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...

2. Dancing Through the Wreckage

Chapter Two: Dancing Through the Wreckage

There were three corridors leading away from the room of trapped pillars, on the far side from the room in which Vampire Safana had been held, and we started with the one closest to where we had entered. It was occupied.

The corridor opened onto a walkway above what seemed to be a sewer. A lone human stood in the center. He held a longbow at his side but something about his garb and stance suggested to me that he was a mage, despite the weapon, and I guessed that he, like Imoen, was proficient in more than one field of combat. He would not need to raise the bow to pose a threat. I wouldn't assume that he was really alone, either; there was an upper gallery along one side full of pipework and recesses that could conceal ambushers. I would have positioned Imoen and… Safana… there, had I been in his position, and it was always safest to credit a potential opponent with at least my own level of competence.

He challenged us, and refused to believe me when I told him we had been prisoners of Irenicus, and when Imoen yelled at him he attacked. He started to cast a spell, but he had let me get too close, and I slashed the tip of my sword through his throat before he could complete the incantation. Two bowmen, in the leathers of Shadow Thieves, emerged from the shadows exactly where I had predicted. One was close enough for me to reach with a thrust, and he died, and the other fell to arrows from Minsc and Yoshimo.

I felt no pleasure from this victory. It had been an unnecessary fight, against people who were not really our enemies, and it might have been avoidable if Imoen had controlled herself. Not that I could blame her, after what she had been through, but it was unfortunate.

At least we profited somewhat from the encounter. Three recurve longbows, superior to the standard bow Minsc was using, although too long and with too high draw weights to be any use to Imoen or Yoshimo. No use to me either, even when I freed myself from the Bracers, as I had never gained even rudimentary proficiency with a bow. At least the spares would be saleable. I didn't bother to take their swords, which were unenchanted, and not worth enough to justify carrying them around.

Imoen ran ahead along the walkway, reached an open door, and peered through. "It's the way out!" she called. "We're free! Come on!"

"Wait!" I ordered. I went to join her and looked along the passage. It seemed to be a wooden walkway above sewers, and I could make out a hint of daylight in the distance. "No, we're not leaving yet," I decided.

"But… why?" Imoen queried, sounding on the verge of tears. "We can just… go. Get out of this horrible place."

"There are still two corridors we haven't checked," I said. "What if the Drow that Yoshimo saw was not Viconia, but was another Drow wearing her dress, and she is still held prisoner here? It's unlikely, but possible, and I can't take the chance. And there could be other items of our equipment there. The World's Edge, the Dragon Blade, Boots of Speed; any of those would greatly add to our fighting ability." Another factor influencing my decision was that it was possible that Safana's vampire corpse might be along one of those corridors, regenerating, and vulnerable to being staked and given true death. I wasn't going to mention that to Imoen, in her distressed state, but came up with something else to hopefully sway her. "Dynaheir's Robe of the Good Archmagi might be there," I suggested, "if it hasn't been sold. Irenicus couldn't wear it himself, that's certain. And," I added as another thought struck me, "there might be other prisoners not from our party."

Imoen grimaced. "I… guess you're right," she said, "but we'd better not take too long."

"Don't worry," I told her. "I have no intention of tarrying."

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"It's ironic," I remarked, as we walked back to the large hall that had held the traps, "that Irenicus captured us and brought us here when we were on our way here anyway."

"How so?" Yoshimo asked.

"We met him several times during the campaign against the Shining Lady's Crusade," I explained, "and it became clear that he had hostile intent. I found enough clues about him to point to Athkatla as his base, and I was considering travelling down to investigate, and then he murdered Skie Silvershield and tried to frame me for the crime. I was able to clear my name, but Duke Entar Silvershield still blamed me, and he had me expelled from Baldur's Gate. If Irenicus hadn't interfered with my life I might well have gone north, with my aunt, but Skie's murder changed everything."

"My husband Khalid and I, together with our friend Ajantis, volunteered to escort T'rissae and her party into Amn," Jaheira said. "The Dukes wanted to be certain that they really left the territory of Baldur's Gate. We were captured in Amnian territory, in fact, although only a short distance south of the border. It seems odd that he did not merely wait for us to arrive, rather than organizing an ambush so far away."

"I suspect he wanted to strike where there was no one around to intervene," I suggested, as we left the hall and made our way along the next corridor, "and before we had a chance to make allies here. If we had met the Shadow Thieves on neutral ground, instead of in his stronghold, we might have been able to work together. As it is…" I broke off as we reached a door, opened it, and entered a room.

It was fairly large and divided into two by a wall mainly of glass save for a central door of thick wood planks. Through the glass I saw… Viconia.

She was sitting in a leather-upholstered armchair, looking very comfortable, but she rose to her feet as she saw us. "T'rissae," she said. "Imoen. Minsc. The mongrel. Someone I know not. Get me out of here."

I glanced across at Yoshimo and saw that there was a deep furrow between his eyebrows. "Strange," he muttered, under his breath, so that I might not have caught it if I hadn't looked that way. "I could have sworn…"

I turned my attention back to Viconia. She wasn't wearing the green dress Yoshimo had mentioned but was dressed in her gambeson, as she had been when we were attacked and captured, having taken off the Plate of the Dark to sleep. Her hair was neatly brushed and she showed no signs of having been tortured, unlike Imoen, although of course she could have healed herself with spells as I had done. "Don't fret, abbil, we'll have you out soon," I assured her.

"There is a key in a chest against the far wall," Viconia said. "Get it and get me out of here." Imoen made for the chest immediately.

"She seems comfortable enough where she is," Jaheira said, her tone acidic. I guessed she was annoyed at Viconia referring to her as 'the mongrel'.

"She is my best friend, next to Imoen," I reminded Jaheira, "and, anyway, I wouldn't even leave that vith'ez iblith Schael Corwin in the hands of Irenicus."

Jaheira raised her eyebrows. "What did Captain Corwin do to you?"

"Lied at my trial," I told her. "She claimed to have seen me kill Skie Silvershield. I detest those who bear false witness. I had enough of that from Sarevok."

"She may have been innocently mistaken, or been fooled by an illusion," Jaheira suggested.

"Perhaps," I conceded, "but I think she was just being an anti-Drow bigot. I know she was jealous of Aunt Cierre being better than her with a bow, and resented me choosing Cierre over her when I needed an archer, but that seems a very slender cause for enmity. Not that I care about her reasons. Found that key yet, Immy?"

"There's a trap on the chest," Imoen reported. "Almost done… got it!"

"The shelves on that wall are heavily trapped, too," said Yoshimo. "They must hold something valuable." He readied his tools and went to the shelves.

Imoen opened the chest and took out a key, a scroll, and some potions. "Ooh, a scroll of Knock," she remarked. "I don't know that one."

"Useful," I agreed.

"Hurry up and get me out of here, Imoen," Viconia snapped.

"Sure, Vicky, keep your hair on," Imoen said, and she scurried to the door and unlocked it.

"About time," Viconia said, almost snarling, as she emerged from her prison. "Now let us depart from this place."

"Typical ingratitude," Jaheira sneered.

"Shut up, mongrel," Viconia retorted.

"Be nice, abbil," I urged. "Jaheira is… bereaved. Her husband was murdered by our captor Irenicus."

"Why should I care, T'rissae?" was Viconia's contemptuous reply.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose. Something was very wrong. Viconia had not called me Jabbress even once, and neither had she called Imoen abbil, when normally she used both terms far more frequently than addressing us by name. And her reaction to being told of Jaheira's bereavement was totally out of character. Her duty to the Lady of Loss, and her role as a Darkcloak grief counsellor, would have overridden her own personal feelings and made her at least feign sympathy. Taken with her presence here, when Yoshimo had told us of seeing someone matching her description being taken into a brothel under guard, her behavior made me extremely suspicious. I had plenty of experience of doppelgangers…

It wasn't conclusive enough for me to act without further evidence but I doubted if getting confirmation would be hard. There was no point in casting Detect Evil, for I had learned that my original assumption that doppelgangers were always Evil was incorrect, but when I had faced them in the Candlekeep catacombs I had found that their impersonations could slip if they were confronted with the unexpected. I ignored Jaheira's seething and spoke… but in Ilythiirra.

"Irenicus murdered our ranger's witch," I told the supposed Viconia, "and turned Waerdia into a vampire." I avoided using Dynaheir's name, and called Safana by the Drow alias she had used in our infiltration of the Crusader camp, in case the probable impostor had been briefed on the fates of the two women and guessed what I was saying. "Also, he sold someone who looks just like you to a brothel."

"You waste time with pointless words," fake Viconia said. "We must leave at once before our captor returns."

That settled it. Either the woman in front of me did not speak Ilythiirra, and had not understood what I was telling her, or else she completely lacked empathy. Dynaheir and Safana had been Viconia's closest friends after me, possibly even ahead of Imoen, and the real Viconia would have shown extreme grief or incandescent fury, or both emotions simultaneously, on hearing of their fates. This was either a doppelganger or an impostor magically transformed into Viconia's likeness. And she, or it, was going to die. Hopefully I would learn something first.

I switched back to the Common Tongue. "What did Irenicus tell you when he recruited you to impersonate Viconia?"

"To stay with you until… clever fleshling! Ssss!" It changed into its doppelganger form, taking only a split second, and at once cast Mirror Image. A Greater Doppelganger, then, and a formidable opponent.

I already had my sword in my hands, as my bound wrists gave me no other options for carrying it, and I delivered an immediate Orb Alur cut intended to destroy several of the Mirror Images at a stroke and, if luck was with me, slice into the actual doppelganger. Luck was not with me. Two of the phantom replicas winked out of existence but my blade made no contact with actual flesh.

Yoshimo was only the tiniest fraction behind me, even though his katana had been in its scabbard, and his blade sliced through one of the other Mirror Images and made it disperse. I guessed that he, too, had been suspicious of the doppelganger due to his previous sighting of someone who, almost certainly, had been the real Viconia. Imoen and Jaheira were slower to act and Minsc stood motionless, frowning, for a couple of seconds before drawing his mace.

The doppelganger raised its hands as if to cast an offensive spell but a Magic Missile from Imoen interrupted the casting and made the spell fizzle out harmlessly. I swung again, taking out two more of the images simultaneously with Jaheira striking one with her staff; unfortunately, it was the same as one that I was striking and thus her blow was wasted. One of the distracting images remained.

The doppelganger, giving up on spells, sliced at me with its claws. I brought up my sword in a parry, by reflex, but the move required a change of grip and the bracers ruined it. I was too slow to block the claws and they hit me hard enough to knock me back and draw blood. I did manage to carve a slice out of the doppelganger's arm as I staggered back. Yoshimo's blade sliced along its side, exposing what were presumably ribs, and Jaheira's staff destroyed the last of the Mirror Images.

Then Minsc, taking action at last, brought Krotan's Skullcrusher down on the doppelganger's head. It performed exactly according to its name.

I kicked what was left of the doppelganger aside to give us clear access to the room in which it had been 'imprisoned'. "Immy, Yoshimo, check that room out for anything of value," I said. "And food and drink." I'd vomited up what little food I had eaten since getting out of the cage and by now I was absolutely ravenous.

"Sure thing, Trissie," Imoen agreed. Yoshimo simply bowed and then entered the room.

Jaheira was staring at the doppelganger's corpse. "How… did you know?" she asked.

"First, Viconia rarely uses my name, or Imoen's," I told her, "but it was what she said to you that was the real give-away."

"It seemed very much in character to me," Jaheira said.

I sighed. "Viconia is a Darkcloak of Shar," I explained. "She has an obligation to comfort the bereaved, as strong as my obligation to help Drow who wish to stay on the surface, and she would never have brushed off my telling her of Khalid's death. If she had… Shar would have punished her, most likely by taking away all her spells above Third Level. It wouldn't have happened anyway. Viconia chose to be a Darkcloak. It's not just her duty, it's her vocation."

"Even though she hates me?" Jaheira queried.

"Dislikes would be more accurate," I said, "and I've observed her comforting a bereaved human, who'd been trying to pick a fight with us, and at the time she despised rivvin and was not yet officially a Darkcloak. Shar was pleased and rewarded Viconia with additional spells."

"Well, you were correct in recognizing that the creature was an impostor, so I will accept your words," Jaheira said. She didn't sound convinced but I didn't feel it was worth pressing my point further. Then Jaheira tutted. "You are dripping blood all over the floor, T'rissae," she said. "I will heal you before blood loss weakens you."

I hadn't realized how much damage the doppelganger's blow had done; one of the down sides to having an extremely high tolerance to pain. The up side, of course, was that the physical part of being tortured by Irenicus hadn't affected me much. What he'd done to my friends, however… I forced that thought from my mind and concentrated on staying calm. Giving way to anger would help no-one except, possibly, Irenicus if my guesses about what he wanted from me were correct. I stood still and did nothing but breathe as Jaheira cast a Cure Serious Wounds spell on me.

Imoen and Yoshimo emerged from the glass-walled room with their finds; some useful potions, a small number of enchanted arrows, sling bullets, and crossbow bolts, a few spell scrolls, and a scroll they suspected was cursed. And, of most immediate interest to me, a jug of water and some food.

Sausage, cheese, bread… and mushrooms! Mushrooms! I claimed them for myself at once, but I had enough self-control to get Jaheira to check out the food for poisons or drugs before starting to devour it. Then I paused as a thought occurred to me.

"This would have told me that the supposed Viconia was fake, if I hadn't worked it out before," I said. "The sausage is half-gone but the mushrooms hadn't been touched."

"Hey, yeah," Imoen agreed. "Vicky would have gobbled them up before she even started on anything else."

"I take it your people are fond of mushrooms?" Yoshimo said.

"As much as gnomes are fond of turnips, or pirates fond of rum," I agreed. "Better to try to rob a dragon's hoard than to snaffle a mushroom from a Drow's plate. Especially if it's my aunt. I wouldn't kill you, and Viconia probably wouldn't, but I'm not so sure about Cierre."

"I will heed your warning," he said, as I began eating again. "Tell me, T'rissae… why is it that you are certain that it is you Irenicus wants, rather than your companions?"

"When we were fighting against the Crusade of the Shining Lady, I encountered him several times, both in dreams and in actuality, and he made cryptic speeches about observing me, and how I dealt with various situations, and my 'power'. I was extremely suspicious of his motives but he made no overtly hostile moves and so there was little I could do about it. And then he murdered Skie Silvershield and tried to frame me for the crime. Worse, he wasn't even interested in her and only killed her to get at me."

"Do you know what he wants from you?" Yoshimo asked.

"Something to do with my alleged divine ancestry," I said, downplaying the real facts without actually lying. My Bhaalspawn status was no big secret, as everyone in Baldur's Gate knew it, but it wasn't something I was comfortable about revealing to someone I'd known for only an hour or so. "Caelar Argent wanted to use my blood to open a portal to Avernus. Perhaps he has something similar in mind."

Yoshimo looked at the floor where it was splattered with my blood. "I see no portal to the Hells," he observed.

"If it took only spilling my blood, he would hardly have bothered imprisoning and torturing me for the better part of a month," I said. "I might tell you more later, but for now… let me eat my mushrooms in peace."

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A statue in the room that had held the wand traps turned out to contain a drawer holding a minor Ring of Protection; a useful addition to our defenses. I claimed it, as I intended to take the lead in our next combats, and we moved on to the one remaining corridor that we had not yet explored. It led to a furnace room that was occupied by a band of goblins.

They lasted only moments against us and failed to inflict even a scratch before they went down. There was nothing usable on their bodies except a small quantity of coin and a couple of quivers of non-magical arrows. The room beyond theirs held opponents who were potentially more formidable; a quartet of duergar, including a mage.

They posed little challenge. I charged them with my sword as the others loosed missiles. The duergar fell without achieving more than inflicting a minor injury on Minsc with a crossbow bolt. We searched their bodies, retrieving two crossbows and quivers of bolts, three score of sling bullets, and a decent amount of coin. Some chests and tables in the room gave us more coin, a heavy crossbow with a few enchanted bolts, a set of splint mail and one of chain, and an enchanted belt. The belt exposed a hidden, and potentially serious, problem.

It was Dynaheir's belt Destroyer of the Hills; an over-dramatic name for a moderately useful Girdle of Bluntness that provided protection against blunt weapons equivalent to wearing a well-padded gambeson. I recommended that Imoen should wear it.

"I can't," she said, looking somewhat upset. "I'm wearing an enchanted belt already and it won't come off."

"You're wearing a cursed belt and you didn't let me know?" I exclaimed.

"It's not doing any harm," she said. "I Identified it and it's… kinda helpful. It makes me immune to a whole lot of things that might kill me. The only creepy thing about it is that I can't take it off."

"Which means it's cursed," I said. I thought hard. Why would Irenicus have put a cursed belt with, seemingly, only positive qualities on Imoen? It had to be that he wanted her to stay alive and not get killed in any of the fights during our 'escape', or by any of the traps we'd encountered. But why? Was it so that he could use her as a lever against me? Imoen had said that he seemed to have been treating her as if she was an apprentice, when he made her watch as he dissected Khalid and lectured her as he worked; he couldn't really expect her to join him, could he? Or was it simply that the belt incorporated some sort of tracking charm into the belt, in addition to the protective spells, so that he'd be able to follow our progress and intercept us at a moment of his choosing?

I had no way of knowing what was the correct interpretation and no idea what I could do about any of the possibilities. Sending Imoen off by herself, so that if Irenicus was tracking her he'd be led away from the rest of us, wasn't an option. I could no more abandon Imoen to Irenicus than I could leave Viconia a captive in the brothel. There were plenty of other ways he could track us, anyway, or he could simply wait at some point that we had to pass. Reluctantly, I decided that there was nothing that we could do except continue on and, if Irenicus did intercept us, go with my original plan of fighting him myself while the others ran.

There was no other exit from this room. We had explored the whole complex, unless there was some other section accessible only through magic or via the drain through which Vampire Safana had fled, and so we would have to be satisfied with the weaponry and other equipment that we had acquired up to this point. Almost all of our most powerful and valuable items were still missing.

"Yoshimo, you take the Girdle of Bluntness," I said. He nodded, took it, and buckled it on. "Right, we're leaving," I announced. "Remember what I said before. If Irenicus is waiting for us, I fight him and the rest of you run. If you get clear first, and I get away after you're gone, we need to arrange somewhere to meet up. Yoshimo, do you have any idea where in Athkatla we are?"

He shook his head. "I have seen nothing that would enable me to work out this place's location. It seems to be underground, so it could be almost anywhere. If the exit is through the sewers, it might point to it being in the Temple District. That is where most entries to the sewer system can be found. That is the most I can say."

"If it is the Temple District, that would make it easy to find someone who can cast Remove Curse and get these Bracers off me," I said. "Any suggestions for a place to meet?"

"An inn or tavern," Yoshimo said. "Which would be best depends on where we are. There are none in the Temple District or the Graveyard District. I do not think we can be in the Bridge District but, if we are, the Five Flagons Inn there is the best in Athkatla. In the Docks there is the Sea's Bounty, in the Slums the Copper Coronet, and Waukeen's Promenade has the Mithrest Inn and the Den of the Seven Vales. The Mithrest Inn would not allow people as dirty and shabby as us across their threshold making the Seven Vales the only option. I would say the Copper Coronet would be the best choice. I would want to go there anyway, in case my possessions there remain untouched, and you will want to go to rescue your comrade."

"Except that, if Viconia has been taken there as a slave, they might be wary of another Drow turning up," I said. "Better to leave that until we are better equipped. Very well, if we are separated, we shall meet up at the Sea's Bounty, if we are in the Docks, and the Den of the Seven Vales otherwise. Let's go."

It did not occur to me to remind Imoen not to cast spells. Later I would curse myself for that oversight. It might not have helped – but it might have made all the difference in the world.

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We made our way along the walkway above the sewers, toward the distant daylight, passing by the bodies of several Shadow Thieves on the way. None of them had any equipment worth taking. The daylight grew clearer and I could make out that an upward slope led to an iron gate under a brick arch. The gate was open, presumably having been opened by the Shadow Thieves, and there seemed to be nothing blocking our escape.

"We're almost free!" Imoen cried, and she ran on ahead, ignoring my calls telling her to wait.

I quickened my own pace. In normal circumstances I could run much faster than Imoen, thanks to my longer legs, but having to carry the sword with my wrists bound together made running at full speed awkward. I restricted myself to a fast walk and Minsc and Jaheira matched their pace to mine. Yoshimo brought up the rear.

Imoen made it out of the tunnel and I lost sight of her. Then I heard a voice.

"Halt! Who the Hells are you, lass? Hands by your sides or we'll fill you full of arrows."

It had to be Shadow Thieves. They had left a rearguard to cover the entrance to the sewer, as they had done at the point where there was an entrance from the sewer into the lair of Irenicus, and this could be a problem. We had fought the inner guard, something that could have been avoided, and I had no desire to get into another fight against people who might not count as friends but who were enemies of our enemy. And it had been Imoen who had triggered that previous fight. I hesitated. I didn't want to rush out, holding a weapon, when my race made it even more likely that the Shadow Thieves would take me for a foe. I shifted the sword to the most neutral position I could manage and advanced slowly.

"Toss the bow away, and keep your hands where we can see them," the Shadow Thief said.

"I'm not your enemy," Imoen said, just as I reached the tunnel exit and saw the outside world.

Four people in leather armor, Shadow Thieves without doubt, faced Imoen. Two of them aimed bows at her and the other two held swords. Beyond them I could see a market-place with stalls, and shops, and a cluster of tents and cages that looked like the fair I had seen in Nashkel. I took another step forward…

…and then an explosion knocked me from my feet.

By the time I picked myself up a battle was raging. Irenicus had killed two of the thieves already and I saw him turn a third to stone. I had no way of knowing if he'd been waiting there invisibly all the time, revealing himself only once he saw Imoen, or if he'd just arrived by way of a Dimension Door or similar spell.

I glanced behind me and saw that I had not been the only one felled by the explosion. The tunnel behind us had collapsed, making it completely impossible for us to retreat, and all three of my companions had been knocked down. Yoshimo was pinned beneath the iron grille that had been the sewer gate and was struggling to free himself without success. Minsc was getting to his feet, a trickle of blood showing on his forehead where he must have been struck by a flying fragment of brick, and Jaheira was on her hands and knees.

"Minsc, help Yoshimo," I ordered, and I tried to move forward. I found myself hindered by a Grease spell that was making the stone flags underfoot slippery and treacherous. Ahead of me I saw that several figures in robes and cowls had appeared and were attacking Irenicus with spells. They must be the Cowled Wizards that Jaheira and Yoshimo had mentioned. Irenicus showed no sign of having been harmed and retaliated with a spell that blasted a Cowled Wizard apart.

And then, to my horror, Imoen joined in by sending a volley of Magic Missiles at Irenicus.

I tried to get there to intervene but a piece of grease-covered stone skidded out from under my foot and sent me sprawling. By the time I recovered it was too late.

Irenicus had killed several Cowled Wizards but more kept arriving. He seemed to recognize the futility of continuing the fight and surrendered – but only on condition that the Cowled Wizards took Imoen as well. And, over Imoen's pleas and my shouted protests, they did. The Cowled Wizards, Irenicus, and Imoen all disappeared in the swirls of magic that meant transportation spells.

"No, this cannot be!" Minsc exclaimed. The Grease spell had ended, he had freed Yoshimo from the wrecked iron gate, and my three remaining companions had emerged from the tunnel exit and joined me. "The murderer of Dynaheir flees from righteous butt-kicking vengeance! And he takes Imoen with him too! Something must be done, T'rissae. We must find this evil wizard. All that is goodness cries out for this! Even little Boo, although he cannot cry out quite so loudly."

"I find it odd that Irenicus should meekly allow himself to be taken," Jaheira observed. "And why insist that Imoen be taken, too, when it is T'rissae in whom he is so obviously interested? Perhaps he expects us to give chase. We must step carefully. We know so little about him. We seem to be drawn into machinations not of our making."

"No! We must go at once and save our friend Imoen!" Minsc protested. "The wizard may be leering over her evilly even now."

"Jaheira is right," I said. "I still think Irenicus set the whole thing up. He had the resources to be licensed to use magic, if he'd wanted, and I'm sure he could have fled those Cowled Wizards before they could arrest him. I believe he intended to be arrested all along."

"Why would he want that?" Yoshimo asked.

"I don't know," I admitted, "but I can guess. Maybe he wants to break someone else out of their custody and plans to do it from the inside, with us tricked into acting as the outside force, or it might be an even more complicated scheme. Going by what I saw of him earlier, during the campaign against the Shining Lady, there will be wheels within wheels. If we rush into anything… we will regret it. I'm not even going to dash off to rescue Viconia straight away. We take everything slowly and carefully, as Jaheira advised, and do nothing hasty in case we blunder into a trap. Our first step must be to get together as much money and weaponry as we can – and get these axsa bracers off me."

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We gathered up the possessions of the dead Shadow Thieves before anyone else could beat us to it. Bows and arrows, swords, and a surprising amount of money, over a hundred and fifty gold Amnian Danter; it appeared that they had been playing cards to pass the time while guarding the sewer entrance and the stakes were in neat piles where they had been sitting. Imoen had dropped her bow when challenged by the thieves and, either then or when taken away by the Cowled Wizards, she had dropped a bag that she had been carrying which held all the spell scrolls and potions she had acquired in the lair of Irenicus. We had lost the Bracers of Defense she had been wearing, and her enchanted dagger, but they would have fetched only a few hundred danter at most. Losing them was the least of my worries.

We were in the main shopping district of Athkatla, the Promenade, and finding somewhere to sell our surplus possessions was easy. By the time we'd sold off the various things we'd picked up that were of no immediate use to us, and didn't seem worth keeping for potential future allies, we had a cash fund of slightly over four thousand danter. We refrained from spending any of it on magic items for the time being, as I would need funds to pay for getting a Remove Curse spell cast on the bracers, and we all needed food, baths, and clean clothes.

I offered Yoshimo a thousand danter as his share of our acquisitions. He accepted it, but then offered to add it to our pool of party funds.

"I would be willing to be under your command as you seek to rescue your friends and pursue Irenicus," he said. "I do not have as great cause to seek vengeance as do you, but I do not appreciate being kidnapped and placed in a room with a vampire. Also, I believe that associating with you will be… profitable."

I could understand that. The profit motive had been what led Safana to join us, in the first place, before she had become our friend and staunch comrade. It would be very useful to have a skilled Rogue in our group, making traps into inconveniences rather than potentially deadly threats, but I needed to clarify a few things before accepting his offer.

"What is your relationship with the Shadow Thieves?" I asked.

Yoshimo grimaced. "It is… complicated," he said. "I cannot afford to antagonize them, in my profession, and I can only operate at their sufferance. Sometimes they have made use of me to return stolen items when they thought the reward would be more profitable than selling the goods. There have been times when they have tipped me off about freelance thieves, when having them arrested would better serve their purposes than killing them, and they have on occasion let me capture actual Guild members who had broken their rules and fallen from favor. It is a tricky balancing act and… I may have overstepped the mark recently. I have been told that, if I am to continue unmolested, I must report to Renal Bloodscalp, the head of the Guild in the Docks, or suffer… consequences. It seems that he needs an outsider to deal with a problem and would be willing to overlook my transgression in exchange for a service. If I visit the Docks without calling on him… it could be messy."

"The service might have been something to do with the Shadow Thieves' attack on the lair of Irenicus," I mused. "Making contact with the Shadow Thieves might be useful. We have enemies in common, it would seem, and although the saying 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' may not always be true, it is a reasonable general principle. Welcome to my party, Yoshimo, and if we find ourselves in the Docks, we shall be sure to call upon this 'Renal Bloodscalp'." I kept my amusement at the unfortunate name to myself.

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My intention had been to first head for the Temple of Ilmater, which Yoshimo told me was close at hand, and see if the priests could perform a Remove Curse spell on the Bracers of Binding. After that we would go to an inn and eat, bathe, and sleep. I was sidetracked when we encountered a crying child whose mother had gone into the fairground tent and had not returned. The entrance to the tent was guarded by a soldier who told us that everyone who had entered the tent had failed to return, including a couple of guards who had gone in to investigate, and so the tent was deemed hazardous and would be guarded until it could be entered in force.

It sounded, to me, like a hostage situation. I had resolved hostage situations before, either through negotiation or by having Aunt Cierre put an arrow through the hostage-taker's eye socket, and I thought we might be able to help. Aunt Cierre was not available, and Minsc couldn't match her deadly accuracy, but I still had my magically-enhanced gift of persuasiveness. I asked Jaheira what spells she had available and found that she had Insect Plague memorized; she had kept it in reserve, during our escape, and nothing we had faced had required her to use it. The summoned insects targeted only enemies and that, I felt, made it an ideal spell for what I believed we would face.

The guard at the tent entrance told us that one of the circus employees had fled the tent just before the incident. We tracked him down, at the nearby menagerie, and questioned him. He told us he was the tiger trainer and had been preparing his animals for their show when strange things had begun to happen. The spectators, and the other circus people, had started to 'change'. He had panicked, and ran away, but none of his colleagues had followed. His description made the situation seem more complicated, and more dangerous, than I had first thought but I still felt that we could handle it.

"Is this wise?" Jaheira asked me. "You are still hampered by those bracers, and all of us are tired and not in the best of shape. It would be prudent to continue as you had intended and free your wrists before anything else."

"Prudent, certainly," I agreed, "and in ideal circumstances I'd do exactly that, but I don't want to leave that little boy crying for his mother any longer than absolutely necessary. And, luckily, my weapon of choice is less affected by my wrists being bound together than perhaps any other weapon." I didn't mention my other motive for acting immediately rather than waiting until we were better prepared; I was worried that the local residents would be hostile to me because of my race, something that was already showing in some of the looks I had received from passers-by, and I wanted to establish myself as quickly as possible as someone who did good deeds. And, perhaps, we might even get a reward.

The guard was happy enough to let us into the tent. If we succeeded in resolving the situation, well and good, but if we failed, and perished, better us than him or his colleagues in the city guard. He stood aside and we went in.

The tent was much larger on the inside than the outside. I began to have a horrible feeling that I had underestimated the danger. Too late, now, as the entrance behind us disappeared as soon as we passed through. There was nothing else we could do but press on.

We found ourselves on a stone bridge leading to a domed structure that looked like pictures I had seen of buildings in Calimshan. A genie barred our way and would not let us pass until we had answered a riddle. It was simple enough and the genie, after referring to someone called 'the mighty Kalah', teleported away.

I thought it advisable to scout the outside of the building before passing through its arched doorway. The walkway that ran around the circumference turned out to be infested with Shadows and what appeared to be Werewolves. The Werewolves vanished when they were killed, leaving no trace, and I suspected that they were illusions. The Shadows were real enough but slaying Undead was what I had been trained for and they didn't last long against me. After disposing of them we went through the arch.

Inside was a rather beautiful courtyard, with stone walkways crossing pools of clear water in which stood statues of elephants, and ahead of us stood an ogre. To my surprise it spoke; not in crude growls, but in the voice of a young human or elvish woman.

"Who are you? Oh, whoever you are, you must flee this place at once! He's… he's killed everyone else who has come into this place… almost. Oh, please, run!"

"What are you talking about?" I asked. "Who has killed everyone?"

"Kalah!" she replied. "Oh, I don't know what he's done, or how, but everything here is an illusion. But it's magic that can hurt you, if you believe in it."

I asked more questions, and the ogre explained that she was really an Avariel, a winged elf, and she had been transformed by Kalah, an illusionist with the circus, who was responsible for everything that had happened. She claimed that she was bound into the form of an ogre with invisible chains, that prevented her from casting any spells, and to free her we would have to obtain a key, in the shape of a sword, that was held by two monsters that appeared to be innocent peasants. It was a strange story, and hard to believe, but I cast Detect Evil on her and she came up clean. I would give her the benefit of the doubt.

We set off through the courtyard in search of the peasants, or monsters, and encountered a giant spider. Or, at least, something that appeared to be a giant spider, but it, too, spoke to us. Assuming it told the truth, it was the mother of the small boy we had met outside, transformed into a spider, and terrified both for herself and for her missing son. Beyond her were the peasants.

They did show up as evil. I attacked, they transformed into orcs, and we killed them. From their bodies I retrieved a spell scroll and an unremarkable sword. We took it back to the 'ogre' and I handed it to her. At once she transformed.

She was an elf, as she had claimed, although she didn't have wings. Slim to the point of being skinny, with very pointed ears and big eyes, clad in a mage's robe and armed with a staff and a sling. She thanked me and also, surprisingly, thanked the Gnomish god Baervan. She wanted us to help her rescue her Uncle Quayle, who was the boss of the circus, and whom she had last seen deeper within this strange place. I asked about her abilities, and she told me that her name was Aerie and she was a mage and also a cleric.

"A cleric? Do you have Remove Curse memorized?" I asked.

"Yes, but it won't help," she said. "I don't think Kalah's magic is the right sort for it to work."

"Perhaps not," I said, "but at least you can free me from these Bracers of Binding."

"Oh! Of course!" she said, and cast the spell.

The bracers fell from my wrists and I could move my arms freely at last. I picked the bracers up and stowed them away; they should be saleable, probably for a good price, although I would be very careful about where I sold them. I massaged my wrists, flexed my arms, and swung my sword through a few moves that required changes of grip. Then I led the group, now with an additional member, forward.

The courtyard was bigger than the whole tent had appeared from the outside but it was only a part of this building's interior. There was a doorway leading deeper in, and in front of the door stood a human woman who wore remarkably little in the way of clothing. She spoke in a Calishite accent, welcoming us to 'Kalah's domain', and then stood aside. I took heed of Aerie's warnings and ensured that Protection From Evil was cast on all of us before we advanced any further. Aerie added True Sight, which hopefully would allow her to see through the illusions, and we went through the door.

It led to another big room, decorated and furnished in the style of Calimshan, inhabited by two Shadows and three apparent Werewolves. Aerie declared the Werewolves to be illusions and they disappeared. We all, save for Aerie, had enchanted weapons and were able to destroy the Shadows in moments. There was nothing of interest to us in the room, save for a couple of spell scrolls, and we headed for a flight of stairs which were the only visible exit.

Another genie, or perhaps the same one as before, appeared on the stairs ahead of us, uttered a cryptic warning, and then teleported away. The door at the top of the stairs led to yet another room, with more Shadows and illusionary Werewolves, and an Ogre Mage who was blasting a slime creature with magic. The slime was crying out in pain, proving that it too was a transformed sentient, and Aerie cried out that it was her Uncle Quayle.

The Shadows lasted only seconds against us, the Werewolves disappeared, and we turned our attention to the Ogre Mage. Two sword strokes from me, a mighty blow with Minsc's mace, and the creature collapsed and turned into… a dying gnome. He babbled about having been mocked for his race and his illusions, and having been promised great power, and then he died before he could say who, or what, had given him the power. My guess was that it had been a malicious genie but, now that Kalah was dead, it was no longer important.

The slime creature, too, became a gnome. Aerie rushed to that gnome and embraced him. The surroundings flickered and changed. Now we stood in the middle of a tent, no larger than it had appeared from the outside, laid out like the tents I had seen in the carnival at Nashkel. There were a few dead bodies on the floor, including two in armor matching that of the guardsman we had met outside, and a couple of others whose garb indicated that they worked in the circus. The surviving circus employees, and a few obvious townsfolk, appeared to be dazed and confused at first. Once they regained their bearings some went to the dead bodies whilst others merely cried out in joy and thanks.

Aerie, however, cried out in horror. "You… you really are a Drow!" she exclaimed. "I thought it was an illusion!"

"No, I was born this way," I said.

She recoiled. "Oh my! Get away from me, you evil thing!"

I wasn't overly surprised. It was nowhere near the first time I had experienced prejudice like that. "Suit yourself," I said, and turned my attention to searching Kalah's corpse for valuables.

Jaheira reacted more strongly. "Such ingratitude is disgusting!" she snapped. "T'rissae saved you, and your fellows, and you treat her like that? You should be ashamed of yourself."

"Let it go," I advised her. "She rid me of the bracers and I'm content with that." The mother of the lost child was delighted to be restored to human form after having spent time as a spider, and thanked us effusively, and we escorted her out of the tent and reunited her with her son. She said she would tell her friends about our heroic deeds, which fulfilled my secondary objective, and the guardsman at the tent door also praised us before going in to attend to his fallen comrades.

We came out of the little adventure richer by some eight hundred danter, plus several spell scrolls and a magical ring and belt taken from the dead gnome, and with our reputations enhanced. Not bad for half an hour's work. Now we could head for the inn and badly-needed meals and baths.

"Ah, we are all heroes," Minsc declared, in a tone of great satisfaction. "You, and me, and Boo. Hamsters and Rangers everywhere, rejoice!"

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Nothing in my life is ever straightforward. The landlady of the Den of the Seven Vales refused to speak to a Drow and Yoshimo had to take over ordering our meals, baths, and rooms. The meals were filling and tasty, the rooms were clean, and the hot water for the baths was ready by the time we finished eating. That was when things went wrong.

Another party of adventurers barged in on us as I was undressing. Their original intention may have been merely to subject us to a bit of bullying, and perhaps taking over our baths and forcing us to wait, but my race and my state of undress combined to escalate things. Their dwarven fighter hurled quite vicious insults and a big warrior, whose green-tinged skin indicated that he had orcish blood, started by making crude suggestions and progressed to saying things that led me to fear I was going to be sexually assaulted. I warned them to back off or be prepared to fight; they chose to fight.

It was a close-run thing. The half-orc was stronger even than me, and surprisingly fast for such a big man, and only my superior skill kept me alive. I was forced to back-pedal, parrying desperately, and I suffered a couple of deep cuts that bled profusely. I landed some good blows on my opponent, wounding him badly enough that it should have crippled him, but he hardly reacted and continued his furious attack as if he'd taken nothing more than a scratch. The dwarf, who wore full plate and wielded a war hammer, exchanged blows with Minsc and seemed to be gaining the upper hand thanks to his superior armor. Jaheira tried to cast a spell, probably the highly-effective Insect Plague, but an invisible thief stabbed her in the back and disrupted her casting. Luckily the superb set of Dwarven mail she wore saved her from serious harm but we were in dire straits.

It got even worse when their party's mage joined the fray. He hit me with a Magic Missile, which failed to penetrate my magic resistance, but he had an imp familiar and it cast a spell of Confusion on us. My magic resistance protected me again but Jaheira and Yoshimo, who were fighting the thief, fell victim. Jaheira stood dazed, not even reacting when the thief stabbed her again, and Yoshimo launched a furious attack on one of the empty buckets that had held our bath water. Minsc was getting the worst of his fight and I began to think we were going to lose. My companions would be killed, worse might happen to me, and there would be no-one to rescue Viconia and Imoen. I began to feel real fear and redoubled my efforts.

Then our luck turned. I dodged away from the half-orc and slipped past the mage, lashing out at him as I went past, and although I only succeeded in destroying one of the Mirror Images with which he was screening himself I did manage to put the mage and his imp familiar between me and the half-orc warrior. And he attacked them.

He must have been in a state of berserker rage and was too far gone to tell friend from foe. I seized the opportunity, left him to fight his own comrades, and rushed to rescue Jaheira from the thief. I caught him unprepared and hit him with a blow that almost severed his left arm. He cried out, yelled "I'm getting out of here!" and tried to flee. Unfortunately for him, he blundered into the confused Yoshimo, who slew him more by accident than intention.

Jaheira's confusion led her to strike at me but I evaded without difficulty. The half-orc was still attacking the mage and imp, who were kept so busy trying to escape him that they could do nothing else, and I turned my attention to Minsc's dwarven opponent. Once we had him boxed between us he fell quickly. Minsc was bleeding profusely, as indeed was I, but neither of us had any Cure spells remaining and we had to resort to a quickly-gulped potion each. Then we went for the berserker and the mage.

The half-orc had slain the imp and the mage was struggling to defend himself against the raging berserker, hampered by his unwillingness to cast offensive spells against his comrade, and Minsc and I were able to slay the wizard and attack the half-orc together. I took another nasty wound before he went down.

I heaved a great sigh of relief – and then found myself attacked by Jaheira, who was still suffering the effects of the Confusion spell, and had to run and dodge for another half-minute before the spell wore off and Jaheira and Yoshimo regained control of themselves. Jaheira was most apologetic, although she couldn't have helped her actions under the spell, and cast every healing spell she had on us. It wasn't quite enough to heal us completely and I drank another of our least valuable potions; I wanted to be sure that I wasn't going to have any scars.

Now we were all dirtier than before, covered in blood, and our bathwater had gone cold. I suddenly felt the impact of everything we had gone through hit me. I was overcome by emotion, I couldn't stop myself from starting to cry, and I sank to the floor and let the tears flow.

Glossary of Drow Phrases

abbil = friend
vith'ez iblith = Fucking piece of shit
Jabbress = female commander
Orb Alur = a Drow combat technique for fighting multiple opponents
axsa = damnable