planned this. The defenses activated only after the attackers had penetrated almost to where we were being held. There were weapons conveniently placed for us to acquire. The opposition we have faced thus far has been more annoying than life-threatening. I suspect that when we reach the exit from this place Irenicus will be waiting to recapture us. He'll expect us to attack… so we won't. We run. Our objective is to get away. Split up if necessary. We get away, we find allies, get these axsa bracers off me, obtain better equipment, and come back when we're ready. If one of us gets captured we don't try to rescue them until we're strong enough. If I get captured… try to get a message to my aunt."

"Your aunt?" Jaheira and Yoshimo queried simultaneously.

"Cierre Tlabbar, of the Silver Marches," I told them. "We met when she was with the Coalition forces, fighting against Caelar Argent's Crusade, and we worked out that my mother was almost certainly her sister Maydril Tlabbar. She accepted me as being her niece, spent some time tutoring me in weapon skills, and joined with us for our expedition into the caverns below Dragonspear Castle."

"Oh, yes, I met Cierre, and took over her duties for a time while she was with you," Jaheira said, her voice disapproving. As a Drow Cierre, like Viconia, was automatically suspect in Jaheira's eyes. "I did not know she was your aunt. I did know that she was a mercenary killer."

"Isn't that exactly what we need? And she is a supremely skilled mercenary killer," I said. "Try to work with her… if we can even find her. She was returning to the North with Voghiln, taking two young Drow runaways to what should be safe sanctuary with Drizzt, and if she's up in Icewind Dale it could be a month or more, at best, before a message even reaches her. After that she'd have to come all the way down here, and so it might not even be an issue. More important, and far more urgent, is to rescue Viconia."

"I have no love for that Drow," Jaheira said, "but I would not leave her as a slave in a brothel. I will do as you ask."

"Good," I said, "because you might have to do it without me. If we are put into a position where we can't get past Irenicus without fighting – leave that to me. My magic resistance gives me the best chance, and it's me he really wants. The rest of you concentrate on getting away. If you escape… I can hope that you'll come for me later. If you don't… all we can hope for is that Viconia frees herself, eventually, and manages to collect enough allies to mount a successful rescue attempt."

Jaheira raised an eyebrow but managed to restrain herself from making the disparaging comment that I had expected. I had to admit that acquiring allies would be difficult for Viconia; not only did she share with me the disadvantage of our race but her abrasive and prickly personality wouldn't help. "I accept that it's not a likely eventuality," I said, "and so you must do your best to escape, whether I come with you or not. That's an order." Minsc objected, of course, and I had to repeat my instruction in even stronger terms before he reluctantly conceded.

"If we make it to the outside before Irenicus intercepts us, it is important that Imoen does not fight him," Jaheira said. "The use of arcane magic in public is forbidden in Athkatla, even in self-defense. The Cowled Wizards have a monopoly and enforce it strictly. The penalties are severe."

"That is so," Yoshimo confirmed. "I have seen them arrest a mage merely for creating a floating disc to help him carry a heavy load."

"Really? Then if we can just get outside, we're in the clear," I said. "If Irenicus can't use magic we'd have the upper hand."

"Not necessarily," Jaheira warned. "I believe there are exemptions for those who pay a fee. I do not know the details… but it is obvious that our captor has considerable resources. It would not be safe to assume he will be subject to the ban."

"Vith!" I cursed. "So, keep to the plan. We all run, if anyone has to fight it will be me, and Imoen doesn't cast any spells. You hear, Immy?"

"Yeah, sure," Imoen said. She was engaged in checking one of the containers in the room. "Hey, look, I've found another of those strange keys."

"As have I," said Jaheira.

"That makes four," I said. "How many of those traps were there, Yoshimo?"

He pursed his lips and frowned. "I think six," he said, "but there might be seven, or even eight. There were eight pillars, but one was broken, and I did not see any pressure plates beside the furthest pillar. I did not get close to it, however, and I could be wrong."

"At least six, then," I said. "We must keep our eyes open for more of the keys. We can start with that room over there," and I gestured in its direction. "I am surprised that the Shadow Thief who fled that way has not reemerged. Either he is being exceptionally cautious, and not daring even to peek out to see if we have gone, or something in there has occupied him. Something very interesting… or something very dangerous."

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It was both. Around the walls of the room stood several tall glass jars, like the ones that had held brains in suspended animation, but these ones held bodies that appeared to be dead. One of the jars was broken and empty. The Shadow Thief was dead on the floor and standing over him was a naked darthiir woman, very beautiful, with striking green eyes. She ranted at us as we entered, accusing us of making her so that we could torture her, kill her, and make her again. The dead bodies in the unbroken jars were identical to her and I guessed that she must be a clone. She called upon the Seldarine and then started throwing spells. I tried to tell her we were not her enemies, and to calm her down, but she just screamed in fury and cast again. A Lightning Bolt struck me and, luckily, my magic resistance saved me from what could have been serious injury. And so, regretfully, I took my sword to her. She went down, badly wounded, and an arrow from Imoen finished her off.

"What a tortured creature that clone thing was," Imoen said. "She was a copy? A copy of another person? I wonder why Irenicus made her? I doubt he took pleasure in her company, he's beyond that. He's fascinated with death. He showed me… over and over…"

Yet again I wished that Viconia was here. I had a talent for persuasion, and inspiring people to be brave, but repairing someone broken, as Imoen seemed to be, was completely beyond me. Viconia had a gift for it; partly because of her religion but also, I was fairly sure, because of things she'd endured before she met me. And, indeed, might well be enduring at this moment. We needed to get a move on. Although not before we searched the bodies and the rest of the room.

"She looks… familiar somehow," Jaheira said, staring at the clone's body. "I have seen… yes, I remember. She looks very like the statue that the sculptor Prism was carving into the rock face south of Nashkel Mine. The one of Ellesime, the Elven Queen, of Suldanessellar in the Forest of Tethir. He had set emeralds into the face of the statue to represent her eyes."

I recalled that Oublek, the Bounty Officer in Nashkel, had been offering a reward for gems stolen by Prism. I'd decided that my party should concentrate on the mines first and when I'd next seen Oublek he'd told me that the bounty had already been claimed. It must have been Jaheira's group who had gone after Prism. "Why would Irenicus have cloned a Darthiir queen?" I wondered. "He's a human. And, if he is the Jon Irenicus who transformed Centeol, he had a wife and she was called Tanova. He turned Centeol into a monster as revenge for something she did to his wife."

Jaheira frowned. "Prism became obsessed with Ellesime after seeing her only once," she said. "I can only suppose that Irenicus suffers the same obsession. Perhaps the 'Centeol' of whom you speak slew his wife and his fascination with Ellesime came afterwards. Possibly he created these clones by obtaining hair or nail clippings from her. I hope that is the explanation, for if he actually abducted her, as he did us, it could mean war between Suldanessellar and Amn."

That reminded me of a letter we had found on some dead darthiiren, at the site of what seemed to have been a magical combat, that had referred to apprehending 'the Exile' to ensure the safety of Suldanessellar. I had suspected at the time that 'the Exile' might be the same person as the one I had known as 'the Hooded Man', and now knew to be Irenicus, and things began to make more sense. It seemed odd that a human could be an 'Exile' from an Elven city but perhaps he had been granted residence due to his magical might. And then he had developed his fixation on Queen Ellesime and been thrown out. The idea seemed plausible.

Irenicus, I guessed, quite probably either intended to abduct Ellesime or even had abducted her in the past. He was extremely formidable, perhaps a true Archmage, but even so taking on an entire city would be beyond him. I guessed that he wanted to 'unlock the power of Bhaal' within me so that he could use me as a weapon against Suldanessellar. Vith nindel ul'hyrr! I would not be used.

0=≡≡≡≡≡≡≡ {[[≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡≡=-

We found what would be the last two keys for the magical traps, assuming that Yoshimo was correct that there were six, and moved on. We had to fight our way past mephits, goblins, and a Shadow Thief who attacked us even though we had slain a mephit that was attacking him. Further on we crossed a narrow bridge leading over a noisome sewer. There was a trap in the middle of the bridge; Yoshimo had jumped over it on his way in, rather than spend time disarming it, but that wouldn't be practical for us all, especially in such narrow confines, and he deactivated it so that we could pass in safety.

Then into the room with the pillars. There was a fight going on, a Shadow Thief versus two duergar, and we halted and loosed shafts and bullets at the duergar; I was able to loose one bolt myself but reloading, with my wrists fastened together, took so long that I could take no part in the rest of the fight. The thief was hit by a duergar's crossbow bolt and stumbled into one of the traps. A volley of magic missiles shot forth from the pillar to the side and slew him instantly. A similar fate befell one of the duergar, when an arrow from Minsc sent him reeling back, and a ray of frost froze him in his tracks. The next arrow shattered his frozen body. The other duergar died more conventionally, impaled by arrows, and we advanced cautiously.

Yoshimo took the keys and worked his way along the line of pillars, removing a wand from each one, but paused as he passed a door half-way along the line.

"What is it?" I asked.

"That is where I awakened and found the vampire," he said. "I bolted the door behind me but it is unbolted now."

"Finish with the traps first," I advised him, "and then we'll investigate."

We went through the door in fighting formation and found a group of Shadow Thieves, including a mage, engaged in combat with an unarmed and unarmored woman. Two of the thieves lay dead upon the floor and the woman had seized another and was in the act of plunging fangs into his throat. A vampire, as Yoshimo had said, and as she tossed the body aside, and her face came into view, I saw that she was, indeed, Safana.

I was filled with such horror that I couldn't move and could only watch as Safana shrugged off a Magic Missile from Imoen, and a sling bullet launched by Jaheira, and ripped out the throat of the Shadow Thief mage. Safana let the body fall and turned to face us.

"So, my former comrades are here," she said. "Let me bring you into the darkness with me." She bared her fangs, raised her arms with her fingers curved like claws, and attacked.

That broke me out of my paralysis. I reacted without conscious thought and struck out. It was stupid of her to attack from the front; she knew what I could do with a sword. Perhaps she thought I would hesitate before striking a close friend, or that the Bracers of Binding would hamper me too much for me to be effective, or else her increased power as a new vampire had gone to her head. She must have guessed I would meet her lunge with a thrust, and she sidestepped as she came in, but instead I used one of the curving Z'ress A'thalak strokes that Aunt Cierre had taught me, the one with which I had slain Ashatiel, and my blade sheared through her left arm and then took off her head.

Her body crumbled to dust and a cloud of white vapor formed where she had been. The cloud swirled in place for a moment and then headed for the drainage grate in the corner. It sank through it and disappeared.

I groaned. I had thought her body would reform on the cot where Yoshimo had first seen her, and I would be able to stake her and end her un-life permanently, but it seemed she must have a coffin elsewhere. Her body would reform, she would regenerate, and I might well have to face her again. I went to the grating, in case it led to a passage that could be traversed, but the drain below it was far too narrow. I could smell urine, corroborating evidence that Yoshimo had recounted his experience in this room accurately, but nothing solid larger than a rat would be able to travel through the drain. Or a hamster, of course, but although Boo might have many talents, at least according to Minsc, being able to stake a vampire wasn't one of them.

That thought reminded me that the dead Shadow Thieves had been killed by a vampire and so might themselves rise as Undead. We would have to drive stakes through their hearts to ensure that they stayed dead. A grisly, but necessary, task. The legs of the cot, sharpened with the swords of the deceased Shadow Thieves, provided the stakes and we used Minsc's mace to hammer them home.

Then I went back to the drain grate and vomited up everything in my stomach.

Glossary of Drow Phrases

alurl abbil = best friend
darthiir/darthiiren = surface elf/elves
Vith nindel ul'hyrr = Fuck that idea
Z'ress A'thalak = a Drow combat technique of overcoming opponents with sheer power
axsa = damnable